Deborah Camp (36 page)

“Everybody figured you and the boss lady stayed home
yesterday to celebrate. That’s why me and the other men hung around town—to give y’all some time alone.” Butch tipped back his hat and chuckled. “Perkins said the boss lady didn’t even tell him about it on the ride home Saturday from town. She knows how to keep a secret, don’t she?”

“She sure as hell does.” Grandy forced a smile that he knew confused Butch since his tone was a growl of fury. He caught sight of Perkins near the stables. “Hey, Cal! Saddle me a horse, will you?”

Perkins nodded and touched the brim of his hat to acknowledge the request, then went into the stables.

“Where you going?” Butch asked.

Grandy laid a hand on his shoulder and delivered another wincing smile. “Just going to ride. See you around.”

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No, pard. I’ve just got itchy feet all of a sudden.” Grandy turned and stalked toward the house as his heart bewailed the love it had once cherished.

Out in the Primrose barn, it was hot. Stacks of hay filled the air with a heavy mustiness that made breathing difficult. Tickling, invisible motes found their way into Zanna’s throat and made her head ache. She sneezed violently once, twice, three times.

“Heavens!” she muttered, giving a mighty sniff before resuming her work. She cleaned the last branding iron and hung it on its peg at the back of the barn, then began sorting through a pile of ropes to separate them, loop them, and hang them up in a neat row along the wall.

Setting her mouth in a grim line, she tried to ignore the trickles of sweat creeping down her sides, her back, her legs. Should she have worn a dress instead of her loose pants? Maybe a dress would have been cooler. Tomorrow was wash day and most of her everyday dresses were dirty so she’d pulled on gray pants and a silver-and-gray-checked shirt. Knowing that the outfit was anything but becoming,
she’d been tickled when Grandy had insisted she looked positively irresistible.

“There’s something about you in pants that makes my blood boil,” he’d said, looping an arm around her waist and hauling her flush against his body.

“Are you sure it’s the pants or what’s in them?” she’d sassed with a saucy smile.

“Maybe you should wiggle out of them and let me have a peek …”

Zanna snapped from the memory of his fiery kiss to realize that she’d abandoned her chores and was standing motionless with a silly smile on her face.

It was quiet on Primrose with the ranch hands off to the far pastures to check on the cattle and dump salt licks in strategic places. Most of them had stayed in town during the weekend, but had returned around sunrise to ready themselves for another work week.

Grandy was probably out in the cotton field by now, chopping down weeds and checking on the progress of the blooming plants, Zanna thought. She bit her lower lip as determination settled heavily in her mind and heart.

I’m going to tell Grandy today, she thought. As soon as I’m finished here, I’m going out to the cotton field. I’ll take him a drink of water and tell him. No more dodging it. No more!

She turned to the task again, hurrying now that her mind was made up. No matter how much she loved Grandy, she had to be truthful with him. She’d savored Saturday and Sunday, but a new day had dawned and with it the realization that the longer she waited, the more call Grandy would have to resent her.

The soft clucking of hens floating in from the barnyard, broken occasionally by the whinny of a horse or mule. The sounds comforted Zanna, bringing her contentment and the certainty that everything would work out fine. From the far distance came the faint bawl of a cow. The whispering meow of a cat perched in the rafters above her
sent her gaze upward to the black and white face and glowing amber eyes. It was Domino, the most flighty of the six or seven barn cats on Primrose. Zanna kept her distance from Domino, having been scratched and hissed at by her more times than she could count. The other cats were mostly friendly, but Domino had a mean streak. Her only redeeming feature was that she was the best mouse and rat catcher in the bunch.

A sharp, slapping sound spun Zanna around like a top. Her vision blurred, then focused painfully on the long, lean man blocking her escape from the barn.

Again Duncan laid the riding crop in the palm of his gloved hand and grinned, showing off small, feral teeth.

“H’lo, Suzanna. I just love meeting up with you in barns. Brings back the good old days, don’t it?”

Would Grandy hear me if I screamed?

“Go ahead and scream. Nobody’s about. I done checked. Even your hubby ain’t nowhere to be found.”

If I act fast enough, can I get past him to the door?

“Don’t try to run, Suzanna. Don’t make me hurt you.” He popped the crop in his glove again.

Is there a weapon around here … a pitchfork, a hoe, the branding iron!

“And don’t raise anything against me that you don’t want used on yourself, ’cause I ain’t in a hospitable mood and I’d just as soon lay open your skull than not.”

The killer’s glint in his eyes convinced her, but she knew better than to let him bluff her. Keeping her eyes on him, she dropped the rope she’d been unknotting, reached behind her, and plucked one of the Primrose branding irons off its peg. She hefted it with what she hoped was a sense of menace, weighing its effectiveness against Duncan’s riding crop.

Come on, bastard, she thought, taunting him with a hard smile. Just try it and we’ll see who gets a split skull.

But down deep she was scared. In her gut she was scared. In her soul she was scared. In her small, shivering
heart she was scared. Only her thoughts, brash and illogical, kept her from shrieking in terror.

“Am I supposed to be afraid?” Duncan asked, laughing under his breath. “Takes more than that to put the fear in me. But I didn’t come here to wrassle with you. I came to give you one last chance to come clean and make amends.”

Zanna remained silent, knowing that any conversation on her part would be futile. Let him say what he intended, a voice whispered to her. Then he’ll be off and life can go on.

“I know Booker was out here yesterday and I figured you and him brought up the forged will. I know you did it, Suzanna, so don’t go giving me that dumbfounded look of yours. You know damn well what I’m talking about. You and that prissy lawyer cooked up a will and you signed Fayne’s name to it. Then you and Booker killed Fayne and you collected. Well, if you think I’m going to let you get away with lying and murder, think again. That man was my brother, woman! I’ll avenge his death while I’ve got a breath left in me!”

He was working himself into a frenzy, like some mad dog, Zanna thought, seeing the fever flicker in his dead eyes and spittle gather in the corners of his mouth. Still, she silently held her ground and hoped that her mask of courage wouldn’t crack until Duncan was well away.

“I’ve given you plenty of time—
plenty
of time—to realize the error of your ways and repent, but you seem to think you can get away with this. I offered to marry you so you could keep on living on this land and I even offered to pay you a little something just to get you off the land, but all offers are off as of this here minute.” The riding crop made contact with the palm of his rawhide glove—
slap!
“I’m through being fair. Now I’m going to take what’s mine.”
Slap!

Zanna bounced the iron in her hand and tried to absorb
the strength of the metal through her skin. She needed it. Oh, how she needed it.

“I want you to sign a paper—a paper drawn up by an
honest
attorney—that turns Primrose over to me, lock, stock, and barrel.”
Slap! “
Then I want you to get the hell off my land.”

“Never.” The word shot out like a hard, bitter pill impossible to swallow.

“I ain’t asking for your opinion or your permission. Either you sign this paper I got stuck in my back pocket”—he turned slightly sideways so she could see the folded paper—“or I’ll run you off this land and don’t think I can’t do it.”

“Going to start another fire?”

He smiled, the skin drawn taut over his sharp cheekbones. “Wouldn’t that be just awful? ’Specially if you was in the middle of it with nowhere to run.”

The scene he painted branded her mind and Zanna hated him for putting it there, fodder for future nightmares.

“You always were partial to matches,” she said, her gaze dropping to his hands. “Fayne said you burned your hands by getting caught in one of your own fires.”

“He did no such thing! Fayne never talked about my accident to no one!”

“He talked to me,” Zanna said, sensing the vulnerable area and striving to drive a sharp piece of steel right through it. “He said you might even enjoy burning in hell since you were so fond of flames.”

“You lying bitch!” The crop swung up to hover above his head. “Fayne would never say things like that about me—’specially to a woman.”

“Then how did I know about your hands?”

“You guessed!”

“Lucky guess? Come on, use what few brains God gave you.”

Her last remark sparked the blaze of madness in his eyes. Zanna waited another second, her senses focused on
the riding crop and the muscles tensing along Duncan’s arm. Her sixth sense kicked in, telling her to make her move, just as the riding crop started its descent.

Gripping the branding iron in both hands, she pulled it back and sent it forward with a lunge. The branding end struck Duncan in the chest, knocking the breath out of him and making him stumble. The riding crop slapped against the iron’s long handle. Zanna dropped the weapon and made a dash for daylight. The promise of freedom lifted her heart, but dropped it abruptly when Duncan caught the back of her shirt, retarding her forward motion enough to let him regain his balance and get a better grip on her.

Her shirt ripped at the collar as she was tugged backward. His knee slammed against the back of hers, making them buckle. Her kneecaps made contact with the hay-littered ground and Zanna screamed, her hands flailing. Fear and rage partially blinded her so that she couldn’t identify the black and white ball that fell from above. It landed on Duncan’s back and he howled like a dog stung by buckshot.

Instantly Zanna realized she was free, no longer held prisoner by Duncan. As she leaped to her feet and scrambled for the barn door, she glanced back to see Domino hanging in the middle of Duncan’s back. Duncan was howling and Domino was hissing. Zanna kept running, heading for the house, not looking back again. She knew Duncan wouldn’t follow her—not unless he wanted to be shot through the heart with Fayne’s rifle. And Domino, she knew, could take care of herself.

When Zanna reached the porch yard, she paused long enough to see Duncan lurch from the barn and propel himself up into Pride’s saddle to make the getaway Zanna had anticipated. No need for the rifle, she thought, but she also knew Duncan would creep back someday when she least expected it. There would be no getting rid of him.
He glanced in her direction and shook a fist. She heard his voice, but couldn’t make out the words.

Shaking inside and outside, Zanna jumped onto the porch and burst through the open door into the front room.

“Grandy? Are you here?” Her voice was high with hysteria. Hearing a soft sound, she hurried toward the spare bedroom.

Grandy was standing beside his bed. He sent her a dullish glance, not really seeing her.

“Grandy!” Relief whipped her heart into a pounding gallop. “Thank God, you’re here. Duncan said you weren’t about, but I knew you wouldn’t go anywhere without telling me first …” Her voice died as her mind caught up with her eyesight.

He held folded shirts. Saddlebags lay packed on his bed. Bureau drawers stood open and empty. His eyes told her he was already miles and miles away.

“Wrong again,” he said, then poked the shirts in one side of the saddlebags. “Duncan was here?”

“Out in the barn …” Her terror sprang from a new root. “Where are you going?”

“Far away from here.”

“You can’t.”

His sidelong glare acted like a hot poker against her heart. “Stand aside and watch me.”

A loud crack, followed by two more, made her jump all over. “What was that?” she asked, more nervous than usual.

Grandy shrugged. “One of the boys probably saw a coyote and sent him back into the hills.”

“Why are you leaving now?”

Grandy stuffed more of his belongings into the bags. “It’s too late to pretend you’re stupid, Zanna. I know you too well and I know you’re fully aware of why I’m leaving. The only question you have is how I found out.”

She leaned against the door frame and hugged herself to dispel the chill embracing her. “How did you find out?”

“Butch told me. After hearing about it in town yesterday, he was busting to wish me continued good luck.” He shot her a quelling glance. “How long have
you
known?”

“A couple of days.” She stumbled forward, awkward with dread and a breaking heart. “I tried to tell you the other night, but you told me I’d said enough. You didn’t want to hear.”

“Damn it all!” He swung around to her, arms straight along his sides, hands clenched. “You know good and well that’s
not
what I was talking about. I was talking about your past. I wanted you to understand that I cared for you no matter what happened back then. You kept this from me, Zanna. You didn’t tell me about my sentence being overturned because you were afraid I’d leave.”

“And you are.”

“That’s right, but I don’t know what I would have done if you’d been honest with me. I know one thing for sure, I wouldn’t have jumped up and left you just like that. We were friends, right? Friends don’t do that to each other.”

“We’re not friends now?”

“You have to ask? I’m a free man and you don’t tell me about it, then you ask if we’re friends? Perkins has saddled a horse for me. I’m going, but I’ll hire an attorney and have him send you the annulment papers.”

“Grandy, don’t do this,” she begged, clutching his shirt to keep him from leaving the room. “I was going to tell you. Don’t judge me so harshly. You can’t leave me now! Duncan is closing in. He was out in the barn a few minutes ago and he threatened me and—”