The Loner Read online

  None. She found it totally humiliating.

  Over the years, she'd dreamed about his reaction to seeing her again, fantasized how he'd fall at her feet and beg her forgiveness or maybe rush to hold her and confess that he'd searched for her for years. While she'd known better than to expect either of those outcomes, she had figured to see a spark of recognition in those emerald eyes, a flicker of shame. The total lack of remembrance floored her. It wasn't as if her appearance had changed overmuch in the past fifteen years. And heaven knew, he'd certainly enjoyed a good, thorough look at her then.

  "It's a pure pleasure to meet you, Caroline. I'm Logan. Logan Grey."

  Damned if he didn't finish with a wink. The same wink he'd used to charm cookies from her grandma. The same wink that had lulled her into the bushes for his kiss. The same wink he'd given her that night in the church in Odessa.

  She wanted to rip off the offending eyelid, but instead of doing what she wanted to do, Caroline straightened her spine, squared her shoulders and with great restraint said simply, "Logan Grey, you are a sorry, no-good louse."

  "Excuse me?"

  She peripherally noticed speculative interest on every face at the table. "You don't recognize me, do you?"

  Wariness entered his eyes. He blinked. "What do you mean? You were at the bank today."

  "I mean before that."

  He studied her, the furrows in his brow deepening. He was clearly at a loss. "I'm sorry, I don't recall having met you."

  In that moment, Caroline decided she didn't mind lying to him at all. Not one little tiny teensy-weensy bit.

  First, though, she'd tell him the truth.

  She drew back her arm and fired the jeweled medallion at him. As it bounced off his forehead, she unfurled her dirty laundry right there in the McBride family dining room. "You should remember me, you dirty rotten mush-minded snake. You married me!"

  CHAPTER THREE

  Logan Grey was not a stupid man. He was not a forgetful man. He'd traveled a lot of places in his life. Done a lot of living. Met a lot of people. Bedded a whole lot of women. Loved and lost one. He'd lived a life packed full of adventures of every kind.

  For the life of him, he couldn't remember getting married to this woman.

  Unless... He remembered a gal one wild week years ago. "Wait. Are you the girl from New Orleans? We did that voodoo nonsense together which 'married' us for that week?"

  He watched her rein in her temper, though her eyes continued to flash as she said, "No."

  Logan studied her hard. He had sensed a glimmer of something this morning in the bank. He'd figured it for lust, not recollection. After all, with those magnificent violet eyes, her burnished gold hair and an hourglass figure that proximity had proved to be natural rather than created by a corset, she was a woman of infinite appeal. She was the type of woman who tended to stick in a man's brain instead of fading completely away.

  Caroline. Hmm...

  Logan admitted he had a tendency to block bad events from his memory, and something did tug at his mind, something unsettling. Those eyes. Where had he seen that color eyes? "Was it California? When I was tracking down the Watson Gang and I hired a 'wife' to help me—"

  She briefly closed her eyes. Color stained her cheeks— not anger this time, he thought. Embarrassment. "No."

  Hmm...if not California, there had been those months in Mexico after Stoney Wilson destroyed his life when he'd pretty much lost himself in a bottle. There had been a woman then, too. About the only thing he remembered for certain was that her name wasn't Caroline. She'd called herself Sefiora Logan. He didn't remember at all what she looked like, but he wouldn't figure "Sefiora" Anyone as a fair-complected blonde. "I didn't meet you in Nuevo Laredo, did I?"

  She smiled then, but Logan spied no amusement in it. In fact, he took it to be a warning. "We met when we were children and I visited my grandparents' farm in East Texas."

  Sitting beside Logan, Holt Driscoll snapped his fingers. "That's it."

  Across from him, Cade Hollister nodded once with gusto.

  His friends' reactions gave Logan pause. What did they recall that he didn't?

  "The last time I saw you before today was fifteen years ago," the beauty continued. She darted a quick, embarrassed glance toward the McBride sisters as she added, "After our wedding night in the Magnolia Hotel in Odessa."

  Wedding night. Odessa. Violet eyes. Son of a bitch. Light dawned and Logan's own eyes widened. His gaze once again swept her head to toe as details came trickling back to him. This was Big Jack Kilpatrick's daughter. Caroline Kilpatrick. She'd been what, seventeen, back then?

  He tried to remember. That was way back before Mexico, before the slaughter in Oklahoma, and he seldom thought about those years. It hurt too much to recall when his life—his soul—had still been clean.

  But when he put his mind to it, he remembered a girl in a yellow dress. She had looked different then, too. For one thing, her hair had been white-blond, not this glorious burnished gold. Also, she hadn't been nearly this... curvy.

  Cade leaned over and whispered, "How could you forget her?"

  "I didn't recognize her," he murmured back, his gaze locking on her bosom. "She's grown breasts since then." Then he cleared his throat and said, "You're the Kilpatrick girl."

  "Not for the past fifteen years. I'm Caroline Grey."

  Logan sat back in his chair. "You've pretended to be my wife all that time?"

  Temper flashed. "I am your wife!"

  Logan's gaze dropped to her hands as they continually made fists. She stood far too close to the carving knife beside the roast for his own ease.

  "Don't you recall signing the church register?" she asked. "Mr. and Mrs. Logan Grey?"

  "Oh, Lucky," Emma MacRae scolded, clucking her tongue.

  "It was a long time ago," he responded defensively. The details of the day were slowly coming back.

  "That's right." Caroline's tone dripped sugar, but her gaze shot poison darts. Her chin came up as she drew a deep breath, then declared, "Who could expect a man to remember the woman he tricked into marriage one night then deserted at dawn?"

  Oh, yeah. He winced. Now he remembered.

  "Lucky!" Kat Kimball gasped. "How could you?" She shoved to her feet and went to stand beside Caroline, looping their arms in a sign of solidarity. Having a history of marriage to a trickster, she was sensitive to the subject.

  "Now wait just a minute," Logan protested as the events of the day came rushing back into his memory. "It wasn't like that. The whole thing was a lie."

  Every woman in the room had folded her arms. All the men either grimaced or winced—except for Dair MacRae, damn his soul. That son of a bitch looked as though he was about to laugh as he drawled, "Since we're all done with dinner, perhaps we should move this conversation into the drawing room. It's more comfortable and the liquor is closer. Or, Logan, maybe you'd prefer privacy for this?"

  "Dair!" his wife protested.

  "No. I want everyone to hear this," Logan said, keeping his voice calm. "It wasn't like she said. It was a lie, a scheme concocted by her father. I was just a two-bit player."

  Caroline's jaw gaped. "How can you say that with a straight face? You didn't even remember!"

  "Well, I remember now," he fired back as the group moved into the other room. In his mind's eye he could see the tall, larger-than-life Texan with his granite jaw and steely demeanor saunter into the bar.

  "Are you the fella who came looking for work at the K-Bar yesterday?" Big Jack Kilpatrick asked.

  Down to his last two dollars, Logan glanced up from his card game. "I am."

  "You the boy from East Texas? The one who said he knew my in-laws? Knows my daughter?"

  "I spent a few years at the Piney Woods Children's Home that bordered the Benson place. Your girl visited there in the summers."

  A big, slow grin spread across Big Jack's face. "I see. Well, then, son. Looks like I might have a job after all. Cash out of your game, there, and join me f
or a drink."

  "Here, Lucky," Luke Prescott said, shoving a glass at him. "Looks like you need it."

  Logan shook off the memory and accepted the sample of Luke's father-in-law's whiskey. He was glad that a prior commitment kept Trace and his wife, Jenny, from being here tonight. He'd have hated to have this conversation beneath Trace McBride's overprotective-toward-females scowl.

  Some of the details of the "wedding" remained hazy in his mind, but others had become crystal clear. Big Jack's hard eyes and careless manner as he made his shocking proposal was one of those clear moments. Joining Caroline Kilpatrick in bed was another.

  Emma MacRae offered Caroline a seat in her mother's favorite chair before the fireplace and a choice of beverage.

  "A glass of water would be nice. Thank you," Caroline replied.

  After a consultation with the babysitter caring for the couples' children upstairs, the women took their seats—on the same side of the room as Caroline. Their husbands arranged themselves neutrally toward the center of the room. Cade and Holt stayed in close proximity to the liquor cabinet. Logan stood by the door, wondering if a quick exit might be necessary.

  He took a long sip of whiskey, then because his friends' wives mattered to him, they were the ones he addressed. "I didn't remember at first because it wasn't a legitimate wedding. We didn't really get married. The whole thing was faked, a scheme of her father's to get around some legal issue he had. I think it was something about an inheritance that only kicked in when his daughter got married."

  "That's a lie," Caroline declared, coming to her feet.

  "No, it isn't. I specifically recall something about terms of your mother's will. Your father was quite adamant about his objections to—"

  "The inheritance part is true," she interrupted. "I don't argue that. But the wedding was real. You married me."

  Calmly, Logan took another sip of his whiskey, then with his voice ringing with sincerity, said, "I tried to hire on as a ranch hand at your father's place, but got turned down. Big Jack tracked me down in a saloon in Midland. The man was intimidating as hell."

  He glanced at the women and explained, "I was just as tall as he was then, but I was a skinny runt. He had to have fifty pounds of muscle on me. He slapped me on the back and about knocked me across the room and offered me twenty dollars to go to Odessa and pretend to marry his daughter. I didn't think twice about taking the job. Legalities didn't bother me much then."

  "They don't bother you much now," Dair observed.

  "It wasn't a fake marriage." Caroline linked her hands and squeezed. "We said vows in First Methodist Church."

  "In front of a fake preacher."

  "We signed marriage papers."

  "Fake papers your father promised to destroy after he used them with the lawyers."

  This time it was Caroline who looked at the McBride sisters. "Reverend Harwell still preaches there today. The marriage is recorded at the Ector County courthouse. You can check."

  "That would be easy enough to do, Lucky," Luke Prescott observed.

  Now Logan felt his first real shimmer of unease. What if she was telling the truth?

  No. Couldn't be. Being married would certainly qualify as trouble, yet this business had blindsided him, caught him totally off guard. His trouble-sense hadn't made a peep. She couldn't be telling the truth. "You knew it was a sham. You had to know."

  "Excuse me, but do you remember that day at all?" This time Caroline looked toward Dair, Luke Garrett and Jake Kimball, the McBride daughters' husbands. "My father wanted me to marry a family friend, a rancher my father's age. He went forward with the plans even though I refused. I ran away but his men caught me and brought me back. He posted guards and summoned his friend and a preacher. He took all the clothes from my room except for a wedding gown made by—" she pointed toward their wives "—their mother!"

  Maribeth Prescott glanced at her sisters. "Mama would remember. She remembers every wedding dress she ever made."

  Caroline continued, "Fifteen minutes before I was supposed to go downstairs to marry some man I'd never met, Logan Grey knocks out the guard in front of my door and sneaks into my room."

  Logan's stomach took a hard dip as he recalled that part of the day. He'd been the backup bridegroom. Big Jack had thought his goal might be accomplished easier if she thought she had a choice.

  "Logan told me he'd heard about my plight in town and that he'd come to help me escape the ranch house. Then he convinced me to marry him by saying he'd always had a soft spot for me in his heart, and that marrying someone else was the only way to ensure my father couldn't make me marry that old man!"

  He felt the censorious gazes of the females in the room as Caroline said, "I wanted to believe him. I'd had an infatuation for him ever since y'all built my Grandpa's barn. Remember that summer?" she asked the men. "You'd show up early before it got hot."

  "You brought us lemonade," Cade recalled. "Cookies, too. I remember those ginger cookies."

  Holt nodded. "Me, too. You went swimming with us in the river. Remember that swing we made over the swimming hole? No one else from the home had guts enough to try it. Just the three of us—" he grinned at Caroline "—and you."

  "It was fun," she replied. "Being with the three of you was fun. And frankly, that summer, I'd have followed Logan Grey anywhere." She pinned him with a look. "You gave me my first kiss that summer. I don't suppose you remember that, either?"

  Uncertain whether a lie or the truth would serve him best at the moment—he didn't remember that kiss at all—Logan simply shrugged.

  "It's appalling to admit now, but when he offered me a way out of that marriage my father had arranged, I didn't think twice. I followed him out my bedroom window and to First Methodist Church, just like I'd followed him into his fort with its yellow bandanna flag in the Piney Woods forest. Only this time, he didn't stop after a few kisses." She met the gazes of each McBride sister before adding, "Fool that I was, I followed him to the hotel, too."

  Kat gasped again. Emma winced. Maribeth frowned darkly at Logan and asked, "You consummated a false marriage, Lucky?"

  Christ on a crutch. Did she have to do this here in front of his friends? He shot her a look that combined a glare with a grimace and said, "Well, yeah, that wasn't supposed to happen. We were to stay in the hotel to make it look good, and I was supposed to sleep on the floor. But I was eighteen and she was..." ripe was the first word that came to mind, but he knew better than to use it in a room full of women ".. .irresistible."

  Enthusiastic, too, once she got past her nervousness.

  Caroline made a little noise that was a cross between an embarrassed screech and an angry scream, and he eyed her warily. He could tell she wanted to strike out at him. Slap him. Punch him. Hell, she probably wanted to shoot him.

  In retrospect, he couldn't say that he blamed her.

  It was all coming back to him now. How had he forgotten that night? She'd been his first virgin, and as far as he knew, his last.

  She glanced at the letter opener on the table beside her chair and Logan's eyes widened with alarm. He thought it best to move the conversation forward. "Look, Miss Kilpatrick—"

  "Mrs. Grey."

  "—I'll admit that wasn't gallant of me. In the heat of the moment I got carried away, and I'll apologize for that. But the rest—" he shook his head "—it was all your father's doing. He said he'd tell you everything that next day."

  She folded her arms and stared at him. Studied him. He could all but see the wheels turning in her head. He knew she was considering that he might just be telling the truth when the light in her eyes changed and the color drained from her face.

  A minute crept by, then two. Finally, in a quiet voice, she said, "When I awoke the following morning, Logan was gone. I thought perhaps he'd gone downstairs to order breakfast. The hotel owner told me he'd had bacon and eggs for breakfast, then climbed on his horse, and rode out of town."

  Every last woman in the room now looked at Logan as if
he were cow dung on the sole of a boot. He rubbed at the back of his neck and tried to ignore the headache beginning to pound at his temples. "Your father never told you it was all made up?"

  "No." She closed her eyes and the cheeks that had gone ashen moments before flooded once again with color. "He was happy. He actually whistled in the wagon on the way back home. He told me he'd been wrong to try to force me to marry his friend and that he was sorry. He said we should look at life as a brand-new start."

  Logan rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm sorry you went through that, Caroline," he said sincerely. "You deserved better than a make-believe marriage from both me and your father."

  Again, time dragged out. Then she appeared to gather her defenses and strengthen her resolve. She lifted her chin. "You're right. I did deserve better. But I'm not the only one my father duped, Logan. The marriage wasn't all made up. It was all very, very real. It was legal."

  Her claim echoed in the uncomfortable silence that followed.

  Cade cleared his throat. "So why wait fifteen years to track him down?"

  Yeah. Logan wanted the answer to that, too.

  Caroline smoothed her skirts and visibly braced herself. The look in her eyes said she'd made a decision and Logan felt a shiver of apprehension race up his spine.

  "I didn't need him before," she said, clasping her hands in front of her, squeezing so hard that her knuckles went white. She licked her lips, then met his gaze. For a second—just a fleeting second—he saw calculation in her eyes. Immediately, warning bells clanged in his brain.

  "Logan," she said, "I need you now. I need your help."

  Suddenly, it all made sense. Like father, like daughter. The woman must be playing a con. She probably saw the article in the Fort Worth newspaper last week about the reward he'd received from Wells Fargo for facilitating the capture of the Dodd gang who'd been terrorizing the West for years. The arrests had been the culmination of a six-month effort and the crown in his cap as a range detective.