Rose (11 page)

Of course nothing stayed the same forever. It rarely lasted a day, even a few hours. This serenity would be destroyed when his brothers came home. Monty’s energy, Hen’s intensity, and Tyler’s moodiness would be enough to dispel it completely.

Would he feel this way again tomorrow, next week, or was it just a passing mood?

Now that he thought about it, he realized his brothers’ moods had become less extreme during the past weeks. Was that because of Rose, too?

“Now that Tyler’s got the chicken coop finished, I’ll stay and help Rose,” Monty offered next day.

George regarded his younger brother steadily, skepticism in his gaze.

“When did you find you could do any work except from the back of a horse?”

“You said we were all going to have to help out,” Monty reminded George. “You and Tyler have done more than your share. Hen stayed yesterday. It’s my turn to lend a hand.”

“When did you develop such a democratic attitude?” Jeff asked. He had returned from Austin the night before, and the tension had returned with him.

“When I realized I liked looking at Rose better than looking at cows,” Monty replied. “Besides, the work’s got to be easier.”

“I think it’s good for us all to take turns,” Hen said. “Then everybody knows how hard everybody else works.”

“A good point,” George said, getting up.

“Can I go with you?” Zac asked.

“No, you have too many chores to do.”

“Monty can do them.”

“I’m not doing your work and mine too,” Monty said.

“Tyler can stay,” Zac said.

“I’ve been here all week,” Tyler protested.

“I’ve been here all my life,” Zac said.

“You’ll get to ride with us soon,” George assured Zac, “and when you do, you’ll probably wish you were back here.”

“I wish I was in New Orleans,” Zac said. “I wouldn’t have to milk cows and fetch eggs then.”

George cursed himself for the weakness which made him give in to his need to know what was happening between Rose and Monty, but he kept the cows moving. He did need to bring them back to be bred to the bull, but they usually did that at the end of the day.

The fact that they had located more cows than usual that
had just calved or were about to calve wasn’t really an excuse. He just wanted to see Rose. And that was that.

He wondered if it had anything to do with her ability to make the ranch seem like a home. Recently he had noticed a subtle difference in how his brothers talked about the ranch. Their discussions were more relaxed; they seemed more anxious to be together for meals. Sometimes they even spoke as though the ranch would be part of their future.

She had helped bring them closer together as a family.

She constantly went out of her way to do things for each of them. She fixed the game Monty brought home and carefully avoided touching anything in Hen’s part of the room. She never called Tyler a boy or drew attention to his gangly, uncoordinated body. She had become even fonder of Zac. She saw to it he did his chores properly, but she spent hours talking to him as she did her work, answering the hundreds of questions all six-year-olds ask and giving him individual attention when he felt rather overwhelmed by five brothers who towered over him.

She also understood that Jeff felt less of a man because of his missing arm. It was beyond her power to do anything about that, but neither did she coddle him.

And she spoiled George. He knew he only had to state a wish, even a preference, and it was his. She looked to him for approval. It seemed the more he praised her, the harder she worked. It made him feel guilty to have her value his opinion so much.

And it made him feel wonderful.

He was finally able to admit he hungered for this kind of attention. His father had never given him any affection, and his mother hadn’t made up the difference. She never had any thought for anyone except her husband. If George dared to criticize his father, she would reproach him with tearful reminders of his own broken promises.

Rose was so different. She was strong and vital, ready to stand up for herself and perfectly willing to scold his brothers
when they got out of line. Equally willing to tell him when she thought he was wrong.

He found it hard to think of the two women as being at all similar. He had found Rose’s attitude uncomfortable in the beginning, but it wasn’t nearly as hard to get used to as he first imagined. Probably because she was an extremely sensible woman. He wondered what his life would have been like if his mother had been more like Rose.

George cast all thought of his parents out of his mind. They had lived their lives, made their choices, paid their penalties.

Nothing could be changed now.

“Thank God you’re back,” Monty said, erupting from the house the moment the first cow reached the lane. “Do you know what that woman has had me doing? Laundry! I’ve fetched and carried and stirred until I can’t see straight. If I have to stay another hour, I might join Cortina’s bandits.”

Monty stayed long enough to help George herd the cows into the corral, then he rode out as fast as his horse would carry him.

Rose came out of the house as George walked up. She wore a wide-brimmed sunbonnet tied under her ear with a large bow. Totally impractical for the south Texas plains, but definitely eye-catching.

She also wore a dress of yellow calico which hugged her shoulders, breasts, and waist as no dress she had worn since she arrived at the ranch. The sight of her breasts, full and high, mesmerized George. He forgot about piquant, innocent, or charming. Lust had him wriggling frantically in its toils.

“What did you do to Monty?” George asked, trying to keep his mind off Rose’s body.

“I told him he had to work as much as he talked. The effort wore him out.” She laughed. “I’ll never let him forget he wasn’t strong enough to do woman’s work. Have you seen Zac? He’s supposed to help me pick berries.” She carried two woven reed baskets.

“He probably took my arrival as an excuse to disappear. Want me to go with you?”

“Aren’t the boys expecting you back?”

“Monty took my place.”

“Then I’d be happy to have you go with me.” George thought she looked a little flustered.

“Where are the berries?”

“I was just going down to the creek. But now that you’re here, we can go to the place Monty told me about, the one a mile below the ford.”

“That’s a long walk.”

He looked forward to that. He’d make sure he had to help her across as many creeks and fallen logs as possible.

“We’ll have to ride, or I won’t be back in time to start dinner.”

George was able to keep his mind off Rose’s breasts for the time it took to saddle two horses, but the moment he put his hands around her waist and lifted her into the saddle, it came crashing down on him again. He felt his body tense and his groin begin to swell. Climbing into the saddle was uncomfortable. Remaining there was a minor misery.

“It’s nice to get away for a few hours,” Rose commented as they rode. “I feel as if I’ve been tied to the house ever since I got here.”

George wondered how he had been able to keep his hands off her for two weeks. He wondered even more why the need to touch her should suddenly overwhelm him. Maybe it had been this way with his father. If so, he understood why his father had failed so often.

“I’ll take you into town if you would like.”

“Maybe soon. I’m content to stay here for the time being.”

George didn’t realize he had been anxious about her answer until he felt himself relax. Apparently his jealousy extended to every man who might look at her. He waited for the wonderful feeling of contentment, but it didn’t come today. His whole body felt as taut as his groin.

“What do you plan to do with the berries?”

“I want to make a pie. Zac wants jam.”

Talking about jams and jellies, canning vegetables, digging
potatoes, drying peas and beans, planting collards and spinach so they would have something green to eat during the winter, should have bored him.

But it excited him. It meant Rose was planning to stay.

George forgot he was like his father. He thought of nothing but Rose’s beauty and how much he longed to hold her in his arms and kiss her until they melted into one another.

They reached the berries too soon. George was out of the saddle and next to Rose in a flash.

“I can get down by myself,” she said.

But he already had his hands around her waist. They stayed there, and Rose stayed in the saddle.

“Are you going to let me down?” she asked.

She tried to turn it off lightly, but George could see she felt the tension between them just as much as he did. He lifted her down. Rose turned within the circle of his hands to untie her baskets from the saddle.

“Do you mean to keep me pinned against this horse all afternoon?”

George let his hands drop slowly. “I’ll let you go, but I’d rather not. I never realized how lovely you are.”

“It’s hard to look attractive slaving over a stove or a boiling wash pot,” Rose said, moving away from George toward the berries that hung heavy on the vines. She smiled at him, a little coquettishly, George thought. “It’s surprising what a new hat and a pretty dress can do.”

“It’s not the clothes—”

“Not that this hat or dress is new,” Rose continued, her gaze on the berries she had begun to pick rapidly. “I haven’t been able to buy anything this nice since Daddy died. Get a basket and start picking,” she directed when she looked around and saw George still standing by the horses. “We’ll be here all afternoon if I have to do it all myself.”

George staked the horses, picked up a basket, and started picking. But he spent so much time looking over at Rose that his fingers soon bore the marks of dozens of thorn pricks.

“They’re supposed to be blackberries, not red,” Rose said, noticing the drops of blood welling up on his hands.

“I don’t seem to have your skill at avoiding thorns.”

“You would if you’d watch what you’re doing.”

“I’d much rather watch you.”

George’s directness flustered Rose, but not enough to slow her work.

“Maybe I should have waited for Zac. He picks faster than you do.”

“He probably eats more, too.”

“Probably,” Rose agreed.

But the tension remained between them. The sky was cloudy and the breeze cool, but George’s blood grew hotter.

“He can’t appreciate you the way I do.”

“I don’t know. You ought to see the way he devours blackberry jam. I wonder what happened to him.”

George threw his basket down and marched over to Rose. He spun her around to face him. “You can’t prefer the attentions of a six-year-old to mine.”

“He’s safer.”

“I thought I was St. George, slayer of dragons and protector extraordinaire?”

“I always wondered what he did with the princess after he killed the dragon. My book didn’t say.”

“If she looked as lovely as you, he must have carried her off to his castle.”

George never intended to kiss Rose. He wanted her so badly his joints ached from the tension, his screaming nerves made his skin protest against the roughness of his clothes, but he never intended to touch her. Now it seemed impossible not to. She seemed to fit naturally into the circle of his arms. Her head seemed to automatically lean back to meet his lips as they descended on hers.

Everything seemed so natural, so right. Her lips felt soft and warm under his. Just as he had dreamed so many times. Her lips quivered in hesitation, then met his lips firm and eager.
They tasted sweet. He wondered why he hadn’t thought to kiss her before. He wondered if his father had felt this way.

“Do you think the princess minded?” Rose asked breathlessly.

“Minded what?” George asked, his mind empty of everything except Rose.

She stood on tiptoe, her whole body leaning against him. George felt his groin swell in response to the pressure of her breasts against his chest, the rubbing of her thighs against his own. How could he have thought he was immune to women when just one kiss could demolish his resistance? His arms tightened around Rose as his lips took hers in a feverish kiss.

“Being carried off to his castle,” Rose said, when she finally managed to disengage herself. “Maybe she loved someone else.”

“Princesses are only allowed to love the knight who rescues them.”

“Mmmm.” Rose seemed to find nothing to object to in George’s reasoning. Nor with the kisses he planted on the corner of her mouth or the end of her nose. In fact, she seemed to be in total agreement with his program of action. George felt her arms go around his neck.

George felt as though something inside him burst loose from its bindings. He could never remember feeling so absolutely wonderful in his entire life.

As much as it stirred his physical need of her to the breaking point, holding Rose tight against his chest fulfilled another need deep inside him. It was almost as though she were holding him, as though her arms were enfolding him in a protective embrace.

Rose sighed with contentment and leaned her head against George’s chest. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“How could anybody not like a woman as pretty as you?”

“You never said anything.”

“I was trying to stay away from you.”

“I was afraid you were angry at me for getting the boys upset.”

“I couldn’t be angry at you, at least not for long.”

George kissed the top of her head and pulled her back into his embrace.

“I’ve got to finish the berries,” Rose said, attempting to break away.

“They can wait a little longer.”

“No, they can’t. I’ll have to start dinner soon.”

“That can wait, too,” George said, his arms still firmly around her. “I won’t be able to think about food for hours.”

“What about Monty?”

But George kissed her again, and they both lost interest in Monty.

“George, why are you biting Rose?”

Neither of them had heard Zac come up. They jumped apart.

“Where did you come from?” George demanded, his mind rapidly reorienting itself.

“I followed you. Rose promised I could help her pick blackberries. She’s going to make jam.”

“I thought you meant to stay gone until I’d finished picking,” Rose mumbled, unable to regain her composure as quickly as George.

“I wouldn’t do that. Not anymore,” Zac added. “Why was George holding you up? Did you fall down?”

“You might say I lost my balance,” Rose said.

Zac looked at the creek bank which fell sharply away to the sluggish, brackish water below. “You ought to stay away from there. George and I will pick those berries. You pick the ones over there.”

“Do you know if there was a St. Zac?” Rose asked George, hardly able to keep her amusement bottled up.

The heat still raged in George’s veins. So did irritation at Zac’s interruption. “I doubt it. Dragons gobble up little boys who sneak up behind their big brothers.”

“How can it if you’ve just slain it?” Rose asked, her eyes dancing with laughter.

“There are other dragons that specialize in devouring little brothers,” George replied.

“Have you been making wine out of these berries?” Zac asked, his cherubic face screwed up in confusion.

“What are you talking about?”

“Monty wants Rose to make wine out of the blackberries, but she won’t because she says it makes people act funny. You sure are acting awful peculiar.”

George and Rose struggled to hold back laughter.

“I must have chewed on some loco weed.”

Zac had no intention of being treated like a little boy. “I know you didn’t chew on loco weed. You probably ate too many berries and didn’t want anybody to know. Rose said it makes your stomach queasy.”

“That must be it.”

“You can’t eat any more or there won’t be enough to make jam.”

“If we don’t get back to picking, there won’t be enough for anything,” Rose said.

Zac looked into George’s basket. “You don’t have very many.”

George didn’t look at Rose. He didn’t want to see her laughing at him, not when his body was still hot and tense. “Rose has already made that complaint. Maybe you’d better show me how.”

As Zac chattered away, proudly telling his brother which berries were ripe and showing him how to twist through the vines to reach the choicest fruit, George allowed his eyes to wander to where Rose picked, safely back from the creek bank. He continued to receive thorn pricks for his inattention until Zac
sharply adjured him to stop looking at Rose and watch what he was doing.

“There’s nothing going to happen to her as long as she stays back from the creek,” he told his brother.

But he couldn’t. Those kisses, so few in number, had blasted a hole in the fortifications he had built around his heart, a breach he knew he could never repair. He was vulnerable now. He would never be able to forget the feel of her in his arms as they kissed.

But he would have to make himself
act
like he could. And he would have to begin by not looking at her every five minutes. He forced himself to keep his eyes on his work, to listen to Zac, to concentrate on avoiding the thorns. Slowly his body relaxed, the tension left his groin.

He didn’t like it, but he did it anyway. As Rose had said, there was no point in dreaming about what you couldn’t have. It only made you feel sorry for yourself. And George refused to do that.

“I want to apologize for my behavior back there,” George said to Rose. They had reached the house, their baskets full.

“There’s no need,” Rose said.

“Yes, there is. I employed you to work here. I had no right to take advantage of you that way.”

“You didn’t—”

“You’re a lovely woman, and I admire you tremendously. You’re kind to Zac, you placate Tyler and Jeff, you put up with Hen and Monty. I certainly have no right to ask you to put up with my attentions.”

“Is that all you feel about me?” Rose asked. She seemed hurt. “I’m kind, tolerant, and a good housekeeper?”

Why did she have to ask him that question? Did she have any idea how hard he tried
not
to think of the way he felt about her? How hard he was struggling this very minute to pretend he felt nothing, or not much?

“I feel a lot more.”

“Such as?”

He should have sent her into the house and busied himself unsaddling the horses. He should have kept his mind on his work and off his feelings for Rose.

“I like it when you’re around. I feel more at ease. We’re a happier family. You’ve brought a kind of magic, something we lacked.”

“So now I’m a chemical reaction.”

But George didn’t hear her. He seemed to be talking to himself more than her.

“I keep thinking how nice it is to have you here when we come home. I wonder what it would be like to hold you close on a winter’s evening when it’s snowing outside and the fire’s dying down. I wonder what it would feel like to witness the birth of your first child. What you’ll look like when you’re a grandmother. What it would be like to love someone, knowing you will love them even more forty years from now. I wonder all sorts of improper things.”

Rose swallowed. “There’s nothing improper about those thoughts. Any woman would be fortunate to have a husband who felt that way about her.”

Rose lay in her bed, unable to sleep. With all the work she had to do, she couldn’t afford to lie awake. Yet restless nights were getting to be a habit.

Why had she let George kiss her? More importantly, why had she enjoyed it so much she had kissed him back? Why had she let him think it was all right?

For days she had been telling herself not to read anything into his actions except kindness. He had no interest in her except as a housekeeper.
He had said that.
There was no chance of a future together.

She couldn’t get the memories of her father out of her mind. George would be just as bad. Maybe worse.

She couldn’t stand that.

Yet she hadn’t stopped him.

It wouldn’t have taken much, just a word or a gesture. But
she had done nothing. Worse, she had encouraged him to think she welcomed his attention.

If he now thought she would sacrifice her virtue for him, she had no one to blame but herself. If he thought her a strumpet, it was her own fault. Worse still, knowing all this, she longed to feel his arms around her again.

She must have fallen in love with George.

There could be no other reason for her behavior. She would have fought, kicked, and screamed if Luke had dared kiss her. Yet she had melted into George’s arms as if she belonged there, and she hadn’t wanted to leave.

There could be only one end to this.

To give in to him, only to be abandoned later, would break her heart. She would have to be the one to exercise control. Though she could think of nothing more wonderful than to spend the night in his arms, one night, no matter how blissful, was not worth the rest of her life.

Still her hope remained suspended by a slender thread.

In George’s last words, she finally got another glimpse of the man who had come to her rescue in the Bon Ton. No man still in his prime could think of being in love with the same woman for forty years unless he was the kind of man that dreams were made of. Nor wonder about the magic of giving birth.

This was the George she had first seen, the George who had caused her to take this job, the George she had fallen in love with. Could she rescue him from himself? She didn’t know, but as long as she knew he still existed, she would try.

“Make sure you do everything your brothers tell you.”

Zac looked mulish. “I won’t listen to Tyler.”

“Nobody but Hen and Monty will give you orders,” George said, “but if you get into trouble, you latch on to the person closest to you.” This was the first time Zac would be going out without him, and George was a little nervous. Anything could happen with longhorns.

Zac’s expression didn’t change.

“If you don’t promise, you’ll have to stay home.”

That threat broke Zac’s resistance. George was certain he would have agreed to obey a girl in order to go with his brothers.

“Don’t let him out of your sight,” Rose said to Hen. “You know Monty is too impatient to keep an eye on him.”

George found himself feeling jealous of the bond of understanding he saw developing between Hen and Rose. She allowed Monty to flirt with her, even tease and flatter her, but she depended on Hen.

She depends on you more than anyone else.

But knowing that didn’t eliminate the feeling of jealousy. George groaned inwardly. He was tired of being jealous and feeling bad about it. Would it always be this way with women, or was it just Rose?

“Bye,” Zac called back as he rode away, his sunny mood restored by getting to ride between Monty and Hen.

“You realize you won’t be able to keep him home after this,” Rose said.

“He should never have been kept here this long,” George said, his thoughts taking a leap back through the years. “My father gave me my first horse on my second birthday. On my third he taught me how to jump. I fell off. He cursed me and my mother when I cried.”

“I’m surprised you ever got back on a horse again,” Rose said.

“He put me back on before I’d stopped crying, and made me take the jump again. I’m told I fell off a total of eleven times that afternoon, but I learned to jump. Before I was four, I was following my father over some of the roughest country in northern Virginia.”

He was certain Rose could hear the rancor in his voice. After all this time, it was as strong as ever.

“My child won’t be put on a horse until he’s old enough to know how to stay there,” Rose stated emphatically. “And he won’t be put over any jumps until he wants to.”

“Then don’t marry a Virginian or an Englishman,” George warned. “They believe a man should come into the world knowing how to jump.”

George found it difficult to concentrate on the tasks Rose gave him. All he could think about was her nearness. Her appearance had changed as she had become more relaxed around them. She now wore her hair loose. Though it deprived him of the opportunity to glimpse the tempting spot at the back of her neck, it made her look even prettier. Younger and more innocent. More piquant.

Exercise had put color in her cheeks. Working under the hot Texas sun had given her a fine dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones. Her ears disappeared under the cascading ringlets of her hair, but she wore tighter-fitting dresses of thinner material with lower necklines. Apparently she had quite a store of clothes purchased before her father’s death.

George noticed that fine droplets of perspiration had caused the dress to mold itself to her body and become nearly transparent. At such times, no matter how hard he tried to concentrate on his work, his attention kept coming back to Rose.

And her body.

Every night since they had gone berry picking, he had lain in his bed dreaming of her lips, her kisses, the feel of her in his arms. It was driving him mad to keep his distance, not to touch her.

“Why don’t we go for a walk?” George suggested. “It’s too hot to work.”

Rose didn’t look at him. “I can’t. I’ve got a stew on the stove. And I still have to put the dishes up, straighten your room, and change the beds.”

“I’ll help.”

“No.” She didn’t look at him, but she sounded definite.

George put his hand under her chin and lifted it until their gazes met.

“Why not?”

“It can’t lead anywhere.”

“Does everything have to lead somewhere?”

“Doesn’t it?”

“I like you, Rose. I like you very much.”

“I like you, too, but that’s no reason to go walking together.”

“Why not?”

“People sometimes say things they don’t mean. They might even do things they don’t want to.”

“Like this?” George tried to kiss Rose, but she backed away.