The Loner (5 page)

Summer glanced at her mother, who seemed to deflate like a balloon. She’d never been close to her mother, hadn’t hugged her in recent memory. Yet her mother seemed truly devastated by Blackjack’s defection.

She took a step forward and said, “Momma?”

The virulent look in her mother’s eyes stopped her in place. “This is all your fault.”

“What?”

“Listening at closed doors. Telling secrets you aren’t supposed to know, that you wouldn’t know if you weren’t spying on your parents.”

Summer felt the words like a whiplash.

“I hope you’re proud of yourself, Missy,” her mother said. “Breaking up your parents’ marriage.”

“That’s not fair!” Summer said. “I couldn’t help hearing what I did. You were yelling and screaming and—”

“You didn’t have to tell him the truth. You didn’t have to tell him you know.”

“I didn’t tell him, Billy did!” The instant the words were out, Summer knew she never should have uttered them.

“That damned bastard son of his! I should have known. Bad seed, both of you.”

Summer was appalled at the words coming out of her mother’s mouth. “I am not—”

The smirk on her mother’s face shut her up. Because the truth was, her real father was a convicted murderer. Oh, God. She couldn’t stand this. She understood exactly how her father felt. She wanted to leave this place and never come back.

Except Bitter Creek was all she’d ever wanted. Now it seemed the ranch would be gone, sold away to strangers. And what would happen to her? “Please, Momma, couldn’t you let Daddy have the ranch?”

“All that will be left of this empire of his when I’m done is little bitty pieces.” She paused, her eyes narrowing, before she added, “Unless you’d be willing to marry Geoffrey after all.”

“What?”

“I don’t wish to call the governor of Texas and tell him my daughter’s wedding has been canceled. Not to mention the other dignitaries I’ve invited, and the time and trouble I’ve been through to make this the social event of the season. I know you want Bitter Creek. So tit for tat. You marry Geoffrey, and I might be willing to give Bitter Creek to the two of you as a wedding present.”

“How is that possible?” Summer said.

“You heard your father. He doesn’t want this place. And I don’t intend to let him keep it if he tries to divorce
me. The choice is up to you. I can cut Bitter Creek up into pieces and get rid of it, or I can make it a wedding gift to the two of you.”

Summer’s heart was pounding so hard it hurt. “But I don’t love Geoffrey.”
And he doesn’t love me enough to fight for me
.

“Think about it,” she said. “You have until tomorrow morning.”

“Momma, please—”

“Don’t cry, Summer. Babies cry. I find it irritating in the extreme.”

Summer swiped at her eyes with both hands, but when the tears were finally gone, so was her mother. All Summer saw was the hem of her peignoir, floating up the stairs.

“This can’t be happening,” Summer said as she turned and walked back to the wing chair in front of the fire. She sank into it and stared into the flames. “This just can’t be happening.”

But it was. And she had until morning to make up her mind what to do.

W
E’RE ALMOST THERE
, W
ILL
,” B
ILLY SAID IN A
soothing voice. “One more mile. A couple more minutes. Then I’ll get you out of that car seat and get you dry and into bed.”

The truck had dropped into a deep pothole in the dirt road that led from the highway to the Coburn ranch house, and the portable crib, stroller, and high chair which Billy had thrown into the back of the pickup when he’d packed so hurriedly had ricocheted noisily around the metal truck bed. At the crash of metal on metal, Will had woken with a cry of alarm and, when he realized he was still strapped into the car seat, began wailing miserably.

Billy had offered his fifteen-month-old son the warm bottle of milk, and Will had sucked it down like a starving calf. But the bottle was empty now, and Will was struggling against the car seat restraints, protesting his confinement with all his might and begging to be let out.

“Out, Daddy.”

Billy felt his gut tighten. He hated the sound of his child in distress. But it made no sense to stop when he was so close to home.

“Just a little longer, Will,” he said, brushing his hand across Will’s baby curls. “You’ve been such a good boy. We’ll be home soon.”

“Out, Daddy. Out,” Will cried woefully. And then, more angrily, “Out out out!”

Billy couldn’t blame his son for being cranky. He felt the same way himself. Especially after his idiotic behavior in the parking lot of the Armadillo Bar.

He had thought he’d grown up since he’d left Bitter Creek. All it had taken was fifteen minutes with the people he’d known all his life, and he’d reverted to being Bad Billy Coburn.

Given a choice, Billy never would have come back to Bitter Creek. But he hadn’t been given much choice. His nineteen-year-old sister Emma had called him last night in hysterics.

“Mama’s dying, Billy!” she’d cried. “You have to come home.”

“You said she has cancer, Emma,” he’d replied, the calm voice of reason. “That takes years—”

“She’s had it for years, Billy. They just found it. I tell you she’s dying! I don’t know what to do. I can’t take care of her and the ranch and… everything. Come home, Billy. Please, come home.”

He’d hung up and called his boss at the TSCRA and told him he needed some time off. He hadn’t offered any explanation. His personal life was his own business.

“What about that case you’re working on?” his boss had asked.

Billy was investigating what appeared to be a conspiracy among a group of ranchers who were stealing their own cattle, selling them in Mexico, and then collecting
insurance for the loss. “The case’ll have to wait,” he’d said. “I won’t be gone more than a week.”

His trip was going to be even shorter than that, if he knuckled under to Blackjack’s ultimatum.

Twenty-four hours
.

It wasn’t going to be nearly enough. Not to settle things with his mother and Emma and arrange to put the C-Bar up for sale. Maybe he ought to swallow his pride and explain the situation to Blackjack. Surely the man would back off.

Billy grunted deep in his throat. Jackson Blackthorne wasn’t known for showing mercy. The instant he smelled blood, he’d go for the jugular. Better not to say anything just yet. Maybe the picture wasn’t as bad as Emma had painted it.

His heart began to pound the way it always had in the past—with fear and anxiety—when he caught sight of the ramshackle wooden ranch house where he’d grown up, silhouetted in the light from the naked bulb that lit the front porch.

Home
.

The good memories he had of the place were few and far between. It would have been difficult to return in any event, but he’d brought a little extra baggage… a son his mother and sister knew nothing about. He wondered—worried—what they would say. Maybe he should’ve told them sooner about Will, but he’d been afraid his mother might try and convince him to give Will up, and he didn’t want his impressionable—and adoring—teenage sister to know that he’d fathered an illegitimate child.

He drove around to the back door and parked, surprised to see the kitchen light on at this hour of the night.
It was nearly 3:00 a.m. He swore under his breath. He’d given up swearing out loud, so Will wouldn’t pick up any bad habits. He’d hoped to get Will in a better mood before he had to introduce him to his family.

“We’re home, Will,” he said, as he turned to unbuckle the harness that had kept his son secured.

Will clambered toward him as Billy lifted his child into his arms. From the weight of the plastic diaper, it had been soaked several times. “I’m sorry, son,” he muttered. “I’ll get you dry as quick as I can.”

Will stopped crying and snuggled against Billy’s shoulder, his nose tucked against Billy’s throat, his arms clasped around Billy’s neck, his knees dug into Billy’s chest. It always amazed him that his child trusted him so completely. He never wanted to lose that trust, never wanted his son to feel betrayed by him the way he’d felt betrayed by his stepfather.

Billy grabbed the diaper bag, which he’d learned never to be without, and headed for the kitchen door. He was careful to avoid the broken step as he hopped onto the covered back porch. To his surprise, the back porch light came on and the screen door screeched open.

“Billy? Is that you?”

“Yeah, Emma. It’s me.”

He was still blinded by the porch light, so he couldn’t see more than her shadow before he stepped inside. He stuck his boot out to keep the screen door from slamming, then turned to greet his sister.

When he got a look at her, his jaw dropped.

Emma was six feet tall in her bare feet and slender as a reed—except where her sleeveless white cotton nightgown visibly bulged over her rounded belly.

“You’re pregnant!”

She laid a protective hand over the child in her womb, pointed her chin at Will, and countered, “Whose baby is that?”

“You never mentioned you’d gotten married,” he said.

“I’m not,” she replied, meeting his gaze defiantly. “Is your wife with you?” She looked over his shoulder toward the door. “Is she coming in?”

“I’m not married, either,” Billy said. Will was still clasped against him tighter than a leech, so it was pretty obvious they were together. “Will is my son.”

“What happened to his mother?”

“We can talk about that later,” Billy said. “I have to get Will dry and into bed.”

“Where were you planning for him to sleep?” Emma asked.

“I’ve got a portable crib in the pickup. He can stay in my old bed until I get it set up.” Billy set his Stetson on top of the refrigerator, then pulled the empty bottle from the diaper bag and said, “How about filling this with milk and warming it up, while I change his diaper.”

“Sure.”

He could feel Emma’s eyes following him as he headed down the narrow hallway. He could imagine the questions careening through her mind. It was plain he wasn’t the only one who’d been keeping secrets. He could hardly believe it. His teenage sister, unmarried and pregnant! As soon as he got his son in bed, he and Emma were going to have a serious talk.

Billy didn’t want to flip on the overhead light in his bedroom, because it was a bare bulb. He felt his way in the dark to the cheap ceramic lamp beside his bed and
turned it on. Nothing had changed in the two years he’d been gone, except a thick layer of dust had accumulated.

His old room was the size of a jail cell, and the ancient mattress on the iron-railed double bed sagged in the middle, which was convenient, because it made a safe well in which to lay his son.

Will protested being laid down, but Billy distracted him by saying, “That lady we just met is your aunt Emma.” He unsnapped the legs of the cotton sleeper Will was wearing and continued, “She’s warming a bottle for you right now. You can drink it while I put your crib together, and then you’ll be able to settle down and get some sleep.”

Billy had been terrified the first time he’d diapered his son. Will had been so tiny, and he’d felt so clumsy. Those days were long past. He ripped open the diaper tabs, lifted Will by the ankles and removed the diaper, then closed the heavily soaked disposable diaper plastic-side out with one hand and dropped it on the rag rug beside the bed.

He swiped Will’s bottom clean with a Wet Wipe, powdered him, and taped on another diaper with masterful efficiency. Then he gave his son a buzzing raspberry on the stomach, listening for Will’s chuckle and the feel of his son’s hand clutching his hair.

By then, Emma had shown up with the warm bottle of milk. “Here you go,” she said, handing it to Billy.

Billy offered the bottle to Will, who eagerly stuck the nipple in his mouth, holding it there with one hand while he twisted his fine black hair in the fingers of the other.

“Will you watch him while I go get the crib?” Billy asked.

“Sure,” Emma said, easing onto the corner of the washed-out, knobby-weaved bedspread.

Billy heard Will start to wail the instant he was out of sight and Emma’s soft voice reassuring him that Billy would return soon. He hurried out to the truck, grabbed the fold-up crib from the truck bed, and hauled it back inside to his bedroom.

Will pitched toward him the instant he reappeared, straining against Emma’s hold, as though Billy had been gone for five months instead of five minutes.

Billy dropped the crib and took his son in his arms long enough to comfort him. “It’s okay, Will. I’m not going to leave you.”

Billy always felt bad when he had to leave his son in someone else’s care, and he’d done it often enough that Will knew what was coming and cried not to be left behind. Billy ended up with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that didn’t go away until he came back and retrieved his child. It was better now that he’d found Mrs. Caputo, the lady in the apartment down the hall from him in Amarillo, who loved Will like a grandson.

Billy lay Will back on his bed and said, “Hang in there, buddy. I’ll have your crib together in no time.”