The Reluctant Bride Page 13

  “I’m not a boy!” Jem shouted. “I’m just as much a man as you.”

  Russ swallowed the words that rose to his tongue. He remembered how he’d felt at the same age, how injured feelings had caused him to nearly ruin his life.

  “Then act like it,” Russ said. “No man worthy of the name forces himself on a woman.”

  Russ released his hold on Jem and stepped back. Jem looked for a moment like he would attack Russ. Instead, he straightened his clothes.

  “I’m not forcing myself on her. I want to marry her.”

  Russ turned his shocked gaze on Tanzy. He hadn’t thought she was the kind of woman to be interested in a boy just so she could have a rich husband.

  “I tried to tell him I’m too old for him,” Tanzy said.

  “I told her it didn’t make any difference,” Jem said.

  Jem’s embarrassment had had time to turn to anger. Now he was as mad as a wolf ready to fight a grizzly. Russ had never been in love, never fancied himself in love, but he could empathize with the boy wanting people to treat him like a man.

  “If you want to marry a woman, there are several things you ought to do first.”

  “What, kill somebody, spend time in prison, and steal cows?”

  Russ didn’t rise to the bait. He’d heard worse before.

  “You need a job.”

  “I have money.”

  “Your own money, not your father’s,” Russ said, “enough to support a wife and the children who will follow. You need a house of your own, not a bedroom in your father’s house. And you need to find your place among the men in the community.”

  “Ma won’t let me go to work. She says I’m too young.”

  “You know the work and you’re strong enough to handle your father’s teams. I think you ought to talk to your father right away.”

  Jem looked caught between anger and the picture Russ had painted for him.

  “Ma won’t let me.”

  “If you’re the man I think you can be, you’ll convince your father and he’ll convince your mother.”

  Jem looked undecided. “What are you doing here?” he asked Russ.

  “Miss Gallant still owes me the money I advanced her for traveling expenses. I’m just checking to make sure she still has a job.”

  “If she married me, I’d pay you and be rid of you.”

  “I’d be happy to disappear. Now you’d better go talk to your father. There’s no time like the present.”

  Jem apparently wanted to leave, but he didn’t want to feel like he’d been run off.

  “I’d speak for you,” Russ offered, “but I doubt your father would listen to me.”

  “Nobody needs to speak for me,” Jem said, firing up. “I’m man enough to speak for myself. And the next time I’m talking to a woman, you’d better not get in my way.”

  He turned and stalked out without waiting for an answer.

  “What did you do to make the boy think you were in love with him?” Russ asked Tanzy.

  “I can’t believe you would ask me something like that,” Tanzy said.

  “You can act shocked and angry if it makes you feel better, but I know about boys that age. They sometimes get crushes on older women, but not unless the woman makes him think she’s available.”

  “I can’t believe I was about to congratulate you on your sensitivity. Instead of humiliating him, you actually managed to make him feel better about himself.”

  “I can sympathize with him. You might win over his father, but his mother won’t let him marry you.”

  Tanzy looked like she was ready to hit him. She clenched her hands to her sides, turned, and walked away a few steps, appeared to get herself in hand, then turned to face him. Her shoulders sagged and her expression shifted from anger to something perilously close to defeat.

  “I don’t know what I did,” she said. Tardy told me Jem was telling everybody he liked me, but I figured that was just the posturing of a boy who thought he was too big to be in school. I tried to encourage him to work hard, but no more than I encouraged anybody else.”

  “I’ve seen a conniving woman bring strong men to their knees, ruin others, make men do things they never dreamed of doing. You’ve got that kind of power.”

  “I can’t. I don’t want it.”

  He’d never had any reason to believe she was deceitful, but maybe she’d refused to marry him because she thought she could make a better bargain. Not only were young fellas like Jem susceptible to her charms, older men like Stocker had shown they were equally attracted to her. Could she be just like his mother, always angling for a better deal?

  “I don’t think you can keep people from being attracted to you, but you can make certain you don’t tempt young boys.”

  “You’ve just added another item to the list of reasons not to marry you,” Tanzy said, angry again.

  “What, being honest?”

  “No, thinking I would attempt to take advantage of any man, but especially a boy, just so I could make a rich marriage.”

  “Women do it all the time.”

  “I don’t, or I’d have put aside all my scruples and married you. What are you doing here? And don’t pretend you came only to rescue me.”

  “I came by to give you what I wrote.”

  “You’ve already written something for this week.”

  “I’ve been doing a lot of night duty in the pass. The boys don’t like staying awake all night so they’re not complaining.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “Since prison, I don’t sleep too well.”

  “That must leave you feeling sleepy a lot of the time.”

  “My ma always said I was too fidgety to sleep much. It’s just as well. Cows need a lot of looking after.”

  “You’re always talking about what the cows need. Don’t the people who take care of the cows ever want anything, need anything, for themselves?”

  “Sure, we do. We’re no different from anybody else.”

  “Yet I never see any of your men in town, and you only come because I’m teaching you to read.”

  “Some of us know what we can’t have. There’s no use fighting against what can’t be helped, so we just put our minds to other things.”

  “Like taking care of cows?”

  “It’s as good as anything.”

  “What would you have if you could be treated like everybody else?”

  Russ wondered if Tanzy really wanted an answer to her question, or if she was just asking to have something to say. Even idle curiosity would be better than that.

  “It’s better not to think about the things I can’t have. I’m much happier that way.”

  “I don’t agree. If you don’t think about what you want, you can’t be sure what it is. If you don’t know what it is, you might not notice if you come upon it by surprise.”

  “You act like it’s the same as finding something that’s fallen off a wagon. You can’t have it if it doesn’t exist.”

  “I don’t believe people want what doesn’t exist.”

  Russ was becoming impatient with the conversation. Tanzy obviously didn’t understand what it meant to have been unwanted all his life, to have everybody turn their backs on him, to automatically blame him for anything that went wrong, refuse to give him credit for anything he did that was right. Otherwise, she wouldn’t stir up feelings that were better left undisturbed.

  But they’d already been disturbed. He hadn’t wanted her to come to Boulder Gap, but he’d had a reaction to her unlike anything that had ever happened to him. It had been so unexpected, so immediate, so genuine, that doors to the inner recesses of his heart had burst open and hope escaped before he could corral it and lock it up again. For three days he was able to believe someone would take him just as he was—no baggage from the past—and give him a chance to allay some of the loneliness that had been his companion all his life. He hadn’t hoped for much, just someone who could like him just a little bit.

  He knew
in his heart Tanzy liked him still. Yet his past had come between them, destroyed any chance that she would step within the circle of friendship. If she couldn’t get past Stocker’s accusation and Ethel’s doubts, no woman could.

  “I have my ranch and friends,” he said.

  “Is that all you want?”

  “Lots of people have less.”

  “You can’t want so little. It’s not normal.”

  Nothing about his life had been normal. “Not every man is anxious to get married or have a family. Even some women aren’t. They like the freedom to change partners when they get a hankering for something different … or they find someone else who’s willing to spend more money on them.”

  “I’m not talking about everybody. I’m talking about you.”

  “Why should you care about me if you dislike me so much you don’t want to marry me?”

  “I never said I dislike you. On the contrary, I admire you. I think it takes tremendous courage to do what you’ve done, and it makes me angry people don’t recognize it.”

  Russ didn’t trust himself to speak for a moment. No one had ever said they admired him. Well, some of the boys had, but that was because he could fight with his fists, shoot the buds off a cactus, and ride any horse you put him on. That wasn’t the kind of thing a woman admired. Tanzy was talking about him.

  If he could trust her. After Jem, he wasn’t sure.

  “What have I done?” He had to get this straight. He didn’t want to go around believing she was meaning one thing when she was talking about something else entirely.

  “From what I’ve heard, you had a wild youth and an unfortunate fight that landed you in prison. Yet you haven’t let it sour you on life or make you bitter. You haven’t let people’s dislike and distrust do it, either. You’ve gone about your business and built your own ranch out of nothing. You’ve got cowhands who trust you enough to stay with you even though things can’t be easy. That’s more than most people can say for themselves, but you also had the courage to admit you couldn’t read and to do something about it.”

  “If I’d had all that much courage, I’d have done something about it a long time ago.”

  Her voice softened. “I don’t know what your life was like before I got here, but I expect you had more pressing things on your mind.”

  Russ realized he’d been standing like a stone yet he couldn’t move. Nobody had ever said half the things Tanzy had just said. Not even Betty. He could tell there was a huge difference between what Betty felt for him and what Tanzy said, a difference so big he could hardly take it in all at once. He felt weak in the knees, as if the iron will that had sustained him for so long had suddenly been yanked out of his spine.

  “These things you’ve been writing,” Tanzy said, pointing to the pages he still held in his hand, “have shown me there’s a very different person inside from what your neighbors see. I’m certain one day, when they’re tired of listening to Stocker’s bitterness, they’ll begin to see what I see.”

  Those were some of the nicest words anybody had ever spoken to him, but they had the same effect on him as being tossed in an icy stream. They brought him back to reality.

  “They’ll never stop listening to Stocker. He wouldn’t let them. They only admire toughness. That’s what it takes to survive.”

  “You’ve got the toughness to fight for what you want, to hold on to it, to protect it. You also have the heart and sensitivity to appreciate that life’s greatest moments aren’t born of fighting but of giving, sharing, loving. You’re one of the lucky ones.”

  Then why did he feel like one of the damned? He was proud of his strength. It was all that enabled him to survive, but he cursed this sensitivity she valued so highly. It wouldn’t let him ignore the truth that something essential was missing in his life. Why couldn’t he be like Stocker, loving nothing but money, being obsessed with controlling other people, being blind to everything except what he wanted? What was it about this woman that kept pulling at his insides like burrs that wouldn’t let go? Her refusal to marry him hurt even though he’d already decided they’d never suit. It was to her that he’d come to confess he couldn’t read. Then he’d compounded the error by putting thoughts onto the pages he wrote that he should never have revealed. She could pull things out of him despite his resistance.

  “You still don’t want to marry me, and everybody in Boulder Gap hates me. All this sensitivity does is make me realize how miserable I am.”

  “You’ll find someone who’ll love you and make you happy. Betty Hicks loves you. She—”

  “Betty became infatuated with me when I was the town bad boy. In five years she’d be miserable and make me miserable, too.”

  There are lots of women in the world, many who would think themselves lucky to have a husband like you.”

  “But you’re not one of them.”

  She looked uncomfortable.

  “You already answered that,” he said. “Here’s what I wrote,” he said, holding it out to her. “I did this one by myself, so I expect there’ll be lots of mistakes.”

  She reached for it, but he didn’t let go.

  “You’ve done remarkably well,” she said. “If all my students did as well, I’d think myself a magician.”

  “In a way I guess you are.”

  “How?”

  He couldn’t tell her. That was something even she couldn’t pull out of him. “Thanks for caring,” he said. “I’d forgotten how nice it feels.”

  Then he bent down and kissed her.

  Russ couldn’t say why he had done such a thing. He’d come here intending to do everything he could to break the relationship between them. Yet here he was kissing her.

  And he couldn’t stop.

  He’d kissed a lot of women in his youth, not all while he was sober enough to remember what it was like, but he was certain it had never felt like this. There was the soft intake of breath, of surprise, but she didn’t pull away. She was hesitant, unsure, but her lips were soft and sweet. It wasn’t an aggressive kiss. He felt more like they were both suddenly suspended in time. No swift movement, no sudden decisions, just a flood of emotions that immobilized him.

  Russ had never thought of women as soft and vulnerable, a desirable part of his life. They were necessary to the reproductive process, a way to accommodate the drives that were part of being a man. But in his experience, they were also hard or threatening, to be avoided whenever possible.

  She didn’t pretend helplessness, but there was a vulnerability that reached out to his instinctive need to protect those weaker than himself. Her kiss was tentative without being weak, cautious without being fearful, adventuresome without being aggressive. It invited him to come along while giving him the freedom to back away. It promised nothing but held out the possibility of everything.

  They broke the kiss but somehow seemed to remain in its thrall.

  Russ wondered if his expression was as full of surprise as Tanzy’s. He wondered if her feelings for him were as confused as his for her. He felt incapable of speech. Too many thoughts whirled about in his head, all part of a pattern of thought that was changing so rapidly that the words were wrong the moment he thought of them.

  He wondered how it was possible for Tanzy to look one way for a moment, then completely different seconds later. He wondered if he was going crazy. Things weren’t like they were supposed to be, yet he couldn’t figure out exactly how they were, what had changed. He felt a little off balance, at a loss to do anything about it.

  He had to say something. Surely the sound of his own voice would start his brain functioning again, make some order of the chaos of his mind.

  “Get your hands off my man, you hussy.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Russ spun around to see Betty marching down the aisle toward them looking as mad as a scalded cat.

  “I warned you to stay away from Russ!” she hollered at Tanzy. “He’s my man.”

  “I don’t want—” Tanzy began.


  “I’m no woman’s man,” Russ said, furious Betty would think he belonged to her.

  “I knew you weren’t the sweet little thing you pretended to be,” Betty said, closer now and focusing her attention on Tanzy.

  “What are you doing here?” Russ asked Betty.

  “I saw you headed in this direction and I followed,” Betty said. “I knew she was up to no good from the first day she set foot in town.”

  “If I’d been after Russ,” Tanzy said, “I’d have married him when he offered instead of turning him down.”

  “I don’t know what your game is,” Betty said, “but” I know you’re up to something.”

  Russ was angry that Betty had caught him kissing Tanzy. He didn’t know what to make of that kiss himself just yet. He certainly didn’t want anybody else knowing about it until he figured his feelings out. Ten years ago he’d have been pleased to have two women fighting because of him. Now he grabbed Betty by her arms and turned her away from Tanzy to face him.

  “I’m not your man,” he said. “I never have been. I never will be.”

  “That’s not true,” Betty said, trying to put her arms around him. “You loved me before you went to prison. You said you wanted to marry me.”

  “If I did, I was drunk. I had more than enough reason to know I never wanted to get married.”

  “You can’t hate all women just because of your mother,” Betty said. “I love you.”

  “I don’t love you,” Russ said. “I told you that before I went to prison. I told you again when I got out.”

  “You can’t love her,” Betty said, directing a furious glance at Tanzy. “She’s a lying tramp.”

  “I don’t love anybody” Russ said, “not you, not Tanzy.”

  “See, you call her by her first name!”

  “I call you by your first name and I don’t love you.”

  “Yes, you do. You’ve always loved me.”

  Russ didn’t know why Betty couldn’t accept the fact that he didn’t love her and was never going to, but he was tired of having to deal with her jealousy and possessiveness.

  “I don’t love anybody. Now go back to the saloon before you lose your job.”