Page 48 of Taming Elijah


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“You searched for her?”

“Yeah. I figured she didn’t want to be found, so I left it alone after a few months.”

His brother didn’t know he was a father. Hell. Elijah thought of Beth’s fragility and hesitated. “How did you come to know her?”

Joshua shrugged. “I don’t really.”

Elijah narrowed his eyes and took in the flash of something in Joshua’s gaze. Guilt? “How did you meet her, Joshua?”

Elijah waited patiently while Joshua took several drags of his cigarette. His gaze was flat and blank as he stared at the cabin.

“I met her through her husband. I only had the one encounter with her.”

Foreboding filled Elijah and he stared at his brother, hoping he did not say what Elijah was thinking. “How did you know her through her husband?”

Joshua turned and Elijah flinched from the pain in his brother’s eyes. It flared hot and potent before Joshua quickly shuttered it.

“She worked off his debt.”

“Fuck, Joshua!”

They stood in silence watching each other. Elijah remembered everything he knew of Beth’s husband. He was a brutish, nasty son of a gun. Elijah did not question how she came to be at the ranch. But in the wary gazes she gave him, he saw the hints of frailty Sheridan spoke of. But he also saw the strength and the pride.

He didn’t want to ask this of his brother but he had to, if he was going to reveal Joshua had a son. “Was she willing?”

The silence became painful. Elijah closed his eyes. It felt like hours before he opened them to see shadows creeping over the mountain. They were storm clouds, and they gathered as surely as the one brewing in his gut. “If Beth’s husband gave her to you, to work his debt off on her back and you took his offer, Joshua. I am going to beat you to a fucking pulp.” He met his brother’s gaze with rage burning in his blood. “Test the truth of my words.”

“There is nothing you can do to me, Elijah, which I haven’t done to myself.”

He didn’t want to think Joshua would rape anyone. “Was she willing?” Elijah snarled, unable to let it go.

“It was a willingness brought on by fear of her husband. Blinded by my own lust for her, I saw the fear too late.”

Elijah heard the torment in his voice. He heard something else. Dark and dangerous. Elijah thought about the fact that Beth had hidden from her husband at the ranch for almost two years now, but her husband had not found her. “He is not coming for her, is he?”

“No.”

He left it at that. Some secrets should be kept in the dark.

“If you were to approach her now, would she react in fear?” While he wanted Joshua to know his son and for the Triple K to claim him, Elijah doubted he could do it, if it would unravel Beth further. She had been hysterical when they had taken Sheridan. The fear in her wide brown eyes had sickened him. No woman should feel such fear. If Joshua had been the one to put it there, Elijah would beat him bloody.

Joshua dragged on his cigarette, a picture of cool. Elijah saw in his eyes though the rioting emotions. They had always been able to read each other. Joshua was the one person Elijah did not even think to lie to, and he hoped to God his brother didn’t think it necessary to deceive him.

“I have no reason to approach her,” he finally responded with a grimace.

“You have not answered my question.”

Joshua glanced at him sharply. “Why is it important?”

“Does she have reason to fear you?” Elijah snarled.

“I did not rape her,” Joshua said tightly. “She gave herself willingly and I was not man enough to say no. If I hurt her, it was because she had never had a man before, and I realized it too late.”

“Hell.”

“Those were my sentiments. She had been Mrs. Hardin for two years and was a damn virgin. I never expected that.”

Joshua stepped towards him and clasped his shoulder. “Why all these questions? Is she hurt?”

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