The Cowboy (17 page)

Trace gestured to Handy and the other cowboy, and they shifted her father’s body off her mother. Then Trace bent down and slid one arm under her mother’s shoulders and another under her knees. Her mother’s eyes fluttered open, and she whimpered in pain as Trace lifted her, but she didn’t cry out. The fear of making noise was inbred from generations of living in a country where being discovered could result in getting scalped by a savage or eaten by some wild beast.

“Did you find anything to indicate who did this?” Callie
asked the
segundo
, as they followed Trace to Handy’s pickup.

“Best we can tell, they were shot from long range,” Handy replied.

“It must have been one of those hunters!” Callie cried.

“What hunters?” Trace asked.

“Four idiots were hunting in the north pasture yesterday. One of them must have crossed the boundaries of the land we leased to them and ended up in the middle pasture. Find them, and you’ll find the man who did this!”

Handy had already arranged a pallet of blankets in the back of his pickup, and as soon as Trace laid her mother down, Callie scrambled in to sit beside her.

“Drive fast! No, drive slow. I don’t want her to be jostled,” Callie ordered breathlessly.

“I can’t do both, Callie.”

“Just be careful!” she cried.

The drive to the hospital was an agony. Her mother clenched her teeth against the pain, but every hissed-in breath, every moan, made Callie’s stomach lurch.

Callie hadn’t allowed herself to consider how much blood her mother had lost. Or whether she might succumb to shock. Apparently, she’d been kept warm overnight by her father’s dead body. Just the thought of it made Callie shiver. And she couldn’t seem to stop.

“The doctors will take her, Callie. You can let her go now.”

Callie was hardly aware of Trace helping her out of the sun-heated metal truck bed. For some reason her knees wouldn’t work, and he picked her up rather than let her fall. She clutched his neck and buried her face against his
throat and hung on for dear life. She was cold, and he was warmth. She was lost, and he could help her find her way.

She knew they were in the hospital somewhere because the smell of antiseptic burned her nose, and she could hear the clatter of metal instruments against a metal surface. And then they were somewhere blessedly quiet, somewhere she could only hear the hum of an ancient air conditioner, somewhere the blazing sun was muted by Venetian blinds.

“Do you want to call your brothers? Or do you want me to do it?” she heard Trace murmur.

Callie couldn’t imagine calling Sam and Luke and telling them Daddy was dead, and that Momma was in surgery, and no, she didn’t know whether Momma was going to be all right. And no, she didn’t have answers to their questions: Who was going to run the ranch now? Who was going to manage things? How were they going to survive this catastrophe? Each person in the family had been a cog in a well-oiled machine. Without her father and mother, the whole thing was going to grind to a halt.

She felt Trace’s hand smoothing her hair. “You don’t have to do this all by yourself, Callie,” he said. “I’m here to help.”

Callie wanted to let Trace handle everything. It would be so easy to let him handle it. She lifted her gaze to his face. And saw her son’s nose and jaw and chin. She couldn’t allow Trace to get close. She couldn’t take the chance.

She pushed herself away from him and made herself stand, though she wavered at first, like a colt trying its legs for the first time. Trace stood up as well and kept her
from falling until she got her legs under her. Then she took a step away.

“There’s nothing I can do here while Momma’s in surgery,” she said. “I want to go home. I have to make arrangements for Daddy. I have to call Bay. And I want to give Sam and Luke … I want to tell them in person,” she finished.

“I’ll drive you.”

“No. I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“You came with me. I’ll take you home.”

Callie wanted to refuse him, but on the spur of the moment, she couldn’t think of any other way to get home. There was no such thing as cab service in Bitter Creek. She could call Luke and have him come get her, but then he’d have to know where she was. She could call Lou Ann Simpson, but she didn’t want to deal with Lou Ann’s concern or her questions right now.

“All right,” she conceded. “You can take me home. But I don’t want you coming inside.”

“Fine. Is there anything I can help with? Anything your father might have left undone?”

About a hundred things
, Callie thought. But there was no way she could allow Trace Blackthorne to do any of them. “We can manage.”

He lifted a skeptical brow.

“We’ll be fine. Don’t worry. We Creeds have survived Comanche attacks and Mexican soldiers and Yankee carpetbaggers.”
And bushwhacking Blackthornes
. “We can survive this.”

“Fine, Callie. But if you change your mind—”

“I won’t,” Callie said. “And, Trace …”

Her throat was thick, and it was hard to talk, but she
knew she had to speak. “You won’t be invited to the funeral.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Once upon a time I thought Jesse Creed was going to be my father-in-law. Believe it or not, I’m sorry he’s gone, because—” He cut himself off. “I’m sorry he’s gone, Callie.”

She met his gaze. “I’m grateful for all your help. Really, I am. But I think, under the circumstances, it wouldn’t be a good idea for you to be there.”

“What circumstances?” Trace challenged. “The mere fact that I’m a Blackthorne, and you’re a Creed?”

Callie sighed. “You represent everything my father fought against his whole life. To have you there … It would hurt too much.”

“Fine. I’ll stay away.”

Just as he had stayed away from the hospital when Sam was hurt. She could see he was angry, but she didn’t back down.

Her family came to the kitchen door at the sound of the truck on the gravel drive. She didn’t hesitate, simply said, “Good-bye, Trace,” and headed for the back door to Three Oaks on the run.

“Callie, wait! I want to—”

She was inside before he could finish his sentence.

Her eyes were so blurred by tears, she could hardly see her family. Sam was in his wheelchair. Eli was hanging on her arm, and Hannah was clutching her knee. Luke stood at her shoulder, his eyes watchful and wary.

“Sam called Bay anyway,” Luke informed her. “She’s on her way home.”

“That’s good,” Callie said. “Because the news is bad.”

“They’re dead,” Sam said flatly.

Hannah wailed. Callie picked up her tiny daughter and held her tight. “No! Momma is alive. She’s in the hospital, in surgery.”

“Where’s Daddy?” Luke asked.

“Daddy is … He didn’t make it.” Callie said.

“Like I sssaid, he’sss dead,” Sam said in a slurred, drunken voice.

“Yes, he is,” Callie replied, her voice cracking. “And because he is, I’m going to need all of you to help around here. Which means you, too, Sam!”

“Is Grampa really dead?” Eli asked.

Callie’s knees started to buckle, and she settled into a kitchen chair. She reached out to Eli and pulled him close. “I’m afraid so, sweetheart.”

“How?” Luke asked. “What happened? Was the truck in an accident?”

“No. They were shot.”

“Shot!” Luke cried. “Who shot them?”

Callie had opened her mouth to answer, when Sam interrupted.

“Who the hell do you think?” he said. “Thossse goddamned Blackthornes! Now they’ll get Three Oaks for shhure.”

Callie had been ready to contradict Sam, to say it was a hunter’s stray bullet that had killed their father. But the last half of Sam’s statement arrested her. “There’s nothing to keep us from running Three Oaks like we always have. We’ll all just have to work a little harder.”

Sam snorted derisively. “You’re forgetting sssome-thing. Something I’m shhure Blackjack hasn’t forgotten.”

“What’s that?” Callie asked.

“Inheritance taxesss. The government takes its shhare—fifty-five percent of everything in Dad’s estate—before Mom gets a penny! Or had you forgotten that?”

Callie felt her heart skip a beat. Oh, God. How would they manage to survive, if they had to come up with an enormous sum to pay the government inheritance taxes? There was nothing left to mortgage. Nothing left to hock. Nowhere else they could go for a loan.

“We’re not giving up Three Oaks,” she said aloud.

“I don’t sssee where we have much choice,” Sam retorted.

“We’re not giving up Three Oaks,” she repeated. “There must be some way to get the money to pay the government. All I have to do is figure it out.”

“D
ID YOU SHOOT
J
ESSE YOURSELF
? O
R DID
you hire someone to do it for you?”

Trace carefully observed his father’s expression as he lifted his gaze from the paperwork on his desk to respond to the accusation.

“Are you telling me Jesse Creed has been shot?” Blackjack said, a smile growing on his face.

“Jesse and his wife both.”

Blackjack leapt to his feet, and the smile disappeared. “Ren’s been shot? When? Where? How is she?”

Trace suddenly realized his father wouldn’t have shot Jesse in any circumstances that might have endangered Lauren Creed’s life. Blackjack was too concerned—disgracefully, disgustingly concerned—for the well-being of the other man’s wife. But all Trace had been able to think of since he’d seen those two blood-caked bodies was the way Jesse Creed had humiliated his father three weeks ago, and Blackjack’s venomous threat against the other man.

But his father’s surprise appeared genuine. Maybe it had been a hunting accident after all. Or maybe his father
was damned good at feigning innocence. It seemed too coincidental that Jesse Creed had been killed “accidentally.” Trace didn’t put much faith in flukes. It seemed more likely that chance had been helped along.

“I can’t believe you’re just hearing about this, Dad. I’ve had every cowhand on the payroll out searching for the pair of them since dawn.”

“How the hell would I know that?” Blackjack retorted. “Ninety-five percent of the time you don’t tell me what you’re doing around here. And I asked you a question. How is Ren? Where is she?”

“What’s all the shouting about?”

Trace turned to find his brother Owen standing in the library doorway. His brother the lawman. “I was just accusing Dad of murdering Jesse Creed.”

Owen stiffened. “He’s dead?”

“As a door nail,” Trace said.

“Goddammit, Trace! Stop that nonsense and tell me what’s happened to Jesse’s wife!” Blackjack shouted.

“The bullet that killed Jesse passed through him, struck Mrs. Creed, and broke her shoulder,” Trace said. “She spent last night out in the cold—blanketed by her dead husband. I left the hospital before she got out of surgery, so I don’t know what her prognosis is.”

“I guess I’ll have to find out for myself,” Blackjack muttered as headed for the door.

Trace had figured his father might call the hospital to inquire about Lauren Creed’s condition. He was appalled to realize his father intended to go there. “You can’t go to the hospital, Dad.”

Blackjack was drawn up short. “Why not?”

“Because the whole Creed family will be there.”

“So?”

“They hate your guts.”

“That’s not my problem,” Blackjack said as he took another step.

Trace was surprised when Owen put out a hand to stop their father.

“No, Dad,” Owen said.

“Get out of my way, Owen,” Blackjack said.

Owen took a step forward, blocking Blackjack’s path. For the first time, Trace noticed Owen was wearing his badge above his heart. “You don’t want to make yourself any more of a suspect than you already are,” Owen said.

Blackjack made a dismissive sound. “Don’t pull that Texas Ranger bullshit with me, son. I diapered your bottom.”

“You’ve never touched a diaper in your life,” Owen countered.

“I was making a point,” Blackjack snapped. He shot a glance from Owen to Trace and back again. “I don’t need my sons telling me what I can and can’t do.”

“You’ll take my advice on this,” Owen said. “Stay away from Mrs. Creed.”

“Who the hell do you think—”

“What on God’s green earth is going on down here?”

“Hello, Mother,” Trace said as his mother stepped into the space between Owen and Blackjack, forcing Owen to drop his hand.

Her short-cropped blond hair bore a splash of copper at the temple, and Trace saw a similar dab of dried oil paint on her right forefinger. She was dressed in a khaki painting smock that looked like a cross between Joseph’s coat-of-many-colors and a safari jacket, and she held a long,
delicate, red-daubed paintbrush between her fingers, as though she had stopped in mid-stroke to come and investigate.

“I was starting on the red-checked tablecloth, when I heard such a commotion down here I couldn’t concentrate. Will someone please tell me what all this ruckus is about?”

“We’ve had some disturbing news, Mother,” Trace said.

“What is it?” she asked, glancing from Blackjack to Trace.

Trace noticed she never once looked at Owen—and that Owen knew he was being slighted. It was difficult for Trace to accept the fact that his mother preferred one twin over the other. After all, Owen and Clay were identical, born two minutes apart, Owen first, and then Clay. But she had made her choice when the twins were still boys, and for some reason, she had chosen Clay over Owen.