The Reluctant Bride (17 page)

“I told him to go when I saw Betty wanted to talk to me. I figured it might be something he shouldn’t hear.”

“He’s watching out for you?”

“He’s always on time, is unfailingly polite, helps me with the younger children, and never leaves me alone with Jem.”

Ethel’s snort was not elegant. “That
boy
needs a good talking to, and I’m of a mind to give it to him.”

“He doesn’t bother me. Besides, protecting me has given Tardy a whole new way of seeing himself.”

Ethel seemed to relax. “I have noticed a change in his general behavior. He’s doing his work and he’s not nearly so absentminded. I’m thankful for the beneficial effect you’ve had on him.”

“He’s a nice boy who’s a little slow growing up. I think you’ll find he’ll turn into a very fine young man.”

“If so, it’ll be to your credit. Is everything going well with the school? I haven’t heard any complaints from the parents.”

“I need more teaching materials.”

“I’ll do what I can, but getting money for education out of the town council is like finding hen’s teeth.”

“Maybe you could approach some of the parents about making personal contributions,” Tanzy said.

“That’s a good idea. Well, I must be going. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

The thought that she’d like to know more about what Russ was like when he was younger flashed through her mind, but she pushed it aside. It would only make her want to know still more.

Have you ever spent a summer night lying on your back staring at the stars in the sky? Did you ever try to count them? Did you ever wonder how far away they were? How they got up there? If they ever moved or just hung there twinkling like they had a secret and were dying to tell you what it was? Did you ever wonder why people try so hard to make themselves feel important when the whole world around us is proof we’re insignificant?

I enjoy taking the night watch at the pass. I like the quiet and the solitude. You don’t have to try to be anything. You don’t have to fulfill any expectations. Nobody is depending on you for anything. It’s just you and the night sky, some sleepy cows, and a forest full of animals that couldn’t give a damn about you. Even the squirrels don’t pay you any attention because they know you can’t harm them.

It doesn’t make me feel powerless the same way picking up a rifle does. It doesn ‘t make me feel rejected like riding into town. It doesn’t make me feel lonely like being in a crowd. The night and the emptiness welcome me, hold me close, take me for what I am.

The schoolhouse door opened, and Tanzy looked up to see Jem enter. She had finally convinced Tardy he didn’t need to walk her home every afternoon, so she was alone. “I didn’t see you in school today,” she said.

“I don’t need any more schooling,” Jem said, advancing slowly toward her.

“That’s not what your mother thinks.”

“Ma thinks I ought to go to college, but I’m not going to be a preacher like her pa.”

Tanzy couldn’t imagine Jem as a preacher. As far as she could tell, the only thing he believed in was his impressive good looks. Jem believed he was irresistible to women. From what she’d seen, the young women of Boulder Gap had given him no reason to doubt himself.

“I wasn’t thinking about a college education,” Tanzy said, “though with enough application you might find that very beneficial.”

“The only reason I’m not working for my pa right now is Ma’s insisting I go to school, but I’m tired of sitting around all day in a room full of children.”

“You’re still young. There’s so much you can—”

“I’m a man!” Jem declared. “Look at me. Do I look like a boy?”

He was handsome enough in face and body to have women who ought to know better give him a second and third look, but he was immature.

“A man’s maturity isn’t measured only by his physical growth,” she said. “The internal is more important, the mental and emotional, the spiritual and—”

“All that stuff can wait,” Jem argued. He’d come so close to Tanzy that she had to stop herself from stepping back. “I’m a man in body, and I want what a man is supposed to have. I want a wife. I want to get married.”

Trying to see Jem as a husband was difficult. Visualizing him as a parent was absurd. He acted liked a child himself.

“I don’t know why you’re telling me this, but if you’re hoping I’ll intervene with your parents—”

Jem stepped forward and grabbed her arms with both hands. His action so surprised her, she stopped in mid-sentence.

“I’m telling you because I want to marry you,” he said.

“You can’t possibly be in love with me,” Tanzy said, too surprised to watch her words carefully.

“I’ve loved you from the first time I saw you. Annie told me what a fool I was to act the way I did that first day, but I wanted you to see I wasn’t a boy like that stupid Tardy.”

Tardy’s not stupid. He’s—”

Jem’s grip tightened, pulled her closer. “You’ve got to know I love you. I haven’t taken my eyes off you.”

Actually, he’d spent a lot of his time flirting with any girl who’d pay him attention. “Look, Jem, I don’t know why you’ve decided you love me, but I assure you—”

“You’re the most beautiful woman in Boulder Gap,” Jem said.

There’s a lot more to marriage than looks.”

“I know. I can’t wait for our wedding night either. I’ve dreamed about it for weeks. I know what to do. I’m not inexperienced,” he said proudly.

The thought of being the object of an adolescent boy’s sexual fantasies made Tanzy’s blood run cold. “I’m sorry if I’ve done anything to mislead you, but I don’t love you.”

“That’s okay. You’ll come to love me. Everybody does.”

This boy was living in a fantasy world. What had his parents been doing all this time?

“I’m two years older than you. Besides, you still live at home and have to answer to your parents.”

“I’ll buy a house. You’ll have money to buy beautiful dresses. I’ll give you jewels and—”

“Listen to me!” Tanzy said, desperate to inject some reality into Jem’s thinking. “I don’t love you and I won’t marry you. There are lots of young girls who’ll—”

“I don’t want a girl. I want a woman.”

“A woman wants a man, not a boy.”

Jem’s face twisted in anger. “Maybe this will convince you I’m a man.”

Chapter Eleven

Russ didn’t see any students around, but that wasn’t the reason he paused outside the schoolhouse. He was breaking his own rule by appearing in the afternoon. But knowing he was doing something stupid hadn’t been enough to make him turn back. Neither did the possibility that she didn’t want to see him. She had a hold on him he couldn’t break, one she didn’t appear to want any more than he did. The thought of being a helpless slave like the man who’d pretended to be his father made his blood run cold.

Now that Welt was helping him, he didn’t need to see her at all. Besides, she was bringing out parts of him that he didn’t want disturbed. What on earth made him write the things he did to her? It was as if she was his conscience or something. That was more dangerous than the physical attraction. Once a woman got hold of your body
and
your mind, you were a goner. He’d better turn around and pretend he’d never heard of Tanzy Gallant.

But he heard a sound from inside the schoolhouse that had nothing to do with learning. Russ bounded up the steps and flung open the door. Shock immobilized him when he saw Tanzy in the arms of a man. How could he have been tormenting himself over a woman who was flinging herself into the arms of another man?

“Stop!”

The single word clarified everything for Russ. Less than a half-dozen strides carried him to the front of the schoolhouse. He reached for the back of the man’s shirt and virtually lifted him off the floor as he pulled him away from Tanzy.

His right arm was pulled back, ready to smash into the face of the bastard, when he realized the man was Jem. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, boy?” Russ demanded.

“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.”