Rexanne Becnel (48 page)

“Abby? Abigail! Where are you, girl?”

She straightened with a start when she heard her grandfather’s impatient call. “Here,” she managed to get out, stepping out from behind the massive tree trunk.

“What in the world are you doing back here?” he demanded, hurrying toward her with surprising agility, given his age and girth. “You’re supposed to be circulating among our guests. Oh, and Dan Corsan and his wife are looking for you.”

Little Cliff appeared from behind Willard. “They’re gonna take Rosemary away from me. I know that’s what they want to do. But you can stop them, Miss Abby. You can stop them, can’t you?”

“Don’t be silly, boy.” Willard frowned, waving the fair-haired youngster away. “What d’ye think this is all about anyway? To try to get all you children new homes.”

“Grandfather!” But Abby had no time to waste on her grandfather, for the frightened little boy needed her more. He stood there, pale beneath his summer tan, fighting back the tears he’d so often been told a big boy never shed.

Abby gathered him in her arms, grateful when he began to cry. Better to let those awful feelings out than to bottle them up. She would gladly have succumbed to a bout of tears herself had she not needed to be strong for Cliff.

“What’s gonna happen to me?” he wailed. “What if nobody wants
me
?” He buried his head against her neck. “I want my own mama back. And my papa.”

“It’ll be all right, sweetheart. It will. You’re going to be fine,” Abby murmured, trying to soothe his six-year-old panic. But she shot her grandfather a speaking look over the child’s tousled head.

“It’s not as if they all wouldn’t have figured it out,” Willard said in self-defense.

That was true, Abby supposed. But she’d hoped to spare the feelings of those children not adopted right away.

Willard cleared his throat. “You know, maybe we could use a boy around here,” he offered tentatively.

Abby wasn’t certain whether he meant to placate her or the sobbing child in her arms. But whomever his words were intended for, their reactions were identical.

“You’re
willing to take in a child?”

“You want a boy like
me?”

Willard shifted from one foot to the other. “Well … Well, yes, dammit. Yes, as a matter of fact I do. Girls are a hell of a lot of trouble. I don’t understand ’em at all. But a boy …” He trailed off, but he was smiling, and it lit an answering smile on Cliff’s face.

“You want
me
?” he asked again as if he had to be sure.

“I want you.”

Cliff pulled out of Abby’s embrace and wiped his damp eyes on his sleeve. “Okay,” he agreed, suddenly all business. “Only I want to play with Rosemary sometimes.”

“I can arrange that.” Willard stuck out his palm. “Deal?”

Cliff took the old man’s gnarled hand with his own sun-browned one. They shook, or Abby supposed they did. Her eyes had filled with too many tears for her to clearly see. But when her grandfather extended his other arm to her, she could see well enough to fling her arms around his waist and snuggle into his embrace.

“Thank you,” she whispered against the stiff brocade of his waistcoat. “Thank you, Grandfather.”

“Ah, my little Abby girl. I made so many mistakes with your ma. And with you, too, I s’pose. Maybe I can get it right with … with …”

“Cliff,” the boy supplied his name from the other side of Willard’s ample frame. “My name is Cliff.”

“Your name is Cliff
Hogan
,” Willard corrected proudly.

There were more pairings being made, Abby realized when the three of them rejoined their party. Dorothy sat with Jacob and Mildred Walliford. He was headmaster of the Illinois Academy, a school for boys. But they had no children of their own. Alfred was tossing a leather ball to Philip Miller, of Miller Mercantile, while his wife looked on, beaming.

Oh, but life was good to her, Abby thought. She’d found her grandfather today—really found him—after weeks of being in his household but not really a part of it. But from now on they’d be a family, and so would these other newly forming families.

Her gaze swept the lawn, taking in the peaceful scene spread across the green shadows of the late afternoon. Then she spied Tanner, and the rest of it all faded away. He stood apart from everyone else, separate. Watchful. Did he choose not to mingle because he felt he could never fit in? Or was he merely being the bodyguard, cautious and suspicious?

Abby’s heart was so full of love and hopefulness at that moment that despite their last disastrous conversation, over a week earlier, she knew she had to try to reach him one more time. She took hasty leave of her grandfather and Cliff, both of whom wore equally wide grins. Willard Hogan had just struck the best deal of his life, though he might not yet know it. She was determined to do just as well.

Patrick watched Abby thread her way across the lawn, making brief conversation with their guests. But it was more than clear to him where she was headed. He nursed his gin sling, only paying token attention to Mrs. Hess’s meandering description of her idyllic childhood in Pennsylvania. Abigail had thrown
him
over—Patrick Brady, vice president of a worldwide enterprise—for a no-account bounty hunter. The little slut had no shame. She should be grateful that Patrick had been willing to make an honest woman of her. But no, she was like a bitch in heat for McKnight.

But there was no way Patrick could allow her to marry McKnight and put her fortune—the fortune that rightfully should come to him—in the hands of a shiftless
bum who had only his skill with a handgun to commend him.

He tossed back the contents of his glass, then coughed at its bitter sting. “If you’ll excuse me,” he interrupted Mrs. Hess’s monologue. Without further explanation he turned and hurried into the house. It would have to be now. With all this confusion and so many people, suspicion would never fall on him. He’d have to kill McKnight, too, though how he’d love to let him live to take the blame for not protecting Abigail as he’d been paid to do. Patrick laughed out loud. Willard would want to kill McKnight himself, but Patrick wasn’t taking any chances this time. He’d have to kill McKnight himself.

In his grief Willard would undoubtedly turn to his godchild for support. Patrick smiled at the thought. As always he intended to be there for the man.

“If you don’t come with me right now, I vow I shall go directly to the stables, saddle a horse, and gallop off all alone.” Abby glared at Tanner, matching his forbidding expression with one she hoped was equally determined. “You’ll have to follow me because that’s what you’re paid to do. So why not just come with me now and save us both a lot of aggravation?”

“We can talk here.”

“No, we can’t. I need more privacy.”

A muscle jumped in his cheek, a tense, rhythmic pulse that was the only sign that he might be even the least bit unsettled by her demand. She stepped nearer. “This can’t wait, Tanner.” She stared up into his eyes, so dark, so blue. So closed off from her and yet glittering now with a hungry sort of light.

“Let it alone, Abby. Why in the hell can’t you just let it alone?”

The flatness of his tone, the weariness in his voice, almost made her do as he asked. Stop pursuing him. Accept the fact that they were entirely mismatched. But she couldn’t. She started for the stables, head held high, though she fought back tears with every step. Before she’d gone even half the distance, he caught up with her.

“You’re being an idiot.” He grabbed her by one arm and spun her around to face him. “And a spoiled brat.”

“And you’re a coward.”

That drew him up, and in that moment she leaped on the offensive. “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you? You’re afraid of the feelings
I
arouse in
you
—and I don’t mean the physical ones. I mean the ones in here.” She pressed her free hand against his chest.

Beneath the wool jacket and striped waistcoat he’d donned for the occasion, under the crisp linen shirt, the warm flesh and hard muscle, his heartbeat felt strong and steady. It was a heart she wished to take into her tender keeping just as she longed to give him hers.

“Son of a bitch!” He thrust her away from him, then swore again, a fluent string of curse words made no less vehement by the low pitch of his voice. “Maybe you deserve to get just what you’re asking for. A man with no prospects beyond what he can scrape up out of the dirt. A man without a decent job to speak of or even a house to bring you to. A man who’s got nothing to offer you. Nothing!”

Despite his seething anger Abby had never seen him so vulnerable, and it made her love him all the more. “You have everything I need, Tanner. Can’t you see that? None of the rest matters. Certainly not money or things,” she stated quietly. “I love you—who you are inside. Together we can overcome all the rest.”

Her eyes held fast with his, demanding that he believe her. Pleading with him to take a chance, to open up to her. Then something flickered deep in his eyes, something changed, and the breath stilled in Abby’s chest.

“Dammit, woman,” he muttered. But she heard capitulation in his voice, and her heart soared with rising joy. “You’re making a foolish mistake. The worst mistake of your life.”

“No, I’m not,” she countered, love shining in her eyes.

“Ah, Abby,” he groaned. Then he lifted his hand and stroked one of his fingers down the curve of her cheek. “I never believed I could feel about a woman—love a woman—the way I love you.”

“Tanner,” she breathed, stepping into the curve of his hand.

“How utterly touching.”

At that unexpected and sarcastic comment, both Abby and Tanner whirled around.

“Come here,” Patrick ordered from a partially hidden position behind one of her grandfather’s many fancifully pruned boxwood hedges. He spared only a brief, contemptuous glance for Abby before focusing both his attention and the shiny pistol he held on Tanner. “I suggest you cooperate, dear Abigail, or the virile object of your vulgar affections shall be no more than a bleeding mess on the ground. As for you, McKnight. Kindly divest yourself of the weapon beneath your coat.”

Abby’s fearful gaze sought Tanner. This was her fault. She’d turned Patrick down, though she’d never suspected his emotions to be this intensely involved. Now he seemed intent on killing Tanner, and all because she was foolish enough to state her feelings where anyone might overhear.

“Do as he says, Abby.” Tanner’s voice was low and evenly pitched. No hint of fear at all, though Abby was frightened enough for them both. But he kept his stare steady on Patrick, menacing despite the clear advantage the other man held.

“Toss it over here,” Patrick ordered, a faint smile curving his mouth. “That’s it,” he said when Tanner complied. He swiftly pocketed Tanner’s weapon, then gestured toward a Japanese pergola half hidden in a shroud of ginger plants and English ivy.

Tanner guided Abby forward, though she realized he kept himself squarely between her and the gun Patrick held.

Dear God, don’t let Tanner try to prove his love by protecting me with his body.
It should be the other way around. She’d rather tell him good-bye forever than see him hurt in any way.

“Patrick, please. You don’t understand. I … I’ve thrown myself at Tanner, true. But he … he’s always turned me down.”

“Always? I don’t think he’s
always
turned you down. You’re rather too fetching for any man to resist for long. Especially when he’s riffraff and you’re the one doing the pursuing.”

“And especially when she’s so rich. Right, Brady?”

Patrick’s smile turned ugly at Tanner’s mocking remark. “It doesn’t hurt,” he replied. “But then all I wanted was to keep what I already had. Now, get inside.”

Abby stepped up into the shaded pergola, frowning as she tried to make sense of Patrick’s words. “But you didn’t have me. You never
had
me.”

“He means your inheritance, Abby. He was the logical beneficiary of your grandfather’s will—before
you
came on the scene.”

Abby gasped and stumbled, but Tanner caught her and bent to free her heel from her trailing skirt.

“Get away from her!” Patrick screamed.

To Abby’s surprise Tanner complied at once. He circled to the opposite side of the pergola so that Patrick, standing in the single entrance, had to shift his attention back and forth from one of them to the other.

“I killed the two thugs you sent after her on the trail,” Tanner said, soft yet boasting too. “They were a pair of inept fools.”

Patrick pursed his mouth. “They may have been, but I’m not. And now I intend to kill you.”

“And Abby? You plan to kill her too?”

“Oh, not me.” Patrick answered, smiling again. How even and evil that smile now appeared. “Her death and yours will both be blamed on Hogan’s damnable enemy. You know, the one who attacked his coach and caused us to employ so many bodyguards. You shall go to your death defending her.” He rocked back on his heels. “I shall berate Hogan for not hiring Pinkertons as I originally suggested. With any luck, guilt and grief shall send him to a premature grave.”

“I doubt he’ll mourn me for long,” Abby stated, determined to wipe the smug look off his face. “He’s just decided today to adopt a child. A boy, this time. One he can mold into his own likeness and train to take over his business interests.” It was her turn to smile, though her knees shook beneath her skirts. “I’m afraid you shall lose out all over again, Patrick. This hideous plan of yours has all been for naught.”

The color drained from his face, and for a long moment he simply stared at her, wild-eyed. She’d meant to rattle him, and so she had. But she feared now that she would be shot for her efforts for he shifted the gun toward her, and his knuckles turned white, he gripped the weapon so tightly.

“You’re lying,” he growled. “You’re a lying bitch. A slut—”

With a deafening roar the gun exploded. Abby fell back, certain she was shot. But Patrick went down, too, felled when Tanner launched himself at the man. Wood splintered as they crashed against a delicately wrought bench. The gun went off again, and this time she screamed. But she wasn’t shot, she realized as she scrambled frantically to her feet.