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She didn’t even glance at the trowel she held, so Mitch tried hard not to do so, either. But it wasn’t easy. It was weird, almost freaky, to be sitting here with this woman who was half stranger, half lover and to be talking about wealth and violence.
Wealth and violence. He supposed those two things fit together in some sick way. People did crazy, terrible things over money. But neither word fit with Bonnie.
She paused, as if she expected him to interrupt again, probably to demand an explanation of the arrest, but he didn’t. He was itching to know the truth about that, but right now he wanted her to finish telling him why she’d been on the run.
“Anyhow,” she continued after a minute, “the will stipulated that if I died before my mother did, Jacob would inherit everything. No one expected that to happen, of course. My mother wasn’t old, but she was very, very sick. Everyone knew she didn’t have long to live. So it was almost impossible to imagine any way I would go first. Not naturally, anyhow.”
Not naturally, anyhow. How calmly she said such a thing.
“And if you didn’t die first, Jacob got nothing.” Mitch took a breath, still sorting it out. His mind balked at the implications. “Are you saying your cousin wanted to kill you so he’d inherit your grandmother’s fortune?”
She didn’t answer for a long second. Finally, she looked him directly in the eyes. “Yes.”
“Bonnie.” He raised a hand, correcting himself. “Annabelle. Look, how much money are we talking about here? For a man to kill...”
“Enough. More than enough.” Her voice dropped low and took on a harsh edge. “For pity’s sake, Mitch, people kill each other every day. Over a bar tab, over a pair of sneakers, over a purse, a cash register, a car. Why is it so difficult to imagine that a man would kill to inherit thirty million dollars?”
“Thirty...” His jaw dropped, and he had to tell himself to shut it. “Okay. It’s a lot of money. Still. Your cousin isn’t exactly a pauper. And he’s not a thug. I looked him up. He’s a big-time lawyer, doing just fine for himself. Why would he risk all that—”
“So you don’t believe me, either.” The angry flush had drained entirely from her cheeks, leaving a chilled porcelain ivory behind. She sat so still she might have been a wax figure, not a woman.
“I didn’t say that.”
Her lips curved slightly. “You didn’t have to. I know that look. I know that tone.”
Of course she did. He mustn’t forget that she was as familiar with every square inch of his skin as he was with hers. “Well, it does sound kind of...” He tried to think of a nonjudgmental word. “Kind of extreme.”
“Crazy, you mean?” She lifted her chin. “Don’t worry. You aren’t the first to hint at the possibility. He is, as you say, a big-time lawyer. I’m just this spoiled, troubled heiress, the daughter of a suicidal drug addict. And I’ve already tried to stab him once, so it’s obvious I have some paranoia issues.”
“No, I don’t mean crazy. But maybe...maybe just exaggerating the danger? I’m sure he was envious you got everything, and he probably gave off some fairly hostile vibes.”
She laughed darkly. “Yeah. He tried to overdose me with barbiturates, so I’d say hostile is a fairly accurate description of his feelings for me.”
“He did? How?”
“New Year’s Eve. Jacob always gives a big party, and of course he had to invite me—otherwise people would talk. He must have slipped the drugs into my drink somehow. I woke up the next day in the hospital. On a ventilator.”
Mitch’s body temperature had dropped about ten degrees in ten seconds. The balmy California air moved over his skin like ice. “Are you sure? I mean...how do you know he was the one who did it?”
“Well, I knew I didn’t do it. And, contrary to popular opinion, I’m not paranoid enough to think I have two different people looking to get rid of me.”
Mitch frowned. “But how did he expect to get away with it?”
“Oh, that would have been easy. No one would have doubted it was suicide. It was public knowledge that my mother had tried to kill herself. Twice.”
He made a low shocked sound, but she ignored it.
“And it wasn’t as if he expected me to be able to deny it. He gave me a huge dose. If I really had been drinking alcohol, as everyone assumed I was, I would have died that night.”
Mitch stared at her, speechless. Her own cousin didn’t even realize she wasn’t a drinker? He remembered all the times she’d carried a glass of soda water around at the Bell River events. She never made a thing of it, never got sanctimonious in front of people who did drink. He’d always figured it was simply a healthy-living kind of decision. Now he knew better.
The child of an addict would obviously avoid taking any risks. And her caution had saved her life, though not in the way she’d expected.
“What about when you did wake up? Did you tell anyone? Did you tell the police?”
“No.”
“For God’s sake, Bonnie. Why not?”
“Because I’d been down that path before. Accusing Jacob. And I ended up in a mental-health clinic. No one was going to believe me this time, either, and while I was trying to convince them, he would have tried again. Eventually, he would have succeeded. So I ran.”
“But...” He couldn’t wrap his mind around any of this. “Surely the police...your friends...other family members. Hell, even a lawyer—”
“No.” She shook her head implacably. “No one. There was no one I could trust.”
He felt himself stiffen. “Not even me, apparently.”
The sun had almost touched the western horizon, and he suddenly realized her face was almost entirely in shadows. Now, when he wanted desperately to be able to read her expression, he could hardly see a thing.
“No,” she repeated. “Not even you.”
It shocked him, the hot knife blade of pain that sank into him when she spoke the words. It shouldn’t have been a surprise—couldn’t have been a surprise. He wasn’t a fool. He knew that if she’d trusted him, she would have confided in him months ago.
And yet, hearing her dull monotone confirm it...
“Well, that’s direct.” He leaned back, trying to project a detachment he didn’t come close to feeling. “Guess there’s no point in sugarcoating anything, not now.”
“Mitch, be fair. How could I trust you? How could I trust anyone? My life was at stake. Even more importantly, my mother’s life was at stake. Once he’d gotten rid of me, how long would he have let her stand between him and the inheritance? How long would he have let her live?”
“Did it ever occur to you,” he asked slowly, “that I might have been able to help?”
She hesitated, then swallowed and shook her head. “No.”
Heat radiated across his shoulders and down his arms. He couldn’t decide whether it was anger or shame coursing through his buzzing veins. No? No? Damn it...he would have died for her. Literally. He would have killed for her.
But she hadn’t believed him capable of providing any security. She hadn’t seen him as up to the task of protecting her.
“Jacob is ruthless,” she said, bending forward as if she could close the emotional distance between them by shrinking the physical gap. “He’s vicious and such an expert liar. You have no idea—you can’t imagine. And I’m glad you can’t. You’ve lived with love all your life, surrounded by a family that adores you. You’re sunny, and you’re kind, and you think the world is good. You aren’t consumed by ambition and greed. Those were the things about you I most...”
She stopped, swallowing the next word oddly. “I mean...that’s what drew me to you in the first place. You were light, when all I’d known before was darkness. You understand laughter and joy. You don’t understand cruelty and greed.”
He made a harsh scoffing noise. “You make me sound like the village idiot.”
She straightened up, as if scalded by his sardonic tone. “I’m sorry you take it that way. That isn’t even remotely what I meant.”
“Sure it is.” He was so angry he could hardly keep his voice steady. He was doomed, wasn’t he? He would eternally be the dopey younger brother. The likable goof. The good-time Charlie. He was used to being written off as a gadfly by Dallas, but he’d imagined that Bonnie was the one person who saw him differently.
Wrong again, moron. Maybe that just proved how naive and gullible he really was.
“Mitch, that isn’t what I meant at all—”
“It’s exactly what you meant. You meant that I’m good for a few laughs. I can provide a little comic relief on a boring road trip. And I’m not bad in the sack, of course, so that part was fun, too. But I’m not the kind of guy you take seriously. I’m not the person you’d trust with your secrets, your problems.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not the man you’d trust with your life.”
She was shaking her head. “No. You’re twisting my words. This struggle with Jacob doesn’t have anything to do with my real life or my real feelings. I just had to get through this one dangerous moment, and then—”
“And then what? Don’t be so naive. Do you really think this is the last terrible thing you’ll face?”
He stood. Coming here had been a mistake. There wasn’t any such thing as “closure.” There was only loss and more loss. If he’d never seen her here, with her Titian-red hair and her backdrop of opulence, he could at least have kept the memories of his Bonnie intact.
Now Bonnie and Annabelle would be forever tangled in his mind. And he would always know that neither of them had really respected him. Neither one of them had loved him. Not the way he’d dreamed.
“Mitch.” She didn’t move, but she looked up at him with those complicated, beautiful, haunted blue eyes, overflowing now with unshed tears. “Mitch, please.”
“Troubles come to everybody, Bonnie,” he said roughly. “If you live long enough. People, even careful people, occasionally end up in dark places—in a courtroom, in a wheelchair, in chemotherapy, in disgrace. In tears, in therapy, in pain—all that’s part of life. And it should be part of love, too.”
“Yes. And it is.” She held out one slim lily-pale hand. It trembled. “It will be.”
“No, it won’t. You don’t think of me as a partner. You think of me as a plaything. And I have no interest in settling for that role in any woman’s life.”
She made a choking sound. He shrugged, thankful that, finally, numbness had set in and the pain had eased off, allowing him to come up with one final smile.
“Goodbye, Bonnie.” He cast one last glance at the purpling sky, lowering itself over her mansion like a shroud. “Have a good life.”
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_17e59b25-541b-5d5d-8b75-4b44568ae05c)
TEN DAYS LATER, when Annabelle arrived at Bell River Ranch with three suitcases in the trunk of her cheap rental car, she was carefully dressed—costumed, really—in worn jeans, faded flannel and scuffed boots. It was the way she used to look when she’d lived here before.
Except for one thing. Her hair had been dyed dark back then, and she’d quit coloring it long ago. Today, the red flame was tucked away in a coiled knot.
And her heart was in her throat.
She parked as far from the house as she could, giving herself time to adjust. She hadn’t set foot on Bell River land in almost a year and a half, if you didn’t count that night...the night her mother had died.
That night had been different. It was one thing to steal back in darkness as Bonnie O’Mara, to be seen by only Mitch, to spend a few secret hours in the comfort of his arms and then run away again.
It was quite another to show up in broad daylight, to announce herself to the whole family as Annabelle Irving and to face their questions...and, quite possibly, their hostility and rejection.
She’d decided not to approach by the front door, but to look around outside, hoping she’d find Rowena at work. Maybe she’d even find her alone.
Luck was on her side. There Rowena was, standing by a fancy structure that must be the new stables. Her black hair flew in the spring breeze as she talked animatedly to a crowd of people...guests, judging from their too-expensive brand-new Western wear.
Ro must be matching the riders to the horses they’d use during their stay at the ranch. Annabelle had left before the dude ranch opened, so she’d never actually seen her friend do this. But they’d talked about it so often. Annabelle would be cooking or ironing, and Rowena would be dreaming out loud, building the ranch in the air. She’d made it real enough to touch.
Annabelle put her fingertips against the rough splintered side of the old barn, unable to move for a minute, overcome by a rush of emotion. She’d been gone so long. Maybe too long.
She could already see how much the ranch had changed. When she was last here, Bell River had been a scrappy start-up business, struggling to lay its ghosts to rest and build a future as a dude ranch. Now it was sleek and polished under the bright spring sun, beautiful against its jagged mountain backdrop. They’d expanded the main house and put up at least a dozen new outbuildings.
And everywhere she looked, so many people. Guests and staff and...
So much change. What if it wasn’t just the physical space that was different? What if it was the people, too? They’d been kind to her once, especially Rowena. They’d taken her in as unguardedly as they’d shelter a stray kitten. But she’d repaid them by breaking Mitch’s heart. Mitch, the family darling, who could charm the rogue out of any horse or any woman. Any man, for that matter. His smile made the room sparkle. His veins seemed to be filled with laughter instead of blood.
Were they likely to forgive an interloper like Annabelle for lying to him, leaving him and, by doing those things, turning off all that sunlight?
She swallowed hard and tilted her face toward the sun, trying to breathe in courage. Maybe Bell River no longer had a place for her, but she must try. She needed to explain, partly because they deserved an explanation and partly because she intended to set things right. No matter how hard it was, no matter how long it took, she was going to get Mitch Garwood back.
Brave words, considering she had frozen in place, half-hidden behind the old barn and paralyzed with fear. Darn it, this wasn’t how she’d intended to start her new life. She tightened her jaw and moved her leaden legs forward, crunching the last patches of spring snow under her boots and arranging a confident smile on her lips.
Rowena was so engrossed in sorting the guests and horses she didn’t notice Annabelle until she was at the edge of the crowd. Ro glanced over, started to glance away, then did a subtle double take. Her green eyes grew very wide, but she maintained her professional composure.
That made Annabelle’s lips curve in a genuine smile. Composed and Rowena weren’t words used together very often. Or at least they hadn’t been, back then. Ro was all fire and energy, and she never had seemed to pull any punches.
Now, though, she finished pairing up the current guest with a lovely young paint, then smoothly excused herself and strode calmly to where Annabelle stood, waiting.
When she got close enough, she fisted her hands in her riding jacket’s pockets and planted her feet several inches apart. She looked Annabelle over slowly, studying every inch of her face.
Annabelle had to fight to keep from lifting her chin defensively. Whatever Rowena was going to say, she probably deserved it, and she’d take it without complaint.
Several awkward seconds passed, and then Rowena finally spoke, with that wry, throaty voice Annabelle remembered. “Well,” she said cryptically.
Annabelle took a breath. She met Rowena’s eyes. “Well?”
Rowena chuckled. “Well...well, nothing, really. I’m just surprised, that’s all. Mitch said you looked like a completely different person, but then, he’s in a major snit, so obviously he was overstating.”
A snit? Was that what Ro called Mitch’s intractable anger? That was definitely understating it a bit.
Annabelle wanted to break the awkward silence, but she hardly knew where to start. She had so much to say, so many apologies to make. She wanted to explain why she’d come, how she hoped she might be able to make Mitch understand and forgive, but how to begin?
“The red hair is a bit startling,” Rowena said, tilting her head to continue her appraisal. “But otherwise you look exactly the same. Well, not exactly, but almost. You look a little sadder, but then...why shouldn’t you? Mitch says your mother just died and your cousin is a homicidal, moneygrubbing sociopath.”
Annabelle laughed in spite of her nerves. Rowena never had been a fan of sugarcoating.
“A sociopath who tried to kill you, for God’s sake. Nearly getting murdered is enough to make anyone sad, and—” As Rowena’s words broke off, she wrinkled her nose sheepishly. “And... Oops! I’m suddenly realizing we should have this conversation somewhere more private. Come on. I’ll ditch work, and we’ll talk. I’ll make you some tea.”
She moved toward the house, but then stopped so fast that Annabelle, following closely, almost ran into her. Her feet tangled and Annabelle reached out to steady herself on Ro’s elbow. Again, she had to laugh. How could she have forgotten how mercurial, how tempestuous Rowena’s emotions were?
“Hey.” Ro smiled. “It just occurred to me. Didn’t we skip an important step?” And then, with a graceful simplicity, she held out her arms.
A hug. Such an easy thing, but everything Annabelle had hoped for was written in Rowena’s dazzling smile. Ro was offering her the embrace of friendship, of forgiveness, of understanding.
Her chest muscles relaxing in a flood of relief, and her eyes welling with tears, Annabelle simply nodded, unable to form words.
“Well, okay, then!” Rowena enveloped her in an enthusiastic bear hug that left no doubt. Whether she arrived as Annabelle or Bonnie, brunette or redhead, enigma or heiress, she was still welcome in this corner of Bell River Ranch.
When they finally pulled apart, Annabelle felt a hundred years lighter.
“Come on. Tea and talk. It’ll be like old times.” Still smiling, Rowena took her hand and headed for the house.
The big stone-and-wood two-story structure had been so thoroughly renovated Annabelle was a little disoriented at first. But Ro plowed on, up the back porch and then through the charming, busy rooms, giving Annabelle hardly enough time to take it all in.
