The Blood of a Baron - K.J. Jackson Page 0,54

hand fate dealt to me. Was it true about Morty?”

“As true as any rumor, I suppose. Some semblance of truth in it. To what extent, I wouldn’t know.”

She nodded. Rune was telling her in the kindest way possible that her brother was a feckless whoremonger.

Not that she needed Rune’s verification.

Her look dipped to her mare’s brown mane, staring in detail at the scruff of short hairs beneath the long hairs that lined its neck.

For all that she’d lied to herself over the years on Morton’s behavior, she’d really only needed to listen to her gut.

If only she had. If only.

If only, then what?

Morton was never going to change. Never stop spending money. Never stop gambling, drinking. Never stop soliciting whores. He was never going to stop.

But he was also all she had and she’d had to believe in him. A derelict brother was better than no brother.

She drew in a deep breath, her heart heavy.

If only she’d listened to her gut.

But she hadn’t been able to trust herself since the night she’d destroyed her own world. Since she’d told Morton the truth about Wes being a bastard baby.

That night had ruined everything and she hadn’t been able to trust a single thing she wanted to do since then, for fear it would cause her to lose the last person that mattered to her.

She couldn’t trust herself. Couldn’t trust her instincts. Couldn’t trust her heart.

Or maybe it was that she couldn’t trust Morton.

Never could.

The thought ricocheted about her head, gentle at first, bouncing from side to side until it started spinning, expanding upon itself, a ball of rabid fire demanding to escape her brain.

Her head popped up and she glanced at Rune, then jerked the reins of her horse to the left, spinning it around. She jabbed her heel into its flank, sending it into a gallop.

“Laney—” Rune’s shout echoed after her, but she didn’t turn around.

He had said Wes was back here, following them, and she meant to discover the truth on that score.

Up and over the slight hill they’d passed ten minutes ago, and she spied him. His horse off the main road, skirting along the forest that lined the river.

Wes saw her instantly and pulled up on his reins. Stopping. Not moving any closer to her.

She kept her horse in a gallop, its hooves flinging dirt and grass as she veered from the roadway to the side of the forest’s edge.

Each breath hitting her lungs hard and quick, she yanked back on her reins just as her horse reached his. It took several more steps before her horse managed to stop, setting her directly next to him.

Wes looked a distance behind her to the road and shook his head. She glanced over her shoulder. Rune had just crested the hill and had pulled up on his reins. He nodded to Wes and spun his horse, disappearing over the ridge.

She pinned Wes with her stare, her words breathless. “How did it happen?”

He met her eyes, his countenance fixed, not angry, not worried. Resigned, even. Waiting—bracing—for heaven or hell to rain upon him. “How did what happen?”

Her horse sidestepped away from his and she had to tug on the reins for it to still. “Morty’s death? Did you see it? Did you turn away from it?”

He paused, frozen for a long breath. He didn’t want to tell her. Didn’t want to revisit it.

“Wes…”

His head snapped into motion with a slight shake and his words were slow, measured. “I didn’t see it. I stayed in the tavern. And I was halfway through my next brandy when a man came in, reporting a body two streets away. I knew it was Morton before I set foot out of the tavern. And it was.”

The answer she both wanted and didn’t want.

A deep breath that refused to sink past her throat sat in her mouth and she slid down off her horse, her look leaving him.

Without thought, the reins dropped from her hands and her feet went into motion, walking away from him, moving through the trees toward the sound of the water.

Past oaks and into a grove of willow trees, their branches stretching down toward the river.

Wes hadn’t witnessed it. Hadn’t stood by and let it happen.

He had let Morton walk out of a tavern alone. That was all.

Whatever was waiting for Morton on the other side of that door was his own making, she had to admit, as hard as it was to bear.

That Morton had survived for as long as he