Texas Heroes: Volume 1 (7 page)

Maybe someone in Morning Star could tell her about her family. She’d ask Vondell.

Maddie opened the screen door and headed toward the kitchen. Just before she got there, she heard Boone’s voice.

“What’s the name of that investigator, Vondell? The one looking for Mitch?”

“Devlin Marlowe. He’s out of Houston. Nice young fella, smart as a whip.”

“You got his number?”

“No, but I’m sure it’s on Sam’s desk somewhere. Want me to look?”

“I’ll look. I need to go over the books, anyway.” He paused. “Guess I’d better go ask City Girl if it’s all right, since it’s
her
house, not mine.”

“It’s not her fault, Boone.”

“I know it’s not. I just…” A muffled curse was followed by a sigh. “I just wish I understood why he did it.”

He sounded more weary than angry. Maddie settled back on her heels and wondered if she should turn around or if she could make it to the stairs without being heard. Beneath her, a floorboard squeaked.

Boone stepped out into the hallway. “Want to join us, Big Ears?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I was headed to my room.”

“Well, while you’re here, why don’t you enlighten us?”

“I don’t know much.” She stepped around the door.

“Tell us what you do know. What is this debt Sam owed your father?”

“I don’t really think…”

“You come in here and take my home and I don’t even deserve an explanation?”

Maddie’s temper simmered. She tried to think up a simple answer. “He said it was because he should have looked for my father when he first knew he was alive.”

“When did he find out?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that it was before your mother died.”

“Why didn’t he look for Dalton?”

Maddie hesitated. “I’m not sure you’ll want to hear it.”

Boone’s expression was wry. “I was just a kid then. How could it mean anything to me? Or am I wrong? Is it something he said about me? Maybe he just wanted me not to have this place so bad he was grasping at straws.”

“It’s not about you. Listen, maybe it’s not a good idea right now.”

“So you’re the one who decides what I need to know and when?”

“Boone…” Vondell cautioned.

He held up a hand. “No. I want to know.” His gaze narrowed, tension invading his frame. “She comes down here to play lady of the manor for a month, inserting herself where she’s not wanted, and then she eavesdrops on a private conversation. She has answers I need in order to understand maybe just a little of why my father hated me enough to do this—and she refuses to answer because
she
, who doesn’t know a damn thing about any of us, doesn’t think I’m ready to hear it.”

A few long strides brought him right in front of her.

Maddie held her ground.

“Let me tell you something, City Girl. I’ve known since I was fourteen years old that my father didn’t give a damn about me, that the only person who ever meant anything to him was my mother. He beat the hell out of my brother and then tried to have him arrested for murder, then crawled up inside his grief and didn’t care what happened to anyone on this ranch.

“My mother was a good woman. The very best. She lived her life to love people. Her legacy was that love, and Sam perverted everything she stood for. But I survived. It made me a stronger person.”

He leaned closer, and Maddie met his gaze without flinching, seeing within those blue eyes pain of a magnitude she’d never in her life experienced.

“There’s nothing you can tell me that’s going to hurt me. I quit letting Sam Gallagher hurt me years ago. He drove my brother so far underground I’ve never been able to find him, and he didn’t even give me a chance to say goodbye before he died. You think a letter will bother me?”

He looked up at the ceiling then, his voice harsh with grief. “Well, to hell with you, Sam Gallagher—you hear me, wherever you are? You’re gone and I’m here, and I’ll be damned if I’ll spend one more minute caring.”

Then he looked down at Maddie. “So you just tell me what he could have said that would give me a second’s pause. I don’t think you know me well enough to know what I can take.” His eyes turned cold, colder than the light from a distant star and every bit as lonely.

“Boone…” She placed her hand on his muscular forearm. The contact shocked them both—she could see it in the quick flare in his eyes, could feel it all the way down her spine. “It’s not anything like what you’re thinking, but it won’t make you feel any better.”

A muscle jumped in his rock-hard jaw. He pulled his arm away, and Maddie felt the loss.

In a voice deceptively soft, he asked, “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

So be it. “All right.” Maddie wished she’d stayed out on the porch, but she met his squarely. “He said that he was afraid to find Dalton or to tell Jenny that Dalton was alive.”

Boone’s hard expression didn’t flicker. “Why would he be afraid?”

Maddie swallowed. “Because your mother loved my father first, and Sam was afraid he would lose her.”

Boone still didn’t move, and his gaze never wavered. Behind him, Vondell sucked in a gasp of disbelief.

His voice betrayed nothing of his feelings. “I’d like to read the letter.”

“Are you sure?”

Boone’s laugh was short and rusty. “Yeah.” But his eyes told a different story. “I’m sure.”

“Boone, I’m sorry. I don’t know what—”

“Just get the letter, Maddie.”

She traded sympathetic glances with Vondell, then ran up to her room and got Sam’s letter. Back in the kitchen, she handed it to Boone. She stayed quiet, though she could have recited every word after all the hours she’d spent trying to decide if any of it was real.

Dear Maddie Rose,

I was hoping we’d get to meet, but the doc says it’s not likely. In any case, my lawyer will be contacting you with this letter and the provisions of my will. You don’t know me, but my name is Sam Gallagher, and your father was once my best friend. I wronged your father, Maddie Rose, but it’s too late to make it right with him, so I’m giving you the house that should have been his.

It probably comes as a surprise to hear that I’m leaving you a ranch house in Texas. This house belonged to your grandmother Rose and was the place where your father grew up. It should have been his when Rose died, but by then everyone believed he was dead. I bought it from Rose’s estate, not knowing until a few years later that Dalton was alive.

That’s why I’m leaving it to you, Maddie—because I should have looked for Dalton then, and I didn’t. You see, my Jenny loved Dalton first, and I was afraid I’d lose her. I know she only married me because Dalton was gone. By the time I found out he was alive, we had our two boys, Mitch and Boone, and we’d built a good life together. But there was always this sadness in Jenny, and I knew it was because she lost Dalton.

A few years after I bought this place, my Jenny passed away. I never got over her, never loved another woman. Gallagher men love only once, you see. But I should have trusted Jenny and told her about Dalton. I’d like to believe she would have stayed with me, but I couldn’t take the chance.

If you don’t want the place, that’s fine. The land will go to my sons, regardless, but it won’t go down easy with Boone, especially, for you to have the house. But give yourself a chance to love the place as your daddy did. I’m making it a condition that you stay in the house for thirty days before you make up your mind. It might take a while to grow on you.

I hope you and my sons can make peace with what I’ve done. At the end of the thirty days, if you don’t want the house, I want you to sell it to Boone. I think he’ll want it, now that he won’t have to put up with me. But if you decide to stay, there’s plenty of land for them to build their own houses on. It’s as fair as I know how to be.

I hear that you’re a fancy cook back east, but Devlin also tells me you have no other family. Your blood runs deep in this place, Maddie Rose. You have roots here. Generations of Wheelers fought and died, battled drought and Indians and heartache to keep this place. I believe old Rose would like knowing you were here.

I was off in the service when everything went bad for Dalton, but I know he would have hated to leave. People think he killed his stepfather, but he didn’t. He confessed and then vanished to save his mother from the consequences of what she’d done. In my heart, I know he never felt at home anywhere else, and she never stopped missing him.

Give it a chance, Maddie Rose. See if Texas whispers in your heart the way it always has in mine. This house was a happy place once, when Jenny was here, but it hasn’t been happy in years. See if you can bring it back to life.

Sam Gallagher

When Boone finished, he stared at her for a long, long moment. Then his voice came, so low she almost couldn’t hear it.

“You can’t mean to stay.” His eyes…

“No,” she whispered back. “I won’t be staying.”

Boone laid the letter down on the old scarred table. Then he pushed past Maddie, leaving the air stinging with anguish so deep it echoed in the room. The back door slammed behind him, and Maddie could only stand very still.

Vondell crossed over and picked up the letter, reading it slowly. Then she heaved a big sigh and pressed one set of fingers to her forehead. “Curse you, Sam Gallagher. It never had to be like this.”

Maddie’s chest ached. “I said I was going. If I could leave right now, I would, Vondell.” She lifted her gaze to see the older woman’s grim visage. “I won’t stay a minute longer than I must. But surely he’s not so mad he would want to lose the whole place just to get me out of here.”

“He’s not mad at you, child. He’s just got a hurt real deep, so deep it’s never healed. Boone’s a proud man, too proud to admit it. He was proud even as a young man, and he’d take a bullet before he’d admit how much he wanted his father to love him. The only happy memories Boone has of this place are from when Jenny was still alive. Hearing that Jenny loved a man we all thought was a murderer was bound to go down hard.”

“I tried to warn him.”

“In some ways, Boone’s as hardheaded as Sam.”

“I won’t make this any more difficult for him than I have to, Vondell, but I am not hiding in my room for a month.”

“Of course you shouldn’t.” Vondell patted her arm and smiled. “Sam was right about one thing—this old place needs someone to liven it up. I’m thinking you’re just the person for the job. You just be yourself, Maddie girl. No harm in that.”

Maddie’s laugh was shakier than she’d like. “I doubt that Boone would agree.”

“Well, maybe Boone Gallagher needs a little shaking up. Heaven knows this place has held little enough happiness since Jenny died.” She smiled more brightly. “Now how about you show me what magic you can make from a carrot?”

Maddie had to smile back. Thank heavens Vondell was here.

And that come tomorrow it would be only twenty-eight days and counting.

Boone climbed the stairs and headed down the hall, years of practice dispensing with the need for lights. The house was quiet. He’d heard Vondell’s soft snores downstairs, and he saw no light from under Maddie’s door.

He paused outside her door, remembering the look on her face when he’d finished Sam’s letter. She had a soft heart, too soft to be caught in Sam’s games. He no longer believed she was anything more than an innocent victim, a pawn caught in the swirling winds of long-ago disasters. But that didn’t mean he could let down his guard. Her sheer attractiveness was reason enough, never mind the potential damage she could do if she wanted.

He couldn’t afford to run her off before her thirty days was up and because of that, he appreciated the stubborn streak that ran a mile wide down her back. He also couldn’t risk her learning to like this place and deciding to stay.

Not that it seemed much of a risk, Boone thought, as he opened the door to his room. The picture beside his bed kept that fresh on his mind. Helen’s blonde perfection shone out at him—the Helen he’d first met, not the one he’d last seen.

She’d hated it here, and so would Maddie. As soon as the new wore off, the restlessness would set in. Boone would have to tread a fine line; his best course was to keep an eye out, but stay far, far away. Maddie might tempt him, but she also had the potential to cost him the only thing he had left.

He would stay watchful but stay out of Maddie’s way. Vondell could keep her entertained when she started to go stir-crazy, wanting out of this place.

People thought Boone kept Helen’s picture out because he was still mourning. They couldn’t be farther off the mark.

He kept the picture there to remind him. His father had gone wrong, loving too much. Boone had gone wrong, loving too little. He would avoid both paths to tragedy.

No more love. No more city girls. No more mistakes.

Chapter Four