Explaining Herself (23 page)

Ross made a rude noise. "You know nothing about men."

Reaching the far end of the graveyard, Victoria decided to just start walking the rows, looking at names. It wasn't as fun as kissing Ross, but it was probably far safer. "I beg to differ. I know many decent men. My father and his partner. My brother and my brothers-in-law. And I know you."

"Obviously not well enough."

Oh? Her lips still tingled from his kisses. She still had his taste in her mouth, his scent on her skin. She wasn't wholly clear on how a girl went from such kissing to
knowing
a man, the way Julia must have done with her beau, but she feared it happened more easily than she'd thought.

She feared it
—without feeling fear. It was her own boldness that unsettled her, not him. Him, she wanted in ways she'd never imagined. When she drew her lower lip into her mouth now, it was to taste him.

Victoria made herself turn toward the tombstones, heartened to see that some were older than the cemetery itself. Many people who'd originally been buried "on the farm" had been moved here, once the town had a respectable place of rest.

"Do you mean to tell me, Ross Laramie, that we could never forget ourselves like we started to by the creek?" A sly glance in his direction, registering a blush on his dark cheeks, confirmed that she was correct. They had come perilously close. "Do you mean
that if I found I was in trouble and killed myself, you wouldn't even visit my
—"

She stopped because his hand, hard on her shoulder, stopped her. "No," he said firmly.

She looked up at him, his desperate voice worrying her more than his answer. "No, you wouldn't visit my grave?"

"No." He shook his head, clearly struggling for words. "You would never do that."

"Kill myself?"

"Yes." But again he shook his head. "No.
Any
of that. Not you."

He spoke urgently, as if trying to convince himself. She wondered if his lips felt swollen, and if he had the taste of her in his mouth. She wondered then if it was possible to kiss him until neither of them could stop.

She was clearly wanton. But she turned with resignation back to the graves
—and caught her breath. "Look!"

"What?" But she was already dropping to her knees between two simple stone markers bearing the same surname and date of death.

Josip Lauranovic

1845-1888

Filip Lauranovic

1870-1888

She looked up in triumph at Ross, but the way he was now staring at the graves, like at a ghost, she could tell he didn't see her at all. He didn't even offer his hand when she stood again.

Suddenly an intruder, and unsure why, she stepped back from the graves and the range detective. She looked beyond that pair
—and found the clue she'd really wanted.

Julie Inela Lauranovic

1873-1888 "Lost and Gone Forever."

Beside that headstone stood a small, white marble block with a lamb carved on top of it
—the standard marker for a baby.

And between those two sat a rusting tin can holding the remains of some long-dried roses.

"It doesn't mean anything," insisted Laramie weakly.

But he was lying. Maybe the flowers meant no more than the quote, which Victoria attributed to the song "Clementine." But seeing the graves meant something. Everything. It meant more than he could ever have guessed.

Poppa. Phil. Jul
ie
. They had respectable graves.

"They misspelled her name," Victoria said, kneeling on the far side of
Julie’s
and using a handkerchief to wipe off the face of the tombstone.

"No," he said, shaken. He'd felt on edge since meeting Ward, since Lonny Logan spotted him outside the sheriff's office. What other excuse did he have for how he'd greeted Victoria, stealing kisses that weren't his? And now
—

Poppa. Phil.
Julie
.

"Oh." Victoria gave extra rub to the second
j
in "
Julie
." "I thought you were saying
Julia.
What language
are
these names?"

Laramie sank stiffly into a crouch. "Bohunk."

"That's not a nice word."

"No," he agreed, and met her gaze, and felt more for this woman than he could remember feeling since he was twelve. He'd thought he owed her before this day? He owed her everything. "How did you know they were here?"

As if embarrassed by his gaze, she ducked her head.

"I must have remembered them from Decoration Day or something," she guessed, trying to straighten the roses in
Julie’s
tin-can vase. One of the desiccated flowers crumbled under her fingers, so she snatched her hand back. "Either that or I heard my parents talk about them, back when they helped the town pay to move people into the new cemetery. I hear a lot of things I'm not meant to, you know."

Her parents. That dark suspicion returned to hollow out his chest, to chill his throat. 'Your parents paid to move them here?"

She smiled, innocent of the truth. "They might have."

"Two rustlers and a suicide?"

A breeze picked up through the cedar trees at the far end of the cemetery. Ghosts again.
Isn't that what you are? he
thought at the graves, suddenly angry.
What we became? I'm no better.

Victoria searched his face again, more cannily. 'You said they were stealing their own cattle back. Isn't that what Drazen told you?"

She mispronounced "Drazen," but he didn't correct her. He didn't want it to sound any more like "Ross" than necessary.

He didn't want the name to sound like him.

"He believed that," he admitted finally, reaching out to pull a weed from Poppa's grave. His hand wasn't used to that. His hand understood guns so much better. "But they were his family. The boy could have been mistaken."

"Don't be silly." Victoria touched the stone lamb's head. "How could a person be wrong about his own family?"

She should know. "He was wrong about his sister. He never believed ..." A spread hand toward the block she was touching, marking her never-born bastard, explained for him.

Good girls did not do that.

As if she read his mind, she said, "Any woman could make a mistake if she were in love. That doesn't make it right, but it's not.. ."

Not wrong? What did that leave?

Of course, Julie had once been strong-willed too, at least before . . . Before. She'd believed she would marry the man whose name and face he had yet to discover. The man she'd met in secret
—perhaps in the same way he and Victoria had met in secret.

The idea only hardened his hatred against that unknown rancher. "A person might think the best of a loved one, but that doesn't make her
—him—right."

Victoria shook her head, unwilling to believe it.

"There were not many men who could have done this," Laramie insisted, glancing from Victoria to Julie’s grave and back, even now searching for an answer to fit her view of the world. "Not the Wards, or the deputy; neither of them was rich, and she said
— How old
is
Alden Wright?"

"I don't think he's any older than you," she admitted.

Far too young. "Well, I doubt it was your father."

"Don't even say things like that in jest, Ross Laramie! Of course it wasn't Papa. And Colonel Wright is even older than him. So it had to be Hayden Nelson."

As if older men would not offer a great deal for a young lady's companionship. "It wasn't Hayden Nelson."

"He's the only choice left."

"Nelson had no family in the area to have threatened her." Laramie flexed his hands, scowled at the tin can with its crumbling roses. He disliked Victoria's idea that the man he wanted would leave roses on his sister's grave. "And he left town years ago."

"Oh." She looked at the roses too. "These can't be any older than late spring, early summer."

Which left the one person she would not see.

"That's everyone the newspaper listed as being on the posse, Ross," she insisted. "And if he wasn't in the posse, he could have been anybody. The Garrisons and the Wrights weren't the only successful ranchers in Sheridan."

Laramie took a deep breath and stood, torn. It seemed so clear to him. He did not want to be the one who did this, who said this, to Victoria. And yet here, before Poppa and Phil
—no,
Filip
and
Julije
—he could not leave it. Not again. He'd avoided his vow for too long already. "Perhaps he had a relative on the posse," he prompted, desperate.

Victoria considered it, then shrugged. "I don't believe the Wards had any relations in town. And the deputy's name isn't familiar."

Laramie turned to escape toward that large tomb, toward where she'd left her bicycle. He did not want to hurt her, but he had to know. God help him
—he needed her to at least consider it, so that he could finally know for sure.

Whether he could do anything about it or not.

When she followed him, a whisper of petticoats and a whiff of cinnamon, he simply said it. "Thaddeas."

Victoria stopped, blinked at him.
"What}"

"Victoria, it was Thaddeas." The heir to the Circle-T, a fancy college student, must have seduced Julije, used her to send a posse after the rustlers. He'd destroyed Ross's world
—then gone on to become a respected lawyer while Julije and their baby rotted in the earth.

Once again, Laramie had fallen victim to his world's cruel irony. It was Thaddeas Garrison who deserved to die.

And Laramie had fallen in love with the man's sister.

Chapter Seventeen

Victoria said, "My brother?"

Ross looked disgusted by the question, which made her angry
—though his accusation might explain that, too. She pushed him, flat against his chest. "My
brother?"

He did not budge. "Who else?"

"Anyone!" Clearly, he did not know Thaddeas. Despite Mama's gentling influence, Thad was pure Garrison
—proper, stern, just. Papa's son from a previous marriage, Thad had lived with an aunt until Vic's parents married. Mama once said that part of him was still ten years old, desperate to justify his inclusion in the family.

She hadn't said it to
Victoria,
of course, or known Vic was listening, but she'd said it.

Thaddeas would never do anything so terrible!

Ross seemed convinced, though. "He was here after

the Die-Up," he reminded her. "He's got money. Your folks paid for lawyers, for tombstones."

Now she pushed him with both hands, so he stepped out of her way. She stalked past him and got her bicycle.

"Come on," she told him, starting to wheel her bicycle toward the gate, where his horse waited.

He didn't move, except to watch her. "Come where?"

"We'll go to my house and straighten this out."

"I'm not going there."

"Of course you are. You think my brother seduced some poor immigrant girl, and it's not true. He'll tell you so."

"He'll lie," he warned her.

She stopped and turned on him again. "So now he's not just a scoundrel, but a liar?"

Ross stood there, smoldering at her, but she could tell he didn't really see who she was, what kind of family she came from. He didn't even believe it existed.

"Ross, my parents paid to move
lots
of graves to the new cemetery. It was the right thing to do. I'm sure that's why my mother hired your friend's lawyer. She supports all sorts of causes
—the orphanage, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Ladies' Aid. If you come home with me, I can show you her desk, some of the letters she's received from organizations like that."

He looked dangerous again
—and very alone. "No."

"Are you afraid for Thaddeas to see us together?" Heaven forbid anyone think they were courting! "I'll go home first, then, and you can visit later."

Ross shook his head. "No."

"Then I'll ask him and tell you what I find out."

Ross shifted his weight, flexed his hands with uncertainty, then faced her full on again, mouth set. "If
he
did
tell you the truth, would you want to know?"

"Of course I would, because the truth is that he didn't do anything."

"No." He squinted
—or winced. "No, Victoria. If that
weren't
the truth. Would you still want to know the worst?"