The Littlest Cowboy (20 page)

Because I love you.

The words whispered through her mind like a sudden breeze, startling her enough to make her eyes widen. She loved him. The way she’d loved her mother and her sister. She loved him in spite of the fact that he was a man and that she’d vowed never to love one of that gender. And she trusted him. There wasn’t a single doubt in Chelsea’s mind that he’d never harm a hair on her head. No doubt in her mind that he’d do everything in his power to protect her.

Her mother had tried to protect her, too. From a man a lot like Vincent. Her own father. Oh, Chelsea and Michele had taken beatings. Lots of them. But whenever she could, Mom had stepped in, diverted the bastard’s rage away from her daughters, deliberately directing it at herself instead. And she’d died because of it.

And Michele. Michele had found a safe haven for her baby son and then run off in another direction. She’d become a moving target for Vincent’s rage in order to save her son from the monster. And she’d died because of it.

Chelsea couldn’t let someone–especially Garrett–try to take her place as the target of Vincent’s vengeance. And she wouldn’t run. Running didn’t do any good. No place was safe as long as that man remained on this planet.

“Come home with me, Chelsea. The doc said you could leave whenever you felt up to it.”

She nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll come.” But she knew in her heart she was lying.

S
omething was on her mind. Garrett knew it as well as he knew his own name, but she wouldn’t open up. Wouldn’t tell him about it. Wouldn’t let him in.

And he wanted to get in more than a hairless pup in a blizzard. The more she withdrew, the more edgy he became. Until it seemed to Garrett that nothing in his life had ever been as important to him as his new mission. Getting to Chelsea Brennan. Making her let him help her, to let him see what she was thinking, what she was feeling. To let him….

Ah, hell, he didn’t know what.

The stable was nothing more than soaking wet ashes and a few chunks of charred beams here and there. The horses were stuck in the corral for the night. Elliot was still complaining about his lungs hurting. Wes, Garrett suspected, was hurting a lot more than Elliot, but typically, he hadn’t said a damned word to indicate it. Jessi was still shaky, jumping at shadows. He’d heard from Elliot that she’d been target shooting while he and Chelsea had been at the hospital. Target shooting, when they all knew damned good and well that Jessi could outshoot any of them. She didn’t need to practice. He hated to see his tomboy sister all nerved up.

He’d been nerved up, too. So much so that he had a call in to the Texas Rangers asking for background information, an address and anything else they had on Vincent de Lorean. They hadn’t got back to him yet, but Garrett thought it wouldn’t be much longer. The second he knew where he could find the bastard, he planned to pay him a visit. And not a pleasant one.

Only Ethan seemed unaffected by it all. He played with the new set of soft-sided, brightly colored building blocks Wes had brought home from one of his trips into town. The kid loved the things. He especially seemed to like bopping ol’ Blue on the head with them, not that Blue minded any. In fact, the old mutt actually batted one across the floor a second ago the way a playful puppy might do. Little Bubba had a way of making everyone feel younger, Garrett supposed.

He glanced into the kitchen at Chelsea and swallowed hard. Yep. He knew he, for one, felt like an awkward twelve-year-old eyeing potential dance partners at his first boy-girl party.

He girded his loins and stomped into the kitchen. He’d taken a lot of pains today while Chelsea had been lying upstairs in bed recuperating. Now, dammit, he was going to give this thing one last, all-out shot.

“Chelsea?”

She turned toward him with a head of lettuce in her hand, auburn brows lifted. She’d trimmed off the edges of her hair where it had burned a bit, so now it framed her face in a way it hadn’t before. He liked it. She seemed softer, and maybe a little more approachable. Her eyes were not hostile when they met his, and he thought they might’ve come to some kind of a truce back there at the hospital.

God, when he’d realized she might be trapped in that fire…when he’d seen her lying so still on the ground while those men worked on her….

His world had tilted. Looking into those deep green eyes, he felt that way again right now. Like looking way down into a pine-bordered lake. He could see himself in their reflection. He could see….

Good grief. He guessed he’d better get her alone before he made a damn fool of himself in front of everyone. They’d never let him hear the end of that. He took the lettuce from Chelsea and set it aside. Then he reached for her good hand, closed his around it and gave a gentle tug as he turned toward the door. “Come on. You and I are going out for dinner.”

“We are?”

“Yep.” He pulled her a few steps closer to the door.

“Don’t you think you might have asked me first?”

“Nope.”

“Shouldn’t I at least change my clothes?”

He glanced down at the snug jeans and T-shirt she wore, smiled, then checked it so she wouldn’t see what was in his eyes. Truth to tell, she looked a little bit too damned good. The jeans hugged and the T-shirt revealed and he wanted to touch her all over. But not if she was going to be cringing and getting all skittish with him. He wanted her to want his touch. He wanted her to….

He closed his eyes, drew a breath. “You’re perfect, Chelsea. We’re not going anywhere fancy.”

She shrugged. “If I said no?”

“I’d stand outside your window and do my lonesome coyote impression until dawn.”

Her lips curved into the delicate smile he’d been getting all too used to seeing. And even though he was getting used to it, that slow, slight curve of her lips made his stomach turn cartwheels and his heart break into a gallop.

“Then I guess we’re going out,” she said softly. “Though I might want to hear that lonesome coyote impression some other time.”

He grinned at her and pulled her to the door. Duke and Paint stood saddled and waiting.

Chelsea frowned. “Where’s Sugar?”

“Burned her rump a little bit. Nothing too serious. Jessi tended her and she’ll be fine. But a saddle would chafe.”

Chelsea stroked Paint’s neck and moved around to the left side. Garrett helped her into the saddle.

“Isn’t this Wes’s horse?”

“Yup.”

“Won’t he mind?”

“He insisted. Said Paint was the most well-trained, intelligent animal on the place, and if you were riding at all, you ought to be riding him.”

“He said that?”

Garrett nodded. “My brother pretends to be made of stone, Chelsea, but he isn’t really. It’s just tough to crack through that granite shell sometimes.”

“Wasn’t very tough for Ethan, though.”

“No, Ethan got to him right off. We could all see it.” Garrett checked the bulging saddlebags and then swung into the saddle.

“What makes him like that? So…hot tempered and hard?”

Garrett glanced sideways at her as the horses turned side by side and started across the lawn, not toward what used to be the stable this time, but around the house, behind it and across the back lawn, as well, toward the sparse clusters of little trees scattered here and there.

“My brother spent two years in prison, Chelsea. That’s enough to harden a man.”

She opened her mouth, closed it again and stared at him. “Wes?”

“Yep. Some guys he was hanging with robbed a bar. Beat the hell out of the owner. Wes had left them before it happened, but he got blamed all the same.”

“You mean he was innocent?’’

“I’d stake my life on it.”

“But–”

“I wasn’t a sheriff then. The circumstantial evidence was stacked against him so high, I’m not sure I could’ve done anything even if I had been. Bought him the best lawyer in the state, for what it was worth. But he ended up being sentenced to five years hard time. We got him paroled after two, though. I’m not sure that would have happened, either, except one of the men on the parole board was a friend of my daddy’s a hundred years ago.”

“That’s awful.” She turned in the saddle, looking back toward the house and shaking her head. There was real regret in her eyes. “Two years for nothing.”

“After Wes went up, I ran for sheriff. Figured if I couldn’t beat the damn system, I might as well join it and try to change things from the inside. My brother…well, it’s taken him a while to understand that. He was none too happy to come home and see me wearing a badge.”

“I can imagine. He must have thought you’d joined the enemy.”

Garrett nodded, studying her face. “You have a way of nailing things right down, Chelsea. That’s exactly how he felt.”

She stared into his eyes, and he could see her feeling for him, as well as for his brother. She had a heart as big as all outdoors. Though she didn’t even realize that. Odd the way she could feel for the pain of others, but couldn’t let anyone else–couldn’t let him–feel for her. Share her hurts.

She did once, though. She did when she told him about the night her mamma died.

“What about now?” she asked. “Does he understand now?”

Garrett had to blink and focus hard before he came back to the subject at hand. “I think so. There’s something…something lacking in Wes’s soul.” Garrett walked Duke up to a little tree and drew him to a halt. “I’ve raised him just like the others, but it wasn’t enough somehow.”

He slid from the saddle, pulled off the bridle and didn’t bother picketing Duke. He wouldn’t wander far. He removed the saddlebags and slung them over his shoulder.

“But, Garrett, Wes isn’t just like the others.”

“No?”

She shook her head. “Elliot told me he’s half-Comanche.”

Garrett nodded, not minding at all that Elliot had told Chelsea about it. “My father left us for a time. It was before Elliot and Jessi were born, and I was just a kid. Never did know the whole story until a good while later.”

He slipped his free arm around Chelsea’s shoulders, moving a little bit away from the horses and into a shady spot as he spoke. Compelled for some reason to tell her everything about himself, about his family.

“What was the whole story?” she asked in that deep, soft voice that sent chills up his nape.

Garrett cleared his throat. “Her name was Stands Alone,” he said, “and I wish to God I’d known her. She was one hell of a woman, Wes’s mother.”

She frowned at him. “I’m surprised you’d feel that way about the woman your father had an affair with.”

Garrett shrugged. “She was orphaned as a child, married young and widowed a short time later. Hence the name. But she never knew my father was married. They had a brief affair, and she fell deeply in love with him. But she was a wise woman and she knew, somehow, that his heart belonged to someone else. When she called him on it, he told her the truth. Then she sat that man down and gave him hell. Told him she wanted nothing to do with a man who would betray a good woman who bore him sons. Lectured him on the value of a good man. On how honor and trust and fidelity were more precious than riches, and how a man’s children should mean more to him than his own life. She made him feel about two inches tall and sent him home to us, telling him not to ever try to see her again. What she didn’t tell him was that she was pregnant with his son.”

He looked into Chelsea’s eyes, saw them wide and interested.

“How did your father ever find out about Wes?”

“He didn’t,” Garrett told her. “My mother did. Stands Alone changed my father. When he came back to us, he was the most devoted husband and father anyone could ask for. He felt bad for hurting our mother and did his damnedest to make up for it. Some years later, my mother heard talk of a young Comanche woman who’d died and left her son, Raven Eyes, alone.”

“Raven Eyes?” Chelsea said it softly, then nodded. “That fits him.”

“Mamma claimed she had a feeling, and to her dying day she swore that feeling was the spirit of Stands Alone, whispering to her. Whatever it was, she went to the Comanche village and asked around. Before long, she learned the truth–that Raven Eyes was my father’s illegitimate son. She brought him home and treated him like one of her own, right from day one.”

“How old was he then?” Chelsea asked.

“Seven.”

She nodded.

“He seemed happy enough. But there’s always been that shadow in his eyes. I just wish I knew what it was.” He looked down at her, saw her gnawing her lower lip. “What? You’re thinking something. I can see it. Go ahead. Tell me.”

Chelsea nodded. “He spent the first seven years of his life in an entirely different culture. Then, just like that, he’s removed from it. If it were me, I’d feel as if I were missing half my identity. He doesn’t even seem to acknowledge the Native American blood running in his veins, but he must know it’s there. He must remember his life before, but he acts as if it never happened.”

Garrett moved closer to her, taking her waist in his hands, so she faced him. “You think that’s what it is?”

“A tree can’t grow without roots, Garrett. Your brother only has half of them and a whole pile of anger to boot. I’d say that’s it. He probably doesn’t even know that’s what’s bothering him, but I’ll bet if he were to spend some time getting in touch with his heritage, he’d realize what he’s been lacking in a heartbeat.”

Garrett nodded, studying her pretty face and wise eyes. Pained still, but wise. “How can anyone be so smart about other people’s demons, Chelsea, and so blind to their own?”

Her smile died slowly, and she averted her face. “I’m not blind to them. I just….” She shook her head.

“Just don’t like looking at them.”

She nodded.

“I want to make this better for you, Chelsea. I want to make it all go away so you can heal.”

“Why?”

He lowered his forehead until it rested lightly against hers. “A broken heart can’t be filled. It just keeps leaking. I want those cracks all patched up, Chelsea:”

She looked down. But he kissed her anyway. He nudged her lips into parting, he tasted her mouth, he slipped his arms around her and held her tight. The way he’d wanted to all day.