to end the way it did.”
“But it did. Nothing can change that. You sent my father to prison.”
“But I only told the truth.” He paused at the desk and hooked a leg over the corner as he stared down at her.
“Let’s not go over this again. It’s been too long, Trask. Too many wounds are still fresh.” She swallowed with difficulty but managed to meet his stare boldly. “I’ve hated you a long time,” she said, feeling her tongue trip over the lie she had held true for five unforgiving years.
“I don’t believe it.”
“You ruined me single-handedly.”
“Your father did that.” He leaned forward. He was close enough to touch her, but he stopped just short and stared down into her eyes. Eyes that had trusted him with her life five years earlier. “What did you expect me to do? Lie on the witness stand? Would you have preferred not knowing about your father?”
She couldn’t stand it anymore; couldn’t return his self-righteous stare. “He was innocent, damn it!” Her fists curled into knots of fury and she pushed herself up from the chair.
“Then why didn’t he save himself, tell his side of the story?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice trembled slightly. “Don’t you think I’ve asked myself just that question over and over again?” She felt his arms fold around her, draw her close, hold her body against his as he straightened from the desk. She heard the steady beating of his heart, felt the warmth of his breath caress her hair and she knew in a blinding flash of truth that she had never stopped loving him.
“If there were another man involved in the horse swindle, don’t you want to see him accused of the crime?”
“So he could be put behind bars like my father.”
“Oh, Tory,” he said, releasing a sigh as his arms tightened around her. “How can you be so damned one-sided? You used to care what happened to people...”
“I still do.”
“But not to the extent that you’re willing to help me find out who was involved in my brother’s murder and the Quarter Horse swindle.”
She felt herself sag against him. It would be so nice just to forget about what happened. Pretend that everything was just as it had been on the night she’d met Trask McFadden before her life had become irrevocably twisted with his. “I just don’t know if it will do any good. For all you know that letter could be phony, the work of someone who gets his jollies by stirring up trouble.”
“Like the dead calf?”
Tory ran her fingers through her hair. “You don’t know that the two incidents are related.”
“But we won’t find out unless we try.” He held her closer and his breath whispered through her hair. “Just give it a chance, Tory. Trust me.”
The same old words. Lies and deceit. Rolling as easily off his tongue as they had in the past. All the kindness in her heart withered and died.
She extracted herself from his embrace and impaled him with her indignant green-eyed stare. “I can’t help you, Trask,” she whispered. “You’re on your own this time.” She reached for the copy of the note and slowly wadded it into a tight ball before tossing the damning piece of paper into the blackened fireplace.
Trask watched her actions and his lips tightened menacingly. “I’m going to find out if there was any truth to that letter,” he stated emphatically. “And I’m going to do it with or without your help.”
Though her heart was pounding erratically, she looked him squarely in the eye. “Then I guess you’re going to do it alone, aren’t you, senator?”
Looking as if he had something further to say, Trask turned on his heel and walked out of the room. The front door slammed behind him and the engine of his pickup roared to life before fading in the distance.
“You bastard,” Tory whispered, sagging against the windowsill. “Why can’t I stop loving you?”
CHAPTER FOUR
FOR SEVERAL HOURS after Trask had left the ranch, Tory sat on the window seat in her bedroom. Her chin rested on her knees as she stared into the dark night. Raindrops pelted against the panes, drizzling against the glass and blurring Tory’s view of the lightning that sizzled across the sky to illuminate the countryside in its garish white light. To the west, thunder rolled ominously over the mountains.
So Trask had come back after all. Tory frowned to herself and squinted into the darkness. But he hadn’t come back for her, as he had vowed he would five years past. This time he had returned to Sinclair and the Lazy W because he needed her help to prove that another man was part of the Quarter Horse swindle as well as involved in Jason McFadden’s premeditated death.
With tense fingers she pushed the hair out of her eyes. Seeing Trask again had brought back too many dangerous memories. Memories of a younger, more carefree and reckless period of her life. Memories of a love destined to die.
As she looked through the window into the black sky, Tory was reminded of a summer filled with hot sultry nights, the sweet scent of pine needles and the familiar feel of Trask’s body pressed urgently against hers.
She had to rub her hands over her arms as she remembered the feel of Trask’s hard muscles against her skin, the weight of his body pinning hers, the taste of his mouth...
“Stop it,” she muttered aloud, pulling herself out of her wanton reverie. “He’s the man that sent Dad to prison, for God’s sake. Don’t be a fool—not twice.”
She walked over to the bed and tossed back the quilted coverlet before lying on the sheets and staring at the shadowed ceiling. Her feelings of love for Trask had been her Achilles’ heel. She had trusted him with every breath of life in her body and he had used her. Worse than that he had probably planned the whole affair; staging it perfectly. And she’d been fool enough to fall for his act, hook, line and sinker. But not again.
With a disconsolate sigh, she rolled onto her side and stared at the nightstand. In the darkness she could barely make out the picture of her father.
“Oh, Dad,” Tory moaned, twisting away from the picture. “I wish you were here.” Calvin Wilson had been an incredibly strong man who had been able to stand up to any adversity. He had been able to deal with the loan officers of the local banks when the ranch was in obvious financial trouble. His calm gray eyes and soft-spoken manner had inspired the local bankers’ confidence when the general ledgers of the Lazy W couldn’t.
He had stood stoically at the grave site of his wife of fifteen years without so much as shedding a tear. While holding his children close he had mourned silently for the only woman he had truly loved, offering strength to his daughter and young son.
When he had faced sentencing for a crime he hadn’t committed he hadn’t blinked an eye. Nor had he so much as flinched when the sentence of thirty years in prison had been handed down. He had taken it all without the slightest trace of fear. When he’d found out that he was terminally ill with a malignant tumor, Calvin Wilson had been able to look death straight in the eye. Throughout his sixty-three years, he had been
