Hunted (19 page)

“We paid the huge ransom they asked for, and they killed her anyway,” he bit out.

“The person you lost in the hells?” she asked quietly.

He narrowed his gaze on the highway in front of him, felt the muscle tick in his jaw, the old rage claw up inside of him. “Yes.”

This time her hand reached and rubbed his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Linc. I’m sorry.”

After another deep breath that he hoped loosened the bands on his chest, he said, “I am, too. She was a wonderful person.”

“And though you knew or would have known what she did, it wouldn’t have mattered.”

He looked over at her as they stopped at another light. “No, Morgan. And I don’t think your brothers will give a damn either. They’ll just be happy you’re home. But I have to know now, do you
want
to go home? Or do you want to disappear?”

Her mouth tilted ruefully. “Choices, choices. If I keep running, I let him win something else, don’t I? I let him take something else from me?”

He had often wondered how her mind worked, but now he clearly saw. “He can take nothing else unless you concede it.”

At the red light they waited. Finally it turned green.

“Keep on going down this road, it’ll take us straight into Cedar Hills.”

He drove and asked, “What is it about your brothers that you’re afraid of, Morgan?”

She waited, sighed again and said, “Questions. They’ll ask questions. Questions. What the hell do I tell them?”

He glanced at her, watched as she bit her thumbnail, jerking one down, probably to the quick. He caught her wince. She fisted her hands and put them in her lap.

“I can practically hear my brother Gideon say, ‘Hell, Morg, you forget what a phone is?’” She scoffed. “What do I tell him? No, I just couldn’t call. Or write. Or breathe or live . . . ”

He braked for a car and glanced at her. She rubbed a fist over her breastbone, as if trying to dislodge something. Her hands trembled.

Again, he moved with the traffic and said softly, “Morgan, you’re going
home
. Prague, Cheb, and all your nightmares are a bloody world away and behind you.”

Headlights cut through the slate weather, the windshield wipers swishing the damp away. Texas. He hadn’t been here before and for some reason had always thought of it in terms of cowboys, cattle, and horses. Which he knew was sodding stupid, but there it was anyway. Instead, it was . . . America. Shopping centers, too many SUVs, big pickups, and lots of family cars. The only real difference he noticed was that it was more open to him, wider somehow than the tight confines of New York or other Eastern Seaboard metropolitan areas he’d visited.

Buildings and concrete haltingly gave up their hold on the land. There were more trees, the land open and rolling. Dark green cedar trees covered the otherwise fields of green. It was cold, but not frozen. Sort of balmy for all that. Other trees—he had no idea what kind—dotted the landscape. They drove into Cedar Hill and he heard her shudder out a breath.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered. “Pull over.”

Lincoln pulled into a convenience store. He parked and waited. Other travelers pulled in, were filling up with petrol, grabbing a bite.

“I can’t do this,” she muttered again. “It’s Christmas Eve. The whole damn family might be there.”

“So?” he asked.

He turned in his seat to watch her.

She was pale, her knuckles white. She kept taking big breaths.

“Are you about to be ill, then?”

A frown creased her brow. “No. I just . . . I just . . . ” Those wickedly icy eyes rose to his.

Blimey, what he wouldn’t give to take the pain and shadows away . . .

But it wasn’t his place. He was simply to get her home, or some other safe place.

“Morgan . . . ” he started, wanting to tell her there was no rush.

“Damn it!” she hissed. “Just go. Go before I chicken out, break here when
he
never broke me there.”

Lincoln waited another minute. His mobile chirped. He sighed, pulled it out and answered.

“You make it?” Shadow asked.

“Not yet. We’ve stopped for a bit, but we’re about to head that way.”

“Just checking in.”

Lincoln smiled and put the car in gear. “Worried about me, mate?”

Shadow chuckled and hung up.

Shaking his head, Lincoln pulled out, merging into the traffic again, wondering where to go.

He didn’t say a bloody word, just waited.

Morgan took another deep breath and watched the scenery. They were almost to the turnoff.

She could do this. She
would
do this. The weight that had lodged on her chest seemed to get heavier.

The city bustle had given way to small-town life. Cedars, pecan and cottonwood trees stretched to the cold gray sky.

“Where did you say it was again?”

She jumped at his voice, glancing down at the fists in her lap, not realizing she’d even made them. Looking back out the window, she said, “Willow Creek Ranch. About ten miles on this road. Fourth county road on your left outside the city limits. You’ll see the gates on your right several miles down it.”

Linc reached out and flipped the stereo on. Christmas carols blared from the speakers. Morgan started to ask him to turn it off, but decided it was his Christmas Eve as well and he’d brought her all this way, driven her all the way out here. For a brief moment, she forgot her own worries and wondered if he had a family to go home to. He’d told her of his sister, but what of his parents? Was there anyone for him? A wife maybe? Probably not married with the type of life he led. If he had parents, would he go home to see them?

And why did she care? She didn’t. She didn’t. Cars in the opposite lane whooshed by on the wet road. Her nerves strung tighter and tighter.

She drummed her fingers on her knee. This was a mistake. Her heart slammed in her chest.

Maybe no one would even be here. Please don’t let the whole family be there. How could she have forgotten Christmas Eve and how her aunts and cousins always gathered at the old family home?

The car slowed and turned onto the county road.

“Up here just a few miles,” she said again, swallowing past the nausea. “Stop!” she blurted out.

He slammed on the brakes and they sat on the deserted road.

Blood roared in her ears.

He turned in the seat. “Morgan. You don’t have to do this. We can turn around right now and leave, and you won’t ever come back here again.”

Ever come back here again . . . Ever come back here again . . .

The words mixed with others from her memory.

I just want to go home . . .

“This is your home now, the only one you’ll have from now on, Dusk . . . ”

She shoved the images away and focused on the slick dirt road in front of her. Shaking her head, she said, “No, it’s okay. Go ahead. God, I’m so damn weak.” Had he broken her more than she’d thought? Managed to chip away at her that much?

Instead of continuing she felt his warm hand take hers again, squeeze until she looked at him. Those eyes, so dark, she’d swear they were black, narrowed on her. “Are you certain? You have to live with whichever choice you make.”

Morgan closed her eyes.
I’m home. I’m home. I’m home.

Opening her eyes, she looked back at him. “For months, all I wanted to do was to go home. Before they took me, I wanted to go home, but Simon destroyed my identification so I couldn’t leave him. He only wanted my money, and I only wanted to go home. Then . . . ” Then everything changed. “Through it all, the thing I wanted most, Lincoln, was to be here. Here at home, far away from hell.” She sniffed and blinked the tears away. “And here I am and I want to turn around and run the other way. What’s wrong with me? I know they’ve been worried about me. How could I think of doing that to them?”

The corners of his eyes creased on his smile as he gave her hand a quick squeeze. “You’ll do, Morgan Gaelord, you’ll do.”

She frowned. What did that mean?

He straightened, checked his mirror and put the car back in gear. The tires sucked at the mud as the car inched down the road.

“Nothing is wrong with you and you’re not bloody weak,” he muttered.

I’m home. I’m home. I’m home.

Prickly pear cactus and cedars grew along old, cedar post, sagging, barbed-wire fences. Hereford cattle grazed in the pastures, mixed with a few gradient Brahmans, and black Brangus.

Then the car was turning through the limestone and iron gate, the Bar-G insignia on both gateposts. The tires thumped over the cattle guard.

Bare-limbed pecan trees lined the drive all the way up to the two-story turn-of-the-century home that her great-great-grandfather had built when he started the ranch well over a hundred years ago.

The lighted windows of the house winked through the drizzle. Anxiety fluttered in her chest, a caged bird, its wings too short for flight, but wanting out just the same.

* * *

Gaelord Ranch; 6:02 p.m.

Jackson Drake Gaelord—Jackson to associates and Jack or J.D. to family and friends—stood outside as water dripped off the eve to plop in the winter-barren flower bed. Native Texas grass grew under the pecan trees along the drive and in the pasture.

The white fence, usually decked with garland and lights and what all not, was bare this year. He just hadn’t felt like messing with any of it. Then again, he’d hardly ever messed with it. That had been Morgan’s deal.

On a sigh, he sat in the swing, the chains creaking. The big old house was eerily quiet. The soft sound of carols from inside, which he knew Suzy was playing in hopes things would miraculously get better, mixed with the faint sound of the drizzle, the horses nickering from the barn and the bellows of the grazing cattle.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, breathing deep.

He learned he hated the holidays. Hated them. Once upon a time he’d loved them. It had taken him years after Molly, his estranged wife, left to enjoy them again. And enjoyment had been found thanks to his sister, Morgan. Where Molly broke his heart, and he hers, his sister, with her impish pranks, had helped heal the pain of losing his father and then his wife. But as Morgan got older, he’d become more a parent and they didn’t always get along. Though, no matter what, they’d always enjoyed Christmas. Except for last year. After the blowup last year with Morgan and the bastard Simon Dixon, he’d hoped this year would be different. Hell, he hadn’t even
met
the sorry S.O.B. The investigator he’d hired showed Jackson all he’d needed to know. The bastard had been using Morgan. But what of it all? Here it was another year. Unfortunately, not for the better.

While he and Gideon had yelled and cursed last year at their sister, they at least knew where the hell she was.

They hadn’t heard from her in six blasted months, or even before that. He’d only known she’d been in Prague over in the Czech Republic because he’d kept track of where money from her trust fund was being wired. That was before Gaelord lawyers finally gained some ground and he’d gotten control back, blocking the wire transactions. Not a word since, and they even reported her missing here in the U.S. and in the Czech Republic, for all the damn good that did. He still called the Interpol officer every week to see if they’d learned anything new. Nothing.

That was one thing about raising a sibling from the age of twelve. You thought more like a parent than a sibling. Though if his father and stepmother had lived, he still would have been worried about Morg. At least J.D. Senior had been spared this.

As it was, J.D. had slowly been going out of his freaking mind. All because he’d tried to show her what a bastard Simon Dixon had been.

The chains creaked on the swing as he swung out and in.

In a couple of hours, his aunts and cousins would descend. And where the hell was Gideon? If J.D. had to put up with the family, then by God, so did his brother.

He hadn’t wanted to celebrate this year at all, but the aunts had rolled right over him. Being in charge of the family meant he was in charge of the family traditions, which was just a pain in the ass if you asked him.

The north wind whipped around the edge of the house, sending a shiver down his spine. Maybe he’d just freeze to death out here and he’d be spared a night of entertaining his late father’s three sisters and their husbands and various children.

Samson, the blue-eyed Catahoula hound, looked at him, his head resting on his paws.

“I know,” J.D. told him. “You’d better hide later or Nate and Trina will try to ride you again.”

Samson sniffed, as if saying he would not tolerate such indignities.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

When another breeze cut across the porch, he stood and turned to go in. Samson lumbered up, his tail wagging, and let out a series of barks.

December days were short and the wet dirty weather darkened the days even more quickly.

J.D. studied the dark blue sedan driving slowly up the gravel drive.

Who in the hell? It wasn’t any family car that he remembered. The car pulled to a stop and he watched the driver turn in his seat and say something to the passenger.

The passenger door opened and a woman got out. Hope tripped in his heart. Molly?

He frowned and waited at the top porch step, resting his hand on the white Doric column.

No, the woman wasn’t Molly, she was too tall.

She tugged a camel-colored peacoat close and waited as the driver got out, pulled on a black coat and shut his door. The man was not one J.D. knew. J.D. looked back at the woman and his gut tightened. No, the hair color was all wrong. He stared, excitement tingling through him anyway at the way she stood, then shifted. Hope that he hadn’t felt in far too long.

She waited until the man skirted around the hood and stood next to her. He said something, she shook her head, and the man brushed a hand down her arm.

Was it her? She shook her head again and turned toward the house.

J.D. stopped breathing. She stood for a moment, just staring at the house, then started to walk toward it, the man in step behind her.