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He could see her trying to reconcile what he was saying. Well, hell, he was trying to reconcile seeing her.
Her brow furrowed. “Why would I be with someone who steals cattle, who kills people?”
“I’ve never been able to figure out why you even talk to that double-crossing polecat, and neither has your brother.”
“My brother?”
Bram stared hard at her. Was she pulling his leg? “Jericho’s a retired Texas Ranger, married with a baby. He and his wife are in New York City, visiting the nuns who raised her.”
“Do I live with them?”
“No, you live with your ma and three sisters on the edge of my property. The Circle R ranch.”
She put a hand to her head, her lips bloodless. “This is so much to take in.”
“Tell me what you remember.”
“Nothing!” The look of irritation on her face was familiar to Bram. It was the same one she’d gotten the night he tried to convince her not to take the teaching job, to stay with him in Whirlwind.
He ground his teeth. “You remember riding here.”
“Yes.”
“And before that?”
She closed her eyes, pain etching her features. “I woke up outside, behind a building. Two-story. I had no idea where I was, but my head hurt and there was blood on my dress.”
“Maybe from that cut on your head.” His gaze dropped to the damp fabric of her bodice where she’d tried to get out the blood. “How did you get Cosgrove’s horse?”
“It was behind the building, just as I was.” Her brow furrowed. “I heard someone coming. A man. He yelled after me.”
Bram’s head came up. “Did you see him?”
“No, and I didn’t wait to find out who it was. I was terrified—I don’t know why—so I took the horse and rode away.” She gingerly touched her temple, pain stark on her delicate features.
Bram didn’t think she could fake that look of agony, but what did he know? She’d faked her feelings for him for months. “Why did you come here, to my cabin?”
“I didn’t intentionally come here. I just rode until I was sure no one was following. When the dust storm came up and I saw the cabin, I took shelter.” She briefly closed her eyes, her chin quivering. “My head hurts.”
She was pale, her skin waxy in the smoky lamplight. Dust sifted in around the edges of the window frame. “How far did you ride?”
She stared blankly at him.
Reining in his impatience, Bram rubbed the nape of his neck. “How long did you ride before you reached this place?”
“Over an hour. Maybe an hour and a half.”
“Was the horse running full-out the whole time?”
“No, about ten minutes.” She swayed. “It hurts.”
Frowning, Bram steadied her with a hand on her elbow. He wasn’t going to get more out of her right now and she really did look spent.
Hooking a foot around a chair leg, he steered her over to the table and sat her down.
She held her head in her hands. “Thank you.”
The threadiness of her voice raised Bram’s concern. He might be mad as hell at her, but he didn’t like seeing her hurt this way. “Is there something I can do?”
“I think I just need to sit for a minute.”
He glanced around, his gaze skimming over the silt-layered room. “I don’t think there are any headache powders here.”
“The pain isn’t quite so bad now.” She gave him a small forced smile, then closed her eyes.
In the flickering light she looked helpless and fragile. Her pretty mouth was drawn tight with pain. He stiffened as his gaze fell to the bruise on her jaw then moved to the cut on her temple.
He had to fight the urge to hold her and he didn’t understand why. She’d left him, run off with a murdering cattle thief. He shouldn’t want to be within a hundred yards of her. What was wrong with him?
Cosgrove was the one Bram wanted, the one he’d expected when he had come through the door earlier.
Instead, he’d found the one woman he never wanted to see again, and until this storm blew over, he was stuck with her.
Didn’t that just cock his pistol?
Bram Ross didn’t much care for her. Right now, Deborah didn’t much care for him either.
An hour later, as they sat at the small dining table eating supper, she was as befuddled and uncertain as she had been when she had woken up behind that two-story building. Adding further to her confusion was her strong reaction to the rugged cowboy who had found her.
He was a big man. Beneath his grimy white shirt she could see the play of lean carved muscle in his shoulders and arms. Though his black hair was cut short, the ragged ends suggested it hadn’t been trimmed in a while. Whisker stubble shadowed a square unyielding jaw. A raw-looking scar ran up the right side of his face from the middle of his cheek to his temple.
Tall and broad with powerful thighs, the man was daunting, especially when his dark blue eyes turned hard, which they’d done more than once when he looked at her.
His attention sent a shiver through her. She was drawn to him and intimidated at the same time.
Keeping his gun trained on her, he had searched the bedroom for a weapon. He hadn’t found one, of course. Then he had gone out and returned with their saddlebags, using the rope to guide him through the storm to the barn and back. Now the whirling dust and nightfall made it completely dark outside.
After dropping the bags in the corner near the back door, he had found a tin of beans and one of peaches, carefully opening them with a knife. He had managed to keep out most of the dust; she had wiped off the tin plate he’d given her. They ate in silence, with her at one end of the table and him at the other. The insistent hum of the wind scraped at her nerves, as did the hovering veil of dust.
She ate slowly, sneaking looks at him. She couldn’t seem to stop her attention from wandering to his firm, sometimes-harsh mouth, searching her mind for any memory of him. Touching, kissing, laughing. She’d tried the same for her family and any part of her life.
The harder she tried to remember, the more her head hurt, but she needed answers. Something to grab on to, to slake the sense of … incompleteness inside her.
Although she believed what Bram Ross had told her, she didn’t feel any of it.
A million questions, especially about him—them—spun through her head. She wasn’t sure she was ready to talk about that. From the way his face had turned to stone earlier, she doubted he was either.
He looked up suddenly and she tore her gaze from his mouth.
“You’ve been staring at me since we sat down,” he said baldly.
She flushed at being so obvious. Reaching up, she touched her cheek. “What happened to your face?”
His eyes narrowed and his voice turned hard. “Your beau shot me and his bullet skinned a trail up my face.”
She winced. Even though the wound was healing, it had a fresh look to it. “Is that why you hate him?”
“No, that’s after the fact. He led a band of rustlers for months, stealing not just my cattle, but my neighbors', too. People who were also his neighbors. Due to the drought last year, we had already lost plenty of cattle. His thieving almost cost my family our ranch. Add to that, he murdered someone two days ago during a bank robbery.”
This Cosgrove sounded like a horrible person. Deborah didn’t want to believe she could be involved with him, but Bram certainly believed it.
The dust tickled her nose and she stifled a sneeze. After a minute, she said, “May I ask you something else?”
“More about Cosgrove?” he sneered.
“No. About me, you, everything.”
In the hazy light, his eyes were like dark steel. His gaze trailed from her face to her breasts and back up, making her stomach dip. Hunger flared in his eyes, then was gone. She shivered.
He studied her for a minute, then shrugged.
This man had proposed to her. Shouldn’t she recognize something about him deep inside? She had no sense of him other than the fact that he was strong, no-nonsense and gruff. “You said I lived with my mother and sisters?”
“Yes. They’re younger than you. Jordan, Michal and Marah.”
She searched her mind for an impression or part of a memory. Nothing.
“You have cousins here, too. Riley and Davis Lee Holt.”
None of these people sounded familiar. She tried to calm the panic rising inside her. With a shaking hand, she tucked her hair behind her ear. “You said I lived near Whirlwind. Where is that?”
“North central Texas.”
“Do you have kin nearby, too?”
Bram eyed her skeptically. “Yeah. I live at the Circle R ranch with my cousin, Georgia, and Uncle Ike. My brother, Jake, and his wife also live there.”
All the names spun in her head. “You’re a rancher?”
He arched a brow. “Yes. That’s why I live on a ranch.”
She flushed. The man irritated the fire out of her, but right now he was the only person who might be able to help her remember.
“What happened to your parents?”
“My pa died years ago and my ma lit out right after,” he said with exaggerated patience—as though he were humoring her, not because he believed she needed answers. “Ike raised me and my brother.”
She braced herself for the possibility that he might not answer her next question. “When did you ask me to marry you?”
He pushed his plate away, his gaze piercing as though he was trying to probe her brain. “How long are you going to carry on with this?”
“I’m not carrying on. I need to know.” She wanted to smack the disbelieving look off his handsome face. “When did it happen? When did you ask me?”
“A little over three weeks ago.” His voice hardened and his eyes went flat. “The day before you took off.”
Her head pounded. She had hoped something about her or him would spark a memory, but nothing had. She couldn’t even remember something as important as a marriage proposal. “Why did I turn you down?”
A muscle flexed in his jaw as his gaze leveled on hers. Blade-sharp, frigid. “You wanted to take a job as a schoolteacher. I wanted you to stay with me, and you said you’d think about it. Instead, you left the next day.”
No wonder he had been so angry when he’d found her in the cabin. Her voice cracked. “I don’t remember any of it.”
“So you say.”
Why wouldn’t he believe her? “I’m sorry. I
really don’t.”
Plainly skeptical, Bram pushed his chair away from the table and rose.
Surprised at a quick flare of panic that he might leave, she asked tentatively, “Where are you going?”
“I’ve been up since before dawn and I need some shut-eye. You can do whatever you like as long as it’s quiet.”
She bit her lip. She was tired to the marrow of her bones, but there was only one bed.
He saw her glance toward the bedroom and barked out a sharp laugh. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m getting my bedroll. I won’t even darken your door. You made your choice real clear.”
She swallowed hard. She might not remember him, but she could appreciate what was right in front of her. Stranger or not, jilted beau or not, he affected her. When he looked at her, every nerve tingled and his deep voice sent a tremor to the pit of her stomach.
She didn’t like it. “What will we do tomorrow?”
“Depends on the storm. Once it’s over, I’m taking you home.”
His tone said he couldn’t wait to be rid of her. The idea that she had a place to go, that she belonged somewhere, should’ve reassured her, but it didn’t.
Though she had learned a few things about her family and Bram, they didn’t really mean anything.
She had hoped his answers would help her remember, give her some kind of anchor, but they hadn’t. Thanks to that big strapping mountain of a man, she felt even more off balance.
She was getting to him just as she always had, and it made Bram madder than hell.
He couldn’t get the image of her face out of his head. Undone, disoriented. She had appeared desperate for information and when he had given it to her, a light had gone out of her. Hope.
The way her face had crumpled when he told her about her rejection of his marriage proposal had him wondering if she was telling the truth about losing her memory. Dammit, he didn’t want to wonder. He didn’t want to care either, but judging by the rush of anger and protectiveness he’d felt upon spying her bruised jaw and the cut on her temple, he did.
Bram swept up the latest layer of dust that had filtered in through the sides of the window and deposited it in an old water pail. After shaking out his bedroll, he spread it and sat down with his back against the wall adjacent to the bedroom. He wanted to focus on Cosgrove, but as usual, Deborah’s presence had run everything else out of his mind.
Frustrated, he dragged a hand across his nape. The sooner he got shed of Deborah Blue, the sooner he could continue his search for the murdering rustler who had nearly ruined his family.
