Lonestar Sanctuary (32 page)

A stunned expression dulled the brightness of her eyes. "No," she
said. "You're lying. You're afraid to love me, so you're trying to drive
me away.

"It's the truth, honey," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
"It's eaten me up all this time. It's the reason I had to help you. I owed
it to Jon."

She clapped her hands over her ears. "No, I won't listen."

He grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands down. "If we're going
to go on from here, it has to be with truth between us. I killed him,
Allie. I need you to forgive me. Can you do that?"

"That's the only reason you married me?"

Her whimper cut him to bloody shreds inside. "The only reason.
But it's not the reason I want to stay married now."

"Then why?" She held up her hand. "Wait, don't say anything. I
have to think about this. It's too much to take in." She got out of bed
and gathered her clothes from the floor. "I've got to get out of here for
a while."

He watched her walk away. Saying the words "I love you" might
have stopped her, but he still couldn't get them out past his tongue.
Maybe it was a good thing. If she couldn't forgive him, he wasn't going
to run the risk of rejection.

MOONBEAM MOYED SMOOTHLY UNDER HER. ALLIE BARELY NOTICED THE
clouds overhead, the blackness deepening as the storm approached.
Her second husband had killed her first.

Murderer.

She couldn't stop the tears. Why couldn't he have kept the truth
to himself? Dealing with it was going to be impossible. She had loved
Jon, and now she loved Rick.

Oh, how she loved him.

But he had kept this one vital piece of information to himself until she threw everything to the winds and gave herself to him. Had he
thought if he told her last night, he wouldn't get her into his bed?

Her hard laugh turned to a sob as the wind picked up pieces of
sand and flung them against her face. The stinging attack broke her
from her thoughts, and she looked up to see the towering thunderheads still building.

She had some time before it hit. The cabin where Rosa Garcia lived
was just over the hill. She could head there to escape the coming rain.
It would be an excuse to ask Rosa the questions she needed answered.

The tiny cabin looked barely bigger than an outhouse, a mere
fifteen-by-fifteen square. Flowers bloomed beside the porch, and the
rocker looked worn and well used.

Glancing at her watch, Allie saw it was barely six thirty. The old
woman might still be in bed. But before she could decide what to do,
the front door opened, and a tiny, wizened figure stepped into view.
An apron covered the dark dress that touched her boot tops, and the
woman wore her white hair coiled in a knot at the back of her neck.

"Finally, you have come for a visit." Rosa's dark eyes examined her.
"You have the look of Maria, si, and of your mother. Coffee is brewing. Come." She hooked a finger toward Allie.

Allie dismounted, tied the reins to the porch railing, and followed
the woman inside. The tiny cabin was as spotless inside as out. A bright
rug covered the worn floorboards, and three candles burned on the
fireplace mantel. Coffee boiled on a woodstove in the corner.

Rosa wrapped her hand in her apron, lifted the coffeepot from the
heat, and poured two cups. "Cream and sugar, si?"

"Yes, please." Allie accepted the coffee the woman handed her,
then went to sit on the ladder-back chair. "You sounded like you were
expecting me."

"Si. I knew you would come in your own time. You want to know
of your mother." Rosa settled at the table with Allie. "I am the only one
left who knows all the story. The rest all dead."

Rain began to patter against the metal roof over their heads. "You
were at the ranch when my mother was a child?"

Rosa nodded. "Si. From the time your madre was crawling on the
floor."

She might as well start at the beginning. "What happened to my
grandmother?"

Rosa's dark eyes softened. "Ah, Francesca was a darling girl. Elijah,
he loved her very much. I thought he would die himself when the
pneumonia took her from him. But he had your madre to care for."

"I saw some pictures of my mother growing up. She looked so happy
until she got to her teens. What happened? Who was Maria's father?"

Rosa winced. "It is an unhappy story. Elijah carried the hurt to his
grave. He blamed himself."

Wrapping her fingers around her warm cup, Allie tried to prepare herself for whatever information was coming. Thunder rumbled
overhead. She would be trapped here all morning unless Rosa hurried up.

"Elijah had a partner. Nolan Webster. Handsome as el diablo himself. His wife was Francesca's best friend. He took a special interest
in Anna, showed her rodeo tricks, took her to her first rodeo. Elijah
thought nothing of it until his daughter told him she was pregnant.
And Nolan was the father."

Allie shuddered, suddenly cold. "How old was this Nolan?"

"Forty, he was. And Anna was fifteen."

A lech. "He should have been shot," Allie said fiercely. "He could
have been prosecuted for statutory rape."

"Si. Elijah did just that, dear girl."

Allie opened her mouth and shut it again. "Did what? You don't
mean Elijah shot him?" That couldn't be what Rosa meant. Elijah was
no murderer.

Rosa's lively dark eyes narrowed. "Si. Elijah, he shot Nolan and
buried him in an old well. Anna was the only one who knew. She left
the ranch that night and never returned. It was the only way she could
cope with knowing her father was a murderer."

Allie swallowed hard. "Elijah seemed to be such a good man."

Rosa grabbed her hand with tough, sinewy fingers. "Si, he was a
very good man. But even good men have their breaking points. He
spent the rest of his life atoning for his sin. That is when he converted
the ranch to a place for hurting young people."

"And Maria?"

"Elijah had many eyes and ears. When Anna left, he found her again
a year later. By then she was beginning to make a name for herself in
the rodeo. She refused to come home. When she had no bebe with her,
Elijah found out what had happened to the little one. She was to be
adopted, but he fought and won custody and brought her home."

"My mother never objected?"

"No." Rosa shrugged her wizened shoulders. "Perhaps she never
knew. She abandoned the bebe at a church."

"How could she do that?" The action didn't compute. Her mother
had always been so caring and supportive of Allie and her sister. It just
went to show how so many people wore a mask. Like Rick. She
pushed the memory of his face away.

She took a sip of her coffee. It wasn't as bitter as her heart.

Rosa stood and went to rinse out her cup at the old hand pump. "I
do not know, mujercita. Perhaps by then, she had come to hate every thing about Nolan and the ranch, all the past memories. I am glad she
was a good madre to you. She learned from her past, as we all should."

Had Rick learned from his past? She hadn't seen him take a single
drop of liquor. But he had hidden his alcoholism from her. It would be
hard to get past that failure if she was even willing to try, and right
now, she wasn't too sure about that.

ALLIE HAD BEEN GONE AN HOUR. RICK KNEW SHE NEEDED TIME, BUT HE
couldn't hang around and watch for her or he'd go crazy. Maybe he
could see what Walker had found out about Luis Hernandez since
yesterday.

Hoping to catch him before he went to work, he drove to Walker's
house. Splashes of rain peppered the windshield, and he flipped on
his wipers. Looked like they could have a real gullet'-washer. Rick
parked behind his friend's truck and honked when he saw Walker
exiting the house.

Walker waved and walked back to stand beside Rick's open window. "I was going to call you when I got to the office, Mr. Impatience."
His easy smile came. "We did good work yesterday. The money trail
checks out. The ring raked in over five hundred thousand dollars."

"And it definitely went through Allie's account?"

Yep.

"And he killed Allie's family. Man, that took a lot of hate."

Walker's brow clouded. "Uh, actually Rick, we're not finding evidence of any murder. He was in Mexico when the plane crash happened, and then when the sister was killed, he was in Canada."

"Maybe he hired someone."

"Maybe. But if he did, there's no money trail pointing to a hit man."

"I'm sure you'll find the connection. He's good at covering his
tracks."

"Maybe." Walker glanced at his watch. "Listen, I've got to run. I'll
call you if I find out anything new."

"Thanks." Rick backed out of the driveway and turned his truck
toward home. He should get Betsy, but considering the weather, she'd
be safer with the O'Sullivans. They had a basement, and this storm
just might have a twister in it.

He mulled over what he'd found out. Luis had to be the murderer.
Rick might have to help pin this down himself. The last thing he
wanted was for the man to get off on a lighter charge and come looking for Allie again.

The clouds drew his gaze again, thunderheads building in the
southwest. As purple-black as a bruise, they towered over the landscape. They were in for a bad one. He needed to make sure Allie
wasn't out in this weather. He tried to reach her on his cell phone, but
she didn't answer. The best he could do was get home as soon as possible. If she was still out, he'd take Jem and go find her.

His cell phone rang and he flipped it open. "Bailey."

"Rick, Betsy is gone." Dolly was babbling, nearly hysterical. "The
bedroom window is open, and she's just gone."

Time froze.

Rick jammed on the brakes and pulled to the side of the road.
What should he do? Go look for Betsy or find Allie? He started to turn
the truck around. Allie would want him to find Betsy.

But for some reason he couldn't name, he veered the wheel the
other way and headed to the ranch. "Call the sheriff," he barked into
the phone. "I'm going after Allie, and we'll be there as soon as we can."

Allie was roaming on her own, but Rick had a feeling the guy would take Betsy to flaunt his power over her. He could only take the
impulse as direction from God and trust he was reading it right.

THE SPLATTERS OF RAIN CHILLED HER ARMS. ALLIE LOOKED UP INTO THE
rolling underbelly of a monster. A doozy of a storm was going to hit
any minute, more than just the rain that had eased off before she left
Rosa's. She was exposed to the vicious lightning flickering in the
clouds. A rumble followed that made Moonbeam startle. She could
sense the horse's agitation as the storm grew nearer.

She probably should have stayed at Rosa's. Her gaze swept the
landscape as she looked for a place to get her and the horse in from
the storm. There was nothing in the rock face, and the ranch was an
hour's ride behind her.

She saw something in the distance and realized it was Bluebird.
She whistled to the horse, and the mare turned toward her. Allie trotted Moonbeam over to the other mare and grabbed her halter. "What
are you doing here, girl?"

The horse snorted but didn't try to run away. Allie leaned her face
against the mare's neck and inhaled the aroma of horse. Rosa's words
came back to her.

Maybe she learned from her past.

Didn't everyone have regrets for things they'd done in the past?
She sure did. Who was she to judge Rick? She hadn't lived his life and
been faced with his hurts. Love was a choice, he'd said. He'd chosen
love early on and proven it by his actions.

She could do the same. The anger seeped out of her heart. Rick
deserved the best she could give.

"Allie!"

She turned in the saddle to see Charlie coming toward her on
horseback. She waved and waited for him. He would help her.

"Are you crazy? Coming out here in the middle of a storm," he
said, stopping his horse about five feet from her. "The lightning will
get you if the wind doesn't."

"You're out here too," she said, smiling.

"I was looking for you. Rick was worried, and so was I. He went
to town to get Betsy and asked me to try to find you. You two have a
fight?" His smile suggested he'd be glad to hear the juicy details.

"Something like that," she said shortly, irritation wiping away her
initial happiness at seeing him. "How'd Bluebird get out?"

He shrugged. "No clue."

"Any idea where we can hole up?"

"I've got the perfect spot. Follow me." Digging his heels into his
horse's belly, he led the way up the hillside and disappeared around
the curve in the trail.

Muttering under her breath that she wanted to go down, not up,
Allie followed with Bluebird. As soon as she got past the creosote bush
that stuck halfway into the path, she saw Charlie waving from the
opening to an old mine shaft.

She rode up to join him. "I don't want to go in there. Bats." She
shuddered.

"They're sleeping," he said.

A brilliant flash of light superimposed itself on her eyes. Her hair
stood on end, and the lightning crackled a hundred feet away, where
it split a piiion tree right down the center. The smell of ozone burned
her throat.

Bluebird snorted and tried to jerk away, but she hung on. Moonbeam
pranced along the wet ground too, his eyes rolling to the whites.

"Come on!" Charlie and his horse disappeared into the shaft.

The hot scent from the burning tree and the way the wind picked
up made Allie dismount and follow, leading Moonbeam and Bluebird
in with her. The cool muskiness of the mine made her instantly want
to go back outside. She hated closed-in spaces. The rough walls and
low ceiling made her chest feel tight.

"Over here, Allie," Charlie called.

He was brandishing a flashlight. The friendly beam pushed back
the edges of the darkness. Allie dropped Moonbeam's reins and sat
beside Charlie on a big rock near the ashes of an old campfire.