Proof of Innocence: Yesterday's Lies / Devil's Gambit

Now he was back. Just as he had promised. Tory’s stomach knotted painfully at the thought. Damn him and his black betraying heart.

Keith studied his older sister intently. Her shoulders slumped slightly and she brushed a loose strand of hair away from her face and back into the ponytail she always wore while working on the Lazy W. She leaned over the split rail, her fists balled beneath her jutted chin and her jaw tense. Keith witnessed the whitening of the skin over her cheekbones and thought for a moment that she might faint; but when her gray-green eyes turned back to him they seemed calm, hiding any emotions that might be raging within her heart.

Trask. Back. After all these years and all the lies. Tory shook her head as if to deny any feelings she might still harbor for him.

“You act as if you don’t care,” Keith prodded, though he had noticed the hardening of her elegant features. He leaned backward, his broad shoulders supported by the rails of the fence. His arms were crossed over his chest, his dusty straw Stetson was pushed back on his head and dark sweat-dampened hair protruded unevenly from beneath the brim as he surveyed his temperamental sister.

“I can’t let it bother me one way or the other,” she said with a dismissive shrug. “Now, about the stallion...” She pointed to the bay. “His near foreleg—I think it’s laminitis. He’s probably been putting too much weight on the leg because of his injury to the other foreleg.” When Keith didn’t respond, she clarified. “Governor’s foot is swollen with founder, acute laminitis. His temperature’s up, he’s sweating and blowing and he won’t bear any weight on the leg. We’re lucky so far, there’s no sign of infection—”

Keith made a disgusted sound and held up his palm in frustration with his older sister. What the hell was the matter with her? Hadn’t she heard him? Didn’t she care? “Tory, for Christ’s sake, listen to me and forget about the horse for a minute! McFadden always said he’d come back; for you.”

Tory winced slightly. Her gray-green eyes narrowed against a slew of painful memories that made goose bumps rise on her bare arms. “That was a long time ago,” she whispered, once again facing her brother.

“Before the trial.”

Closing her eyes against the agony of the past, Tory leaned heavily against the split cedar rails and forced her thoughts to the present. Though her heart was thudding wildly within her chest, she managed to remain outwardly calm. “I don’t think McFadden will bother us,” she said.

“I’m not so sure....”

She forced a half smile she didn’t feel. “Come on, Keith, buck up. Let’s not borrow trouble. We’ve got enough as it is, don’t you think?” Once again she cast a glance at the bay stallion. He was still sweating and blowing. She had examined him carefully and was thankful that there was no evidence of infection in the swollen tissues of his foot.

Keith managed to return his sister’s encouraging grin, but it was short-lived. “Yeah, I suppose we don’t need any more trouble. Not now,” he acknowledged before his ruddy complexion darkened and his gray eyes lost their sparkle. “We’ve had our share and we know who to thank for it,” he said, removing his hat and pushing his sweaty hair off his brow. Dusty streaks lined his forehead. “All the problems began with McFadden, you know.”

Tory couldn’t deny the truth in her younger brother’s words. “Maybe—”

“No maybe about it, Tory. If it hadn’t been for McFadden, Dad might still be alive.” Keith’s gray eyes clouded with hatred and he forced his hat onto his head with renewed vengeance.

“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?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

Keith raised a skeptical brow. “You’re serious?”

Tory laughed nervously. “Of course not. We’ll just explain that if he doesn’t remove himself, we’ll call the sheriff.”

“A lot of good that will do. We call the sheriff’s office and what do you suppose will happen? Nothing! Paul Barnett’s hands are tied. He owes his career—and maybe his whole political future—to McFadden. Who do you think backed Paul in the last election? McFadden.” Keith spit out Trask’s name as if it were a bitter poison. “Even if he wanted to, how in the hell would Paul throw a United States senator out on his ear?” Keith added with disgust in his voice, “Paul Barnett is in McFadden’s back pocket.”

“You make it sound as if Trask owns the whole town.”

“Near enough; everyone in Sinclair thinks he’s a god, y’know. Except for you—and sometimes I’m not so sure about that.”