Lonestar Sanctuary (13 page)

It made no sense. How could they think she would be involved in
something like trafficking in illegals? Her testimony had sent Jimmy
Hernandez to jail, and that should have shown how much she hated
that kind of thing. If he hadn't died there, she'd think maybe he had
implicated her to take his revenge.

And Jon's parents. She felt even more betrayed. They were family.
How could they do this to her?

In an instant, Rick's marriage proposal had become more pressing.
Marriage really was her most promising choice. She would make it
very clear to him that she would be his wife in name only.

She swung her feet to the floor, and her vision began to blank out.
She put her head onto her knees. When the fuzziness cleared, she
grabbed the bedside table for support and managed to stand. She hurt
all over, and her thigh especially pained her with a burning, throbbing
persistence. The bull's horns had been sharp.

"You shouldn't be out of bed, mujercita." Elijah spoke from the
rocking chair in the corner.

Allie hadn't seen him. "Have you been here all night?" She hoped
not.

"Si. I wanted to be here if you needed anything."

There was something different about him that Allie couldn't put
her finger on. His expression toward her seemed soft and gentle.
Maybe it was because she'd been injured.

"I wouldn't turn down a new leg." She smiled then to show she was
joking. "I'm fine, really. You've been so kind."

"How could I do less for my own flesh and blood?"

He knew!

The lightheadedness swept over her again, and she sank back onto
the bed. "When did you know?" she whispered.

"You think I would not keep track of my daughter? I knew her
rodeo name, of course, and her children. I watched her career with
pride, even though she excluded me from her life."

"You threw her out!"

The compassion in his eyes didn't change. "She told you this?"

"How could you?" She swept her hand toward the window. "You have all this and help so many other kids. But you threw your own
daughter out like road litter just because she was pregnant." Her conscience smote her. Apparently he'd taken in the baby. She didn't know
the whole story, and who was she to judge it?

He rose. "If this is what you believe of me, why did you come?"

"Rick was here," she said. "And I was . . . curious." More than curious, she was driven to find some piece of her family left alive. Some
blood connection.

His eyes filled with moisture. "Things are never as simple as they
look to the young," he said.

"Rick told me you found the baby and brought her here. M-my
mother said the baby died."

"Si, my Maria died. But twenty-five years later." Elijah turned to
stare out the window. "My daughter could have come home anytime.
I would never turn her away."

"Why did you throw her out in the first place?"

He turned then. "You must discover the truth for yourself about
that."

"My mother is dead. If you don't tell me, how can I find out?"

"Listen to your heart," he said softly.

Rick knocked, and they both glanced at the door. He stepped inside.
"Your lawyer called. He said he has papers ready for you to sign."

Elijah nodded. "I must go to town." His gaze locked with Allie's.
"We will discuss this later, si?" Without waiting for an answer, he went
to the door.

Allie watched his stooped shoulders and wanted to call him back.
Tell him she forgave him. But she kept her mouth shut. There was so
little she knew or understood.

AFTER HE'D TENDED TO ALL THE SICK AND MISTREATED HORSES, RICK
made some calls and found out what he and Allie needed to do to get
a marriage license. Marriage license. Mention of it was enough to
strike fear in his heart. He pocketed his list and went out to feed the
livestock. The familiar scent of corn and oats calmed his agitation as
the sun sank lower in the sky.

Charlie entered the barn with the other two hands, Buzz and
Guinn. The older men had been with Elijah since the days when Rick
first came here, and they were both wrinkled as raisins.

"You heard from Elijah? He's still not back from town." Charlie's
forehead creased, and he turned to look down the dirt track to the
road.

Rick glanced at his watch. "It's nearly five. He's not usually gone
this long. He said he'd be back by one."

"He hasn't called either," Guinn said. "I hope the old man is okay."

"Let me call Wally. Elijah went to see him. Did he say anything
about another errand?" Rick asked.

"Nope." Guinn's dark eyes held worry.

Rick looked up the lawyer's number in his phone's address book.
He talked to the receptionist, then closed his phone. "He left there
before lunch. She said he talked about having to get home to tend to
the new kids. I'd better go out looking for him. Maybe his jeep
broke down."

"Want me to come too?" Charlie asked.

"You'd better stay with the kids. You have your cell phone on you?"

Charlie nodded. "For all the good it does in the barn. What should
I do with the kids?"

"Where are they now?"

"On a hike."

"Get them to curry the horses tonight. Keep them away from the
two new mares though. They're fragile, and I'm not sure they're going
to make it."

"Sundown will be here in an hour or so," Charlie observed. "You
think Elijah is all right?"

"He's probably fine. He should have called though." He tried
Elijah's cell number but got voice mail. Not an unusual occurrence
with the spotty coverage out here. Even so, Rick had a bad feeling
about this. It wasn't like Elijah to be out of touch, and he was rarely
gone from the ranch longer than a morning or afternoon. He'd been
gone nearly seven hours.

Rick unhitched the trailer, got in his truck, called for Jem, then
drove out via the dirt lane. When he turned onto the road, the twolane highway snaked out ahead and behind him with no other vehicles
in sight. Town was only a few miles away. There would be no reason
for Elijah to be gone this long.

He drove all the way to town without spotting Elijah's old SUV.
There was no familiar jeep in front of the cafe. The lot beside the grocery store held only a dirty brown pickup and the faint scent of
exhaust. Turning around, he drove back the way he'd come.

About two miles from the ranch, something glinted in the dying
sun to his right. Squinting against the glare on the glass, Rick pulled
to the side of the road and stuck his head out the window. Was that the
tail end of a vehicle? He drove as close as he could to a stand of honey
mesquite bushes, then got out with Jem. He jogged the remaining distance. Fighting his way through the thorns, he arrived at the vehicle.
The battered white jeep was Elijah's.

Why would the old man pull his jeep this far off the road, almost
hiding it? The vehicle was empty. Rick cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted Elijah's name, but only a hawk answered him.
Poking his head inside the vehicle, he discovered the keys still in the
ignition.

Jem whined at his feet. "Find Elijah, boy." The dog barked and trotted off into the scrub. Rick kept shouting for Elijah as he walked farther from the road and followed the dog. There was no telling which
direction the old man had gone. His gut told him to walk to the
mountain. Elijah loved the high spots. Maybe he'd taken a yen to commune with God out here. It wasn't unheard-of.

Small rocks scattered from under the soles of Rick's boots. Jem
trotted ahead like he knew where he was going. Rick walked steadily
toward the soaring peaks. Cracks carved by rainwater made the rocks
look like soldiers standing at attention. He was so intent on examining the mountaintop that he almost missed the splash of red at the
base.

Jem began to bark. He leaped over a mesquite bush and began to
sniff and whine at the red object.

Rick leaped forward. Elijah had been wearing a red shirt. As he
neared, he saw the old man curled up on his side with his back to the
road as if he were sleeping. Rick reached the crumpled form and
touched the old man's shoulder.

He was cold, colder than seemed possible. And very dead.

WITH HER CHIN ON BETSY'S HAIR, ALLIE ROCKED ON THE PORCH. HER
daughter slept peacefully, unaware of the trauma unfolding. Tears ran
down Allie's cheeks, and her nose was stuffed from crying. She'd
barely known the old man, but he was her grandfather.

She and Betsy were the only ones left in her family. They were all gone parents, sister, husband, now grandfather. Clutching Betsy
tighter, she struggled to get past the profound isolation. They were
still a family, though there were only two.

"You okay?" Rick dropped onto the top step of the porch and
leaned against a post. Weary lines radiated from his eyes. He sat still
as if surrounded by a close wall that kept everyone out.

Allie wiped her eyes with a tissue. "It's my fault, Rick." She balled
up the tissue in her hand. "I shouldn't have come here. I knew someone was after me, but I thought he couldn't find me here. I put Elijah
in harm's way."

Rick straightened. "It was an accident," he said gently.

Allie shook her head. "No, no, it wasn't. The man doesn't want me
to find sanctuary here. He's cutting off any help."

As soon as she'd heard Elijah had died, she knew his death was
about her. How could it not be?

Rick stood and walked to where she sat in the rocker. "What man?
You're not making any sense."

Betsy's breathing was still deep. She wouldn't hear. Allie leaned
her head against the chair back. She should have been honest right up
front. Rick deserved to know why she was really running.

Allie ran her fingers through Betsy's soft hair and inhaled her little
girl scent. "Someone killed my parents, sabotaged their plane. That
was a year ago. I had no idea it had anything to do with me. Not at
first. Then the calls started coming." She stared into the blackness outside the circle of yellow cast by the porch light.

She could still feel the horror of the moment when she realized
her parents had died because of her. "The man said he would strip me
of everything I loved in life. That I should count each moment a gift,
because I wouldn't have many of them."

Rick's stillness shattered when he walked restlessly across the
porch. "Why didn't you tell me all this right from the beginning?
You're saying the plane crash wasn't accidental?"

She nodded. "That's what the police thought, but it wasn't."

"The guy sounds like a nut case."

"I was afraid you wouldn't help me, that the danger was too great."

"Maybe it was a prank." Rick's voice was gentle.

Allie shook her head. "The calls stopped for six months. I began to
relax, to believe they were a bad joke. My sister was murdered a
month ago. It seemed a burglary gone bad." She shuddered and
hugged herself. "Then he came to my trailer and trapped me in the
bathroom, stuck a knife between the door and the jamb. He taunted
me, saying he'd killed my sister. I knew he'd hurt Betsy. I'd planned to
bring her here anyway, so I packed my suitcase and lit out."

His glance lingered on Betsy's head. "What about Betsy? You've
never said why she doesn't talk."

She kissed the top of her sleeping daughter's head. "We were
watching the plane take off at the airport. Betsy saw the crash, the
fire. She's not talked since. It was a horrific scene." Her voice thickened. "Neither of us will ever forget it."

"I'm sorry."

He actually sounded like he was. For a Neanderthal, he was surprisingly sweet. "Thanks."

"How do you know the plane was sabotaged?"

"He claimed responsibility for it. I told the police, and they
investigated."

"Did they find any evidence?"

"They don't tell me anything"

"And your sister? He claimed to have killed her too?"

"Yes."

Rick shook his head. "I don't buy it. How do you know you're not
being stalked by some jerk who gets off on trying to scare you? Maybe
both events were just tragic accidents. And who is this guy anyway?
What's he got against you?"

"I don't know who it is! And he's not just trying to scare me. He was
sticking a knife through the door when he told me he'd killed Tammy."

He sighed and took out a knife and a small block of wood. "Okay.
But I don't see how this relates to Elijah. The guy can't know where
you are." Sitting on the porch railing, he began to whittle. "I don't
know what's going to happen to the ranch. Elijah didn't have any family." Putting the knife on his knee, he stared at her. "Elijah mentioned
that guy who wanted to buy the ranch. I wonder ..."

"What?"

He looked down at his block of wood and began to work it again.
"Maybe it wasn't an accident. Elijah would have had no reason to be
climbing that mountain. And the truck was kind of hidden, now that
I think about it."

"You just tried to tell me it was an accident." She grabbed hold of
the thought though. If only his death had nothing to do with her. If
only it really was caused by something else.

"Maybe I was wrong. With no family to inherit, the killer might have
assumed the ranch would go to someone more willing to sell."

She should tell him the truth, but she didn't want the ranch anyway. "Betsy loves that new mare," she said. "I had hopes that she'd ..."
She looked off into the darkness where the stars were beginning to
wink on.

Rick looked up at her, then back down to the wood in his hand.
"That's usually how the healing starts."

"What will happen to the horses here if the ranch is sold?"

"They'd probably go to the glue factory. Or be slaughtered for cat
food." His mouth twisted as if he'd bitten into something bitter.

All the horses that had already been mistreated. A sick knot formed
and grew. She couldn't bear to think about it. Maybe she could buy the
one they rescued. Losing the mare now would crush Betsy.