The Next Mrs. Blackthorne (Bitter Creek Book 6) Read online

  He’d considered explaining to her why he would never let himself fall in love. How losing the only women he claimed he could ever love had made his father a bitter, angry, unhappy man. How North had vowed he would never let a woman get close enough to hurt him like that. But it would have felt like scraping off a layer of skin, leaving blood and bone exposed, to reveal so much. So he never had.

  He’d tried to show her he cared without using the word love. He’d spent every night in her bed, so she’d know he wasn’t with another woman. He’d brought Breed into the house for meals and spent time with the boy during the day. He’d eaten every bite of the food she prepared for him and asked for seconds. And he’d kept his mouth shut when she changed his home out of all recognition, adding feminine peach and aqua pillows and curtains to his spartan earth tones.

  The woman was crazy about flowers. She’d planted black-eyed susans and morning glories and zinnias and marigolds around his back porch. Which would remind him even when she was gone—after he’d removed the feminine pillows and curtains—that she’d been there.

  “This is a nice room,” Jocelyn said, as she set the daisies on a table beside Libby’s bed.

  “If you say so,” North replied. He’d hated hospitals ever since the fourth time his mother had taken pills to end her life—and succeeded. He didn’t like the antiseptic smell. He didn’t like the shiny floors or the inevitable monochromatic walls. He didn’t like the mechanical sound of the monitors hooked up to sick and dying bodies. Most of all, he didn’t like the efficient and distant doctors and nurses, who’d seen death often enough to be able to mouth platitudes to families without weeping themselves.

  North watched as Jocelyn plumped up Libby’s pillow and brushed her blond hair away from her brow, as though the two of them were friends, which he knew to be far from the truth.

  But that was Jocelyn. Giving. Caring. He didn’t allow himself to think what he’d be feeling right now if she was the one lying in that bed. His heart squeezed until it hurt, and he took a deep breath and let it out.

  She came to him, recognizing his distress, and put her arms around him to comfort him. He gripped her hard enough to make her squeak and heard her gentle laugh as he loosened his hold.

  She leaned back to look up into his eyes and put her hand against his cheek, because she liked the dark, bristly beard that grew overnight. “Libby’s fine, North. She’s going to be fine.”

  He squeezed her again, because she didn’t understand it was the fear of losing her that had frightened him. Then he let her go and took a step back. Aware that he had to cure himself of needing her so much. Aware that he was very close to the fine line where he could no longer lie to himself. When he would finally have to admit that he loved her.

  “Shouldn’t she be waking up soon?” Jocelyn asked, crossing back to Libby’s bedside.

  “I don’t know,” North replied, purposely staying where he was.

  “I guess she was lucky,” Jocelyn said.

  North lifted a brow. “Lucky?”

  “That he didn’t kill her.” Jocelyn frowned, then looked at North. “Which makes me wonder why he didn’t kill her. I mean, that would have made more sense than leaving her alive, where she could be a witness against him. Why do you suppose he wanted her alive?”

  “I never looked at it that way,” North admitted. “You’re right, though. If Brown had wanted her dead, he would have killed her. Which means Libby serves some purpose by being alive.”

  North tried to imagine what sort of plan Bomber Brown’s son might have hatched that would work better with Libby alive.

  While he was thinking, a harried-looking Clay showed up in the doorway. He shot an anxious look at North and asked, “Is she all right?”

  Clay didn’t stop, just crossed all the way to Libby’s side and took her hand in his. “She feels cold.”

  “I think that’s the air-conditioning in here,” Jocelyn said in a soothing voice. “North says she just has a flesh wound. That she’ll be fine.”

  North realized Jocelyn had stepped in as a mediator to make it possible for the two men to communicate without actually having to speak to each other. Which was ridiculous, under the circumstances. If things worked out as North thought they would, Clay Blackthorne was going to become his brother-in-law. Libby would be sure to invite North to family events. And he would attend. Because however much he hated Blackthornes, he loved his sister more.

  For Libby’s sake, he extended an olive branch. “Jocelyn pointed out something to me. Maybe you’d have a better insight into the situation than I do, since you’re more familiar with Brown and his son.”

  “What is it?” Clay asked.

  “Why would Donnie Brown take special pains to keep Libby alive?” North said. “He could have killed her and dumped her somewhere, but instead, he dropped her off at a hospital.”

  Clay looked aside for a moment. It took North a moment to realize that Clay wasn’t ignoring him, he was thinking. Then Clay’s chin jerked up, and he focused his gray eyes on North. “I got a note delivered to me in the courtroom, telling me that Libby had been shot, and that she was here at Brackenridge. I didn’t question who sent it. Did you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I didn’t,” North said. “I would have called, but I knew you were in court, and Libby’s condition is stable. But it’s obvious someone wanted you out of the courtroom. Why?”

  “I can make a guess,” Clay said, meeting North’s gaze. “Since I only called a short recess, Brown wouldn’t be taken back to the jail. He’d be kept at the courthouse.”

  “But Brown’s son knew you’d be gone long enough for him to arrange a rescue, some sort of incident to distract everybody and give him the chance to free his father,” North said.

  “It isn’t going to be easy getting Brown out of the courthouse,” Clay said. “There’s a lot of security around him, a bunch of deputies keeping an eye—”

  “What if Donnie had a hostage?” North said. “And he was willing to trade his hostage for his father?”

  “What hostage?” Clay asked.

  “Kate.”

  North heard Clay take a quick, harsh breath. “He’s got Kate? Why wasn’t I told?”

  “There hasn’t been time. Jack just figured all this out in the past half hour. We didn’t realize the truth until this morning. Jack didn’t check on Kate until after Donnie had escaped his surveillance.”

  “Kate told me she was staying in Austin to study, but I figured she’d be with Jack. What happened?”

  North sighed. “I should have told you this sooner, I suppose.”

  “Told me what?” Clay asked sharply when North hesitated.

  “Jack and Kate aren’t really engaged. They aren’t even dating. It was all part of a ploy by Kate to get you and Libby together.”

  “I don’t know whether to be relieved or infuriated,” Clay said, shaking his head in disbelief. “How did Kate talk someone like Jack McKinley into such a harebrained scheme?”

  “I’m to blame for that,” North said. “I asked Jack to keep an eye on Kate.”

  “That sounds like asking the fox to guard the hen-house,” Clay said with asperity.

  “Jack’s a Texas Ranger.”

  Clay looked stunned. “I’ve talked to Owen nearly every day at the couthouse, and he never said a word to me about Jack being a Texas Ranger.”

  “Jack works undercover. Owen might not have known. Or he might have had orders to keep his mouth shut,” North said.

  Clay’s eyes narrowed. “Does Jack have anything to do with Kate going missing?”

  “Jack specifically told Kate to stay away from Donnie Brown,” North said. “Advice she apparently ignored.”

  “If I know Kate, and I do, she did the opposite of what Jack told her to do,” Clay said.

  “It sure as hell looks that way,” North agreed.

  “I guess we have the answer to why Libby was kept alive,” Jocelyn said.

  Both men looked at her in surprise.
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  She looked at Clay and said, “To get you to recess court, so his father would be at the courthouse, but out of the courtroom.”

  “We need to call security at the courthouse,” Clay said. “We need to warn them—”

  “I have a feeling it’s already too late for that,” North said.

  “Clay?” a weak voice said.

  “You’re awake!” Clay said, turning back to Libby. He crossed and sat beside her on the bed, but apparently that wasn’t close enough, because he leaned down and tenderly kissed her on the forehead. “I’m glad to see you’re awake. How do you feel?”

  “Like I’ve been shot,” she said wryly.

  North saw the smile on Clay’s face before he reached out to brush his knuckle against her cheek. North knew what Clay was doing. Reassuring himself that she was alive. That she was fine. That he hadn’t lost her.

  “You’re going to be fine, Libby,” Clay said. “I wish I could stay, but there’s an emergency, and I have to get back to the courthouse.”

  Libby grabbed his arm as he started to rise and said, “Donnie Brown has Kate.”

  Clay sat back down and said, “How do you know that?”

  “He told me so. He’s going to make a bomb, Clay,” she said, her voice high-pitched and frightened. “He said he’s going to call in a bomb scare, but he isn’t just threatening to blow the place up. There’ll be a real bomb at the courthouse.”

  “Now that we know—”

  “He hates the government and lawyers and judges,” Libby interrupted “He’s going to hurt Kate to hurt you.”

  “Kate?” Clay said.

  “He’s got our daughter, Clay. And he’s making a bomb. It isn’t too big a leap—” Libby’s sob cut her off.

  North watched as Clay gently tucked a blond curl behind Libby’s ear, love written large on his face. “Don’t worry, darling,” Clay said. “I’m going back to the courthouse now. I’ll find Kate and make sure she’s safe.”

  North was already on the phone to Jack. He listened and then said to Clay and Libby, “Jack says there’s no bomb scare. There’s nothing at all to indicate there’s any problem at all at the courthouse.”

  “But he said he had a bomb,” Libby said. She tried to sit up and cried out in pain and grabbed her side.

  Clay eased her back down onto the pillow and said, “Please, stay still, darling. You’re hurt.”

  “Oh, my God,” Libby said, tears shimmering in her eyes as she struggled against Clay’s light hold to sit up. “Donnie’s going to attach Kate to a bomb. I’ve seen that in the movies. I know—”

  Clay eased her back down on the bed. “Easy, baby,” he said. “North and I are going to the courthouse, and Jack—he’s a Texas Ranger, North says—will be there, too. Between the three of us, we’ll find Kate.”

  “Jack’s a Texas Ranger?”

  “That’s another story,” North said. “And we have to go. There’ll be a deputy marshal here in a few minutes to guard the door.”

  “Please don’t let anything happen to Kate,” Libby said, clutching Clay’s arm. “Promise me.”

  “I’ll keep her safe,” Clay said.

  Libby wouldn’t let him go. “Promise me!”

  “I promise,” Clay said. “I have to go, darling,” he said. But he made no move to free himself.

  “I’ll stay here with you, Libby,” Jocelyn said.

  Reluctantly, Libby released Clay, her heart in her eyes, the promise she’d demanded still echoing in the room.

  It was a promise Clay shouldn’t have made, North thought. Because there was no sure way he could keep it.

  Kate was surprised when the door to the storage room opened and the light came on. When she saw Donnie, she tried not to look afraid, but her body started shivering, and she couldn’t get it to stop.

  “Hi, there, sweet thing,” Donnie said with a grin. “This’ll all be over soon.”

  Kate wished he’d stop saying that. She shuddered as he ran his hands over her body under the guise of untying the ropes that kept her prone in the closet, touching what she never would have allowed him to touch. She made a disgusted sound deep in her throat and Donnie snickered.

  “Might as well let me enjoy it now,” he said. “Pretty soon there isn’t going to be a big enough piece of you left for anybody else to enjoy.”

  He didn’t take the tape from her mouth, but she called him names that she was sure he understood, because he only grinned more broadly.

  She struggled as he hefted her over his shoulder, and when he almost dropped her, he smacked her hard on her bottom. “Stop that,” he said. “Or I’ll have to put you out.”

  Kate immediately stopped wriggling. At least if she were conscious, she’d have a chance to save herself. Unconscious, she was…hamburger.

  The thought made her giggle hysterically. Which made tears brim in her eyes. She wanted her mom and dad. She wanted Jack. She wanted to live, which seemed the most impossible wish of all.

  She wondered where they were that Donnie could move her without fear of discovery. She’d thought they were at the courthouse, but that seemed not to be true. But if they weren’t in the courthouse, why all the shiny floors and—

  She glanced into one of the rooms as Donnie carried her down the hall and realized they were in a hospital. With shiny floors and an antiseptic smell. Where were the patients? The rooms seemed to be empty.

  “They’re renovating this floor of the hospital,” Donnie said. “So they’ve got it blocked off to the general population. I’ve been doing some painting for the contractor—off the books, of course. Nobody’s working today because the contractor’s mother got killed. Hit-and-run. So sad. We’ve got the whole place to ourselves.”

  It didn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to figure out that Donnie had been willing to kill an innocent old lady to forward his plan. Kate felt her stomach knot. This freckle-faced boy was a ruthless killer.

  He laid her down on a bed, then rolled her on her side and untied her hands. Kate thought this might be her only chance to win freedom, and she made a valiant effort to hit out with her hands. But there was no blood in her limbs, and they were like dead things, useless to fight him.

  Donnie used straps on the hospital bed to attach her hands to the bed rails, then tied her feet to the corners of the bed with rope. “You’ll be fine here until I need you.”

  Kate shifted in the bed, trying to find a comfortable position while wearing the vest of explosives.

  “I wouldn’t move around too much, if I were you,” Donnie warned. “You just never know when you might cause a spark and then—POW!”

  Kate looked at Donnie with narrowed eyes. He must be jerking her chain. Surely, he wouldn’t be so nonchalant about carrying her around, if the explosives she was wearing were that volatile.

  She looked at the peculiar light in Donnie’s eyes, the sweat on his upper lip and brow, and thought maybe he was that crazy. She shivered. She had to get out of here. She had to get free. She looked around the room for some means of escape, or some method of contacting the outside world. She spotted a phone and glanced back at Donnie, who’d apparently followed her darting eyes.

  He shook a finger at her, like he would a naughty child, and said, “Uh-uh. No phone calls. That would spoil everything.” He carefully disconnected the phone jack from the wall and took the phone with him as he headed out of the room. “I may need you to speak to your father to prove you’re still alive. But I wouldn’t want you calling him before the time is right. See you soon, sweet thing.”

  Donnie stopped at the door and turned back to her. He reached inside a light denim jacket he was wearing and pulled out a small device. “Just so you know, this is a remote detonator. All I have to do is push this button—”

  Kate gasped.

  Donnie laughed. “—when I’m at a safe distance. I have no intention of blowing myself up along with you, sweet thing.”

  I’m not a thing. I’m a person. A human being, you cretin!
/>   “I think it’s time I paid a visit to your mom,” Donnie said. “She’s staying here in the hospital.”

  Kate’s eyes went wide and her heart skipped a beat.

  “Oh, yeah. She got shot. Accidentally. Although, I have to say, things are working out well. Your dad’s already been here to visit her, along with your uncle and that cheating football hero you like so much. He’s a Texas Ranger. Did you know? That sonofabitch had me fooled. But not my mom. Or my brother. Neither of them liked the way he hung around the courthouse so much. I think Jack-the-Texas-Ranger might be worried about you. Much good it’s going to do him!”

  Donnie laughed as he left the room.

  Kate could hear his footfalls echo as he headed down the empty hall. He couldn’t know how relieved she was to know Jack was a Texas Ranger. She knew he cared for her. And that he would find her, or die trying.

  She struggled to sit as high as she could in the bed, but her hands were secured too far away for her to bend forward and reach them with her taped-up mouth. But she had more mobility now than she had had in the closet, and she went to work trying to rub the tape off her mouth by rubbing her cheek against her shoulder.

  That didn’t work, so she tried forcing her mouth wide, sticking her tongue through her teeth until her jaws ached. The tape moved. A little. But she was far from free.

  Kate was terrified of what Donnie was going to do with her mother. She already had evidence of his ruthlessness. She became frantic when she thought of Donnie simply murdering her mother in her hospital bed and then calling her father to come—which he would, on the run—and capturing him as well.

  She closed her eyes and thought of her father and sent him a mental message, hoping it would find its way to him.

  Watch out for Donnie Brown, Daddy. He’s got me tied up here in the hospital and now he’s after Mom. Be careful! We need you to come save us.

  And then she realized that however powerful her father might be, he wasn’t a lawman. Jack was. So maybe she ought to send a message out into the ether for Jack, as well.