Cherish (29 page)

“Yo?” he said softly. “I’m awake.”

She sat up, her eyes luminous in the dim light, her mussed coronet shining like a pink-gold halo at her crown. “I was just—Mr. Spencer, could I ask you an extremely personal and most embarrassing question?”

So they were back to “Mr. Spencer” again, were they?
Race raised up on an elbow. “I ain’t the real bashful type, darlin’. Fire away.”

“That’s what worries me.”

He could tell by her expression that it actually did worry her, which made him want to smile. “Don’t let it worry you. It takes all different types to make the world interestin’. You and me—hell, we’re so different, we’re flat fascinatin’.”

Looking faintly exasperated, she said, “Mr. Spencer, this is
very
difficult for me. Please don’t tease.”

He wasn’t teasing. She was the most fascinating creature he’d ever met. “I’m sorry. What is it you wanna ask me?”

She flapped a hand. “Well, you know, if I were to marry you?”

His heart stuttered. “Yeah, what about it?”

“I, um…have some concerns in regard to your, um…” She leaned toward him and whispered, “In regard to your manly inclinations.”

Since she’d whispered it, Race didn’t think she was asking if he drank, smoked, or chewed tobacco. “My inclinations when I’m makin’ love, you mean?”

She brushed at her cheek, her gaze skittering from his. “Is
that
what you call it?”

He bit back a grin, amused that she was still whispering. “That’s one of the polite names for it. What d’you call it?” he whispered back.

She leaned toward him again. “When my mother spoke with me about what to expect on my marriage night, she referred to it as ‘a man doing his business.’”

“Ah.” Race nodded and shrugged. Then he whispered, “So what’s your concerns?”

She wrapped a tuft of quilting yarn around her finger and drew it so tight that even in the dimness, he saw her fingertip go dark. By that alone, he knew how difficult it was for her to speak with him like this. “When my mother talked to me, she explained what I might expect from a man of my own religious persuasions. In our faith, physical unions take place solely for the purpose of procreation. How would you feel about that?”

Race was flat amazed. Somehow he hadn’t pictured Bible thumpers as being that type. He and his men—well, now, that was another story. Every few months they headed north to a larger town for a little procreation to break up the boredom—betting on horse races, playing poker, drinking, and dancing. And enjoying some procreation was definitely all they had in mind when they headed to an upstairs room with a sporting woman.

“Why, honey, I’d be real pleased,” Race replied. “To be honest, I figured we might come at that particular activity from two different directions and that it’d take us a spell to find us a happy meetin’ ground.”

She looked slightly bemused. “You mean—” She flapped her hand again. “You mean you’re of the same mind?”

“Absolutely.”

Her bemusement turned to unmistakable incredulity. “Truly? Somehow, you struck me as a man who—” She went to flapping her hand again, this time so hard he had cause to worry she might bust her wrist. “Are you certain, Mr. Spencer? It’s terribly important to me, you understand. That my life partner share the same views, I mean.”

Race had a bad feeling that maybe he couldn’t see shit for all the manure. “Rebecca, what is it, exactly, that’s worryin’ you?”

She wound the yarn around her fingertip again. “Well…due to certain recent events in my life, it has come to my attention that not all men are governed by religious strictures when it comes to that sort of thing. That they have base, animalistic urges that I would find abhorrent.”

Pete was a savvy old codger about females, after all. “You been worryin’ about what you saw them bastards in the arroyo doin’.”

She nodded, then let the yarn slip free from her fingertip and began wringing her hands. “I know, of course, that you’d never be cruel! I just mean—well, the tendencies to do those kinds of things—to a woman. Do you have those sorts of inclinations?”

“Honey, them ruffians is all a half-bubble off plumb. You know what I’m sayin’? They’re loco. With normal
men who ain’t loco, there ain’t a whole lot of difference between how one fella goes about things and how another one does.”

She sneaked a glance at him. “Are you saying you would go about it the same way my mother described? Like the brethren, I mean?”

He chuckled. He couldn’t help himself. “Do they stand on their heads and drink water from a glass while they’re at it, or what?”

She rewarded him with a startled giggle, which she stifled by biting her lip. “Ma never made mention of it, so I rather think not.”

“Well, then, since I got the same equipment as any other man, churchy or not, I think I’m safe in sayin’ I do it pretty much like your people do it.”

She averted her gaze from his. “I have one other question.”

“Ask away. Like I said, there ain’t a whole lot I’m bashful about.”

“Frequency,” she said softly.

Race couldn’t believe he’d heard her right. “Beg pardon?”

“How often? Ma told me what I might expect from Henry, but I—”

“Who the hell’s Henry?” Race immediately wanted to kill the son of a bitch. Jealousy, white-hot and clawing, grabbed hold of him. “
Henry
?”

She fastened a startled gaze on him. “Henry Rusk. He’s the brother the Council of Brethren selected to be my future husband. That’s why Ma explained my wifely duties to me, because the council had chosen my life partner. She would have had no reason to prepare me, otherwise.”

“Do you got feelin’s for him?”

“I respect and like him.” As if she feared he would find that appalling, she rushed to add, “I’m sure I would have grown to love him in time, and he me. We were to become officially betrothed when I reached Santa Fe, where he and his family live now, and married sometime next summer, the precise date as yet undecided.”

Race pushed up to sit cross-legged. “So you and this here Henry ain’t betrothed yet?”

“No, and even if we were, Henry and the others are bound to think I’m dead. Another wife will be selected for him, and he’ll get on with his life. Happily, I’m sure.” She sighed. “It’s not as if ours would have been a love match.”

“So how often did your ma say you could expect good old Henry to—” He cleared his throat and gestured with his hand. “Well, you know. How often?”

She wrinkled her nose and her pretty mouth tightened. “Once a week.”

Race didn’t blame her for looking disgusted. “Jesus, how old is Henry, anyway?”

“Twenty-two.”

Race pictured a Nancy-boy fanatic with a protruding Adam’s apple who wore horn-rimmed spectacles. “Sweetheart, with me as your husband, you could pretty much forget that once-a-week business. I can do a helluva lot better than that.”

She fixed lustrous blue eyes on him. “Truly?”

For the first year, he’d have this girl for dessert after every meal, then love her senseless at night. She wouldn’t have a problem sleeping anymore, that was for damned sure. “Honey, pleasin’ you would be the most important thing in the world to me, I swear it. If you ever agreed to marry me, that is.”

She searched his gaze, then bent her head to fiddle with the buttons on the front of her nightgown, which ran from chin to waist. “Well, I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking since we retired.” She looked up and nibbled at her lip. “I, um…truly don’t believe I’m ever going to wish to return to my church family in Santa Fe. Since the arroyo—” She broke off and glanced around, as if she sought answers in the shadows beyond the glow of the firelight. “I just don’t have the same beliefs now, and I doubt I ever will again.”

Race doubted it too. Not because he believed she’d never regain her faith. Without it, he feared she’d never have the ballast she needed to withstand the windstorms
life had a way of blowing at a person. For that reason, he counted it as damned important to somehow restore her belief in her God. How he would manage that, he had no idea, the only certainty being that when he did, he’d encourage her to believe differently than she had before. To stand on her own two feet. To fight to defend herself. To trust in her God to give her the strength to fight her own battles, instead of counting on Him to fight them for her.

“I see,” he said softly. “I reckon I can understand you not wantin’ to go back. As much as I’m sure they love ya, they’d expect you to take up where you left off, and that’d be damned hard after all you been through.”

She started to wring her hands again. “Yes, and that being the case, I am pretty much alone in the world now. You are my only close friend. There’s Pete. And Johnny and Mr. Grigsley, of course. And I’ve become fond of them. But not like I am of you.” She dragged in a deep breath, then exhaled with a lift of her shoulders. “Anyway, there’s no one in Denver for me, no one in Cutter Gulch. There’s only you.

“I, um, don’t suppose that’s a very good reason to marry a man. But on the other hand, I must say I am much fonder of you than I ever was of Henry, and I fully intended to marry him. I also feel convinced I would have come to love him in time. So why wouldn’t the same hold true with you?”

Race had a lump in his throat the size of a hen egg. “Rebecca, are you sayin’ you’ll be my wife?”

“Are you absolutely sure you want me?”

He couldn’t believe she was about to say yes. “Ah, honey. There’s nothin’ I want more in the whole damned world.”

“Even though you know I don’t have the same depth of feeling?”

Race felt positive he could make her love him, given a bit of time and half a chance. “Even though,” he said softly. “I just got one question. I know how come I want you. But what do you figure to get out of this marriage? I offered to let you stay with me for the next six months.”

She bent her head. “It’s not that I don’t trust your word
or anything. But it occurs to me that if you were to become truly miserable, rather than have me shoot you, you might elect to make me go to Cutter Gulch.”

“So this is kind of like a guarantee to you that I won’t do that?”

“A guarantee that I can stay with you, yes.”

“Well, hang me for a fool, darlin’, but I said six months, and I’ll give you six months. I don’t break my word.”

“And then?” She lifted her shimmering gaze to his. “When the six months are up? You’ll want to be rid of me. You’ll take me someplace and leave me there.”

Race couldn’t imagine leaving her anywhere. “You’re liable to be feelin’ a hair different in six months, honey. That gives you some healin’ time. You’ll be stronger and not feelin’ so froggy. You sure you don’t wanna wait and see how you feel then? Marriage is forever.”

“You’re attempting to talk me out of it.” There was a note of accusation in her tone. “You’ve changed your mind.”

“Nope. Get that outta your head.”

“It’s true!” Her voice went shrill. “You were all ready to do it, and now you’re not.”

“Damn it, Rebecca, that ain’t it!” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m tryin’ to do the decent thing instead of the rotten one, which is a helluva lot more appealin’. I haven’t changed my mind. I just don’t wanna take you as my wife unless you’re sure.”

“I’m sure. This way I know you won’t leave me. Not next month, not in six. Come spring, I’ll still be all alone in the world except for you. What will change? Nothing!”

“Well, I sure as hell ain’t gonna beat you off with a stick. If you’re sure, you got yourself a deal.”

“Well, then?” she said, her voice vibrant with anxiety. “It’s decided?”

“It’s decided.”

She smiled slightly. “Have you any plans for when?”

“When will we get married, you mean?” Race flashed her a slow grin. “If you’re sure you wanna do it, darlin’,
I ain’t a man to let the prettiest little trout I ever seen slip off my hook.”

“I’m absolutely positive I want to do it,” she assured him.

“Well, then, as far as I’m concerned, we can do it right now.”

“
Now
?”

She looked so startled that he chuckled. “Actually, I reckon we’ll probably marry twice. You’ll be wantin’ to say words in front of a preacher someday, I’m guessin’.”

“Someday? Most assuredly, Mr. Spencer, no ‘someday’ to it.”

“Fine with me. As soon as we can arrange it, all you gotta do is say the word, and I’ll be happy to marry you in front of a preacher.” To Race’s way of thinking, her kind of marriage wasn’t really necessary, and until he got the ruffians off their backs, there was no telling when it could even be done. He wasn’t about to wait that long. “Meanwhile, though—what with you bein’ a lady and all—I reckon you’d feel easier about sharin’ my bed if we had us a formal agreement. I’d be right proud to marry you in the way of my mother’s people, that bein’ the Apache way.”

“The Apache way?” She blinked. “Um…Mr. Spencer, is there truly such urgency? We’re only three days from your ranch. Correct? Why can’t we simply wait to share a bed until then?”

“Because you ain’t sleepin’, and until we get settled at the ranch, which could take a spell, it’ll be hard to get away to get married in town.”

“But if you’re in the wagon or the cabin with me, I’ll sleep.”

He bit back a smile. “Darlin’, lookin’ at you right now, I can’t say, in all honesty, that you seem real relaxed.”

She gave a shrill little laugh. “And you think my sharing your bed will relax me?”

“Uh-huh.” He ran his gaze over her tense body, thinking to himself that within an hour, he could have the girl feeling as if her bones had melted. “I guarant-ass-tee it.”

“Actually, Mr. Spencer, I think I would prefer to wait
and have a conventional ceremony. I’ll be fine for however long it takes to arrange it.”

“You’ll get your preacher ceremony, Rebecca. I promise you that. But for now, we can’t go that route, and I ain’t inclined to let you go on like you are until we can. You ain’t fine, darlin’. You got circles under your eyes, you’re droppin’ weight, and you’re wound up like a watch spring. As your husband, I got a magic cure for all three problems.”

“The last time I partook of a magic cure, I couldn’t walk.”

She wouldn’t be able to walk this time, either. “Rebecca, among your church folks, ain’t it an upheld rule that the man makes the important decisions and a woman does like she’s told?”