Renee Ryan (18 page)

What remained to be seen? What had Annabeth missed?

Hunter squeezed Mattie’s hand, then stood. “I realize you have much to discuss with your daughter.” He hooked a thumb in Annabeth’s direction. “I’ll leave you two alone now.”

With efficient, short strides, he headed toward the exit.

Annabeth rushed after him, only catching him after he swung open the door.

“Perhaps I’ll go with you,” she suggested, having no desire to face her mother alone right now. “You know, discuss the details of our upcoming nuptials and—”

He pressed his fingertip to her lips. “Stay, Annabeth. Talk this over with your mother.”

That’s all he was going to say to her? Couldn’t he give her a few tender words before he left?

Our marriage will be in name only.
Not if Annabeth had anything to say about it.

“We’ll have our own discussion soon. But first, you need to sort out a few details with your mother.”

“You can’t just leave me here.” She searched her mind for a reason why. “How will I get back to Charity House?” All right, she was reaching now. She’d made the trek back to Charity House a dozen times in the past few months. She didn’t need him, or any man, to escort her home.

“Mattie has assured me she’ll see you home safe and sound.” He pressed his palm to her cheek, a look of affection in his eyes. “We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

With those parting words, he left the room. Annabeth watched him go, but he didn’t look back at her, not once.

Sighing, she shut the door and then pressed her forehead to the wood.

She heard the rustle of silk a second before Mattie placed a hand on her back. “So, you are determined to marry him.”

“What does it matter?” Squeezing her eyes shut, she flattened a palm against the door. “You heard what he said.”

“I also heard what he didn’t say.”

Not sure what that meant, Annabeth lifted her head, thought to turn around and face her mother head-on, but decided she needed another moment. She pressed her forehead again to the door and curled her fingers into the material of her dress.

Hunter’s words swam in her mind.
Our marriage will be in name only.
Another sigh leaked out of her mouth. “He doesn’t want me.”

“Oh, he wants you.”

“Not like a man is supposed to want the woman he’s about to marry.”

“Yes, Annabeth, he does. In this particular area, I’m an expert.”

Perhaps that was true. Most of the time. But in this situation, the most notorious madam in Denver was wrong. So very wrong.

“He’s just being noble, you said so yourself. I’ll be nothing more than a glorified nanny for his daughter.”

“Then be his daughter’s nanny and nothing more.” Mattie’s hands closed over her shoulders and then gently turned her around. “I beseech you, Annabeth, don’t marry Hunter Mitchell.”

“But I
want
to marry him. I want to be his wife.”

“Don’t make my same mistakes,” Mattie warned, her hands still clutching Annabeth’s shoulders. “You can’t change a man, any man.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know what it’s like to try.” Mattie dropped her hands. “You’re only setting yourself up for heartbreak.”

Was she? Did it matter? “He needs me.”

“Oh, Annabeth.” Mattie shook her head sadly. “Let some other woman save his soul.”

Her mother didn’t understand. Annabeth wasn’t trying to save Hunter’s soul. Only God could do that. All she wanted was to be a soft force in his life, a gentle touch when the world threw him punches.

She wanted to be the woman to soothe away the pain of his past, to watch that haunted look in his eyes disappear over time. She wanted to provide joy and peace and love in their home. Not only for Hunter, but for Sarah as well, and maybe even for herself.

All three of them deserved a chance at happiness and a place to call their own. Why not build that place together?

“There’s something else you should consider,” Mattie said. “Hunter is
a man.
”

“Well, that certainly needed clearing up.”

Mattie ignored her sarcasm. “He may say he wants a marriage in name only. He may have vowed that you will leave his home untouched if you change your mind. He may even believe that, but—”

“
I
believe him.”

“You shouldn’t. He’s a strong, healthy, vigorous young man.” Mattie sighed. “Eventually, he will want more from you.”

Oh, Annabeth hoped so. She really, truly hoped so. Although she wasn’t quite sure what marital intimacy involved, how she felt when Hunter kissed her told her it would likely be pleasant. Her cheeks warmed. “If matters change between us in that way, well, that will be our concern, not yours.”

“He spent the past two years in prison,” Mattie said, trying a different tactic. “There is no tenderness in him.”

Annabeth disagreed. He was capable of great tenderness. After the way he’d treated her this very afternoon, Mattie had to know this. She had to realize her arguments didn’t hold up under close scrutiny. “I am willing to take that risk.”

“There will be no finesse in his kisses.”

Seeing as she had proof otherwise, Annabeth
thoroughly
disagreed. “I am willing to take that risk,” she repeated.

“He will break your heart,” Mattie reiterated.

Yes, very likely, he would.

But what if he didn’t? What if he turned out to be the man of her dreams?

Her heart filled with unspeakable hope. And she repeated her new mantra a third time. “I am willing to take that risk.”

“Annabeth, you aren’t thinking clearly.”

“On the contrary, Mother. I am thinking clearer than I ever have before.”

Chapter Eighteen

H
unter twisted right then left, blinking furiously to clear his vision. He was back in the dark alley. His wife a few steps ahead of him. She’d turned the wrong way again, when he’d unwisely let his guard down.

He reached for her in the same way he did every night. This time, he caught her arm. But his grip slipped and she continued on without him. She seemed to disappear a little more with each step she took, her image becoming a watery blur.

“Jane, stop!” Hunter shouted after her, his voice hollow in his own ears.

The shadowy figure of Cole Kincaid materialized just out of Hunter’s reach.

“Jane, behind you. He’s right behind you.”

As if sensing the fear in his voice, she turned to look at him. “Not to worry, my love. I’m in a safe place now.”

But she wasn’t safe.

Cole was pulling a knife from his pocket. The blade morphed into a gun. Grinning sinisterly, Cole pointed the barrel at Jane’s head, and...

Bang!

Jane crumpled to the ground.

Bang, bang, bang.

Hunter staggered forward, reaching for his wife, but he missed and hit the ground hard. The impact knocked the breath out of him. He dragged in choking gulps of air. “Jane. I failed you again.”

She came into view again and touched his face. “It’s finished, Hunter. You can let me go now.”

Another round of gunfire exploded through the air.

This time when Hunter reached for his wife his hands wrapped around Kincaid’s beefy neck.

The scenery suddenly changed and they were in Mattie’s sitting room.

Cole collapsed to the ground, Hunter’s hands still on the outlaw’s throat. The man’s eyes bulged, his face a dingy, lifeless gray now.

“Hunter, open up.”

His brother’s voice came at him from a distance, like an unwanted echo inside his head. He shook free of the insistent call to come home. The past beckoned, pulling him deeper into its sinister danger.

The pounding resumed, fist against wood. “Hunter. I know you’re in there.”

He knew that voice, even if he hadn’t heard it in years. Hunter’s mind cleared. He sat up slowly and rubbed at his gritty eyes.

“Only a dream,” he murmured. The same gut-twisting nightmare that had plagued him every night since Jane’s death.

Jane. No matter how hard he tried to hold on to her, her face was growing more obscure in his mind, her individual features harder to remember. It was as if he was losing her all over again.

Losing her? Or letting her go?

Bang, bang, bang.

“Hunter. I mean it. Enough stalling.” The doorknob rattled. “You have thirty seconds to open up or I’m breaking down this door.”

Logan’s low-pitched baritone teemed with frustration.

“All right, all right.” Hunter threw off the covers and padded across the room. “I’m coming.”

“Ten seconds down,” came the harsh warning, “twenty to go.”

Strangely, Hunter found himself smiling. Same old impatient Logan.

“Fifteen seconds.”

Eyes still gritty, throat raw, he yanked open the door, and confronted his brother’s scowl.

It was like looking in a mirror, and no less surprising than in years past. Only eleven months younger, Logan had Hunter’s same build, hair color and nearly identical features. The only difference was their eye color.

Arms crossed over his chest, Logan stared at him. He made no move to push into the room. The calm demeanor was a facade. The man hummed with controlled energy, waiting, measuring, gauging.

Outwardly, Hunter remained equally calm, equally controlled, one hand resting on the door, the other on the opposite doorjamb. A sense of inevitability slammed through him. This meeting had been coming for a long time.

When the silence stretched long and uncomfortable, Logan ran his gaze over Hunter and grimaced. “You look awful.”

“Good to see you, too, little brother.” Hunter touched his brow in a mock salute.

Logan’s lips twisted at a wry angle.

Here it comes,
Hunter thought. The reproach, the detailed list of his past transgressions, the reminder he’d made a complete mess of his life.

Confronting more silence, Hunter eyed his brother with suspicion, his guard up.

Logan simply smiled. “You going to invite me in?”

Caught in a mild state of surprise, a slow rush of air hissed out of his lungs. Ever since leaving prison Hunter had felt “eyes” on him, as if someone was tracking him. When really his imagination had been working overtime, preparing him for this unavoidable confrontation with his estranged brother. The churning in his gut eased and he moved aside to let Logan pass.

Two steps forward and the man’s gaze fell on the rumpled bedcovers. “I woke you.”

“I had a late night.”

One arched brow was his brother’s only response.

“I was at Mattie’s brothel.”

As soon as he spoke the words, Hunter’s mind immediately jumped to Annabeth and her unprecedented marriage proposal. He knew he should stop the insanity as quickly as possible. Marriage to a man like him was a losing proposition for a woman like her. But after considerable thought, Hunter had come to the conclusion that their union made sense.

Sarah needed both a mother and a father, and Annabeth needed the Mitchell name.

“You went to...Mattie’s?” Logan’s brow traveled higher.

A slew of questions lit in the other man’s gaze, but he didn’t voice any of them. The restraint was new. By this point in the conversation Logan was usually spouting off the same tired sermon about it not being too late to change his life.

They both knew it was never too late. God’s mercy was fathomless and available to all His children. Hunter had needed to come to that realization in his own time, and in his own way.

Again, he wondered why Logan wasn’t preaching to him.

“What?” His voice came out raw, gravelly. “No urging me to mend my wicked ways?”

Logan lifted a shoulder. “If you were at Mattie’s last night, you had a reason. And I guarantee it wasn’t why most men frequent her establishment.”

Hunter found himself staring at his brother, unable to reconcile this man with the lawman he’d once been.

As if reading his mind, Logan let out a long-suffering sigh. “Look, Hunter, I know what you’re thinking. But I’m not here to lecture you, or judge. Despite the mistakes you’ve made in the past, I know what kind of man you are.”

It was Hunter’s turn to arch a brow. Again, he thought, this was not the brother he remembered.

“I sat in the courtroom during your trial,” Logan continued. “I listened to all the testimony and...” He trailed off, shrugged.

“And?” he prompted.

“The judge shouldn’t have sentenced you to two years in the state prison.” Breaking eye contact, Logan moved to the window and looked out, his shoulders tense. “If it were up to me you wouldn’t have served any time.”

Stunned, Hunter rocked back on his heels. His brother, the former U.S. marshal, the man who always followed the rules, was giving him a pass for killing another man?

There was too much bad blood between them for Hunter to remain silent on the matter. “If I remember correctly, you were the one who told me I should turn myself in to the authorities and face the consequences of what I’d done.”

Still looking out the window, Logan ran a hand over his face, drew in a long pull of air. “I thought you would get a fair trial. Then, once you were set free, you’d be able to start fresh, without having to look over your shoulder anymore.”

A nice sentiment. But there were some mistakes a man could never outrun, mistakes others would never let him forget. The Lord forgave sin, Hunter knew that, believed it, but He didn’t always take away the consequence of the sin.

Clearing his throat, Logan swung around and faced him head-on, his eyes full of regret. “I never thought you’d have to go to prison, Hunter, certainly not for two years.”

All this time, he’d thought his brother had wanted him to suffer for his actions. Had he been wrong?

“I owe you, more than I can ever repay in this lifetime.” Logan pulled in another harsh breath. “You saved Megan’s life that night.”

“Let’s not rewrite history. I had one motive when I entered Mattie’s suite of rooms, and that was to confront the man who’d killed my wife in cold blood. I had no idea Kincaid had tried to attack Megan only moments before. When I arrived, I found him on the floor, near the hearth. Your wife had knocked him out cold.” He smiled at the memory. “She’d moved behind one of the false walls, so I didn’t see her at first and I certainly didn’t go in there to help her.”

“The result was the same. Megan is alive because you took out Kincaid.” Gratitude filled Logan’s gaze. “Let’s jump to the end, shall we? You had no choice but to kill the man.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“I’ve faced men like him, men with pure evil in their hearts.” Logan clenched his hands into angry fists, as if picturing Kincaid attacking Megan. “He wasn’t going down without a fight.”

True. Hunter had known it was kill or be killed as soon as he’d looked into the outlaw’s soulless eyes. He’d given Kincaid a chance to collect himself and face him like a man.

They’d fought hard. The battle as ugly as Hunter had ever endured. He’d ultimately prevailed, by God’s grace alone.

“I still killed a man,” he said, a reminder for them both.

“In self-defense,” Logan corrected. “I never doubted that, and despite what the jury decided, you shouldn’t, either.”

His brother’s unwavering confidence in him made Hunter rethink the events of that evening, this time from Logan’s perspective. If Kincaid had been sadistic enough to engage in a fight to the death with a man his own size, the outlaw wouldn’t have hesitated hurting a petite woman like Megan.

Hunter had taken away that opportunity, the one good thing that had come out of that night.

“Now that we’ve covered the past,” Logan said, moving away from the window. “Let’s focus on the present. Since you won’t offer up the information freely, I see I’m going to have to ask straight-out. Why did you go to Mattie’s last night?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.” Proving his point, Logan pulled out the straight-backed chair tucked under a small writing desk. He turned it around, straddled the seat and then folded his arms over the top.

Unable to remain immobile under his brother’s watchful gaze, Hunter paced the room. The movement helped him put his thoughts in order.

He swallowed. He’d kept so much from his family, too much, mostly out of pride. That ended today, now. He started by disclosing the nature of his rocky marriage to Maria.

Logan interrupted him almost immediately. “You got married that soon after leaving home?”

“I was young and determined to have my own way. I was lonely, too.” He could admit that now, could accept what he’d refused to see at the time. “That kind of bone-deep sense of isolation can make a man do stupid things, especially a young man just off the ranch with too much kid left in him.”

But he hadn’t just been young. He’d been selfish, prideful and determined to deny his Christian upbringing, all because he’d craved freedom. Or what he’d thought was freedom. He’d set out to live life on his own terms. No rules. Whatever felt good
was
good.

He hadn’t found freedom, but rather his own form of slavery, a self-made prison of unholy desire.

“Go on, Hunter.” Logan’s voice was patient as he wound his wrist in the air. “Continue with your story.”

Hunter did, pacing as he spoke, his steps slowing when he came to the part about Maria hiding his own child from him, his precious, beautiful Sarah.

“Maria didn’t tell you she’d borne you a child?” Logan sounded outraged. He also sounded like a...brother.

Had that always been there, the loyal, unwavering support?

Hunter made another pass through the room. “I can’t say I blame her. By then I’d fallen in with a pretty rough crowd.”

“I remember.”

Yes, Logan would remember. They’d met once during that time, the night of Maria’s funeral. He’d been half crazed with guilt, wondering if he’d tried harder to make Maria happy maybe she would have stayed with him.

Maybe she would still be alive today.

And Sarah would have both a mother and a father.

She can still have that, with you and Annabeth.

The thought brought a wave of peace, and a sense of rightness settled over him. He needed Annabeth in his life, as much as he needed Sarah.

He loved them both, for very different reasons. He loved Sarah as a father to his daughter. And he loved Annabeth as—

“What happened to the child?”

Hunter swallowed the complicated emotions warring inside his head. He needed to focus on this conversation, but he couldn’t quite make the leap back now that his thoughts had turned to Annabeth. Had he just told himself he loved her?

Of course he loved her. She was Sarah’s aunt.

Sarah.
Right, he was telling Logan about his daughter.

“Sarah is living at Charity House.” His lips lifted and Hunter allowed the smile to spread across his face. “At least Maria got that right.”

Rising from the chair, Logan made a sound deep in his throat. “Did you say your daughter’s name is Sarah?”

“That’s right.” Hunter could see Logan’s mind working, perhaps sorting through the Charity House children, trying to figure out which one was Hunter’s. “She just turned nine years old a few weeks ago. She has Maria’s dark hair, her same coloring and my—”

“Eyes. She has your eyes. Hunter, I know Sarah. I
know
your daughter. I’ve met her on several occasions when we’ve visited Charity House.”

“How often do you go to Charity House?”

“Not as much as Megan. She still has a strong connection with Laney and Marc. For all intents and purposes, they were her parents. She teaches art classes a few times a year. Sarah is one of her favorite pupils.” Wonder lit Logan’s gaze as he closed the distance between them and clapped him on the back. “She’s a sweet girl, smart, inherently kind. The sort of person any man would be proud to call his daughter.”