“Why else wouldn’t Calvin defend himself?” He reached forward and grabbed her upper arms, his fingers digging into the soft flesh. She was forced to stare past the anger of his eyes to the agony in his soul. “Your father sacrificed himself, Tory. So that your brother wouldn’t have to go to some correctional institution or prison.”
“No! I won’t believe it!” A thousand emotions raged within her: love, hate, anger, fear and above all disbelief. “You’re grasping at straws because that investigator found out that Dad was innocent.”
“God, woman, do you think I made this up?” he asked, his voice cracking with emotion. “Do you think I enjoy watching you fall apart? Do you think I wanted to come out here and tell you that I was wrong, that I’d made some horrible mistake about your father and that your only living relative was the real criminal?”
She placed her head in her hands and closed her eyes. “I don’t know, Trask.”
“Marry me,” he said, desperately trying to hold on to the love they had shared. “Don’t think about anything else, just marry me.”
“Oh, God, are you crazy?” she threw back at him, her chest so tight she could barely breath. “After what you just told me, you want to marry me.” Her eyes became incredibly cold.
“I don’t want to lose you again,” he said, his fingers clutching her upper arms in a death grip.
Again she buried her face in her hands trying hopelessly to make some sense of what he was telling her, trying not to let her feelings of love for this man color her judgment. She swallowed with difficulty before lifting her eyes and meeting his stormy gaze. “I…I just can’t believe any of this.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Same thing,” she pointed out, feeling suddenly alone in an alien world of lies and deception. “I won’t believe it and I can’t. Keith was with me at the trial, helped me here at the ranch. He’s grown into a good man and now you’re trying to make me believe that he was capable of swindling the public, being a part of a gruesome murder and letting my father go to prison in place of him? How would you feel if I’d just said the same thing to you.” Tory was shaking, visibly fighting to keep from breaking down.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, his voice harsh, “because I’ve lived the past five years without my brother.”
“It’s all happening again,” Tory whispered, swallowing back the lump forming in her throat. “Just like before.” She felt as if her heart was slowly being shredded by a destiny that allowed her to love a man who only wanted to hurt her. “And you’re the one to blame.” She shook her head and let the tears run freely. “I suppose you think that Keith beat you up, shot the calves and wrote threatening notes to both me and Neva?”
“I don’t know,” Trask said. “But I wouldn’t rule it out.”
“And what does your crackerjack ace detective think?” she asked, her voice filled with sarcasm.
“He knows he’s found out the truth. He knows that some of the testimony of the original trial was faulty at best and maybe downright lies at the worst.”
“Including yours?” she asked. Trask’s jaw hardened and his eyes glittered dangerously, but Tory couldn’t help the outrage ove
rtaking her. Keith. A criminal! It couldn’t be. She wouldn’t sit still and let her only brother be given the same sentence as her innocent father. She had to fight back against the fates that were continually at odds with her happiness. “And I suppose Mr. Davis feels obligated to set the record straight.”
“It’s his job.”
She smiled bitterly through her tears. “And what about you, senator? Is it your duty as well?”
“I’ve only wanted two things in my life: the truth and one other thing.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she whispered.
“You can’t hide from it, Tory. I want you. All of you. No matter what else happens, I want you to be with me for the rest of my life.” He lifted his head proudly and she realized just how difficult confronting her had been for him.
Her heart felt as if it were breaking into a thousand pieces. “Then why do you continue to try and ruin me?” she choked out, her eyes softening as she looked past the pain in his. “Must we always be so close and yet so distant?”
He reached for her, but she drew away. Her eyes were filled with tears and she didn’t care that they ran down her cheeks and fell to her chest. “Please, just trust me,” he asked so softly that she barely heard the words.
“I don’t know if that’s possible,” she replied. She straightened her spine and attempted to tell herself that she could live without him. She had before. She would again, despite the gripping pain in her chest. “I…I think we should go back to the house.” She turned toward the mare but the sound of his voice stopped her dead in her tracks.
“Victoria?” he said and she pivoted to face him. “I’ll always love you.”
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, as if in so doing she could deny the painful words. How desperately she had loved Trask and now she wished with all of her heart that she could hate him.
They rode back to the house in silence, each wrapped in private and painful thoughts. Though dusk was gathering over the meadows, painting the countryside in vibrant lavender hues and promising a night filled with winking stars and pale light from a quarter moon, Tory didn’t notice.
Keith’s pickup was parked near the barn. Tory’s heart began to race at the thought of the confrontation that was about to take place. She silently prayed that just this once Trask was dead wrong.
After Eldon offered to unsaddle and cool the horses, Tory walked with Trask back to the house. They didn’t touch or speak and the tight feeling in Tory’s chest refused to lessen.