A COWBOY'S SECRET Page 15

  Chapter 10

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  She stopped wanting to kill him by the next afternoon.

  Oh, she still entertained thoughts along those lines, still had fantasies of doing dire things to certain of his body parts. But the tears and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth had pretty much stopped.

  Now she was blaming herself.

  He'd never said, "I love you."

  He'd never made any promises. He'd actually done his damnedest to stay clear of her.

  She was the one who had pressed. The one who had flirted. The one who had been determined to seduce him.

  J.D. had just gone along for the ride.

  And then he'd left.

  He'd even apologized.

  She threw things across the room every time she remembered that! She broke three glasses, a coffee mug and a dinner plate before she got a grip.

  It wasn't pretty.

  Neither was she. Her eyes were red from crying. Her cheeks were blotchy. Her hair, from alternately running her hands through it and tugging on it, was a complete and utter mess.

  So much for believing. So much for sashaying. So much for being prepared. So much for hope.

  She'd been a fool.

  He'd tried to warn her. He'd got on his horse and had ridden away so he wouldn't have to sleep with her, for heaven's sake! But had she taken that for an answer?

  No.

  And now she deserved every bit of pain that she felt.

  She wallowed in it for a day. She didn't answer the phone. She didn't go in to work. She rode Dancer and thought about the mess she'd made of her life.

  She talked to Wayne, and he listened sympathetically. She scratched him behind his ear. She asked him what she ought to do now, and he looked at her as if she ought to know the answer to that.

  A day later, she did.

  She knew she had to leave.

  She didn't want to. If J.D. hadn't been involved, she would have stayed on the ranch, dug in and made it her home forever. It felt more like home than any place she'd ever been.

  She loved the ranch.

  But J.D. loved it, too. He loved it more.

  It should have been his. Would have been if he'd just bothered to read his mail.

  Once she'd thought it odd that he hadn't. She'd never known anyone who didn't. But now that she had lived with him, she could see how superfluous to his life mail was.

  It piled up on the sideboard unread unless she read it. He couldn't be bothered. And really, having seen the stuff that he got, she understood why he ignored it. The bills he'd set up for automatic payment. The bank statements only needed filing. The ads and circulars were of no use to anyone. And the rest of the stuff that came was for Gus.

  He'd apparently seen Gus when he'd gone to Taggart Jones's place. He'd told her he was going to travel with Gus when be was finished at Trey's. He'd sounded committed. Determined.

  But Lydia knew him now. She knew that for J.D. traveling would always be second best.

  He loved this ranch. He belonged here.

  He would stay here if it were his.

  She would see that it was.

  * * *

  Skinny found him a spot in the bunkhouse. Actually it was a two-bedroom trailer, and he ended up sharing a room with Cy.

  "Lydia boot you out?" Cy asked cheerfully.

  J.D. pretended he hadn't heard. It was that or knock the son of a gun's block off, and he didn't need any more plea bargains. Not now.

  He needed to work. Every day. All day. And half the night if he could manage it. He'd have been long gone if that had been an option. Since it wasn't, the best he could do was work himself so hard he'd sleep at night and, for a few brief hours, forget.

  It was a hell of a time of year to need distraction.

  Shipping was over. Feeding hadn't started. Fencing was pretty much taken care of. In the day he made a circle of the cattle on this range or that one, checked them thoroughly, rounded up strays? He came down in the evening and worked Trey's horses.

  Wherever he was, he tried not to think.

  Usually he could get into another plane when he was working with a horse. When he was in the corral, he tuned in to the equine mind and out of his own. The world shrank down to the two of them.

  Not now.

  Now there was always a third in the corral.

  Lydia. Everywhere he looked, even when he closed his eyes, she was there.

  Smiling at him. Touching him. Loving him.

  "J.D.!" It was Skinny, coming on the run. Or as quick as Skinny ever moved. "Hey, J.D.!"

  The distraction banished Lydia. That was good.

  "Trey wants you. Up at the house. Now!"

  Trey wanted him? Now? That was bad.

  What the hell did the old geezer want with him this time?

  His temper was on a short enough fuse as it was. Trey Phillips was the second to last person J.D. wanted to see right now.

  The last one had stared at him from the shaving mirror this morning, had looked at him with a mixture of accusation and disgust. He'd tried to shave. He couldn't stomach looking at his own reflection. He'd averted his eyes and left his whiskers to survive another day.

  "I'm workin'," he said over his shoulder.

  But even as he did so, he heard the door of the house bang and looked up to see Trey striding down the steps and across the yard straight toward him.

  "Put 'im up." J.D. handed the reins to Skinny and climbed over the fence to meet the old man head-on.

  "What the hell did you do to Lydia?"

  J.D.'s jaw went tight. "What do you mean? What's the matter with Lydia?"

  Trey glanced around at Skinny's avid eyes, at Cy and a couple of other cowboys heading their way. He jerked his head toward the house. "Come on."

  He didn't wait to see if J.D. followed, just turned on his heel and stalked back the way he'd come.

  J.D. was right on his heels. He didn't know what the hell Trey was doing nosing into his business with Lydia, but it was going to stop.

  The old man stamped up the steps, banged open the door and headed straight for his office. Then, all of a sudden, he made a sharp turn to the right and cut through the dining room to go into a smaller room at the back of the house.

  J.D. had never been there before. He wasn't sure he wanted to be there now. But Trey was all the way in and had turned to wait for him.

  J.D. slowed his steps just a little, enough to let Trey know he wasn't jumping to do his bidding.

  But all of Trey's impatience was in his eyes. He waited. Waited until J.D. had come into the room which was walled with books. Oh, swell. They were going to have their set-to in a blinkin' library!

  "You want me to bring you some coffee?" Clara, the housekeeper, asked.

  "No, thanks." Trey didn't even ask him if he wanted any. "We don't need anything. And we don't want to be disturbed."

  "You might want to have the sheriff on call," J.D. muttered under his breath.

  Clara didn't hear him. Trey did. He shut the door firmly, then squared off to face J.D. "What did you do to Lydia?" His voice was hard and flat and angry. His eyes accused.

  J.D. had seen similar accusation in his own eyes this morning. He didn't like it from himself. He hated it from Trey.

  "I didn't do anything to Lydia." Nothing that was any business of Trey's!

  "Then why was she crying? Why did she leave? Why did she tell me to give you this?" Trey jerked an envelope out of his pocket and thrust it at J.D.

  J.D. stared at it as if it were a rattlesnake.

  Trey stuck it under his nose. "Read it! She told me to make you read it! She said she wants to be sure you get the message this time!"

  At his sides, J.D.'s fingers knotted into fists.

  Trey still held out the envelope. "What did you do to her?"

  J.D.'s gaze, avoiding the envelope, met Trey's. Locked. Trey's hard blue eyes bored into him.

  This time it was J.D. who had to look away.

  "I didn't hurt her
… didn't mean to hurt her," he qualified. His voice was ragged. He jammed his fists into the front pockets of his jeans, bent his head, felt the weight of a thousand didn't-mean-to's press down on him.

  He expected another accusation from Trey. But the older man was silent now. His hand had dropped. He held the envelope. But he made no move to thrust it into J.D.'s hand.

  He didn't move. Didn't speak.

  Beyond the closed door, J.D. could hear the hum of Clara's vacuum cleaner. Farther off he heard the shout of one of the cowboys.

  A foot away he heard Trey clear his throat.

  "Sit down," the old man said.

  Habit made him stand. He took orders from Trey only when they had to do with his job.

  "I said, sit down." It was a tone of voice J.D. had never heard from Trey before. Quiet. Finn. Stubborn. He'd heard all those. But there was a hit of weariness in it now. He flicked a glance in Trey's direction.

  Trey nodded his head toward one of the leather armchairs and waited.

  J.D. sat He didn't sit back. He didn't relax. He leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees. Crouched almost. Ready to spring.

  Trey sat in the other chair. At a right angle to his. "What happened?"

  J.D. didn't answer. He sighed. Shifted. Gritted his teeth.

  "She came here crying," Trey said conversationally. There was no accusation in his voice now. He simply stated the fact. "Not at first. But she had been. She tried not to. She couldn't help it. She told me it wasn't your fault. Said it was hers. All hers."

  "It wasn't, damn it!" J.D. looked up at him anguished. "It wasn't her fault!"

  Trey leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over his knee. "What wasn't?"

  "What happened! Me makin' love to her!"

  There. He'd said it. Admitted it. To Trey of all people!

  "It was wrong! I knew nothin' could come of it, and it didn't make any difference. I took advantage of her! Same as you did to my ma!"

  Trey let out a pent-up breath, as if he'd been holding it forever. He sat up straighter, his body alert, poised, ready. And then he nodded. "At last."

  J.D. glared. "What's that mean? At last?"

  "You know exactly what it means. It means the gloves are off. And yes, you're right. You are just like me."

  J.D. wanted to deny it. Wanted to stop this. Wanted to shut the old man up.

  But Trey said, "You didn't read the letter I sent. You didn't read the one your mother left for you, did you?"

  J.D.'s gaze jerked up. "How do you know about that?"

  "She called me. Asked me to come to the hospital. Wanted to talk to me. She told me she'd written you a letter, that you'd probably be contacting me." Trey shook his head. "You never did."

  J.D. couldn't sit still any longer. He shoved up out of the chair and stalked across the room. He spun around and glared down at Trey. "Why would I want to contact you?"

  "To hear what happened."

  "I don't want to know what happened!"

  "But you know that it did happen." It wasn't a question.

  J.D. gritted his teeth. "Yes, damn it! I know!"

  "I loved your mother."

  "She loved my father!"

  "Yes." Trey shut his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them again. "Will you listen?"

  J.D. wanted to say no. He didn't want to hear. He didn't want confirmation of his mother's illness-inspired ramblings, those terrible things she'd mumbled in her last pain-filled days.

  "Shh, Ma, don't say such things," he'd told her. "It ain't true."

  And she'd clutched his hand and looked him in the eyes. "It is," she'd insisted, her voice barely a whisper. "You have … right to know. Wrote you about it. Letter in bureau. Read it."

  Of course he hadn't. And not only because he couldn't. Because he hadn't wanted to.

  He'd denied it for years. Had fought against all the evidence. Had turned his head – and his heart – away, even though, deep down, he knew it was the truth.

  "I'm your father," Trey said now, his blue gaze steady, meeting J.D.'s. "And heaven help us both."

  For a long moment they just looked at each other.

  Then J.D. turned away, stared out the window. He didn't speak. What was there, after all, to say?

  Yippee? Oh, boy, I'm your bastard? I never really belonged to the man who called me his son?

  He'd seen a certain irony in the discovery of Josh's existence. And he'd been bitterly amused at Trey's eagerness to claim this illegitimate grandson. But mostly he'd understood Josh's anguish at learning the truth.

  He'd lived Josh's pain. He'd loved the man he'd known as father just as Josh had. He thought Dan loved him.

  And Trey?

  He didn't know or care what Trey thought or felt. He never should have made love to J.D.'s mother.

  It would have been better for all of them if he'd never existed at all.

  Thank God for Rance. He felt sorry for Rance. The first-born who actually wasn't. He was glad Rance never guessed. He was glad Rance was legitimate. Glad that Rance had been the one to bear up under burdens J.D. could never have stood.

  "It isn't neat. And it isn't pretty. And I'm not expecting a happy ending," Trey said quietly. "But I'd like to tell you what happened." He stopped, as if waiting for some sign, some encouragement from J.D.

  J.D. couldn't find encouragement in him. But there was no choice any longer. It had been dragged out into the open now. They might as well finish it.

  He shrugged.

  Trey took that to be the encouragement required. "I'd loved her for years," he said. "Helen. Your mother. Since high school at least. And with the arrogance of youth and looks and money," he said wryly, "I couldn't understand why she didn't love me. But she didn't. She only ever had eyes for Dan." His gaze met J.D.'s for an instant. He smiled slightly, then sighed. "And Dan was my best friend."

  J.D. blinked. Best friend?

  As far as he knew, his father – Dan – had never had much to do with Trey Phillips. Trey owned the valley. Dan had owned a small, hard-scrabble spread. They had always been on opposite sides of the economic fence. And as long as J.D. could remember they'd never climbed over.

  After his mother's ramblings, he'd been sure he knew why.

  "You never knew that?" Trey asked. "Well, we weren't friends … after." He sighed. "Dan got drafted. Sent to Viet Nam. I didn't." His mouth twisted. "I was at Yale Law School. I came home for the summer, worked in Helena for one of the judges. And one day Helen came to see me. Distraught. She and Dan had got engaged right before he shipped out. And she'd just got word that Danny was missing. She believed he was dead."

  J.D. knew a little about that. He knew the story of his father in the plane that had been shot down. He and Gus had listened avidly to tales of Dan's evading capture, of his trek back from behind enemy lines, of his triumphant return. It had taken him weeks. Everyone thought he'd died.

  "I thought he'd died, too," Trey said. "He was my best friend, and I thought he was dead." He sucked in a harsh breath, then went on. "We turned to each other, your mother and I. It was wrong. I can't deny that. No more than you would deny that what happened between you and Lydia was wrong. But it happened. And the only excuse I can give you is that I loved her."

  He looked up at J.D. then. Squarely. Steadily.

  "I told you that in the letter you didn't read. I'd guess your mother told you in the letter you didn't read of hers."

  J.D.'s teeth clenched under Trey's unblinking gaze. He stood motionless. He didn't reply. Didn't say a word.

  "Dan came back a hero five weeks later. Your mother flew to Hawaii to meet him," Trey went on. "She married him there. And a month later, she found out she was carrying you."

  A corner of Trey's mouth tipped up in a sad smile. "My first-born son. A Holt. And there was nothing I could do."

  J.D. looked at the older man then, surprised at the resignation in Trey's voice. The Trey Phillips he knew never acted as if there was anything he couldn't do. Trey was a mover and s
haker. Always had been. He was still one of Montana's most powerful men.

  "Not that I knew at the time. Your folks didn't come back until you were two years old. I didn't even know about you. Knocked me for a loop, let me tell you, first time I saw you with your ma. You were in the grocery store, in one of those carts with the seat in 'em, and she was pushing you. I was married to Christina by then. She was expecting Rance. And we turned the corner of the aisle and ran smack into her with you. I felt like I'd been punched in the gut." A wry smile touched his lips. "And I introduced her to my wife. And she introduced me to you. 'This is my son,' she said. 'Say hello to Mr. Phillips, J.D.' And you looked at me with my own blue eyes and said hello. I just stared at you. Stared at her. Then Dan came up and swung you up into his arms and you called him Daddy. And he held you and looked at me and said, 'What do you think of my son, Trey?' And I looked at him and Helen and you. And I did the only thing I could do. I said you were a fine boy, that he was a lucky man. And then we said goodbye."

  He stopped speaking then. He stared past J.D., out the window, but what he saw, J.D. guessed, was nothing beyond the panes. What he saw had to be over thirty years old. Was he just remembering? Seeing the scene all over again? Or was he playing it out differently this time?

  How?

  The clock chimed the hour.

  Trey flexed his shoulders. He looked at J.D. "I wish things had been different. But I have to say, I don't know what I'd change. I loved your mother. After she married Dan, I met Christina. I came to love her even more. She was the right woman for me. Helen was the right woman for Dan. We had our share of pain. We deserved it. You didn't. I'm sorry."

  Sometimes in his wildest dreams, J.D. had imagined hearing those words from Trey Phillips's lips. He wasn't sure why he'd wanted them. Wasn't even sure he deserved them.

  He'd never understood what had happened between his beloved mother and the richest young man in the valley. His mother's letter had probably told him. It didn't matter, he'd told himself. He knew enough. He didn't need to have it spelled out.

  He'd had his suspicions. His theories. He'd painted Trey the villain. He'd painted his mother and Dan the victims.

  He saw now that it had been a lot more complicated than that

  He'd been wrong.

  He stared down at the floor between his booted feet. Felt as if the world was shifting slightly beneath them. Felt it settle again, knew what he had to say.