Travis Justice Read Free Page B

second-in-command of the Texas Rangers was susceptible to home invaders at his own residence. She’d counted on that inconvenient reality. So far she’d been right, but it was early yet.
    She went up to the third floor, hating the smells and sounds of people dying all around her. She knocked cursorily on her grandfather’s door, but he had an equally sick older man sharing his room, so it was a needed courtesy. The other bed was empty. When she moved aside the curtain around her grandfather’s bed, she was shocked at his gray pallor. This place seemed to leech the life out of him by the day. She wished she could take him out of here to die in peace at his own nice little home in Hyde Park—a bungalow, really—with the huge Japanese garden in the back, complete with a koi pond and raked sand garden that her grandfather changed with his moods.
    But the little house was lost to her too. Like her mother, like her father, like . . . Knowing she couldn’t let her grandfather see her cry, she bit back tears and took Jiji’s hand. So papery, the skin, and even though she cradled it between both of her warm hands, he didn’t stir. She saw his thin chest rising and falling and noticed all the instruments that monitored his vitals appeared to be functioning. Still, this pile of bones and covers in the bed was little reminiscent of the man who’d shaped her into who she was. He’d saved her from her own foolishness more times than she could count. Despair almost overcame her, but she smoothed her expression and sat next to his bed, unfolding the paper.
    The print swam before her eyes, coalescing into an accusatory finger. Jiji had given her everything and she couldn’t give him the one solace he’d asked for before he died. She’d failed him. Again. For the moment, all she had to offer was the love brimming over in her heart; all she had to say were words strangely comforting in their banality. One hour led into the next as she read the paper to him; the ritual, even though he was asleep and didn’t hear her, slightly soothing her own anxiety.
    But even as she read, other thoughts tormented her. Who did she go to now to try to track down the sword? Would Kai give her another chance? Would the Travis family be angry enough at her intrusion to demand DNA testing? Would she see Zachary Travis again?
    Most of the questions had no answer, but one certainty stood out: The strange attraction she’d felt toward Zachary Travis was a distant memory now, as it should be. It could quite literally get her killed. It was best—for both of them—that their paths didn’t cross again. The sun was lowering in the sky, and still she sat there, reading the comics now. Her grandfather never stirred, though his breathing was peaceful. He seemed genuinely asleep. But she’d seen his pain when he was awake, so she was careful not to disturb him. As she turned the paper to the last page, she saw she’d come to the obituaries. She swallowed down acid and crumpled the paper into a ball, tossing it into the garbage can against the wall. She closed her eyes. Like these lost souls, soon enough he’d be but an image, a life that defied description synopsized to a few lines of terse text. His only future now lay in these pages.
    The tears were too strong this time, even for her iron will. She rested her forehead gently on the side of the bed and wept, holding his frail hand. She felt caught between two nightmarish realities: fear that Grandfather would die—and fear that he wouldn’t.

Chapter 2
    T hat same morning, Zach came downstairs fully dressed in his leather chaps, boots, and jacket. It was still early, and even though it was a Saturday, he knew his parents would both be on the terrace eating the elaborate breakfast Consuela prepared come hail or drought, peace or war, famine or plenty. Zach winked at his favorite senora, ignoring his father’s glare at his attire.