Wanted (41 page)

“It's the same thing.”

“Only because you want to make it that way.” He turned and started back as if she didn't exist, and she knew just then how much she had hurt him. And herself.

Morgan didn't know when he'd ever been so angry, as much at himself as at her. It was as if Lori had deliberately twisted something that had been so good, so fine, into something else altogether. Now he knew why he'd taken so much trouble all these years not to care—hell, even made a damn art of it. It hurt too much.

He'd known, dammit. He'd known how idiotic it had been to come with her tonight. He simply didn't know how to deal with that blind loyalty of hers. He didn't even know how to deal with himself at the moment. He'd never left himself vulnerable like this before.

He wouldn't do it again, by God.

What in the hell was she planning?

Something, that was for sure, or she wouldn't have warned him. That paradox again. That mixture of recklessness and integrity, that fierce passion for whatever and whomever she loved, were part of what he'd learned to love.

But what was she planning? He couldn't even imagine. Despite her words, he didn't think she would try to harm him again. What else could she do on her own? After knowing her for the last month, he didn't even want to think about it.

She couldn't know where they were heading. He hadn't told them until a few days ago. He hadn't even decided himself until after they'd left Laramie, the only place she could have passed on information. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps she planned to head into Pueblo and try to enlist assistance there.

Damn it all. If only he could let Nick Braden go. It would make things so easy. He could court Lori. He could rid himself of Braden's hatred. But he wouldn't be able to live with himself. Neither Braden nor himself could breathe easily again.

How far would she go?

He didn't know. He did know he didn't have the heart to chain her. If she wanted to shoot him, well, she damn well could.

Morgan saw the firelight ahead, and he slipped into the shadows, allowing her to pass and go in alone. Nick, he saw, was holding Mrs. Andrews. The child was apparently sleeping. He watched for another ten minutes or so and then went in. Beth had straightened up, moved away from Braden. Lori was sitting stiffly by herself.

“Get some sleep,” he told them all, and placed several pieces of wood on the fire. He then retreated to where he'd folded his own bedroll. He checked the saddlebags, obviously for guns and ammunition. “We'll leave early,” he added, ignoring Lori's surprised face as she realized he was not going to handcuff her. He turned away, lying down in his own blankets and closing his eyes.

The pain inside him was excruciating, choking out all the life so new to him. He had lost her completely, and he knew it, and all he felt now was a terrible wrenching loneliness.

Morgan rose before dawn. He'd dozed on and off, the slightest sound snapping him into full wakefulness. He felt weighted with weariness and defeat. He hoped activity would numb him. He went over to Braden and unlocked the leg iron. His prisoner was also awake, and Morgan wondered if he'd spent as poor a night as himself.

A twist of his head indicated the spring they had passed yesterday, and Braden nodded, understanding the silent message. Morgan had his saddlebags with him as well as his rifle, and he motioned for Braden to go ahead. The other members of their party were apparently still sleeping.

The two men said nothing until they reached the spring, well out of earshot.

“I thought you might like to bathe,” Morgan said.

His face carefully controlled, Braden went to the edge of the pool. He tested the temperature, his face gradually relaxing. He sat down and started to take off his boots.

Morgan watched idly from several feet away. He planned to take his own bath after Braden finished. His mind was still occupied, as it had been last night, with Lori.

Braden had finished taking off the right boot and was pulling off the left, then the sock. Morgan stiffened. The bottom of Braden's foot was completely visible, and Morgan was staring at a red mark, the shape of half a heart, just like the one he had on his right foot.

Christ! A clammy shiver crawled up Morgan's back. He stared again at the foot just as Nick Braden moved, and the mark disappeared out of sight as Braden started peeling off his coat and then his shirt. “Soap?” he asked. Morgan found a piece in the saddlebags and threw it to him as Braden continued undressing.

Feeling like a damn voyeur, Morgan studied him intently. The same arrow of black hair that Morgan had grew down Braden's chest. He swallowed as Braden looked up, and something in Morgan's face made him frown. “Something wrong?”

Hell, everything was wrong, everything was spinning wildly out of control. He hesitated. “That mark on your foot …”

Nick shrugged. “It's always been there. Lori used to tease me …” He stopped abruptly, his jaw tightening.

“Lori used to …?” Morgan prompted.

For a moment Braden's mouth set stubbornly, and then he seemed to think it wasn't important as he said lightly, “She used to say that since I had only half a heart, part of me must be missing.” His dark brows knitted together. “The strange thing was that I … used to think that, too.” His lips clamped together as if he were puzzled why he'd shared that particularly odd piece of information, but Morgan felt his whole body go rigid.

How many times had he felt that way, that a vital part of him had somehow been left out, like a missing piece of a puzzle?

Braden slipped into the water, and Morgan turned away, his mind whirling with the implications of the birthmark. Questions and more questions pounded at him. He had always considered Nick Braden one of those odd coincidences, an uncanny look-alike, because there seemed to be no other possibility. What were the odds of a look-alike having the identical birthmark?

How old was Braden? Although he looked younger than Morgan, they had roughly the same body. And Morgan was only too aware of what years of war, and their aftermath, had done to him. All those years of killing, of hunting, of … being alone. He knew that his face had the etched lines of a man older than his actual years.

He remembered the time Braden was hit by that Ute knife; he had felt a sharp pain in the same part of his body. And then he recalled another oddity: the image of Braden's face, of agony crossing it, at the same time Morgan had pressed the hot knife to his own wound. It was one of the last things Morgan had seen before he'd lost consciousness.

More impressions flitted through his mind now. The way he'd known what Braden was thinking, almost from the beginning. He'd chalked it up to experience, of knowing what to expect from criminals. But Braden had always been different. The thoughts had always been clearer, more vivid, even when they were unlike the thoughts of Morgan's other prisoners.

How?

Morgan's breath locked up inside him. His heart pounded with discovery. Still, his mind told him it couldn't be so.

Texas. He had been born in Texas. Alone. The only child of parents who had died immediately after his birth. He tried to remember everything Callum had ever told him about the circumstances of his birth.

Callum had been there to warn them, had heard his mother's childbirthing cries, and then had to leave to warn others. When he'd returned hours later with help, the cabin was gone, burned, the charred bodies of his parents next to each other. Morgan had been found in the fruit cellar.

What had happened that day? He tried to dredge up every memory. He used to ask all the Rangers about that day, about his parents. Was there anything he had missed?

A woman. There had been another woman, Callum had said once. A woman helping with the childbirth, but she was never found, and everyone had believed she had been taken by the Comanche. They had looked for her but never found a trace. She had been assumed dead.

What if there had been another baby, that somehow the woman had managed to save it? But, then, why would she not report it?

Hell, he was reaching. He tried to dismiss the thought as preposterous—like the odds that he and Nick Braden had the same birthmark. But the thought kept haunting him.

He looked back to the pool. Braden was washing his hair, the same dark, thick hair Morgan had, the same texture, nearly the same unruliness. All the other Bradens, except for the mother, had honey-colored hair and golden eyes. Braden's eyes were just like his. And the mother. She'd also had light-colored hair, and he remembered the color of her eyes. Brown. Dark brown.

Braden was left-handed. His birthmark was on the left foot. What did that mean?

Morgan had never known any twins. Doubt gnawed at his belly, and yet …

Part of me was missing
. Braden's words. Morgan's own feelings. He'd thought it was a lack in him of some kind. He'd been accused often enough of not having any heart at all. Only on this trip had he discovered how much of one he had.

Should he show Braden his own birthmark? The half heart?

He chuckled grimly. Braden would not be a bit pleased about the possibility of kinship. No, he needed to wait until he was sure. Questions to ask at the Ranger post, questions to ask Jonathon and Fleur Braden. He had to be sure that this was not just a once-in-a-million coincidence.

And Lori? Braden's sister. Sickness swept through him for a moment until he realized that if Braden was really his full brother, Lori couldn't be any relation to either of them. He thought of the love and loyalty the two had for each other. Sibling love, but would that change if Lori knew Nick wasn't her brother after all?

Of the two, he and Nick Braden, Morgan fully realized which one a woman would be more apt to choose. If Morgan hadn't already lost her.

He heard a ripple as Nick Braden pulled himself up from the warm water and quickly dressed in the cool air. Morgan looked at the sky. Full light now. How long had they been there? He'd been so absorbed in his discovery, in his thoughts, he'd allowed more time to pass than he'd intended. His own bath would have to wait. He looked toward Braden as his prisoner started to pull on his socks, hoping once more to catch sight of the mark. But Braden's movements were too quick.

Braden looked at him curiously, and Morgan knew he must have been staring. He emptied his face of expression and picked up the rifle and saddlebags. Braden ran fingers through his wet hair in a gesture so familiar that Morgan felt his heart pound again. How many times had he done that himself?

“Let's get back,” he said, trying to force authority back into his voice.

Braden shrugged as if surprised that Morgan wasn't going to avail himself of the spring.

“It's getting late,” Morgan replied to the unasked question. His voice sounded strange, even to himself.

Braden turned and started back through the pines. Morgan matched his wide strides, realizing how good it must feel to the man to be unfettered.
His brother
. The possibility—if there was one—was still astounding.

“Braden?”

Nick stopped and turned around, his face blank.

“When were you born?”

The blankness dropped from Braden's face, replaced by puzzlement, then wariness. “Why?”

“Records,” Morgan said, feeling as foolish as he knew the excuse sounded.

“I don't give a damn about your records.”

“I could ask Lori.” It was a challenge, easily slipped into after the past weeks.

Braden's eyes blazed. “July fifteenth, 1844. Now you can put it on my tombstone.” He turned back to the path they were taking and started walking again.

Morgan placed a hand against a tree for support. July fifteen. His birthday. The same year in which he had been born. Nick Braden
was
his brother. He didn't know how or why, but now there were few doubts.

He was wrestling with the idea of telling Braden when he reached the clearing, a minute behind his prisoner. Braden's face was pale. He turned to Morgan.

“Lori's gone,” he said, and there was as much fear in his voice as there suddenly was in Morgan's battered heart.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Daniel Webster tried to soothe Andy, who was watching the road north of Pueblo. “Patience, Andy.”

“Where are they? Could we have missed them?”

Daniel raised his eyebrows, “I don't think so. A Texas Ranger, his prisoner, and a girl as pretty as Lori? That would be big news in Pueblo.”

“Maybe they changed direction.”

Daniel shook his head. “Lori would have found some way of letting us know.”

“It's all my fault,” Andy blurted out. “I'm the one they should be after.”

They had camped north of town, a mile away from the road and alongside a river where clumps of trees hid the gaily painted wagon. Fleur had stayed with the wagon. Jonathon had ridden into town and taken a room in the cheapest hotel. He was always able to fit in, to extract any news from a barroom crowd. He'd heard nothing of Nick or Lori or the man taking Nick in. He had seen, however, two men reputed to be bounty hunters. One had hair so blond it looked white.

At first Daniel feared they might not have made it in time, though they had driven day and night to reach Pueblo, even selling horses at a loss several times to get fresh ones. Daniel was obviously identifiable, so he'd stayed out of sight, but Jonathon had checked the telegraph office and found nothing.

Three days. They had been waiting three days now. Daniel tried to keep Andy's spirits high, but his own were sinking. Could something have happened along the way? Had the Ranger killed Nick? Bounty hunters? He felt helpless. None of them were gunmen. None of them had ever killed a man. Their only hope in freeing Nick was an ambush, pure and simple. Surprise. A bluff. Violence only if necessary.

Daniel checked his rifle. He knew how to shoot. All of them did. The knowledge gave them confidence to bluff. They had bluffed more times than Daniel even wanted to consider, including the time they'd escaped raiding Comanches so many years ago, just before they'd found Fleur.