The Texan's Bride (32 page)

Hoss Garrett awaited them in the salon. He and Branch took their seats as Eleanor shuffled through a stack of sheet music for the serenade the elder Garrett requested. As sound swelled in the room, Branch fought the melancholy quickly becoming a regular companion of his evenings.

Days weren’t a problem. He loved the work of being a planter, and daylight hours kept him busy. Summer was time to plant a second crop of corn and black-eyed peas, to set the women to weeding the potatoes and cleaning the debris from wells. June was the month to cut the grains: barley, oats, and wheat. Branch worked beside the field hands from dawn till dusk, relishing the labor of farming the land he’d coveted for so many years.

Evenings, however, were a different matter. The contentment he knew during the day fled with the coming of dark. As much as he enjoyed the work of being a planter, he hated the social baggage that came along with it. Social obligations bored him, the people bored him. The rules of proper behavior especially bored him. Sitting in a parlor listening to piano music wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as he had once imagined it to be.

It certainly wasn’t as gratifying as lying naked beneath the stars atop a woman.

Dammit, she’s back again
. Branch did his best to concentrate on the music. It was during these hours, when his body rested and recovered from the day’s toil, while he spent time with his father’s friends and the woman soon to be his wife, that Katie Starr haunted his thoughts. Tonight, while Eleanor demonstrated her considerable talent at the keyboard in a room where summer slipcovers sheathed the furnishings, Branch battled the memory of the swishing rhythm of cotton cards accompanied by the creak of a rocker against a puncheon floor on a winter’s night.

Ah, hell, Sprite. Why did it all have to be a lie
?

A knock on the open salon door interrupted his musings. “How about some hospitality for a couple of visitors?” William Bell and Branch’s cousin, Chase Garrett, stood just outside the room.

The shroud of discontent lifted from Branch’s shoulders. William, finally. “Well, William Bell, I never figured you for one to travel with the likes of Chase Garrett.”

“I’m smarter than that. I found him on the drive and figured it best to bring him in before he started stealing chickens from the henhouse.”

Chase grinned. “Chickens! Why, I was after the horses!”

After a period of polite social discourse, Eleanor said her good nights, and the gentlemen adjourned to the library for some serious drinking.

“I have to say, Branch,” Chase commented, accepting a branch and cigar from his cousin, “you certainly look different among these surroundings than you did the last time we met.”

“His name is Britt,” Hoss Garrett interjected, his brows knitted as he poured his own drink.

Ignoring his father, Branch grinned. “That was just about a year ago, wasn’t it? Down near the Rio Grande?”

Chase nodded and then shook his head in wonderment. “I couldn’t believe it. Here I was shaking in my boots because I’d run across a Mexican patrol on the wrong side of the river, and up comes this fellow dressed in a serape and spoutin’ Spanish like a native. He throws his arm around my shoulder, a pair of golden eyes gleam from beneath a sombrero, and he says, ‘Howdy, cuz.’ ”

Branch laughed. “The patrol leader, Captain Monterro, and I are old amigos—met up during the war. We were spying on each other’s army when he snuck up behind me. Right as he was fixing to put a bullet in my skull, a rainstorm upstream flooded the arroyo we were lying in. Ended up, I saved his life and we got to be friendly.”

The spoon Hoss used to stir his drink clanked against his glass. “You fought in the War for Independence?”

Although the smile remained fixed on Branch’s face, the amusement faded from his eyes. “I was twenty-five when war broke out. What do you think I did, Hoss, run for the Louisiana border?”

“No,” the elder Garrett said gruffly, “I knew you were in the army. I didn’t realize you were so far south.”

Branch turned a mirthless smirk toward William. “Probably hoped I’d manned a cannon at the Alamo.”

“Dammit!” Hoss shouted, “Listen, boy…”

Chase held up his hand. “Hold on a minute, folks. I may be family, but I’m not in the mood to hear old family squabbles tonight. I’m glad to see you”—he slid a look at Hoss and added—“Britt. Surprised, but pure-dee pleased. Tell me, how’d you happen to come home?”

Well, Branch thought, if he wanted to avoid family squabbles, he chose the wrong subject to pick. He sipped his drink and said, “I’ll let William and Hoss clue you in, cuz.”

William stretched out in his chair, crossing his boots at his ankles. “I can’t say I know the whole of it. I made a trip to New Orleans after delivering the money that Regulator demanded. I can’t say I know how your search has progressed.”

“What search?” Chase asked.

Hoss lifted his drink as if toasting and declared, “Britt discovered the bastard who killed Robert.”

William slapped his knee. “I knew you could do it, Branch, uh, Britt. Who was it? That Regulator man, Colonel Moorman? He’s a slimy weasel for certain.”

“No,” Hoss said, clipping the end of his cigar with a pair of scissors. “Fella by the name of Starr, may he roast in hell.”

William Bell’s gaze locked on Branch. “Starr?” He dragged on his cigar, then exhaled a cloud of woodsy scented smoke. “Starr?” he repeated.

Branch nodded. He tipped his glass, finishing its contents in a single gulp.

“I imagine you killed him,” Chase said, noting the tension between William and Branch.

Hoss came up behind Branch, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Won’t tell me how he did it. Must’ve been pretty grisly.”

Silently, William Bell demanded an answer.

Branch said, “I destroyed the person who killed my brother. What’s it matter how I went about it?”

“Ugly business,” Will observed, his expression unreadable.

The bourbon soured in Branch’s stomach. “Damned ugly.”

SOON AFTER Hoss retired for the night, Branch turned to Chase and William and said, “How about we walk down to the river and pretend to fish while we set about getting drunk.”

Chase jumped to his feet, grabbed a bottle with each hand, and said, “I’m overdue for one. After you, cuz.”

In the years he’d been away, the course of the Brazos River had shifted, and as they made their way down the bluff to the water, Branch felt a twinge of annoyance that Chase, not he, knew the path to a fishing hole. None of the three men bothered with a pole. Chase built a small fire on the sandy shore and observed, “Why do I get the feeling like I’ve come in the middle of a nasty little story?”

Dragging a dried piece of driftwood from the edge of the bank back to the fire, Branch laughed harshly and said, “Because you have.”

“A very nasty story,” Bell added.

Chase fed a stick to the fire. “Would you two rather I leave?”

“Branch?” William asked.

“No. It’s all right. In fact, if you’ve got some free time, I might just need an extra pair of hands, depending on what William learns.”

William tipped a bottle to his mouth and shuddered as the whiskey burned down his throat. “Ah, I’ve an idea I’ll soon be making another trip. Did I understand you earlier, Branch? About Rob?”

Branch snapped the stick he held in two. “Katie did it,” he stated flatly.

“No.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t believe it!”

“There’s more to it than that, though.”

“Hold on a minute,” Chase said, grabbing the bottle of bourbon from William’s hand. “Y’all are losin’ me. Are you saying a woman killed Rob?”

Briefly, Branch told them the story of the fire. When he finished, Chase was the first to speak. “Hell, Branch. I’d have done the same thing, under the circumstances. Did you really hurt her like you told Uncle Hoss?”

Branch was silent for a long minute. “Katie Starr may be a woman, but she fights meaner than any man I’ve known. Anything I do to her, she has coming her way. I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re asking. I didn’t even beat her, even though I wanted to.”

Choosing his words carefully so as not to disclose any of the more personal aspects of the situation, Branch told Chase and William why he suspected that the blackmailer responsible for the fire in which Rob Garrett was burned was named Shaddoe St. Pierre.

When he finished, Chase gave a long, slow whistle. “Hell and Texas, it makes sense, cuz. What do you want us to do?”

Branch fed dry leaves into the fire. “William, I want you to return to New Orleans. The Gallaghers said something once about Shaddoe living with a grandfather in New Orleans. Marceaux… Marcil, some French name beginning with
M
. Anyway, find out who this fellow is and where he’s been. If you can place him any one place at any one time since 1839, I want to know it.”

“Certainly, Branch. I’ll do my best. When do you want me to leave?”

“Well, I know you’ve been traveling, but the sooner…”

William held up his hand. “I’ll leave tomorrow.”

“Thank you, William. I owe you.”

“What about me?” Chase asked.

“If William finds proof that a Creole named Shaddoe has been doing business in New Orleans during the times he claimed to have been with the Cherokee, I’ll have a solid piece of information upon which I can build my case against him. I may need you, Chase, to return with me to Nacogdoches. I’m too well-known there now to be of much use in spying on St. Pierre, and also, I left a little unfinished business there concerning another scoundrel named Trident. I could use an unknown face assisting me.”

Chase nodded his acceptance, then he frowned and asked, “One thing, though, Branch. Why don’t you just go shoot him? Why bother with proof?”

Branch stood and looked out over the water, his back to the other men. Emotions warred within him—pride, anger, pain—and his sense of honor. The night breeze created ripples across the top of the slow-moving water, crickets chirped, and from the opposite bank a bullfrog croaked. Branch struggled to put his thoughts into words. “I want the man who set fire to the Starr farm dead. I want the man who sliced open Steven Starr’s gut punished. Those two acts have earned retribution, and I could administer it with clear conscience.”

Bell slapped a mosquito on his arm. “And St. Pierre?”

“Dead. I want him stabbed, shot, and hanged. I want the bastard to die hard. Only it’s not because I know for certain that he’s the man responsible for my brother’s death.”

William and Chase exchanged a look at the passion in Branch’s voice. Silently, they waited.

Low and raspy, he confessed, “I want to kill him because of Kate. He took what was mine. But as much as I want to, I can’t kill the man for that.”

Chase stood and walked to stand beside his cousin, handing him the bottle. “And after we prove he’s the blackmailer who set that fire, then you can kill him?”

Branch guzzled the bottle. “Yep.”

When the bottle was empty and the fire smothered, the three men climbed the path up the bluff. As they topped the hill, they walked abreast, Branch in the middle, back toward the Big House. Carrying the empty bottle at his side, William turned to Branch and asked, “While I’m doing the footwork in New Orleans, what will you be doing?”

Kincaid smiled drunkenly and flung an arm across both men’s shoulders.

“What’ll I be doing? Well, getting married, of course.”

CHAPTER 17

THE CHICKEN SQUAWKED AND lunged toward the invader. Katie squealed as she snatched the egg from the nest and lifted her bleeding hand to her mouth to suck at the wound. Tears shimmered in her eyes as frustration boiled in her soul, and she backed away from the hen and out of the henhouse. Then, when the rooster looked at her and loosened a boisterous crow, she drew back her hand and sent the egg sailing, straight and true toward the henhouse wall, where it landed with a splat.

A second egg from her basket flew at the chopping log, a third at a fence post at the hog pen. She shot a fourth against the barn wall, where it smashed and hung for a moment before pieces of tan shell flicked to the ground and the broken yellow yoke mixed with the slimy membrane to slide slowly down the wall.

Katie sank with the egg. She dropped to her knees in the red dirt of the farmyard, cradled the scratched hand to her chest, and wept.

It wasn’t starting out to be a very good day.

She was alone at the inn. The two guests they’d hosted overnight had departed at first light, and Rowdy had taken Martha and Andrew into Jefferson to pick up supplies. They’d not return until tomorrow. Katie had total freedom to lie in the mud like a wide-snouted hog and wallow in self-pity. So she did.

She was pregnant and alone. Her poor baby wouldn’t have a father. For a time she’d been able to put the problem from her mind, but no longer. Time moved swiftly, and soon she’d pass the halfway point of her pregnancy. She could ignore the issue no longer.

She lowered her hand till it lay across her womb and despite her gloomy state, a faint smile touched her lips. She was expanding, just a little, but enough that she could tell. Her body was changing to nurture the life growing inside it, the baby she already loved.

It wouldn’t be long before she felt the tiny swells and kicks that announced the little one’s presence. Katie couldn’t wait. She remembered the day she felt Mary Margaret quicken. At first, she’d not known what the funny bump in her stomach was, but then, as it happened a second time, a joy that eclipsed any she’d known before had filled her.

The first hello with one’s child was a moment a mother would always remember. The memory stayed with her, even throughout the goodbyes.

The smile on Katie’s face slowly died. Other memories remained throughout goodbyes. Branch was never far from her thoughts.

Where was he? What was he doing? For that matter, who was he? She remembered their last night together and his revelation that Rob Garrett had been his brother. At the time, she’d not questioned the difference in their last names. Now she wondered at the relationship between them. Were they half-brothers? Was his name really Kincaid or Garrett? It could be Smith or Simpson or Santa Anna for all she knew.