Rivals (39 page)

He said nothing to me. He didn't even comment on my state of disarray. Naturally I explained away my appearance by claiming that I had been weary from the long ride into town and had lain down to rest. I'm not sure he believed that
.

Whatever he thinks or suspects, I know he has had no opportunity to speak to Kell, as Chris didn't dine with us this evening. After he had escorted me safely back to Morgan's Walk, Chris left again almost immediately—to go to one of the neighbors, he said. Kell seemed to know about it, so perhaps that truly is where he went
.

What a long, trying evening this has been for me. As usual, Kell shut himself in the library with his precious account books shortly after dinner concluded, and I have been alone with my thoughts
.

I sit here by the window of our bedroom and look at the rising moon and the first glitter of stars. Somewhere I know that Jackson sees them, too. I wonder if he thinks of me as I think of him
.

—How odd? I see a horse and rider approaching the house through the trees in the back. Who could be coming to call at such a late hour? And why doesn't he ride up the lane? It can't be Chris. He was astride his palomino when he left, and this horse looks black, as black as

The sentence was left unfinished. Curious, Flame turned the page, but it was blank—as were all the rest of the pages in the diary. She looked up and found Ben Canon watching her with speculative interest. That bright gleam in his eyes seemed to gauge her reaction, trying to determine the extent of her curiosity. She felt a ripple of irritation at the way she had been maneuvered into caring. But that was immaterial now. She had to find out the rest of it.

Yet she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how thoroughly she was hooked. With false calm, Flame closed the diary and laid it on the cherrywood table next to the plate of cold sandwiches.

Flame avoided stating the obvious, aware that Ben Canon had to know precisely where Ann Morgan's diary left off. “I assume the rider she saw was Jackson Stuart.”

“It was.” With one hand, he removed his reading glasses and slipped them inside the breast pocket of his jacket, drawing her attention to the thick booklet held open in his other hand.

“What happened then?” She studied the age-yellowed pages, fairly certain the booklet wasn't another diary yet unable to make out what it was.

Unhurried, the attorney wandered over to her chair. “I think it would be best if you learned the answer to that by reading a transcript of your great-grandfather's testimony at the trial.”

“What trial?” Frowning, she hesitantly took it from him.

“The trial of Jackson Stuart for the attempted murder of Kell Morgan.”

Inwardly she faltered at his announcement as her glance raced to the portrait above the mantelpiece. Maybe she should have expected something of the sort, but she hadn't. Attempted murder, Ben Canon had said. That meant Stuart hadn't succeeded. Had it been a deliberate attempt on Kell Morgan's life or had it been the result of an accidental confrontation? From Ann Morgan's diary, Flame assumed that she had recognized her lover and slipped out to meet him. Looking at the hard, proud man in the painting, she could easily imagine the rage, the humiliation, and the hurt he would have felt if he'd caught his beloved wife in the arms of another man. Honor would have demanded a challenge. Was that what had happened?

The answers to her questions were in the opened transcript she held. She forced her gaze away from the portrait and brought it down to the nearly hundred-year-old document in her hands.

Q. Please state your name for the record.

A. Christopher Morgan.

Q. You are the brother of the intended victim, is that correct, Mr. Morgan?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And you reside at the ranch known as Morgan's Walk along with your brother, is that correct?

A. Yes, it is.

Q. Will you please tell the court where you were on the evening of March 27th of this year?

A. In the early part of the evening, I was at a neighboring ranch—the Bitterman place. It was late when I got back to Morgan's Walk. Probably between ten and eleven o'clock.

Q. Will you describe to the court what happened when you returned to Morgan's Walk? And may I remind you that you are under oath.

A. Yes, sir. As I said, it was somewhere between ten and eleven. I'd unsaddled and turned my horse into the corral. I was on my way to the house. I noticed there were lights still burning in the library. I realized Kell—my brother—was still up working on the account books. So I came the back way to the house—through the trees. The library's located on that side of the house. I thought I'd check in with him since I hadn't talked to him all day.
I was probably a hundred and fifty feet from the house when I saw somebody prowling around outside. It was close to payday, and I knew we had more cash on hand than we usually keep at the ranch. The thought crossed my mind to raise the alarm, but I couldn't be sure there wasn't someone inside holding a gun to Kell, so I slipped closer….

With gun drawn, Chris moved through the trees, then froze against the trunk of an oak as a large patch of white floated across the ground toward the dark figure of a man: It was Ann, a dark shawl thrown over the top of her nightgown. He felt sick inside. All the fight went out of him as he lowered his gun and slumped against the tree.

A hundred times he'd told himself that he was wrong about that afternoon—that Ann was too fine and too good to get mixed up in some illicit affair. She'd been so anxious to go to town that day. There was some lace that she absolutely had to order right away, she'd said. Then when they got there, she hadn't gone to the mercantile store; she'd gone straight to the hotel “to freshen up.” When she hadn't come out an hour later, he'd gone to see what was keeping her. He wanted to get back to the ranch and over to the Bittermans'.

He hadn't been surprised to see Blackjack Stuart in the hall. The gambler had hung around Tulsa all winter. When they passed each other, Chris had caught the smell of some flowery fragrance and had smiled, guessing that Stuart had just passed a pleasant hour or two in the company of a woman.

When Ann had opened the door to him, he'd smelled the exact same perfume on her. And she'd had the disheveled look of a woman who had just stepped out of some man's arms. She said she'd been resting, but her eyes had been overly bright, her face glowing with the look of a woman who had just been thoroughly satisfied. And he'd seen what a man's whiskers could do to a woman's delicate skin.

He hadn't wanted to believe. He'd fought against it, but there she was, running into Stuart's arms. Somewhere back in the trees, a horse snorted in alarm and moved skittishly, rustling the remains of last year's fallen leaves.

Chris looked toward the house, his gaze drawn to the lights shining through the glass-paned doors to the library. Kell was there. How could he tell him about his wife? How could he possibly keep it from him? His gut felt all twisted inside, an anger clawing at his throat. He wished he'd never found out. He wished he'd never gone to that hotel room. He wished anything that would mean he didn't have to face Kell with Ann's betrayal.

Jackson Stuart heard the whisper of movement a second before his stallion snorted the alarm. In a half crouch, he whirled to face it, leveling the long muzzle of his revolver at it, then cursed his luck when he saw Ann running across the grass to him. In another minute, he would have had the angle that would have made her a widow, a very rich widow.

He lowered his gun, but didn't holster it, catching her with his free arm as she flung herself at him. “My darling, I can't believe you're here,” she whispered, pressing a hundred kisses over his neck and jaw as he drew her deeper into the shadows, keeping one eye on the library all the while. “How could you take such a risk? But I'm glad you did. I needed to see you. I've been so worried.”

But he didn't listen, wishing to hell she'd shut up so he could think how to salvage this. Yet over and over, he kept thinking that he should have known his luck had changed—he should have known last night when he lost four straight hands at blackjack. He would have lost the fifth if he hadn't palmed an ace. Then he'd nearly got caught. He'd walked away from the table, unwilling to push what was left of his luck any farther.

He should have made his move against Morgan sooner, but he'd wanted to make sure they had the ranch payroll on hand. He could have killed Morgan a dozen times from ambush, but he'd wanted to make it look like a robbery. He didn't want any suspicion thrown on him when he later married Morgan's widow.

The money was there in the library, according to Ann, locked in a cashbox Morgan kept in the bottom drawer of his big mahogany desk. And Morgan was in there, too. Dammit, he'd come so close to making it all work, he couldn't give up now. Tomorrow. He had no choice but to wait until then now that Ann had seen him. Damn her.

Suddenly he tensed, catching a movement in the library. Then Morgan appeared at the set of doors, his tall, broad frame nearly filling them. He opened one of them and stepped outside. Alerted by the scrape of his boot on the brick walk, Ann looked over her shoulder and emitted a faint, strangled cry of alarm, briefly pressing closer to Jackson. For an instant Jackson stared at the perfect target Morgan made, silhouetted by the lights from inside. His luck hadn't changed, he realized, as he raised his gun, thumbing back the hammer.

When Chris saw Kell step outside, his glance immediately raced to the embracing lovers. Not even the depth of the night's shadows could conceal the white of her gown. Sick with dread, he knew Kell was bound to notice it. Then he caught the gleam of moonlight on the barrel of a gun. Cold fear shafted through him. Kell wasn't armed. He always unbuckled his gun belt the minute he walked into the house.

“Is that you, Chris?” Kell called out, followed by a questioning, “Ann?”

Thrown into action by the sound of his brother's voice, Chris brought his gun up and yelled, “Look out, Kell! He's got a gun!”

Stuart squeezed the trigger just as the full-throated cry of warning shattered the night's stillness, the explosive report drowning out most of it. Ann's scream barely registered as his glance stayed long enough to watch Morgan go down, lost in the dark shadows close to the ground. Then Stuart swung toward that voice out of the night, blood pumping high and hot through him, a steely calm guiding his every move. Morgan's brother stepped out from a tree into the full light of the moon, his gun leveled, looking for a clear shot. Exultant at the thought that he could eliminate both Morgans, he pushed Ann from him, not wanting her endangered by a stray bullet, and simultaneously snapped off two quick shots.

He pulled back the hammer on the third and caught Morgan's gun flash. He heard its barking report as the bullet slammed into his right shoulder, the impact spinning him to the side and sending his own shot wild. There was no pain, only a hot, burning sensation. He tried to come around and bring his gun to bear on the younger Morgan again, but Ann came out of the shadows, crying his name and throwing herself at him amid the sound of more gunshots and shouts of alarm. Off-balance, he couldn't absorb the sudden weight of her against him, her momentum driving them both to the ground, the fall jarring the revolver from his hand. Swearing viciously he tried to push her off him and grope for the gun, pain knifing through his shoulder.

A boot came down hard on his wrist, pinning it to the ground. Stuart looked up—into the muzzle of a gun. A handful of half-dressed cowboys stood around him, some with suspenders drooping around their pants and others with belts and holsters buckled around their red flannels. He let his head fall back against the earth's hard pillow. His bid for Morgan's Walk was finished. He'd lost.

In a kind of dazed shock, Chris walked over to them and stared at the dark wet stain that spread slowly from the small hole in the back of Ann's white nightgown. He looked at the gun in his hand. The bullet that had made that hole had come from it. Repulsed by the cold feel of it, Chris let go of the gun, letting it fall to the ground, then crouched down next to Ann. She lay slumped and motionless—like a rag doll partially draped over the man whose life she had tried to save.

“Ann.” Tentatively he reached to touch her. “I didn't mean to. I didn't see you. Why? Why?”

“What'd he do?” one of the cowboys spoke up. “Use her as a shield?”

Chris didn't answer, letting them think what they liked and hoping his silence might protect Kell from the dishonor his wife had brought him. He started to pick her up, gently and tenderly, not wanting to hurt her, mindless that she was beyond hurt.

“Don't touch her.”

There was such hoarseness in that voice that Chris hardly recognized it as Kell's. When he looked up, his brother towered over him, his left arm hanging limply at his side, blood dripping steadily off the tips of his fingers.

“Boss, you're hurt,” someone said.

But no one took a step toward him, frozen by the look of stark, white grief that had turned his face to stone. Chris backed away from the body, his mouth and throat working convulsively as he searched for the words to tell his brother how sorry he was. But he couldn't find them and he had a feeling Kell was beyond hearing them.

He watched in a silent agony of his own as Kell sank to his knees beside his wife's body and picked her up with his one good arm, cradling her against his chest and burying his face in the dark cloud of her unbound hair. Those big shoulders heaved, racked by grief, but no sound came from him—nothing at all.

Vaguely Chris was aware that Stuart had been dragged to his feet but he paid no attention to him until one of the men asked, “What about this guy? Want us t' string him up?”

For an instant, he was tempted to give the order. For an instant, anger boiled inside him. For an instant he wanted to blame Stuart for Ann's death, reasoning that none of this would have happened if it wasn't for him. But hanging Stuart wouldn't erase the guilt he felt. He'd been the one who pulled the trigger, not Stuart. And he couldn't pretend otherwise.