Читать книгу Lone Star Redemption - Colleen Thompson - Страница 13

Chapter 3

Zach was astonished at how swiftly his mother jumped up and trotted upstairs to the landing. Showing no sign of illness, she knelt before Eden and wrapped the tiny girl in her thin arms.

“No, sweetheart. You remember,” she insisted. “Your mama’s job has her flying overseas now. That’s why she had to leave you with me.”

Zach’s gut tightened as his suspicion deepened. Was she reminding Eden of a truth—or coaching the child to stick to some story she’d come up with?

Looking frightened, the girl stared into his mother’s face. “I want to stay with you, Grandma, and Uncle Zach, too, and my pony. Please don’t make me go back there. I don’t want to leave.”

“I promise, baby, you don’t have to. Your mama signed the papers so you can stay with us forever.”

“And get my puppies, too, soon as they’re ready to leave their mommy?” Eden asked, brightening at the mention of her favorite subject.

Zach’s mother shot him an aggrieved look, since he’d been the fool who’d taken her with him to see his friend Nate, a bachelor who was even more clueless than Zach was when it came to four-year-olds. Not only had he shown Eden the litter of fluffy Australian shepherd pups in the barn, he’d encouraged her to cuddle and play with them, then pick out the one that she liked best.

When Eden, who was as crazy about animals as Ian had been at her age, had been unable to choose between a merle female and a male tricolor, Nate had joked, “Then why not take both, Eden? This week only, they’re free to pretty girls.”

Zach was still mad at the big idiot, though the two had been fast friends since high school. It wasn’t so much that Zach minded the idea of getting a dog for the ranch—especially one from Nate’s Bonnie, one of the smartest, most intuitive animals he’d ever known—but puppies were a lot of work. Besides, his mother, who had always firmly believed that animals belonged outdoors, had been quick to remind him how Eden had cried herself to sleep for days when they wouldn’t let the pony come up to bed with her at night.

When his mama didn’t answer right away, Eden said, “I already thought of the best names for them. The girl’s gonna be Sweetheart and the boy is Lionheart. Sweetheart’ll kiss me when I’m lonesome and Lionheart will chase away the scary dreams at night.”

“Those are good names.” As Zach followed Eden and his mother upstairs, he was troubled by the girl’s mention of the night terrors that had her waking up screaming several times a week. During the daylight hours, she seemed happy enough to ride sweet old Mr. Butters under his watchful eye or to curl up on his mama’s lap and listen to the same children’s books she’d once read to him and Ian. And he’d never once heard the girl ask about the mother who’d abandoned her. And she never mentioned Ian, either, or showed any interest in looking at old photos of her father.

Her alleged father, he reminded himself, realizing there was not a shred of proof other than a stranger’s word. How could he have been so gullible as to accept it at face value? Was he as addled by grief as the mother who had raised him? Or maybe it had been her improvement, the swift change from deep depression to life and purpose, that had convinced him. A man saw what he wanted to, when his heart got in the way.

Looking deeply troubled, his mother said, “You can bring home the puppies, darling. As soon as they’re big enough...”

Her voice faltered, and she suddenly dropped to her rear on the hallway’s carpeted floor.

“Mama?” he asked, taking her sagging shoulders to keep her from falling onto her side. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, my,” she managed, lifting a hand to her head. “It’s just my medication—I’m afraid it’s made me dizzy.”

He helped her to bed then, but as Eden “tucked Grandma in,” he thought he glimpsed a measure of shrewdness in his mother’s eyes, a look that more than half convinced him she was deliberately exaggerating whatever symptoms she’d been feeling.

And even more deliberately avoiding the hard questions that she knew he must ask.

* * *

Sheriff George Canter stepped down from his Trencher County SUV, wearing a khaki-colored uniform and a look of disapproval. A tall, chiseled man whose broad-brimmed hat shaded his eyes, he made a beeline for Jessie, who’d been waiting with Henry in the car outside the diner for almost an hour.

“He looks madder than McFarland,” Henry said. “Maybe we should just forget this and move on.”

Wondering how the cameraman had survived decades in their line of work without a backbone, Jessie silenced him with a look. Once she’d slipped her phone back into her pocket, she climbed out to meet what passed for law enforcement in this one-horse town.

“Sheriff Canter. Good to see you.” She barely restrained herself from adding, finally.

He studied her carefully before replying, “So you’re the little lady who felt the need to drag me halfway across the county because she got herself pushed.”

Jessie struggled to hold her temper in check.

“Where I come from,” she said tightly, “a shove is an assault.”

He snorted. “Turns out we got the memo on that all the way up here in Rusted Spur, too, Miss Layton. But at best, it’s only a Class C Misdemeanor, hardly worth the effort to write the ticket, by the time all’s said and done.”

“He knocked me to the ground, Sheriff. I thought he was going to stomp my head in with those studded boots he was wearing.” She shuddered, remembering how he’d stopped short at her scream.

“But he didn’t really hurt you, did he?” The sheriff removed his hat to push back thick, dark hair with splashes of silver at the temples. A handsome man who looked to be in his early forties, he narrowed his dark eyes.

“Not really, no, but he threatened to—”

“And where the hell were you, sir, during all this?” Canter challenged Henry, who had gotten out of the car.

Flushing fiercely, the smaller man admitted, “I was going for my phone. I’d left it in the car, you see, and— I did tell him to back off.”

The sheriff made a scoffing sound and shook his head in disgust, clearly unimpressed with the cameraman’s conduct.

“Listen, Sheriff,” Jessie said. “Danny McFarland threatened to kick my teeth down my throat next time, if I didn’t get in the car and go back to wherever it was I came from.”

“To your TV station back in Dallas,” Canter supplied, the creases in his forehead underscoring his disdain.

Fury fading, she blinked at him in surprise. Though she’d given the dispatcher her name, she hadn’t mentioned a word about where she lived or her profession. She’d been hoping to enlist his help in the search for her twin, but in her experience, small-town law enforcement often hated big-city reporters, too many of whom were quick to paint the local cops as ignorant yokels.

“You’ve been talking to Zach Rayford,” she guessed. For all she knew, the rancher and his mother were his cousins, old friends or the elected sheriff’s main campaign contributors.

Canter shook his head and smirked. “Might surprise you to know we’ve got the internet at my office. When it’s working, anyhow. Your name caught my attention, so I did a quick search. Didn’t take me twenty seconds to come across your picture on your station’s website.”

“So I’m a reporter. That doesn’t give some tattooed thug the right to knock me down and threaten my life.”

“Threaten that pretty smile, you mean,” he reminded her. “Let’s get your story straight.”

She glared, unable to believe this. “Seriously, Sheriff, what exactly is your problem with me?”

He stared at her for a long moment before shaking his head. “Well, maybe you look a little too much like your sister,” he conceded. “And maybe that just makes me want to slap a pair of cuffs on you and drag you down to my jail, out of habit.”

* * *

Eden looked up at Zach with big green eyes. “Please, can I come with you? I’ll be good, I promise. I won’t bother you a single bit.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her, though he didn’t blame her for wanting to come out with him instead of being cooped up with their long-time cook, the no-nonsense and even less fun Miss Althea, while his mama rested. But bored as Eden might be at home, he wasn’t about to take a four-year-old with him to help supervise the cowboys as they resumed the dirty, sometimes dangerous work of separating out the older calves from the herd, now that the storm was over.

For one thing, he knew the tenderhearted four-year-old would burst into tears once she figured out the mama cows were bawling for their babies. But even more, he needed time to think through this situation with his mother and their unwelcome visitor. Wishing he had never set eyes on Jessica Layton, he gently unwrapped Eden’s arms from his leg and said, “I’m going to expect an excellent report from Miss Althea.”

The broad-hipped, graying woman nodded her approval.

“I’ll let you help me make a batch of thumbprint cookies,” she told the girl, “with real raspberry jam.”

“Those were your daddy’s favorites,” Zach added, smiling at Eden. “Mine, too, for that matter, so you be sure to save me some.”

“I wanna go with you,” said Eden stubbornly, her tiny hands balling into fists. “Wanna see the cows and horses.”

Hoping to avert a full-fledged tantrum, Zach shrugged at Miss Althea. “Well, I was going to take this young lady to visit those puppies later on,” he said, “but if she’s not even willing to help you make your famous cookies...”

“I can help!” Eden exploded, jumping with excitement. “I’ll be the best helper!”

“And you won’t pester Miss Althea or your grandma by asking when I’ll be home?” he prompted.

When she crossed her heart and hoped to cry, he knelt for another hug and ruffled her silky, golden-brown hair. “Be good, now,” he said, grabbing his jacket and making his escape while he still could.

He cleared his throat the moment he was outdoors, trying to break up the lump of dread lodged firmly inside it. Anger, too, that he’d let himself be suckered. Allowed himself to believe that, against all odds, some part of his brother had survived.

He cranked the big pickup’s engine and listened to it roar to life. How stupid can you get? The Ian he knew and loved never would have kept a child secret, never would’ve failed to see to Eden’s support or named her as a beneficiary in the event of his death, either. Sure, their father would have cursed him for a fool for fathering a child out of wedlock, but like Zach, his younger brother had used the military to put distance between himself and the harshness of the old man’s judgment.

To put distance between himself and the legacy of dust and duty that was all Zach had left now.

He was pulling up to the corral when a call came through on the satellite phone he’d purchased to keep in touch with his cowboys anywhere on the ranch.

“Zach, this is Sheriff Canter,” said the caller as soon as he had answered.

Hearing the agitation in the man’s voice, Zach guessed, “That reporter stopped by your office to see you, did she? I figured she might, after we told her we hadn’t seen her sister.”

“Not exactly, she didn’t. She had a little run-in with ole Hellfire over by Tumbleweeds.”

“Danny McFarland?” Zach swore under his breath. Unwelcome visitor or not, he should’ve warned the Layton woman about tracking down and questioning Frankie’s ex-con brother. Probably, that would have only made the mule-headed reporter more eager to find and question the man, but still... “He didn’t hurt her, did he?”

An image of her pretty face, bruised and bloodied, flashed across his vision. He swallowed hard, jaw stiffening, though he couldn’t say for certain why it was any of his business.

“Nah,” said Canter, the casual contempt in his tone reminding Zach why he hadn’t liked him years before and still didn’t. “Hellfire looks big and bad, but he’s toned down his act these days, now that he’s a man of bidness. Just made her mad enough to call and insist on pressing charges. Waste of time was what I told her. Sooner she heads home and forgets about this nonsense, the better. From what your mama told me months ago, the sister skipped rent and skipped town with her lowlife boyfriend. Which suits me just fine, I can tell you. I was gettin’ mighty tired of driving out there to make sure they weren’t at each other’s throats again.”

Zach rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache of his own coming on. “So Frankie was violent with her?”

“Hell, when those two got to drinkin’, they were violent with each other. I had to put ’em both in separate cells one night to cool off after they got into a knock-down drag-out over at the Prairie Rose.”

Despite the sweetness of its name, the century-old saloon perched on the town’s outskirts was as famous for its rowdy brawls as its watered-down liquor. Zach remembered a handful of fights he’d taken part in back in the day, burning off his restless energy and frustration in the weeks before he’d left home. In fact, it had been George Canter—still a deputy at that time—who’d advised him to get your sorry ass off the ranch and out of this town before it completely ruins you.

“Hellfire was tryin’ his best to reform him, but the rest of the Prairie Rose crowd had been layin’ odds on how long it would be till Frankie finally up and killed her.”

What if he had, Zach wondered, then taken off for parts unknown? Could Jessica Layton, with those green eyes that looked so uncomfortably like Eden’s, be looking for a living sister when she should be searching for a corpse? It would certainly explain why Frankie had suddenly skipped town, and possibly why his mother had been so quick to react—or overreact—when Haley’s twin showed up asking questions.

“What I don’t understand,” Zach said as another thought struck him, “is why’re you calling me about this.” Had the reporter said something to Canter, something that might raise the sheriff’s suspicions about his mother?

His gut twisted with the thought—and with the certainty that a third loss would utterly destroy her. Especially the loss of a child as sweet and full of life as Eden.

“I’m calling to find out a little more about Jessica Layton’s visit out to your place this afternoon.”

“Mama told her on the phone that Haley had moved on,” Zach said, struggling to sound casual, “but Jessica had to come see for herself, I guess, make sure we weren’t hiding her twin under a cow pie or something.”

“I guess you know as well as anyone how these reporters are, always smelling a conspiracy,” Canter said, his pointed look reminding Zach of the incident that had cost him his wings. “And that young woman—I’m thinkin’ that she’s not finished sniffing around here yet.”

“You’re sure? You said that Hellfire knocked her down, and you warned her yourself to move along.”

“I didn’t warn her.” Canter sounded testy at the suggestion. “I just gave her a little friendly advice. But when she and that sawed-off excuse for a man she’s got with her rolled out of town, I noticed that she didn’t take the road toward Dallas. Best that I can figure, she’s headin’ straight back to your ranch.”

The hell she is, Zach decided, intent on heading her off and sending her packing before she had the chance to bother his mama again—or get a closer look at his supposed niece.