“Cait?” Tyler said.
The look on her face was all the answer he needed.
He turned, a man whose heart had been ripped from his chest, and walked from the house and down the steps. He reached his truck, opened the door…and stopped. No. Hell, no. He wasn’t going to let it end like this. He loved Caitlin. She loved him. He was going back into that house and if he had to fight all three of her brothers, he’d do it. He’d do whatever he had to do to get her alone, to make her listen.
He’d taken Caitlin McCord out of this house by force once before and, by God, he’d do it again.
Tyler swung away from the truck, started back to the house…and the front door opened.
“Tyler,” Caitlin cried, “Tyler, wait.”
A smile lit his face as she flew down the steps toward him. “Cait,” he said, and caught her in his arms. “Cait, sweetheart…”
Her brothers ran out the door. “Kincaid, you son of a bitch,” one of them yelled.
Tyler could feel the adrenaline pumping. He pushed Caitlin behind him and stood ready to take the Barons on. Suddenly Jonas pushed past his sons.
“Caitlin,” he roared, “Caitlin, you get back here…”
The old man clutched his chest and teetered at the top of the steps. Then he tumbled down them, hit the ground and lay still.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE hospital was big and modern. It had a brand-new cardiac care wing that had been built with the money of half a dozen oil-and-cattle rich Texans. Each benefactor had some part of the wing named for him. A small atrium. A patient library. A roof garden. A chapel.
The waiting room had been named for Jonas. Tyler wondered at the irony of the Barons gathering in a room named for the clan’s head as they waited to hear if the old man was going to live or die. The greater irony was that he should be seated among them. He didn’t give a damn what happened to Jonas. And he knew Jonas’s sons would rather have had a rattlesnake in their midst than him, but none of that mattered.
Caitlin wanted him here. That was all he cared about.
He’d stood back as Jonas’s sons, his wife and stepdaughter knelt beside the old man after he’d fallen. He’d kept his distance when the ambulance came and Jonas was taken away. Marta had ridden with her husband. Caitlin’s brothers had climbed into one car and called out to her but she’d taken Tyler’s hand, her face white and stricken.
“Stay with me,” she’d pleaded, and after that, the hounds of hell couldn’t have kept him from her side.
Her brothers had started to object but they must have seen something in his face because one of them said this was a stupid time to stand around and argue. A short while later, they’d all crowded into the waiting room. Not that the room was small. On the contrary. It was handsome and expansive, but the place seemed packed, just the same.
Tyler figured it had to do with all the emotions hanging in the air.
Marta sat in a corner of a long beige sofa. Her shoulders were straight, her expression calm, but her hands trembled when Gage handed her a cup of coffee.
Caitlin was with Marta, holding her hand, talking quietly to her. Every once in a while she looked up and her eyes sought Tyler’s, as if to be sure he was still there.
Yes, his eyes said in return, I’m here, Cait. I’ll always be here, as long as you want me.
Slade, Travis and Gage looked at him occasionally, too. Their faces were taut with anger and he knew it wasn’t because of anything they thought he’d done to Jonas; it was because they believed he’d hurt their stepsister. He knew it was crazy, that all three of them would try to beat him senseless first chance they got and that he’d undoubtedly take at least two of them with him before he went down, but he liked them.
How could he not like men who loved Caitlin so deeply?
Looking at them gave him an eerie feeling. They were his brothers. Well, his half brothers. They carried his blood, just as he carried theirs. He could see bits of himself in them, too. Travis’s green eyes. Slade’s dark hair. The shape of Gage’s nose and even the way he walked…
And none of them would ever know it.
He wasn’t going to tell the Barons who he was. What for? Jonas was old and broken, perhaps dying. Only a coward would see any sense in inflicting pain on a broken man. The truth would only fall like a yoke on the necks of the old man’s wife and sons. No. No, there was no reason or purpose in inflicting pain on innocent people.
Tyler jammed his hands into his pockets and looked out the window.
Someday, he might tell Caitlin, but only because he didn’t want any lies between them. There was no need to tell her now. Let her keep her memories of her stepfather. Let her inherit the ranch she loved without his doing anything to sully the process. He knew he’d have to tell her something but he’d come up with an explanation that would explain why he’d come to Espada in the first place, something she’d accept in lieu of Jonas’s poisonous lies.
“Mrs. Baron?”
Tyler turned around. The doctor had entered the room. Marta and Caitlin had risen to their feet and stood facing him; Gage, Travis and Slade gathered around the women.
Tyler stayed where he was.
“Mrs. Baron…Marta.” Esteban O’Connor took her hand. “Jonas had a heart attack.”
Marta nodded. “Is he—will he survive?”
“Yes, I think so. It was a mild attack, and your husband is a strong man.” O’Connor cleared his throat. “But he fractured his leg when he fell, and severed a blood vessel. We’ve stopped the bleeding but he’s going to need a transfusion.”
“Well, give him one, man,” Gage said impatiently.
“We will. The lab’s searching our rare blood donor list right now.”
Slade frowned. “Your what?”
“Jonas needs blood from a special donor. He has a rare blood type. He had surgery before, years ago, and a transfusion.”
“His gallbladder,” Marta said.
“Yes. The transfusion saved his life, but because he has a rare blood type, he received an incompatible transfusion and made an anti-k antibody…” O’Connor shook his head. “Look, it’s complicated. The bottom line is, Jonas needs blood from a donor who is negative for the k antigen.”
The brothers looked at each other. “Well,” Travis said, after a minute, “don’t those things run in families?” He held out his arm, as if there were a needle and a technician waiting. “You got all three of Jonas Baron’s sons standin’ right in front of you, Steve. Just take what you need.”
“I wish it were that simple, but it takes twenty-four hours to run the tests to check for the antigen and to test the safety of the blood.”
“I have the blood you need, Doctor.” The little group stared at Tyler as he walked slowly toward them. “My name is Tyler Kincaid. I’ve been a blood donor for years, and they typed me as being k antigen negative.”
O’Connor grinned. “Son of a gun. You’ll be on our rare blood list.”
“I know I am.”
Slade cleared his throat. “Steve? I thought you just said—I thought you said this k negative stuff is rare.”
“It is. Only three people out of
a thousand are k antigen negative.”
The room fell silent. Tyler hesitated, but he knew it was time for the truth. “Jonas Baron is my father,” he said quietly.
“It’s a lie,” Gage said, but Slade motioned him to silence.
“It’s the truth.” Tyler gave a bitter laugh. “Believe me, I’m no happier about it than you are.” He turned to Caitlin. “I didn’t know it, when I came here,” he said softly. “I only knew that I’d been born on Espada. Then I learned I was Jonas’s son. And when I did, I was determined to destroy him.”
Caitlin jerked back, as if he’d struck her. “By seducing me,” she whispered, and Tyler wanted to take her in his arms, tell her she was wrong, that he loved her, that what had happened between them had nothing to do with vengeance…
But the doctor was already asking him questions, drawing him aside, clapping him on the back and telling the stunned little group gathered around him that patients like Jonas owed their lives to voluntary blood donors like Tyler.
“It’s the gift of life,” O’Connor said, and Tyler wondered if only he saw the bitter irony in those words.
By the time he broke free and turned around, Caitlin was gone.
Everything went quickly after that.
They hustled Tyler away to be poked, prodded and questioned. Finally, in a small, quiet room, he lay back and let a technician draw his blood. When she’d finished, she gave him a bright smile and slapped a gauze pad over the vein in his arm.
“There,” she said briskly. “That’s it, Mr. Baron.”
“Kincaid,” Tyler said. “My name is Tyler Kincaid.”
The woman colored. “Of course. Sorry, Mr. Kincaid.”
He nodded, did his best to make it look as if he was paying attention to her instructions, but all he could think about was that he’d reached the end of his journey. He’d found his identity, found his brothers, found the only woman he’d ever love—and lost them all, the instant Jonas fell down those steps. By now, they all knew the whole truth. He’d tossed his keys to Travis, just before he’d headed down the hall with the doctor.
“There’s a briefcase in my truck,” he’d said. “You might as well know everything.”