Surrender: A Bitter Creek Novel

by Joan Johnston

  She heard the limbs of felled trees cracking underfoot behind her and gritted her teeth, certain it was Aiden. She whirled to confront him and found Matt dogging her heels. Matt was only four years older, thirty-seven to her thirty-three, but he’d done a world more of living. He’d been married and divorced twice, and had a grown daughter and a young son.

  The crow’s-feet at the edges of his blue eyes had been hard-won in the harsh Australian sun, where he’d managed a cattle station for the past twenty years—and where he’d learned to be every bit as ruthless as King. Matt was a worthy adversary, but Leah was determined that when all was said and done, she would be the one in possession of the ranch they both wanted.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “I thought I’d come and help you cart everything back.” He put a hand to the small of his back and twisted sideways. “Besides, I needed a break.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re tired.”

  “I think we all passed ‘tired’ twelve hours ago. I’m completely worn out.”

  “Then go home. Why are you here, anyway? Taylor’s been awful to you, and you hardly know Brian.”

  She started walking again, and he fell into step beside her.

  “Believe it or not,” he said, “I don’t wish any of you Brats ill.”

  “Really? Could’ve fooled me.”

  “All I’ve done is give you and your sisters a little nudge to move on with your lives.”

  “My life is—and always will be—at Kingdom Come.”

  “To be honest,” Matt said, “I’m not sure either of us is going to end up with the ranch. What on earth was King thinking when he bought a quarter of a million acres of ranchland in Argentina?”

  “It wasn’t a bad investment. He’d have been fine if Angus hadn’t stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong.”

  “I guess you know the banker isn’t going to give King an extension on the loan, which is secured by the ranch and damn near everything else that’s not tied down. You and I both know King doesn’t have the assets to pay it off.”

  “He’ll figure something out.”

  “He’s running out of time. I think Angus may finally get the revenge he’s been after all these years. I can’t say I’m sorry to see it.”

  She eyed him sideways. “You’re okay with King—your own father—losing everything?”

  “Once upon a time, King caused me to lose everything I loved most in the world.”

  Leah frowned. “Is that why you disappeared without a word to anyone?”

  Matt nodded curtly.

  She hesitated, then asked, “What did King do?”

  “When I was sixteen, he conspired with the parents of Jennie Fairchild, the girl I loved—who was pregnant with my child—to keep us apart.”

  “That doesn’t sound so terrible. Lots of parents manipulate their children’s lives for their own good.”

  “By the time Jennie’s due date came around, I was frantic for information, and King finally provided it.”

  He was silent so long, she asked, “What did he say?”

  “He told me Jennie had died during childbirth, along with our baby.”

  She came to an abrupt halt. “Oh, Matt! I’m so sorry.”

  “The sonofabitch lied. Jennie is alive and well to this day. And so is our child.”

  Leah gasped. “They didn’t die?”

  Matt shook his head. “Jennie’s parents lied to her, too. They told her our baby died at birth, then placed our child with foster parents.” Obviously agitated, Matt started walking again.

  Leah quickly followed. She’d always known King was ruthless. But she hadn’t known about this. “That sounds awful, Matt.”

  “It was. With Angus’s help, I got custody of our daughter when she was a year old and took her as far away as I could from my father and Jennie’s parents, where there was no chance they could find me and take her away again.”

  Leah had a sudden realization. That baby was Matt’s nineteen-year-old daughter. “You’re talking about Pippa!”

  Matt nodded again.

  “Did you ever get in touch with Jennie and tell her where you were and what you’d done?”

  “I was too scared to try at first. Besides, Jennie was only fifteen. When she would have been old enough to join me, I couldn’t find her. And later, when I knew where she was, I just…didn’t.”

  Leah hissed in a breath. “Ever?”

  “Not until six weeks ago. I found her living at her grandmother’s ranch in Texas.”

  “And?”

  “Jennie can’t forgive me for what I did. For taking Pippa and running away. But mostly, for never telling her our daughter was alive. I don’t blame her, really.”

  “But you still blame King for losing your chance at a life together with her. And you’re bitter enough about how things turned out that you’d be happy if King ends up ruined.”

  “Don’t miss a thing, do you? Maybe now you can understand why I don’t have a lot of sympathy for our father.”

  “Unfortunately, King’s loss will be your loss,” she pointed out. And mine. Except, Leah was betting on King. If the loan got renewed, the ranch would stay in King’s possession. And if that happened, she needed a way to oust Matt from control of the ranch before he could meet the required three hundred sixty-five uninterrupted days of residence at Kingdom Come.

  He might just have given her the information she needed to be rid of him.

  What if she encouraged Matt to reunite with his lost love, who lived in faraway Texas? What if he needed to leave the ranch—and violate his agreement with King—to work things out with Jennie?

  Leah glanced at Matt and asked, “Is there any hope you and Jennie might get back together?”

  “The last time I spoke to her, she was pretty definite about never wanting to see me again.”

  “You’re going to leave it at that?”

  Matt shot her a crooked smile. “I suppose you wouldn’t.”

  “I don’t believe in giving up.” Although that was exactly what she’d done with Aiden. Easy to give such advice. Difficult to take it.

  Matt seemed to be considering what she’d said, so Leah fell silent. Her thoughts strayed inevitably, unerringly to Aiden. Even thinking about his betrayal made her throat tighten and her heart hurt. It had taken a great deal of courage to give her trust to any man. But she was a quick learner. Once burned, twice chary.

  Maybe he does love you.

  And maybe, someday, buffalo will fly.

  When she was ten years old, Leah had learned her lesson about the fickleness of men from her mother. She’d never forgotten it: You can’t trust a man to keep on loving you forever.

  “A man only wants a wife who’s beautiful, Leah,” her mother had said. “Nothing else is more important to him. When your looks are gone, he throws you away like an old tissue. I’ve borne King three babies, and lost my figure as a result. Nowadays, he seems more interested in politics and business than in me. I’m taking matters into my own hands. I’ve found someone who loves me as I am, and I’ve decided to run away with him.”

  Her mother had paused. Perhaps what she said next was why the conversation had stuck so firmly in Leah’s mind.

  “My new man doesn’t want any baggage along. So I have to leave you and my babies behind.”

  Leah tried to remember what she’d been feeling at that moment.

  Panic. Disbelief. And horrible grief.

  “I need you to take care of your sisters for me.”

  “But I’ve never taken care of anybody before. I won’t know what to do.”

  “You’ll figure it all out. Be a good girl and help with the little ones, and everything will be fine.”

  Leah hadn’t forgotten that advice either. She’d been terrified that King would get rid o
f her, since she was no blood relation, when he realized that her mother had run away. Leah had been the most helpful, invisible, well-behaved ten-year-old a father could ask for, taking on responsibility far beyond her years.

  She’d gone to bed every night for months afraid that the next morning would be the day King decided she wasn’t earning her keep and sent her away. She’d devoted herself to caring for her siblings, because it was the only way she could see to earn herself a place in a home where she didn’t belong.

  Leah had never dated in high school, because she’d known she wasn’t beautiful. She had her biological father’s unremarkable hazel eyes and his straight-as-an-arrow, dishwater blond hair, not the vivid blue eyes and striking golden curls her mother had passed on to her three younger sisters. What boy would be interested in an ordinary-looking girl like her? And even if he did date her, how long would he hang around?

  As a grown-up, she’d gone out with enough men—five, to be exact—to know it was an exercise in futility. Smart, attractive men had approached her, and she enjoyed spending time with the opposite sex. But whenever a man got serious, she bolted for the door.

  Leah knew why she was so scared of commitment. She should be over her childhood trauma by now. She wasn’t her mother. And besides, her mother was wrong about men wanting only beautiful women. Even knowing that, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from running for the hills whenever a man started talking about forever after.

  Leah had been shocked by Aiden’s invitation to go out on a date. And suspicious. What interest could he possibly have in her? But she’d been lonely, and she’d figured an evening together would be time enough to figure out what sort of Flynn monkey business he had planned for her.

  Because she hadn’t been forthcoming, Aiden had done most of the talking. She’d given him her attention because he’d talked about ranching. Neither shared any personal information. She’d been perplexed when Aiden asked for another date. She’d been intending to tell him good night and goodbye, one date with a Flynn was enough. Then she’d decided that, since she wouldn’t be seeing him again, and she might not get another opportunity anytime soon, she might as well kiss him.

  That kiss had changed everything, including her decision to walk away. Who would have thought pressing female lips to male lips could evoke such strong feelings. It had never happened to her before. Or that simply running her fingers through the hair at Aiden’s nape could raise gooseflesh on her arms. Or that her belly would curl with desire when her tongue touched his.

  After their kiss in the moonlight, she’d seen the confusion and curiosity in his eyes and realized he didn’t understand what had happened between them any better than she did. Despite the warning bells going off in her head, Leah had agreed to see him again.

  So many of her beliefs had been challenged over the next five months, as they spent time together. In the end, her mother had been right. You couldn’t trust a man to keep on loving you. Or, in her case, to have ever loved you at all.

  As she and Matt approached the command post, a man called out to them, “Hey! I’m looking for Aiden Flynn.”

  “We were just with him,” Leah said. “Do you have a message? Have they been found?”

  “THE PLANE’S BEEN found,” Leah announced as she approached the three Flynn brothers, her arms filled with sandwiches.

  “Hallelujah!” Connor said, rising from his seat on a tree stump.

  “Are they all right?” Devon asked, jumping up from a stone where he’d been perched.

  Leah saw the look of hope as Aiden turned to her and watched the light in his eyes die when he saw her somber expression.

  “What did you find out?” he asked.

  Before answering either man, Leah handed out the ham and cheese sandwiches, knowing the three men had missed several meals. It was a sign of just how hungry they were that all three had already taken bites when she said, “The Twin Otter’s a burned-out shell.”

  Aiden stopped chewing and stared.

  She continued, “The good news is that no bodies were visible near the wreckage.” That didn’t mean they weren’t burned beyond recognition. But Leah didn’t want to put that thought in anyone’s mind.

  “Is there any sign of them?” Aiden asked. “Surely they would have stayed by the plane.”

  Leah focused her gaze on his anxious blue eyes. “The whole forest had been turned to ashes for a mile around the crash site. There’s no way of knowing whether they escaped before the fire came through.”

  Leah wondered if her eyes looked as desolate as Aiden’s. She gritted her teeth to still her quivering chin, then clenched her hands into fists to keep from reaching out to comfort the man she’d once loved…and now despised with a passion equal to the betrayal she felt.

  “Unfortunately,” she continued, “the plane is miles from the closest Forest Service road. We can only drive so far. We’ll have to hike in the rest of the way to search for them.”

  “You keep saying ‘we,’ ” Aiden said. “Does that mean you’re coming with us?”

  “I want to be there. Taylor might need me.”

  “How do we know they’re not both dead inside the plane?” Connor said.

  Leah watched Aiden visibly wince at Connor’s statement.

  “If that’s the case, we’ll know soon enough,” he said.

  “I need to go check on things at the ranch,” Connor said. He was the only Flynn brother with children at home, and his ranch was set up as a haven where returning veterans could escape for a little R & R—rest and recuperation—before either going back to war or heading home to their families. “Keep me in the loop while I’m gone.”

  “Will do,” Aiden replied.

  “By the way, did Matt catch up to you?” Connor asked Leah.

  “He’s on his way home. His daughter just showed up at Kingdom Come, after spending six weeks visiting her mother in Texas. He said he’ll be back on the hunt as soon as he checks on her.”

  Devon blurted, “Pippa’s back?”

  Leah nodded. Matt’s teenage daughter had been so unhappy at Kingdom Come that she’d run away and ended up living with Devon, who’d offered her a room in his cabin in the mountains.

  Leah continued, “It seems there’s a brand-new fire burning in the Bridger-Teton forest, which puts it on the outskirts of your ranch, Devon. It’s still small, and they’re hoping to keep it under control. Whether they can is anybody’s guess.”

  Devon turned to Aiden and said, “I’d better head home, in case I have to round up my cattle and trailer my horses someplace safe.”

  “And maybe see Pippa while you’re at it?” Aiden said.

  “She doesn’t want anything to do with me,” Devon replied. “She made that clear when she left for Texas.”

  “But she’s back,” Connor pointed out.

  Leah saw the look of longing on Devon’s face. But all he said was, “I’ll rejoin the search the instant I can.”

  Aiden focused his gaze on each of his brothers in turn and said, “I’ll let both of you know if we find out anything.” And then, to Devon, “Let us know if you need help relocating your livestock.”

  “Will do.”

  Leah watched as Aiden and his brothers exchanged hugs—a bump of shoulders and a pat on the back that, nevertheless, conveyed how much they cared for one another—before Connor and Devon headed toward the road where they’d left their pickups. As they passed her, the two men each touched a respectful fingertip to the brim of his hard hat.

  “Good luck,” Connor said.

  “Take care of yourselves,” Devon said.

  Once they were gone, Aiden murmured, “I wonder what we’ll find when we get to the site of the crash.”

  “I’m guessing at least one of them is hurt,” Leah said. “It has to be Brian.”

  “Why do you say that?”

 
; “If Taylor were injured, Brian could carry her out.”

  “And if Brian’s injured?”

  Leah shrugged. “Taylor’s strong. Maybe she managed to drag him to safety.” A shiver of foreboding ran down her spine, and she spoke to counter it. “I’m betting they’re lost in the forest and will be back with a story to tell.”

  Aiden took off his hard hat, shoved his sleeve across his sweaty forehead, then put his hat back on. “I hope you’re right. We’d better get busy organizing a ground search. How big of an area are we talking about?”

  Leah pulled a Forest Service Teton Wilderness map out of her back pocket. It had been marked to show the remote area where the fire still burned. “One of the supervisors gave me this.” She laid it out on the stone where Devon had been sitting.

  She pointed to an X on the map and said, “This is where the Otter went down.”

  “Oh, my God,” Aiden muttered. “That’s the middle of nowhere. How much terrain did you say is burned out around the wreckage?”

  Leah met his gaze, her eyes bleak. “I was told the plane is surrounded by charred trees and vegetation for a mile in every direction.”

  “Then how did they escape?”

  Leah shrugged. “The fire must have come through after the crash.”

  “And no one saw any bodies on the ground?”

  Leah shook her head. “But bodies might be hard to see from the air in that scorched landscape, especially if Taylor and Brian aren’t together, or if one or both of them is inside the wreckage.”

  “Brian’s good in an emergency. The only question is whether he was physically able, after they crashed, to do what needed to be done, especially if they had to escape a fast-moving fire. That appears to be the case. Otherwise, they would have stayed near the plane.”

  “If they’re up and on the move,” Leah said, “why weren’t they spotted by the helicopter that discovered the Otter? Or one of the planes out there searching?”