Texas Heroes: Volume 1 (32 page)

A warrior whose face had all the color of a sheet of paper.

“I’m a grown woman. Don’t try to tell me—”

“Sit down before you fall down. What’s going on?” He looked over Davey. “I thought you were—”
Hurt
. Mitch turned away, struggling with a temper he hadn’t let go in years. A temper born of fear that shouldn’t be his.

Davey wasn’t his child. He had a mother. A mother who would soon leave and take Davey with her.

He felt a small hand grasp his. “I’m sorry, Mitch. Me and Mom were just tickling. I almost—” He pulled at Mitch’s arm, trying to get him closer.

When Mitch bent closer, Davey whispered. “I almost told her about the porch. I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”

Mitch knelt before the boy, studying him closely. “Don’t ever lie to your mother, Davey.” He looked over the boy’s head at her. “I’m the one who showed you. I don’t care if she gets mad at me. But now that she’s better, she’s the one you have to listen to.”

Her blue eyes softened in gratitude.

Mitch looked away. He didn’t want her soft. He wanted her gone.

“Mitch…” Davey whispered earnestly. “Mom’s gonna want me to take a bath.”

A bath. Why hadn’t he stopped to think about baths? Neither of them could tolerate his daily dip into the icy mountain stream.

Davey looked disgusted.

“She’s right, you know. You need one.”

“Aw, Mitch…”

He stood up and looked at Perrie. “Sorry. I use the stream most days. But it’s too—”

“Cold,” she supplied, smiling fondly. “I know. I remember.”

“I forget. You’ve lived here before.”

Her lashes swept down, avoiding a topic difficult for both of them. “It’s been a long time. Things change.”

“Not around here.”

Her eyes opened wide. “I’m glad to hear it. This place is special. Magic.”

Then why didn’t you come back when
— Mitch quashed the question. The boy watched them, gaze avid. It was the first civil conversation they’d had.

He changed the subject. “I could rig you a shower outside, the way I do when I guide.”

“Guide? You’re an outfitter like Grandpa?”

He shrugged. “Sort of. I travel with the seasons. Should be in South Texas right now for dove and quail, but this would be the first winter Cy’s place would be—”

Blue eyes went dark with grief. Tears glistened.

She wore her emotions on her sleeve. He could tell her it was the road to disaster.

Her voice was barely a whisper. “Where is he buried?”

He bit back the words of recrimination. “You know the grandfather spruce?”

Her gaze locked on his. “The one that looks out toward the sunrise?”

Mitch nodded. “I scattered his ashes there.”

“I’m so glad. It was his favorite place.”

If you knew that
… Suddenly, Mitch was back there, watching the man who’d cared when his own father had hated…watching Cy’s eyes darken with pain and feeling so helpless.

Remembering the desperate three-hour trip he’d made into Cora to phone her. A call to grant the only wish that really meant anything to Cy. To see this woman…just once more.

Mitch glanced down at Davey. Cy would have loved him the most. But thanks to her neglect, Cy had never known Davey existed.

He looked back at the woman who’d refused to even come to the phone, the woman he’d wanted to crawl through the phone lines to yank out of her pampered, selfish existence. If Cy hadn’t been so sick, Mitch would have gone to Boston and dragged her here himself.

Instead, he’d watched the man who’d brought him back from hell die alone. Unwanted by anyone but a man whom no one else wanted, either. Unmourned by his own blood.

He had to get out of here. Away from her.

The boy was leaning on his leg. He jerked his hand away from Davey’s hair as if burned. For Davey’s sake, he had to clamp down on his contempt.

Voice carefully calm, he spoke to the child. “I’ll be done in a few minutes. Can you wait for breakfast?”

Davey’s blue eyes were clear and guileless. “Want me to help, Mitch? Mom, are you hungry?”

“I can fix your breakfast, sweetie.”

“I said I’d fix it,” he snapped. “Get back into bed.”

Then he turned on his heel and left, placing distance between him and the woman he did not understand.

Chapter Three

P
errie hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep again until the cabin door opened. Mitch stood there, clean shirt on—charcoal plaid this time—dark hair slicked back, gleaming like mink.

She saw his displeasure, quickly masked, that she was on the sofa instead of back in bed. But he didn’t say anything, just turned and headed toward the kitchen.

He was so big. So powerful. So angry with her, yet he kept that anger carefully lashed under iron bands of control.

She could defuse that anger by explaining about Simon, but then she’d have to admit that she couldn’t leave. Didn’t know where to go.

He didn’t want her here. He was a loner, down to the bone, of that she was sure. He’d already had to play nursemaid and babysitter for a woman he despised and a child he didn’t know. This place was his, even if by default. Cyrus Blackburn had loved this place and wouldn’t have given it to him if he hadn’t cared for Mitch. The Grandpa she knew would have ordered him off the place with a shotgun, let it rot from neglect before letting a stranger have it.

No, Mitch’s grief was real. She had seen little emotion slip past his mask, but his grief and love for Grandpa were palpable.

And he’d helped them, never mind that he despised her. He’d been gentle with Davey, though it was obvious he had no experience with children.

But what would he say if he knew she was being hunted? Maybe he would help her, maybe not. She couldn’t risk being thrown out until she was ready, until she had a plan.

Right now, she couldn’t clear her brain well enough to plan. All she could do was rest and get back her strength.

She would never go back. One escape, before Davey was conceived in violence, had taught her the price of Simon’s displeasure. He was medieval in his thinking, cruel and unforgiving. She had been forced to live as chattel in a soft and pampered prison, forbidden contact with anyone from her old life. She would never forgive herself for her weakness.

He had left her alone after Davey’s birth, lost interest in them both. Locked away in Simon’s pretty prison while he played in the city, there had been no chances for escape until Simon himself had granted deliverance, divorcing her to marry someone else. But he had warned her to stay in Boston. She knew he had her watched and followed. As long as he had stayed away, she hadn’t forced the issue. He seemed to have forgotten them.

Until the day that he showed up on her doorstep to claim the son he’d never loved, reminding her that Matheson power could wrest Davey away from her forever. She’d threatened him with going to the authorities with what she suspected about his money laundering, and Simon had only laughed, secure in his power. Then he turned the tables, telling her that if she breathed a word, he would take Davey somewhere that she would never find him.

Perrie had adopted her old subservient pose, groveling while rage ate a hole in her soul, knowing that he would do it, that she had to put his mind at ease. With the help of her only friend, Simon’s wizened old gardener, Elias Conkwright, she laid the groundwork for leaving while making sure Davey was never alone with Simon until she could flee.

But one day Simon had picked Davey up from kindergarten unexpectedly. After two frantic days, Davey had returned—afraid.

It was a reminder of Simon’s threat. Perrie knew then that she could not wait any longer. Time had run out, whether she had enough money or not. She wrote down everything she knew that could point toward Simon’s white-collar crimes, and left the papers with Elias, who would deliver them not to the police, but to Boston’s premier investigative reporter. She could only pray that someday justice would find Simon.

She had left the name of the town nearest her grandfather’s cabin, asking Elias to contact her only in case of emergency—or if by some miracle, Simon was apprehended.

And she had fled to what she thought was safety.

Only to find a stranger in place of the man who would help.

Forcing away the whirling cloud of fear and despair, Perrie closed her eyes and sought the stillness that had helped her survive this far.

She would have to run again, it seemed.

But for now, she would sleep.

“Mitch,” Davey whispered, standing in the chair and stirring. “Want me to go wake Mom? It’s almost ready.”

Mitch took his gaze off the boy only long enough to check her, then shook his head. “We’ll set it on the back. It’ll keep warm for awhile. Maybe she’ll sleep longer.”

Davey sighed, then wrinkled his face. “No one can sleep this much.”

“Maybe not you, sport, but your mom’s been very sick.”

“When she gets better, can we take her fishing, too?”

“I can’t imagine she’d like it.”

“Oh, she would—she told me. Grandpa Cy used to take her fishing when she was my age.”

He hated to disappoint the hopeful look in the boy’s eyes. “Maybe. We’ll have to see how long you’re staying.”

Davey’s eyes widened. “We were gonna come live with Grandpa Cy, Mom told me.” His brow wrinkled. “Maybe you don’t want us to stay.”

Too bright, the boy was. Of course he didn’t want them to stay. He lived alone. Always had, except for visits to Cy. He moved from one guide job to the next, season to season. His home was his truck and the wide blue sky, the forests and rivers and streams.

But right now, eyes as blue as that sky were looking at him, vulnerable and lost. The boy needed some sense of security.

What the hell was she thinking, uprooting him like that? A child needed a safe place to grow up, to belong. Like he’d had, until—

“No use to worry about it now. Something will work out. Your oatmeal’s ready.” He scooped the boy into one arm and carried a bowl in the other, turning toward the table.

Perrie’s soft, sleepy gaze studied him, and he felt like he’d been caught doing something illicit.

“Mom!” Davey crowed. “Look, I made oatmeal!” He glanced over at Mitch, sliding one arm around Mitch’s neck. “Well, Mitch helped me, but mostly I made it.”

“Enough for me?” Her voice held the huskiness of sleep, rasping its way along Mitch’s nerves.

“Sure!” Davey squirmed to be let down. Mitch set him on his feet. “Look, you can have this bowl.”

She rose, and Mitch could see that she wasn’t yet steady on her feet. He started to go to her, but she cast him a forbidding glance, then straightened carefully, holding onto the arm of the sofa with one hand and using the other to free her braid of spun gold hair from her collar. With slow steps, she rounded the sofa.

By the time she reached the table, what little color she had was gone. But her spine stayed ramrod straight and around her prickled a cloud of warning.

She wouldn’t thank him to follow his instincts and carry her back to the bed. She wasn’t his business, anyway—she’d only be here as long as it took to get her well enough to leave.

He’d turned down several jobs over this fall and winter. He’d disappointed some people; he was always in demand. But he’d felt the need to come—