LITMIR.BIZ

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I have to.”

      “Tomorrow?”

      “No. When I’ve finished what I’ve started.”

      “What you’ve started is taking a long time. I’m talking about one weekend. You can be back in Texas and on MacGregor’s trail by noon Monday.”

      At least she wasn’t totally bluffing—she did know he was looking for Pete MacGregor. But a lot of people knew that. Whether she could help him find Mac…that was what counted.

      “This Lexy person has waited fifteen years. A few more weeks or months isn’t going to hurt her. Besides, if I go now, what’s to stop you from saying Monday, ‘Oh, sorry, I lied, I don’t know anything’?” Just as he’d lied. He wasn’t going anywhere near Brady or his family. They really could rot in hell for all he cared.

      She drew a breath before answering. “The man you’re looking for is Peter Alan MacGregor. He was born October 11, in Chicago. He set a record for suspensions from school before he finally quit in eleventh grade and he had quite a juvenile arrest record before he joined the Army and straightened up. He was on his second enlistment when he got sent to Iraq, where he was wounded in an ambush on his convoy outside Baghdad. He came home on convalescent leave and spent two weeks in this house with Sam and Ella Jensen. A week before he was scheduled to report to duty again, he killed the Jensens, stole seventy-eight dollars and their pickup and disappeared, and he hasn’t been heard from since.”

      Inwardly Logan flinched at her matter-of-fact recital of events—so unemotional and damned cold. Sam and Ella had taken Mac in because he’d had no place else to go, because they were generous like that. They had respected him for serving in the Army, had been grateful to him for the dangers he’d been willing to face in the war and they’d felt it was their duty as patriotic Americans to welcome him home. They’d nursed him, opened their house and their hearts and their lives to him, and he’d repaid them by stabbing Ella seven times with her own kitchen knife, by beating Sam to death with a piece of firewood. All for seventy-eight freakin’ dollars and a pickup that wasn’t worth much more.

      And it was all Logan’s fault.

      Logan’s wrong to set right.

      “You could have picked up all that from the newspapers,” he said harshly. Mac’s crimes and Sam’s and Ella’s lives distilled into a few columns that gave just the facts.

      “I did pick up all that from the newspapers,” Bailey admitted. “It’s the other things I learned that should be worth a trip to Oklahoma for you.”

      “What other things?

      She smiled that taut little smile again. “Want to talk while we drive north?”

      Sure. When hell froze over. “Give me one piece of information about Mac that isn’t common knowledge.”

      Though she considered it for a moment, he had the impression she already knew which piece she would offer. “He has a brother.”

      He shook his head. “He didn’t have any family.” That was one of the things that had brought the two of them together. Neither of them had had parents who cared whether they came home from the war alive or in a body bag; there had been no brothers, sisters or cousins sending letters and care packages and no wife or family to go home to when they were wounded. Sure, Logan had had Ella and Sam…but it hadn’t been the same as real family. It was stupid and illogical and it shamed him, but it just hadn’t been the same.

      She shook her head, too, chidingly, her hair swaying around her shoulders. “Saying you don’t have family doesn’t make it true. You’re proof of that.”

      “Mac was an only child—”

      “Of his parents’ marriage. His mother had been married before. When she left her first husband for the bright lights of Chicago, she left her son, too. Mac’s half brother.” The chiding was on her face again when she looked at him. “The man murdered an elderly couple who’d taken him into their home. Do you really think he was above lying about his family?”

      Of course not. Mac had no scruples, no morals, no honor. He didn’t deserve to live. But Logan intended to take care of that soon enough.

      “Do you know this brother’s name?”

      Bailey nodded.

      “Are you going to tell me?”

      “Once we’ve reached an agreement about your going to Oklahoma.”

      “With what you’ve already told me, I can track him down myself.”

      “You can, but it’ll take time. He wasn’t much easier to find than you were. So…when do we leave?”

      “I’ll go as soon as I’ve found Mac.”

      She started shaking her head before the sentence was half out and didn’t stop until he was done. “You’re not being reasonable.”

      His chuckle sounded harsh in the room. “I don’t have to be reasonable. We have a deal.”

      “Not yet.”

      Just like that, his brief, ugly humor dissipated. “Look, Mac is wanted by the Army for desertion and by the local authorities for murder—both crimes punishable by death. The longer he manages to hide, the harder it’s going to be to find him, and he’s already got one hell of a head start. I can’t screw around and make nice with some kid I didn’t even know existed before today because that’s what you want. Get your priorities straight or stay the hell out of my way.”

      Outwardly she appeared unaffected by his anger. She was cool, calm, serene as she studied him. Finally she stood up. “All right. We’ll find MacGregor first. But as soon as we’ve turned him over to the authorities, then we go to Buffalo Plains. Deal?”

      “What’s with this ‘we’? You’ll tell me everything you know, and I’ll find Mac.”

      She smiled faintly. “That wasn’t my offer. I said I would help you find him, not leave you to do it on your own. If I do that, who knows where you’ll go when it’s all over? Probably anywhere but Buffalo Plains.”

      Logan ignored the insult to his integrity, especially since, at the moment, he didn’t have any. “I don’t need a partner.”

      “I’d say you do. I’ve learned more about Peter MacGregor in a few weeks than you have in six months. Of course, if you really don’t want me tagging along for the next few weeks, there’s a simple solution—meet Lexy this weekend. Then I’ll go back to Memphis and you can do whatever you want.”

      His scowl made it clear what he thought of her suggestion. He had enough anger and guilt in his life right now without adding Brady to it. Maybe someday he’d be ready to forgive. But he was no closer to that day now than he’d been nineteen years ago.

      She closed the distance between them with a few steps and offered her hand once again. “What do you say, Logan? Do we have a deal?”

      He looked at her hand—narrow, uncallused, the fingers long and slender, the nails neatly rounded and painted white on the tips. Hostilely he raised his gaze to hers but didn’t take her hand. “I’d rather deal with the devil.”

      “And here I thought you were the devil,” she murmured.

      She refused to lower her hand, so grudgingly he took it, processing warmth, softness, in the seconds before he released it again. “We have a deal,” he agreed. As he turned away, he muttered, “One you’ll live to regret.”

      He was walking through the door, his right hand clenched in a fist as if he could erase the memory of the contact, when she softly answered, “More likely you will.”

      He smiled bleakly. No doubt she was right. If he lived, he would definitely regret it.

      Chapter 2

      Bailey followed him downstairs. He stopped in the hallway, looking

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