The Loner (34 page)

He fingered the glass, knowing how dangerous one sip of liquor could be for an alcoholic. Only, he already knew he wanted more than one drink. He wanted the oblivion to be found in the whole bottle. Because he didn’t think he could bear seeing Emma become his brother’s wife.

Sam dropped his head into his hands. He didn’t see what else he could have done. Luke might think he didn’t care now, but what would happen when he was a little older and realized what he’d given up?

God, why hadn’t Emma told him? Why had she let him make love to her—fall in love with her—if she’d known how impossible their situation was?

He took the glass in his hand, gripping it hard, but before he got it to his mouth, he was interrupted by a knock.

“Sam? Are you in there?”

He set the glass down and crossed to the door but didn’t open it. “I guess Luke told you what happened,” he said to his mother through the screen.

“He did,” she said. “May I come in?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sam said.

But like mothers everywhere, she couldn’t let well enough alone. “I think we have to talk about it,” she said.

Sam backed up as his mother opened the screen door and came inside. “I’m having a drink,” he said. “You want to join me?”

“Nothing for me right now,” she said, eyeing the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and the glass of liquor on the table. “I just want to talk.”

Sam crossed back to the table and said, “I’m listening.”

She sighed and sat across from him at the table. “I should have told all you kids the truth a long time ago. Four years ago, I had a golden chance to tell your sister Callie what I’m about to tell you, but I choked and told her a lie instead.”

“What are you talking about, Mom? You’ve completely lost me.”

“I know something about what you’re going through right now, how confused you’re feeling, and—”

“How could you possibly know what I’m feeling?” Sam said in a harsh voice.

Her eyes met his, and he almost couldn’t bear the look of sorrow he saw.

“There’s a reason why your father and I never celebrated our wedding anniversary,” she said. “The math wouldn’t have added up. I wasn’t pregnant with Callie when I married your father.” She paused, swallowed hard, and said, “I was pregnant with another child.”

Sam stared at his mother, his jaw agape. Before he could say a word, she raised a hand and cut him off. “I’ll tell you what all this has to do with you. Just let me say it in my own way.”

He saw her hand was trembling as she shoved the hair back from her face. To give her credit, she looked him in the eye as she continued her confession.

“I was already pregnant with Jesse’s child—although we weren’t married—when I met and fell in love with Jackson Blackthorne. Neither of us expected it to happen. It just happened.”

“Then Dad was right to be jealous of Blackjack,” Sam said, his stomach churning.

“Please, Sam,” his mother said. “Just listen.”

Sam sat back in his wheelchair and crossed his arms. “I’m listening.”

“Jackson asked me to marry him,” she continued. “But I refused. Not because I didn’t love him, but because I was pregnant with Jesse Creed’s baby and Jackson was a Blackthorne and I couldn’t imagine how that could ever work out.”

“How did you—What happened to the baby?” Sam blurted.

The tears welled in her eyes and he knew the answer before she spoke.

“I lost it. I had an accident and miscarried in the fourth month. But Jackson had already married Eve, and she was pregnant with Trace. It would have been impossible for us to divorce our spouses and marry each other without causing everyone pain.

“Unfortunately, I’d made the mistake of saying the wrong name at the wrong time, so your father knew I loved another man.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Sam said.

“Believe it. I wouldn’t be telling you any of this, except I see history repeating itself. You can’t let your
brother marry Emma when you love her yourself. It will make you miserable. And I promise you it will make Emma unhappy. And Luke will only resent the fact his wife loves another man.”

“Emma will learn to love Luke.”

Ren shook her head. “She’ll be Luke’s wife, but she’ll always yearn for you.”

“Like you did for him?” Sam snarled.

His mother lowered her chin to her chest, and a tear dripped onto her cheek. “Yes. As I did for Jackson.” She looked up at him, eyes glistening with pain, and said, “Don’t you see, Sam? You can’t make Emma and Luke care for one another any more than you can stop yourself from loving Emma.”

“What about Luke’s child? What happens to the baby?”

“With God’s grace it’ll be born healthy and strong, and you’ll love it and raise it as your own.”

“What happens when Luke gets a little older and realizes what he’s given up?” Sam argued.

“Luke wants to go back to school. He wants to be a lawyer. I don’t think marriage to Emma, especially with a child on the way, will fit into those plans very well.”

Sam shook his head. “That’s crazy. Luke, a lawyer? He’s spent a helluva lot more time on the other side of the law.”

“He told me he wants to be in a position to make the law work for us Creeds for a change. I’ll tell you something else, though perhaps I shouldn’t.”

Sam waited, watching his mother press her fingertips to her lips as she made up her mind whether to speak.

“Luke is in love with another woman.”

Sam nearly choked. “I don’t believe you! He’d have said something to me.”

“It’s true. He’s in love with her. But she’s in love with another man. In fact, she’s engaged to him. So you won’t be doing Emma any favors forcing her into marriage with Luke.”

“She’d be marrying the father of her child,” Sam said stubbornly.

“Have you heard a word I’ve said? You’ve got Luke believing that he owes it to Emma to marry her. And I’d be willing to bet Emma’s hurt enough and angry enough to go through with it to spite you.

“Don’t let them do it, Sam. Don’t make the same mistake I did. You can spare everyone so much pain, if you’ll only let your heart rule your head.”

They sat in silence while Sam considered his mother’s advice. He ran a finger slowly around the rim of the glass, craving a taste of the whiskey inside. His gut hurt. His throat hurt. His heart hurt.

At last he said, “I’ll think about what you’ve said.”

Ren rose and crossed to Sam and took his head in her hands and kissed his forehead. “I love you, Sam. You deserve a life filled with happiness. Don’t be too afraid—or too bullheaded—to reach out and grab for it.”

Sam let the door slam behind his mother without moving from where he sat. His chest physically ached, he missed Emma so much. It was hard to imagine Blackjack, who’d been an ogre all Sam’s life, aching like this. Hard to imagine his mother pining, as he was pining, for someone who was beyond her reach forever.

Sam didn’t want to understand. He didn’t want to forgive. He didn’t want to hurt like he was hurting. He grabbed the glass of whiskey and threw it against the wall, shattering it and leaving a trail of Jack Daniel’s on the flowered wallpaper. Before he could change his mind, he picked up the bottle and wheeled himself over to the sink and poured it down the drain.

His mother had given him a great deal of food for thought. He needed a clear, sober head to digest it.

S
UMMER WASN’T SORRY SHE’D TOLD
B
ILLY SHE
loved him. But it had definitely made things awkward between them. The subject hadn’t come up again the entire time they were hunting down a truck dealership, or during the long drive back to Bitter Creek from Houston in their shiny black Dodge Ram 4×4. She kept waiting for Billy to say the words back to her. But he never did.

Summer bit nervously at her cuticle, then forced her hand back into her lap. She just wished she knew one way or the other. Did he love her? Or didn’t he? She opened her mouth to ask and shut it again. She didn’t think she could keep on working with him if she knew for sure that he didn’t. Better not to push for an answer right now. Better to be in limbo than in hell.

“I think we should go straight to the county jail and show Blackjack the letter,” Summer said.

“I’ll drop you off,” Billy said. “You left your truck in town Thursday, so you can get back to the Castle on your own. I need to go home and check on Will and my mom. She said she’d call Emma if she needed help, but Mom tends to push herself harder than she should.”

Summer was stung that Billy didn’t want to follow through with her on her mother’s letter. It was as though he were cutting himself off from her, making it clear they were headed for different destinations.

“I’ll call you after I talk to Blackjack,” she said.

“Yeah. Sure,” he said as he stopped in front of the jail.

There was no kiss good-bye, no endearing farewell. She might have been a hitchhiker he’d picked up on the road.

Summer got out and stood at the curb as Billy drove away. She had the awful feeling that he was driving out of her life forever. Of course, that was ridiculous. But she shivered as she turned and walked into the jailhouse.

Summer wasn’t surprised to see Ren Creed sitting with her father, but she was a little annoyed. She wasn’t sure whether she ought to bring out her mother’s letter now, or wait until Ren had left.

“What did you and Billy find out?” Blackjack asked.

“Nothing that would clear you,” Summer replied. She glanced at Ren, remembered how her father had insisted on including Ren the last time they’d spoken, and said, “When we went to see Uncle Harry, he gave me a letter Momma left with him.”

“That sounds promising,” Blackjack said, reaching out and squeezing Ren’s hand.

Summer focused on her father and ignored their clutched hands. “There are clues in this letter that there’s another note somewhere. But I can’t figure them out. I was hoping they’d mean something to you.”

Summer handed the letter to her father and watched as he laid it open on the table and leaned over to share it with Ren.

“This statement about the land being my downfall seems important. But there’s not much here to tell us what she really means,” Blackjack said, shaking his head. “You’re right that she’s left something to find. Whatever it is, she’s hidden it in plain sight.”

“What do you mean?” Summer asked.

He pointed to the letter. “See here, where she says ‘Someday you may see it under your nose’? Bet you everything I’ve got her hiding place is something you see every day on the ranch, something so commonplace you’d never suspect it of being the key to the puzzle.”

“That’s no help!” Summer protested.

“Sure it is,” her father said. “You just have to go through everything in the Castle piece by piece and look for a scrap of paper in a drawer or some film negative in a photograph album or a key to a safe-deposit box hidden in an old shoe.”

“That could take forever! The grand jury is being convened Monday.”

“Then you’d better get hopping,” Blackjack said.

“I’ll come and help,” Ren offered. She must have seen Summer draw back because she added, “If you don’t mind.”

“Summer will be glad for the help,” Blackjack said.

“Yes, I will,” Summer agreed. After all, her father’s life was at stake. “I’ll call Billy and see if he can come over, too.”

Summer offered Ren a ride because she expected the other woman to say she had her own pickup, but to her surprise, Ren accepted. Summer wasn’t sure what the two of them would talk about during the drive home.
Summer couldn’t help thinking of Ren the way her mother had, as the
other woman
.

“I wanted a chance to speak privately with you,” Ren said, once Summer had her Silverado on the road.

Summer tensed and gripped the wheel tighter. “Oh?”

“I want us to be friends.”

Summer made a sound that was half snort and half guffaw. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Not in the least.”

Summer stared at Lauren Creed, appalled at the woman’s gall. It took the blare of an oncoming car horn to get her eyes back on the road.

“I can see I’ve taken you off guard,” Ren said.

“I’ll say,” Summer retorted. “You’re the enemy. Why would I want to be your friend?”

“Because I love your father. And we got married this afternoon.”

Summer swerved the pickup onto the shoulder and braked to a skidding stop, killing the engine before it died on its own. She searched for Ren’s ring finger, looking for a diamond at least the size of her mother’s. But there was no ring at all there, only a bare white space where a ring used to be.

Ren’s hands were settled calmly in her lap. “Jackson was afraid to tell you. He knows how you feel, and he doesn’t want to lose you from his life. But you see, we’ve loved each other for a very long time, and he wanted to be certain that whatever happens to him, the feud between our families will end with us.”

Summer turned the key and gunned the engine, burning rubber as she accelerated. “I’m turning around—”
She felt Ren’s hand on her arm and jerked free, nearly running the pickup off the road before she stopped again. Her chest was heaving, her stomach rolling.