The Coyote's Cry Page 16

  “Oh, shoot,” she said out loud, heaving a sigh. Why couldn’t Bram come home and just be nice? Share a meal with her? Talk and laugh with her? She would never make demands he didn’t want to fulfill…would she?

  Jenna plopped down into a living room chair and cursed herself for falling in love with the wrong man. She had let him take advantage of her weakness for him, and even worse, would probably do it again if he were ever around long enough to make another pass.

  Tears threatened, which only made her angrier than she already was. There were more fish in the sea than Bram Colton, and she was not going to spend the best years of her life crying over him.

  Rising, she went to the kitchen and put on the teakettle. While waiting for the water to boil, she remembered the old books in Bram’s closet. Were they still there, hidden under that blanket? She didn’t feel comfortable accusing Bram of anything that even hinted at dishonesty—despite resenting him on a personal level—but why on earth would he have obviously valuable old record books from the courthouse concealed in his closet?

  He must have a reason, she told herself, a perfectly rational reason, and she should never think otherwise. And if that were the case then he wouldn’t mind if she looked through them. It might be a pleasant way to pass the evening.

  With that seemingly logical decision in mind, Jenna strode boldly to Bram’s bedroom and went to his closet. The blanketed bundle was still there, and she hesitated a moment, wondering why. But then she told herself to stop trying to analyze a man she would never understand. Bending down, she pulled the top book from under the blanket and carried it to the kitchen. It was much heavier than she’d expected.

  Jenna placed it on the kitchen table, then hurried to the stove to turn off the burner under the whistling teakettle. After preparing a pot of tea, she sat at the table with a cup and turned back the cover of the old book.

  She loved the precise, formal penmanship. In places the ink had faded badly, but most of the entries were legible. Jenna turned page after page, reading some of the notations that recorded important data about Black Arrow’s early inhabitants. Occasionally she ran across a name she recognized, which she found fascinating. She’d always known that some of the families in the area had ancestors who had pioneered in Oklahoma long before statehood.

  She had almost finished drinking the pot of tea and had reached the last section of the book when some script on the yellowed pages suddenly leaped out at her. Excited by her discovery, she read the dozens of entries recording the transfer of federal land to people of Comanche blood. And much to her delight, she found an entry for “WhiteBear, Juab.”

  Juab must have been George WhiteBear’s father, she thought, and quickly scanned the final few pages for more information on that rather famous land transfer. When she reached the end, she pushed the book aside and hastened to Bram’s closet for another one. She toted it to the kitchen as well and eagerly opened it.

  The land transfer recordings took up several pages of the second book, and Jenna looked them over in a perfectly innocent search for other familiar names. But nothing could have prepared her for one entry. The name was Elliot GrayEagle, and “Elliot” was spelled exactly the same way as her own last name.

  She stared at that entry as though it should mean something, but of course, it couldn’t possibly. There were no GrayEagles on her family tree. And besides, the name was reversed. If it had been GrayEagle Elliot, she might have cause to wonder, but…

  With her heart pounding, Jenna sat back. She knew perfectly well that Elliot wasn’t a common Comanche name. And yet…?

  She began turning pages again, looking, reading, searching for another notation for Mr. GrayEagle. She was so accustomed to listening for any sound Gloria might make that she was able to do that and still concentrate on the book in front of her. Jenna was almost to the end of the second book when the GrayEagle named jumped off the page at her.

  Only this time it was an entry that read: “Son, born to GrayEagle and Moselle Elliot.”

  “My God,” Jenna whispered in shock. She had heard the name “Moselle” before—from her own father, in fact, a long time ago when he’d been boasting proudly of the Elliot family’s contributions to Oklahoma’s development.

  Was it actually possible for him to be ignorant of the true nature of his own history? He had Indian blood, Comanche blood! So did she!

  Well, that wasn’t a given. A white man could have sired Moselle’s children, but Jenna didn’t think so. In fact, she was convinced that her dad, Carl Elliot, was a direct descendant of GrayEagle and Moselle Elliot.

  And so was she.

  Jenna felt weak and shaky. This was incendiary information and just might destroy her father if it became common gossip. Dare she even tell him about it? Dare she tell anyone what she’d unearthed in these old books?

  Through the density of fog and confusion clouding her brain Jenna heard the front door open and close. Bram had come home! Startled out of her fearful preoccupation, she jumped up and tried to pick up both books at once. One fell to the floor with a horrendously loud bang, and Jenna scrambled to scoop it up again.

  Bram walked in. He stopped and frowned at her. “What are you doing?”

  Jenna turned three shades of red. “I…I—”

  “Damn!” he said. “I forgot all about those books. But suppose you tell me how they got from my closet to the kitchen table? And where’s the third one?”

  “Don’t you dare yell at me!”

  “Then start talking!” He was tired and so saturated with problems of every description that there wasn’t a drop of patience in his entire system. Not even for Jenna, who truly looked like the proverbial kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She also looked mad as hell, probably because she had been caught.

  “I’m not one of the criminals in your jail, so don’t treat me like one!”

  “I never said you were a criminal. Hell’s bells, don’t put words in my mouth. The ones I come up with on my own are bad enough.”

  “I could come up with a few choice ones myself right about now,” Jenna retorted, although she was so internally shaken at being caught like this that her only wish was for invisibility. But would she back down from this man’s righteous fury? Never! “What I’d like to know is why you’ve been hiding in your closet important and probably valuable books that had to have come from the courthouse!”

  “I brought them home for safekeeping!”

  “Likely story!”

  “Don’t believe me. Right now I personally don’t give a damn what you think.” Bram stormed out.

  Jenna sank back in her chair, totally drained by anger she had no right to feel. She’d snooped and gotten caught; it was as simple as that.

  Bram was at the front door before he remembered the reason he’d come home this early. Veering to the right, he went to see if Gran was still awake. All things considered, the only person who could prove or disprove Rand Colton’s theory of relativity, so to speak, was Gran. If it had happened—whatever it was—then she had lived it. There had to be a way to communicate with her, and he’d come home to the ranch with several ideas on how to go about it.

  The master bedroom was shadowed, but Bram could see well enough because of the night-lights dimly illuminating the room and the adjoining bathroom. Gloria was clearly sleeping. He would have to put his theories to the test tomorrow.

  Bram turned on his heel and again headed for the front door. He went outside, breathed in the pleasantly cool night air and felt something give within himself. He’d been wound too tightly lately and the bomb inside him had gone off with the wrong person. He felt like a dog for talking that way to Jenna. She didn’t deserve his wrath for any reason, and her looking at those old books should not have lit his fuse the way it had.

  Cursing his temper, which rarely surfaced, Bram walked down to the barns. Nellie was with him, as she always was when he was at the ranch, and her presence helped to calm his frazzled nerves. But even feeling less explosive di
dn’t alleviate the severe remorse eating holes in his gut. Jenna would probably never forgive his rudeness tonight, and why should she?

  He filled Nellie’s food and water bowls, then checked the horses’ water trough. A couple of them approached the fence and Bram petted the nose of one.

  “Everything’s gone to hell in a handbasket,” he said to the pretty mare. “And tonight I just might have proved that I deserve every damn thing that’s happened.”

  He turned and walked away, stood near the barns and looked up at the night sky. Instead of stars he saw clouds. It looked to him like the area was in for some rain.

  Dropping his gaze to the house, he wondered if Jenna was packing to leave. It wouldn’t surprise him. In fact, why in heaven’s name would she stay?

  But what would he do if she left? There were other nurses, there must be, but Jenna was so perfect with Gran.

  She was also perfect for him, even if he couldn’t admit his feelings to her. If only he could. If only he could go back in the house, take her in his arms, tell her how much he loved her and hold her throughout the night.

  It was an impossible dream and totally unrealistic, but he could do one thing. He could apologize and hope to high heaven that she would believe in his sincerity and stay on.

  Bram walked to the house, not hurrying, because he was honestly afraid of what he might find when he went in. All too soon and yet not soon enough, he had covered the ground from the barns to the house. He chose to enter by the back door, and he went in quietly.

  The kitchen was dark, and he stepped beyond it and looked around. From where he stood the master bedroom looked the same, still dimly lit, but the living room lights were on. It appeared that was where he would find Jenna.

  Inhaling an anxious breath, Bram went to the entrance to the living room and looked in. Jenna was sitting in a chair with a handful of soggy tissues and reddened eyes. When she saw him, a fresh flow of tears dribbled down her cheeks and she mopped them up with the tissues.

  He’d made her cry. Feeling lower than pond scum, he slowly and hesitatingly walked toward her. Encouraged because she didn’t say something like “Back off, jerk!” he knelt on the floor in front of her knees.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said huskily. “You can look at those old books anytime you want. The only reason I have them is because the insurance adjuster found them still intact in a metal cabinet in one of the burned rooms and suggested I give them to a local museum. He thought they might have some historical value. I brought them home that day and forgot all about them.”

  Jenna’s heart skipped a beat. Historical value? A museum? Anyone examining the old books just might figure out the same thing she had tonight.

  But that would take the onus off her. She wouldn’t have to wonder and worry if she should tell her dad or anyone else about her discovery. If anyone did study the books and eventually put it all together, it would get around, make no mistake. Carl Elliot might know people in high places within the governing and business sectors of Oklahoma, as Bram had pointed out, but in Black Arrow he had very few friends. Actually, the yes-men who dogged his footsteps weren’t friends, in Jenna’s estimation. They were leeches, only hanging around for the occasional crumb her father threw them.

  Biting her lower lip, she raised her teary eyes and gazed directly at Bram, who looked so downcast and sick at heart that her own heart reached out to him.

  But he had hurt her terribly, and not just tonight. Knowing the reason behind his almost constant determination to stay away from her didn’t lessen the pain it caused. And she kept letting it happen because she loved him. She was a pretty sad case, but so was he.

  “Can you forgive me?” he asked in a shaky voice completely alien to the way he normally spoke.

  She dabbed at her eyes again, not giving a whit if he saw her crying tonight. “I…don’t know. You yelled at me for no reason at all.”

  “I yelled because I’m so on edge that I feel like I’m just barely hanging on with my fingertips. You don’t know all that’s been going on.”

  “I might, if you ever really talked to me.”

  Bram had long dedicated himself to avoiding a conversation like this one with Jenna. It was heading in a dangerous direction, and he knew that if he ever started spilling the truth of his feelings for her, he might never stop. He couldn’t let it happen.

  “Jenna,” he said pleadingly, and laid his hands on her thighs. “Tell me you can forgive me.”

  Even knowing that he had completely ignored her last remark, she found that his big hands touching her totally turned the tables. It wasn’t fair that she melted at the contact, but she didn’t know how to combat that sort of power.

  In the back of her mind were Moselle and GrayEagle Elliot and the fact of the Comanche blood that she was so certain flowed in her own veins. She would give almost anything to tell Bram all about it, but if he ever fell in love with her, she wanted him to love her for herself, not because she had suddenly discovered that a pint or so of Comanche blood mingled in her body with that of so many white ancestors.

  No, she couldn’t tell Bram about it any more than she could tell her father. They were both so ridiculously prejudiced that it was a wonder she loved either one of them.

  And yet she did, and if Bram would just once say something real and meaningful to her, and she could love him openly, her life would be truly complete.

  “Why would you care if I forgave you or not?” she whispered, praying he would stop measuring their worth as human beings through the screen of racial prejudice.

  “Why would I care?” he repeated with a frown. “Why wouldn’t I care? I need you here, Jenna.” He leaned forward and slid his hands up to her waist. “I need you,” he whispered.

  Her pulse rate quickened. She needed him, too. Without dissecting his simple message for hidden meanings, she shut her eyes and savored his nearness, his scent. In the next instant she felt his lips brush hers, linger on one corner of her mouth and then the other. It was a sensual kiss, and all of her vows to keep Bram at arm’s length completely disintegrated.

  She put her arms around his neck and parted her lips for his next kiss. He didn’t disappoint her, and when their lips met this time the kiss turned hungry almost at once. They quickly became frenzied with desire and tried to undress each other.

  But she was wearing slacks, he was still in uniform with all that leather stuff—including his gun—around his waist, and everything was a hindrance to lovemaking, even the badge on his shirt.

  He got up, pulled her to her feet and said two words. “My bedroom.”

  She almost went. She was so close to going that she started to take a step. But then the reality of their relationship—or rather, their nonrelationship—struck full force, and she dug in her heels.

  He looked at her questioningly. “No,” she said. “We can’t keep doing this.”

  If he said right now, “But I love you, Jenna,” she knew that she would follow him anywhere, be it his bedroom or the moon. But he didn’t say it, and her heart broke into a dozen pieces one more time.

  “You’re right,” Bram said, and though he felt a lot more like punching himself than acting all noble about this rebuff, he told himself to be glad that one of them had a little sense. He obviously had none where Jenna was concerned, but did he have to keep proving it over and over again?

  Disgusted with himself, he said, “I’m not through working yet today. I’ll see you later.” He walked from the room, and a second later Jenna heard the front door open and close.

  “Sure you will,” she said with a sob she absolutely could not hold back.

  Bram had only one good thought during his drive back to town. At least Jenna hadn’t packed her clothes after his rude and completely unreasonable outburst in the kitchen.

  Bram hadn’t had to go back to work at all, but he didn’t have to rack his brain to find something to do to kill a few hours. He visited the homeless shelters and talked to anyone who didn’t try to slink out o
f sight when they saw him walk in.

  Even the ones who weren’t afraid of the law claimed to know nothing about John Doe’s death at the old depot, so Bram was making very little headway with the case.

  He was about to give up and leave the second shelter when one of the volunteers who kept the place running motioned him over. The volunteer was a woman, around sixty, Bram figured, with a round, friendly face and short gray hair.

  He followed her into a storage room, where she switched on a ceiling light and closed the door. “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with those fellows out there,” she said. “Have you ever run across a guy named Tobler? I think that’s his last name, but I’ve heard him called Toby, too. He’s short—around five-four, I’d guess, and sort of pudgy. A nasty sort with a big mouth. He comes here every so often and I doubt that anyone’s glad to see him, ’cause most everyone avoids him, or tries to.

  “Anyhow, he was here a few nights ago. I was on my knees behind that long buffet cleaning out some drawers when I heard Tobler’s voice just on the other side of the counter. He was telling someone about a gun that he’d found and pawned. Would that have anything to do, do you think, with that poor fellow who died near the old depot?”

  “It might. What’s your name?”

  “Lily. I’m here almost every day. Got nothing better to do, and most of the people who come in here are in genuine need of a helping hand.”

  “Well, it’s folks like you that keep these shelters open, Lily. Would you happen to have any idea where I might find this Tobler or Toby or whatever his name is?”

  “Not a clue. They come and go, Sheriff, and it’s a rare day when I recognize any of them on the street.”

  “I understand. Toby said he pawned the gun? We’ve checked the pawnshops several times.”

  “Well, he probably lied about that. That’s the kind he is.”

  “Do you know the name of the guy he was talking to?”