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  A Leaf in the Wind

  Velda Sherrod

  Posing as her late stepsister Lee in order to protect her infant nephew, Elise DuBois settles into life on the Texas spread of T. K. Burke, the baby's uncle, from whom she fears discovery.

  FORBIDDEN LOVE

  T.K. nuzzled Elise's throat, the hollow at her collarbone. "Want me. Want me the way I want you."

  Reality returned with a crash. Horrified at how he made her feel, Elise grasped his exploring hand. "No. Please. We can't do this."

  T.K. didn't release her, instead he cradled closer, whispering against her ear. "Why? Give me one good reason."

  "We mustn't," she said, her voice quavering. Then she tried to pull away.

  "That isn't a reason, Lee. We both want it." He stared down at her, as if he couldn't believe his ears. "Or am I mistaken?"

  "You were mistaken," she murmured so low he had to lean closer to hear.

  "I'm not a schoolboy, Lee. I can recognize passion."

  So can I, she thought wretchedly. "What do you want from me?"

  Amusement deepened the lines around his mouth. "A hell of a question right now. Are you sure you want an honest answer?" he asked.

  "I'm not afraid to hear the truth."

  A Leaf in the Wind Velda Sherrod

  To Marvin, Mike, Jan, Mark, and Lynne.

  A LEISURE BOOK®

  May 1996

  Published by Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10001

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

  Copyright © 1996 by Velda Sherrod All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

  The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "L" with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Prologue

  January 6, 1873

  Boggy Creek Crossing,

  Texas Panhandle

  The clamor went on and on. It hammered at his consciousness, thrummed behind his eyelids, and beat at his temples. It pulverized his skull.

  Cautiously, T.K. opened his eyes, one at a time, and tried to blink the room into focus. A chill went through him. Where was he? and what the hell was he doing there? Then he remembered: Patrick and his damned birthday party!

  T.K. ran his tongue over dry lips to escape the barnyard taste in his mouth. He hadn't been that drunk since he was a stripling. Cautiously, stifling the urge to groan, he eased his long legs over the side of the bed and sat up. The exertion cost him. And then he froze.

  He eased around ninety degrees and squinted at a girl across the other half of the bed. Her bare arms were stretched above her head, her face was buried in the pillow. His gaze raked her, not missing the full breasts crushed against the mattress. Long hair covered her naked shoulders and fanned out over the pillow. No imagination was needed to know she was naked. Sometime during the night she had come to his bed. But who was she?

  With effort, T.K. remembered a shapely female who had clung like ivy to Patrick's arm, but try as he might, he couldn't recall her face. In the light of day, that seemed a blessing. How had the woman come to be there? Had she stumbled upstairs looking for Patrick? She would have had trouble distinguishing between T.K. and Patrick in the dark. A lot of folks, friendly ones and some not so friendly, had the same problem in daylight. Both brothers were tall with black hair and green eyes.

  But the likeness ended with their choice of women unless you counted the present one. T.K. ran his fingers over a two-day growth of stubble and wondered if anything had occurred between him and the girl. Had she been as drunk as he? What could he do? What should he do?

  T.K. had ridden across half the Texas Panhandle to arrive at the three-storied house hidden in a grove of cottonwoods. The party had been going full blast when he walked in, the music only slightly louder than the revelers. In the dim light, he had made out the figure of his brother surrounded by a bevy of women.

  Patrick had yelled a greeting and pushed his way through the crowd to seize T.K. in a bear hug. "Brother, I'd almost given up hope."

  "I couldn't miss your twenty-sixth, Pat," he had responded halfheartedly.

  T.K. had arrived at Boggy Creek Crossing cold, hungry, and disgruntled. Taking the drink Patrick had pressed into his hand, he had made the mistake of following it with several more. Later, by a circuitous route and much jostling, he had weaved his way upstairs and collapsed into the first empty bed.

  T.K. took another look at the girl. Loath to leave without waking her, he touched her shoulder. She muttered something unintelligible and shrugged off his hand.

  "Wake up, honey. This is a hell of a question, but did you sleep . . . did we" He felt like some kind of an idiot. "Did I stay on my side of the bed all night?"

  The girl mouthed a few words and scrunched farther into the pillow. After a few more halfhearted tries, T.K. stared at the smooth flesh of her back, then gently drew the cover over her. It was plain she didn't want to wake up. He thought bleakly that she might not take too kindly to finding herself in bed with the wrong man. He wasn't pleased about the whole situation himself.

  Fully awake, he listened for morning sounds, but heard nothing except a cold January wind tugging at the panes of the solitary window. Bracing himself against the wall, he reached for his hat and settled it on his head, then pulled on his boots and tucked his shirt in his pants.

  He took the stairs down. Where the hell was Patrick? Where the hell was anybody?

  Outside, T.K. used his hat to shade his eyes against the glare of the sun and searched the area until he located the corral. His buckskin circled the fence, restless to be gone. T.K. headed in that direction, but was stopped by a flat, unemotional voice behind him.

  "Lee's almighty purty. A little drunk last night though. I saw her head upstairs." Jake Tidwell slouched against the side of the building. "Wonder if she knew which brother she was in bed with?"

  Unaffected by the accusation in Jake's voice, T.K. made no effort to avoid the condemnation in the man's eyes. Patrick's ferret like sidekick always lurked in the vicinity of his idol, so it was a good bet Patrick was nearby.

  "Who is she?" T.K. asked, not really wanting to know.

  "Name's Lee DuBois."

  "Tell Miss DuBois I don't remember a damn thing about last night. You can tell Patrick the same thing. Where is he by the way? I'll tell him myself."

  Jake grunted without meeting his gaze.

  When T.K. didn't get anything resembling an answer, he glanced back at the silent house, half expecting to see Patrick walk out. "I'm riding back to the ranch. If he's going with me, he needs to get moving."

  Shifty eyed, Jake straightened and looked around. "Don't reckon Pat'll be headin' back to the Lazy B. He said for you to go on without him."

  Patrick was avoiding him, and T.K. wondered if he did so because of the girl. He searched for a way to vent his irritation and took aim at a rock with the toe of his boot. "What does he plan to do?"

  "I ain't in no position to say nothin' except he'll see you sometime later."

  "Tell Patrick the girl had no invitation from me. We slept in the same bed. So far as I know, that's all."

  T.K. was to hark back to Jake's final words many times: "Wonder what Lee will remember about last night?"

  Chapter One

  Rumb
ling threateningly, the ponderous cloud bank plodded across the prairies, lighting its path with jagged streaks of lightning. On and on, slowly, until at last screaming its agony like a woman in labor, the great beast dropped a black funnel from its muddy underbelly. The twister, pulsing and writhing in a macabre dance of destruction, skipped across the prairie toward the modest farmhouse a few miles outside Boggy Creek Crossing in the Texas Panhandle.

  Several miles away from the center of the storm, Elise threw an uneasy glance at the darkening sky. Occasional flashes of orange light bathed the earth. The wind kicked up, twisting the trees. Between bursts of noise, Elise heard Toddie's frightened cry.

  "A storm's coming, Margaret," Elise shouted over her shoulder and dropped her hoe. "Let's get inside."

  Not waiting to see if her stepmother followed, she raced toward the tiny boy clinging to the side of his pen. Where in God's name was his mother?

  Elise screamed for her stepsister. ''Lee, where are you? There's a storm coming. Get the baby."

  Praying in gasps, begging the Almighty to help her get there in time, Elise hurled herself against the wind. She had to reach the baby. She stumbled when a sharp pain cut through her ankle. Forced to her knees, she cursed in frustration. After what seemed like years, moaning and sobbing, she reached Toddie's play coop.

  Elise pulled herself up, braced a hip against the pen, and gathered the whimpering baby in his blanket. Hugging him tightly, Elise pressed him to her breast to keep the wind from wresting him from her arms.

  A board sailed off the house, and another followed. The sky darkened ominiously. Stricken with fear, Elise looked for shelter. If she could reach the porch, they could hide beneath it. The twenty feet separating them from safety seemed like a hundred. After once more limping and fighting for each step, she gained the building and wedged the child beneath the wooden floor.

  Shrieking, the tornado struck with the force of a locomotive. Elise threw up her arms to cover her head, a shield against the deafening noise as much as flying debris. But she was not in time. An object richocheted off the house and struck her forehead. Reeling from the blow, she managed to crawl in beside Toddie before nausea sucked her into a maelstrom.

  How long she lay clutching the baby, Elise never knew. When she came to her senses, the wind and rain had ceased. Toddie squirmed, and Elise ran nervous hands over his small body, alternately babbling her fears and praying he wasn't injured.

  Margaret and Lee, what had happened to them?

  Her stepmother had been planting beans, her stepsister dressing to go to the Boggy Creek Saloon. Where were they? Tears threatened, and Elise gave a shake of her head at the fearful possibilities.

  Conscious of pain at her temple, she swiped a palm across her forehead. A sticky wetness blurred her vision. Nausea beckoned again, but she fought it with deep, anxious breaths. In the foggy recesses of her mind, she realized the rain had stopped, but a new threat edged toward them.

  Boggy Creek had leapt its banks. Soon the water would reach their hiding place. She should take Toddie inside and build a fire. He would be hungry soon. She wished her head didn't ache so.

  Holding Toddie and crawling, Elise eased them from their tight shelter to the ravaged world outside. A hysterical gurgle escaped her. The house had disappeared. Nothing remained but the floor and the chimney.

  Her heart sank at the devastation. Tears trickled down her cheeks and dripped off her chin. Incredibly, she and Toddie had survived. Sobbing and crooning, she kissed him again and again. In a little while, when she felt better, she'd search for Margaret and Lee.

  With the child's soft arms around her neck and hugging his body to her, she grew conscious of a new storm centered in her breast, of strange awakening thoughts.

  God in heaven, Elise thought wildly. If the baby's mother and grandmother were dead, the baby was hers. Tears slid down her cheeks. "Toddie, you're my baby."

  <><><><><><><><><><><>

  T.K. remembered his first trip to Boggy Creek, how he had arrived late for Patrick's birthday party and wished he hadn't come at all. A year and a half later, he still cursed the Fates that brought him back to the godforsaken area. A tornado had tried to blow the county away. He gouged his heels in his horse's flanks, and the big buckskin leapt across the road.

  Destruction was everywhere. Household goods lay scattered over the yard. Clothing floated in puddles of water. A flattened washtub lay upended against a fence. All that remained of the farmhouse was the wooden floor and the stone steps leading to what once served as the front door.

  T.K. swore in one long, lingering breath.

  What had happened to the DuBois family? They could have escaped before the twister struck, but he harbored little hope. A startled oath erupted from deep in his throat when he saw an inert figure lying hunched against the skeleton fireplace.

  Rocked by an emotion so deep his heart thundered in his ears, T.K. heaved himself from the saddle and splashed his way to the steps. He moved tentatively past the debris to squat beside the crumpled body.

  Because he wanted with all his heart for Patrick's son to be alive, the despair that had threatened all day washed over him, and in unreasoning desperation, he wondered how he could bear to lose another member of his family.

  The lumpy mass stirred, a head appeared, and T.K. looked into the wistful, unbelievably dirty face of a child. He shuddered in relief.

  Sweet Jesus! The boy was alive. Like Jake had said, the boy's eyes were green as gourds and damn near as big. Burke eyes.

  Reveling in his discovery, T.K. reached out to touch Patrick's son. "You're gonna be all right, little buddy. Your pa couldn't come, so he sent me to bring you home. You look like him." T.K. swallowed around the tightness in his throat. "You look like me, too. Guess that makes us kinfolk." Maybe closer than just kin, he thought, trying to unravel his emotions. Maybe a whole lot closer.

  Abruptly a second face appeared, a flurry of flailing arms erupted from the dark heap, and a fist connected solidly with T.K.'s nose. His hat sailed off and landed in a puddle of water.

  "You stinking hide hunter. Keep your filthy hands off my baby," the woman said.

  With a grunt, T.K. rose and touched the trickle of blood on his upper lip. "Wait a minute. I'm not a buffalo hunter. I'm"

  The slender wraith reeled unsteadily to her feet. Her voice trembled with rage. "Riffraff. Looter. All one and the same. Haven't we had enough trouble?"

  For three days and nights, he had traveled with little food, less sleep, and only a blanket for shelter. He was tired. "I'm trying to tell you"

  Suddenly, viciously, she kicked at his groin. "Who's listening? Get the hell away and leave us alone."

  T.K. grabbed for her, missed, and lost his balance. When they crashed to the floor, he shifted his weight, managing to land under her. He held her wrists, twisted from beneath her, then straddled her small body. "Listen, you little hellcat."

  She tried to bite him. "Let me up."

  "Lady, it's a weakness of mine not to hurt a woman, but keep this up and I'll try to overcome it. I'm here to help."

  "You have a funny way of showing it."

  T.K. laughed, unable to help himself. "Not funny. Safe."

  Curious to see what the woman looked like, he caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger. Eyes wide and intelligent, mouth overly generous, jaw a little too square, nose slightly tilted, and hair he didn't remember the hair being the color of corn silk. As dirty as she was, she was beautiful and too angry to reason with.

  T.K. hesitated to ask about her family, not wanting to cause her pain. She'd bring it up when she was ready. Gently, he brushed her matted hair back to look at the bloody bruise on her forehead. "Look, honey. We need to clean that wound. Think you can behave if I let you up?"

  Her face was carefully expressionless, but he could see the contempt in her eyes. "I find it difficult to answer when the threat refuses to go away. As for my head, nothing but a scratch. It's my ankle. I sprained it. Now if you don't want m
e to scream, you'll kindly oblige me by getting off me."

  He couldn't imagine the defiant girl coming to his bed. For that matter, he couldn't imagine her at Patrick's party. "Scream all you want, ma'am. There's nobody to hear. As for kindness, being kind to you is like buddying up to a molting rattlesnake."

  Straightening up, he slid his hands downward to her waist. He moved quickly, but not before something warm and sensual vibrated through him. From the startled look on her face, he could have sworn she felt it, too.

  "Low-life scum," she ground through her teeth.

  "I'm sorry, dammit. I didn't mean to touch you so intimately. It was an accident." He spoke with rueful amusement. "Not that I wouldn't want to, you understand, but at some other place and time. I'd even forget that you look as if you had spent the night in a pigsty." He looked at the baby before turning his gaze back to her. "Are you Lee DuBois?"

  "Who the hell did you think I was? Mary Magdalene?"

  He grinned at her impudent answer. He had to hand it to her. She had courage, even flat on her back. He rose, curled his fingers around her arms, and helped her to her feet. Steadying her, he waited until he was sure she wouldn't fall; then he reached down for his hat and slapped the soggy headpiece against his thigh. He ignored her satisfied chortle.

  "Lee DuBois, my name is Burke. T.K. Burke from the Lazy B Ranch near Tule Creek, south of Palo Duro Canyon."

  "Burke." Her voice quavered, and she took a hasty step backward, as though she had confronted Satan himself. "All the more reason to get out of my house, you . . . you Burke." She looked like a dirty rag doll, her hair tangled and falling down in her face. Pointing an imperious finger, she gestured toward the steps. "I mean now."

  If the situation had been less grim, he would have laughed. "Patrick Burke is my brother. He sent me to see about his son. Called him Toddie."

  Her eyes widened. "Oh, he did, did he?" She sniffed contemptuously. "Where is he that he couldn't come himself? In jail?"