The Cowboy (38 page)

Trace and Owen both stepped in front of their mother, fearing that their father might strike her.

“I’m not going to hit her,” Blackjack said at last. “She’s nothing to me now.”

“I was never anything to you,” Trace heard his mother say from behind him. “You were always obsessed with that woman. I wish she were dead!”

Blackjack turned on Owen and demanded, “If you believe your mother arranged to have Jesse shot—and that she’s a danger to Ren—why haven’t you arrested her?”

“So long as Handy doesn’t talk, there’s no proof she’s guilty. But you heard what she just said. She belongs somewhere she can get help, Dad.”

Blackjack nodded curtly. His face looked drawn. His eyes were cold and merciless. “I’ll make certain Handy doesn’t talk,” he said at last. “I’d just as soon the world doesn’t know your mother is a murderer. As for you …” His eyes focused on his wife. “You won’t have to worry about competing with Lauren Creed anymore, Eve. I’m divorcing you.”

Summer let out a wail.

His mother’s face paled. “You’ll be sorry if you try.”

Blackjack turned to Owen and said, “I’ll see a judge in the morning to arrange to have your mother put away where she won’t be able to hurt anyone else.”

“I’ve made arrangements for someone to pick Mother up tonight,” Owen said. “That is, if you’re willing to sign the papers.”

“I’ll sign them,” Blackjack said.

“I’ll make you pay if you do this, Jackson,” his mother said. “You’ll pay more than you can bear.”

“I’ve heard enough,” Trace said, his stomach churning. “Owen, call your people and get them in here. Summer, go cry in your room.”

Summer hurried from the room, sobbing.

“Dad, sign the commitment papers and leave. Owen and I will take care of Mom.”

Two burly men appeared at the library door. Trace thought they looked like wrestlers from the WWF. One had a shaved head and a Van Dyck beard. The other had tiny eyes and a bulbous nose. They were wearing clean white uniforms, with white web belts and white nurses’ shoes.

“Mom, I’ll come and visit you,” Trace said, as they led his mother away.

“I’d rather see Clay,” she replied. “He’s the only one of you I can trust.”

His mother walked between the two men to the library door, where she calmly announced to Blackjack, “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

Trace waited for his father to leave, then closed the door behind him. He sank into one of the chairs in front of the desk. Owen sank into the other.

Trace sighed. “What a mess.”

“Mom is guilty, Trace. Don’t feel sorry for her.”

“I don’t. I feel sorry for the rest of us.” He forked his fingers through his hair in agitation. “I have no idea how I’m going to explain this to Callie. It was bad enough when she thought Dad was guilty. How can I tell her about Mom? Especially when there’s been no justice for her father’s murder.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Owen said.

“Oh, really?”

“You can tell Callie that Mom has suffered the perfect punishment for her crime.”

“What punishment?” Trace asked.

“She lost Dad.”

C
ALLIE STARED AT
E
VE
B
LACKTHORNE
’
S
painting with something akin to awe. It stood on an easel in the elegant ballroom of the Worthington Hotel in downtown Fort Worth being ogled by an upscale Western crowd that had just paid $250 a plate for a lukewarm steak dinner at the Charles Goodnight Gala.

The ceremonies were over, and Blackjack had been a humble and gracious recipient of the Charles Goodnight Award. Callie had been surprised at the pride she’d seen glowing on the faces of all his children—all except Clay, who’d pleaded a last-minute emergency and hadn’t shown up.

Unfortunately, Eve Blackthorne had suffered a mental breakdown—Callie wondered if it was related to the accusations relating to her father’s murder that had been made against Blackjack—and was recuperating in a sanitarium.

It had been hard to sit at the same table with the Blackthornes, knowing that their father was alive and celebrating life, and that he was the reason that hers was not. Callie finally understood what her father had felt whenever he met Blackjack. Finally understood what it
meant to hate someone so much that the mere sight of him tied your gut in knots and made bile rise in your throat.

But Trace had insisted she attend the gala. “You’re my wife,” he’d said. “You’re family, and you belong there.”

Impossible to think of herself as one of them—a detestable Blackthorne—but heaven help her, she was.

Callie was occasionally jostled by the crowd of attendees who ambled the borders of the ballroom, signing up to buy items in the silent auction being held to benefit the Charles Goodnight Scholarship Fund. In a few moments, the live portion of the auction was scheduled to begin.

The “live” part didn’t merely refer to the fact an auctioneer would be singing his patter. Among the items up for bid was a “live” fifteen-hundred-pound Longhorn steer with a majestic eight-foot span of horns. It had been brought up in the freight elevator and, Callie noted with amusement, had allowed itself to be led around the carpeted ballroom on a halter.

And then there was Eve Blackthorne’s painting, which she had titled “Supernatural Love.” Callie hadn’t been able to take her eyes off of it. The featureless bodies she’d seen in the stands at the Rafter S when she’d previously studied the painting had become recognizable people. Herself. Trace. Blackjack. Her father. But, oddly, not her mother.

Where her mother had stood between the two fighting men, another figure had been substituted. Eve Blackthorne had painted herself into the picture, gazing up at Blackjack with a look of adoration. Callie wondered why Mrs. Blackthorne had made the change, until she remembered
something the woman had said in her studio. “
I like to make things perfect, the way God intended them to be
.”

So she’d painted out the woman who was the source of conflict between the two men and painted herself in. Husband and wife adoring one another. The way things should be. The poor woman seemed to be as much Blackjack’s victim as everyone else who came into his realm.

Callie flinched when she felt Trace’s arm slide around her waist.

“Where did you go?” Trace said. “I missed you.”

“I’ve been studying your mother’s painting.”

“It should earn a lot of money for the scholarship fund,” Trace said.

“Have you taken a good look at it?” Callie asked.

Trace looked at the painting. “What is it I’m supposed to see?”

“The woman standing between Blackjack and my father that day was my mother, not yours.”

Trace stared at his knotted fist. “Yeah? So what?”

“She painted herself in, because she should have been the one singled out for attention by your father, not my mother. I can’t help feeling sorry for her.”

“Don’t,” Trace said. “She doesn’t deserve your pity.”

“I don’t know why not. She—”

“She’s the one who had your father shot.”

Callie’s eyes went wide with shock. “What?” she gasped.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you. I just … didn’t know how. This is not the time or the place to discuss this.”

“You can’t say something like that and not explain.”

“We’ve both got horses competing in the semifinal
round of the Open Futurity tomorrow,” he said, taking her hand and heading for the escalator. “You need your rest.”

“I’ll rest after you explain.”

“I’ll explain in the room,” Trace said.

Callie bit her tongue on the escalator going back down to the main floor. She remained silent as they got on the elevator to go up to their room in the hotel. She was having too much trouble absorbing Trace’s revelation.

Eve Blackthorne had arranged to have her father killed
. Was that why she’d had a nervous breakdown? Why hadn’t someone—Owen, in particular—said something before now, if Eve Blackthorne was the culprit? But then, the Blackthornes took care of their own. Maybe they were concealing whatever evidence existed against Mrs. Blackthorne, so she wouldn’t have to go to jail.

Callie intended to find out the truth.

The luxuriousness of the Worthington, with its fresh floral arrangements and lush carpets, reminded her that she was living in a different world now that she was one of
them
. This was a far cry from the Holiday Inn down the street from the Will Rogers Center, with its rubber-backed curtains and rattling windows overlooking the train tracks, where she had stayed in the past.

The instant the hotel room door closed behind them, she turned on Trace and demanded, “Why did she do it?”

“She was jealous of your mother.”

Callie frowned in confusion. “So she had my father killed? That makes no sense.”

“Think about it. If your father was dead, you’d very likely lose Three Oaks and your mother would leave the neighborhood,” Trace explained.

“But we’re not going to lose Three Oaks,” Callie said.

“No. Handy was mistaken about that.”

“Did your mother have a mental breakdown? Is she in a sanitarium?”

“No and yes. We put Mom where she could get some help and won’t be able to hurt anyone else.”

“Why isn’t she in jail?” Callie asked in a cold voice.

Trace sighed. “Because there isn’t any evidence against her that would hold up in court.”

“And I’m supposed to be satisfied with that excuse? Your mother should be punished.”

“Ahhh,” Trace said.

“What is it you’re not telling me?”

“My mother is being punished. Perfectly punished.”

“How?”

“My father’s divorcing her.”

“I see,” Callie said, frowning. “She wanted Blackjack all to herself. Instead, she’s lost him entirely.”

“Right.”

“I hope she suffers as much as we have at our loss,” Callie said bitterly. “Oh, my God,” She moaned. “I just realized something.”

“What’s that?”

“Once your father’s free, he’ll go after my mother.”

Trace set his black felt Stetson on a shelf in the closet and forked his fingers agitatedly through his hair. “I don’t think you have to worry too much about my father marrying your mother,”

“Why not?” Callie demanded.

“Because my mother will never give him a divorce.”

“She won’t have any choice,” Callie argued.

Trace snorted. “She can make the price too high. She
can drag things out in court until they’re all too old and gray to care.”

Callie dropped into a nearby wing chair like a puppet with its strings cut. “How awful.…” She looked up and met his eyes. “For us.”

“What happens between them has nothing to do with us,” Trace said. “We have to live our own lives.”

“What if my mother married your father? What would happen to Three Oaks then? Blackjack would get it after all!”

“You’re thinking too far into the future imagining something that may never happen. You’ve got a big day tomorrow. You’d better get some sleep.”

Callie was too agitated to sleep. She was spoiling for the fight Trace had just denied her. “I won’t let it happen, Trace. I’ll stop it somehow. Even if I am one of the goddamned Blackthornes now!”

“That’s enough,” Trace said.

For a moment, she thought he was going to reach for her, but his hands curled into fists, and he headed for the bedroom.

“I don’t think things are going to work out between us, Trace, with all that our families have done to one another.”

That stopped him. When he turned, she saw his body was coiled for action, like a rattlesnake ready to strike. “The hell they’re not!”

She didn’t move fast enough to escape. He yanked her out of the chair by her arms and pulled her up on her toes, so his hot breath fanned against her cheeks when he spoke.

“You better think long and hard before you throw me
out of your life again. Because this time, I’ll be the one who ends up with our child. You can come with me and be my wife and Eli’s mother. There’s not a damn thing stopping you.”

“You know there is!” she cried.

“What’s stopping you, other than the fact you’re stuck in a rut and too damned scared to climb out?”

Callie felt herself flushing with anger. “Someone has to protect my family from yours!”

“Your family can manage on their own. I need you, Callie.
I need you
.”

Callie’s heart hurt at the agony in his heartfelt plea.

“I can’t go with you, Trace,” she said at last. “I can’t.”

S
ugar Pep had let a cow escape back to the herd in the semifinal round and didn’t make the cut. But Smart Little Doc had stayed on the bubble, and when the scores were finally posted, Trace’s horse had made it into the final round of twenty-two competitors in the Open competition. Callie had drawn number eighteen for Smart Little Doc, and the finalists had been divided into two groups of eleven, with the cattle to be changed between groups.

The arena was filled to capacity, and Trace sat next to Callie in the row of seats directly above the thirty-nine Hereford cattle—3.5 for each of the eleven finalists in the second round of the evening—that had just been herded into the arena at the Will Rogers Memorial Complex. Trace’s nose had long since adjusted to the acrid, ammonia smell that rose from the dirt in the arena.