Keegan's Lady (43 page)

He gave the gunnysack another kick. Dust from the grain billowed upward and stung his eyes. Inalienable rights? Somehow, he didn't think exercising them was going to set very well with his wife.

Supper that evening was a tense affair. Caitlin had burned the stew. She had also burned the biscuits. Ace was mildly surprised she hadn't decided to set fire to the table as well.

When she sat down with them to partake of the ruined meal, she was wearing a face beyond salvation. Her eyelids were so purple and swollen from crying, she seemed to be looking at everyone through the sweep of her auburn lashes. Her cheeks were stained with great, red splotches. And her mouth looked as though she'd sunk her teeth repeatedly into the inside of her bottom lip. To make matters worse, her expression was sullen, the set of her mouth grimly resentful.

Since it was obvious to everyone present that there was trouble afoot, no one felt at ease enough to engage in conversation. A heavy silence blanketed the table, broken only by the occasional slurping noise as someone sucked stew broth from a spoon. Until now, Ace had never realized that Joseph's jaw popped every time he chewed. He'd also never noticed Esa's infuriating habit of sniffing constantly and rubbing his nose.

By the meal's end, Ace knew he had to get out of the house before he exploded. After taking his bowl to the kitchen sink, he exited by way of the back door, taking the six-foot jump with a crazed disregard, not really caring if he broke a leg in the process. After landing without mishap, which was almost a disappointment, he struck off for the hanging tree. Listening to the rustle of the oak leaves and feeling close to his stepfather always soothed Ace, and tonight he sure as hell needed soothing.

Once at the tree, he found a perch on the huge boulder he usually sat on, swinging a leg over an outcropping. After settling himself comfortably, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, concentrating on the sound of the rustling leaves and his own breathing. Caitlin. She hung in his thoughts, no matter what he did or where he went. He didn't know what to do about her. Yet he had to do something. Joseph was right about that. They couldn't go on as they were.

Calmed by the feel of the evening breeze washing over his hatless head, Ace gazed out across the Paradise, his thoughts as distant from where he sat as the horizon. What was going through Caitlin's mind right now?

Ace supposed, with a stretch of his imagination, he could believe she'd accidentally burned dinner. But even as he tried to make that stretch, a feeling in his gut told him she'd done it on purpose. Why? To get back at him? If so, for what? Buying new clothes for himself wasn't exactly a major offense, especially when he'd done it because of her goddamned cat. He'd been trying to be nice. If this was the result, she might level the whole house if he ever did something really rotten.

Did she hold a grudge against him because of Patrick? The bastard had never yet let his shadow darken Ace's doorstep. Maybe she didn't believe he'd left Patrick a note, welcoming him to the Paradise. Maybe she blamed him because she never got to see her brother. As far as Ace was concerned, it was a good miss. Could that be the problem? That she sensed the animosity he bore Patrick? After all, how could he expect her to develop feelings for him and learn to trust him when she believed he reviled the very blood that flowed in her veins?

Revenge. For so many years, it had been all that Ace had lived for. Now, it seemed, his thirst for it had become the one thing that stood between him and his reason for living. Caitlin . . .

God, he loved her. It had come upon him like a flash flood in the beginning, its depths slowly increasing with each passing day, until he no longer felt he could keep his head above flood level. He was slowly drowning in hopelessness. Without her, he wasn't sure he could survive.

Stupid, that. He'd never really believed a man's feelings could run so deep. But falling in love with Caitlin had proved him dead wrong. What was the purpose in doing anything, in accomplishing anything, if he couldn't share it with her? Jesus. He wanted to give her his babies. Him, the fellow who'd never screwed a woman without wearing a sheep-gut condom. Even worse was that he knew damned well those babies he wanted so badly would be half O'Shannessy. Little redheads, possibly. Christ. He could end up with a son who was a dead ringer for Conor.

Ace had hated the man so blindly for so many years, he had never stopped to consider what it was doing to him. He'd sacrificed so much for hatred. Was he willing to sacrifice the rest of his life?

"You got any room up there for company?"

Joseph's voice made Ace jerk. He glanced around, sought out his brother in the darkness, and flashed a rueful grin. "I reckon. Just be forewarned, I'm not in the best of moods."

"I figured as much." Joseph swung up onto the rock, face toward the mountains, boot heels hooked over a protrusion of stone. After watching the tree sway for a while, he said, "I thought maybe you'd like to talk." He reached inside his shirt and drew out a flask. Popping the cork, he took a generous swig, then handed the flask to Ace. "Join me?"

Ace chuckled and accepted the container. "Why the hell not? Maybe getting my hat cocked will make me feel better."

"I doubt it. But maybe you'll better enjoy your frustration."

Ace wiped the mouth of the flask. "I'm frustrated, all right. You would be, too, if you were walking around with a stiff third leg bent double in the crotch of your jeans."

Joseph chuckled. "The way I hear tell, it's more the size of Caitlin's little finger."

Ace took a gulp of whiskey, which burned like fire from the back of his throat clear to his belly. After whistling air through his teeth, he said, "Doesn't she just wish?"

"Well, I guess one of you is doing some wishful thinking." Joseph took the flask back when Ace proffered it. "I'm just not sure it's Caitlin."

Ace narrowed an eye, watching as his brother took another belt of whiskey. "I've got a hundred bucks that says mine is bigger than yours, you cocky little bastard."

Joseph handed the whiskey back to Ace. "You've got the cocky part right. I may be little, big brother, but I'm hung like a goddamned horse. The way I figure it, God took pity when he was fashioning me. He said to Himself, 'I gotta give this boy some kind of edge.'"

"My ass."

Joseph laughed goodnaturedly. "Yeah, well, you'll never know for sure, will you?"

Ace swallowed more whiskey. It no longer seemed to have such a bite. "I didn't eat enough supper. This is hitting me like a sixty-grain slug."

"Enjoy."

Ace decided that was the best advice he'd heard all day and took another drink. Handing the container back to his brother, he said, "Don't make me feel lonesome."

"I don't intend to."

The calming effect of the alcohol was beginning to embrace Ace like a blanket. He hauled in a huge lungful of air. "You know what?"

"Nope, what?"

"I'm thinking about throwing it all over."

"Throwing what all over?"

"Everything. Revenge isn't sweet. I thought it would be. All these years, I truly thought it would be. But it isn't."

Joseph said nothing. Ace took his silence as an unvoiced objection.

"I know you boys may feel pretty disappointed in me if I give up on everything right when it's almost finished. I can't blame you for that. But I—"

"Hold it! Hold it just one goddamned minute." Joseph leaned forward slightly to peer at Ace through the gloom. "Did I hear you right? That we're the ones who'll be disappointed? Excuse me, Ace, but where the hell did you ever come up with that idea? This whole business was never our idea. It was yours. You were the one who saw Pa get hung. You were the one who watched Ma get raped. And you were the one who had to look at a messed-up face every morning in the mirror."

"What the hell are you saying?"

"That you were the one obsessed with coming back here. The one who lived to see the bastards who killed our pa grovel. We were so little when it happened, none of us ever really gave a shit if we ever clapped eyes on this place again."

"You've all been behind me a hundred percent."

"We sure as hell have. You're our brother. When we were too little to fend for ourselves, you damned near sold your soul to feed us. When we got older, you were the closest thing to a father any of us had, and you did a damned fine job of raising us. Do you think we can forget that? Hell, no. We're behind you, right or wrong. And I have to tell you, there's been a few times when I thought you were wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Absolutely." Joseph gazed out across the ranch. "Sometimes I feel like you're so focused on avenging Pa that you've forgotten everything he stood for. Everything the Paradise was supposed to stand for. Our pa wasn't a violent man. Fact is, he'd have walked a mile to avoid doing another man harm. When he came here to this place, he was leaving the hell of war behind, not looking for a new one. He wanted a fresh start. A clean start. This land was a defeated man's dream come true. A second chance to live his life the way he wanted, upholding the laws of God, not breaking all of them."

"Are you saying I have?"

"I'm saying that's why you came here, to give back as good as we got. To inflict hurt on the people who hurt us. If that's what you want, more power to you. We'll all stand behind you or die trying. But don't put it off as being our idea in the first place, because it sure as hell wasn't."

Ace couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. "You sat with me, night after night, planning and conniving, until we were so tired we could hardly see. And now you're telling me none of this ever mattered to you?"

"It mattered. Not because it was important to me, but because it was to you." Joseph shot him a glance. "You want to throw it all over? Fine. It's about time you came to your senses, if you ask me. Pa never would have wanted you to avenge him. He would've wanted you to get on with your life. A good life, dammit. With a wife you love, and a passel of kids. Church on Sunday, and a heartfelt blessing of the food at every meal. A clean life, Ace. Not one of gambling and womanizing and killing a man before he kills you. How can you possibly think otherwise?"

Ace ran a hand over his face. Twenty years. He'd breathed and eaten and slept revenge for twenty years. Now it all seemed stupid. Stupid and pointless and completely misguided. A silence settled between him and his brother. A loaded silence that seemed permeated with one question. Where did he go from here?

"You know," Ace said softly after a long while, "I'm going to have to tell Caitlin. About everything. From the very start, I've kept things from her. About our sister. Her sister, for Christ's sake. About my real reasons for coming here. I have everything in position to financially ruin half the people in this town. She's liable to hate me for that when she finds out."

"Not if you fix things before you tell her." Joseph took another swig of whiskey, then handed the flask to Ace. "The people here have invested in land along a railroad spur route that won't ever be built. All you have to do is actually build it."

"Build it?" Ace said incredulously. "Have you lost your mind? That'd cost me a goddamned fortune, with no real means of recouping my investment. It'd be financial lunacy."

"You have the money." Joseph took the flask after Ace was finished with it and shoved the cork back into its mouth. "Instead of being so bent on ruining lives, why not invest a big portion of that money into building one for yourself? You've got a nice spread here. In the future, you'll have a lot better chance to make it as a cattleman if you can ship your cows by rail to Denver instead of driving them overland. These poor bastards around here lose a number of head every time they make the drive. You will as well. If you build a spur, that won't be the case any more."

"It isn't a sound business move, Joseph. I'd be throwing away money."

"Would it break you?"

"Hell, no. But I worked my ass off to get that money. Not one damned cent of it came easy. I might as well walk out there and chuck a fortune in the creek. Just a second ago, you were throwing it in my teeth about the kind of life I've led. Well, I didn't do it on a lark. I sweated and scrimped and sold my soul."

"You haven't sold your soul yet. It's just a little tattered around the edges." Joseph fixed a silvery blue gaze on him. "Will I still be able to say that if you end up losing Caitlin?"

Ace shifted his gaze to the mountains. His brother had no idea what he was suggesting. It wasn't just the money that he'd be throwing away, but a big piece of himself.

"You love her, don't you?"

It took Ace a long time to answer that question. "Yes, goddammit."

"If she was standing on an auction block, what kind of price would you put on her? How high would you bid?"

"She's not a hunk of meat, Joseph. You don't buy a woman!"

"That isn't the point. The point is, what's she worth to you? A fourth of your money? Half? If it came to a choice between your goddamned money and a life with her, which would you take?" Joseph fell silent a moment. "I don't give you advice very often. It's usually the other way around. But I'm going to now, and I hope you listen. Get your head on straight. Figure out what it is in this life that really matters to you. If you decide it's your money, you're going to end up being one sorry son of a bitch."