Lone Star Lonely (19 page)

She lowered her head. “Except, maybe, for
last night.”

She met his eyes, held them, and for just a
second the fire flared between them again. Then she looked quickly
away. Impatience nipped at Adam’s heels, but he tried to keep it
from coming through in his tone. He was angry. The thought of
Cowan, that bastard, going to Kirsten on the day she was to marry
Adam…. He wanted to kill him. “What did he say to you?”

“He said that I wasn’t going to marry you,
Adam. He said that I was going to marry him instead, that very day.
That he needed a young, pretty, trophy wife. One who could be
controlled, manipulated, counted on to keep her silence when
necessary, and capable of producing an heir, which was his main
goal. He made it sound as if it had already been decided. As if
there was no question of my refusing him. He said he’d gone over
all of his options and had chosen me. That I should thank my lucky
stars. That I was about to become Quinn’s newest millionaire.”

She lifted her head, staring up at the dark,
splintering beams that crisscrossed above. A swallow swooped and
dived, and she never even blinked. “I laughed at him. Thought he
was joking, at first. I hadn’t seen him in all that time, not since
I was fourteen years old. But then I realized he was serious, and I
asked him how he planned to make me do such a thing. Why I would
even consider marrying a man I didn’t even know, much less love—a
man old enough to be my father—when my beloved was even now waiting
at the chapel for me.”

Slowly, she lowered her head.

“And he said that if you didn’t do what he
wanted,” Adam filled in slowly, “he would turn you in for an
accident that had happened all those years earlier.” He shook his
head. “Did you really think it would be that big a deal? That you’d
go to jail over a teenage lapse in judgment?”

“Of course not. And that’s exactly what I
told him.” She turned then, and seemingly by sheer force of will,
she faced him. “And then he told me the rest.” Her knees bent just
a little, but she snapped them straight again. “The people in the
other car were not okay, Adam. Joseph told me they were at the time
just to make sure I’d go along with what he wanted. So he’d be able
to hold it over my head later. He did that, you know. Collected
things like that…things he could use to own the souls of the people
who had been unlucky enough to cross his path. Some he never used.
Some came in handy later. Years later, in my case.”

Adam blinked, staring back at her as
intensely as she was staring at him. “The people in the other
car…were hurt?”

Unblinking, chin quivering, she whispered,
“Dead. They were dead.”

Adam’s eyes slammed closed, even as he
instinctively reached for her. His hands closed on her shoulders,
offering comfort, support. “My God,” he whispered. “Oh, my
God.”

Gently she took his hands away. “Joseph said
I would go to prison if he turned me in. He’d kept the evidence.
Photos somehow taken at the scene without my knowledge. God knows I
was so shaken at the time that I wouldn’t have noticed Phillip
snapping them, anyway. The documentation of the quick repairs made
to my father’s car. His own testimony as an eyewitness.”

Adam lowered his head. So she’d chosen to
break his heart, desert him and marry a man she didn’t love just to
avoid prosecution. Hardly a noble motive. But honest, at least. He
wouldn’t have expected it of her.

“I told him to go ahead. Told him I didn’t
care if I ended up in prison, that I wouldn’t leave you standing at
the altar without a bride. I couldn’t bear to do that to you.”

Slowly, Adam’s head came up. “But you did do
that to me.”

“Yes,” she said. “I did. Because he told me
the rest of it then. He told me my relationship with you was over
anyway. That even if I refused him, I’d never have you. That you’d
hate me before that day was out, one way or another. Either because
I stood you up, or because you learned what I had done.”

“And you believed him? You believed I’d hate
you because of an accident that happened when you were barely out
of middle school?”

She held his gaze for a long moment; then her
face crumpled, and she squeezed her eyes tight. Tears worked
through anyway. “I believed him because he told me the names of the
people in the other car. The people my…my carelessness, my
recklessness, had—had—had destroyed.” Sobs came like hiccups now.
Her chest rose and fell in staccato breaths, and her words came in
broken whispers. “They were…they were….” Head down, palms to
temples, eyes tight. “Orrin and Maria Brand.”

Adam didn’t hear her. He just kept looking at
her, while the words she’d spoken took the slow path to his brain.
To his awareness. To his conscious mind. And then he interpreted
them. And every ounce of blood seemed to drain to his toes.

“My parents?” he whispered. “My parents? Oh,
my God, Kirsten, it was you? You killed my mother and father?” His
legs went out from under him. His backside slammed down onto a bale
of hay, and his head spun. He couldn’t look at her. She was rushing
on, spinning explanations.

“I never knew, Adam. I would never have kept
it from you if I’d known.”

He sat there, head in his hands, stunned and
blinking in shock, as a swirling storm of memories attacked him
from every direction.

“I never would have let Joseph cover up the
accident if I had known that people had been hurt…that people
had…had been killed.” Kirsten paced away, pushing her hands through
her hair. “But I didn’t know. Joseph…he lied. He cajoled and
convinced me that his way was for the best. I was just young enough
and naive enough to let myself be convinced. Because it was easier
that way. It was the biggest mistake I ever made. Adam. And I’ve
been regretting it ever since.”

He didn’t look up when she paused, though he
could feel her eyes on him. She came closer. He felt her. She put a
hand on his shoulder.

He flinched away from her touch, and he heard
the pained gasp that was her reaction.

“When Joseph came to me on our wedding day
and told me what I’d done…I knew he was right about one thing,
Adam. You were going to hate me either way. So my choice then
wasn’t whether or not to go through with our wedding. Because
Joseph would have seen to it that you knew, and the wedding was
never going to happen. My choice was whether to let you hate me for
standing you up at the altar, or to let you hate me for robbing you
of your parents.”

Gasping for enough air to fuel his words, he
managed, “Exactly. That was your choice. And you made the wrong
one.”

“Joseph helped me make the wrong one,” she
said. “I’m not excusing what I did. But I had to act quickly, Adam,
and I was totally in shock. Utterly devastated. Horrified at
learning I’d not only killed two people, but that they were the
parents of the man I loved. Learning only hours before what I had
thought would be the happiest moment of my life that it was never
going to happen.

“Joseph said that he knew about my father’s
health. He said that if the truth about the accident ever came out,
it would kill Daddy. Kill him. And he was right, Adam. Daddy was
already bad enough that he needed in-home care, a nurse on
call.”

“Oh, I know. I remember.” His voice was thin,
harsh. “We planned for that, don’t you remember, Kirsten? Don’t you
remember all those ridiculous dreams? We were going to buy the
biggest ranch around and turn it into a resort. A dude ranch with
mock cattle drives and camp-outs for the customers. We were going
to have plenty of room for Max. He would have been in his glory
playing cowboy in full costume. We were going to give him a role to
play in our lives, in our business. Make him feel needed, keep him
active and vital. Do you remember all that, Kirsten? All the nights
we spent talking, making plans?’’

She nodded, looking almost too tired to hold
her head up. “I remember everything.”

“You threw those plans away. Instead of
playing cowboy, Max Armstrong is living out his days in a nursing
home with a yard the size of a dog kennel without a horse or a
Stetson in sight. All because his little girl didn’t want to
confess that she was less than perfect to a father who idolized
her. Isn’t that what it really comes down to, Kirsten?”

She lifted her head, met his eyes. “Is that
what you really believe?”

He looked into Kirsten’s brown wounded eyes
and shook his head. “I don’t really know what the hell I believe
anymore.”

“Believe this,” she whispered. “This lie has
been eating me up inside for a long time now. It’s been killing me
to keep it from you. It had to come out, Adam, and no matter what
happens from here on in, I’m glad it finally did. At least…at least
you know the truth now,” she whispered.

Tears burned behind his eyes. But he knew
they wouldn’t spill over. They never had. Never. His throat went so
tight he could barely pull air through it. His lungs spasmed
painfully. “What I don’t understand is how you could have kept
something like this from me for as long as you have, Kirsten.”

“Joseph promised prison for me if I told. He
promised to let my father know exactly where I was, even to fly him
in for my trial. He swore Daddy wouldn’t last through the D.A.’s
opening statement, and I knew he was right, Adam. I had no
choice.”

He looked up, his eyes narrow. “You always
had a choice. The choice was to trust me.”

Unable to argue with that, she looked
away.

He made a sound of disgust in his throat,
yanked up his hat and slammed it down on his head. He needed to
escape. He needed to run. Now. “I’m out of here. You made this mess
on your own, Kirsten—you can just get out of it the same way. I’ve
given up enough for you. My family has given up enough for you. No
more.” He was striking back, returning pain for pain, he knew that.
It didn’t stop him from doing it anyway.

He headed for the barn door, lifted the
crosspiece, shoved it open. Sunlight spilled blindingly onto his
face, heated him through his clothes. He smelled grass, freshly
cut. And grain and cattle. He stood still, some small part of him
knowing he shouldn’t keep going. Some kernel of sanity telling him
to slow down. To digest this shock and think it through and not
just storm off this way. To pause and think first.

“It’s all right,” she said from behind him.
“I knew you’d walk away once I told you the truth. I’ve been
expecting it, Adam, and I don’t blame you. I deserve it. I deserve
worse. I ought to go to prison for murder, and I know that. If it
wasn’t for Daddy, I’d stand up like I ought to and face the music.
But for his sake, I have to wait…. I have to let him go on
believing in me…just for a little bit longer.”

“You do whatever you have to, Kirsten. I
don’t give a damn anymore.”

Even as he said it, though, he knew it was a
lie. But he stomped away, all the same. He left her alone. Walked
off in a temper just the way he’d done two years before when she’d
left him standing there in the chapel, alone. A groom without a
bride. Looking and feeling like the biggest fool in Texas. Only it
was different this time. Because this time his love for her went
deeper. It went clear to his soul this time. And it hurt ten times
more than it ever had before. He should have stayed the hell away
from her. Kirsten had never been anything but trouble to him and
his, and she never would be.

Kirsten watched him leave. He walked for a
time along the dusty, early-morning street of the tiny west Texas
town. Then he ran. As if he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.
When he rounded a corner and vanished from sight, she lowered her
head and let the tears come. She’d known what to expect. She had
always known he wouldn’t love her anymore once he knew the truth.
She had been preparing herself for this very reaction from him for
two years now. So why did it still come as such a shattering blow?
Why the hell did it hurt so much? Was there truly some stupid,
naive little girl inside her who had believed his reaction would
be…could be…any different?

What had she expected? That Adam would take
her into his arms and whisper that he forgave her? That he would
tell her it wasn’t her fault, that he didn’t hate her for what
she’d done?

That he still loved her?

“Grow up, little girl,” she whispered to
herself. Angrily she backhanded hot tears from her eyes. “Okay. So
it’s time. Time to figure out what the hell to do. Time to face the
consequences of my actions, once and for all. God knows it’s long
overdue.”

Pushing her hair into some semblance of
control, wishing to God she had a makeup kit or a hairbrush nearby,
she stepped back into the dimness of the barn and walked to the far
end, where the horses stood contentedly munching hay. As if the
whole world hadn’t just collapsed around them. As if everything was
as fine and normal as it had been before.

She saddled them both and led them outside.
She would return them to Wes…or see to it someone did. Soon. First
things first, though. She had no time to grieve, no time to mourn.
It was time to act. She had no reason to stay in Texas a moment
longer. No reason at all. She would make just one stop before she
made her way out of Quinn forever. One stop to nurture the small
hope that maybe… just maybe…a clue had turned up somewhere. One
that pointed to someone else having put that bullet between Joseph
Cowan’s eyes.

She almost wished it had been her.

She mounted Mystic, the mare she’d been
riding since she and Adam had left Sky Dancer Ranch with the
borrowed pair, and led the other horse, Layla, along beside her.
Riding around behind the barn to avoid Quinn’s main street, she
kept watch but saw little activity. She took to a trail that ran
behind most of the shops and businesses in town. She would be less
visible that way. She didn’t have far to go. Madden Hawkins’ law
office was in his home, and that was just a half mile away.