Keegan's Lady (4 page)

With the lower portion of his face illuminated by a swath of amber, the upper cast into shadow by the brim of his hat, she could see only the strong line of his square jaw, a jagged scar on one cheekbone, and the bitter twist of his hard mouth. It was his eyes she wanted to see. They were the windows to a man's soul, or so her father had always said, and judging by personal experience, Caitlin believed that was true.

As she ran her gaze over Keegan's frame, the lump of fear that had lodged in her throat expanded to the size of a hen egg, making it difficult to breathe. Lofty and lean were the first two words that popped into her mind, but those adjectives alone didn't do him justice.

Unlike her father, who'd carried a lot of extra weight on his rangy body, Keegan was powerfully muscled, especially across the shoulders and through the arms. The men in town were rumored to step off the board-walk when they saw him coming. Now she knew why. Even the way he stood, arms loose at his sides, one lean leg slightly bent, exuded power. Add to that his reputation with a gun, and he was one of the most intimidating individuals she'd ever had the misfortune to clap eyes on.

His sharply chiseled features reflected a chilling expression of absolute control. She wanted to look away, needed to so she might gather her composure, but some intangible force emanated from him, holding her helplessly in its grip.

She squared her shoulders. "Mr. Keegan, I take it?"

He touched the brim of his hat. The gesture seemed absurdly polite, considering he was about to lynch her brother.

"Please, Mr. Keegan. I, um ... I know Patrick has been making a pest of himself since you returned to No Name. But surely you can't, in good conscience, end a young man's life over some harmless prank."

After several seemingly endless seconds, he finally spoke. "Prank? Did you say 'harmless prank?'" His voice, deep and rough-edged, made her think of whiskey and smoke, each lazily drawled word seeming to curl around her. Planting his hands at his hips, he shifted his weight to his other booted foot, a purely masculine stance that made him look relaxed—and about as harmless as a rattlesnake. "You call his gut-shooting my prize bull a harmless prank?"

"Prize bull?" she said weakly. She squeezed her eyes closed for a second, so sick with fear for Patrick she wanted to vomit. Shooting someone's bull was a hanging offense in a community that owed its survival to the successful breeding of beef cattle. "There must be some mistake. Patrick wouldn't do something so stupid."

Behind her, the men who stood around Patrick's horse seemed to exude malevolence. She sensed their readiness—no, their eagerness—to slap the rump of the pinto and watch her brother kick at the end of a rope.

"Stupid," Keegan said. "Now there's a word. Stupid drunk, to be exact."

Caitlin flashed a horrified glance over her shoulder at Patrick. He said nothing, just gazed at her with imploring eyes. His silence attested to his guilt.

"I, um ..." She turned back to Keegan. "Please, Mr. Keegan." She gestured toward the hanging noose. "This is no way to settle things. Let's go in the house, have a nice cup of tea, calm down. If we put our heads together, I'm sure we can resolve this matter in a way that will be satisfactory to us all."

She thought she glimpsed a humorous twist of his firm lips. "Tea?"

By the way he said "tea," Caitlin guessed he considered the stuff scarcely better than poison. She searched frantically for an alternative. "Coffee, then?"

He made a low huffing sound under his breath that she presumed was meant to be a laugh. "I don't think so, Miss O'Shannessy. Your brother has been a thorn in my side since the day I got here. You know it, I know it, and so does everybody else in town. In short, I've taken all the shit off of him I'm going to."

"I know Patrick has tried your patience, Mr. Keegan. And I can't really say I blame you for wanting to take a strip out of his hide."

"Caitlin!" Patrick interjected in a hushed voice. "What in God's name are you saying?"

Striving to ignore her brother, she went on, "And if he did kill your bull, I’m in absolute agreement that he should be punished. It's just that hanging him seems a little extreme. Don't you agree?"

"If I agreed, I wouldn't be here." Holding up a large hand, Keegan began to take count on his long, blunted fingers. "In the last three months, your brother has insulted me in public and called me a coward for not meeting him in the street with guns blazing. He's poured rock salt in two of my best watering holes and poisoned another, costing me twenty-three head. He's cut my newly strung fences on countless occasions, spooked my cattle, and taken pot shots at my hired hands. Trust me when I say that, at this point, nothing I might choose to do strikes me as being extreme."

With each count Keegan named off against her brother, Caitlin flinched. Stupid, so stupid. When he got drunk, Patrick didn't have the sense to pour water out of a boot. "I know he's been difficult. But has it occurred to you that perhaps you're as responsible for this ongoing battle between the two of you as he is?"

"Me?" Keegan said incredulously. "Me, responsible? I don't think so."

Her voice going squeaky with desperation, Caitlin plunged on. "Maybe, just maybe, if you tried to put yourself in his shoes, the things Patrick has done would be a little easier to understand."

"I'll tell you what, Miss O'Shannessy. You understand him. I'll get even for the loss of my bull by hanging his ass. Then we'll both be happy."

Tucking her rifle in the crook of her arm, she held up a shaky hand. "Let's not be hasty. You're about to make a mistake you're bound to regret. Just look at it from Patrick's side. In a manner of speaking, you've provoked my brother into doing most of those things."

Caitlin took it as an encouraging sign that Keegan didn't interrupt her. Her voice still tremulous, she said, "The very first thing out of the bag when you came to town, you lured him into a poker game and relieved him of the deed to several thousand acres of prime ranch land. Then, while he was still upset over that, you began making all sorts of allegations against our father and his friends, accusing them of a swindle, not to mention murder. You even had the effrontery to demand that Patrick let you see our father's ledgers and journals so you might prove your stepfather was swindled and was innocent of Camlin Beckett's death. On the heels of that request, you made no secret of your belief that our father or one of his friends would be implicated in the murder instead!"

When Keegan made no move to speak, Caitlin rushed on to add, "You've accused our father, of cold-bloodedly killing a man, Mr. Keegan! Just you think about that. True or false, it's a very serious indictment, and no matter what your personal opinion of Conor O'Shannessy may be, even you must admit it's a charge no dutiful son could let stand uncontested. Our father is no longer alive to defend himself. Naturally the boy has demanded a retraction and hates you for refusing to make one!"

In a perfectly level voice, Keegan replied, "Four things, Miss O'Shannessy. Remember them well. The first is that I didn't twist your brother's arm to make him play poker that night. The minute he learned who I was, he started challenging me to play, not the other way around. I can only assume he believed he was lucky enough at cards to fleece me. It was his choice to put the deed to the Circle Star Ranch into the pot as part of his ante. I didn't suggest he do so, or in any way encourage it."

He shifted his weight and resettled his hands at his hips. "Second, the things I've said about your father are the truth, not mere accusations. Third, it was not effrontery on my part to demand to see his ranch records, but an attempt to uncover evidence that would clear my stepfather's name. If your father and his friends were innocent of any wrongdoing, as you obviously believe, there would have been nothing in those records to implicate them. So why all the fuss? Were you and your brother afraid to let me see those records for some reason? Possibly because you feared I might actually find proof that my stepfather was innocent?"

The question was one Caitlin had already asked herself, and the truth was, she believed Keegan's stepfather probably had been innocent. Whether or not Conor O'Shannessy had been stupid enough or careless enough to make entries in his ledgers and journals attesting to that, however, was another question entirely, and one she preferred not to address, not because she was afraid to learn the truth, but because she feared doing so might destroy her brother.

Why couldn't this man understand that? Everyone had illusions, her brother's being that his father had been a basically good man whose personality was grossly altered by his consumption of whiskey. Sometimes self-deception was all that kept a person sane.

Camlin Beckett's murder had occurred nearly twenty years ago. Joseph Paxton was long since dead, and her brother was still very much alive. As far as she was concerned, the truth, no matter how damning, had been buried with her father, and it should stay buried. What earthly difference did it make now if Paxton had been innocent? The facts wouldn't bring him back, nor would they undo what had happened. Ace Keegan could leave this place any time he chose and get on with his life. Patrick would have to live with the shame of a scandal until the day he died.

As if he sensed she wasn't going to reply to his question, Keegan hauled in a deep breath and released it with a long sigh. "The last point I want to make, Miss O'Shannessy, is that your brother isn't a boy. He's a grown man. It's time he suffered the consequences of his actions. Maybe next time, he'll think twice before he gets trigger happy."

"Next time?" Caitlin felt a hand on her arm. Believing it to be Hank's, she didn't jerk away. "If you hang him, there won't be a next time! Please. There must be another way to settle this. I will happily compensate you for the bull. How much did it cost you?"

Keegan's mouth drew up at one corner in a humorless smile, his flashing teeth a startling white. "Three thousand, plus shipping."

Caitlin's knees nearly buckled. "Three thousand? You can't be serious."

"Dead serious, and since I doubt you have that much money lying loose around the house, there isn't much point in our discussing it further, is there?" Inclining his head in a gesture of dismissal, he added, "Good night, Miss O'Shannessy. It's been a pleasure."

Too late, she realized the man touching her wasn't Hank, but one of Keegan's men. Before she could react, he wrested the rifle from her grasp. She rounded on him. "You give that back this instant!"

From over her shoulder, she heard Keegan say, "Get her out of here, Esa, and see to it she stays out until we've concluded our business with Mr. O'Shannessy."

The sandy-haired cowboy tossed her rifle to another man. Caitlin whirled to evade his grasp, only to find herself trapped in the strong circle of his arms. Panic washed over her in great crashing waves. Struggling to get free, she forgot everything but Patrick and what would happen to him if she didn't convince Keegan to have mercy.

"No, please!" Digging in with her heels, she fought desperately to hold her ground, her gaze fixed on Keegan. "I'll pay any price for the bull you name! I can't"—she twisted and swung sharply at her captor's midriff with an elbow—"immediately lay my hands on the three thousand! You're right about that. But I have plenty of collateral to put up as security—the cattle, the land, even the house. I'll draw up an IOU. Your men can act as witnesses! We'll make payments, if nothing else."

"And meanwhile, I have no prime breeding bull to cover my cows? That equates to no crop of prime calves next spring, Miss O'Shannessy, which means thousands more in losses for me when I take my cattle to market next fall." Keegan gave another humorless huff of laughter. "I don't want your money. Or your IOU. I came here to teach your brother a lesson, and that's exactly what I'm going to do."

"A lesson?" Caitlin's voice went shrill. "Dear God. You call hanging him a lesson? Please, Mr. Keegan. You can't do this. Please."

She gave a violent twist of her body and somehow managed to jerk free of her captor's hold. Dashing across the earthen floor, she threw herself at Keegan's feet and curled her hands around his black boots, determined to hang on no matter what.

"You have to listen to me! Please, don't do this terrible thing."

The thought of trying to strike a bargain with this man with glittering eyes and a devil's sneer had her insides quaking. But if she meant to save Patrick, she couldn't see that she had a choice.

Quivering at the indignity of being on her knees, she forced herself to lift her head. She was glad for the beam of lantern light that fell across her face; the unaccustomed brightness after standing in the shadows made it difficult to see and spared her the indignity of having to immediately meet Keegan's gaze.

"Please," she pleaded. "Don't hurt my brother. Name your price. Anything. Absolutely anything. Just, please, don't hurt my brother."

As her vision cleared, Caitlin noticed two things, the first that she could see the upper half of Keegan's chiseled face more clearly from this angle, the second that he could evidently see hers more clearly as well. Judging by his expression, he didn't like what he saw. No. That was putting it too mildly. Stunned, that was how he looked. Almost as if an invisible fist had just knocked all the wind out of him.

For a second, Caitlin felt certain all the rumors she'd heard about him were false. But even as she gazed up at him in rising hope, the vulnerability she thought she glimpsed in his eyes gave way to frosty indifference. The slack, almost shocked expression on his face went granite hard, and his full, firm lips twisted into another mocking sneer.