Explaining Herself Read online

  "Julie?"

  "I'm sorry," she repeated. "I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. I killed them—Phil and Poppa. Oh God."

  "What—?"

  "I told him, "she insisted. "He said he wanted to help, that when we married you'd be his family too. He said he had to know where you took our cattle, so I told him—but he didn't help! He didn't. And now Poppa and Phil are dead and he won't see me. Ross, he won't even talk to me!"

  At first he simply hadn't understood. "Who? Julie, what's wrong?"

  She covered her face with her hands, so that he could see only the top of her head and had to strain to hear her.

  "He said he loved me." Her shoulders shuddered. "He loved me and he would help. Now he won't talk to me, and his family has threatened me if I don't stay away. He never loved me at all." She began to sob outright, her voice filled with devastation. "He just wanted Poppa. He just wanted Poppa, and Phil, and you, all for some stupid cows. And I gave you to him. God help me, Draz. ..."

  By then he had begun to understand, even at twelve, and horror was rapidly loosening his grip on the window bars. His horror and mounting fury had needed only direction. "Julie, who? Who?'

  She'd backed away then, shaking her head, her arms sliding down to hug her middle. Her next words came out a soggy squeak, her eyes closed, her face dripping. "I'm so sorry, Draz. I'm so sorry I killed Poppa___"

  Then she'd turned and staggered back up the alley.

  "WHO?" Ross had screamed. "Julije, who was it?"

  But she didn't come back to tell him. And two days later—well, the newspaper in front of Laramie said it all:

  RUSTLER'S DAUGHTER SUICIDE!

  She'd hanged herself. Ross wondered if she'd been mimicking Poppa's and Phil's deaths. He knew her guilt—guilt like a blow, like a fall, like a scream choking the throat. He knew because Julie had told her lover their secrets, but Ross had told them to her. If she'd helped kill Poppa and Phil, he'd killed them and her, both. Them, her, and the baby that the undertaker said she was carrying.

  He'd barely noticed the trial going on around him after that. He'd barely cared that his excellent lawyer had gotten him paroled to a special boy's ranch down in Texas. When his mother stopped answering his letters, not three months later, he hadn't hesitated to break his parole to go find her—only to discover that, lost without her family, she'd left town and all but vanished.

  He'd never found her. Finally, a fugitive from justice, he'd taken up with men who admired his ability with cattle and a running iron, men who taught him guns and anger, and he'd comforted himself every night with one thought: Of six fearful, ignorant men who had killed Poppa and Phil, only one had forged those deaths—his sister's lover. And that man deserved vengeance.

  Sometimes Laramie believed that was the only reason he'd survived: to avenge his family, once and for all.

  His instincts had not entirely deserted him. When Victoria Garrison stood and started toward him, Laramie caught the edge of another newspaper and smoothly turned it over the ones he'd been reading.

  Butch Cassidy's face stared up at him.

  It wasn't a very good likeness.

  Miss Garrison arrived in a whisper of petticoats and curvy innocence. "Are you finding everything you want?"

  With him sitting and her standing, his eyes were at a discourteous level to her smock-covered bodice. He realized how badly he hurt—in new ways now. If he leaned forward, he could rest his head against her front. He could wrap his arms around her, borrow softness from her just for a while, just to rest for a little while from all life's hardness. The thought of it made his throat ache.

  Before he could force an answer, she stiffened. Had she read his thoughts? Had he done something rude?

  "Miss Garrison?" asked Laramie, but she said nothing.

  She was staring at the newspaper with its picture of a misnamed "Buck" Cassidy. Butch would hate it that his very picture could frighten ladies.

  "Are you all right?" Laramie asked.

  With a quick breath, she turned her face back to him. Smiling. "I'm fine! Why wouldn't I be? I only meant to say that if you don't find what you want, Mr. Laramie, just let me know. I'm very good at finding things. Ask anybody in Sheridan."

  She was lying about being fine, but he feared that her ability at finding things—more aptly, finding them out—was pure truth.

  "Thank you," he said softly. "No." He relaxed some when she smiled at him again, more honestly, before retreating back to her work. But only some.

  At least it gave him a chance to move the recent paper aside, to focus again on the older, darker story.

  "He was rich," he muttered to himself, moving his lips more than adding voice. "A rancher, maybe. A bachelor."

  His family has threatened me if I don't stay away . . .

  "Maybe a bachelor."

  Bram Ward had been a bachelor, of course, but he hadn't been any richer than the Laurence family. More importantly, Julie had despised the man; he could not have been her lover. Alden Wright, though, or Jacob Garrison's boy Thaddeas, or Hayden Nelson. They'd been single, too. And wealthy.

  He would somehow learn about them first. And if he found nothing to implicate them . . .

  It could still be Colonel Wright or Jacob Garrison.

  All the more reason to stay away from the daughter with the ability to find things out.

  Chapter Four

  Victoria enjoyed sneaking peeks at where Ross Laramie sat curled over the table. It added a definite pleasure to her workday. He had a secret.

  He'd flat out said so when she asked what today had to do with the rustling. And though she wasn't sure which newspapers he was reading, she'd noticed him exchange the ones from '92 for previous issues—and apparently for the one she and Evangeline had read earlier about Butch Cassidy.

  Why was he reading about train robbers?

  Maybe he was considering the outlaws' former exploits, piecing their previous rustling together with their current crimes? She'd heard of Pinkerton detectives investigating stranger connections than that.

  Maybe Ross Laramie was a Pinkerton detective!

  Where was Nellie Bly when you needed her?

  Beyond the intrigues and excitement, though, Victoria simply liked the man's presence. She enjoyed looking across the room at him, having someone to meet Evangeline's near-panicked gaze about. She liked the olive undertone to his tanned skin, and how sunlight reflected silvery off his black hair. She liked the deliberate, slightly raspy quality in his voice. When she asked questions, she liked the unwavering way he looked at her with those haunted, hooded eyes of a sort of green-brown color.

  He was clearly pursuing outlaws, which made his secrets all the more appealing. She would be foolish to pursue a bad man's secrets!

  "Mr. Day," she asked deliberately, toward the end of the afternoon. "If I learned something about the train robbers, I could write about them. Couldn't I?"

  Mr. Laramie did not look up from his reading.

  Neither did Mr. Day look up from his wonderful typewriter. "If you learn something about train robbers, Miss Garrison, tell me and I'll let you know."

  "Let me know if I can write something?"

  Now he glanced up at her, over the rims of his spectacles—still typing. "Let you know if you should go immediately to Sheriff Ward," he clarified.

  Now Ross Laramie looked up.

  Before she could decide how to pursue further questions, Victoria's older brother arrived.

  "Howdy, Lester," greeted Thaddeas, looking very proper in his brown suit, despite his cowboy boots. "Miss Taylor," he added politely, toward where Evangeline stood near the press. "Are you ready to go home, Vic?"

  Was it already quitting time? She loved almost everything about the newspaper, from its smell to its purpose. She loved being a modern, working woman. But today seemed to have hardly begun.

  "Almost," assured Vic, fumbling behind her back at the strings of her printer's smock. Then she had a clever idea—her favorite kind. "Thad, have you met
Mr. Laramie? Papa hired him this week."

  Mr. Laramie's dark eyes had found Thaddeas as soon as he came in, but they narrowed at the name. He unfolded from his chair, his gaze never leaving Vic's brother.

  "Thaddeas Garrison?" he asked quietly.

  When he stepped forward, spurs jingling, Laramie stood taller than Vic's brother. But Thad was clearly older. Her half brother by her father's first marriage, Thad had been an adult for nearly as long as Victoria could remember.

  "Do I know you?" Her brother shook Laramie's hand, but both men seemed unusually wary. "Laramie?"

  Laramie said, "No."

  Vic shifted her hips a little, to get a better grip on her knotted apron-strings, as she spun her plan. "Perhaps we should ride back to the Circle-T together. Since we're going the same way."

  Thaddeas shrugged and nodded. Some days, her own brilliance thrilled her.

  "I'll clear my things." Laramie, his gaze sliding from her to her brother, turned to the cabinets.

  "I'll help you!" Victoria bounced slightly in her struggle with the knots. "It's my job!"

  At least it was when she wanted to see what someone had been reading! But Laramie ignored her request, turning his back to effectively hide which drawers he was opening.

  Desperate, Victoria looked toward the type case. "Evangeline, could you ... ?" But nobody was there.

  "She slipped out while we were talking," explained Thaddeas. Turning Victoria around by the shoulders, he began to work at her knots himself. "Unusual girl, your friend. Stand still."

  She's madly in love with you, you blind oaf. But that was yet another secret Victoria must never reveal—not to either of them. Thad was a respected lawyer with political ambitions who hardly remembered Evangeline's name, except to be polite. And Evangeline, for all her efforts at propriety, came from the wrong side of the railroad tracks.

  Wyoming was too old-fashioned to see past that. So were the male Garrisons. Vic's only comfort was that Evangeline understood; that was why she'd left.

  "Stop wiggling," scolded Thaddeas. "There."

  And she was free. But Mr. Laramie had already collected his black hat from the now-clear table, and Victoria had lost her chance to learn more about the mysterious stranger. For now.

  The ride home would provide another lovely opportunity. And it would even be safe. And proper!

  Her big brother would be there.

  Then again, when Thaddeas held a handkerchief in front of her face and said "Stick out your tongue," then wiped a black smear off her cheek, she had to wonder if that was really a blessing.

  Could this be the man who'd seduced and abandoned Julie, who'd destroyed his family?

  The heir to one of the oldest ranches in the Powder River Basin, Thaddeas Garrison would have been about nineteen or twenty years old at the time—certainly old enough to ruin a girl. He had money, and he wasn't bad-looking.

  His body humming with revived memories, Laramie felt particularly conscious of the rifle scabbard hanging off his saddle, heavy with his Winchester; the Bowie knife in his boot; the holdout derringer strapped to his good arm, under his shirt. If this man deserved to die, Laramie had no doubt of his ability to send him to hell.

  But Laramie was also aware of the rifle stowed under the Garrison buggy's seat—and the lady perched upon it next to her brother, acting like this was a picnic.

  Worse, he couldn't remember if Thaddeas Garrison had even been in town at the time of the murders, much less been secretly courting his sister. Laramie wondered how—besides physical threat—a fellow went about getting that information.

  "Mr. Laramie," Miss Victoria announced pleasantly to her brother, "says he likes trains."

  Laramie squinted at her, startled, but Thaddeas seemed to take it as some kind of conversational cue.

  "That so?" he asked, glancing across from his view of his harness horse's rump.

  Laramie didn't care about trains. What he really wanted to know was what Garrison had been doing in 1888.

  Flat-out asking seemed less than circumspect.

  "He was curious about when the railroad came through Sheridan," continued Victoria brightly, as if she had an endless supply of words to do her bidding. Then she teased Ross with a smile. "Though he won't tell me why."

  "Exciting time," agreed Garrison. Only then did Laramie recognize the glimpse of opportunity Miss Garrison had just given him.

  "You were in Sheridan in '92?" he asked, casual-like.

  "Yep. That's the year after I graduated college."

  College. One more reason Thaddeas Garrison sat there in the buggy, and Laramie rode a cow pony.

  "Thaddeas went to William and Mary, in Virginia," explained Victoria. "Now he's a lawyer. Do you have a preferred profession, Mr. Laramie?"

  The lawyer elbowed his sister lightly in the side.

  "Not lawyering," noted Laramie dryly. A lawyer? And the sheriff's name was Ward? Had all his family enemies gone into law enforcement?

  But if Garrison had been away at school before '92, likely he'd left Julie alone. Right?

  "That must take some time," Laramie noted—then regretted the attempt. The words sounded foolish in his mouth, even when he tried to clarify. "College."

  "Five years, in all," agreed Garrison, clucking at his carriage horse. That put him in Virginia in '88. One down. "It sure seemed longer, though."

  "It was longer," insisted Victoria. "I was a baby when you left home, and I was nine when you came back to stay!"

  Thaddeas grinned at her. Only when the expression startled him did Laramie realize how strongly the lawyer, though brown-haired and clean-shaven, resembled his cattle-baron father. Rumor was, Old Man Garrison never smiled.

  He felt suddenly relieved not to have to kill Thaddeas.

  "Victoria should go to college herself," teased the lawyer. "She's got the mind for it."

  "Nine years old," she repeated firmly.

  "Don't forget, I quit for a while," her brother reminded her. "During that bad stretch after the Die-Up."

  The Die-Up. The bad winter of '86-'87.

  Thaddeas Garrison might have been in town long enough to woo Laramie's sister after all, damn it.

  He should know better than to ever feel relieved.

  "Have you heard of the Die-Up, Mr. Laramie?" asked Victoria. He wanted to reply that, hell, folks in South America had heard of it. But he didn't. She continued. 'You never did say if you're really from Texas, like your saddle. You don't talk like you're from the South."

  "Vic," warned Thad. Then he added to Laramie, "Please excuse my sister. She's nosy with everyone."

  She was that. And she was good at it.

  "I was just making conversation," the girl defended, as if folks had ridden her about it before. Laramie reckoned they probably had. Out west, an overzealous curiosity could be a shooting offense. For men, anyhow. But ladies . . .

  Miss Garrison turned and faced Laramie, almost as a dare. "If I was prying, I apologize."

  She didn't add so there. It was implied. Laramie found his cheek tensing in a hint of a smile again. "No need," he assured her, the words sliding out almost effortlessly. "I admire how easily you do it."

  Her eyes widened at his unexpected response, and he looked quickly away, across the rolling foothills, past a heavily wooded creek line and then into the mountains. He was starting to form an idea, and it troubled him. Deeply.

  But she was damned good. Here he rode, within spitting distance of a man who might have destroyed his family, and he couldn't learn a thing. It was Victoria who had clarified that Thaddeas may have been in Sheridan in '88—and she hadn't even known it was information Laramie needed!

  How well might she ask questions if she knew what she was looking for? I'm very good at finding things, she'd said.

  People even expected it of her!

  When Laramie slid his gaze back to the buggy, she was watching him with bright gray eyes, a smile twisting her lips. She seemed to sit up straighter after his praise. "Thank you."
<
br />   You 're welcome. But that momentary ease with words had deserted him, so he ducked his head, touched his hat brim.

  Thaddeas Garrison groaned. "Don't encourage her."

  Now it was the lawyer's sister who did the elbowing.

  Laramie's gelding tossed his head and snorted at some flies that were hovering near its face. The sun felt hot on his shoulders, and the air tasted dry and dusty—another reason he'd learned to keep his mouth closed. But maybe his best reason was that the last time he'd told a woman a secret—even a woman who meant well, a woman he could trust—she'd gotten their poppa and brother killed.

  No.

  Laramie concentrated on how the straps of his holdout were rubbing his bare arm, under his shirt, and on the nearness of his rifle. His bullet wounds hurt, pulsing and sticky even after so easy a day as this. But no matter what he focused on, he could not ignore the teasing between Thaddeas and Victoria Garrison. They weren't quite bickering, weren't quite laughing. But their easy affection made him ache as badly as his injuries.

  He resolved then and there to spend as little time around the Garrisons as possible. It wouldn't make the killing of either the son or the father any easier, should his quest come to that. Nor would involving Victoria.

  Yet he liked hearing her chatter along the ride, until they rode into sight of the Circle-T spread itself. The white farmhouse, with its flowers and porch swing, still looked like nothing bad ever happened there.

  Maybe it hadn't. Maybe that's why Victoria asked questions so easily. Maybe she'd never gotten an answer that threatened to tear her life apart.

  When they reached the stables, Laramie was particularly careful in his dismount, in unsaddling Blackie, lest anyone notice his stiffness. He longed to go to the nearby creek and just lie in it like he had in the Blue Creek, outside Hole-in-the-Wall, letting the cool of the water draw the fever out of his hurting body. He was so distracted by that prospect, while he gave the gelding a rough once-over, that he almost forgot Victoria Garrison until she started toward the house—right past him.

  She didn't look at all hot or stiff; in fact, she looked as cool as he imagined the creek would feel. Her lively step swung the skirt of her pale-blue dress, offering glimpses of white kid shoes. White!