Rose by Jill Marie Landis Read Free Book Online Page A

wave after wave of nausea.
    Caleb crossed the room and took Analisa in his arms. She stared unmoving at her son as Caleb softly whispered, “Anja? Anja, it’s all right, love.”
    Unable to meet their eyes, Kase had left the room. A few hours later without another word, without even a good-bye to his aunt or the half sister he adored, he left them. He had no plan other than to get through one day at a time. He crawled off alone like an injured wolf seeking its lair. He had no destination until he found himself accepting the job of marshal of Busted Heel.
    Kase tried to put that terrible afternoon behind him as he looked at Zach Elliot. How could he explain what the truth had done to him? How could the old man know how he had felt when he learned he was the son of a murderer, a rapist? It was all too clear now why he had never been able to control his anger. He was certain he had inherited the blinding temper he fought so hard to keep on a tight rein, just as he was certain that he could never look his beautiful mother in the eye again without feeling all the shame she had been forced to endure because she chose to keep him.
    Zach shifted uneasily on his chair. “That explains your aunt livin’ on the Sioux reservation,” he said half aloud.
    “I grew up thinking my Aunt Meika had chosen the Sioux way of life. Now I find out she had been taken captive.” He shook his head.
    “What happened to the other one, the brother?”
    “Pieter? No one knows. Caleb tried to track him through the BIA. But he seems to have disappeared.”
    “So after you found out about your mother, you just up and left home without a word?”
    Unable to meet Zach’s gaze, Kase stared at a point across the room.
    “You ain’t seen your ma?”
    “Or my sister. Not since he told me the truth.”
    Zach’s silence was accusation enough. Kase knew what his mother must be feeling, knew that his knowing would shame her further, but to keep from going insane, he had to heal his own wounds first.
    The tension between the two men rode the hot air as close as the silence that surrounded them. Finally, to Kase’s relief, Zach abruptly changed the subject. “Who’s this Quentin Rawlins that hired you?”
    “An old friend of Caleb’s who knew him when he worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.” Kase swiveled his chair back and forth, taking his time as he gave Zach an account of how he came to be marshal of Busted Heel. “I ran into him in a hotel in Kansas City and he asked straightaway if I’d consider coming out here to keep the peace. Seems he’s worried about all the farmers moving in hereabouts, tends to think there’s trouble brewing between the ranchers and the sodbusters.”
    “He might be right.”
    “He might be,” Kase agreed, “but right now I’d say the biggest problem Quentin’s got is how to keep his hands from dying of boredom and tearing up this place when they do get into town.”
    “Had some trouble already?”
    “Nothing I couldn’t handle.” Kase finally smiled at Zach. “Just a few rowdies shooting up the town one night. Some poor little Italian fella was killed accidentally.”
    Kase paused long enough to stretch his hands high above his head and then lower them. “So,” he began again in an effort to make up for his surly greeting, “you gonna stay around for a while, Zach? Or are you just here long enough to make sure I’m alive and then send a report back to Boston?”
    “Well, I reckon I got no place to go for a while. ‘Sides, what marshal couldn’t use a deputy?”
    “This one.”
    “Yeah?”
    “There’s nothing for me to do here, let alone a deputy, but you’re welcome to stay.”
    “Where do ya bunk?”
    Kase smiled again and waited for his old friend’s reaction. “Got a room at the local pleasure palace.”
    “You such a good customer you, need to call the place home?” Zach squinted his good eye and peered at Kase.
    “Naw. It isn’t like that, just not much else available in this