Renegade: A Taggart Brothers Novel (2 page)

Bronte didn’t bother to comment. What could she say? Her memories weren’t so gilded by age and distance that she could have mistaken this . . . this . . .
mess
for the idyll she’d enjoyed each summer.

Reluctantly, she eased the car closer to the main house. Rain began to fall in earnest now, but even the moisture collecting on her windshield couldn’t hide the utter neglect.

“Are you sure Great-Grandma lives here?” Lily whispered.

“Of course she lives here,” Kari snapped. “But Mom didn’t bother to tell us what a
dump
it is.”

Rain pattered against the roof of the car, the rhythm growing frantic as the downpour increased. Conceding to the inevitable, Bronte switched on the wipers, waiting vainly for the streaks of grime to be swept away—as if by cleaning the windshield, she might find the condition of Annie’s house had been a trick of light and shadow.

If anything, the view was more depressing.

A part of her wanted to throw the car in gear and leave. Bronte didn’t want to consider that her fondest memories could be tarnished by this current reality. But she honestly couldn’t go any farther. She’d pinned her hopes and her endurance on reaching Annie’s house. Now that she was here, she didn’t have energy left to alter her plans.

Needing to validate her decision, Bronte turned off the car. For several seconds, the drumming on the roof and the ticking of the cooling engine underscored the silence.

Then she said, “Stay here.”

There were no arguments as Bronte grasped the map from the dashboard. Holding it over her head, she threw open the driver’s door and darted into the rain. Avoiding the damaged step, she hurried to the relative shelter of the porch and pressed the doorbell.

As she waited for her grandmother to appear, Bronte could feel her children’s gazes lock in her direction. Once again, she realized that she should have waited until she’d been able to reach her grandmother. If Grandma Annie had known they were coming . . .

What?

What would she have done?

Weeded the flowerbeds? Thrown a coat of paint onto the house?

Why hadn’t it occurred to Bronte that she and Grandma Annie had aged at the same rate? In her mind’s eye, Annie had remained the same vivacious woman she’d been when Bronte had seen her last. She must have slowed down in the past few years. Obviously, the maintenance of the property had become too much for her.

What if she wasn’t up to an impromptu visit?

Bronte’s gut crawled with new worries.
Damn, damn, damn.
She’d been desperate to get her children away from the trouble brewing at home. Bronte had thought that if she had time alone with her girls, she could mend the brittleness that had invaded their relationships. Then, when the opportunity arose, she could explain that the move from Boston was permanent.

As well as the separation from their father.

“Ring it again!” Kari shouted from inside the car.

Forgoing the doorbell, Bronte opened the screen and pounded with the knocker. Annie could have grown hard of hearing. She had to be . . . what? Eighty-five? Eighty-six?

Why hadn’t Bronte kept in touch more? Why hadn’t she pushed aside Phillip’s overwhelming demands and reached out to her grandmother? Instead, Bronte had grown so ashamed of her situation and her inability to make it better,
that she’d limited her contact to cheery phone calls and the “too, too perfect” letters tucked into family Christmas cards.

The grumble of a distant engine drew her attention. Allowing the screen to close with a resounding bang, she wiped the moisture from her face as a pair of headlights sliced through the gathering gloom.

For a moment, she was exposed in the beams as a pickup rolled from behind the barn and headed toward the lane. At the last minute, the driver must have seen her, because the path of the truck altered, veering toward Bronte and her children.

A growl of thunder vied with the sound of the engine as the vehicle jounced to a stop. It was a big truck, purely utilitarian, with a stretch cab and jacked-up wheels with shiny rims unlike anything Bronte had ever seen in Boston. The window to the passenger side slid down and a man leaned closer so that she could see his shape like an indigo cutout against the pouring rain. Much like the truck, he was built for hard work, with broad shoulders and powerful arms.

“Do you need some help?”

His voice was deep enough to carry over the drumming of the rain and something about its timber caused her to shiver.

Using the map as her makeshift umbrella, Bronte ran closer. “Yes, I’m looking for Annie Ellis. I can’t get an answer at the door. Do you know if she’s expected back anytime soon?”

The stranger in the truck removed a battered straw cowboy hat, revealing coffee-colored hair tousled by rain and sweat and eyes that were a pale blue-gray. A faint line dissected his forehead—whiter above, a deep bronzed tan below, conveying that he spent most of his time in the sun. He had features that could have been carved with an ax, too sharp and square to be considered handsome, but intriguing, nonetheless.

“Exactly who are you?” he asked bluntly.

Normally, she would have bristled at such a tone, but she was tired—emotionally and physically. All she wanted was a hot cup of tea and sleep. Deep, uninterrupted sleep.

“My name is Bronte Cupacek. Annie is my grandmother.”

The man’s gaze flicked to the van, the Massachusetts license plates, and the children who were pressed up against the windows watching them intently.

“Ah. The Boston contingent.”

Something about his flat tone rankled, but before Bronte could decipher his mood, he delivered the final blow to an otherwise devastating few months.

“Your grandmother fell down the stairs yesterday afternoon. She’s in a local hospital.”

J
ACE
Taggart watched as the woman’s face fell in disappointment. Then her eyes widened and she blinked at him with a Bambi-in-the-headlights stare rimmed in ridiculously dark lashes. Even wet and bedraggled, she was pretty in that Bostony, high-maintenance sort of way.

But the look of horror that crossed her features couldn’t be feigned.

“Is she all right?”

Jace hesitated before responding. The woman’s posture had grown so brittle that he wondered if any more bad news would cause her to shatter.

“She’s . . . not doing too well,” he said reluctantly. “She’ll be in the hospital for a while.”

She grew even paler.

“Th-the hospital . . . it’s still . . . uh . . .” She pressed a finger between her brows and closed her eyes, as if doing so would help her retrieve the memory. “Is it still on the main road beyond the middle school?”

Jace shook his head. “No, a new one was built about ten years ago, but Annie was taken by Life Flight to the medical
center in Logan.” He pointed to the lane that led back to the highway. “Go back where you came and turn left onto the old highway. You’ll head north about three miles, turn right, and then follow the road over the mountain. Once you’re in Logan, you’ll see signs showing the way.”

“O-okay.”

Inexplicably, Jace couldn’t tear himself away. There was something about her that begged for his help, but Jace pushed the sensation aside. All his life, his family had accused him of collecting strays—cats and dogs when he was young, then troubled friends, and finally lonely women. Lord help him, after his last relationship, he couldn’t handle another needy female. With spring planting to be done, wet weather making many fields inaccessible, Bodey raising hell, and Barry retreating socially . . .

Jace had too damned much to worry about. There were days when he felt like the weight of the world was crushing down on him to the point where he couldn’t breathe. The last thing he needed was one more “project” sucking up what scant emotional and physical energy he had left.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t ignore the twinge of guilt he felt at abandoning Annie’s granddaughter—especially when he sensed that this woman was closer to her breaking point than he was. But even as his gaze flicked to the dark bruise marring her cheek, she stepped away.

“Thank you.”

There was no escaping the “I don’t know who the hell you are, so keep your distance” tone or the wariness that stiffened her spine. Her gaze flicked to the minivan, then back to him again as she analyzed how quickly she could get to her children if Jace posed a threat.

Much as he would with a startled colt, Jace eased back, lifting his hands in a silent calming gesture. He kept his voice low and soothing as he said, “Glad I could help.”

Then, since her posture continued to radiate her unease, he replaced his hat, touched a finger to the brim, and forced himself to turn away, rolling up the window again. But it took more effort than he would have imagined putting the truck in gear.

He drove with unaccustomed slowness, watching Bronte Cupacek grow smaller in his rearview mirror. She was tall and slim—too slim if the sharp jut of her collarbones and wrists were any indication. The way she’d wrapped her arms around her waist seemed self-protective. In the sheeting rain she looked vulnerable and fragile. Defeated.

No, not quite defeated. Despite the haunted look in her eyes, there was still a defiant tilt to her chin.

One that might only be for show.

The minute she disappeared behind a hedge of lilac bushes, Jace swore, bringing the truck to a halt. For several long minutes he sat there with the rain pummeling the roof, thinking of all the things he
should
be doing. He had four hired men to orchestrate despite the rain and wet fields. Bodey had just bought a new mare at a recent auction, and Elam needed his signatures on a land lease. Barry, Jace’s youngest brother, would be arriving home from an outing with his Scout group in the next ten minutes.

That thought caused a frown. Although Barry had suffered brain damage from an automobile accident years ago, he was generally very social. Jace usually had to threaten to hogtie him to a chair to keep him from running down the lane to wait for his Scoutmaster. But lately, Jace couldn’t get him to go with the other boys his own age—and Jace was damned if he knew why.

Shit.

But even as he moved to put the truck back into gear, something tugged at his conscience, urging him to check on Annie’s family. One more time.

Growling at his unaccustomed indecisiveness, Jace slipped his cell phone from his pocket and quickly dialed his elder brother, Elam.

The phone was answered on the first ring. “Hey, Jace.”

“Are you still on the ranch?”

“I’m finishing up. I left the leases on your desk.”

“Thanks. I’ll sign them as soon as I get in.” Jace paused, then asked, “Are you in a hurry to get home?”

Since Elam and Prairie Dawn Raines had become a
couple the previous summer, Jace had seen a real change in his brother. Where once he’d been stony and wracked with grief after the death of his first wife, now he was more relaxed and easygoing, quick to smile and even quicker to lend a hand at the ranch. Often as not, when he was finished with his work breaking colts, he would join P.D. at her restaurant in town or head to his newly built cabin on the hillside.

“Nah,” Elam said. He must have been on his way into the Big House because Jace heard the squeak of the front screen. “P.D.’s meeting with a supplier until seven or eight, so I’ll probably hang around here and use the weights or something. What do you need?”

“Could you pick up Barry and hang on to him for a while?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

Jace sighed. “I don’t know. I was driving past Annie’s and some of her relatives were there.”

“They must have heard about the accident.”

“Not exactly. It came as a shock.”

Elam sighed. “That’s a hell of a welcome.”

“Yeah. I think I’ll make sure they get to the hospital. Annie’s granddaughter wasn’t real clear on how to find it.” As if the words gave Jace the permission he’d been seeking, he began turning the ranch truck around.

“Don’t worry about Barry. After her meeting, P.D. is taking the rest of the night off, so she’ll enjoy spoiling him. She was bringing flatbread pizza from Vern’s, so I’ll go with Barry and get some sodas at the Corner. Then, since it’s the weekend, we’ll keep him Friday and Saturday night. He was asking when he could have another sleepover at the cabin. I’ll have to bring him with me to the ranch tomorrow morning. I’ve got buyer appointments throughout the day, but as soon as I’ve finished, I’ll take him with me to Vern’s. The band will be playing, and he loves that.”

“Thanks, Elam.”

“We’d enjoy having him even more. Maybe you should take some time off.”

And wasn’t that the truth.
Sometimes Jace felt like crawling out of his skin with the need for a few hours of blissful
solitude. Although Elam didn’t know it yet, Jace had already begun thinking that once the harvest was in and the winter wheat planted, he might go somewhere. Alone. Somewhere other than Taggart Hollow.

But it was too soon to mention it to his brothers—it wasn’t even something that he allowed himself to think of all that often. It was a half-formed idea that had begun to take root in his brain, growing stronger with each day, until he would find himself toying with the idea of seeing Austria in winter this time, or a tour of Italy. Or England. It’d be cold as hell in January—

“Jace?”

Realizing that his brain had wandered down a trail that might never come to fruition, Jace quickly yanked his thoughts back to the matters at hand.

Elam.

Barry.

Check.

Now he could make sure Annie’s granddaughter had everything she needed.

Jace ended the call and carefully drove back down the rutted access lane toward Annie’s house, wondering why his pulse had begun to beat faster.

*   *   *

THE
prospect of another journey—even one of only a few miles—proved to be too much for Bronte’s twelve-year-old van. After she had received directions from the unknown neighbor on how to find the medical facility, she’d returned to her car. Ignoring Kari’s complaints and Lily’s questions, she’d turned the key.

Click.

Then . . . nothing.

She couldn’t even get the radio or the windshield wipers to turn on.

That final defection—even one directed at her by an inanimate object—was more than she could bear. Dropping her head to the steering wheel, she fiercely bit the inside of
her cheek and held her breath to control the sobs that battered at her heart.

I will not cry. I will not cry. Not in front of my children.

A knock on the glass brought her upright. Unable to roll down the automatic windows, she cracked the door open.

“Car trouble?”

It was the man from the truck. He hunched protectively over the door, shielding her from the rain with his body—and that instinctive kindness was nearly her undoing. Too late, she felt a drop of moisture plunge down her cheek. Praying he would think it was from the rain, she savagely swiped it away.

“I-I don’t know what’s wrong. Sometimes it takes a minute or two to get the motor to turn over, but it’s never gone dead before.”

He seemed to consider things, and then gestured to his truck. “Climb in. I’ll take you to see Annie.”

His offer merely heightened her mortification. From birth, independence had been drummed into her so strongly that she felt uncomfortable accepting favors from anyone—even family. Accepting such a gesture of kindness from a stranger . . . this was too much.

But when she tried to protest, he rolled open the side door and smiled at Lily. “Hey, there. Would you like to see your great-grandma?”

Lily’s eyes grew huge, and she perched on the edge of her seat as if ready to bolt.

“My name’s Jace,” the man said. “I’m an EMT, so I was the one to ride with your great-grandma in the ambulance to our local hospital, then help her get onto the helicopter. I know where to find her. And since I’m an EMT, I have to promise to never, ever hurt anyone.” He gave her a wink. “You’ll be safe with me, especially with your mom along.”

Lily continued to hesitate, but Jace seemed more than willing to give her time to make up her own mind. Finally, she nodded.

“Climb into the truck, then. We’ll be there in no time.”

Lily looked to Bronte for permission.

Bronte knew that she would have to swallow her pride and accept his offer of help. There would be no rest for any of them until they’d seen Annie. To enter her grandmother’s house and climb into her beds would be unthinkable without assuring that her needs were being seen to first. So she nodded to Lily in the rearview mirror. The girl scampered through the rain, clambering into the back of the stretch cab.

Kari, on the other hand, shot Bronte a WTF glare, but before she could openly complain, Bronte warned, “Not a word.” Huffing, Kari opened her own door and stomped through the puddles.

Bronte followed more slowly, gathering her purse and phone before joining her children. By that time, their unsuspecting Samaritan had revved the engine and turned the defroster to high so that the lukewarm air blew against her hot cheeks.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Mr. . . .”

He held out a hand—the hand of a workingman, with long fingers, scuffed nails, and calluses that rasped against her palm. Here in the land of Boy Scouts, there were men who worked hard for a living—and the sensation of his rough skin against hers caused a strange frisson to race up her arm.

She wanted to snatch her hand back, to sever a connection that was more charged than it should have been. But somehow, she managed to keep her cool—even as her heart hammered against her chest. In that seemingly innocent gesture, someone other than her husband or children had touched her. Until now, she hadn’t known how much she’d hungered for such simple human contact.

“Jace Taggart.” After a brief, firm shake, he released her to throw the truck into gear, then gestured to the fields on either side of the lane. “My brothers and I lease most of your grandmother’s ground. We’ve been neighbors for years.” He pointed to a distant sparkle of lights. “That’s our place over there.”

Bronte remembered the ranch in the distance, although she’d never met the Taggarts herself. She and her siblings used to sneak close to the pasture fences to catch a glimpse
of the horses and their foals. Occasionally, they would see one of the boys who lived there, but not nearly enough to satisfy their curiosity. For some reason, to be sitting next to one of the kids she and her sister Carroll had once ogled—a boy all grown up into an even more powerful male—was disconcerting.

They lapsed into silence—and she was grateful. Manufacturing small talk would have taxed what few brain cells were still functioning at this point. Her sister, Carroll, a graduate of West Point, would have called this whole experience a “clusterfuck of gigantic proportions.” Instead of fleeing to a familiar sanctuary where she could lick her wounds, Bronte had compounded them.