The Texan's Bride (30 page)

“No!” She swiped at the cluster of lead balls, and as she ran to her bedroom they scattered, rolling off the table and rapping against the puncheon floor. Branch left them where they lay and quickly cleaned and dried the Paterson’s cylinder. After coating the metal parts with bear oil, he reassembled and loaded the gun. Standing, he holstered both weapons and walked to the bedroom door.

She’d latched it. He kicked it open.

Katie stood at the window, peeking through the curtains, dressed in a dry chemise and drawers. A corset dangled from one hand.

Branch leaned casually against the splintered door jamb, his arms crossed, and spoke as though the conversation had never been interrupted. “The way I figure it,” he said, “is that Starr got caught in the teeth of his own trap. I’ve a notion you can tell me whether the agent was snared at the same time.”

Tears glittered in her eyes as she looked over her shoulder. In a weary voice, she asked, “What do you want to know, Branch?”

“This morning you told me that this nameless blackmailer killed your husband and daughter. Was anyone else with them?” He stepped into the room, stalking her like a predator after his prey. “Did another man die that night?”

“Yes.” She shut her eyes and her hand gripped the curtain. In a dry whisper, she said, “There was someone else. He’d been staying at the farm helping Steven. He was a carpenter.”

“No, he was land commissioner for the Republic. His name was Robert Garrett, and he’d come to East Texas to investigate rumors of fraud connected with the Matagorda Bay and Texas Land Company.”

“I didn’t know. He said he had family in the government—” Katie’s hand dropped to her side as she stiffened. A wild look entered her eyes. “A government man. You said you’d come here looking for the person who killed a government man!”

Branch moved closer. In a flat, cold voice, he said, “I came here looking for Rob Garrett’s murderer. I’ve found him.”

She swallowed visibly. “What are you saying, Branch?”

“I’m saying that your lover, Shaddoe St. Pierre, escaped the trap Steven Starr and Rob Garrett had set for him. I’m saying that your lover killed your husband and daughter. He killed my brother.”

“Y… Your brother?” Katie’s face blanched. “Mr. Garrett was your brother?”

He nodded curtly and reached for her, tracing the curve of her chin with his finger. “How does it feel, Kate, to know you’ve been bedding your daughter’s murderer?”

“No! I promise you, Shaddoe didn’t do it!” She shoved his hand away and pushed past him, crossing the room. She stood at the foot of the bed, a hand grasping the footboard. Her head bowed, she murmured, “Oh, God, he was your brother.”

Branch stepped toward her, the instinct to offer her comfort reflexive. But he stopped himself.
Hell, how can I feel sorry for her
?
She deserves any grief she gets. Besides, whether or not she actually cheated on Steven Starr, she damn well cheated on me
. “He’s a dead man, you know, your Cherokee.”

Katie looked up at him. “You plan to kill Shaddoe because you believe he killed your brother?”

“Among other things.”

For a long moment she looked at him, and a myriad of emotions flashed across her eyes. Then she gave a rueful laugh and pointed toward one of his guns. “You may as well take care of it, here and now.”

Branch fingered the Paterson’s handle. “The Cherokee’s at the inn?”

Katie squared her shoulders. Her tongue circled her lips as she drew a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “No. Not Shaddoe. I’m the person you want. I shot Robert Garrett.”

“What?” He stood still, his face a mask, but inside his chest a huge knot swelled. It took all his effort to draw a breath.

“I’m the one who shot your brother, Branch. But I had a good reason.”

His heart pounded, pumping ice-cold rage to every inch of his body. With blurring speed, he moved, grabbing her and shoving her onto the bed. Looming over her, he spat a vile curse and said flatly, “Let it go, Katie. You can’t save your Indian with your lies.”

“You think I’d lie about something like this?” she cried.

“I think you’d do anything to save your lover.”

A single tear slid down her cheek. “You’re my lover, Branch,” she swore vehemently. “I love you!”

His breath hissed between his teeth, and his chest heaved with the force of his wrath. Then he gave a short, bitter laugh. “Me and how many others, Katie Starr?” His callused hand slipped beneath her chemise and roughly cupped her breast. “God, woman, I hate what you do to me; I hate what you make me feel. I look at you and I want you and it makes me sick.”

Katie flinched at his words.
Dear Lord, it hurt
. Why, she wondered, had she allowed herself to love him? Hadn’t she learned from experience—the wrenching, devastating pain of losing those she loved? And tonight her loss was doubled. She’d lost her father and now her husband. She saw it in his face—in the disgust so plainly visible in his hard, topaz eyes and in the desire he could not hide.

Branch would leave her.

Damn him.

His lips descended on hers hot and wild. She responded with a whimper—of protest or passion she didn’t know—and he used the moment to take her mouth with his tongue.

Burying her hands in his thick hair, Katie pulled him against her with a savagery to match his own. She ached. She burned. She wanted him, this one last time.

With a fluid motion, Branch stripped off her clothing. They rolled and groped and groaned, at war as much as at love. He pulled away and she lay watching him, struggling to breathe and embracing the naked intensity in his eyes. His fingers tore at his shirt and then at the buttons of his pants. The magnificence of the body revealed as he peeled away his clothing burned a picture in her mind, and she knew she’d never forget this man—the look of him, the scent of him, the taste of him.

His knee parted her legs, and as he probed at her, the words burst from her lips, “Branch, I love you so.”

He froze. His eyes glittered with fury as he said in a guttural voice, “Sex.” He entered her with a surging, driving thrust. “That’s all it is. The same as I could get over at The Mansion of Joy.”

For just a moment, she believed him. Pain lanced her. Then she felt the pounding of his pulse beneath her hands.

“No,” Katie said, lifting her legs to hold him. “It’s more than that and you know it.”

He rode her hard and she lifted her hips, meeting him, in a primitive rhythm. On and on it went, until she was beyond hearing or seeing, only feeling. As he spilled himself inside her and she trembled with the force of her own release, Katie knew that never before had love been so right or so bittersweet.

When his body relaxed against her, while he was still too drained for anger, Katie explained, “The cabin was on fire, Branch, and Mr. Garrett went inside to save my baby. He burned, Branch. He was in so much pain and dying so horribly. He asked me to shoot him; he begged me.”

For a long moment, Branch lay still, his head resting against her chest. Then, in silence, he rolled from the bed and dressed. At the door he turned. “You killed my brother. You betrayed me, Katie Starr.”

The rain fell in torrents as he left her.

CHAPTER 16

RIVERRUN PLANTATION, JUNE 1845

BRANCH STARED AT THE flickering candlelight and thought of parlor chairs and a horsehair sofa. He saw a marble-topped table with a single sheet of parchment lying on top—a bond.

Three months ago today. The anniversary of a travesty—a wedding that was not a wedding.

He smirked and raised his glass of French brandy in toast to the bayberry-scented candles.

“Britt, Britt, darling,” a feminine voice spoke from the doorway, “Father Garrett is asking for you to join us in the salon.”

Branch continued to stare at the gleaming brass candelabra, the only source of light in the library, but he answered in his most civilized tone of voice. “Please tell him I’ll be right there, Eleanor.”

Her heels clicked against the marble floor as she retreated down the hallway. Ah, Eleanor, his first girl. He had loved her with the hot fire of youth, with the idealism of innocence. He’d humbled himself, begged for her love only to lose it to the one who took everything. Lovely Eleanor had married his brother.

Branch swigged the brandy and lifted the decanter, intent on refilling his crystal glass. Yes, Eleanor. She was as beautiful today as when he first met her. Blond and tall and graceful, she played the part of Riverrun’s lady superbly. And now she was a widow.

Widows. What cunning creatures. Aptly named. Eight legs to crawl over a man, distract him with tantalizing touches, then kill him with a bite.

The last drops of brandy wept from the neck of the decanter into his mouth. He took pleasure in the ill-mannered act of forgoing his glass—a decidedly ungentlemanly thing to do.

He was nothing these days if not a true Southern gentleman. Wealth, power, prestige, a beautiful woman on his arm—he had it all. Branch swayed and steadied himself by catching a corner of the desk.

He wasn’t drunk. No self-respecting South Texas planter allowed himself to demonstrate the effects of overindulgence. Now that he had been named his father’s heir, he followed all the accepted precepts of behavior.

Including entertaining the idea of offering for the hand of the lovely Eleanor as expected by Hoss Garrett and all South Texas society.

With a harsh puff of breath, Branch blew out a candle. Why the hell not? He’d put them off for weeks now. And why? Because of some lingering desire for an auburn haired liar? Because he left a job unfinished in Nacogdoches?

Unfinished, perhaps, but not unattended. He’d sent for William Bell. While Branch took his rightful place as heir to Riverrun—because, after all, he had met the letter of Hoss Garrett’s law, he had found his brother’s killer—he intended to send William to New Orleans to investigate a half-breed named Shaddoe St. Pierre.

William would bring him proof, and then he’d see to the Cherokee’s destruction. Branch spent a good portion of his time envisioning how he’d accomplish the feat. Somewhere private, certainly, where he could administer one or two of those tortures the Comanches had perfected. He could see it now, St. Pierre staked out naked beneath the relentless Texas sun, his eyelids sliced off, maybe some ants feeding on honey applied to slashes across the most tender portions of his body.

Ah, what perfect revenge it would be. In the semi-darkness, Branch held out a hand and bowed to the candles. “Mistress Kate, allow me to present St. Pierre, the man responsible for the fire that killed your daughter.” Because of course, she would attend the celebration. It wouldn’t be the same without her.

Branch stumbled, losing his balance. He fell into a chair. Still holding the decanter in one hand, he propped his elbow on his knee and rested his chin in the other hand. Damn the liar—the beautiful, hideous woman.

He’d told his father he’d destroyed his brother’s killer, and he had, after a manner. He’d raped her. Hadn’t he? He’d tried to do it. He’d wanted to. She was a slut, and she’d killed his brother. Except, when Branch remembered that last time with Katie Starr, he was afraid that he’d loved her instead.

Love. Branch snorted. She threw the word around as much as she threw around her body. Damn her for saying she loved him.
Damn himself for believing her
.

I came so close to loving her
. Branch’s chin slipped from his palm, and he slowly lifted his head to stare unseeing across the room. He shuddered. He must truly be drunk to be thinking such thoughts. Katie Starr was a woman he was lucky to be rid of. Eleanor and all the dreams of his youth awaited him in the salon just a few doors down the hall. Finally, after all these years.

The hell of it was, he didn’t want Eleanor. He hadn’t wanted a woman since he left his Sprite.

Damn the witch
.

Branch heaved a sigh. King Hoss was growing impatient. Required grandchildren, he did. Male grandchildren. The two daughters Rob had sired didn’t count. Boys were needed to secure the reuniting of Riverrun with Eleanor’s daddy’s plantation bordering theirs. Stubborn Britt must perform his obligation.

“Hell. Why not.” Branch rose unsteadily to his feet He caught sight of a ceramic egg sitting on the desk and remembered mornings spent gathering chicken eggs and hauling water. With a curse, he flung the empty decanter at the ornament, knocking it from the table. Both pieces shattered as they hit the ground.

He blew out the candles one by one. Then, crunching the pieces of glass beneath his boots, hard and empty and fragmented like the crystal decanter, Branch left the library. He made his way to the parlor to do his duty and offer his hand.

His heart was no part of the deal. What use was something broken?

MARTHA CRAIG lowered herself gratefully into the rocking chair that sat on the porch of Gallagher’s Tavern and Travelers Inn. Closing her eyes and resting her head against the back of the chair, she waved a green silk fan in front of her face and sighed. It was hot this afternoon and sticky. Muggy. What she wouldn’t give for a nice summer shower to cool things off a bit.

Hearing the creak of approaching wheels, she cocked open one eye and watched a chaise pull up to Katie’s kitchen. “There’s more than weather needing to be chilled hereabouts,” she observed, wrinkling her nose with disgust. Sheriff Strickland descended from his carriage and knocked on Katie’s door.

The man was on the prowl. At least three times a week he drove out here from town and pestered poor, vulnerable Katie. He claimed he felt responsible, considering Kincaid had been his deputy before he up and disappeared. At first, Katie had turned Strickland away, but more and more she accompanied him on excursions into the country, and on two separate Sundays he’d escorted her into Nacogdoches to church.

Martha was worried. Katie had disregarded all her warnings, saying that the sheriff offered simple friendship.
Certainly
, Martha thought.
Like the fox knockin’ on the henhouse door wants to be friends
.