Branded. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ out she’d talked to him. “Jessica’s gone. She isn’t coming back. And even if she was, she wouldn’t want anything to do with you.”

      Colton hadn’t believed it at first. He’d been inconsolable for weeks.

      “She obviously wasn’t the right woman for you,” his father finally said after watching him mope around. “Trust me, her leaving is the best thing that could have happened. You both were too damn young to be so serious.”

      As weeks had turned into months, Colton had been forced to accept that the first woman he’d ever loved no longer wanted anything to do with him.

      Now he stared at the letter and understood what had happened, why she’d never tried to contact him. She’d reached out to him, gone to their secret spot that night, only to have him fail to show.

      How long had she waited for him, thinking he would come for her? The thought of her alone there that night, waiting for him, broke his heart all over again. He couldn’t bear that she’d gone away believing he hadn’t loved her, that he wouldn’t have been there for her. He had promised to take care of her, look out for her, and when she’d needed him, he hadn’t been there.

       I never got the letter.

      He hadn’t been to their special place for fourteen years—not since their fight and her disappearance from his life. As he drove out of town toward the ranch, he remembered the times they’d met there in secret. He would spread a blanket out for them beneath a stand of huge old cottonwood trees alongside the creek.

      Even after all these years, he could remember the sound of the breeze in the leaves overhead, the sweet scent of the wild grasses, the cool coming up off the creek, the heat of her body against his.

      It was in the shade of those trees that he’d first told her he loved her. They’d both been seventeen the first time they’d made love under that tree. It had been the first for both of them. Jessica had cried afterward and told him he would always be the only one for her. He’d told her he’d never let anyone hurt her again.

      Colton drove past the Granger place, glancing in the direction of the house, as he had done for the last fourteen years. The house was set back off the road, almost hidden in a stand of trees. He never passed it without thinking of Jessica.

      As he drove by the barbed-wire fence that marked the end of the Granger property and the beginning of Chisholm land, he slowed. Seeing no other vehicles coming down the road from either direction, he pulled in, stopping short of the barbed-wire gate.

      The gate into this part of the Chisholm ranch property was seldom if ever used. The barbed wire had cut deep into the wooden posts, a sure sign that no one had been back in years. Once opened, he drove through the gate, then got out and closed it behind him.

      The way in could hardly be called a road. It was a dirt path through some rugged terrain. Grass grew up between the two ruts, scraping the underside of his pickup as he drove until he reached the creek and the path petered out.

      Parking in a gully where his pickup couldn’t be seen from either the road or the Granger property, he walked the rest of the way, following the creek—just as he’d done as a teenager on his way to meet Jessica.

      That night Jessica would have sneaked out of her parents’ house and taken the back way, along the creek and through the barbed-wire fence onto Chisholm property, following the creek to the secret meeting place.

      It had been Jessica who’d found the spot one night after a fight with her father. She’d wandered down the creek bank for half a mile to an oxbow surrounded by tall trees. She’d crawled through the barbed-wire fence onto Chisholm land—and realized she’d found the perfect place for them to meet in secret, her father being none the wiser.

      Colton slowed his steps as he saw the tops of the trees in the distance and remembered the anticipation he’d felt each time he was to meet her all those years ago.

      When he saw their secret spot, he stopped short. Jessica Granger had been his first real girlfriend, although they’d been forced to keep it secret because of her father. Sid Granger didn’t want his daughter having anything to do with those wild Chisholm boys and no matter what Colton did, he couldn’t convince him otherwise.

      The spot didn’t look as if anyone had been here in the past fourteen years since the land was posted and no one else had reason to come here. As he walked to the trees, stopping in the cool shade, he realized that the last person to stand here had probably been Jessica. His heart lodged in his throat at the thought.

      For a moment he swore he caught a whiff of her perfume. The scent took him back. He could close his eyes and feel her in his arms as they lay entwined in the shade of these cottonwoods after making love.

      I have a surprise for you and can’t wait to tell you. Whatever it had been, he would never know, he thought as he looked around.

      What the hell are you doing here? He pulled off his Stetson and raked his fingers through his sandy-blond hair. Did he think he was going to find Jessica waiting for him here? He laughed at the absurdity of it.

      Hell, he couldn’t even be sure she ever came here that night. Maybe she’d changed her mind, sorry she’d written him the letter, and had taken off on her own.

      With a start, he remembered that Sid Granger had called the ranch that night.

      “It’s Granger,” his father had said after answering the phone in the middle of dinner all those years ago. “He wants to know if you’ve seen his daughter.” Colton had given his father a miserable shake of his head. “He hasn’t seen her. They broke up.”

      He’d never seen Jessica again.

      If only he’d gotten the letter, he thought angrily. He would have run off and married her in a heartbeat.

      Colton took one last look at the spot under the trees. “I’m so sorry, Jessica,” he whispered on the warm spring breeze rustling the leaves on the branches over his head.

      A part of him ached for what could have been. They would have run away together. He could have gotten a job on a ranch. She could have gotten a job cooking for the hired hands. Or maybe he would have made enough that she didn’t have to work, especially if they’d gotten a place to live along with his job.

      He sighed, realizing that they had both been kids back then. The chances of his getting hired on some ranch would have been slim. Not only that, Jessica didn’t know how to cook and she would have gone crazy living on a ranch. She’d always yearned to kick the dust of Montana off her heels and live in some big city. She had this idea that she would be a model. Or even a movie star.

      “I’m going to be famous someday,” she used to say. “You’ll look back and say, ‘I knew her when she was a girl.’“ It used to make him sad when she talked that way because he knew he would never leave Montana.

      What would he have done if he’d gotten the letter?

      He would have figured something out, he told himself. He’d have had to. With her family being the way they were, he was all she had. She depended on him.

      As he started to turn away, his boot toe caught on something. At first he thought it was a small root from the new growth at the base of one of the cottonwoods.

      But as he reached down to free СКАЧАТЬ