Keegan's Lady (55 page)

And so the story began. In the minutes that followed, Ace told her everything. About the night Joseph Paxton Sr. was hung. About how his mother had bargained for her husband's life with her body, only to watch him be murdered anyway. About how Conor O'Shannessy had struck Ace with the butt of Joseph's rifle and then kicked him while he lay half-conscious in the dirt.

"So that's why you shuffle one foot when you walk," Caitlin whispered. "Because your hip was injured?"

As if he sensed the remorse she felt, he said, "It really doesn't bother me all that much, Caitlin. And even if it did, it wasn't your doing."

"But it was my father who did that to you! How do you think that makes me feel?"

He ran his hand up to her shoulder and drew her more snugly against him, resting his chin against her hair. "If you re going to blame yourself, I'm not telling you the rest."

"The rest?" Caitlin felt sick. Sick to her bones. "About Eden, you mean?"

"Yes, about Eden."

He went on to tell her about his mother's giving birth to a baby girl shortly after they settled in California, how she'd lied to her children all these years, claiming that Eden's red hair and fair complexion were inherited from a deceased aunt on her side of the family.

"I never realized the truth—that she was Conor's Child—until the night I first saw you," he said. "I guess maybe I suspected once or twice, but I shoved the thoughts from my mind. I didn't want to believe it. I loved my little half-sister, and just the thought that—" he- broke off and sighed. "When I saw you, I couldn't deny the truth any longer."

"Oh, God, how angry you must have felt. No wonder you were so hateful. You must have despised me!"

"Yeah. For at least five minutes." He craned his neck to see her face, his expression tender and slightly amused. "After that, it was a losing battle. I think started falling in love with you that very night. I was just too damned dumb to know it."

"In love with me? Oh, Ace . . . After what my father had done?"

"It was the third button that got me, I think." His swollen mouth lifted awkwardly at one corner. "When I realized you really meant to take off that nightgown. I kept thinking you'd run, that you'd throw Patrick to the wolves and save your own hide. You were Conor O'Shannessy's daughter, after all. I figured you'd renege. But in the end, I was the one who hightailed it. I came back here feeling like the lowest kind of skunk, and I couldn't rest until I apologized to you."

"So you sought me out at the social?"

"And then couldn't work up my nerve to say I was sorry. There you were, ostracized by everyone in town, and I knew it was all my fault. An apology just didn't seem like enough."

She turned her head to rub her cheek against his chest. "So you decided to follow me home and offer to marry me”.

"Hell, no. Me, marry an O'Shannessy? All during the wagon ride out to your place, I was trying to think of some way I could make amends."

She stirred and glanced up. "Amends?"

He looked a little sheepish. "I was thinking that maybe some money might put us square."

"Money?"

"Now, Caitlin. Don't get mad. It was just a thought that went through my mind." He cast her a glance and quickly added, "A very fleeting thought. I never offered you any, did I?"

"No, but—money? For ruining my reputation? No wonder you felt like a skunk."

He chuckled. "I knew you probably wouldn't take it. I just toyed with the notion for a few minutes."

"Probably wouldn't take it? I would have shoved it down your throat."

"Right. You were so scared, you were jumping at your I own shadow. It was when I realized why you were so scared that I decided to marry you."

"Because I was afraid of making love?" She arched her eyebrows. "What are you, sadistic or something?"

He barked with laughter, then grabbed for his ribs, "Oh, ouch! Caitlin, I told you, don't make me laugh."

"Well?" she said at the tail end of a giggle. "What else am I to assume, but that you decided to torture me for a month?"

"I tortured you?” He shook his head. "That isn't exactly the way I remember it. And as for your question, I didn't marry you because you were afraid to make love, but because you intended to go through with it that night. In spite of how you felt, to keep the bargain we'd made."

"That's why you married me?"

"Absolutely." His expression turned suddenly serious, the glow in his eye tender. "You were being so brave." His mouth quirked at one corner. "Ready to sacrifice yourself to honor our bargain. From that second on, I was hooked. All you had to do was start reeling me in."

“Oh, my. You poor man. Talk about getting hoodwinked. I wasn't going to make love with you just Because I felt obligated to keep our bargain. I was afraid if I didn't, you'd find Patrick off somewhere alone and shoot him to get back at me."

He looked surprised. "Are you serious? That was why, because you were worried I'd hurt Patrick?"

"Of course, that was why. It was an unholy bargain you'd struck with me. I didn't feel honor bound to keep it. The only thing you had hanging over my head was my brother."

He clicked his tongue. "And all this time, I thought—" He shook his head. "Well, hell, I may as well throw you back then. I got gypped."

She tweaked his chest hair. "You certainly did, you poor man."

He caught her hand, enclosing her fingers in his. The teasing twinkle in his eye had become cloudy with emotion. Caitlin's smile faded, for she sensed that this time, his mood truly had turned serious. She lifted her gaze to his, and what she saw there made her heart catch. Love. He didn't need to say the words. His expression said it all.

"All teasing aside, Caitlin, you truly are one of the most loyal people I've ever met. And you do have a deep of honor. If it hadn't been for that, you would have gotten an annulment and we wouldn't be here, having this conversation right now. You'd be back at your place, working the ranch and scraping to make ends meet. And I'd be sitting here, counting my money and laughing my ass off at all the fools I was about to foreclose on, your brother included."

Caitlin searched his gaze. "You've changed your mind, haven't you? About the foreclosures."

"I've decided to actually build the railroad spur. I own Trans-con Railway, you know."

She couldn't believe she'd heard him right. "But, Ace, why? What about your stepfather? What about—"

He tightened his hand on hers. "It's over, Caitlin. Done and finished. This last month, I've come to realize there's more to life than getting even. A lot more. I want to build a future. With you. Not spend all my time and thoughts and energy on the past. It's time to put what happened behind me. I should have a long time ago."

She could see he truly meant that. "Oh, Ace, are you sure? No one can blame you for hating the people who hurt you and your family so badly."

"We can't build a life on hatred. Believe me, I know. It's all I've had for nearly twenty years, and it's a mighty empty existence. I want more than that. A lot more. Until I met you, I didn't realize all I had been missing."

Tears rushed to Caitlin's eyes. Tears of happiness.

"Patrick mortgaged his ranch, you know," Ace added "To invest in land along the spur route. If I ruin the others, he'll go down with them."

She swallowed and averted her gaze. "Yes, well. Patrick has done a lot of things I don't approve of. I can't protect him forever. Sooner or later, he has to start paying the price."

"But not at my hands. He's your brother. Someday he'll be the uncle of my children. I know you're very angry with him right now, but under all of that, your feelings for him run deep. As your husband, I have to respect that."

"I told him today not to ever come back here."

"Never is a mighty long time. Tempers will cool. Your feelings will change. I don't want to burn any bridges. In fact, as soon as I can get up out of this bed, I want to go over and see him. It's time he and I bury the hatchet.” He smiled slightly. "If for no other reason, I want to shake his hand for all the times he took a beating to keep you from getting one. I admire him for that, Caitlin, and no matter what he's done since, I can't easily discount it”

"After what he did to you today, you can say that?"

He grew thoughtful for a moment. "Truthfully? It's going lo be really hard for me to be nice to the man. But there's another part of me that wants to get to know him whole lot better before I pass judgment." He sighed and passed a moment of silence toying with her fingertip. I’ve always maintained that a man's being drunk is no excuse for bad behavior. But you seem to believe otherwise, that Patrick truly goes crazy when he drinks and that he isn't entirely responsible for what he does." He looked over at her. "I've just been doing a lot of thinking about it. After all Patrick has done for you, I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt."

"Patrick hasn't quit drinking."

No. But he might. I know you've talked to him, and it hasn't seemed to do much good, but that doesn't mean the words have fallen on deaf ears." Ace pushed a tendril of hair back from her cheek. "Tomorrow when he wakes up, he's probably going to remember his sister lighting into him with a two-by-four. If he loves you half as much as you love him, that's bound to eat at him. Who knows? Maybe that was exactly what he needed all along. He may not swear off whiskey tomorrow, but he may later. If you stick to your guns, at some point he's going to realize what the drink is costing him."

"Oh, Ace, do you really think so?"

"Yes, I do." He flashed another awkward grin. "And when that day comes, I don't want him to have any more reason to hate my guts than he already does." He shrugged a shoulder. "Besides, I'm in the cattle business now. I'll make a lot more money if I can ship my beef by rail to Denver. Not much point in cutting off my nose to spite my face. It'll be better all the way around if I go ahead and build the spur. Don't you think?"

Caitlin nestled her head in the hollow of his shoulder. "What I think, Mr. Keegan, is that you're the most wonderful man I've ever met."

"How wonderful?"

She slanted him a questioning glance. "Wonderful, wonderful."

"Wonderful enough that you'd go lock that door and come back to me wearing nothing but that glorious smile of yours?"

"What about your ribs?"

"To hell with my ribs."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN