Why can’t I have both, John?”

Wyatt sighed. Eliza Gentry might be a beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated woman, but deep down she was still the same spoiled and pampered girl he remembered. “Eliza, it is one or the other.”

She sat very still and seemed to be studying her hands. Slowly she looked up at him with tears shimmering in her eyes. “I refuse to believe that.”

He stood. “Then I cannot help you.”

Her voice rose, but Eliza remained in her seat. “Papa gave me your address. He provided the means for me to find you and to pay you to help. Why would you refuse?”

“Because one of us has the good sense to know this is a situation with no good solution.”

Eliza was on her feet in an instant. “And one of us has the good sense to know there is always a better solution to a situation than just walking away from it.”

He took a step closer and looked down at her. “Which of us is doing that, Eliza?”

Crimson climbed into Eliza’s cheeks as she stood there staring up at him, eyes narrowed. After a minute, she opened her mouth to speak and then clamped it shut again.

It was killing him not to pull her into his arms and tell her he would make everything right. That he would fix what was wrong and give her back the world that had been taken from her.

“How do I get my family back?”

The question took him by surprise. The answer hurt worse than anything else so far.

“You go home to your husband and convince him not to hurt them.”

“I’m not legally married to him,” she said.

“That paper you showed me says otherwise.”

Tears welled up in her eyes, and Wyatt’s knees went weak. If she stayed a minute longer, he would do something stupid. Or worse, say something stupid.

Like tell her who he was and why she should walk away from everything Ben Barnhart could give her to stay here with him.

But he couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do it.

He’d loved Eliza Gentry as long as he could remember. Definitely as long as he’d had any sort of idea what the word meant. And in all those years, he’d never felt like he ought to give up on that love.

Not when he had to walk away from that trail ride a dead man at the age of fourteen. Not when William Gentry called him out of the blue to guard his wife and daughter. And not when he heard Ben Barnhart’s story of how he had claimed Eliza for his own.

But standing here looking at her, he knew that remaining in her life would only put her and her family in danger. She could never fall in love with a dead man, and this dead man could never fall out of love with her.

“You don’t need me or this agency to fix what happened.” He took her by the shoulders and aimed her toward the door, snagging her hat to fit it atop her head just before he opened the screen. “Go back to your husband. Then the rest of these problems will solve themselves.”

“But…”

“Go home.” Wyatt led her out the door and onto the porch then closed the door behind her.

Before the screen had time to slam shut, he opened it again. “Liza Jane, come back.”

Eliza turned around and smiled. John Brady didn’t look nearly as happy as she felt, but he would get used to the idea that helping her was the best choice.

“I know you’re teasing me with that name,” she said. “But I kind of like it actually.”

John’s expression remained neutral. “Sit, please.” He pointed to the steps. “You will listen, and I will do the talking.”

She nodded and complied, not because Eliza intended to do as he said during the remainder of this investigation but because she felt so relieved that he would be helping her.

John eased down beside her and stretched out his long legs, then gave her a sideways look. “Show me the license again.”

Retrieving the vile document, Eliza handed it to him. This time when John studied it, he held it up to the light for quite a while.

“The clerk said there was only one supplier of this paper,” she told him. “That’s how he knew it was legitimate.”

He set the page on the step in between them. “And that’s how I know it isn’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I can’t tell you more than that right now.” He picked up the license and held it up in front of him again. This time, instead of studying the document, he tore it down the middle and gave her half.

“John, that’s not the fix I was thinking of. You can’t just tear up the marriage license and call it done.”

Folding the paper, the security detective stuck it into his pocket. “That is not my intention, but I need this half.” He paused. “I’m sorry. Were you considering framing it?”

Eliza opened her mouth to tell him just what she thought of the question. Then she noticed the twinkle in his sage-green eyes.

“You’re incorrigible.”

His laughter surprised her. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but never incorrigible.” His expression sobered. “Every instinct I’ve ever developed in my career as a detective is telling me not to do this.”

She sat very still and quiet. For once, she had no good argument. No trick of humor to divert him. “There’s more you haven’t told me,” she said instead. “You knew this would happen, didn’t you?”

John shook his head. “No. There was no indication of this. My men were following him, and yet somehow…”

“He had help,” Eliza told him. “The man who came for Red and me was no one I had seen before.” She shook her head. “Wait. Why were your men following him? Had he made threats against me or my family?”

“The fact he draws a breath makes him a threat,” John said.

Eliza turned to face the gate she’d walked through just a short time ago. The beautiful pink roses still bobbed in the salt-scented breeze, and the sun still shone in a bluebonnet-blue sky. Nothing had changed.

Yet it was about to.

“John,” she said slowly, keeping her attention focused away from him, “there’s something I need to tell you. Something important that may help you understand Ben Barnhart’s motives.”

She dared a glance in his direction and found him watching her closely. “All right.”

“When I was twelve, I went on a trail drive with my father. My mother was against it, but Papa won out and I was allowed to go. Have you ever ridden on a trail drive on the Chisholm Trail, John?”

His green eyes went misty. “I have,” he whispered. “It was something to see when all those cattle and horses go heading off in the same direction. Or at least you hope they’re all going the same way.”

“Yes. There’s mostly nothing but prairie except for that suspension bridge at Waco over the Brazos, and a great big sky full of stars at night, and it is just the best thing in the world.” Eliza sighed. “Or it was.”

Eliza expected the detective to prompt her for more information. Instead, he sat quietly and waited.

“I think about that trail ride a lot,” she continued. “There was a meteor shower last Wednesday—”

“Encke’s Comet.”

“That’s right. You told me you know about astronomy.”

He offered a faint smile. “A little.”

Eliza studied him for a moment longer, then returned to her story. “The last trail ride I went on was in the spring. In April. I couldn’t wait until bedtime when everything got quiet and my brothers fell asleep. I would lie on my back and look up at the heavens to watch for falling stars. I would count them.” She smiled at the recollection. “Sometimes it became a friendly competition with Wyatt. He was my best friend.”

A sob tore through the remainder of her words. “I miss him so much,” was all she could manage on a ragged exhale of breath.

Wyatt leaned in to gather her into his arms. At fourteen, he’d thought of her as a child. A girl who irritated him and made him laugh. Who challenged him and made him wonder what she would be like when she was grown.

He’d been a kid then, hardly old enough to imagine holding Eliza Gentry in his arms. Even as an adult, he couldn’t have imagined it to be nearly as good as it felt to wrap his arms around her and feel her head resting on his shoulder.

Abruptly she lifted her head to look up at him. “Did my father tell you what happened on that trail ride?”

“I know,” he said, not exactly answering the question she asked but still telling the truth.

“I never believed Wyatt did it.” She swiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “He was the sweetest, kindest person I’d ever met. He would never harm anyone. So how could he possibly have done what Pa said he did?”

Wyatt bit back a response. There was nothing he could say. Not that the right words would have come anyway.

“What did your pa tell you?” he finally managed to ask.

“I was a child,” she told him, “so he told me very little. It’s more what I remember about that night. Zeke, Trey, and I were in the wagon. A gunshot woke us up, and I ran to see what had happened. Later, when Papa sent us back to camp, I had to stay with Cookie in the wagon.” She paused to look up at him. “He was our cook, and he was always so wise. He told me I’d be sorry if I defied Papa. That’s the only time I can remember that he was wrong.”

“Why?” came out as a hoarse croak. Wyatt cleared his throat and tried again. “Why do you regret staying in the wagon?”

“Because I never got to say goodbye to my best friend.” She paused. “I hope he knew how much I loved being his friend, even if he did get me in trouble with my parents.”

Wyatt gave her a sideways look. “So you’re blaming him for your troubles?”

Eliza smiled. “He loved to tease me. And he was always daring me to do things that I shouldn’t do. That time he convinced me I could jump off the springhouse and land in the saddle of my horse was almost the last straw for Mama. After that, she was determined I should be trained up as a lady instead of spending my time with the horses and on a trail ride. Or, I suppose, with Wyatt Creed.”

“You never said whether you tried to jump into that saddle.”

“No, I was terrified, so it didn’t take much to let my mother win that battle. I never admitted to Wyatt that I was scared though. As far as he knew, I was just as brave as he was.”

“Maybe Wyatt was a little bit scared too.”

She looked away. “He might have been, but he never showed it to me. He always seemed fearless.”

“He wasn’t.”

Eliza looked sharply in his direction. “How would you know?”

A moment of panic and then he shrugged. “A man wants to look brave in front of the girl he cares for, whether he’s full-grown or just a kid. I promise he was just as scared as you most of the time.”

“Not when he died.”

The words came like a punch in his gut. “You weren’t there.”

“No, but Red and my papa were there. Papa is the one who…”

“You don’t have to tell me the rest,” he supplied when he saw she was struggling again.

“I want to.” Eliza shifted positions to turn toward him. “I have never trusted anyone with this story before, John.”

John.

Wyatt kept his expression neutral as guilt rose. Eliza was opening her heart to him, telling him something deeply personal about a lost friend. Meanwhile, her lost friend was right here in front of her.

“I heard Red and my father talking after everything got quiet again and the cowboys were sleeping. They had Ben with them, but he didn’t say much.”

“Papa was telling Ben he ought to come clean to his father. I couldn’t hear it very clearly, but I felt like Ben had done something wrong too. No one actually witnessed the shooting, so…”

Again she paused. This time she shook her head and then continued. “I know it’s easy to say that my beliefs about my father are colored by the fact that I love him dearly. But I do not believe my father had it in him to shoot Wyatt Creed. I also do not believe Wyatt would have given my father a reason to shoot him.”

“But you heard him and Red talking about it,” Wyatt supplied.

“Other than what he said to Ben, everything I heard between Papa and Red was about what a good man Wyatt was and how he would never be like his father. They talked about him like he was alive but told us he was dead and buried next to his father.”

Silence fell between them. Wyatt shut down thoughts of that night. Remembering would do no good. He walked out of that camp a scared kid but a different man, and that man still lived.

Wyatt Creed did not.

“Eliza,” he said softly as he carefully avoided her gaze, “I appreciate that you shared this with me, but maybe you ought to let it go.”

For a minute she said nothing. Wyatt looked straight ahead, watching the roses sway in the breeze rather than brave a look at the woman beside him.

“Why?”

Wyatt chose his words carefully. “Because no matter what happened that night on the trail, it’s done and can’t be changed.”

Eliza didn’t react. He tried again. “Eliza, let’s go back to talking about what we’re going to do about the situation with Barnhart.”

Her eyes flashed. Somehow he’d struck a nerve with just that simple statement.

“Yes, let’s talk about Ben. There is no one on this earth I would less like to be associated with than him.” Her laughter held no humor. “You’re wondering why I reacted so strongly.”

“I am curious,” he said.

“He wasn’t even supposed to be on the ride. The story was that his father begged Papa to let his son come along. Papa was against it but gave in because of his friendship with the judge. After everything happened, Papa sent Red to take Ben to Waco and we went on to Kansas with the herd. We were told that Ben’s father would be coming to get him in Waco. Papa and the judge never spoke after that. Before, they had been good friends. Something just doesn’t add up. The cowboys said Ben was just there when the two Creeds argued. I think he had something to do with it and that’s why Papa sent him home.”

“You think he knew something?”

Eliza nodded. “I know he did. I think that’s a good place for you to start your investigation. It would be like Ben to use whatever happened on the trail against my family.”

She was getting too close to a truth that would be dangerous for her to discover. Time to distract her.

“Where is Ben now?”

“Austin, I suppose.” Eliza shrugged. “I told him I had to do something and would be gone for a week.”

“And he didn’t have anything to say about that?”

“I don’t know.” Another shrug. “I didn’t wait for a response.”

Surely Ben hadn’t let her leave alone. Wyatt glanced around, looking for the person sent to follow Eliza. Though he didn’t see anyone, that didn’t mean Barnhart’s man wasn’t nearby.

Wyatt stood and reached down to help her to her feet. “Where are you staying?”

“The Tremont House,” she said as she arranged her skirts. “Why?”

“You can’t go back there.”

“Why not? All my things are there.”

“I’ll get them for you. I’ll need to get Bryant here. In the meantime, we’re going inside.”

He led her back into the house and shut the door and latched it. “Stay right here. If you hear any kind of scuffle, I want you to head out that door and don’t stop until you get to the house across the street. Tell Mrs. McDonald you’re with me, and she will let you in and protect you better than any man I know.”

“Mrs. McDonald,” she repeated. “All right.”

Wyatt offered a smile, then palmed his revolver and stepped into the kitchen. Unless Janie had locked the door, which was unlikely, this would have been an easy entry point into the home while they were seated out front.

A glance told him the lock had not been set. He went back toward the entry to find Eliza watching him. She said nothing and had not moved, both good signs.

He cleared the parlor and then stepped into the hall. Two bedchambers were on this end of the home. One was where he slept, and the other was where he ran the business side of the John Brady Detective Agency.

Bypassing the office, where he always kept the door closed when Janie was cleaning, he went into the bedchamber and found it empty. A check of the armoire had the same result.

Wyatt stepped toward the office door, stopping just close enough to reach the knob. With his right hand on the revolver and his left on the door, he took a long breath and let it out slowly. Then he opened the door.

One shot rang out, blazing past and grazing his left arm. It stung, but Wyatt ignored it.

The shooter came around the door so quickly that he knocked Wyatt down. Rolling up into a seated position, Wyatt aimed his revolver and fired.

The shooter, a light-haired man in workman’s clothing, fell and didn’t move. Wyatt stepped close enough to kick the gun away from him and pick it up.

“Eliza,” he called.

Silence.