The Reluctant Bride Page 17

  “Hot damn!” Tim exclaimed. “I hope you got a second batch a’ baking, ‘cause I intend to eat every one of these.”

  “Try it and you’ll lose a hand,” Oren said. “I’m just as fond of biscuits as you are.”

  Tanzy took her seat. The men seated themselves quickly. She was amused to see Tardy had managed to get a chair next to Russ.

  “Who’s going to say blessing?” Tanzy asked.

  “Is it bad enough it needs a blessing?” Tim asked, a disappointed look on his face.

  “No, you heathen,” Welt said. “She’s talking about asking God to bless the food before we eat.”

  “We never did that before.”

  “And some of it definitely needed blessing,” Oren said.

  “I think Mr. Tibbolt ought to say the blessing,” Tardy said. “He’s the boss of this outfit.”

  Welt looked disgusted; Russ looked amused.

  “If you’re going to stay here, you’ll have to call me Russ. I’m not sure these heathens know who Mr. Tibbolt is.”

  “Nobody I want to know,” Tim said.

  “Shut up and bow your head,” Welt said.

  Tanzy was used to eating at a table filled with men, but she’d never sat though a meal like this one. To start with, the men raved about everything they put in their mouths. She’d have to make two plates of biscuits from now on. Tim and Oren nearly got into a fight over the last one. Even Welt said it was a pleasure to eat food prepared by someone who knew how to cook. Russ complained that his food bill was going to double. Buck, the fifth man, was guarding the pass. Tanzy wouldn’t meet him until tomorrow.

  It struck her as remarkable that she should feel more comfortable sitting down at the table with three men who’d served time in prison than she did having dinner in Stocker Pullet’s hotel. There had to be something wrong with her. Maybe all this Colorado sunshine was drying out her brain. Maybe her situation had gotten so far beyond her experience she couldn’t think rationally. Maybe she’d grown up so used to danger that something like this didn’t bother her. Imagining what Ethel would say made her smile.

  “You got a secret?” Tim asked.

  “No.”

  “I know that look,” Tim said. “My girl used to get it all the time.”

  “She was probably imagining how happy she’d be as soon as she could figure out how to get rid of you,” Welt said.

  “At least she didn’t run off with another guy until after I went to prison,” Tim said, uncaring about the pall he’d thrown over the conversation. “I’m volunteering for ranch duty,” he said. “I’ll take it for a whole week.”

  “What’s ranch duty?” Tardy asked.

  “It’s boring,” Tim said. “You just have to make sure nobody steals the horses or burns down the house.”

  “The kid can do that,” Oren said.

  “Nah,” Tim said. “What’s he going to do if a great big bunch of bad guys comes riding up and threatens to carry off Miss Gallant? Why, the poor kid wouldn’t know who to shoot first. And while he was making up his mind, they’d make off with her and the horses. We can’t afford to lose a woman who can cook this good.”

  “That’s mighty considerate of you,” Russ said, “but I wouldn’t trust you to watch a pretty sorrel filly, not to mention a pretty woman.”

  “You think I can’t protect her?”

  “He’s afraid you’d pester her so much making coyote eyes at her,” Welt said, “begging for more biscuits, and generally making a nuisance of yourself that she’ll throw herself into the arms of the first bad guy who shows up.”

  “I’ll fight you for it,” Tim said.

  “Before anybody gets in a brawl,” Russ said, with a grin that eased the tension in the room, “I’m giving myself the duty.”

  “You’re too old for her,” Tim cried.

  “And you’re too young for a nine-year-old,” Welt said.

  “Lest you think I’m going to spend all my time making coyote eyes at her and begging for extra biscuits,” Russ said, “let me explain that I’ll be teaching young Mr. Benton here how to become a cowhand.”

  “That ought to have you begging to watch the pass,” Welt said.

  “I’m not that bad,” Tardy protested without heat.

  Tanzy listened as the men all joined in the gentle ribbing of a very embarrassed Tardy. Though they picked apart his physical size and strength with ruthless accuracy and predicted dire results in every attempt to master handling a horse or a rope, it was done in a way that quickly made Tardy feel he was part of the crew. A raw hand, surely, but one who was accepted nonetheless. She wished the people of Boulder Gap could see Russ now. She didn’t know what he had been like in the past, but he had changed in a way that enabled him to take a group of ex-cons and meld them into a smooth-working crew that liked and respected each other.

  “Would anybody like more coffee?” Tanzy asked, getting up.

  “Don’t get up,” Tim said. “I can get it.”

  “Don’t let him touch the pot,” Welt said. “He can’t pour without spilling half over you, the floor, and himself.”

  “I’ll get it,” Tanzy said, grinning at Tim’s pretense of being affronted. “I don’t want to be treating any burns.”

  “I supposed that means I don’t have to help clean up,” Tim said. “Me being so clumsy and all, I’m bound to drop something.”

  “There’s nothing to drop,” Tardy pointed out, somewhat awed. “You ate everything.”

  “A cook likes to be appreciated,” Tanzy said. “Now you men take your coffee over to the fireplace and I’ll clean up.”

  She was amused to see Tardy again found a way to settle himself next to Russ.

  “I think we have a clear case of hero worship,” Welt said to her in an undertone.

  “Russ is the first person to try to make him feel good about himself.”

  “Russ is good at that. Look at Tim. That useless piece of rawhide thinks he’s wonderful.”

  “And you give Russ all the credit?”

  “Sure. I’m soured on life and hate to see anybody happy. Do you need help putting anything away?”

  “No. I think I remember.”

  “You’ll probably rearrange everything anyway.”

  “Probably.”

  Welt turned away, leaving Tanzy to clean up while she listened to Russ assign the next day’s duties. She finished in the kitchen, filled her coffee cup, and headed toward the men. Russ got to his feet to meet her.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” he said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Russ didn’t have much to say, but he felt uncomfortable talking to Tanzy in front of the other men. He was sure everything he said would sound different from the way he intended it. He had to make sure Tanzy didn’t misinterpret his reason for inviting her outside. This was no romantic tryst, though it might be a thawing in the relationship between them.

  “That was a wonderful meal,” he said. “The boys have decided hiring you was my best decision since choosing to make my ranch in this valley.”

  “They’re nice men. I find it hard to believe you met them in prison.”

  “A lot of men in prison shouldn’t be there. I’m trying to put that time behind me.”

  “By surrounding yourself with ex-cons?”

  “By concentrating on rebuilding my life and giving these men an opportunity to do the same.”

  “I think what you’re doing is wonderful.”

  “It’s selfish. I couldn’t have held this valley without them. Stocker has done everything he could to drive me out.”

  “He says it was his land.”

  “Stocker only wants it because it’s the best grazing land around and because he hopes to drive me out. More than ninety percent of each rancher’s range is open land. Until the government sells it to someone, it belongs to the man who’s strong enough to claim it and hold it.”

  “Why did you come back after you got out of prison?”

  How could he explain his decisio
n to her when he didn’t really understand it himself? “This is my home. I don’t know why it’s so important, but I never considered going anywhere else. Why did you leave your home?” He’d always wondered what could have happened to make a young woman who wasn’t looking for glamor and excitement leave the protection of her home.

  “My family has been involved in a feud for more than a hundred years. I was tired of the fighting. I was tired of seeing the people I loved buried in cold graves. And I was dead tired of talking and never being heard, so I ran away to St. Louis.”

  “Only to find working in a gambling hall wasn’t too good either, and you thought being a mail-order bride might be better.”

  “Something like that.”

  “What are you going to do when you leave here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You need a plan.”

  “I know.”

  “Want me to help?”

  “You already told Stocker you would.”

  Clever way of accepting his help without asking for it. Odd that he should have thought he needed to help her. Even more unusual that he wanted to. It all went back to that mysterious hold she had on him.

  “Do you ever get lonely out here?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Don’t you feel cut off?”

  “No.”

  Returning to the valley had been an important part of his rehabilitation. It had given him something of his own, something to build, something to defend. It had given him a reason for staying alive when he thought there wasn’t any. “There’s something about being out here that gets down to the essentials, to what really matters.”

  “What really matters to you?”

  “Being free. I don’t mean just being out of prison. I mean being completely free to be what I am, to believe as I do, to live the way I want. You see Boulder Gap’s rejection of me as a handicap. I see it as a blessing. Those people want nothing from me, so they don’t care what I do.”

  Why didn’t he feel as confident of those words tonight as he had in the past?

  “I grew up in a tightly knit family,” Tanzy said. “I guess that bred in me the need to be around people.”

  “I am with people. I’m with my friends.”

  “Friends aren’t the same as family.”

  “They’re better. Friends stay with you because they want to, not because they feel it’s their duty.”

  “You don’t have a very high opinion of people, do you?”

  “Except for the men here, I have little reason to.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you that everybody considers your best friends criminals?”

  “Frequently. Does that worry you?”

  “It might have before tonight, but it doesn’t seem so important now that I’ve met them.”

  “That’s your answer. It’s the people who are important, not their reputations.”

  “You have a lot of interesting points, but I’ve had a very busy day. I’m too tired for a serious philosophical discussion.” She sighed. “It’s peaceful here,” she said, looking around. “I never realized how beautiful the night sky could be.”

  “Didn’t you have sky in Kentucky?”

  “You can’t see much of it through the trees. Here the sky seems endless.”

  “It is.”

  He had situated the ranch buildings on a slight rise up against a nearly vertical stone wall to provide protection from the bitter winter winds and storms. It would also provide protection if he should ever be attacked. They walked a short distance to some trees that served as a screen. From there they could look down on the Valley as it spread out for nearly twenty miles before them.

  Once a person’s eyes got used to the diminished light, the moonlight made the valley appear nearly as light as day. It illuminated the gray flanks of the mountains that ringed his valley and glistened off the snow that capped some of the highest peaks. The trees that clung to the flanks of the mountains looked like dark, ominous bands. Russ knew them to be cool in summer, protective in winter, and a screen against unwelcome eyes peering into his valley. Water from a dozen different rivulets cascaded noisily down the mountainsides, coming together to form a stream that wound its way lazily down the length of the valley and out the narrow entrance at the other end. He could see the dark shapes of cows, some grazing, others lying down.

  “I feel like I could stay here forever,” Tanzy said.

  Those words should have hit him like cold water in the face, but they had nearly the opposite effect. He wanted her to stay. That didn’t make sense. What the hell was the hold she had on him, and how was he going to break it?

  “You just said you couldn’t stay in a place like this, that you had to have people around you.”

  “I’d like to go to town occasionally to see other women, but I could be very happy here if I had a husband who respected me and children to love.”

  “Don’t you want a husband who loves you?”

  “Every woman dreams of that, but I’d settle for one who respects me.”

  He almost said he could respect a woman if he found one who deserved it, but he wasn’t sure he’d be telling the truth. It seemed incredible to him that any man would let himself be advised by a woman, much less act on her advice when it went counter to his own opinion. “I think many men love women, their mothers, wives, daughters, but they love them as helpless creatures who need a man’s strength and guidance.”

  “I wouldn’t want to marry a man who thought I was so weak, stupid, and helpless I couldn’t survive without him.”

  “A man doesn’t want a wife who’ll argue with him over everything.”

  “I wouldn’t argue with my husband over everything, but I would expect him to respect my opinion enough to listen and give it fair and honest consideration.”

  Russ couldn’t restrain a small chuckle. “Where do you think you’re going to find a man like that?”

  “The same place you’ll find a woman who’ll marry you.”

  “Then we’ll both be single I’m a lying, thieving ex-con.”

  “You’re smart, ambitious, hardworking, kind, and thoughtful.”

  She sounded like she really meant it.

  “Some people might give you the ambitious and hardworking, but not the rest.”

  “Everybody treats Tardy like some kind of idiot, but you’ve gone out of your way to make him feel better about himself.”

  “In a way he reminds me of myself years ago.”

  “You must have done something to have earned your men’s loyalty.”

  “I pay them.”

  “There’s more than that. You said yourself they’d stick with you no matter what. Men don’t do that without a good reason. I wish the people in Boulder Gap could see what I’ve seen tonight. I think some of them would change their minds.”

  “Not Stocker or Ethel.”

  “Maybe not, but not everyone feels about you as they do.”

  “They’d never let on.”

  “I know. They’re cowards. At least nobody can say that about you.”

  Russ was having a difficult time believing anyone other than Welt could think so well of him. It sounded as if she liked him. He had a feeling he was about to start liking her, but maybe this new feeling was all right. She didn’t want to marry him and he didn’t want to marry anyone, so liking her was safe.

  Deciding that seemed to release a ball of tension inside him.

  “What are you sighing about?” Tanzy asked.

  He hadn’t realized he’d made any sound. “Just thinking how nice it is to be standing outside on a beautiful summer night talking with a woman who doesn’t think I’m the devil’s son. It’ll take a while, but I think I could get used to it.”

  “I’ll get Tardy to help.”

  He didn’t want Tardy’s and Tanzy’s feelings about him combined. He wanted them separate so he could tell exactly what she felt.

  “Boys like Tardy can’t help admiring somebody who stands up against th
e same forces that have belittled them,” Russ said.

  “You might be the one person who can save his life.”

  “You’ve done that.”

  “I only started. He needs a man to take him the rest of the way.”

  “And you think I can be that man?”

  “I think you’re the only man who can do it.”

  Russ wasn’t certain what he was feeling just then, but he was certain it could be very dangerous if it got out of control. This experiment in liking a woman wasn’t going very well. It hadn’t been five minutes and already he was starting to feel unlike himself. He’d better bring this attempt to a close in a hurry.

  He put his fingertips under Tanzy’s chin and lifted her head until he could look into her eyes. “No one’s ever said anything that nice to me. Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me for telling the truth.”

  “I don’t know that you have. I’m thanking you for believing in me.”

  He leaned down to kiss her. He’d intended to kiss her cheek, her forehead, even the end of her nose, but he somehow found himself kissing her lips. The shock was so great he couldn’t move. Then, once he could, he didn’t want to.

  He’d never known something as simple as a kiss could reach out and yank him off his feet so quickly. He’d never realized a woman’s belief in him could make him want to cling to her, to put his arms around her and pull her to him so she could never get away.

  He suddenly realized his arms had encircled Tanzy’s waist, that he had pulled her to him. She hadn’t broken the kiss, she hadn’t tried to pull away. He couldn’t tell whether time stood still or his brain stopped functioning, but the kiss seemed to go on forever.

  “Russ, where are you? Welt says I can’t sleep in the bunkhouse.”

  Tardy’s voice cut through the night with the sharpness of a thunderclap. Russ came to his senses to find Tanzy wrapped in his arms in a passionate embrace. He released her and nearly jumped back. He didn’t know what the hell had gotten into him.

  “Russ, where are you?”