“You can’t be sure of that,” Tory replied, wondering why she was defending a man she had sworn to hate.
“Oh no?” he threw back at her. “Well, I can be sure of one thing! Dad wouldn’t have spent the last couple of years of his life rotting in some stinking jail cell if McFadden’s testimony hadn’t put him there.”
Tory’s heart twisted with a painful spasm of guilt. “That was my fault,” she whispered quietly.
“The hell it was,” Keith exploded. “McFadden was the guy who sent Dad up the river on a bum rap.”
“You don’t have to remind me of that.”
“I guess not,” he allowed. “The bastard used you, too.” Keith adjusted his Stetson and rammed his fists into his pockets. “Whatever you do, Sis,” he warned, “don’t stick up for him. At least not to me. The bottom line is that Dad is dead.”
Tory smiled bitterly at the irony of it all and smoothed a wisp of hair out of her face. She had made the mistake of defending Trask McFadden once. It would never happen again. “I won’t.”
She lifted her shoulders and let out a tortured breath of air. How many times had she thought about the day that Trask would return? How many times had she fantasized about him? In one scenario she was throwing him off her property, telling him just what kind of a bastard he was; in another she was making passionate love with him near the pond…. She cleared her throat and said, “Just because he’s back in town doesn’t mean that Trask is going to stir up any trouble.”
Keith wasn’t convinced. “Trouble follows him around.”
“Well, it won’t follow him here.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he’s not welcome.” Determination was evident in her eyes and the thrust of her small proud chin. She avoided Keith’s narrowed eyes by watching a small whirlwind kick up the dust and dry pine needles in the corral. Governor snorted impatiently and his tail switched at the ever-present flies.
Keith studied his sister dubiously. Though Tory was six years his senior, sometimes she seemed like a little kid to him. Especially when it came to Trask McFadden. “Does he know that you don’t want him here?”
Tory propped her boot on the bottom rail. “I think I made it pretty clear the last time I saw him.”
“But that was over five years ago.”
Tory turned her serious gray-green eyes on her brother. “Nothing’s changed since then.”
“Except that he’s back and he’s making noise about seeing you again.”
Tory’s head snapped upward and she leveled her gaze at her brother. “What kind of noise?”
“The kind that runs through the town gossip mill like fire.”
“I don’t believe it. The man’s not stupid, Keith. He knows how I—we feel about him. He’s probably back in town visiting Neva. He has before.”
“And all those times he never once mentioned that he’d come for you. Until now. He means business. The only reason he came back here was for you!”
“I don’t think—”
“Damn it, Tory,” Keith interjected. “For once in your life, just listen to me. I was in town last night, at the Branding Iron.”
Tory cast Keith a concerned glance. He scowled and continued, “Neva’s spread it around town. She said Trask was back. For you!”
Tory’s heart nearly stopped beating. Neva McFadden was Trask’s sister-in-law, the widow of his brother, Jason. It had been Jason’s mysterious death that had started all the trouble with her father. Tory still ached for the grief that Neva McFadden and her small son had borne, but she knew in her heart that her father had had no part in Jason McFadden’s death. Calvin Wilson had been sent to prison an innocent victim of an elaborate conspiracy, all because of Trask McFadden’s testimony and the way Tory had let him use her. Silent white-hot rage surged through Tory’s blood.
Keith was still trying desperately to convince her of Trask’s intentions. “Neva wouldn’t lie about something like this, Tory. McFadden will come looking for you.”
“Great,” she muttered, before slapping the fence. “Look, I want you to tell Rex and any of the other hands that Trask McFadden has no business on this property. If he shows up, we’ll throw him off.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” She snapped her fingers and her carefully disguised anger flickered in her eyes.
Keith rubbed his jaw. “How do you propose to do that? Threaten him with a rifle aimed at his head?”