Читать книгу Journey's End - Bj James - Страница 8

Prologue

“No!”

Boot heels thudding on the bare wood floor, Ty O’Hara scowled and paced and listened.

“No,” he declared again into the telephone. “There have been guests here from early spring into early August. I can’t have any over the winter. I won’t.”

In rare impatience, he whipped his Stetson from his head, sailing it across the room. Any other time he would have been mildly pleased when he scored a bull’s-eye, with the stained and worn hat settling perfectly onto the peg by the door. Another time, but not today. Not when he had the sinking, drowning feeling he was waging a losing battle.

“I said no. N, period. O, period. A short, simple word an intelligent woman such as yourself should have no trouble comprehending.”

He stopped his pacing abruptly, his fingers raked through sweat flattened hair. “Of course I love you. Of course I trust you. Of course I know what you’re asking is exactly the sort of thing that saved you. And of course I know you wouldn’t ask unless this was of the direst importance.

“But,” he turned to face a bank of windows and the mountainous vista they offered, “the answer is still no.”

He found no pleasure in the view. None in his refusal. Sighing, he grumbled, “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

There was silence in the cabin, then, interrupting the coaxing voice whispering in his ear, he demanded, “Why? Why is it so important this Santiago comes here? With the resources Simon McKinzie has at his command, why send his walking wounded to me?”

Finding no resolution in the mountains, Ty turned his back on them. “It was your suggestion?” Closing his eyes he thought of a much loved face with a stubborn chin framed by a wealth of hair only a shade lighter than his own black mane. Of a level gaze a shade darker, descending from deep blue to navy in solemn resolve. Of a mouth that trembled in tenderhearted concern. “Because this is your friend, you promised I would help?”

He began to pace again. “No, I wouldn’t want you to break your promise. Yes, I remember our promise to each other. We are blood brothers and sisters, Val. We were born that way,” he reminded drolly. “No, I haven’t forgotten cutting our palms when you were eight and I was ten, then bleeding all over each other to make the bond stronger.”

Once he would have smiled at the memory: The five of them, descending in age by one year or two from Devlin, to Kieran, to himself, then Valentina and the youngest, Patience. Five O’Haras huddled together on a summer day, swearing secret and eternal fidelity, biting back pain, dripping O’Hara blood.

A kid’s stunt and Dev’s idea, but Tynan had decided more than once over the years that the ritual had succeeded. Why else had he always been such a soft touch for his sisters? Why now, he wondered as he went down in flames. Crashing, burning, sighing in defeat, he agreed, “All right.”

Pausing, he waited for the long distance jubilation to subside. “That’s what I said. Yes, I promise.” His brows plummeted in a deepening frown. “When? When will this Merrill Santiago come?”

Gripping the telephone, he squinted and nodded. “You were so certain I would agree, he’s already on his way?”

“She?”

His eyes blinked open, the telephone crackled under his grasp. “She! Tell me this is a joke, Val. I need for you to tell me this is a joke.”

The open phone line hummed hollowly in his ear.

“Val! No! Don’t you dare.”

With the sounding of a pleased and wicked chuckle, the line went dead. Valentina had seized her victory and signed off. Leaving her brother with a broken connection and a growing sense of dismay.

“A woman!” Ty muttered to the four walls, to the mountains, to the darkening Montana sky. “Merrill Santiago is a woman.” The receiver clattered into its cradle. “What the hell have you done? Why, Valentina?”

Brooding in the gathering of twilight, Tynan knew with dreadful certainty there was no help for his sister’s coup. No remedy for an O’Hara fait accompli.

“Caged with a wounded kitten for the winter. A female kitten! God help me. God help us both.” Teeth clenched, he scowled into the first fall of night. “Beginning with tomorrow.”