He stopped rocking and looked over at her. “What do you mean?” She didn’t say anything, only continued to search his face. Finally, he said, “I’m nobody.”
“Parents?”
He went back to rocking, but rested his head on the cushion again and gazed into near space. “Well, I didn’t hatch, but I don’t remember either of them. I was told my father worked in a smithy, shoeing horses mostly. He was accused of laming a horse on purpose because he held a grudge against the owner. The horse had to be put down. My dad was tried and sentenced. He didn’t survive prison. I never knew what exactly he died of.”
“Is your mother still living?”
“I don’t know. She ran off with my daddy’s accuser days after he was convicted. They were never seen or heard of again.” He glanced over at her and asked dryly, “Do you reckon that story about the lame horse might’ve been made up?”
Laurel was dismayed. “She just left you?”
“Appears so.”
“Who took care of you?”
“I was placed with a family. Decent people. They took in orphans, kids like me. We were expected to do chores on their place, but they saw that we got schooling.
“When I was eleven, thereabouts, I heard that a Mr. Henry Hobson, who had a large spread, was looking for hands to drive his sizable herd to the nearest railhead, which at that time was Fort Worth. Mr. Hobson’s age requirement for trail hands was thirteen, but I passed for that. He signed me on.”
He smiled with one corner of his mouth. “Years later, he told me he knew I’d fudged on my age, but he saw how bad I wanted the job. Anyhow, after the drive, he made it permanent. I lived and worked on his ranch for the next fifteen years, till I was drafted into the army.”
“Why haven’t you gone back?”
“Nothing to go back to.” He told her the circumstances, his gaze pensive and sad when he talked about his mentor’s death and the change of fortune it had wrought for him.
“Mr. Hobson was the finest man I’ve ever met. I called his son up in Dallas and left word how to reach me. Haven’t heard from him, though, and I don’t expect to. Don’t see that it makes much difference. Not now.”
“Now?”
He broke his distant stare and turned to her. “Things have changed, Laurel.”
“What things? Since when?”
“Since tonight.”
He left the rocker and made a circuit of the bedroom. Pausing at one of the windows, he drew the curtain aside and looked out, before resuming his restless prowling. Ordinarily she would have resented his prying and this invasion of her personal space and would have told him so. However, being unsure of his reason for coming here, and made timid by his broodiness, she held her tongue.
He said, “Before they took Tup away, I had a chance to talk to him. He told me what he remembered about the two people working those stills. One trait he recalled was they were both light-footed.” Now standing in front of her dresser, he looked down at the barrette he’d set there. “Where’s Corrine?”
Believing it would benefit her to stick as close to the truth as possible, she said, “She’s staying at the shack.”
He turned and fixed his gaze on her.
“She was afraid if she didn’t pull her weight, I’d kick her out, although I had assured her I wouldn’t. But she was doing too much and not giving her broken arm time to heal properly. I took her out there to stay for a while.”
“We drove past the old place tonight. Twice. The shack was pitch black dark both times.”
“I guess she had turned in.”
He came toward where she sat on the end of her bed. “If I went back out there right now, would she be there?”
“Why are you asking me all these questions?”
He captured her head between his hands, tilted it back, and brought his face close to hers. “Because I’m afraid we’re gonna wind up on opposite sides of a bitter and bloody fight.”
“What fight?”
“You know damn good and well what fight, Laurel. Why did I find your hair clip at the site of a still?”
She tried to look down, but he held her head, disallowing her to look away and making it impossible for her to lie to him anymore. With a catch in her voice, she implored him, “Please don’t ask.”
He stamped a hard kiss on her lips. “Please don’t answer.”