Red Thunder Reckoning

“The sheriff says you don’t exist.”

Ellen’s offhand comment zinged like a cattle prod. Kevin’s jaw tightened. “I’m real enough. You checked my references.”

“They only go back a few years. What did you do before?”

This was the time. All he had to do was open his mouth and let the truth spill out. I’m Kyle. I’ve come to pay back my debt to you.

But the truth would sting. So he turned away, peered into the night.

“I was in an accident,” he started. The words stuck in his throat. “I spent a couple of years recovering.”

“Why did you change your identity?”

Did she know? He glanced at her over his shoulder. Her gaze studied him. Did she see through his scars, through his deception? What would she do if he ran a finger along the curve of her cheek? Would she recognize the taste of his kiss?

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

We’ve got another explosive lineup of four thrilling titles for you this month. Like you’d expect anything less of Harlequin Intrigue—the line for breathtaking romantic suspense.

Sylvie Kurtz returns to east Texas in Red Thunder Reckoning to conclude her emotional story of the Makepeace brothers in her two-book FLESH AND BLOOD series. Dani Sinclair takes Scarlet Vows in the third title of our modern Gothic continuity, MORIAH’S LANDING. Next month you can catch Joanna Wayne’s exciting series resolution in Behind the Veil.

The agents at Debra Webb’s COLBY AGENCY are taking appointments this month—fortunately for one woman who’s in serious jeopardy. But with a heartthrob Latino bodyguard for protection, it’s uncertain who poses the most danger—the killer or her Personal Protector.

Finally, in a truly innovative story, Rita Herron brings us to NIGHTHAWK ISLAND. When one woman’s hearing is restored by an experimental surgery, she’s awakened to the sound of murder in Silent Surrender. But only one hardened detective believes her. And only he can guard her from certain death.

So don’t forget to pick up all four for a complete reading experience. Enjoy!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

Red Thunder Reckoning
Sylvie Kurtz

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Marci—

For all the phone calls, the emergency road service and

brainstorming—but mostly for the friendship.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Flying an eight-hour solo cross-country in a Piper Arrow with only the airplane’s crackling radio and a large bag of M&M’s for company, Sylvie Kurtz realized a pilot’s life wasn’t for her. The stories zooming in and out of her mind proved more entertaining than the flight itself. Not a quitter, she finished her pilot’s course and earned her commercial license and instrument rating.

Since then, she has traded in her wings for a keyboard, where she lets her imagination soar to create fictional adventures that explore the power of love and the thrill of suspense. When not writing, she enjoys the outdoors with her husband and two children, quilt making, photography and reading whatever catches her interest.

You can write to Sylvie at P.O. Box 702, Milford, NH 03055. And visit her Web site at www.sylviekurtz.com.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Kevin Ransom—He needs to make things right, not worse, so to help the woman he once loved earn a piece of her dream, he comes to her assistance pretending to be a stranger.

Ellen Paxton—To heal, she needs to be the voice of the broken horses who have come to her from a highway wreck. But when a drifter with a scarred face comes into her life, will she let him heal her heart?

Nina Rainwater—Kevin’s “grandmother” gave him a second chance at life. Now her dying wish is for the son of her heart to find peace.

Chance Conover—He’ll see that no one hurts Ellen again, especially not a drifter cowboy who reminds her of the past.

Taryn Conover—Ellen’s friend sees through the scars both visible and invisible.

Garth Ramsey—Even behind bars, he seems to know just how to find Ellen’s most tender scar.

Bradley Bancroft—He’s used to winning and doesn’t take no for an answer very well.

Tessa Bancroft—The trophy wife talks of protocol and data, but doesn’t fit the part of horsewoman she seems to desire.

Dr. Silas Warner—He sold his soul years ago. What does he have to lose?

Dr. Lillian Harmon—Her discovery has unexpected side effects.

Vance Dalton—The judge holds the power over the horses Ellen hopes to save.

ELLEN’S EASY SPAGHETTI SAUCE

1 onion, diced

1 green pepper, seeded and diced

1 celery stalk, diced

1 garlic clove, minced

1 tbsp olive oil

1 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes

1 15-oz can of tomato sauce

1 14.5-oz can of diced tomatoes

1 6-oz can of tomato paste

2 tsp Italian seasoning

½ tsp crushed red pepper

Sauté vegetables and garlic in olive oil until onions are soft and transparent. Add crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, Italian seasonings and crushed red pepper. Bring to boil, lower heat and simmer for twenty minutes.

This sauce can also be placed in a crockpot and slow cooked all day for an easy dinner after a long day at work. Leftovers freeze well.

Variation: Add one pound of browned hamburger, meatballs or a bag of soy crumbles to sauce, then simmer.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Prologue

“Not bad.” Tessa Bancroft clicked the stopwatch as the black colt crossed the six-furlong mark. From beneath the protection of the covered stand her giddy delight galloped in time to the thunder of hooves making mud fly. Neither rain, nor mud, nor wind could slow him down. Nothing.

He was the one. Come November he would win the Texas Breeders’ Cup championship for two-year-old colts. She had no doubt. The first true test was in less than a month—the Texas Stars Derby. He would make a splash.

And so would she.

Then next year she would go national. She could practically taste the mint juleps now.

“Best I’ve ever seen,” said the trainer as he mopped rain from his face with a faded bandanna. “He’s got heart, soul and guts. Come inside. I’ll show you the training schedule for next week. I wish you’d reconsider and let me work him in the morning with the others.”

“No, I don’t want him seen until I’m ready.” She wanted to take all those highbrow blue bloods by surprise. Teresa Vega was born in the gutter, but Tessa Bancroft belonged among the cream. When they saw him, when he won…

Sharp trumpets of terror blared from the television set on the corner of the desk in the cramped barn office. The trainer reached for the knob. With a hand clawed around his wrist Tessa stopped him.

Spreading pools of blood, drumming spikes of rain and the fitful windmill of trapped equine legs filled the screen. Then the camera zoomed in on a pair of firemen opening the side of a trailer like a sardine can. A woman’s hand soothed one of the horses jammed inside. The animal’s eyes were wide with panic. Rain slicked its red mane against its neck. Blood ran in rivulets tracing pink worms on the white blaze on its face.

Horror crawled down her spine as she recognized the beast.

“On the outskirts of the small town of Gabenburg, northeast of Beaumont,” a reporter said, “a horse-transport van overturned on the slick roads caused by today’s torrential downpour and the near hurricane-strength winds blowing through the Gulf Coast region.” The reporter’s yellow slicker flapped in the wind, sending her careful hairdo into frenzied flight. Her eyes narrowed against the onslaught of rain and her grip tightened around the microphone. “The six horses trapped inside are still alive. Sheriff Conover, can you tell us how the rescue operation is going?”

Tessa swore and flicked down the volume. She didn’t need this. Not so close to reaching her goal. No one could know about the project.

Without asking, she snagged the phone off its cradle and dialed. “Have you seen the news?”

“No,” the voice hedged.

“Turn on your set. Now.” She waited until she heard the report buzzing in the background. “Get out there and take care of that mess.”

“I can’t leave—”

“How is your dear Lillian?” She let the threat hang.

The time to call on ethics was long past. The good doctor had made his choice years ago. He could blame his choice on youth. He could blame it on mistaken idealism. But that did not alter the fact he was responsible for making the decision in the first place. No one had held a gun to his head. At least not then.

Now, well, sometimes people needed a reminder of their goals. She would use every weapon at her disposal to ensure he saw the project he’d started to its perfect completion—even his dying wife’s welfare. “I want them back at the clinic tonight.”

Chapter One

“What is this?” Nina Rainwater asked in disgust, flipping through channels and landing on the only one showing news. “A million channels and this is what I get? I’m in Colorado, how come I’ve got to listen to weather from Beaumont, Texas?”

“Satellite dish, Grandmother,” Kevin Ransom said as he entered the hospice room. Nina looked out of place in the pink frill of the room. He’d always associated her with blue skies and green pastures, with the scent of sweet hay and the smoke of a wood fire—with undying energy.

She didn’t look well this evening. Strands of hair, dull as a rainy November sky, poked out of her usually neat braid. Her brown eyes were listless and her breathing seemed more labored in spite of the tubes feeding her oxygen through her nose.

The mock disgust was for his benefit. She didn’t want him to worry about her. But he couldn’t help himself. She’d given him his life back after he’d thrown it away. He owed her more than gratitude, and now, when she needed him most, he was helpless again. “Sometimes you can’t get local news with a satellite dish.”

“Pah!” She pitched the remote and looked longingly at the sun starting to set outside her window. The bearberry flowers, pussytoes and columbines in the rock garden bordering the property swayed in the breeze.

“Want me to turn off the TV?” Kevin asked.

She shrugged.

Kevin reached for the remote—a mere five inches from where she’d launched it—and aimed the gadget at the television set on the roll cart at the foot of Nina’s bed. He was about to press the power button when the image on the screen jumped straight out of his nightmare. It rose like a ghost from his past and laughed at him with satanic glee.

You can run as fast and as far as you want from trouble, but it will never let you forget.

He dreaded evenings when his mind had time to catch up with his body, prompting the assault of all he longed to forget. For sixteen years he’d lived a lie, trying to erase the mental picture of his brother’s lifeless body ripped from his grasp on the Red Thunder’s flood-swollen waters.

Like some punishment cursed upon him by a Greek god, Kent, Ellen and the accident on that awful evening visited him nightly, torturing him with all he’d lost.

The television screen showed a transport van filled with racehorses toppled on a rain-slicked highway outside a small East Texas town. As much as his life revolved around horses, it wasn’t his equine brothers that held him entranced but the man swaddled in a black slicker trying to save them. Watching the sheriff on the screen was as if he were viewing his own face, had the rocks in the Red Thunder River not altered it all those years ago.

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. Blood roared in his ears. Thoughts tumbled through his mind like debris on a storm-tossed sea. It’s the rain, he tried to convince himself. It made him think of the river, of that night.

It’s not him. It can’t be. Look, the name’s different. Conover, not Makepeace. And Beaumont is at least a hundred miles from Ashbrook.

Downriver, he reminded himself. The sharp cheekbones. The hard eyes. The mantle of responsibility square on his shoulders. Familiar. Could Kent have survived such a long trek down the raging Red Thunder?

The face on the screen joined the haunted memories preying on his mind, overlapping, morphing one into the other, mocking him. Kent, Ellen, anger, so much anger.

“Pajackok? What’s wrong?”

When Nina had found him his broken jaw had made him unable to talk. She’d renamed him Pajackok, the Algonquian word for thunder. She’d told him he was all thunder and no lightning. Told him she’d help him find his spark. He’d done his best to discourage her care but she’d ignored him.

She still didn’t know about Ellen, about his brother, about the damage he’d done with one raw burst of anger.

Pajackok…Kevin Ransom. Both lies.

If he’d changed his name, maybe Kent had, too, and given himself a second chance. Kent hadn’t been happy in Ashbrook but he’d been the responsible one, and those self-imposed responsibilities had weighed him down and cemented him into place. Would he have welcomed the chance at freedom?

Could it be? Could Kevin have avoided all of this torture if he’d just had the courage to face the consequences of his actions? Was Kent alive?

“Pajackok?”

To reassure Nina, Kevin strained to find a smile. The gesture was shallow and didn’t linger long on his lips. The spot of warmth on his heart for his adoptive grandmother grew cold in the shade of guilt and shame from his memories. For Nina’s sake he swallowed them back and forced another smile. “Nothing, Grandmother.”

Despite her shortness of breath she laughed, shaking a finger at him. “Nothing translates to everything when you say it that way.”

“Sometimes, I wish you weren’t so good at reading my mind.”

“Not your mind, Pajackok, your face.”

He ran a hand over the scars that landscaped his cheeks like a dropped puzzle. The ugliness was his due.

“Are you going to tell me or am I going to have to guess?” she insisted on a wheeze.

“I’m worried about you.”

She nodded and looked away. “I’m going home tonight.”

“No, don’t say that.” Sitting on the edge of the bed he took her frail hand in his.

“It’s time.” Her eyes implored understanding. “This robe no longer fits. It’s so heavy.”

He didn’t want to hear this, didn’t want to lose her.

Her gaze once again sought the flowers swaying in the breeze, then searched the hills fading into darkness. “Take me to the ranch. I want to see the stars rising over the mountains.”

“Grandmother…”

She tugged at the tubes dangling from her nose, then swept the room with a hand. “This is not my wish.”

Dying, a stranger among strangers. He couldn’t blame her. She’d wandered all of her life, picking up bits and pieces of Native American philosophy along the way. He wasn’t sure what kind or if she even had any Indian blood. All he knew was that because of Nina he’d learned to make peace with most of his demons and had found a noble purpose in life. If she wanted to “shed her robe” watching the evening stars rise over the mountains, who was he to deny her her final wish?

“It’s those damn cigarettes of yours.” Gritting back a flash of anger, he strode to the closet and yanked her purple jacket off the hanger.

“Pah! Cigarettes, whiskey, demons. They all get you in the end. I’ve had a long walk on the good Red Road. I have no regrets. It’s just the start of another circle, Pajackok.”

“I know.” She’d told him enough stories about life and circles and connections. Hanging on to her when she was in such pain was selfish. But he still needed her wisdom, still needed her friendship…still needed her love.

He supported her as they walked down the corridor, wheeling the oxygen bottle behind them. She greeted everyone with a smile. Despite his silent plea, no one tried to stop her. In his truck, he tucked a clean horse rug around her knees and switched the heat to high to keep her warm.

On the hill overlooking the grazing horses she’d raised, a peace he hadn’t seen for months came over her face. In the moonlight the horses were nothing more than dark shapes, moving slowly to the rhythm of their hunger. She sat and motioned for him to join her.

“This is a good place,” Nina said.

“You should have bought your own ranch years ago.” He tucked the blanket around her knees and lifted the hood of her coat onto her head.

“I didn’t feel the need.” She stared at the sky as if it were a gazing ball. “Do the demons still visit you at night?”

Her question took him by surprise and he found the denial strangling in his throat. How could she possibly know about the demons?

“Honor me, son of my heart, by having the courage to go back to your roots and heal your past. Only in that way will you find your peace.”

She was pulling all the strings she’d carefully lain over the years. Honor, discipline, connection, respect. They were the touchstones of her life, her guiding principles, and she’d quietly instilled them in him. He would give his own lungs to see her live, but he couldn’t go back to Texas. Not with the memories of Kent and Ellen tearing him up inside. What could he say to either of them to make them understand the depth of his regret?

He shook his head. “Grandmother, I honor you, b—”

“Good, I’m glad that’s settled. I didn’t want to go home until I was certain you would follow the right path.”

“The horses—”

“Stanley Black Bear will take care of them until you’re ready to let go. When you do, he’s promised to give you a good price for the ranch.”

“I couldn’t sell this place.”

“Not today, but soon.”

He said nothing. Arguing with her was useless. She was too damn stubborn.

“I’m not leaving you.” She placed a gnarled hand against her heart, then covered his own with it. A pulse of energy passed between them. “Soon you will be my heart. I will be with you always in your heartbeat, in your son’s heartbeat, in your daughter’s heartbeat.”

She was wrong. For him there would be no son, no daughter. Once he’d shared dreams of a family with Ellen. They’d mapped out a whole future filled with horses and children…and love. But those dreams had died on the river sixteen years ago. The void stirred an eddy of sorrow in his heart.

Nina dug into the worn leather pouch she carried at her waist and brought out what looked like a piece of bone. “This is for you.”

He took the bone and saw Nina had carved and painted it into an eagle feather. On the upper right side she’d emblazoned a medicine wheel. “Protection from your demons until you can let them go.”

“Grandmother…” He gazed at the feather-shaped stone in the palm of his hand and fought the burning itch scratching the back of his eyes. The feelings wound so tight inside him wouldn’t form into thought, into words.

“Oh, look, Pajackok, the midnight star is here. Do you hear its song?”

He realized then that he didn’t need to say anything. She already knew his heart better than he did. He sat by her and held her close. With her he watched the midnight star until she shed her robe.

Then, not knowing quite where the consciousness to do so had come from, he sang her spirit home.

THREE DAYS LATER, to honor Nina and all she’d done for him, Kevin headed south and east.

His brother was alive. He had to find him. He had to humble himself and ask for forgiveness. Only then could he stop working so hard at trying to forget the brother he thought he’d killed and the woman he’d loved too much.

“HE CAN’T DO THIS!” Ellen Paxton steamed her way to the sheriff’s desk and slapped the letter down on the blotter. Black spots danced in front of her eyes, colors faded, shapes blurred. She blinked madly, trying to control the body doing its damnedest to remind her of her weakened state. “There wasn’t even a hearing. I didn’t get to speak for the horses.”

And speaking for the horses had become her obsession. She was shaking so badly that, when Chance eased her down into a chair, she couldn’t fight him.

“Now take a deep breath,” he said, “and start from the beginning.”

Hanging on to the collar of Chance’s tan uniform shirt she dragged in a breath and blew it out. Chance was the law in Gabenburg but he was also her friend. If he could help her, he would. “This guy shows up with a trailer and gives me this letter and insists on taking the horses back. They’re nowhere near ready to leave.”

Mentally and physically scarred, the half-dozen horses she’d rescued from the highway wreck were in no shape to travel anywhere. She’d used up a day’s worth of energy sending Bancroft’s errand boy on his way, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think that would end the situation. The weight of that exhaustion finally caught up with her. Her hands fell back onto her lap. “What was the judge thinking?”

“Let me take a look,” Chance said. He leaned his backside against the desk and read the letter.

A ceiling fan stirred the air-conditioned air, keeping the sheriff’s office cool in spite of the June heat blazing outside. Fluorescent light poured from an overhead fixture, drenching the room in white. The muted sounds of radio chatter crackled from a unit behind Chance’s desk. A wanted poster, along with half a dozen notices, were tacked on a corkboard above a bank of black file cabinets. Wire baskets and folders kept everything on the desk contained and neat.

The only thing in the room that added a touch of personality was the portrait of Chance’s family. His wife, Taryn, and his daughter, Shauna, smiled at him from a quilt spread on the grass behind their home.

A pinch of jealousy tweaked at her heart but she brushed it aside. Chance deserved his happiness.

She’d once dreamed of raising horses and babies with her high-school sweetheart, but Kyle was dead, and she was relearning to live. Rubbing the heel of her hand on her chest, she erased the edge of sadness creeping around her heart. Her body’s betrayal made babies unlikely. Besides, the horses were almost more than she could handle.

She glanced at her watch. She flipped her braid behind her back. She rubbed a hand on the thigh of her jeans. Chance’s care was a quality she admired but today his slow reading of the judge’s writ was driving her crazy.

“You’re holding the man’s property,” Chance said finally, letting the letter fall to the desktop. “He wants it back.”

“The horses are too weak to travel.” Her hackles were going up. They did so much too easily since she’d come back to herself. Impatience, not temper. So much wasted time. She couldn’t abide to squander a minute more than she had to.

“Judge Dalton seems to think they’re strong enough.”

Chance’s keen dark eyes were studying her. Irritation twitched her foot into a jittery dance. “But he didn’t give me a chance to show him they aren’t. How can this happen?”

Chance gave a slow shake of his head. “Influence.”

Her stomach churned. Influence had kept her a prisoner in a nursing home for fifteen years. Influence had nearly cost Chance and Taryn their lives a year ago. All because of one man’s greed. Now someone else’s greed was willing to sacrifice six horses who’d gone through hell just for the sake of convenience.

The unfairness of it all was enough to make her want to roar. She swallowed back her outrage. “How can I fight this?”

“Let it go, Ellen.”

Her mouth gaped open. “After all you’ve been through, I thought you’d understand. I thought I could count on you.”

“Ellen—”

“I can’t let it go.” Her voice cracked and her vision was blurring again. “They deserve a voice.” Just as she had.

Chance pushed himself off the desk, scrubbed a hand through his hair, then faced her once again. “I know they mean a lot to you, but they’re not yours. I can’t do anything but follow the law.”

“They’ve been abused.”

“There’s no way to prove that.”

“All it would take is one visit by the judge to see how bad off they are.”

Like a soldier about to face a firing squad, Chance stood ramrod straight. “There’s the other side, Ellen.”

“What other side?”

He hesitated.

“Just spit it out, Chance. I’ve wasted too much time already to worry about couching words because you’re afraid I’m not strong enough to handle them.”

He nodded. “You’ve come a long way in a year—”

“But.”

“But you’re still weak. After fifteen years of near vegetation, you’re expecting too much of yourself. You’re still going to physical therapy. You can’t operate at one hundred percent.”

She gaped at him. “You don’t think I can handle taking care of the horses?”

“You’ve got three of your own, plus these six—”

Fisting her hands by her side, she jumped up. “Wait a min—”

“Now let me finish.” He held up a hand. “All of these horses have special needs. I think that’s a load too heavy for anybody, let alone for someone in your position.”

Her mind reeled at the possibility of losing the horses due to her own weakness. “So what, you expect me to just let them go and say, hey, sorry I can’t take care of you, so goodbye and good luck? I’ve been taking care of them for nearly a week. I’m handling the work just fine.”

He cocked his head, a dead-serious look on his face. “You asked me to shoot straight.”

“And you did,” she acknowledged, bracing herself for the next attack.

“You spend half your life in the sunshine and you look as pale as the moon. You don’t just look tired, you look downright exhausted. You’ve lost weight when you should be gaining. If you don’t start taking care of yourself, none of these horses will be able to count on you.”

With that, he’d hit her rawest nerve. She stumbled back a step, losing all her fury. He was right. If she did run herself ragged, the horses would have no one to give them voice.

“There’s also the question of space,” Chance said. “You’ve got eight stalls and nine horses.”

“That’s okay, I’ve got two that won’t come inside. I’ve got enough pasture for them all. I’ve got two corrals, a ring and I’m working on a round pen—”

“You’re not digging holes and lugging lumber on your own, are you?”

She jutted her chin, straightened her stance. “I’m doing what I have to do.”

“Ellen…”

He reached for her shoulders. She shrugged off his hold.

“So, how do I resolve this? I’m not going to let the horses go. Not while they still need care.”

Chance blew out a long breath and squeezed the nape of his neck. “Tell you what, you hire yourself a hand and I’ll talk Judge Dalton into taking a look-see at your operation.”

The pinprick of escalating panic stampeded through her. Shaking her head, she said, “Chance, you know how I feel about the ranch.”

“It’s non-negotiable. You want my help, you’ve got to give me something to work with.” He offered her his hand. “Deal?”

This wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t have anybody looking, watching…reporting. She couldn’t do it. Not after having no choice in the matter for fifteen years.

But if you don’t, she reminded herself, you’ll lose the horses and they need you.

“This way, you’ll at least get the chance to convince the judge you can handle the load.”

For fifteen years she was forced into silence, drugged against her will, kept a prisoner in her own body by a man who cared nothing about her. She’d had no voice, no one to fight for her. Stuck in the prison of her mind all she’d had for company was the nightmarish image of Kent and Kyle drowning in the river, of her dreams dying with them. Only in the collection of crystal horses catching rainbows of light on the dresser had she found a ray of hope. Horses had kept her fighting for her life.

She had to keep fighting for the horses. They were voiceless. They needed her. Not Bancroft. Not Chance. Not the judge. No one would stop her from seeing them healthy again. She couldn’t let them down.

She took Chance’s hand and reluctantly shook it hard once. “Deal.”

The phone rang. She spun on her heels and strode to the door. Rubbing the wrist that held her watch she cursed Garth Ramsey for marrying her when she couldn’t object, for stealing nearly half her life. She cursed Brad Bancroft for his careless disregard for his animals’ needs. She cursed her body for betraying her when she needed it most.

But all the cursing in the world wasn’t going to change the facts. It hadn’t saved Kyle. It hadn’t brought him back to life. And over the past year if she’d learned anything, it was to face the facts before her no matter how unpleasant they were.

“Well, shoot,” she muttered as she plowed through the sheriff’s office door.

For the horses she was going to have to hire help. And having someone trespass on her sanctuary was going to feel like being under glass all over again.