The Texan (8 page)

Owen wondered if his father was really at Three Oaks this morning to see Lauren Creed on business, or whether his business with her was entirely personal.

He focused his gaze on Billy and said, “If you think of anything that might help us find the man—or men—who took those VX mines, call me.”

Billy merely touched his hat brim, his dark eyes burning with resentment.

As Owen reached the door to his pickup, Summer called after him, “You won’t tell Daddy I was here, will you?”

He glanced back at her over his shoulder and saw how she was the one clinging to Billy, rather than the other way around. “You wouldn’t ask that, if you thought that being here was a good idea,” he said. Before she could protest further, he added, “I’ll keep my mouth shut.” He gave Billy a warning look and said, “Just be careful.”

Owen stepped into the pickup, turned the key, and gunned the engine, throwing up a cloud of dust as he left the Coburn ranch behind him, heading for Three Oaks. Maybe Bay had heard from her brother. Maybe she’d changed her mind about telling him what she knew.

And maybe you can see for yourself whether your father is making a fool of himself over the Widow Creed
.

BAY HAD SPENT A SLEEPLESS NIGHT AND HAD WOKEN UP
tired and irritable. Not a good combination for someone who had to start the day by confronting a ferocious beast with the coldest gray eyes this side of the Arctic. She’d been absolutely certain Owen Blackthorne would show up on her doorstep this morning. So when she heard the knock at the kitchen door on her way downstairs, followed by a gruff male sound of greeting to her mother, the slam of the screen door, and the mention of Luke’s name, she gave a mighty sigh of salute and marched into the arena.

And discovered Jackson Blackthorne kissing her mother.

Not just a peck on the cheek. Not just a brush of the lips. His large, workworn hands were splayed on her mother’s jean-clad rear end, and she was arched into his
body, her breasts pressed flat against his broad chest. Their eyes were closed and their mouths were meshed and the way their jaws were moving it was clear his tongue must be halfway down her throat.

Bay’s outcry was totally involuntary. She fervently wished she’d simply backed out of the kitchen. Because what they did next was more revealing—and terrifying to witness—than the kiss itself.

While they both jerked when they heard her, they didn’t spring apart like guilty teenagers. His hands slid to her mother’s shoulders reluctantly, and her hands, which Bay only then realized had been thrust into Blackjack’s thick black hair, slid down to his shoulders, and they slowly separated until they were looking into each other’s eyes.

Bay couldn’t see her mother’s expression, but Blackjack’s gaze was tender … loving … and regretful.

Of course it was, Bay thought bitterly. Their secret was out. Bay was normally gone making rounds to see her animal patients long before her mother was up, and Sam lived in the foreman’s house. Her mother must not have realized Bay was still home. Otherwise, she might have been more discreet in greeting her lover.

But now Bay knew. And there was no putting this snarling cat back into the bag.

Bay felt a sharp, visceral pain when her mother turned within the circle of Blackjack’s arms and remained close to him, rather than moving away. She didn’t dare acknowledge the torment she saw in her mother’s eyes.

“Daddy’s barely cold in his grave,” she said in a raspy voice. She put her hand to her throat. It hurt to talk, but it was the ache inside, rather than the bruises outside, that was causing the problem.

Her mother’s voice was surprisingly calm. “Your father’s been dead for more than a year. I’ve been worried about Luke, and Jackson’s been a great comfort to me.”

“When did you start sleeping with him?” Bay demanded, snapping her chin in Blackjack’s direction.

The blood left her mother’s face in a rush, and if Blackjack hadn’t been holding her, she might have fallen. “Bay—”

“Your mother and I never came near one another before your father’s death,” Blackjack said.

“So you say!”

Bay watched as he exchanged a poignant glance with her mother, before he added, “I love your mother. I plan to marry her.”

“You’re already married!” Bay wrapped her arms around her midriff to keep her jangled insides from flying apart. “What about your wife?”

“I’m getting a divorce,” Blackjack said in a voice Bay found annoyingly calm.

“When?”

Blackjack’s eyes turned bleak, and he exchanged another glance with her mother. “Soon.”

“That’s not good enough. When? A year? Two years? Ten years? Never?”

“Stop that, Bay!” her mother commanded.

The authoritative tone halted Bay’s tirade long enough for her mother to say, “We love each other. We want to be together. And when we can marry, we will.”

“But he’s a Blackthorne!” Bay protested, as though her mother had decided to take a venomous snake to her bosom. And this was the biggest, baddest snake of them all, a rattler with fangs that could bite deep and leave poison to fester.

“It’s about time this feud ended,” her mother said.

“Does Sam know?” Bay demanded.

Her mother shook her head.

“What about Luke?”

Her mother winced. “He …”

“He caught you. Like I did,” Bay said.

“He saw us kissing in the barn a couple of weeks ago,” her mother admitted.

“Is that why Luke was fighting with Clay on Friday night?” she asked, focusing her anger where it belonged, on Jackson Blackthorne. “Has Clay been persecuting Luke because of this … thing … between you and my mother?”

“My sons know I plan to divorce their mother,” Blackjack said.

“But do they know you’re having a sordid affair with mine?”

“Bay!” her mother said. “That’s enough.”

The screen door screeched open, then slammed closed. Bay leaned around her mother to see who’d arrived, praying it was Luke, hoping it wasn’t Sam. And gasping when it turned out to be Owen Blackthorne.

“I couldn’t help overhearing.” Owen’s voice was hard, his powerful body restless. He had the haunted, hunted look of a wolf caught in a steel-jawed trap.

Blackjack had taken a step back from the kitchen door, but kept Bay’s mother in the circle of his arms. The two of them turned to face their children.

Bay had never thought she would side with a Blackthorne on anything. But she was in perfect agreement with Owen that their parents had no business being together. Bay saw how her mother clung to Blackjack’s strong, encircling arm, her bastion of safety in the coming storm. There was a recognizable current that ran between
them, something so blatantly sexual that it made Bay uncomfortable.

She glanced at Owen to see if he had picked up the same signals. His gray eyes told her nothing. They were so very cold. So very remote. So detached from what was happening.

Maybe that was how he stayed in control. She could see his body quivering. His hands had balled into fists so tight his knuckles were white.

“How long has this been going on?” Owen asked through tight jaws.

“Like I told Bay, Ren and I never went near one another until after Jesse was dead,” Blackjack replied with that same annoying, unruffled calm he’d exhibited since Bay had discovered him kissing her mother. As though he could not be judged. As though he could do no wrong.

Owen’s features revealed so little, Bay had no idea what was going on inside his head. When he spoke to his father at last, she was horrified by what he said.

“Maybe Mom isn’t guilty of killing Jesse Creed after all. Maybe you’re the one who arranged his murder.”

“You know better than that!” Blackjack said, his calm shattered at last.

“Do I?” Owen challenged. “Mom wanted Mrs. Creed dead. Somehow, it was Jesse who got killed.”

Bay’s heart was pounding a hundred miles a minute. Was Owen making this up because he was angry with his father? Or was there some truth to it? She’d assumed that Eve Blackthorne would never have been put in a sanitarium unless her husband and sons had positive proof that she’d been responsible for arranging Jesse Creed’s murder. Owen seemed to be suggesting there was room for doubt.

“Mom told us she asked Russell Handy for help getting rid of Mrs. Creed. It’s just as likely you asked Handy for help getting rid of Jesse. Especially after that last confrontation between the two of you at the Rafter S auction, where you threatened to kill him. Maybe Handy was really working for you instead of Mom.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Blackjack said flatly.

“We all figured the shooter was aiming at Mrs. Creed and missed—hitting Jesse by mistake,” Owen continued. “What if he hit exactly who he’d been told to aim at? What if Jesse was meant to die all along?”

“That’s enough,” Blackjack said, his voice ragged with fury.

Owen wasn’t done. “Handy never said anything one way or the other about who ordered him to arrange Jesse’s murder.
Because you told him to keep his mouth shut
.”

“You know damn well why I did that!” Blackjack said. “Your mother would have spent the rest of her life in prison. Is that what you wanted?”

“I remember being relieved when you said you’d make sure Handy never spoke to anyone about what he’d done. At the time, I believed you wanted to protect Mom from prosecution. I have to wonder, seeing you here with Jesse’s wife, whether that was a self-serving lie.”

Bay’s heart was beating so fast it hurt. Complicated as Owen’s reasoning was, it made perfect sense. She saw from the look on her mother’s face that she didn’t want to believe that the man she loved had arranged to have her husband murdered. It was equally clear, from the way her body had tensed within Blackjack’s embrace, that she couldn’t discount it entirely. And certainly, the argument
between father and son was painful for her. She put her hands on the arm that surrounded her and pushed it away.

“This is all nonsense, Ren,” Blackjack said as he released her. Bay saw the anxiety in his eyes, the concern that Owen’s accusations might have found fertile ground.

“I’m sorry you’ve been hurt by seeing us together,” her mother said to Owen. “I love your father.”

Bay felt her heart skip a beat as her mother glanced at Blackjack with anguished eyes.

“I … I never meant to hurt anyone,” her mother said hurriedly, as she brushed past Owen and pushed her way out the screen door.

The three of them stood frozen as the door slammed behind her.

Blackjack swore a string of epithets, before he bolted for the door.

Owen stepped in his way. “Leave her alone, Dad.”

“You crossed the line this time, Owen. You and your goddamned suppositions! I love that woman, and by God, I am going to marry her. Now get the hell out of my way!”

Bay saw Owen’s indecision before he stepped aside and let his father charge past him.

“Goddamn it all to hell!” Owen muttered. He looked up and their gazes met and she saw the naked pain in his eyes. Immediately, his lids lowered, and she felt shut out.

He yanked his Stetson down until his eyes were shadowed and said, “Have you heard from your brother?”

“No.”

“Are you going to tell me where he is?”

“No.”

“I’m not taking you with me. And that’s final.”

Bay was desperate. She had to think of something that would force his hand. “Please—”

“No,” he said, his voice colder and harder than she’d ever heard it.

“Then I’ll go on my own!” she said fiercely. “And whatever happens to me will be on your head. If I get lost and die of thirst—”

“Damn you Creeds!” He jerked off his Stetson and swatted it against his thigh, then crushed it back down on his head. “Are you ready to go?” he said through gritted teeth.

“Yes.”

“Then get your stuff, and let’s get the hell out of here.”

“
HOW ARE WE GETTING TO THE BIG BEND
?” Bay asked as the kitchen screen door slammed behind her.

“We’re flying,” Owen replied.

“I figured that. Flying from where? San Antonio or Houston?”

“Flying from right here. We’re taking the jet.”

Bay stopped at the door to Owen’s pickup.
“The
jet? You mean the four-million-dollar Cessna CJ1 Callie flew in when Trace took her to Houston? The one with the Circle B brand painted on the tail?”

He smiled. “That’s the one.”

“Don’t tell me you’re the pilot.”

“All right. I won’t.”

Which meant, of course, that he was. “I don’t trust you on the ground. Why should I trust you in the air?”

“We need to get where we’re going in a hurry,” Owen said as he opened the door to the pickup for her. “There’s a jet sitting on the landing strip at Bitter Creek, and I’m a qualified pilot. You’ve talked your way into coming, but I’d be just as happy to leave you behind.”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” she said.

He grimaced, took her backpack from her, and swung
it into the back of his pickup, then gestured her into the front seat of the black extended-cab Silverado. She was inside the luxurious pickup before she realized she’d let him take her backpack and open her door. Well, she’d soon cure him of thinking she was some fragile female. She could take care of herself.