Page 42

A ustin sat on the porch, staring at the moonless sky, knowing sleep would be as elusive as his dreams.

He heard the door open, but he didn’t bother to turn around. Dallas had once told him that a man had to learn from the mistakes he made. Austin had never expected the lessons to be so damn hard.

He caught a glimpse of bare toes as Loree sat beside him. He felt a ghost of a smile touch his lips. He turned slightly and brought her feet to his lap, rubbing his thumb over her sole.

“Daydreaming again?” she asked.

“You can’t daydream at night,” he said quietly. “But I was thinking—there’s no reason I couldn’t play in Dee’s theater.” He leaned toward her and smiled. “A special performance.”

“Would that make you happy?”

He moved his thumb in an ever widening circle. “You make me happy.”

She jerked her feet off his lap. Even in the shadows, he could make out tears glistening within her eyes. “I told you that I’ll make everything all right.”

“It’ll never be all right. Oh, God, Austin. I didn’t know, and now I’m so afraid, more afraid than I was then because I have so much more to lose.”

“Loree, you’re not making any sense.”

She scooted across the porch until their thighs touched and took his hand in hers, holding his open, rubbing her fingers over it again and again, as though she wanted to memorize every line and callus.

“My mother hated West Texas.”

His gut clenched, and he wished he’d kept his dream of playing for the orchestra to himself. He’d given her hope of leaving only to disappoint her with mistakes from his past. “We’ll travel, Loree.”

She shook her head. “Let me say everything before you say anything.”

“All right.”

She cleared her throat. “My father bought some land after the war. He got it cheap, and it wasn’t a lot of land. So he extended his boundaries and posted a notice in a newspaper.”

“Your father was a land grabber?”

She nodded. The practice had been widely used following the war, saving men considerable time and effort in filing deeds. Dallas had always cautioned his brothers that the practice would bring trouble. He’d filed legal claims for every inch of land he owned.

“My father used to say that land grabbing was like gambling—sometimes you won, sometimes you didn’t. He was a good man, but gambling was his weakness.

“When my mother refused to move out here, he put his deed and his dream of ranching away. He used to take them out on my birthday, show me the land on the map, and tell me that I could be a rancher.

“One night he got involved in a private high stakes poker game in Austin. He ended up owing one of the players a great deal of money … money he didn’t have. So he handed over the deed to the land, claiming the boundaries went farther than his original entitlement.

“The land was so vast. Many successful ranchers had extended their boundaries through land grabbing so my father felt confident that Boyd McQueen would be satisfied with the bargain they’d struck.”

Austin’s stomach clenched. “Boyd McQueen got his land from your father?”

“A little west of here. My father didn’t know that someone had a legal claim to a good portion of the land, the best part where the river flowed. I don’t know why it took McQueen so long to exact his revenge once he realized my father had deceived him. He didn’t strike me as a man of patience—”

“He’s the one who killed your family?”

“And I killed him.”

She spoke the words with no emotion: no hatred, no anger, no fear.

Austin stared at her, and then he burst out laughing. “God, Loree, you scared me to death there for a minute. You were so serious.” He took a deep breath. “I appreciate that you’re willing to lie and take the blame for Boyd’s murder so I can—”

“I’m not lying. It took me three months to get strong enough to travel after he shot me, another month to track him down.”

He jerked his hand from hers and surged to his feet. “You’re telling me that you honest to God shot Boyd?”

“Shot and killed. Dewayne was with me.”

He trembled so hard that he thought the ground might shake. His wife was a murderer. His wife was a murderer!

No matter how he repeated it in his mind, no matter how he thought of it, he couldn’t see Loree murdering anyone.

He began pacing. The music thundering through his soul was hideous.

He wanted to cover his ears to block it out.

He had wanted to find the person who had killed Boyd so he could clear his name.

Not only had he found the person, he’d married her and fallen in love with her. He brought his pacing to an abrupt halt and glared at his wife. “Forgive me for doubting your word, Loree, but you are the sweetest—”

She surged to her feet. “I was seventeen, trussed up like a pig for slaughter, along with my ma and pa. He took my brother outside and God only knows what he did to him. All we heard were his screams. Then he brought him back in and hanged him. He was fourteen, Austin. Look at Rawley and imagine what McQueen might have done to him.”

Austin didn’t have to imagine. He knew exactly what Boyd had done to him, something no man should ever do to a boy.

“Do you know how long it takes for a person to die when they’re hanged?” she asked. “My brother didn’t deserve to die that way. My pa didn’t deserve to watch his son suffer like that.”

She dropped onto the porch, wrapped her arms around herself, and began to rock back and forth.

“I know I should have gone to the authorities, but … I didn’t want my father’s name dragged through the mud.

And I didn’t want people to know what McQueen had done to my brother.

There were no witnesses. It was just my word against his.

I didn’t come here with the intent to murder him.

I wanted a fair fight. But then he started to laugh … ”

Crouched in the dimming twilight, she and Dewayne waited. When Boyd McQueen slipped from the house, mounted his horse, and road north, they followed until the ranch was no longer in sight and Loree had gathered her courage. Then she spurred her horse into a gallop, Dewayne following in her wake.

She yelled his name. McQueen circled about and brought his horse to a halt. Loree drew her gun. “Get off your horse.”

He did as she instructed, and Loree dismounted as well.

“You’re Grant’s daughter. I thought I’d killed you.”

“You thought wrong,” she replied with false bravado.

Her heart was pounding, and her hands shaking. She’d practiced drawing her gun from the holster, but she feared when it came right down to it, she wouldn’t be able to do it. “I’m gonna give you what you didn’t give my family. A chance. ”

He flashed a sardonic smile that didn’t reach up to touch his eyes.

“Oh? Like a duel? I draw, you draw, and the one left standing is the winner? And what about your friend here, do I get to kill him, too?” He snorted derisively.

“You haven’t got the guts to kill. Want to know what I did to your brother when I took him outside?

I enjoyed hearing him scream. “ He started to laugh.

“Your brother wanted me to stop”—his laughter grew harsher—“begged me to stop—”

Loree didn’t realize she’d pulled the trigger until she heard the explosion and watched McQueen’s arms flail out as he staggered backward to the ground.

“Oh, God,” she cried as she dropped beside him, jerked free the linen sticking out of his pocket, and pressed it to the dark stain spreading over his white shirt. He groaned.

Dewayne knelt beside her. “You gut shot him, Loree. He’s as good as dead. We gotta get out of here.”

“Help me stop—”

Then McQueen released a deep roar and grabbed her wrist. The blood coating her hands made it easy to slip free. She stumbled back.

“You bitch! I’ll drag you into hell with me.” He started to laugh. “Mark my words! I’ll drag you into hell with me!”

“And he did. He did drag me into hell. I lived alone, afraid that if I had a family, what I’d done would reach out to hurt them. I didn’t know I’d already hurt you.” Tears streaming along her cheeks, Loree doubled over and pressed her face to her knees.

“You thought you could outdraw him?” Austin asked stunned.

“Blame it on my youth, my grief, or my shame. I just didn’t want anyone to know everything that led to that night, all that happened that night. And I couldn’t not do anything.”

“So once you shot him, you left?”

Wiping at her tears, she nodded. “He was fumbling to get his gun out of his holster so we mounted up and rode out. We came to a river. I couldn’t get his blood off my hands.

I tried and tried, but I couldn’t.” She started wiping her hands on her gown.

“Sometimes, I feel like his blood is still there.”

Austin had listened with increasing horror and dread …

and more, with the realization that she spoke the truth.

She was tied to the land … the missing link the detective had uncovered.

He dropped beside her and took her ice cold, trembling hands into his.

“Loree, listen to me.” He shook her until her head snapped back and the vacant gaze left her eyes to be replaced by tears.

“I’m so sorry, Austin. I never knew anyone went to prison for killing McQueen. I thought we were safe. I would have come back and confessed if I’d known—”

“It doesn’t matter, but I gotta talk to Dallas right now. I want you to go into the house and take care of Grant. Can you do that for me? Trust me to take care of everything. All right?”

“You’ll tell the sheriff, won’t you? We’ll clear your name—”

He pressed his finger to her lips. “I need to talk to Dallas tonight. Then we’ll decide tomorrow what we’re gonna do.

” He put his arm around her and helped her stand.

She was trembling as badly as he was. He escorted her into the house, eased her into bed, and brought the blankets around her, tucking them below her chin.

“Don’t hate me, Austin,” she said quietly.