The Loner (24 page)

She wanted him to pick her up and carry her back home with him right this minute. But for his sake, she couldn’t allow that to happen. For once, she was the one making the sacrifice. She had to stay at Bitter Creek, so Billy could have back the job he needed to take care of Will and Dora and Emma.

“Good-bye, Billy,” she said. “Take care of yourself. And give Will a hug for me.”

“You can give him one yourself in a couple of days.”

Summer stepped out of the pickup and quietly closed the door behind her. She took a step back and waved at Billy.

He had trouble starting the engine, but once he did, he gunned it several times, then popped the clutch and spun the wheels as he backed the truck and headed away from her.

Summer hurried through the kitchen, responding to Maria’s offers of condolence with a brief nod, then turning away before the look of sympathy in the woman’s eyes brought her to tears again.

She hurried upstairs to her bedroom and shut the door behind her. She looked around her and realized she’d left all of this far behind her when she’d married Billy.

The scents of expensive perfume on her dressing table, which permeated the room, made her feel nauseous. She raked them all into a drawer and closed it. The stuffed animals on her bed seemed childish, and she brushed them all to the floor, then threw herself onto the bed and stuffed a pillow against her mouth and howled in pain.

The day had been a disaster.

Her mother was dead. Her marriage was over. She hadn’t realized until she’d said good-bye to Billy just how much she wanted a life with him. She hadn’t realized until she’d said good-bye to him just how much she loved him.

Summer sat bolt upright in bed.

I don’t just like Billy Coburn as a friend. I love him. I’m deeply, hopelessly in love with him
.

She grabbed the pillow again and stuffed it against her mouth to stifle the wail of misery that erupted. She loved Billy, and because she did, she had to stay away from him. Billy needed his job with the TSCRA. If she insisted on being his wife, her father would punish him by taking away his livelihood again.

There seemed to be no solution to her dilemma.

And no time to think about it over the next few days. Summer lay down the pillow and scrubbed at the tears on her face. There was work to be done. The house needed to be prepared for the arrival of her brothers, and for her mother’s family, the DeWitts, who would be coming as well.

There would be time once her mother had been grieved and buried to think about her own problems.

And it was going to take quite a bit of thinking—and ingenuity—to figure out a way to convince her father that she belonged with Bad Billy Coburn.

E
VE
B
LACKTHORNE’S FUNERAL WAS DELAYED IN
order to complete the autopsy required by the accidental nature of her death. The coroner’s examination revealed that Eve had died of a heart attack. The attack had been precipitated by an excess of a heart medication in her system which no doctor she was currently seeing had prescribed for her. However, Jackson Blackthorne did have a prescription for the medication, and in fact, a half-empty bottle of it was found in the medicine cabinet in his bedroom.

Preliminary tests of the coffee remaining in the thermos on board the helicopter, which several cowboys told the sheriff they’d seen Blackjack hand to his wife as she strapped herself in, showed it possessed lethal amounts of Blackjack’s heart medication.

The sheriff himself had been a witness to the scene the night before Eve Blackthorne’s death during which Jackson Blackthorne said he should have gotten rid of his wife a long time ago.

The investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board had discovered that the main hydraulic line had
been severed, and that the loss of hydraulic fluid had brought the helicopter down.

The sheriff had searched Blackjack’s tool kit—with his willing permission—and found a serrated hunting knife with traces of hydraulic fluid still on the blade.

The homemade bomb under the seat possessed a simple timing mechanism—a watch that Owen remembered his father giving to his mother for their anniversary several years before. It had stopped working and she’d given it to Blackjack to send back to the manufacturer for repair.

Obviously, it still wasn’t working right. It had failed to detonate the homemade bomb that had been put there allegedly to destroy all evidence of Eve Blackthorne’s murder.

“Everyone thinks I did it,” Blackjack said, as he paced the length of Ren’s bedroom from one wall to the other. “Do they really think that if I wanted my wife dead I’d be stupid enough to leave so many clues pointing right back at me?”

“Are you going to be arrested?” Ren asked.

Blackjack couldn’t look her in the face. Her eyes were too frightened. “If I had to guess, the sheriff will serve his warrant at the funeral.”

“Will they keep you in jail until the trial?”

“I’m a solid, law-abiding citizen with roots in the community—and the judge is a friend of mine. I’m sure I can make bail. That isn’t going to help much if I can’t figure out who hates me enough to kill my wife and frame me for it.”

“She did it.”

“What?”

“Eve did it,” Ren said, her eyes huge and liquid with sorrow. “To keep us apart.”

He crossed and sat beside her on the bed and lifted her into his lap. “No, sweetheart. She didn’t want us together, but she was too selfish to kill herself.”

Ren shook her head. “You underestimate her. She was full of hate and envy. Think about it. Who else had access to all those things? She was the only one in a position to make it look like you murdered her.”

Blackjack frowned. “It doesn’t make sense. What does she gain?”

“I told you. She keeps us apart. You might have forgotten, but I haven’t. She arranged a death once before to separate us, but it didn’t work. This time she’s planned more carefully.”

“Damn her to hell,” Blackjack said.

“I’m sure she’s there now, laughing at the two of us,” Ren said.

“If she did do it, she didn’t do it alone,” Blackjack said thoughtfully.

“What makes you say that?”

“She’d need help with the bomb, for one thing. And figuring out where to cut the hydraulic line and maybe even how much medication to dose herself with.”

“Who would she know with that sort of knowledge, who’d also be willing to help her?” Ren asked.

“Damned if I know,” Blackjack said. “But I sure as hell intend to find out.”

“When’s the funeral? I mean, will you have time to find out before you’re arrested?”

“Hell, the funeral’s tomorrow.”

“Can’t you explain all this to the sheriff?” Ren said.

Blackjack sighed. “He’d probably point out that I could just as easily have aimed all the evidence at myself with the intention of arguing that nobody as smart as I am would make so many dumb mistakes. No, I’ve got to find the bastard who helped Eve make all this happen.”

Ren shivered and said, “Hold me.”

“I am holding you.”

“Lie down with me,” she amended. “Make love to me.”

She didn’t have to ask him twice. Blackjack lay her down, but refused to let her undress him. “I want to take my time, love.”

He’d missed all the hours of necking when they were teenagers, the eager anticipation of the sexual act with the woman he loved. Missed the teenage anxiety of not knowing when or if he’d ever feel the silky texture of her skin. Of wondering whether her nipples would be pink or dusky brown.

In one insane moment on a sunny afternoon, he’d become her fantasy lover. The experience had been something he’d never forgotten, and the spiritual bond they’d forged that long-ago afternoon had been strong enough to tie them together for a lifetime. But he’d never had the opportunity to sip at the fount. He’d swallowed everything whole without fully tasting.

Now he feared he would never have the chance to love her at his leisure.

He kissed her sweetly, as though they were newly met, as though kissing was all they could do. He deepened his
kisses and reached for her breast tentatively, as though he’d never touched her before, as though he expected her to be innocently shy. And in fact, she tensed for a moment at the first hesitant brush of his knuckles against her clothing.

He reached beneath her shirt to unhook her bra, not nearly so clumsy as he’d been as a youth. Petting brought heated bodies and panting breaths. He kept his hands above her waist, as though that was all he was allowed.

Blackjack backed off to let the wanting grow. He kissed Ren’s mouth, letting his tongue taste her, plumping her lips with his, nibbling gently on her lower lip. He tongued the frenulum behind her upper lip, then tested the sharpness of her teeth. Suddenly, he thrust deep, in an imitation of the sex act.

Ren moaned and her body arched toward his.

He held tight to her waist, keeping them separated, imagining them as young and innocent lovers, without any knowledge of what it meant to go all the way. Except it was impossible not to know, when they were both experienced adults.

He hadn’t been nearly so patient as a young man. He hadn’t appreciated the finer points of necking and petting. His aim had been to achieve the ultimate pleasure as quickly as possible and repeat it as often as he could. Now he knew how to savor a fine wine… and a fine woman.

“I love you, Jackson,” Ren said, her kisses increasing in fervor.

“I love you, too,” he said, keeping his kisses slow and easy, refusing to be rushed. “I want you to leave Three
Oaks and come live with me at the Castle,” he murmured.

She leaned back and stared at him, her eyes troubled.

He pulled her close again and kissed away the wrinkles in her brow. “Not right away,” he said. “But soon. As soon as you can.”

“What am I supposed to do about Three Oaks?”

“I thought you told me Sam could manage it on his own.”

“He can.”

“So give it to him,” Blackjack said.

She broke away from their embrace and sat up. “I don’t want to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because then this damned feud will go on for another generation.”

“I don’t want your land, Ren,” he said, caressing her cheek with his thumb. “I want you.”

“I know that,” she said, brushing aside his hand. “But you can’t have me without the land.”

He smiled ruefully. “What is Sam going to say about that?”

“The land isn’t his, it’s mine, to do with as I please. It seems to me the best thing to do is merge Three Oaks and Bitter Creek. Once the two spreads are united, there won’t be an excuse for our families to fight anymore.”

“Some folks don’t need an excuse,” Blackjack said. “I figure Sam is one of those. How’s he going to take all this change?”

“He won’t like it, but he’ll get used to it. He can handle the cutting horse end of the business. Sam’s got a good eye for a fast horse with a quick stop.”

“You think he’d be willing to work for me?” Blackjack asked, lying back and crossing his arms behind his head.

“What choice will he have?”

Blackjack grimaced. “He could leave. Have you considered that possibility?”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take for the chance to end this feud.”

“All right, then,” he said. “Once I get myself cleared of murder charges, we’ll work it out so that when we get married, Three Oaks will become a part of Bitter Creek, and all our kids will inherit equally.”

She snuggled back down against him, waiting until his arms enfolded her again before she spoke. “I like the sound of that,” she said. “Our kids. What about Summer… and Billy? Shouldn’t they both be included, especially now that they’re married?”

“I’m not convinced their marriage is going to last,” Blackjack said.

“Why not?” Ren asked. “I believe they genuinely care for each other.”

Blackjack thought of the deal he’d made with Summer to come home in exchange for giving Billy back his job. “I don’t want to encourage it,” he said.

“It seems to me you owe that boy more than you’ve given him. Considering everything, he’s turned out to be a pretty decent man.”

“He’s not good enough for Summer,” he said.

“Not good enough? Or not rich enough?”

“Is it wrong to want more for her?”

“A good man is worth a great deal,” she said, leaning over to kiss his mouth.

“I think you may be right about her loving him,” Blackjack admitted reluctantly. “She agreed to come home if I’d get him his job back.”

“Think of all the trials that boy has suffered and still managed to triumph. That’s your blood in him.”

“He did have quite a reputation with the TSCRA. His boss had twenty fits when I said I wanted him fired. Told me I was a jackass for depriving the Association of someone as talented and whip smart and steadfast as Billy Coburn. Not a ‘bad’ word about him,” Blackjack admitted.

“He’s a fighter, Jackson. You’ll never put that boy down for long.”

“I don’t want to put him down. I just want him to leave Summer alone.”

“Why not help the two of them, instead of standing in their way?” Ren said.

“That boy would as soon spit in my eye as take any help from me,” Blackjack said.