Branded

By Vivian Vaughan

A blistering tale of passion and intrigue set in the American West: “The excitement never lessens” in this “thrilling story” (Rendezvous).
 
El Paso, Texas. 1895. Five years ago, life as Jacy Kimble knew it came to an end. Her brother Hunter and his best friend Trevor Fallon were sent to Yuma Prison for murder. The scandal cost her family their Arizona ranch, ruined her father’s political career, and even took his sanity.
 
Once the belle of Arizona society, Jacy was haughty and flirtatious, especially with Trevor Fallon. But she can’t believe her eyes when the handsome cowhand shows up at her door with an incredible story: He was freed in the middle of the night with orders—to clear her brother’s name and keep him from hanging.
 
For five years she has hated Trevor, blaming him for her brother’s fate. Should she believe him now? It’s a hard choice for Jacy: trust the man who ruined her life, or throw away any hope for her family’s future. Complicating everything, she feels her powerful attraction for Trevor returning. How can she put herself in harm’s way again? How can she not?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781626818484

Book preview

Prologue

Yuma Territorial Prison

Arizona, 1895

It was a hell of a dream. Enhanced by five years behind bars, it had taken on mythic proportions. But behind bars or free, making love to Jacy Kimble was an illusion. At least, for Trevor Fallon.

Recognizing the end of the dream, Trevor curled his knees to his chest on the hard narrow bunk and struggled to hold onto the last vestiges of sleep, to the fading sparkle of the fantasy, to the gossamer strands of Jacy’s long blond hair.

Her voice had never been so soft, nor her body so tempting. With long slender legs wrapped around him, she snugged into the curl of his body. She fit. They fit. Lordy, did they ever. Like one hand clasping another. Naturally, no need for adjustments; comfortably, as if from long practice.

In truth, Trevor had never made love to Jacy in his life, never seen her nude, never felt her breasts burrow into his chest or her legs embrace him.

I love you, Trevor.

In his dream Jacy’s sultry voice whispered the words with just enough sincerity to arouse a response—alarm. Panic swelled inside him. It threatened to shatter the vision.

Love? Reality hummed through the fragmenting dream like bees through a field of clover. Jacy Kimble love him? Reality—Jacy had never loved anybody but herself in her life. Reality—nobody loved Trevor and he didn’t intend for them to start.

I want you, Trevor, whispered the same sultry voice.

Want? That was more like it. The aphrodisiac effect of the dream drugged him into semiconsciousness once more.

But reality danced around the dream like a hot summer breeze dances through dandelion blossoms. Jacy Kimble want him? A no-account, drifting nobody? Her father’s hired cowhand? Sure, she wanted him—to tease, tempt, and to desert.

I want you, too, Jace, he mumbled into the magic, playing the game, skilled now with five years’ practice at keeping the fantasy alive. The ache was real. Even his tumescent flesh was convinced. Which was all well and good. For until the hangman’s noose replaced the image of Jacy’s tempting body, all he had was this dream.

And by God he didn’t intend to give it up so easily.

While he nipped kisses to her face and mentally blocked the gray dawn of awareness that threatened to end the affair too soon, her long fingers smoothed worry lines on his forehead and her tapered oval nails, capable of inflicting pain or inciting passion, traced the ragged scar that was now five years old.

Such a lovely scar, she purred.

In truth, Jacy Kimble had never seen this scar, not since the wound healed. Never up close. This close.

I know how you got it, she whispered, stunning him.

Why didn’t you say so in court? he wanted to ask, but to do so would end the dream. You do, huh?

Defending me, her voice purred.

Why didn’t you say so? he whispered.

She shook his shoulder, gently. I believe you, Trevor.

Why didn’t you say it?

I know you’re innocent.

Damnit, Jace. Why didn’t you say it?

She shook him harder. I believe…

And harder.

Why didn’t you say it? he shouted.

Fallon! The rasping voice of the prison guard tore through the remaining traces of the dream like a horse cutting cobwebs on a foggy morning. Get up from there, Fallon. Come with me. And keep the noise down.

Trevor didn’t have to rub his eyes to clear his brain. Fear did it for him. Cold, clammy fear. The time had come! For five years occasional rumors of his pending execution had spread through the prison grapevine but had never come to fruition. This time there had been no rumor. Without forewarning, reality was all the more a shock.

Quiet as a kitten, now, Yancy, the gargantuan guard, reiterated. Come along.

Quiet? Anger spread through Trevor’s fear. In five long years on death row no one had made this nighttime trek from fanciful dream to hangman’s scaffold without a show of defiance. When Yancy, the warden’s own henchman, gripped the back of Trevor’s prison shirt and attempted to shove him through the cell door, Trevor had had enough.

He jerked away. He kicked. He opened his mouth to curse. Yancy stuffed a foul-tasting cloth in it. Before Trevor could jerk it out, the much larger guard twisted his arms behind him.

Go sweetly, like a babe, Yancy growled in his ear.

What the hell? Trevor strove to rekindle the flame from his dream. Jacy Kimble would be a much better image to take to the gallows.

But the break with tradition worried his mind, likely a subconscious effort to keep his imminent death from doing it. Why so secretive? Prison activities were as regimented as sunrise/sunset. So, why…?

Hunter. Convicted together, Trevor and Hunter Kimble, Jacy’s brother, had resided in Yuma Prison for five years without so much as a distant glimpse of each other. Through the grapevine Trevor knew that Hunter was still alive, awaiting execution like himself. Did the authorities not want Hunter to know of Trevor’s execution? What purpose would that serve? They couldn’t keep it quiet forever. Come sunup cell fifteen in block number ten would be empty. Word would spread.

While he worried with the situation, Yancy guided him through the first of the locked doors. By this time Trevor’s fear was so great he thought he might strangle on it. Like yeast, it filled the cavities of his body with a pressure that crushed his lungs and weakened his legs. The blackness surrounding them didn’t help. His last sight of this earth would be no sight at all, only a heavy, enveloping blackness.

Maybe not. Maybe there would be stars in the gallows yard. Maybe he would see them before the black hood was placed over his head.

Bars clanged, reverberating through Trevor’s tensed body. The heavy prison door gave way to Yancy’s strength. The hinges squawked. Trevor glanced up quickly, before the hood could be placed over his head. Stars. He soaked them up, basked in their light, searched for their patterns.

His first sight of stars in five years. Why hadn’t he appreciated them when he had the chance? Easy answer. He had been too busy appreciating the woman with whom he last viewed the midnight sky. Jacy Kimble.

Trevor glanced around. What the hell? Although he would have thought it couldn’t be possible, a new terror attacked him. This wasn’t the prison yard. Where was the scaffold?

When Yancy jerked the cloth from Trevor’s mouth, sweet fresh air bathed his face. He tossed his head back, inhaled deep gulps of the cool desert perfume. Suddenly he tensed.

Nothing was right. Something was wrong—other than his imminent death. He glanced around again.

Where are we? His heart lashed against his ribs like the metal tip of a guard’s whip. In a stupor, he turned to the prison walls behind him, then ahead to the trees and sand and distant horizon. All was so quiet he could hear the river.

They were outside. Outside the damned walls.

What’s going on? he managed through a throat that was drier than when the judge sentenced him to die by hanging.

You know what you gotta do, boy. Without warning, Yancy shoved him to the sand. If they don’t get you first.

Illuminated by a half-moon directly overhead, the desert sand glistened like gold, gold studded with aberrant shapes of creosote and sage and saguaro. Each one could have been an armed prison guard, for all Trevor’s raging senses knew.

What’s going on? he demanded again.

Go to it, boy. You’re the only chance he’s got on this earth.

Chance? Who? What… Dumbstruck, he watched Yancy step back through the door. The hinges squawked like they controlled the gates of hell.

And didn’t they? A scream stuck in Trevor’s throat. What was going on? He watched the door settle back into its frame. Yancy was gone.

Trevor was alone. His heart lodged in his throat. For a time he stared at the closed door, unable to grasp what had happened. Somehow, strange as it seemed, he had gotten locked outside the prison. He should run.

Run, before Yancy got the door open again. Spurred by animalistic terror, Trevor spun around, scanned the desert, picked out a likely creosote bush, and dived for it.

He expected bullets to riddle his back with each step. None did. Skidding in the sand, he huddled behind the rough branches, and stared back at the prison.

It loomed like a prehistoric vulture in the night sky. It might have been another world. With a jolt, Trevor realized that it was. It was his world.

For five long years he had lived, unwillingly, to be sure, in that building. His security was there.

And his death.

Now they had set him free. For what? For sport? To chase him through the desert like a rabbit? Even so, it was a chance, wasn’t it? Inside those walls he had no chance.

Yancy’s words screeched like a bird of prey through Trevor’s senses. You know what you gotta do, boy.

Trevor knew what he had to do. Stay alive.

In the middle of the night, in the middle of the desert, with no weapons, no food, no money…nothing but the prison clothes on his back. Stay alive.

It equaled the task given Prometheus, complete with chains and fire.

Uneasily, he began to move south along the river’s edge. Toward Mexico. How far was Mexico? Twenty miles? Thirty? Somewhere in between. He could make that. Follow the river. Skirt the towns. He could make it.

One step after another. That’s all it would take. But at any one of those steps they could be waiting. Those who turned him loose. Whoever they were. Again, his mind toyed with motives, but he stopped. For now it didn’t matter why, it only mattered how.

How he could escape. How fast he could run. How far.

So he began, stumbling in the darkness, driven by a terror greater than anything he had experienced in his life. He recalled hearing someone claim that fear of the unknown was the greatest fear of all.

Now he knew it to be true. Not only true, but a great truth. Fear of the unknown.

The unknown: Who set him free? Why? What lay ahead? Beyond the next bush? Beyond the next footstep?

But his will to escape was strong. To run. To escape. To get to Mexico. To Mexico. To live.

If they don’t get you first, Yancy had said.

The night air was cool, but the desert sand retained much of the heat. It warmed the blood that ran like an angry, icy stream through his tensed veins.

One step. Two. Mexico. For much of the five years he spent in Yuma, escaping to Mexico had been his favored dream. Escaping to Mexico. He had done it a thousand times in his sleep. Until he realized that’s all it would ever be, a dream. Making love to Jacy Kimble was only a dream, too, but Jacy was much better fodder for senseless, mindless dreams-that-never-come-true.

Now one of those dreams had come true, and it very nearly resembled a nightmare. But nightmare or not, Trevor was free. For the moment. Cold blood chilled his body. He must get away, farther away, far away.

The first time he turned back to look, he had traveled no more than twenty yards. It seemed like twenty miles.

If they don’t get you first. Trevor picked up his pace. Would he know when he crossed the border? How would he know? He would keep going until he was certain, he vowed. He would walk all the way to Mexico City if he had to.

You know what you gotta do, boy. If they don’t get you first.

Trevor knew what he had to do. Stay alive. Stay alive. It became the mantra that drove him.

Running loosened his lungs and calmed his mind. After another hundred yards or so, he turned again, certain he would see droves of guards running his way.

But all was still. The prison had diminished in size. He was that far away. Farther than he had ever dreamed he would be. Farther than…

Then he remembered Hunter. Had they released Hunter, too? Was Hunter out here now, racing for freedom? Was Hunter…? Yancy’s words came again, this time gripping Trevor’s rapidly beating heart like in a tight fist.

You’re the only chance he’s got.

The only chance? Whose only chance? Chance for what? Had that black-hearted guard meant Hunter? The best friend Trevor ever had? Hunter’s only chance? What the devil could that mean?

He scanned the horizon then glanced back to the distant walls. You know what you gotta do, boy.

Get to Mexico. Before they got him first. Whoever the hell they were.

But Hunter was his friend. Son of a bitch.

What’s a friend? Trevor had no friends. He hadn’t had before Hunter. He would never have one again, either. Not if he got himself caught.

You’re the only chance he’s got.

Him? Trevor? Hunter’s only chance? That didn’t make two cents worth of sense. The only chance for what?

Unwittingly Trevor’s feet began to slow. Hunter had never needed him, his brain argued. Hunter had everything. Or had had, until his path crossed Trevor’s.

What the hell? Hunter could take care of himself. Every man for himself now.

Then he thought of Jacy. His feet stumbled over a rock. He glanced up at the stars, bright and luminous, closer than he had ever expected to see them again on this earth. The same stars he had last viewed with Jacy Kimble.

Trevor hardened his heart. Hell, he had run out on his own mother. He could run out on Miss Fancy Pants Jacy Kimble.

One

El Paso, Texas

Two weeks later

By midmorning Jacy Kimble was certain that everything that could go wrong in one day, had. Exhausted from lack of sleep and the oppressive summer heat, she was edgy, angry, and short of patience. But when in the last five years hadn’t she been edgy, angry, and short of patience?

Wearily, she glanced around the single adobe room that served as living area for seven people. With two attached rooms for sleeping, the old stage station was a far cry from the comfort and luxury the Kimbles had taken for granted before they were run out of Arizona in disgrace.

Before their lives fell apart. Before her brother Hunter was convicted of murder and sent to Yuma Prison to die.

Before her father, Drummond, on the verge of being elected governor of Arizona Territory, lost his ranch and livelihood and social standing, and the once politically influential Kimbles were forced to forsake everything they knew and loved.

Now Drummond was on the brink of losing something else—his mind, which left this menagerie of relatives—father, sister-in-law, two nephews, one niece—in Jacy’s charge. Unprepared for the myriad responsibilities she faced daily, she had become a shrew. She knew she had. And she hated it.

Today was the final straw. Drummond hadn’t returned from yesterday’s drinking binge in El Paso and someone must go after him.

As if that weren’t enough, Tía Bella, Jacy’s sister-in-law’s aunt with whom the homeless family had come to live, had run off with several letters that must go out on the noon mail wagon.

And who was here to help? Marielena, Jacy’s sister-in-law on whom she should have been able to rely, had gone on her daily pilgrimage to Our Lady of Mount Carmel at Ysleta Mission.

When Jacy confronted her earlier, Mari had listened meekly. Slight of build with delicate features and luminous black eyes, Mari was now gaunt, her lovely face drawn in at the cheeks. The black mantilla covering her taut black bun added to her aura of austerity. The once sparkling, lively Mari had lost all spark. Her only concern was to save Hunter from hanging. Her method, prayer.

On this morning Mari firmly refused to forego Mass to search for either Drummond or her own aunt, Tía Bella, who was entirely too doddering to serve as postmistress of the little settlement of Concordia—which added another responsibility to Jacy’s growing heap.

Todd can look for his grandfather before school, Mari explained, speaking of her and Hunter’s eldest. At the impressionable age of thirteen, Todd had no business being sent to the seedier sections of El Paso. Or so his Aunt Jacy believed.

I can’t miss Mass, Mari continued, pleading. With the news we received yesterday, Jacy…

The news. Trevor Fallon escaped from Yuma Prison.

Jacy turned away from her stricken sister-in-law. Her concern was the same as Mari’s—to save Hunter from hanging—even if her method was more worldly and, to her mind, more practical. That, however, did not make Jacy less vulnerable. How long could she continue to carry this family on her shoulders? She yearned to throw off the yoke, to run away. To go home.

Home. If only for a moment. Home, where she would be free of this burden. She wasn’t cut out for hardship or even for leadership. Things were supposed to be—

If Hunter escaped with Trevor— Mari was saying.

Jacy turned on her. Stop this foolishness, Mari. Hunter did not escape. We would have heard by now.

But what if they…what if they punished him for Trevor’s escape?

Trevor. Trevor. Trevor. Jacy wanted to scream. Trevor’s escape. Trevor’s betrayal. They had all suffered for that man’s treachery.

Don’t think about it, Mari. I’ve told you time and again, we cannot afford to worry about things we can’t control. We’ll go crazy, if we do.

With the promise to find Tía Bella after Mass, Mari left for the cathedral and Jacy began sacking the mail, minus the letters Tía Bella had filched. Not that Tía Bella was a thief.

Like with Drummond, Jacy knew where to find the old lady—at Concordia Cemetery reading someone else’s mail to her dearly departed husband. Which, on consideration, Jacy realized, was the best possible person to whom to read someone else’s mail, if read it, one must.

At least three letters were missing today. Jacy tried to remember who, of the handful of people who still used this tiny station as a mail drop, had brought them in. Would they complain?

At her wits’ end, when a shadow fell over her desk, she glanced up swiftly, expecting Pedro, the bony old mail carrier. It wasn’t Pedro.

Hello, Jace.

Her heart stopped. The bottom fell out of her stomach. Trevor.

She felt herself sway. Quickly, as if to banish the specter, she returned her attention to the desk. The mail had to go out. The mail wagon would arrive soon, and several letters were lost.

From the doorway, Trevor watched Jacy turn away, flustered. He knew the feeling. The sight of her shook him to the toes of his new boots. In that first moment all he wanted was to look at her. Feast your eyes took on a whole new and excruciatingly sensual meaning. His hunger for her was so great, he had to grasp the overhead door frame of the aged adobe station to hold himself in place. The hunger grew insidiously, the craving to cross this earthen-floored room and grab her and kiss her and strip those worn clothes from her body and make love to her.

Like in his dream.

Which, after all, was all it had been, a dream. One glance around this decaying old building told Trevor he had stepped into reality. Dismal as the surroundings were, though, Jacy’s appearance was even more devastating. Flaxen hair that he remembered waving around her shoulders was pulled back from her face into a tight knot low on her nape.

The hairstyle emphasized her high-cheekboned, sculptured face and drew her once sun-kissed skin taut. Fine lines etched her temples to either side of crystal blue eyes and furrowed her brow. Her hands were rough and raw, the tapered nails mere stubs.

And her clothing—supple doeskin riding outfits and rustling silk dresses had been replaced by peasant attire—a dull, once-white blouse and faded black skirt. All of which should have validated his earlier prediction.

One day, Miss Fancy Pants, he told her more than once, you’ll get your comeuppance.

To which Jacy merely tossed that glorious mane of hair and laughed, taunting him like a regal mare would taunt the stallion of the herd. Of course, the comeuppance Trevor had in mind had nothing to do with losing her livelihood, her home, or having her brother convicted of murder.

The comeuppance he envisioned was purely sensual and had been strengthened by five years in a lonely cell with nothing but memories and dreams and fantasies. Never in the wildest of those dreams had he pictured Jacy Kimble, the sweetheart of Arizona Territory, living in an old stage station in near-poverty. Swallowing the bitter taste of guilt, he forced himself to step into the small room, forced himself not to turn and run.

Run. From this dismal scene for which he felt all too responsible, all too guilty. Guilt wasn’t new to Trevor. He had lived with it most of his thirty-five years. It hadn’t begun with Jacy Kimble. Nor, he realized, would it end with her. But the guilt he felt over Jacy’s downfall was stronger than anything he had felt since his mother’s death. And guilt, as always, led to resentment, which burned now like a coal in his gut.

When he moved across the earthen floor, Jacy glanced up again. Her blue eyes brimmed with angry defiance. He stopped midway to the desk, arrested by the strength of his sundry emotions. Guilt and desire mixed and curdled in his belly.

He and Jacy had never been in love, he reminded himself. And he hadn’t come here to rekindle the passion they had only begun to explore that fateful day five years earlier. He had come to seek her help in saving her brother’s life.

Hunter, the best friend he ever had. The defiance in Jacy’s eyes warned him that enlisting her help, even for Hunter, would be an uphill battle all the way.

If looks could kill, he would have been better off heading for Mexico. But hadn’t he always had a way of bringing Jacy Kimble down to earth?

What’s the matter, Jace? Don’t you remember me? He strove for his old indolence, fell short, and prayed she didn’t notice.

Remember him? How could she have forgotten him? How could any of them have forgotten? The sight of him left her weak.

Weak and struggling to disguise the fact. Miraculously, some small part of her brain retained its mooring, for she stood her ground. She neither grasped the desk for support nor sank to the chair in a swoon.

Nor did she throw herself in his arms, which in that initial, startling moment was all she could think of doing.

Trevor was here. A burden seemed to literally slip from her shoulders, like a topcoat unneeded with the arrival of spring.

Trevor had come. She was no longer alone. For such a long time she had been alone. Suddenly she couldn’t remember ever not being alone. And whose fault was that?

The man’s standing before her!

Gaining composure, she demanded, What do you want? Compelled by an insanity that was beyond her control, she surveyed his familiar shape, finding him rangy yet strong, undiminished by five years in prison. His skin was sun-bronzed, rather than prison-pale—two weeks on the run, she decided. His bold blunt features were so familiar they warmed her against her will. A resurgence of the old glow started deep inside and seeped into her pores with the same insidious urgency as long ago. Like a sponge, she absorbed the warmth in his brown eyes and felt herself grow deliciously light-headed. His teasing, slightly mocking tone soothed her with an old familiar challenge.

Ah, Jace, what do I want? Where should I start?

That voice, deep and softly seductive, bathed her like a warm summer rain. His gaze was steady and only for her. She felt again, as she had so long ago, the magnetism of this man. She was drawn to him; always had been. As he had been drawn to her. Incredibly, she saw herself reflected in his expression—her fears, her dreams, her hope.

Hope, when for the last five years hope had been dashed so many times it finally died. She hadn’t forgotten this man, far from it. Now, looking into his eyes, she knew the reason why. And she saw in his intense, all-absorbing gaze, that he knew, too.

There was something yet unfinished between them. Unfinished and clamoring for attention. Unfinished, it hummed in the dry desert air, provocative and insidiously tempting.

He stood before her clad in denim and chambray, hands anchoring his hips. It was a familiar stance, as if he had just ridden in from the north pasture and stopped to say hello. Without breaking eye contact, he lifted a hand and ran those strong fingers through his brown hair. Another familiar gesture, revealing his vulnerability, even as he so adeptly hid it.

A familiar gesture. A familiar hand. A familiar shiver raced down her spine. As though she had stepped into the past, she felt that hand touch her face.

Then she saw the scar. Her trembling took on a new and frightening cast. The court claimed the wound on his forehead was irrefutable proof of Trevor’s guilt. The prosecutor went so far as to produce the weapon with which it had been carved.

A diamond-studded gold brooch, belonging to the deceased, Ana Bowdrie, a gift from her paramour of many years, Drummond Kimble.

Now, five years later the wound had healed and was faded to a misshapen scar that looked more like the letter T than anything else. T for Trevor, she thought. A brand.

T for Traitor. When she looked into Trevor’s eyes again, she shivered. His earlier warmth had turned cold and cynical, as it had in court so long ago. She found her voice and it trembled, but not with uncertainty.

Get out. Even as she spoke the words, however, she knew they were wrong. She couldn’t send him away, not yet. Wait. When he lifted a brow, questioning, she asked tersely, How is Hunter?

Trevor had watched her take in him. Beneath her defiance, he saw the old compelling fascination and knew her desire for him was still as strong and hot as his was for her. Then her gaze found the scar.

The brand. For one foolish split second his dream flashed to mind—Jacy stroking the scar, saying she understood, professing her love.

In case he needed convincing, here was proof positive. Jacy Kimble did not understand. Would never understand. As for love, he had been right about that all along. Jacy loved no one but herself, with the possible exception of her brother and ol’ moneybags papa.

Haughty Miss Fancy Pants stared at him as though he had just crawled out of a snake hole. Which only went to show she didn’t remember everything about him. She wouldn’t get the time of day from him with that kind of behavior.

With an insolent shrug and half a grin, he turned to leave. She exploded on cue.

I can see prison didn’t do you much good. How dare he not cooperate? That insolent grin sent fury flashing through her like fire through dry sage. Added to the sweltering desert heat, it left her hot enough to incinerate. She hated this man. You’re the same arrogant son of a bitch as always.

And you’re the same sweet an’ sour Miss Fancy Pants. He grinned again, just to rile her. Lord how he’d