Final Scream

  “Why not?”

  “Got my eye on someone else.” May as well plant the seeds of doubt now. Her lips curved into a thoughtful smile.

  “Who?” Felicity asked.

  Angie paused a beat, watching her friend squirm. “Brig McKenzie.”

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  “A million reasons why not!” Felicity whispered, though her mouth curved into a smile. “First of all he’s trouble and…well, I think he could be dangerous.”

  “Maybe I like trouble and danger.”

  “For God’s sake, he lives in a trailer and his mother is some kind of a witch or something.”

  “A psychic.”

  Felicity’s patrician nose wrinkled in distaste. “She’s part Indian and some kind of Gypsy. That makes him—”

  “Interesting,” Angie said, warming to the idea forming in her mind. “And I bet he’d be a great lover. You said he’d been with a lot of women.”

  “And you said it was probably rumors.”

  “Maybe I should find out,” Angie teased.

  “Oh, God…” But Felicity’s breath caught a little and she swallowed hard. “You’re not thinking…”

  “Why not?” Angie tossed her hair out of her face and felt the warmth of the sun caress her cheeks. “I think Brig McKenzie is just the right man to make me a woman.”

  Three

  “That’s right,” Angie said in a whisper that floated in the hot summer air. “I’m gonna see if all those rumors about Brig McKenzie are true.”

  The words whispered through the gardens, and Cassidy, hidden by the rose arbor as she carried her towel and radio, nearly stumbled on the path. Catching herself, she stopped before her sister and friend could catch a glimpse of her. What rumors? There seemed to be a new one about the McKenzie boys every day.

  Felicity’s laugh was nasty. “It had better be worth it, ’cause if your daddy found out you were going to seduce one of the hired hands—”

  “Hey, wait a minute. You’ve got it all wrong,” Angie said. “He’s gonna seduce me. He just hasn’t figured it out yet.”

  “Well, what can you expect? He’s probably all brawn and no brain.”

  Cassidy couldn’t believe it. What was Angie thinking? She was actually planning to do it? With Brig? The idea made her sick, but it wasn’t because Brig was an employee; it was the fact that his life was being planned—manipulated—and he didn’t have a clue. Maybe it didn’t matter. He was a surly one anyway, but the thought of Angie and him kissing and touching and getting all sweaty turned her stomach.

  “When?” Felicity asked, leaning closer.

  “Soon.”

  Felicity’s smile stretched wide and catlike. She nearly purred, “He’ll never know what hit him.”

  Cassidy had heard enough. Coughing loudly, she walked through the arbor, her bare feet suddenly seeming to smack against the flagstones.

  Conversation stopped. Angie and Felicity exchanged smirking glances. “What’re you doing sneaking around here?” Angie asked as she picked up her drink and scowled at the melting ice cubes.

  “What’s it look like? I thought I’d go for a swim.”

  “Don’t you think you should shower first?” Angie’s nose wrinkled slightly at the dust that clung to her younger sister’s skin.

  “I’m okay.” Cassidy wasn’t going to get into an argument with her sister. At least not now when her ears were ringing with Angie’s announcement.

  Felicity slid a look up Cassidy’s body—her cutoff jeans, frayed around the edges, the smudges on her legs, the red blouse that was opened to reveal the top of her two-piece. Cassidy nearly blushed. She knew she wasn’t as endowed as either of the two older girls; in fact, she’d been waiting for her breasts to grow for the last couple of years. It seemed as if they barely got started, then stopped completely. “Be careful,” Felicity warned. “Good ol’ Willie has been sneaking around here trying to get a free peek.”

  “I told you, he’s harmless.” Angie swirled her drink.

  Rolling her eyes, Felicity said, “He’s a grown man with the brain of a ten-year-old. Hardly harmless.”

  Cassidy wasn’t worried about Willie. She stripped off her blouse and cutoffs, scraped her hair back and snapped it into a ponytail, then dived quickly into the water. She’d never liked Felicity Caldwell and didn’t know what Angie saw in the redhead. Felicity wasn’t quite as pretty as Angie, but she was the daughter of Judge Caldwell, who was a good friend of their father’s. Rex and The Judge—his real name was Ira but everyone called him The Judge—played golf together, hunted together and drank together. They’d known each other all their lives, and Felicity and Angie had grown up together. For as long as Cassidy could remember, Felicity had had her eyes and heart set on Derrick.

  Cassidy surfaced, shook the water from her hair and began swimming laps. Felicity and Angie left. Well, good; Cassidy didn’t want to think any more of Brig and Angie and what they would do together if Angie got her way. And what would stop them? Nothing. The stories about Brig McKenzie were legendary; even Cassidy had heard a few. If you could believe all the town gossip, Brig McKenzie had warmed more beds than all the electric blankets in Prosperity put together. Cassidy didn’t know if she trusted the rumors, but she couldn’t deny that she, herself, had noticed he was sexy in a rough-and-tumble, I-don’t-give-a-damn sort of way. A few people even considered him dangerous and his past was black enough to prove it. Some women seemed to like to flirt with danger—like sticking their toe into a deep, unfathomable lake, without really jumping in. While some bored women appeared to be turned on by money, others liked a challenge—someone who made them feel a little bit naughty. Cassidy suspected that Brig McKenzie was a man who would make a woman feel downright indecent.

  She felt a tingling against her skin that had nothing to do with the temperature and, angry with herself, stroked all the harder, knifing through the water, swimming each lap as if it were the last in a swim meet until, gasping for breath, she touched the side of the pool on the deep end, pulling herself up to lie half-in and half-out of the water.

  Then she saw him.

  Sitting on the edge of a brick planter, a profusion of red and white petunias looking out of place against his grimy, tanned skin and hard male muscles, Brig was watching her intently. His clothes were stained from hours of work—dirty jeans and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the buttons undone.

  She wanted to die. To cover up. To avoid those mocking blue eyes.

  “Thought you might want to hear how it’s going with your horse,” he drawled.

  Her mouth turned to sand. Heart pumping stupidly, she climbed out of the pool with as much dignity as she could muster and stood dripping in front of him. “Let me dry off first.”

  With a shrug of indifference, Brig watched as she walked to the far end of the pool, where she toweled off, slipped her arms through the sleeves of her blouse and knotted her shirttails beneath her small breasts. Quickly she yanked on her pair of dusty cutoff jeans. He couldn’t help but smile at the angle of her chin, all proud and militant, as if he were the enemy. He wondered what she’d heard about him, decided he didn’t really give a damn, and waited until she turned. All legs, this one was, unlike her sister, who was shorter, rounder, and seemed to be proud as a peacock of curves that wouldn’t quit.

  “The horse is trained, right?” she said, approaching him again, her face flushed from the exertion of her swim. The freckles usually bridging her nose seemed to have faded a bit, and her wide eyes, a whiskey-gold color, blinked against drops of water still clinging to her lashes.

  “Not quite. You got yourself a hellion in that one.”

  “It’s been a week—”

  “Five days,” Brig corrected her. “It’ll take a few more. At least.”

  “Why? Don’t you know how to break him?”

  She watched as a lazy, taunting smile slid from one side of his beard-stubbled jaw to the other. “Some things take time,” he said, his ga
ze penetrating. “They can’t be rushed, if you want to do ’em right.”

  Her stomach curled in on itself, and in her mind’s eye she saw him making love to Angie, so slowly that Angie was writhing and desperate for the want of him. Cassidy swallowed hard, then cleared her throat. “Seems to me if you know what you’re doing—”

  “I do.”

  “Then you could speed things up.”

  “What’s the rush?” he asked, leaning back a little and squinting up at her.

  She didn’t know what to say. “Summer’s…summer’s almost over. I want to spend as much time…” She sounded silly, like a whining, spoiled rich girl anxious to get her way. “I just planned to do a lot of riding, that’s all.”

  “Your dad’s got other horses. Lots of ’em.”

  “This one’s special,” she said.

  “Why’s that?”

  Again, she felt stupid and young, but there was no use lying to him. She suspected he could tell if she veered too far from the truth. “Dad knew I was horse crazy and he wanted to give me one—a special one; so he let me pick the mare and the stallion—it was a birthday gift.”

  Brig snorted and shook his head, as if he couldn’t, for the life of him, understand rich people.

  “I picked the smartest mare and the wildest stallion.”

  “Well, hell, that explains it.” Casting her a mocking glance, Brig reached into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. “Don’t tell me, the old man let you watch while the horses went at it.”

  “It wasn’t a big deal,” she lied, remembering that fierce coupling, how the stallion, eager and volatile at being with a mare in season, thrashed in his stall at the scent of her and then bit the back of the mare’s neck as he’d mounted her. Primal, rough, raw sex. She cleared her throat. “We raise horses here. It happens all the time.”

  “And you watch?” He lit up and smoke curled from the tip of his cigarette.

  “Sometimes.”

  “Jesus!” Taking a long drag, he climbed to his feet and started down the gravel path leading through the trees and around the house. Over his shoulder, he said, “Stay away from Remmington for another week or so; by that time he should be ready.”

  “I don’t want his spirit broken.”

  “What?” Brig turned and blew a plume of smoke from the corner of his mouth.

  “Don’t make him into a merry-go-round pony, okay? I picked his dam and sire for a reason and I got what I wanted. So don’t foul it up. I want more than a show pony.”

  She heard him swear under his breath before disappearing around the corner of the house.

  Closing her eyes and tracing the lines of the large woman’s hand with the tip of her finger, Sunny McKenzie shivered slightly. Belva Cunningham’s fleshy palms gave out no feeling, yet the woman was worried sick.

  “Jest let me know if we’re gonna make it,” Belva was saying, destroying Sunny’s concentration. “I need to know if this year’s herd will—”

  “Shh!” Sunny’s brows deepened and she felt a sadness, but not for the cattle that Belva was so worried about, no…the feeling was a distant little jarring in her brain. “You will have visitors…from far away. One speaks with an accent.”

  “That’s Rosie and her new husband, Juan. He’s a Mexican. She’s always been wild, y’know; I never could hold her back. Anyway, she met Juan down in Juarez, got herself knocked up and brought him back to the States with her. They live in L.A. now and they’re plannin’ to come up here.”

  “But they bring with them trouble,” Sunny said, feeling that cold little touch on her backbone.

  “Trouble?” The word trembled in the air. “What kind of trouble? Oh, Lordy, it’s not the baby—”

  “No, this is different.” Sunny concentrated. “There is a problem with the law.”

  “Oh, no, Juan is from a very good family. You know, one of them rich Mexicans, and it’s a good thing, too, ’cause Rosie’s dad ain’t none too happy that she married him. But Juan’s a good boy.”

  Good old-fashioned prejudice. Sunny knew only too well how it flourished and spread in a town the size of Prosperity. Many times she’d wondered why she hadn’t left this place with its small minds, but deep in her heart she knew. She wasn’t a woman who lied to herself and she stayed because of one man—a man who had been good and kind to her.

  She concentrated on the few sensations she received from Belva’s warm hand. “They are being hunted,” she said, certain of the vision that was forming behind her closed eyelids, “by men with uniforms and guns…the government.”

  “Oh, Lordy,” Belva whispered as Sunny opened her eyes. The big woman swallowed, and tiny lines appeared between her eyebrows. Sweat dripped down the side of her face. “You don’t think they’re hidin’ out, that we’ll have some U.S. Marshal beatin’ down our door.”

  “I wish I could tell you. When Rosie calls, ask her.”

  “You bet I will. That girl’s always been a handful. If she’s in trouble, her pa will skin her alive. Now, you didn’t have no kinda feelin’ about the livestock?”

  “None.”

  “Or Carl’s prostate?”

  “Nothing, but I would know better if I touched him or talked to him.”

  “Oh, gosh, no. If Carl knew I was usin’ part of the grocery money on this, he’d kill me. I hate to say it, Sunny, ’cause you know I think the world of ya, but there’s lots of people in town who think you’re a fraud. Carl’s one of ’em. So, I’d appreciate it if it didn’t get out that I visit you.”

  Sunny smiled; she’d heard the speech before from most of her clients. Including Carl Cunningham. It had been Sunny who had first suggested he see the doctors, that there was a darkness within his organs that could spread. But Belva would never know why her husband of thirty years up and decided to have the first physical of his life this past spring.

  Belva delved into her purse and left a twenty-dollar bill on the table. “I’ll call you,” she promised as she waddled, barely easing her wide hips through the open door of the old trailer. Though she was a heavyset woman, Belva was strong enough to run the farm while her husband worked for Rex Buchanan’s logging operation.

  Belva’s wheezing two-toned Ford left a blue plume of exhaust and dust as it roared down the lane and disappeared through the thickets of oak and fir trees that sheltered this scrubby patch of property from the county road. Sunny had lived here most of her adult life, and though the old trailer was small, too small for the size of her family, she’d never left.

  In the beginning, she’d had big dreams. She’d grown up on a dusty ranch outside of town. Her father, Isaac Roshak, had barely scratched out a living, and her mother, Lily, a beautiful woman who was half Cherokee Native American, had suffered the indignities of the tiny community. Isaac had married Lily for her earthy and exotic beauty, but he’d never respected her and, when drunk, had often called her a half-breed before dragging her into the bedroom and closing the door. The sounds that had drifted through the thin plywood—screams, moans and grunts of pleasure or pain—had scared Sunny, their only child.

  From the age of three, Sunny had visions; dreams that oftentimes came true. Only her mother knew of her gift; Isaac had never been told. “You must keep what you see a secret,” Lily had confided in her small daughter.

  “But Papa—”

  “Will only use you, honey. He’d make a sideshow out of you and have you talk to strangers for money.” Lily had smiled then, a sad smile that never blossomed into happiness. “Some things must be kept close to your heart.”

  “Do you have secrets?” Sunny had asked.

  “A few, little ones, but none to worry about.”

  In later years Sunny had discovered the secrets and they were simple. Isaac had always wanted a son and Lily, in her own discreet way, had denied him. There were no more children. Only Sunny.

  Isaac assumed his wife had become barren and Lily let him believe that she could not conceive. Their arguments were bitter and he often accused her of no
t being a woman, calling her a dried-up old hag. No good to him. He needed sons and lots of them to help him with the ranch. If he wasn’t a God-fearing Catholic, he would have divorced her in a minute and found a real woman, one who would bear him boys and quit staring at him with eyes that looked haunted.

  But the truth of the matter was that Lily would not bring a son of Isaac’s into the world.

  In a cabinet that held makeup and nail polish and other “women things,” Lily kept several vials and bottles of herbs, powders and potions that every so often she would use, mixing them to a foul-smelling concoction that she would drink. Within the day she would be sick and get her period. Sunny was never told, but she guessed much later in her life that, whatever it was her mother drank, it stopped her from having any more babies.

  Isaac spent more and more time in town, drinking and whoring, coming home drunk and bragging about his conquests with women who enjoyed taking him to bed and didn’t lie against the sheets frigidly like some goddamned statue! He’d rant and rave and eventually either drag his wife into the bedroom or pass out on the couch.

  The little farmhouse was tense whenever he was home, but he made the mistake of striking his daughter only once, when she was five and had inadvertently spilled a bucket of milk that was to have been separated from the cream later. The pail had been sitting on the table when Sunny, chasing her cat, had tripped and fallen against the scarred old table. Sunny tried vainly to grab the pail, but it was too late. The bucket fell to the floor and milk, like the surf of the ocean, rolled in a huge wave that splashed over the cracked linoleum and ran in every direction.

  Her father was smoking a cigarette in the living room and reading some hunting magazine. He heard the crash and her gasp. Already in a mean mood as one of his cattle had died, he took one look at the spillage and swore at the mess on the floor. “You little moron! What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  “I’m sorry, Papa.”

  “Sorry doesn’t count! That was the butter money and the cream and oh, for Christ’s sake, clean it up,” he raged, reaching for a bottle of whiskey he kept in the cupboard over the sink. His face was a mottled red as he tossed his cigarette into the drain and poured some of the liquor into a jelly glass.