A Brand of Christmas

  Chapter 6

  Vincent de Lorean downed his third shot of tequila and lifted his gaze from the sparkling water in the terrazzo-tiled pool to scan the faces of the three men who stood in front of him. He didn't like the expressions they wore. He didn't expect to like the news they were about to deliver, either. Setting the cut-crystal glass down on the umbrella-shaded table beside him, he sent a pointed glance at Monique.

  "Go inside."

  She gave him a playful pout, but obeyed. She knew better than to question him. Smarter than the last pretty woman he'd brought here. Maybe she'd turn out better. Monique rose with the sensuality she knew he liked, lowering her long legs slowly, running one hand over plump breasts and then slowly over her belly before turning to click her heels across the concrete and wiggle her butt through the stucco villa's glass doors. The three men turned to watch her bikini-clad body as she moved away from them. They wanted her. Vincent knew it, and it pleased him. He liked other people to crave what was his.

  As long as they didn't try to take it from him.

  "Have you found my son?" he asked, and all three heads snapped around to face him again.

  Jonas had been with him for ten years, and Vincent knew the fear in his eyes was real when he shook his head slowly from side to side. William, too, had the good sense to be afraid. But the third one, the new man?something was wrong there. Lash, he called himself, though Vincent was unsure whether it was a first name or last. He stood there, by all appearances, respectful. But there was no fear in his face nor in his blue eyes. In fact, Vincent smelled the smallest hint of defiance in the man.

  He needed a lesson, this one. Vincent knew how to keep his men loyal. Fear. Once they knew he held their lives in his hands, they would never betray him. He sat quietly while Jonas spoke, assessing the best way to deliver the lesson.

  "It's only a matter of time, boss. You know that we will-"

  "The sister?" Vincent interrupted, having come to a decision on today's teaching methods. "What about the sister?"

  "She was in El Paso," Jonas said. "She identified Michele's body, asked about Ethan, then left. She hasn't checked into any hotels in the area and she hasn't returned to New York."

  "Then where the hell is she?"

  Jonas closed his eyes, swallowed hard. "We have men watching her apartment, Vince. We'll find her. I swear it."

  Vincent pursed his lips and shifted his gaze to Lash. "You. You were supposed to be staking out the medical examiner's office. You were told to follow this Chelsea Brennan when she left there. What happened?"

  He didn't flinch or look away. He shrugged instead. "I lost her. It was pouring rain and she was driving like a maniac."

  Vincent didn't like this man. He usually never hired men larger than himself or better-looking. He'd made an exception this time, because his oldest employee, Jonas, had told him what an asset this one would be. Furthermore, this Lash's voice held the slightest hesitation. The way a man spoke when he was lying?or when he was nervous. Vincent's ego preferred the latter theory to the former. Nervousness wasn't fear, but it was a start. The lesson he had in mind should solidify the man's loyalty.

  Vincent drew a breath and released it slowly. As he did, he dropped his right hand to the folded towel beside his lounge chair. They couldn't see that hand. And they couldn't see the gun he pulled from beneath the towel, either. Not until he quickly leveled it on Jonas and pulled the trigger.

  Jonas didn't have time to blink. His head snapped back. His knees buckled. He thudded to the concrete. William staggered a few steps backward before he started to cry and snivel, probably expecting to be next. The other one just stood there, staring right into Vincent's eyes, his own as cold as ice. Those eyes registered disgust and a little surprise. Still no fear.

  "Jonas told me you'd be an asset," Vincent said softly, and he examined the silvery weapon in his hands. "He was wrong. I don't tolerate mistakes in my employees. Do you understand that now?"

  "Jonas was the smartest man you had working for you," Lash replied in a steady, controlled voice. "He might have found your son for you. Now?who knows?"

  Vincent stood up, walked closer to Lash. "I know. You will find him. And if you fail?" He said nothing more. Just sent a glance down at the body. "Now get him out of here. And find that woman. If she thinks she can keep my son from me, she's going to be very sorry. As sorry as her pathetic sister."

  Garrett took his time. He drove Chelsea around Quinn, pointing out the shops he thought might interest her. Then he took her over the River Road to show her the Rio Grande. The idea was to calm her down a little bit. Because she'd been damned scared back there in his office. Hell, he'd never seen that kind of fear come over a person so suddenly or so completely as it had come over her when he'd pointed out that a killer knew where she lived.

  She might talk a big game and she might be so filled with anger she was ready to take on the world. But deep inside, Chelsea Brennan was a frightened woman.

  And she didn't like to be touched. He'd discerned that, as well. Whenever he'd had call to put his hands on her-which, as a matter of fact, he'd done more often than was probably necessary-she reacted like a skittish colt. Got all stiff and nervous and always ended the contact just as quickly as possible.

  He was thinking that Jessi had been right about her suspicions. That maybe Chelsea had been hurt, physically hurt, by someone in her past.

  He didn't like thinking that because it made him angry, and he hated being angry. He was too big to allow himself the luxury of a short temper. All his life he'd struggled to be calm and relaxed, no matter what. Hell, he hadn't even lost his temper when he'd put the fear of God into Brian Muldoon's heavy-fisted father. And the truth was, he'd taken his brothers along, not for support, but just to be sure he didn't actually hurt the man, much as the bastard deserved to be hurt.

  He didn't like the feeling that came over him now, though, when he thought about someone lifting a violent hand to the woman beside him. Because it went beyond anger. It made him sick. He almost didn't want to know if it were true. He almost didn't want to know who had hurt her.

  Almost.

  She seemed a little calmer when they arrived back at the ranch that afternoon. Not much, but a little.

  Ethan sat in a high chair in the kitchen, and Elliot was making motor noises and driving a spoonful of green goo into his mouth.

  Garrett frowned. "Where'd that come from?"

  "The baby food or the high chair?" Jessi asked after taking a bite of her fajita. Then she grinned. "Actually, it doesn't matter. Both of them were provided by our grouchy brother who claims to dislike babies."

  "Wes?" Garrett shifted his gaze to Wes, who scowled back at him.

  "Kid needed a place to sit, didn't he?"

  Elliot grinned broadly at Wes's muttered reply. "Hell, I think Wes here would make a great little mother. Don't you, Jessi?"

  "Of course he would. He ought to have a whole slew of babies crawling all over him, and maybe run a nursery school on the side."

  "Old Mother Goose," Elliot sang, "when he wanted to wander, would fly through the air on a very fine, um, Paint. Gee, Wes, that doesn't fit. Any chance you can change Paint's name to Gander?"

  Wes grimaced and attacked his fajita. Garrett just shook his head and went to the table. "Did you leave us any crumbs or anything?"

  Elliot pointed to the heaping platter in the table's center. "I know it's not enough to fill you up, big brother, but it might make an appetizer."

  "Come on, Chelsea," Jessi said. "There's plenty. Sit down and eat."

  Garrett noticed Chelsea's surprised expression. She covered it fast and came forward anyway. Wes grabbed the platter and set it down in front of her, while Elliot popped a bite into the baby's mouth, then got up to go to the fridge. He poured a glass of milk and set it down in front of Chelsea. Without a word, he just set it down, then returned to his baby-feeding duties.

  Chelsea looked disconcerted. "Th-thank you."

  Wes cleared his t
hroat. "We, uh, we were rough on you last night."

  He turned those black eyes of his on her. Garrett saw it and half expected her to melt into a puddle at his devilishly handsome, half-Comanche brother's feet the way most women did if he so much as glanced their way.

  "I wasn't exactly polite," Chelsea replied, remaining solid.

  Jessi passed the tossed salad. "We Brands are a tight bunch. We take care of our own. But we've been talking and?well, I guess you were just doing the same thing we'd have done in your shoes. So-"

  "What my sister is trying to say, Chelsea," Elliot explained, "is that we're sorry about what happened to your sister, and we want to help you and little Ethan through this if we can."

  Garrett felt his back straighten and battled a smile. Maybe he'd taught them something after all. Chelsea sat at his right, and he thought he saw a lump come and go in her throat, but he wasn't sure. He thought he understood the change now. He was pretty certain Jessi had told the other two about what she'd heard and about her theory. He knew the thought of some bastard beating up on a little thing like Chelsea would turn their stomachs the same way it did his own.

  "I, um?" Chelsea shook her head and pushed away from the table. "I have to go upstairs." She turned and quickly left.

  "Garrett?" Jessi asked, staring after her.

  "I don't know, Jes. Let's let her be for now. I'm going back to the office later to run a check on her and her sister, see what I can find out. Jessi, I'll need you to come with me. Marisella's cat is off his feed again, and she's making herself sick worrying about him."

  "Sure."

  "Elliot and I can take care of things here tonight, Garrett. Leave whenever you need to."

  Garrett nodded at Wes and, a few hours later, did just that.

  But what he found out was not one bit pleasing to him, and it only made matters worse.

  That evening, after he'd dropped Jessi at Marisella's, he'd spent a good hour sitting at his desk trying to get over the shock of it.

  Chelsea Brennan's father, Calvin Brennan, had been arrested twenty-five times for spousal and/or child abuse. New York State Social Services had been called in when school officials reported the two girls often coming to school covered in bruises. But they hadn't taken action soon enough. Calvin was in Attica, serving the eighteenth year of a twenty-year sentence for beating his wife to death.

  Garrett swore under his breath and thought again about the turmoil and the pain and the rage he saw every time he looked into Chelsea Brennan's eyes. And he felt a burning moisture taking shape in his own.

  Chelsea sat by the fireplace, imagining a cheerful fire burning in the grate. Anything cheerful would be a relief if it would dispel the grim mood that had settled over her.

  Elliot and Wes bantered in the kitchen over whose turn it was to clean up the dinner dishes. From the wide window in the living room, Chelsea could see Jessi feeding carrots to a spotted horse. An ancient pickup truck with a driver Chelsea had recognized as Marisella del Carmen Whatever had dropped Jessi off twenty minutes ago, but Garrett still hadn't returned. She wondered what was keeping him in town. A woman, maybe? The idea gnawed at her a little more than it should have as she watched Jessi coax the beautiful animal closer and then stroke its muzzle as it snapped the carrots from her hands. Behind Jessi, the grasslands seemed to go on forever, a wide green blanket beneath a gigantic, sapphire sky as blue as little Ethan's eyes. So near the desert, it was impressive, that band of green.

  She remembered the photo she'd seen, the one of the Brand family taken years ago, and she thought this must have been a magical place for children. Room to run. Room to grow. Their huge family surrounding them like a protective cocoon. A child would thrive here.

  Ethan sat on the braided rug in the center of the polished hardwood floor, chewing on a worn-out old teddy bear's paw. Chelsea had no idea where the bear had come from. No doubt one of the Brands had dug it up from somewhere. They treated Ethan as if he was their own. Close beside Ethan-as always, she'd noticed-the big, gentle hound dog, eyes alert, watching the baby's every move and occasionally inching closer in hopes of a pat or a tug on the ear.

  Chelsea battled the sense of unease that had settled on her like a shroud at the dinner table tonight. These people were good and kind. They had the type of happy, stable life she and her sister had always craved and dreamed about. And along comes Chelsea Brennan and her dead sister's baby, with maybe a killer on her trail. The thought that she might bring disaster raining down on this haven ate away at her. They wanted to help her but they'd only get hurt if they tried. The way her mother had. And she couldn't let that happen. Again.

  Yet, for the moment, Ethan was safer here than in any other place she could imagine. Chelsea was torn.

  To battle her restlessness, she got up and headed into the kitchen, not the least bit worried about Ethan. She'd noticed the way the outlets in the living room had all been plugged and anything breakable had been moved out of Ethan's reach. Someone had placed an expandable gate across the bottom of the stairway. Ethan was safe here.

  Safe.

  She walked into the kitchen just in time to see Elliot snap Wes with the twisted end of a dish towel. Both laughed out loud, then stopped when they saw her standing in the doorway.

  "Why not let me do the dishes this time?" she offered. "I know you have stuff to do outside."

  "Hey, that's-"

  "No way," Wes interrupted his brother. "You're a guest. Garrett would have our hides nailed to the barn wall."

  "At least let me help. I need something to do, you know?"

  Wes's dark eyes held hers for a moment. They were powerful, his black eyes. He was obviously part Native American, and Chelsea wondered why he seemed so different from the other Brands. He also had a way of looking at a person that was piercing and knowing. He nodded, snatched the dish towel from his brother and tossed it to her. "Okay. You can dry."

  "Okay," she said, catching the towel and moving forward to the sink where Elliot had resumed washing dishes. Wes went back to clearing the table.

  Chelsea could see these people had decided to make her welcome here. And though she was uncomfortable with them, she was grateful, too. If it hadn't been for this family, God only knew what might have happened to the baby.

  "It's nice to see men doing housework and a woman outside with the horses," she said in an attempt at normal conversation. "Is it always like this?"

  "We share the work around here," Elliot told her. "Garrett says he doesn't want Jess raised to think all she's good for is cooking and cleaning for a bunch of males. So we divvy up the duties equally, inside and out."

  She nodded. It was something she would have expected Garrett to think about. "I saw a photo in his office, of the whole family, I think, only you were all kids. You know the one I mean?"

  Elliot suddenly stilled with a plate in his hand. Frowning, Chelsea turned to see Wes had paused in what he'd been doing, as well.

  "I'm sorry. Did I say something wrong?"

  "No," Wes told her. He gave his head a shake and gathered up a few more plates, turned and brought them to the sink. "We all have copies of that photo. It was the last one we had taken before Orrin and Maria were killed."

  She frowned. "Your parents?"

  "Yeah," Elliot said softly. "Our parents."

  "Orrin was my father, Maria my stepmother, but she treated me like her own son," Wes clarified.

  "I'm so sorry. God, you were all so young. Jessi was just a baby in that photo. What did you do?"

  "Garrett held things together." Elliot shook his head, plunging his hands back into the soapy water. "He'd only just finished high school when it happened and he'd already been accepted at Texas State, but he didn't go. He stayed home instead. Ran the ranch as well as any grown man could have done. And took care of this brood like a mother hen herding chicks."

  "The state wanted to separate us," Wes said, picking up the story. "They wanted to send me to a family on the Comanche reservation, and the others int
o foster care elsewhere. If it hadn't been for Garrett, they would have."

  "No wonder you all love him so much."

  "We'd kill for him," Wes said, his voice low, his face expressionless, but Chelsea sensed the deep feeling underlying his words.

  "We'd die for him," Elliot added with a firm nod and a slight crack in his voice.

  It made her throat go tight to see such closeness in a family. It was the sort of thing she'd always fantasized about, but had long since given up on finding for herself.

  She dried the last cup and stacked it in the cupboard, swallowed hard and decided to change the subject. "There were six children in the photo."

  "Yeah. Adam and Ben are the two you haven't met. Adam's in New York. Landed himself a job there last summer," Elliot explained.

  "So far from home?" It seemed uncharacteristic in such a tight family.

  "His fiancee dumped him for another man the day of their wedding," Elliot went on. "He couldn't stand being in the same town with her any-"

  "Elliot."

  Wes's voice held a warning. Family secrets, Chelsea supposed. And she wasn't family.

  "I didn't mean to pry."

  Elliot sent her a sheepish smile. Wes just sighed, shook his head and grabbed a sponge to begin wiping off the table.

  "Hell, everyone in town knows about it anyway," Elliot added, unperturbed by his brother's censure. "And Ben, he's off in the mountains somewhere in Tennessee. Took off after his wife, Penny, died nearly a year ago, and we haven't heard a word from him since."

  "Garrett has," Wes contradicted. "If he didn't know Ben was all right, he'd have hauled all of us over there to hunt him down."

  "Yeah, but a postcard once a month telling us he's still breathing isn't what I call correspondence."

  "He must be hurting," Chelsea said softly.

  Elliot lowered his head in a sad, slow nod. "We Brand men haven't exactly been lucky in love."

  "I just wish they'd both lick their wounds and get back here," Wes declared. "It's tough running a ranch short-handed."

  "What we need," Elliot remarked, pulling the plug and watching the water swirl down the drain, "is one good crisis. If they thought we were in trouble, they'd be here so fast-"

  "Careful what you wish for, boy," Wes warned him. He gave the oval oak table one last swipe and tossed the sponge into the sink. Then he snatched his hat off the back of a chair and dropped it on his head. "Come on. We're burning daylight, and those two heifers are due to freshen any day now."

  Elliot took the towel from Chelsea, wiped his hands and sent her a wink as he followed his brother outside.

  Chelsea decided maybe Garrett had been right after all. It was safe here. In fact, while she hated to admit it after the way she'd initially treated all of them, she felt safer here than she'd ever felt in her entire life. Maybe it would be better to stay?just for a couple of days. Just to be sure her sister's killer wasn't a threat to her or to Ethan.

  She picked up the phone. If she was staying, she'd need more funds, and she knew her last week's paycheck would be in her mail by now. She called her apartment manager, who was also a friend who lived down the hall from her, and felt lucky to catch the party animal at home.

  "Mindy?"

  "Chelsea? Is that you?"

  "Yes. I'm-"

  "Where are you? What's going on? Did you find Michele?"

  That was Mindy. She talked a mile a minute and barely took time to breathe in between. "Michele?" Chelsea swallowed past the lump in her throat. "She's dead, Mindy."

  "Oh, my God! What happened? Are you okay? Did you find the baby? Is he all right? What about-"

  "He's all right. He's with me. We're both fine. But I'm going to be down here a while."

  "You need anything, Chels? Anything I can do on this end, you know? Water your plants, send you something. 'Cause if I can do anything, I-"

  "Yes. I do need you to do something."

  "Anything. You name it and I'll do it. You poor kid, are you sure you're all right?"

  "Fine. I need you to forward my mail for a few days, okay?"

  "Sure. You got it. Let me grab a pen?Okay, here we go. Give me the address."

  "I'm at the Texas Brand, Quinn, Texas."

  "Sounds like a dude ranch."

  "I don't know the zip."

  "I'll get it from the post office, Chelsea. Don't worry, I'll send your stuff out tomorrow morning first thing, okay?"

  "Thanks. I appreciate it."

  "Chelsea?"

  "Yes?"

  "Michele's?funeral. You'll let me know, won't you?"

  Chelsea closed her eyes as a deep shudder worked up from her feet all the way to her shoulders. She had to bury her sister. If this didn't kill her, she didn't think anything ever would.

  "Yeah. I'll let you know."

  "Thanks, Chels. You take care, okay?"

  Chelsea didn't answer. She just replaced the receiver and turned her head to see sweet little Ethan on the floor. He'd fallen asleep there, and that old dog had curled up close beside him.

  The creak of the screen door brought her gaze around, and it locked with Garrett's. His eyes-deep brown and soft as velvet-scanned her face, narrowed and probed. "Chelsea?"

  She lowered her head. "I don't think I can do this."

  He took a step toward her, then stopped, stood still. "Chelsea Brennan, I think you can do just about anything you set your mind to."

  She shook her head.

  He sighed deeply, his eyes roaming her face for a long moment. Then he came a little closer. "Did I ever tell you how much you remind me of my mamma?"

  She looked up at him then, brows raised.

  "She was the prettiest woman in the state of Texas. Her eyes were brown, not green, but they flashed with that same fire I see in yours sometimes. I never thought I'd know another woman with the kind of strength she had in her. But I was wrong about that."

  "I'm not strong."

  "To survive what you have, lady, you must have bones of solid granite."

  Chelsea's eyes widened as she searched his face. And she saw the knowledge there, as plain as day. He didn't try to hide it. "You know, don't you?"

  "About your father? Yeah, I know."

  Chelsea closed her eyes, unable to look at him, knowing that her sordid past was an open book to him. She should have known that he'd find out. Her family history was largely a matter of public record after all, and he was a sheriff with access to all of it.

  "I dream about him, you know," she whispered, not sure why her lips were moving, why she felt compelled to tell this man anything more horrible than he already knew. "I dream about the day he's released from prison. I'm there at the front gate, waiting for him. And as soon as he sees me, as soon as he looks straight into my eyes?I kill him." She looked at Garrett, half-expecting to see shock or disapproval in his eyes. But she only saw a reflection of her own pain. As if he felt it, too. "It scares me, Garrett. It scares the hell out of me because I think I could really do it."

  "Then he'd win. Because you'd end up in prison, or dead, and every one of the Brennan women would be gone. And I think deep down, you know that, Chelsea, I think you're too smart to let him get the best of you that way. Even if you weren't, I don't think you'd kill him. Not when it came right down to it. Because deep down inside, you're not like him. Not at all."

  "I wish I was as sure of that as you are," she whispered. "I hate him."

  "I know." He took another step, this one bringing him close to her, but he didn't touch her. He just stood near enough so she could feel the heat from his body floating into hers. When she breathed, it was his scent and his breath she was inhaling. "I don't even know him, Chelsea, and I hate him, too."

  "Why?" She looked up as she asked the question, saw him staring down at her.

  "Because he hurt you."

  "Why do you give a damn about that? You barely know me."

  Garrett shrugged his big shoulders. "Damned if I know. Been asking myself the same thing all night. Doesn't m
atter, though, does it? Point is, I do give a damn. And right now, I'm fighting everything in me to keep from putting my arms around you, little Chelsea Brennan, and pulling you close to me and holding you until you stop shaking like a scared rabbit. Just the way I used to do with Jessi late at night when she'd had a bad dream. Or with Elliot when he'd wake up crying for Mamma. I'm fighting it because I know you don't like men putting their hands on you. And I can't say as I blame you for it."

  He spoke slowly, his deep voice soft and steady and low. She realized he was trying to calm her, comfort her.

  "M-maybe?it would be all right."

  He sighed, and his big hands slipped around her waist, their touch warm, but light as air. He didn't pull her to him. He just put his arms loosely around her and waited. Chelsea was the one who moved forward until her body was pressed to his. She turned her head to the side and rested it against his chest, right over the drumming of his heart. His arms tightened but only a little. One hand moved upward to stroke her hair slowly, soothingly, over and over.

  "No one," she whispered, her words coming harder now, "has held me like this?since my mother?"

  "It's okay," Garrett told her. "It's gonna be okay now, Chelsea."

  "We heard him yelling at her. Heard the slaps. It was nothing we hadn't heard before. So many times before. She told us to stay in our room when he was like that, but I couldn't. It was different that time. There was something inside me, telling me?and I knew?I knew she was in trouble. I knew it when she stopped screaming. So I went?and she was just lying there?her face was so?it didn't even look like her."

  His hand stilled in her hair, and she felt his muscles go taut. "And him?"

  "Gone," she whispered. "Just gone. I bent over my mother. I touched her. I shook her. But she wouldn't wake up. She just wouldn't wake up."

  His arms tightened around her convulsively. He held her hard now and rocked very gently from side to side. "Damn," he muttered.

  "I was nine years old, Garrett. But it feels like yesterday."

  He held her tighter.

  "Mom," Chelsea cried softly, "Jesus, Mom, why?" Something warm trickled down her face, surprising her. Shocking her. Tears. She hadn't cried since that night. But she was crying now. And she couldn't seem to stop the tears. Garrett's shirt dampened with them, then became soaked with them, and still she cried. So many years' worth of teardrops and she wasn't sure she'd ever stop crying again.