THE BADDEST BRIDE IN TEXAS Page 7

  Penny tilted her head. "You know, when we rebuilt the dojo, we put an apartment above it. You could—"

  "Right. And if the killer pops in during Ben's preschool tai chi class, the four-year-olds will just drop-kick him."

  Penny sighed. "There's just no talking to you, is there?"

  Kirsten shook her head.

  "Will you tell me what it was that Joseph had on you, Kirsten?"

  Meeting her best friend's eyes, she said, "I'm sorry, Penny. But I can't."

  "Okay," Penny said. She squeezed Kirsten's hand as Kirsten got to her feet. "Just remember, once it's told, it's not a secret anymore. And once it's not a secret, it loses its power."

  A surge of heat and moisture welled up in Kirsten's eyes, and her throat went tight, just at the thought of telling Penny, or Ben … or Adam. God, he was the one who had suffered the most, wasn't he? Adam. He would never forgive her if he knew … and she realized now—as she had perhaps realized on some level all along—that he was going to have to know, sooner or later.

  God, please, later.

  She stepped into the kitchen with Penny at her side, and she saw him. He sat in a chair staring back at her, and it was in his eyes. Ben had told him what he knew. Thank goodness Ben didn't know all of it. There was an apology in Ben's eyes when they met hers. In Adam's there was only a question.

  One she couldn't answer.

  Because what could she say?

  I'm really sorry, Adam. But it turns out I'm the one who killed your parents twenty years ago. I'm the one who orphaned six kids. I'm the reason your oldest brother Garrett had to give up his scholarship to college and take over running a ranch and raising a family at seventeen, and the reason your baby sister never knew her mother's love. And I'm the reason you can't love, Adam. Because you're so afraid of being abandoned again; of being hurt again the way you were when your big brother had to tell you that your mother and father wouldn't be coming home anymore. It was me. I killed your parents, Adam. And I can't tell you how many times I've wished it had been me instead of them.

  * * *

  Chapter 6

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  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  Adam stood beside the front door, staring out the window at Ben's pickup as it moved down the endless driveway to pass through the gates to the road beyond. He didn't look at Kirsten. He didn't want to just now. He was too afraid of the powerful emotions swirling around inside him. Too afraid of losing control.

  It had been bad enough trying to make sense of what she'd revealed last night, the sickening pictures she'd painted with her words … pictures of Cowan in her bed, in her body, when she didn't want him there. But now this. His brother's revelation that made it sound as if maybe she'd been forced into this marriage against her will. As if she'd had no choice.

  "Why didn't you just freaking tell me?" he asked her again. They seemed to be the only words that came to him.

  Kirsten lowered her head. "I couldn't. I still can't."

  "The hell you can't." He did turn now. But she looked into his eyes for only the briefest instant. Pain flickered and died in hers, and then she just walked away. Adam followed her back through the foyer and into the opulent living room beyond, with its glittering crystal chandelier and its velvet-trimmed wall coverings and matching draperies and shiny marble floor tiles. It looked like a funeral parlor.

  "I think I have a right to know," he said.

  She stopped walking, turned to face him. "It doesn't matter anymore, Adam. It's ancient history."

  "How can you stand there and say it doesn't matter? For crying out loud, woman, you'd be my wife right now if that bastard…" He didn't finish, just shook his head and searched her face. "What the hell could he have had on you that was so bad it would make you miss your own wedding day—would make you leave the man you claimed to love standing alone in a country church with half the town looking on? Would make you send your own father away just to keep him from learning the truth?"

  She stood still, shook her head. "Adam, don't—"

  He gripped her arms. "Not to mention making you marry a man you didn't love."

  She lowered her head, closed her eyes as if shutting him out. "I had to do what I thought best at the time. It's that simple. It was my life, Adam. My decision."

  "It was my life that son of a bitch messed with. And I want to know why." She looked up at him again and let him see inside her, just for a moment. He stared down into her eyes and saw more secrets there than he'd ever seen. And more than that, he saw her fear—fear that those secrets would be found out.

  The doorbell broke the tension like a hammer on a sheet of glass. She pulled away, turned toward it.

  "Don't," he told her.

  She stopped, her back to him, her head hanging down. "You're right, Adam. You have a right to know. And I'll tell you … everything. But right now I can't. Because you'd have to tell your brother, and he'd be honor bound to tell everyone else."

  "Everyone else?"

  "The Texas Rangers, the D.A., anyone else who's looking for one whopper of a motive for me to have murdered my husband. They'd have it, Adam. They'd have it in spades if they knew the truth. And I'd be convicted so fast there would barely be time to mount a defense."

  He lowered his head. "So it comes down to trust. And you don't have any in me."

  Her rigid stance wavered just a little. "You're the only person I do trust, Adam."

  He closed his eyes and moved forward almost against his own will. God, what she'd been through. It was killing him to know what she'd been through. His hands slid over her shoulders, and he pulled her back until her body rested against his. "I'm sorry, Kirsty."

  "For what?"

  The doorbell chimed again. Adam ignored it. It crossed his mind that she might not even remember the things she'd blurted out last night, while she'd raged drunkenly against her dead husband. But he knew, and he couldn't forget. If it were true, if she'd been somehow forced into this marriage, then what Joseph Cowan had done to her had been rape. There was no other word for it, no softening of it. It had been rape.

  But maybe it would be easier on her if she didn't remember her nighttime confessions.

  "There's no reason for you to apologize to me, Adam. Nothing for you to be sorry for."

  He shook his head. "There's a lot," he said slowly. "I'm sorry for not being there for you when you needed help. For leaving town in a jealous rage instead of sticking around to find out what was really happening. For the two years you spent married to a bastard…" His throat closed off. He couldn't go on. The images were back, torturing him. Burning themselves a home in his brain. Cowan. And Kirsten. Her eyes too cold to shed tears.

  "None of that was your fault."

  He didn't have time to answer. His brother Garrett's voice came thundering through the walls, calling Adam's name while beefy fists banged on the door. Hell, Garrett was probably worried half to death by now. Adam leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to Kirsten's hair. "I'm gonna make it up to you," he said.

  "Don't bother," she told him. "I deserved everything I've been through." Then she strode away to get the door, while Adam stared after her, brows bent, guts in turmoil. All this time he'd hated her. All this time he'd blamed her. When she'd never had a choice.

  And he whispered, "You're wrong, Kirsten. Nobody deserves what you've been through."

  Kirsten pulled the door open. Garrett looked from one of them to the other. His hair was rumpled, as if he'd been pushing his hands through it. "What took you so long?"

  "It's a big house," Adam said, but his tone said more. Leave it alone, big brother.

  Garrett frowned hard, and his eyes went curious, but he left it alone. It was pretty obvious that there were more important things on his mind right now.

  "You'd better sit down," he told Kirsten, then glanced at Adam. "You'd both better sit down."

  Adam swore. Kirsten rocked back just slightly. So slightly Garrett might not have noticed, but Adam did. He'd been watching her
so closely, searching for some sign of what secrets she harbored in the dark places of her heart, that he noticed if she so much as breathed oddly. He took her arm and drew her into the sitting room, a far cozier place than any other room in the house. All wood. Knotty pine. With a fireplace and big, soft furniture that hugged you when you sat down. Adam had discovered the room on his search for Kirsten last night.

  Garrett blinked when he stepped into the room. "This is different."

  "That's because I tore it apart and started over. I was going to do the whole place, one room at a time, but once Joseph saw what I'd done in here, he forbade me to touch anything else." Kirsten shrugged. "His loss." Her hands fisted together in front of her, and her knuckles were white. "So do we discuss the weather next or get on with the bad news, Garrett?"

  Garrett licked his lips and nodded at the sofa, and Kirsten moved toward it but didn't sit down. Adam stayed where he was. "They know about the will, don't they?" he asked, unable to wait for his brother to spill the news.

  Garrett's brows went up. "They know what about the will?"

  Kirsten groaned. Adam sighed and kicked himself. "I'm sorry," he told her.

  She shook her head. "He'd have found out sooner or later, anyway." And she glanced at Garrett. "Joseph left me—"

  "Don't." Garrett held up both hands. "Kirsten, don't say another word. I swore an oath when I pinned on this badge, and I can't break it. Anything you tell me, I'm gonna be obliged to pass along. And if there's something about that will they don't know yet, well, they'll find out when they find out. The longer it takes them, the better the chance of us finding the real culprit. Understand?"

  Blinking, Kirsten nodded.

  "What did you come here to tell us, if not about the will?" Adam asked.

  "The gun." Garrett worked the brim of his hat between his thumbs and forefingers, turning it in a slow circle in front of him. "The gun was registered to you, Kirsten. Bought a week ago in El Paso by a woman matching your description, carrying your ID."

  Kirsten sat down hard, as if some big gust of wind had knocked her off her feet. "No."

  "We already know your prints are on it. You admitted you fired the weapon. You were found standing over the body with it. There were no signs of forced entry, nothing stolen…"

  "I didn't buy any gun. Garrett, I swear to you, I didn't buy any gun."

  "I believe you."

  Kirsten lifted her head slowly, met Garrett's eyes. "Do you?"

  Garrett nodded, and Adam sighed in relief. She didn't need people doubting her right now.

  "Joseph did this," she whispered. "Somehow he paid someone off to go in there and buy that gun, using some kind of identification with my name on it. He must have."

  "But why would he want to?" Garrett asked. "Kirsten, you can't seriously think the man planned his own murder…"

  Kirsten lowered her head, closed herself down the second the doubt crept into Garrett's voice. "It doesn't matter what I think. I can't prove it. They're going to arrest me, aren't they, Garrett?" Very slowly she looked up.

  Garrett nodded. "Later today, I imagine. And if what's in that will is what I'm thinking it is now … maybe sooner. If they can get Hawkins to hand it over. So far he hasn't."

  "We can't just stand by and let this happen." Adam paced to where Kirsten sat looking stunned, and he leaned down and pressed his hands to her shoulders. "We're not going to let this happen, Kirsty."

  "I don't really see that we can prevent it," Garrett said, his voice soft and full of regret.

  Shock rippled through Adam like ice water. He straightened and turned to face his brother. "What the hell do you mean, we can't prevent it? She's innocent."

  Garrett shook his head slowly. "Maybe if she had admitted the gun was hers … but she didn't, and that makes it look even—"

  "But it wasn't mine!"

  "I know … I'm just telling you the way it's going to look to everyone else," Garrett said.

  Kirsten was on her feet again, and tears—not of fear, but of anger—welled in her eyes. Fists clenched at her sides, jaw tight, she paced. "He's doing all of this to me somehow. My God, he's going to make sure I go down with him."

  Garrett met Adam's eyes. "No jury's gonna believe the man would set up his own murder. It's not as if he faked his death and skipped the country, Kirsten. He's in the county morgue, for God's sake."

  "I don't give a damn if he's in the freaking White House," Adam said. "Kirsten didn't kill him. And she's not going to jail."

  Garrett looked tortured. "It doesn't mean anything, Adam. It'll only be temporary. Kirsten, we'll find the truth. You won't be there long. I'll talk to the judge, get him to set bail. We'll get you through this."

  With a sniffle, Kirsten nodded.

  "She's not going to jail," Adam said again. "Not for one night."

  Kirsten touched his shoulder. "Adam, I—"

  "No. You've already served two years' hard time. No more." He stepped closer to Garrett, met his brother's eyes. "No more."

  "Adam, don't do this." It was a plea.

  "Then leave."

  "You know I can't. You're gonna run the minute I'm out of sight. Dammit, Adam, I can't just turn around and let you do that."

  "You can't stop me, either."

  Kirsten stepped between them. "Stop this … Adam, stop—"

  Adam pushed her gently aside. "I'm asking you once more. Go home, Garrett."

  Garrett shook his head, his eyes sad, sorry, but stubborn all the same. "You'll wind up in jail, too, if you do this. No, Adam, you're gonna sit here and wait for the rangers. We'll do this by the book or—"

  Adam hit him. He hit him with everything he had, and he figured the blow probably hurt him as much as it hurt his brother. Garrett's head snapped backward, and he went down like a felled redwood, breaking a coffee table in two on the way.

  "Add assaulting an officer to the list of charges," Adam said, and he grabbed Kirsten's hand and drew her out of the room.

  "Oh, God!" she cried. "Garrett?" She pulled against Adam's grip, turning to try to see if his brother was all right, but Adam kept his hold as he dragged her through the house and out the front door. He didn't think Garrett would follow, but he couldn't be too careful. He paused at his brother's pickup, leaned in and snatched the keys. Then he pressed Kirsten into his own car and got behind the wheel. The Jag roared. The tires spun, then caught, and the car shot forward.

  Adam's throat was as dry as sand and so tight no sound emerged when he tried to whisper, "Damn, why did you make me hit you? I'm sorry, Garrett."

  Add yet one more crime to the list of unforgivable acts she'd committed against the Brand family, Kirsten thought miserably. She had now managed to turn brother against brother. And there had never been any brothers less likely to turn on one another than the Brands. Never. She'd done the impossible.

  And now here they were, she and Adam, skulking around in a dim, dusty stable and actively tempting the wrath of another Brand brother. The one with the hottest temper of all.

  "Adam, you've lost your mind!" It was a harsh whisper in the darkness. "Why don't you just let me go? I'll just go off on my own. You can't do this…"

  "Will you hush?" Adam whispered back. "If Wes sees us sneaking around his stables, he's liable to shoot first and recognize me as blood kin later. You know his temper. Just trust me, okay?"

  She did know about Wes Brand's temper. It wasn't something she would like to have directed her way. Yet here she was, trespassing in the stables of his Sky Dancer Ranch, about to steal a pair of the finest Appaloosas in this part of Texas.

  "Do they still hang horse thieves?" she whispered. Adam was opening a stall door, stroking a spotted muzzle and leading a mare out onto the barn floor. One of the few who wasn't expecting a foal. Most of them were, Adam had told her.

  "We're only borrowing them." He closed the stall door. "This is Mystic. Hold her halter, Kirsty."

  She did. Adam immediately opened another stall with the name Layla painted on the do
or and abducted another horse. Kirsten led her own captive closer to a window, so she could watch for Wes and his wife, Taylor, to return home from wherever they'd gone. Or for a shotgun barrel to pop out a window. Neither happened.

  Adam stood near the open tack room door now, saddling one mare, then the other. Slipping bridles into place. "Borrowing" some saddlebags. He scooped grain into one of them, and that let Kirsten know he was planning on being gone awhile. And that he intended to take good care of his ill gotten transportation.

  Then he ripped the tag off the burlap feed bag, flipped it over and wrote a note to his brother on the blank white reverse. She leaned over to see what he could possibly write to explain his actions.

  Wes,

  If anyone can understand, it ought to be you. I'll take good care of them.

  Adam

  Kirsten read it, then sighed. "I'd forgotten all about your brother's time in prison," she said.

  "For a crime he didn't commit." Adam rolled the note up and stuck it in the wire mesh on the front of one of the empty stalls. "He's not gonna want to see anyone else go through that. I'm betting he won't even tell Garrett the horses are gone."

  "Are you sure about that?"

  Adam shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Garrett wouldn't look very hard for us even if he did."

  "Oh, he wouldn't? You're talking about the same Garrett you just punched out and left lying on my floor back there, right?"

  A pained look crossed Adam's face. He covered it quickly. "Right."

  Kirsten swallowed the lump in her throat. "Put Layla back in her stall, Adam. I'll leave this one off someplace safe. But I'm going alone."

  "The hell you are." The intensity was back, burning in his eyes. And she knew what it meant. She'd known for some time. He still cared for her, the idiot. It had been so much easier, so much safer, when he'd still hated her for what she'd done to him. When had it changed?

  "Adam, I've ruined your life twice. I don't intend to do it a third time."

  "What do you mean, twice?"

  She closed her eyes and didn't answer him right away. "You hit your own brother. Because of me, Adam. You think I don't know how much it hurt you to do that? You think I don't know how close you guys are? 'Mess with one Brand, you mess with them all.' That's what they say about your family around here. Everyone knows how much love…" Her voice broke. Tears choked her, burned in her throat, because she was thinking about the love in that family—the loving parents who'd generated all of it. And how she'd snuffed that love out. "I'm not coming between you and your family. Not again." She bit her lip. "As a matter of fact, I'm not even borrowing your brother's horse."