Megan Chance (33 page)

"He's gone," Sari said. "He left this morning."

Michael sighed. "Sari, darlin', please don't lie to me. I've got Timmy on a thin enough leash as it is."

Sari glanced at Timmy Boyd. He was staring at her as if he could melt her flesh from her bones with his eyes. She shuddered and turned away, but it was too late to keep the fear from starting deep inside her. She struggled to stay calm. "It's not a lie," she said. "He went to Denver."

Timmy stepped forward; his thin face sharpened with a nasty grin. "If you don't mind, we'll just be havin' us a look around."

Charles stepped in front of her. "I want you off my land."

"Just a look around, old man," Michael wheedled. "If we don't find him, we'll be off. It's simple as that."

"Get off my land," Charles demanded again. "You do not belong here."

"
Onkle
," Sari warned. "Let them look. We have nothing to hide."

"They do not belong here," he insisted stubbornly.

Timmy's grin widened. "I think we belong anywhere we want, you old fool," he said. "And I'm not leavin' till we have, a look around. Of course, you have another choice." He reached inside his coat, drawing out a revolver and pointing it at Charles's chest. "We could always leave a dead man."

Sari grabbed her uncle's arm and squeezed hard, pulling him back. "Go on," she said to Timmy. "Have your look around. Then leave us be." She flashed an angry look at Michael. "As you promised."

He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment, but his expression never changed. He reached for his own gun and leveled it at them, though she knew it was just for show, so that these friends of his would know they could count on him. "Come on, laddies," he said to the others. "Let's get to work. And you two"—he looked at Sari—"go on inside."

"Keep an eye on 'em, Mick," Sean said.

"I will. Don't you be worrying about that." Michael motioned with his gun.

"You think you are such a big man," Charles said. "But you are nothing, Michael Doyle. I am ashamed to call you kin."

Michael's face hardened. He gestured again with the gun, and Sari tightened her fingers on her uncle's arm, pulling him with her as they went to the house. Sean kicked the door open, even though it was unlocked, nearly breaking it from its weak leather hinges.

"Light the lamp," Timmy demanded when they were inside, and Sari did it quickly. He grabbed it, holding it aloft and peering into the corners where sunlight from the window and the open door didn't reach.

Michael jerked his head to the table. "Sit down," he said. "This may take a while."

Charles balked, and Sari felt the tug of fear. "Come on,
Onkle
," she said in a low voice. "Let's not cause trouble. They'll be gone soon enough."

"Not soon enough," Charles said.

Michael glared at him. "Sit down, old man."

Charles sat, and Sari set the pail of milk on the table and took the seat beside him. Sean tromped through the house, kicking at trunks and pulling aside chairs as if he expected to see Conor cowering behind them. Timmy was in the loft. Sari heard him yank open the lid of her trunk, heard it thud against the wall. She winced, thinking of him up there. Picturing him looking under the bed, pushing aside the hanging hams to see into the corners, pawing through her personal things, defiling every one.

The thought made her feel sick. She closed her eyes, tightening her fingers on the edge of the table. She wanted them gone, wanted Michael to take his friends and go far, far away.

"What's this?" Timmy said, coming to the edge of the loft. He was holding one of her nightgowns— a fine batiste, lavishly embroidered. It was one of the gowns she'd brought on her honeymoon, one she rarely wore now. "Ain't this a pretty thing," he minced, holding it up before him.

Michael glanced up. "Put it away, Timmy," he said. "We're looking for Roarke, remember?"

"Aye, I remember." Timmy grinned, and then his face changed; he leered at her. "You wear this for Roarke, Sari?"

Sari felt herself flush, and she felt Charles tense beside her.

"It's all right," she whispered. "Let him—"

"Leave her be, Tim," Michael warned.

"Come on, Sari," Timmy continued, ignoring Michael. "Did you wear this when you fucked—"

She felt Charles's move before she saw it, a sudden lurch to the side, a quick reach to the rifle angled in the corner by the window. He had it up against his shoulder before she could say a word, was cocking the lever and aiming at Timmy.

She could never say afterward exactly what happened. From the corner of her eye she saw Michael whip around, saw the sunlight glint off the cold metal of his gun. She heard Sean's scream and then her own, and then she heard the crack of gunfire, saw the flash of powder.

Charles spun, and there was another shot. Then the rifle was falling and so was he, collapsing on the table, upsetting the pail of milk so that it splashed across the surface—

"He shot me! Christ in hell, he shot me!" Michael was shouting, clutching his arm. Blood seeped through his fingers. "The bastard shot me!"

Sari jumped from her seat. "
Onkle
!" she shouted. She grabbed at him, but he was limp and heavy. The milk was spreading, pooling and spilling onto the floor, stained with pink that was rapidly growing redder and redder.

"My God, my God." She grabbed at him, pressing her ear to his back, listening for breathing, feeling for movement. "
Onkle
.
Onkle
, please ..."

He was breathing, but it was shallow and strained.

Sean was leaning over Michael. Timmy stumbled down the loft ladder.

"He shot me," Michael moaned. "He shot me!"

"You shot him!" Sari lifted her head and screamed the words. When Michael looked at her, his eyes dark in the paleness of his face, she turned back to her uncle. With effort she pulled him from the table, nearly fell with him to the floor. The men on the other side of the room made no move to help her, and she wasn't sure she would have let them touch him. She knelt beside him, seeing the hole in his chest, blackened around the edges, the seeping blood. His eyes were closed, his face drained of color except for the thin line of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

"Oh, my God," she whispered, leaning close. She lifted his head, cradling it in her arms. She looked at the three men standing there, stunned. "Somebody get a doctor!" she screamed at them. "Get him a doctor, damn you!"

"Sarilyn—" Her uncle's whisper was strained. "
Lieb... ling
, it is ... too late."

"No." Tears blurred her vision, fell onto her lips. The fear grew so big in her soul, she could taste it mixing with the weak salt of her tears. "
Onkle
, no, it's not. It's not too late. Just hold on. Hold on." She looked at her brother, who just sat there in silent shock. "Get a doctor!"

Michael's lips moved, though Sari heard no sound.

"Calm down, lass," Sean said.

"He's dying, damn you!"

Her uncle shuddered in her arms. "I... love ..."

Desperation surged through her. She offered a prayer to every deity she could think of.
Don't let him die. Please, don't let him die.

But it was too late. She knew it by the hoarse clattering of his breath, and then by the way he went limp in her arms. She thought she heard the breathing of a word. "Bernice ..."

And then he was gone.

Sari stared down at the lifeless body in her arms. "No," she whispered. Then, louder, "No."

Too late. She laid him on the ground, buried her face in her hands, unable to look at the face she'd loved so well, not wanting to believe. He was gone.

He was gone and she had nothing left, nothing of him but this still-warm, empty body that suddenly wasn't him at all.

"I'm sorry, darlin'," Michael said softly. "I didn't mean to shoot him."

She didn't look at him. "Then you shouldn't have pulled your gun."

"It was an accident."

She turned to face him. "You are no longer my brother," she said, marshalling her anger, her grief, into quiet, too-calm words. "I want you out of my house. I don't want to see your face again."

"Sari—"

"Get out."

It was all she could say. She looked back at her uncle, at his silent body, and she felt the tears running down her face, over her cheeks and her jaw, and she didn't move. She heard them behind her, their quiet shuffling out of the soddy. Heard Michael pause at the door. But he didn't say anything, and finally he, too, was gone, and she was left alone with the cold, keening wind and the dull sunlight, and hands that were sticky with her uncle's blood.

C
onor rode up to the soddy drenched in sweat, panic still racing through his veins. He'd made the trip as quickly as he could, and when he saw the stillness of the little farm, he was sure he hadn't come quickly enough. He dismounted and left his horse standing there in the yard, and took the few steps to the front door of the house at a dead run, nearly falling through the door that hung loosely—too loosely—on its hinges.

"Sari!" Her name burst from his lungs; he skidded to a stop when he saw her. She was standing just inside, staring into space, her hands curled around a cup of coffee. His first emotion was relief; he'd come in time. Then he saw her expression. That dead-eyed, empty expression.

And he knew he was too late.

"What happened?" he asked.

It seemed she looked right through him. She didn't seem surprised to see him, and she didn't ask him to explain his question. Instead she nodded toward the table, and he turned and saw the body.

"Christ," he said, striding toward it. "Oh, Christ." It was Charles, and he was dead—there was no denying the stiffness of his limbs or the sagging of his face. He looked like all dead bodies looked—like a shell and nothing more, an almost obscene imitation of sleep.

Conor stood there staring, felt the disbelief sink through him and then the denial. He was too familiar with it, with this unbelieving shock, this denying sadness. Too familiar with the grief.

"How—how did it happen?"

"Michael was here," she said, and her voice was as lifeless as Charles's body. "He and Timmy and Sean. They were looking for you, and
Onkle
tried to warn them away with the rifle. He shot Michael in the arm, and Michael... Michael shot him."

Her words were so matter-of-fact, and the pain he felt at them, the blame, welled up inside of him, filling him so that he couldn't ignore it, couldn't push it away. There was no place for it to go. He looked at Sari, too silent, too still. He wanted to take her in his arms, but he knew she wouldn't allow it—and also knew he would crumble if she pushed him away. So he didn't touch her. He just stared at the man on the table—that good, kind man. Charles was gone, and Conor's grief tightened his chest until he couldn't breathe. Charles was dead and this land he loved would never be touched again by those old, caring hands, and it suddenly seemed too much, too meaningless to be borne.

Conor squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ease that terrible, lonely pain, and thought,
No more
. He was so damn tired of death, of sacrifices. Tired of lies and betrayals that never seemed to end.

He opened his eyes and looked at Sari. "Where's Michael now?" he asked.

She looked at him as if he'd slapped her. "Michael?" she asked. "Good God, is that all you care about? A man's been killed—a man who was good and honorable—and all you want is your damned revenge!" She slammed the coffee cup on the sideboard; coffee splashed over her fingers, dripped to the floor. "You and your damned job, your damned agency. Look what it's brought!"

Conor shook his head helplessly. "Sari, I never intended for this to happen."

"Of course not," she said, sarcasm dripping from her words. "You knew about the blackmark. You knew they would come back here. Yet you left anyway. So much for your 'protection.' You decided I lied to you, and that was all that mattered.
I
didn't matter.
Onkle
didn't matter."

"Sari—"

"It's just like it was in Tamaqua."

Each word felt like a blow, and Conor just listened helplessly, unable to stop her, letting her punish him because he deserved it. Christ, he deserved it too well.

"What kind of man are you, Conor Roarke? I thought I knew you. I didn't want to trust you and you kept making me do it. You lied until I was exactly where you wanted me, and you had the gall to run away because I lied to you." She pointed to her uncle; her hand was shaking. "Look at this! He's dead, and it's all your fault. Are you satisfied now?"

Silent sobs shook her. Conor went to her. He pressed his hand against her cheek. Her skin was cold. Icy cold and wet with tears.

She shrank away from him. "Don't touch me," she spat. "It's too late. I don't want you. I can't forgive you any more. Not you—nor Michael. I want you to leave." Then, when he didn't move, she turned to him with reddened, angry eyes. "Leave!"

He watched her for a moment, and then he shook his head. "I'm not going. Not this time."

"Don't you understand?" she asked desperately. "Don't you see? It's too late." Her voice faltered. "It's too late."

The words cut into his heart. So sad. So lonely. They made Conor think of that long and silent train ride, of the woman waving from her soddy in the middle of the barren plains. He thought of the emptiness inside him—that emptiness that had only disappeared when Sari loved him; those few days before the Christmas dance, when they had been together and the world had seemed different somehow— brighter and cleaner and better—when the plains had not seemed so lonely after all. He had made so many damn mistakes. So many ...

Conor's chest tightened. She was pale and shaking. He wanted to take all her anger and sadness into himself. Christ, he would if he could.

But forcing her to accept him now would kill whatever feeling she had for him, he knew it. She would only resent him later, for once again making her feel things she didn't want to feel. It would stay between them forever, and that wasn't what he wanted. Not now. Not when he finally knew what he had to do.