Lone Star Lonely (17 page)

“I should have killed him myself,” he
whispered.

“I’d gladly have helped,” Elliot said, his
voice deep and quaking.

Kirsten shook her head. “I got myself into
this situation. There was nothing either of you could have done.
But if Joseph finally realized I’d been taking the pills all
along…it would have infuriated him.”

“Enough to do this?” Adam asked.

She looked up, ashamed. “He was a monster,
Adam. No one crossed Joseph Cowan without paying dearly. No one. He
told me that again and again. And as many times as he proved it to
me, I can’t for the life of me figure out why I still thought I
could best him.”

Adam nodded. “Then we’ve found his
motive.”

“And eliminated mine. If he was dying anyway,
then I wouldn’t have needed to kill him in order to claim the
inheritance, would I?”

“I wish it was that simple,” Adam said. “But
if you didn’t know about the illness, it’s moot. And besides, we
both know you had another reason to want him dead. The thing he
held over you, the thing he used to blackmail you into that sham of
a marriage in the first place.”

She looked away quickly. “The police don’t
know about that. And…and if we put things back the way they were,
if we’re careful, they won’t know we were ever here, either. I can
say I knew about the illness all along.”

“More lies, Kirsten? You really think you can
fix all of this with even more lies?”

She lowered her head, drew a shaky
breath.

“Dammit, Adam, let up on her,” Elliot said,
raising his voice. “I’d lie like a rug if it was me!”

“They’d only ask why she didn’t tell them
about Cowan’s illness in the first place. Why she ran. And last I
knew, assisted suicides were still illegal. And that’s what they’d
say this was. They’d still charge her with murder, even if she
could convince them it was all Cowan’s idea. Because she’s still
the one whose prints are on the weapon.”

Her body slumped. Every word Adam spoke
robbed her of more strength, until she didn’t feel she could even
get out of the chair.

“He’s right, Elliot,” she said at last. “Your
brother is right.”

“My brother is brutal.” Elliot came to the
chair and knelt in front of her. “We’re gonna get you out of this
mess, Kirsten. You hang tough, okay? Don’t give up yet. I’ll take
you to Mexico myself if it comes to that, you hear me?”

She smiled at Elliot. So strong. So much a
Brand man, through and through. “Thanks for that.” Leaning forward,
she kissed his cheek. “It means a lot, Elliot. If I’d had a brother
like you, I….” Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head
slowly.

“You do have,” he said, and he squeezed her
hand.

Adam finished with the copies, returned the
file to the drawer. “If you’re finished making kissy faces with
Kirsten, Elliot, you can take these copies. Show ‘em to Garrett and
then stash them someplace safe.”

Straightening, a little red in the face,
Elliot nodded and took the sheaf of papers Adam held out. “All
right. You two gonna be okay?” He was talking to Adam, but his eyes
were on Kirsten.

She nodded. “Thanks for the help, Elliot.
You’re a real knight in shining armor.”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “A real prince. Get your
backside home, now, Galahad, before Sir Garrett catches you out
here and tosses us both in the dungeon.”

Elliot faced his brother. Adam held out a
hand. Elliot took it. “Thanks, little brother,” Adam said. And his
eyes said he meant it.

“Holler if you need me.” Elliot let go,
tipped his hat to Kirsten and left Doc’s office.

Adam sighed, slid the file cabinet drawer
closed and faced Kirsten again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Seems like
I’m forever saying and doing the wrong thing with you. I just want
this to be over. I want this garbage and all the lies out of the
way.”

“I know.”

“I’m just trying to be realistic. Kirsten,
it’s time for you to realize that the only way out of this is for
you to tell the truth. All of it. And you can start by telling it
to me.”

His face swam because of the tears in her
eyes. “I know that, too.”

“I’ll understand. I promise, whatever you
might have done, it isn’t going to make a difference in the way I
feel about you.”

Her smile was bitter. She closed her eyes,
unable to look at the pain and the love in his any longer. “It
will,” she said. “But maybe there’s just no way around that. I have
to face it. And when I do, I’m going to lose you all over again,
Adam.”

“You won’t. God, I hate to see you hurting
like this. It’s killing me not to be able to take away that pain in
your eyes.”

“Do you really want to take this pain away
for me, Adam?”

He stared at her, a puzzled frown bending his
brows. “You know I do. I’d take it on myself if I could.” He knelt
in front of her and gathered her close in his arms. Dropping soft
kisses in her hair, he kneaded her shoulders and spoke softly. “I’d
take away every bad thing that’s ever happened to you, sweetheart.
If you’d just tell me how.”

A shuddering sob worked its way out of her,
and she nodded against his chest. “Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll tell
you how.”

Adam went still, not moving, waiting for her
to go on, she knew.

“Take me away from here, Adam. Take me
someplace…soft…and dark…and make love to me, one last time. You
were the first, and I want you to be the last. Maybe all that
happened in between will stop haunting me then. And in the morning
I’ll tell you what you want to know. And you’ll hate me, and it
will be over…for you. But I’ll have one sweet memory to hold on to.
And I’ll cherish it, no matter what else happens. I’ll be able to
face the rest, the truth, all of it, if I can just have this one
night to be with you.”

He leaned away slightly, searching her face.
“You can have as many nights with me as you want, lady. But it
won’t be like you think it’s going to be. Have a little faith in
me, Kirsty.”

“I have all the faith in the world in you,
Adam. But that’s the way it will be.”

She pressed a finger to his lips. “No. Don’t
talk about the secrets I have to tell you. Not now. Not again, not
until morning. Promise me.”

He probed her eyes for a long time. And
finally he nodded. “Okay. Okay, Kirsty. I won’t talk. I’ll show you
instead.” And then he kissed her. Long, and slow, and deep. When he
stood, he took her with him, scooping her up into his arms. And
then he carried her out of Doc’s tiny office and into the
night.

Adam carried her into the hay-scented barn at
the west side of town and up the ladder into the loft. It was dark
in there, dusty and warm. It smelled good. Fresh and clean. He
lowered her into the hay. It scratched the denim she wore and
pillowed her aching head. She could hear the horses in the barn
below them, where Adam had put them for the night. He came down
beside her, ran a hand through her hair. “Kirsty, do you know where
we are?”

Her throat tightened just a little. She
nodded, but she doubted he could see her in the darkness. All she
could see of him was the tiny gleam of light shining in his eyes.
The rest of him was just a darker shadow among shadows. “It’s the
Recknor place, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Do you remember the first time I
brought you here?”

Tears tried to choke her. She’d been
seventeen. He’d been eighteen. And they’d both been holding
themselves in check for way longer than any of their friends. Until
one day after school, when they’d sneaked into old man Recknor’s
hayloft. It was too private, too intimate, too safe, to keep them
from exploring further.

“I couldn’t see you,” Adam whispered. “Just
like now. It was so dark, I had to look at you with my hands. I had
to feel how perfect you were. How right.”

“I remember,” she whispered.

Adam pushed the denim shirt down her arms,
and his palms, hot and callused, skimmed her flesh. He ran his
hands over her T-shirt, cupping her breasts, squeezing her and
releasing his breath in a shaky sigh. “I’ve made love to you a
thousand times in the past two years,” he told her. “In my mind. In
my sleep. My pillow becomes your face.” He pushed the T-shirt up,
baring her breasts to the cool night air. Then he touched them
again, rough palms on tender crests. Shrill sensation clawed
through her. “I’d bring the sheets to my lips and imagine these
breasts. I’d touch myself and imagine your body.”

“Adam,” she whispered. “I swear I never
wanted anyone but you. Never….”

“There hasn’t been anyone but me,” he told
her. “Not in any way that matters.” He kissed and suckled her
breasts, then her throat, then her jaw and cheek. “Let the time
melt away, Kirsty. It’s been you and me all along. I think we both
know that.” He moved his hand to the zipper of her jeans and slid
it slowly down. When he slipped his hand inside, she arched against
his touch.

“I haven’t been alive without you,” he told
her, kissing her, speaking brokenly, passionately, against her
lips, against her skin. “And you haven’t, either. Neither of us has
existed without the other. So nothing that happened was real. None
of it matters. None of it exists. Just this. Just us, Kirsty. Just
this life that only lives when we’re together.”

He shoved her jeans down and moved to cover
her body with his own. She felt him there, hard and real, and she
believed everything he was saying to her. That this was all that
mattered, all that was real. That nothing in between had ever
really happened. That right now was their forever.

Adam slid inside her, and she closed her
eyes, twisted her arms tight around him and held on. She loved this
man. She could never love any other. It was him; it was only
him.

He completed her.

“I love you, Kirsty,” he whispered. “I never
stopped. I never will.”

He pushed her to the edge, then over, and
when she spiraled downward, he caught her and began carrying her up
again. He made love to her over and over again that night. And she
didn’t want it to end. She didn’t ever want it to end. Because when
it did…it would end forever.

Dread. The feeling hit him along about the
time he stirred awake and noticed the soft dawn sun beams that
poked their way through the cracks in the barn walls and painted
pale amber stripes on Kirsten’s face, in her hair and across the
fragrant hay around her. It was morning. The morning when she had
promised she would tell him her deepest secrets…and he had promised
that those secrets would make no earthly difference to him.

A cold fist closed around his belly and
squeezed. A deep burn traced the path of his sternum and spread its
wings into his chest. As he sat up, staring down at Kirsten and
wondering what the hell was happening to his logical,
strategy-prone mind, she moved closer. A soft moan in protest of
his absence, before she snuggled against him, nestled her head into
his chest. And the sensations raging through him intensified. His
heart went into meltdown, and his pulse seemed erratic and
electrified. His scalp tingled. His spine shivered. He was
alternately hot as hell and cold all over.

He’d done it, then, hadn’t he? He’d conjured
up the kind of love he hadn’t been able to feel for Kirsten before.
The kind he had always secretly known she deserved. An
all-consuming, sickening, bigger-than-life kind of love. The kind
Garrett and Chelsea had found with each other. The kind Ben and
Penny had cherished and nurtured from the time they were school
kids. The kind that had turned his hot-tempered brother Wes into a
pussycat and had turned peace-loving Lash Monroe into a tiger,
ready to take on all his lady’s big brothers, if that was what it
took to win her heart.

Adam loved Kirsten in a way he had never
realized he could love anyone. And it brought a huge shadow of
ice-cold fear over his soul. And an old pain came creeping with it.
A surge of the feelings he’d kept locked away for a long, long
time. Darkness. Heartbreak. Loss. Betrayal. Abandonment. The fear
of it happening all over again. The grim certainty that it would.
That it would always happen to him.

If he lost her, he realized slowly, it was
going to destroy him. And he couldn’t shake that ingrained belief
that he was about to do just that—lose her. He knew where the
feeling came from. You take a kid who believes with everything in
him that his parents will always be there, and you rob him of that
faith…and there is no doubt that kid will lose his faith in
everything. In everyone. In any kind of permanence. It ceases to
exist for him from that moment on. He becomes convinced that there
is no such thing as forever. That, for him, nothing good will ever
last more than a few brief moments.

Adam didn’t want to believe those things, but
he couldn’t help it any more than he could change the genetic
structure of his own DNA. It was too ingrained, too deep. Too well
learned.