Son of a Gun (5 page)

“Where are you from originally?”

“Nashville,” she said, this time answering truthfully. She hadn’t lived there since…since the last major upheaval in her life.

The smell of burning wood grew stronger. She hadn’t imagined it earlier. A few minutes later, she caught her first glimpse of smoke rising from three chimneys that accentuated the steep lines of a multi-gabled roof.

The house was two-storied and sprawled out in several directions, as if it had stretched over the open land like creeping phlox.

“Who owns the ranch?” she asked as they drew nearer.

“The Lamberts.”

He surely wasn’t a Lambert, not wearing the tattered leather jacket he’d lent her. More likely he was just a working cowboy. “Where do you live?”

“You’re looking at it.”

That surprised her. “Do you and your wife have children?”

“Nope. No children. No wife, either.”

“So, how many people live in the house?”

“Six when we’re all present and accounted for.”

“That sounds like a houseful.”

“Always room for one more.”

“I won’t be staying,” she said quickly. “I’ll get out of your hair as soon as I can get a ride to the nearest motel. Any will do.”

“You’re nowhere near a motel, and you’d be hard-pressed to find transportation into town tonight. Even if you could, I wouldn’t recommend it. You might end up worse than merely in a ditch. Besides, there’s plenty of room here.”

As they approached the house, she was even more awed by its sheer size. But that wasn’t all it had going for it.

A large glass-enclosed porch extended across part of the back of the house. The lamps were turned on and their soft glow fell across sofas, rockers, hooked rugs, potted plants and baskets in all shapes and sizes. A round table in the middle of the room held a huge winter arrangement of greenery, berries and cones.

To the left of that was a covered entryway that led into the house, and to the left of that were wide, uncovered windows that opened into a massive kitchen filled with people. Evidently, they were enjoying a late dinner.

Damien stopped at the base of a winter-bare oak near the back of the house. He took the reins and looped them over a low branch, securing the horse before reaching to help Emma dismount.

Anxiety swelled inside her. There would surely be questions. They’d know she was lying. They might just call the sheriff and have him come pick her up. All it would take was a fingerprint check and then there would be no hiding from the glare of the media.

Woman Kidnapped While Vacationing in the Caribbean Islands Escapes, the headline would read.

No one escaped Caudillo and lived to tell about it.

Damien’s touch was firm but gentle. “Relax,” he said, obviously sensing her nervousness. “The Lamberts can be a cantankerous bunch, but they don’t bite. You’re safe.”

Safe. Even the sound of the word made her breath catch. But the safety Damien or the Lamberts could provide was only temporary, little more than an illusion.

* * *

SURPRISINGLY, THE ANXIETY eased the second Emma stepped into the kitchen. The warmth, the odors, the easy chatter and laughter among the people gathered around the scarred oak farmhouse table was the total opposite of what she’d lived with for much of the past year.

“We have company,” Damien said, interrupting chatter that was so noisy no one had heard them come in through the mudroom and walk to the kitchen door.

Heads raised and immediately all pairs of eyes focused on Emma and Belle. Belle began to wiggle and fuss, sputtering cries that were likely the prelude to full-fledged bawling.

The two men pushed back from the table and stood in true Texas cowboy gentleman fashion. An attractive middle-age woman at the head of the table looked up. Her piercing gaze met with Emma’s, and Emma’s whisper of reprieve took a nosedive.

This was not a woman who’d be a pushover for Emma’s lies. Nor would she welcome trouble into the midst of her family.

“This is Emma Smith,” Damien said. “She drove up from Victoria to visit her aunt. Somehow she took a wrong turn and ended up on the logging road that runs parallel to Beaver Creek.”

“What were you driving, a tank?” one of the men questioned. “The holes in that road would swallow a normal vehicle.”

“Apparently one of them did,” Damien explained. “The car is now likely sinking like quicksand.”

Emma breathed easier. The explanation sounded far more feasible coming from Damien. She’d always been a rotten liar.

“Thankfully, I wandered into your pasture hoping to find help, and Damien came along,” Emma said.

The woman who’d eyed her warily at first smiled as she stood and walked toward Emma. “We wondered where Damien had gotten off to. But when Tague checked and found his horse missing from the barn, we figured he’d gone out for one last check on the cattle.”

“Lucky for me and Belle that he did.”

“I’m Carolina Lambert, Damien’s mother.”

So he wasn’t a simple cowboy. He was a Lambert. Obviously wealthy and likely powerful, yet he’d easily passed for your everyday wrangler. Already she loved Texas.

Carolina stood, walked over and leaned in for a closer look at the squirming infant, whose face was turning redder by the second.

“Oh, poor little sweetheart. You must be cold. We’ll take care of that.” Carolina looked up. “She’s adorable.”

“Thank you.”

Damien made quick introductions of the rest of the people at the table as Belle tuned up. The two men were his brothers, Durk and Tague. Both were tanned and muscular and shared Damien’s good looks. Tague sported a ready smile. Durk eyed her suspiciously, his handshake firm.

Damien’s grandma Pearl was silver-haired, petite and wrinkled but with a mischievous sparkle in her violet eyes. His aunt Sybil looked to be in her sixties. She wore heavy makeup and her neck and wrists were weighted down with chunky silver and turquoise jewelry. A black wig topped her head like a hat. Emma hoped hers was not nearly so conspicuous.

“You’re the best-looking stray Damien’s ever come home with,” Tague said. “Of course, your closest competition was a mangy yellow dog with a bad drool.”

“Glad I beat that out.” She managed a smile.

“Have a seat,” Grandma Pearl said. “You need some soup to warm you up. A little sherry wouldn’t hurt, either.”

“Mother thinks sherry is the cure for everything,” Sybil said. “I’ll get you some soup.”

“Maybe we should give Emma a chance to catch her breath and warm up before we start pushing food on her,” Carolina said.

Belle began to wail.

“Why don’t you let me take her for you,” Carolina said. “You must be exhausted.”

“She’s hungry,” Emma said. “I really need to feed her.”

“Of course. And I’m sure you’d appreciate some privacy,” Carolina said. “Come with me to the family room. There’s a rocker near the fireplace.”

Emma took a deep breath, preparing herself for the next lie. Nothing about this was going to be easy, but it was still a million times better than freezing to death or being violated by Julio.

“I know how irresponsible this sounds, but I was so upset when I walked away from the truck that I left Belle’s bottles of formula behind.”

Durk’s eyebrows arched. “I thought you said you were driving a car.”

“It’s an SUV,” she said, as if that explained it. “Anyway, it’s imperative that I go into town and get bottles and formula for her.”

“No use to go into town for that,” Carolina said. “My neighbor Karen has a son about the same size as your Belle. She’s over frequently since we’re both on the library committee and planning a new extension. I keep bottles and formula here for her. Disposable diapers, as well.”

“She uses Similac,” Sybil said. “What kind of formula do you use with Belle?”

“Similac.”

“Now, that’s luck,” Sybil said.

Grandma Pearl clicked her tongue against her false teeth. “Luck has nothing to do with it. The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

“Indeed he does,” Carolina agreed.

“I’ll go stoke the fire,” Tague said.

Carolina walked over to the counter. “I’ll get a bottle ready.”

“I don’t want to interrupt your dinner,” Emma said. “Just point me to the formula and I’ll take care of feeding Belle.”

“Nonsense,” Carolina said. “I’ve finished my soup. And dessert and coffee can wait until you’re ready to join us. I’ll get the bottle. You just take Belle to the fire so the both of you can get warm.”

“Thanks so much,” Emma said. “And thankfully we’re warmer already. My teeth have totally stopped chattering.”

“Did you say you have false teeth?” Pearl asked.

“No,” Emma said. “My real ones were chattering from the cold.”

“Mother, are you wearing your hearing aids?” Sybil asked.

Pearl smiled. “I might have left them on my dressing table.”

“Do I just follow the directions on the can of formula?” Carolina asked.

“Yes. And you can’t imagine how I appreciate this.”

Unexpected tears began to well at the back of her eyes. Simple acts of kindness and words of faith had become foreign to her. Now they were warming her heart and making her feel guilty at the same time.

Grandma Pearl left the table and joined them at the counter. “Don’t you think you should call your aunt?”

“I will once I’ve fed Belle. She’s not actually expecting me until tomorrow, but when the weather forecast said snow in Dallas tonight, I decided to come up a day early. I’d planned to make it before dark, but the Friday afternoon traffic was much worse than I’d expected.”

“Is that blood on your arm?” Sybil asked.

Emma had tried to position the rebozo so that no one would notice the blood, but there was no hiding the fact now.

“I scratched my arm while climbing through the fence,” she said. “I’m sure it’s nothing to be concerned about.”

“It looks like you lost a lot of blood to me,” Sybil said. “You better let someone take a look at it.”

“It’s okay, really.”

“It needs to be checked,” Damien said, the authority in his voice leaving little room for argument.

“Okay,” she agreed. “As soon as I finish feeding Belle.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t wait that long,” Carolina said. “You may still be losing blood. Sybil and I can handle feeding Belle or at least get started at it while Damien checks your injury. There’s a fully stocked first-aid kit in the hall bathroom.”

“Tague, how about taking care of King for me?” Damien asked. “I left her just outside the back door.”

“No problem. I’ll tuck her in for the night.”

Reluctantly, Emma unwound Belle from the folds of cloth so that she could hand the baby to Carolina. Placing Belle in Carolina’s hands made her uneasy, though Carolina surely knew more about tending to a baby’s needs than Emma did.

What she knew about babies could be composed in a tweet.

A tweet. It had been months since she’d even thought about that social form of communication. Caudillo had made sure she hadn’t had access to the internet, a phone or anything else that could have connected her to the outside world.

He, on the other hand, came and went freely on his yacht and small plane as if he were your ordinary multibillionaire CEO.

When Emma looked up, her nerves tightened to coiled steel. The look in Damien’s eyes said he had more on his mind than first aid.

He hadn’t given her away, but he was not fooled by her performance. She’d be lucky if he didn’t call the sheriff and have her picked up before he bandaged her arm.