The Littlest Cowboy (9 page)

Because he couldn’t possibly be as kind and gentle as he was pretending. No man could.

V
incent de Lorean downed his third shot of tequila and lifted his gaze from the sparkling water in the terrazzo-tiled pool to scan the faces of the three men who stood in front of him. He didn’t like the expressions they wore. He didn’t expect to like the news they were about to deliver, either. Setting the cut-crystal glass down on the umbrella-shaded table beside him, he sent a pointed glance at Monique.

“Go inside.”

She gave him a playful pout, but obeyed. She knew better than to question him. Smarter than the last pretty woman he’d brought here. Maybe she’d turn out better. Monique rose with the sensuality she knew he liked, lowering her long legs slowly, running one hand over plump breasts and then slowly over her belly before turning to click her heels across the concrete and wiggle her butt through the stucco villa’s glass doors. The three men turned to watch her bikini-clad body as she moved away from them. They wanted her. Vincent knew it, and it pleased him. He liked other people to crave what was his.

As long as they didn’t try to take it from him.

“Have you found my son?” he asked, and all three heads snapped around to face him again.

Jonas had been with him for ten years, and Vincent knew the fear in his eyes was real when he shook his head slowly from side to side. William, too, had the good sense to be afraid. But the third one, the new man…something was wrong there. Lash, he called himself, though Vincent was unsure whether it was a first name or last. He stood there, by all appearances, respectful. But there was no fear in his face nor in his blue eyes. In fact, Vincent smelled the smallest hint of defiance in the man.

He needed a lesson, this one. Vincent knew how to keep his men loyal. Fear. Once they knew he held their lives in his hands, they would never betray him. He sat quietly while Jonas spoke, assessing the best way to deliver the lesson.

“It’s only a matter of time, boss. You know that we will–”

“The sister?” Vincent interrupted, having come to a decision on today’s teaching methods. “What about the sister?”

“She was in El Paso,” Jonas said. “She identified Michele’s body, asked about Ethan, then left. She hasn’t checked into any hotels in the area and she hasn’t returned to New York.”

“Then where the hell is she?”

Jonas closed his eyes, swallowed hard. “We have men watching her apartment, Vince. We’ll find her. I swear it.”

Vincent pursed his lips and shifted his gaze to Lash. “You. You were supposed to be staking out the medical examiner’s office. You were told to follow this Chelsea Brennan when she left there. What happened?”

He didn’t flinch or look away. He shrugged instead. “I lost her. It was pouring rain and she was driving like a maniac.”

Vincent didn’t like this man. He usually never hired men larger than himself or better-looking. He’d made an exception this time, because his oldest employee, Jonas, had told him what an asset this one would be. Furthermore, this Lash’s voice held the slightest hesitation. The way a man spoke when he was lying…or when he was nervous. Vincent’s ego preferred the latter theory to the former. Nervousness wasn’t fear, but it was a start. The lesson he had in mind should solidify the man’s loyalty.

Vincent drew a breath and released it slowly. As he did, he dropped his right hand to the folded towel beside his lounge chair. They couldn’t see that hand. And they couldn’t see the gun he pulled from beneath the towel, either. Not until he quickly leveled it on Jonas and pulled the trigger.

Jonas didn’t have time to blink. His head snapped back. His knees buckled. He thudded to the concrete. William staggered a few steps backward before he started to cry and snivel, probably expecting to be next. The other one just stood there, staring right into Vincent’s eyes, his own as cold as ice. Those eyes registered disgust and a little surprise. Still no fear.

“Jonas told me you’d be an asset,” Vincent said softly, and he examined the silvery weapon in his hands. “He was wrong. I don’t tolerate mistakes in my employees. Do you understand that now?”

“Jonas was the smartest man you had working for you,” Lash replied in a steady, controlled voice. “He might have found your son for you. Now…who knows?”

Vincent stood up, walked closer to Lash.
“I
know. You will find him. And if you fail…” He said nothing more. Just sent a glance down at the body. “Now get him out of here. And find that woman. If she thinks she can keep my son from me, she’s going to be very sorry. As sorry as her pathetic sister.”

G
arrett took his time. He drove Chelsea around Quinn, pointing out the shops he thought might interest her. Then he took her over the River Road to show her the Rio Grande. The idea was to calm her down a little bit. Because she’d been damned scared back there in his office. Hell, he’d never seen that kind of fear come over a person so suddenly or so completely as it had come over her when he’d pointed out that a killer knew where she lived.

She might talk a big game and she might be so filled with anger she was ready to take on the world. But deep inside, Chelsea Brennan was a frightened woman.

And she didn’t like to be touched. He’d discerned that, as well. Whenever he’d had call to put his hands on her–which, as a matter of fact, he’d done more often than was probably necessary–she reacted like a skittish colt. Got all stiff and nervous and always ended the contact just as quickly as possible.

He was thinking that Jessi had been right about her suspicions. That maybe Chelsea had been hurt, physically hurt, by someone in her past.

He didn’t like thinking that because it made him angry, and he hated being angry. He was too big to allow himself the luxury of a short temper. All his life he’d struggled to be calm and relaxed, no matter what. Hell, he hadn’t even lost his temper when he’d put the fear of God into Brian Muldoon’s heavy-fisted father. And the truth was, he’d taken his brothers along, not for support, but just to be sure he didn’t actually
hurt
the man, much as the bastard deserved to be hurt.

He didn’t like the feeling that came over him now, though, when he thought about someone lifting a violent hand to the woman beside him. Because it went beyond anger. It made him sick. He almost didn’t
want
to know if it were true. He almost didn’t want to know who had hurt her.

Almost.

She seemed a little calmer when they arrived back at the ranch that afternoon. Not much, but a little.

Ethan sat in a high chair in the kitchen, and Elliot was making motor noises and driving a spoonful of green goo into his mouth.

Garrett frowned. “Where’d that come from?”

“The baby food or the high chair?” Jessi asked after taking a bite of her fajita. Then she grinned. “Actually, it doesn’t matter. Both of them were provided by our grouchy brother who claims to dislike babies.”

“Wes?” Garrett shifted his gaze to Wes, who scowled back at him.

“Kid needed a place to sit, didn’t he?”

Elliot grinned broadly at Wes’s muttered reply. “Hell, I think Wes here would make a great little mother. Don’t you, Jessi?”

“Of course he would. He ought to have a whole slew of babies crawling all over him, and maybe run a nursery school on the side.”

“Old Mother Goose,” Elliot sang, “when
he
wanted to wander, would fly through the air on a very fine, um, Paint. Gee, Wes, that doesn’t fit. Any chance you can change Paint’s name to Gander?”

Wes grimaced and attacked his fajita. Garrett just shook his head and went to the table. “Did you leave us any crumbs or anything?”

Elliot pointed to the heaping platter in the table’s center. “I know it’s not enough to fill
you
up, big brother, but it might make an appetizer.”

“Come on, Chelsea,” Jessi said. “There’s plenty. Sit down and eat.”

Garrett noticed Chelsea’s surprised expression. She covered it fast and came forward anyway. Wes grabbed the platter and set it down in front of her, while Elliot popped a bite into the baby’s mouth, then got up to go to the fridge. He poured a glass of milk and set it down in front of Chelsea. Without a word, he just set it down, then returned to his baby-feeding duties.

Chelsea looked disconcerted. “Th-thank you.”

Wes cleared his throat. “We, uh, we were rough on you last night.”

He turned those black eyes of his on her. Garrett saw it and half expected her to melt into a puddle at his devilishly handsome, half-Comanche brother’s feet the way most women did if he so much as glanced their way.

“I wasn’t exactly polite,” Chelsea replied, remaining solid.

Jessi passed the tossed salad. “We Brands are a tight bunch. We take care of our own. But we’ve been talking and…well, I guess you were just doing the same thing we’d have done in your shoes. So–”

“What my sister is trying to say, Chelsea,” Elliot explained, “is that we’re sorry about what happened to your sister, and we want to help you and little Ethan through this if we can.”

Garrett felt his back straighten and battled a smile. Maybe he’d taught them something after all. Chelsea sat at his right, and he thought he saw a lump come and go in her throat, but he wasn’t sure. He thought he understood the change now. He was pretty certain Jessi had told the other two about what she’d heard and about her theory. He knew the thought of some bastard beating up on a little thing like Chelsea would turn their stomachs the same way it did his own.

“I, um…” Chelsea shook her head and pushed away from the table. “I have to go upstairs.” She turned and quickly left.

“Garrett?” Jessi asked, staring after her.

“I don’t know, Jes. Let’s let her be for now. I’m going back to the office later to run a check on her and her sister, see what I can find out. Jessi, I’ll need you to come with me. Marisella’s cat is off his feed again, and she’s making herself sick worrying about him.”

“Sure.”

“Elliot and I can take care of things here tonight, Garrett. Leave whenever you need to.”

Garrett nodded at Wes and, a few hours later, did just that.

But what he found out was not one bit pleasing to him, and it only made matters worse.

That evening, after he’d dropped Jessi at Marisella’s, he’d spent a good hour sitting at his desk trying to get over the shock of it.

Chelsea Brennan’s father, Calvin Brennan, had been arrested twenty-five times for spousal and/or child abuse. New York State Social Services had been called in when school officials reported the two girls often coming to school covered in bruises. But they hadn’t taken action soon enough. Calvin was in Attica, serving the eighteenth year of a twenty-year sentence for beating his wife to death.

Garrett swore under his breath and thought again about the turmoil and the pain and the rage he saw every time he looked into Chelsea Brennan’s eyes. And he felt a burning moisture taking shape in his own.

C
helsea sat by the fireplace, imagining a cheerful fire burning in the grate. Anything cheerful would be a relief if it would dispel the grim mood that had settled over her.

Elliot and Wes bantered in the kitchen over whose turn it was to clean up the dinner dishes. From the wide window in the living room, Chelsea could see Jessi feeding carrots to a spotted horse. An ancient pickup truck with a driver Chelsea had recognized as Marisella del Carmen Whatever had dropped Jessi off twenty minutes ago, but Garrett still hadn’t returned. She wondered what was keeping him in town. A woman, maybe? The idea gnawed at her a little more than it should have as she watched Jessi coax the beautiful animal closer and then stroke its muzzle as it snapped the carrots from her hands. Behind Jessi, the grasslands seemed to go on forever, a wide green blanket beneath a gigantic, sapphire sky as blue as little Ethan’s eyes. So near the desert, it was impressive, that band of green.

She remembered the photo she’d seen, the one of the Brand family taken years ago, and she thought this must have been a magical place for children. Room to run. Room to grow. Their huge family surrounding them like a protective cocoon. A child would thrive here.