All I Need Is You (16 page)

“
T
wo brothers, both wanting to be mayors? Do you believe that, Casey?”

Damian had deliberately refrained from talking about the meeting they’d had with Jack Curruthers until now. He and Casey were halfway through with a couple of nearly raw steaks—which at least
she
was enjoying. His disappointment that it hadn’t been Henry in that saloon had made him furious at first. One bottle of red wine and working their way into the second had helped get him calm enough to talk.

Casey chewed thoughtfully on some fried potatoes before she remarked, “Maybe Henry decided to follow in his brother’s footsteps. You know, like sons do with fathers,” she added pointedly, since Damian fell into that group. “Then again, Henry could have just been asking questions everywhere he went that would lead him to his brother. Perhaps he forgot the name of this town but remembered it was new. In that case, he’d be asking about new towns, wouldn’t he?”

“That’s a bit far-fetched, Casey.”

“Maybe, but possible. Try picturing it. Henry needs a place to disappear to and decides his brother can help. He gets halfway here, but he misplaces the letter he had from Jack that mentions the name of the new town where he’s recently settled, and he can’t remember the name of it to save his soul, so he starts asking about new towns. Or maybe two towns in Texas have the same name and he gets to the wrong one. Anyway, he also knows that Jack plans to run for mayor, so he narrows down his search to small towns with mayors. But finally he realizes that Texas is just way too big, that he won’t be able to find his brother this way, so he gives up and heads back East.”

“Well, I
hope
you’re wrong, because with a cold trail like that to go by…”

“I wouldn’t count this a dead end just yet, Damian,” she said cryptically.

“You think Henry might be here, and Jack’s doing his part to hide him?”

“I suppose that could be a possibility. But in that case, why would Jack even admit that Henry was planning to visit him?”

“Because we tracked him this far.”

Casey nodded slowly. “Yes, there is that. Still, let’s consider brother Jack for a minute. He seemed tough as nails, but any coward can get delusions of bravery with five big, menacing hired hands backing up his every word, which is what they did. He could be paying for his arrogance—if you know what I mean.”

Damian grinned at her use of what appeared to be Jack’s favorite phrase, but as to the point
she was making, he said, “Yes, I thought of that. Except it’s Henry I know, not this bold brother. It
is
more likely that they’d be cut from the same cloth, rather than being so dissimilar, as Jack would have us believe.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got two brothers myself who happen to be complete opposites. One would rather have his nose in a book all the time, hates ranching, and in fact he should be a practicing lawyer pretty soon, while the other’s about as ornery as they come, hard to drag him in off the range, and—”

“You’ve got
brothers
?”

The question brought an instant blush. Apparently, she hadn’t meant that reference to slip out, but she’d been drinking her fair share of the wine—and while drink could be stimulating, it could also loosen a tongue enough to forget that some things were meant to be kept secret.

“Well, yes,” she replied tepidly.

“What else have you got?”

She took another drink of her wine before saying testily, “How about a mother, just like you’ve got?”

She’d mentioned his mother deliberately because she knew he didn’t want to talk about that lady—her way of saying, Keep the personal questions out of the conversation. That would be fine if he weren’t craving to know every single thing there was to know about her.

“Sisters? Uncles and aunts?”

Golden eyes narrowed on him and she retaliated with a direct hit. “How come you don’t like your mother, Damian?”

He wished she didn’t play so dirty. The mere
thought of his mother made him angry.

“If I answer that, will I get some answers from you in return?”

That he wasn’t ignoring her question as she had his surprised her somewhat, but she gave him a noncommittal shrug. “Maybe.”

Not a very satisfying answer, but the best he’d get, he supposed. “Very well. To begin with, I should mention that I loved both of my parents in the natural way that a child does. But my mother didn’t return that love—or at least, her love for another man was much more important to her. She divorced my father many years ago, causing him untold personal as well as public distress. She might as well have divorced me also, because when she left New York to marry her lover, I never saw her again.”

“Never? Her choice or yours?”

“Excuse me?”

“I guess what I’m asking is, did she ever return to New York to visit you? And if she didn’t, did you ever make an attempt to find her to discover why not?”

“No, to both counts. But why would I expend the effort when I already knew why? She simply didn’t care enough about me to bother. She went off to make a new life for herself, and to hell with what she left behind.”

He couldn’t manage to keep the bitterness out of his tone. Why the hell did it still hurt after all these years?

“I don’t know,” Casey said, her look more sympathetic than he was comfortable with. “If it had been me, I would have tracked her down and demanded some answers from her. And if
I didn’t like those answers, then I would have at least made her feel miserable for abandoning me so callously. ’Course, callous folks don’t usually feel guilty about anything. That’s why they’re callous. But I would have given it my best shot.”

Was she trying to make him laugh? “Verbally—or with that gun you tote?”

She gave him a sour look. Apparently, she had been quite serious.

“You’ve lived all these years under an assumption, Damian. Doesn’t that bother you? I’d want confirmation one way or the other, if it were me.”

“She wasn’t there when I might have needed her. I don’t need her now. So what would be the point?”

“Maybe for your own peace of mind. Maybe because she’s the only family you have left. Maybe because you’ve recently found out that she’s a widow again—and lonely. But that’s just how I’d feel about it, if it were me. ’Course, both my parents have always been around, so what do I know?”

Scolding and contrite in the same breath. Amazing how she could do that. But perhaps she was right. Maybe he
should
have confronted his mother long ago to find out what she had to say for herself. It couldn’t have made him feel any worse. He already believed the worst.

“I’ll think about it,” he conceded in a low-voiced grumble.

Her answer was a smile and a change of subject. “Now, about Jack Curruthers—”

“Not so fast,” he interrupted. “Are you for
getting your ‘maybe’? Fair is fair, Casey. Let’s hear a bit more about your family now.”

Casey gave him a long-suffering sigh and swiped up the wine bottle to refill her glass. “Well, you already know that both my parents are still living.”

“Together?”

“Oh, yes, it’s quite a deep and abiding love they share. Gets downright embarrassing sometimes, when they can’t keep their hands off each other.”

She managed not to blush when she said it. He shouldn’t have asked, though. Most married people with children
did
stay together, especially when divorce, in high society at least, could be so scandalous.

“I have two brothers, no sisters,” she continued. “Tyler’s not quite a year my elder. He’s the one who’s going to be the lawyer in the family. Dillon’s the hell-raiser, though he’s only fourteen. I lost one grandpa recently, a cantankerous old cuss I dearly loved. But I still have another who’s been a doctor all his life, and still practicing at it, though only with his regular patients. No other relatives, though, since neither my mother nor my father had any other siblings.”

“And the reason why you left home?”

She frowned. And nearly a minute of silence stretched out before she finally said, “It was just a small disagreement with my father.”

“It couldn’t have been all that small, Casey, to have sent you out on your own.”

“Well, it was important to me, is all. He didn’t think I’d be capable of handling certain things
because I’m a woman. And he was being pigheaded-stubborn about it.”

“So you set out to prove him wrong—by being a bounty hunter, something most women would never think about being?”

“Something like that,” she mumbled.

“Considering how dangerous the line of work you chose is, who was really being stubborn?”

“I didn’t ask for your
approval
of what I did, Damian,” she reminded him.

“No, you didn’t. And you can stop glaring at me. I know I pushed you into revealing so much. But I won’t apologize. You
are
a fascinating woman, Casey. I can’t help wanting to know all there is to know about you.”

She was blushing now. And she attacked the remaining portion of her steak with a vengeance.

He probably shouldn’t have said that. She obviously didn’t want the conversation to get any more personal than it already had. But after sitting across from her all this time and being able to stare at her to his heart’s content because staring was acceptable during conversation, he was having a problem with another “wanting” as well.

And he
really
shouldn’t act on it, knew what answer he’d likely get, but he asked anyway. “Come to my room tonight, Mrs. Rutledge?”

Her scowl was immediate as she glanced at him. “You mean you haven’t found out yet whether they have a judge in this town or not?”

“They don’t.”

Her lips twisted a bit sourly. “Now how did I know that you’d know that already?” She
stood up, still scowling. “I have a room, thank you very much. And if we’re to leave early in the morning, I think I’ll go make use of it.”

“Casey…”

She didn’t let him finish. “Get your mind back on what’s important, and stop acting like I’m the only female around. I’m not, and you might want to take advantage of that before we hit the trail again.”

She walked off in a huff. Well, he’d been expecting that kind of response from her, after the way she’d been acting all day. But that she’d more or less suggested he find himself a willing prostitute was ludicrous. He didn’t want just any woman, he wanted the one he was married to.

C
asey wasn’t in top form the next morning. She’d stopped in a saloon after leaving the restaurant the night before, to pick up another bottle of wine to take to bed with her. Not very bright on her part, but her emotions had been in a wild turmoil all day yesterday. She’d never have gotten to sleep otherwise.

Yesterday, she’d been certain that Henry would be in Culthers, so she’d been sure that she and Damian would be parting for good before the end of the day. She still felt in her bones that Henry was there, either hiding or doing a good job of pretending to be his own brother Jack. But the hunt hadn’t ended. And Casey’s turmoil continued.

She never should have made love with Damian the other night. She never should have let her body dictate the matter when her mind knew better. Appeasing her curiosity had accomplished only one thing. She now knew what else she’d be missing when he was gone. It was bad enough that she was going to miss him at
all. Yet she knew she would. She’d somehow gotten attached to him in a way that had nothing to do with their temporary marriage. A real fool thing to let happen—not that she’d had any choice.

And she was already experiencing the loss. That was the unusual part. He wasn’t even gone yet, but she knew he would be, and soon—and she hated the way it made her feel, which was downright rotten.

She shouldn’t be taking it out on him, though, which was pretty much what she’d done yesterday. It wasn’t his fault that they weren’t, nor ever could be, compatible. They both were raised too differently, in two completely different cultures. She’d be miserable in his, and he’d be miserable in hers, and there was no getting around that.

She hadn’t done her job thoroughly yesterday either, but she corrected that this morning, stopping for a chat with Miss Larissa, the town’s schoolteacher and boardinghouse owner. She also spoke to a few folks whom she came across on the way to the stable. They all had about the same thing to say about Curruthers, which was what she reported to Damian when she joined him at the stable.

“Jack Curruthers hasn’t been here as long as he claims. That was an outright lie, backed up by more lies from those cronies of his.”

“Is that just your opinion, or have you confirmed it?” Damian asked.

“I only suspected it, but I figured he couldn’t have everyone in town on his payroll, so it was easy enough to find out the truth. The school
marm says he arrived here about the same time she did, less than five months ago. Two others said the same thing.”

“What about Henry showing up?”

“None recall a twin brother, were surprised to even hear Curruthers had one. But one fellow did mention that he was
advised
by Jack’s election committee that he better be voting for Jack.”

Damian raised a brow. “Does that infer a threat of violence?”

“Coming from those particular hired hands? I’d say it was more of a promise.”

“So he actually intends to strong-arm his way into the mayor’s office?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“In a big city, I quite agree. I would have thought it would be different out here, though, where people are starting new lives for themselves.”

“Ah, but Curruthers doesn’t hail from out here; he hails from the big city. Besides, you can find corruption anywhere, Damian, if you look hard enough. It’s just not as prevalent when everyone knows everyone else, which is the case in most Western towns. But as for Jack, the question is, why would he lie at all if he’s really Henry’s twin—and not Henry pretending to be Jack?”

“You think he’s sending us off on a fool’s errand just to give himself time to escape again?”

“No, I don’t think he wants to leave what he’s got going here. If anything, we’ve created a problem for him that he’ll try to eliminate.”

“You’re expecting trouble, then?”

“You betcha.” And in her present mood, Casey was looking forward to it.

“Then why are we even bothering to go back to Sanderson to send off that telegram?”

“Because you’ll need all the facts you can get before you confront him again. Which reminds me—I assume you already know the name of this aunt in New York, since you didn’t ask for it yesterday.”

“Yes. After Henry disappeared, she was questioned. She swore he was innocent, incapable of doing anything so dastardly—her words. Remember, he had supported her for most of his life. I would have been surprised if she hadn’t staunchly defended him in this.”

“She never mentioned him having a twin?”

“No, but then, she wasn’t very cooperative, as I’m sure you can imagine. She answered the questions asked of her without volunteering anything extra that might help to find him.”

Casey nodded. “Well, let’s get going. The sooner you send that telegram off, the sooner we can get back here and finish this thing.”

“Then you
do
think Jack is Henry, don’t you?”

“Actually, no. What I do think, though, is that he knows where Henry is. Here or elsewhere, he knows. Getting him to say where ought to be interesting.”

Damian frowned. “You aren’t suggesting I beat it out of him, are you?”

Casey grinned. “Only as a last resort.”