The Reluctant Bride (30 page)

They had reached the trees that grew on the flanks of the mountains. Tanzy was glad for the shadows that veiled her confusion. It was hard enough to control her attraction to Russ when she was irritated. Right now she wanted to kiss him. She held fast in her resolve not to marry into a feud, but it was hard when Russ said things like that.

“You’ve been through some pretty rough times,” she said. “It’s natural you would be slow to trust people, but your friends are proof you can trust others. Get out of this valley more often and you’ll find there are lots of nice, pretty, respectable women longing to meet a man like you.”

“That’s going to be harder than it would have been a month ago.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t know you then.”

She was losing ground. She needed to say something mean or remarkably stupid to make him realize she wasn’t all that wonderful. She hadn’t done anything dozens of women wouldn’t have done. She could name that many from among the women she’d worked with in St. Louis. They wouldn’t have cared about respect or the feud either. They’d have hauled him before a preacher so fast his head would still be swimming.

But she didn’t want Russ to end up with a woman who would take him just because he was available. He deserved someone who understood the hurt that still lived fresh and painfully inside him, someone who would see the man he could be and love him for that.

“I appreciate all the nice things you said, but don’t say them anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I’ll be leaving in a month or two. I’d hate to think I’d made it more difficult for you to find a wife.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” she cried out in frustration. “You know you don’t want to marry me.”

“Here are some currants,” Russ said, pointing to some low bushes covered with small red berries. “It looks like we’ve found them before the bears. Do you want to stop here?”

She wanted to smack him upside his head so he’d pay attention to her. He acted like she hadn’t said anything of importance.

“Help me down, please. If you don’t, my skirt will get caught and I’ll fall on my head.” Which might not be such a bad idea if it could rid her of two notions. First, that she had any business embarking on the risky job of helping Russ learn to trust women. He was a grown man, intelligent and thoughtful. He could do that on his own if he wanted.

The other notion she’d like to shed was that Russ was so nice she couldn’t stand for him to go to waste. Again, that was his business.

Russ dismounted, tied his horse, and relieved her of her baskets. “You ready?”

She nodded. He put his hands around her waist, lifted her effortlessly from the saddle, and set her on the ground. It was really unkind of him to do that so easily. It made it hard not to want to melt into his arms. Lord, why did he have to be so big and strong?

“You can let me go,” she said when Russ just stood there, his hands still holding her waist.

“Not until I make you believe you have done something special,” he said. “Maybe women in other places would do as much, but no one ever has. So until someone does, what you’ve done will remain very special.”

“Okay, if that’s all—”

“It’s not.”

“For a man who claims to be a recluse, you sure have a lot to say.”

“I just want to say thank you.”

“You have, so—”

He cut her words off by kissing her hard on the mouth. There was nothing of the gentle or friendly kisses they’d shared before. It didn’t seem very thankful either. It felt demanding, forceful, overwhelming, laced with enough heat to melt her resistance. She relaxed in his embrace and returned his kiss with a passion she didn’t know until that day she could feel for any man.

Until Russ, Tanzy had never liked being kissed. She’d never felt anything except indifference, annoyance, or anger. But it was impossible to be indifferent to Russ. When she was in his arms, feeling his strength, his desire, being pulled inexorably into the heat of his passion, it was like stepping into a new dimension. Long-secret parts of her opened up and came instantly to glorious life. She felt newly created, reshaped, rising from the ashes of her old being, the one she must cast off because it no longer fit.

They both seemed to realize simultaneously the danger of what they were doing. They drew back, each staring at the other.

“Was that the kind of kiss you said promised more than I wanted to give?” he asked.

Feeling utterly shattered, she could only nod.

“I’m sorry.”

She was, too, but not the way he meant. She was sorry he wasn’t a man she could marry. In that brief moment she realized emotional and physical love could join to make a bond too powerful for a woman to break, no matter what dangers she might face. She had to keep her distance from him before she ruined her life.

“Look, Russ, I don’t care how ready men are to kiss women for the multiple reasons you seem to think qualify as an excuse, but I’m not like that. A kiss like we just shared touches me in places I can’t reach by myself. It can unleash emotions I can’t control, maybe even make me do things I don’t want to do. We both understand the situation between us, so this isn’t something we can do. If you can’t promise you won’t kiss me again, I’ll have to leave.”

“You can’t. You don’t have anywhere to go.”

“I’ll have to find a place.”

“How do I know you’ll be safe?”

“I’ll be safer than I will be here.”

“Would it be that bad to want to marry me?”

It was hard to tell what was going on in Russ’s mind. He hid his real self so far out of sight, he could act as if they hadn’t just undergone a gut-wrenching experience, that she’d asked him nothing more important than if he thought there were enough berries here for two pies.

“Of course I’ll promise not to kiss you. I wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt you or make you unhappy. I’ll give someone else cabin duty.”

“How are you going to continue your lessons?” That wasn’t what she wanted to say, but it was all she’d let herself say.

“I can work with Welt.”

“You two are never in the same place at the same time.”

“I’ll work something out. We’d better get started picking those berries. They look real small. It’ll take a lot to make enough pies to satisfy the boys.”

Apparently the subject was closed before they’d had a chance to discuss it. She wanted to grab him, sit him down on a fallen tree, and force him to thrash out all the issues between them, but she knew enough about men to know when they were done talking. Russ was done sooner than most.

These sweet enough?” Russ asked. He held a berry up to her lips for her to taste.

If they’d talked things over, he’d have known this was exactly the kind of thing he shouldn’t do. She was just as bad. She didn’t take it with her hands and put it in her mouth. She took it with her lips, weak, foolish female that she was. He didn’t pull his fingers away from her lips, nor did he avert his eyes. She felt locked into his gaze, feeding and being fed through it. It was almost a physical struggle to break away.

“They’re a little tart,” she said when she managed to collect her wits and crush the berry between her teeth, “but they’re the kind that make the best pies.”

“Then let’s pick a lot.”

They picked in silence. Tanzy’s mind was too busy to need conversation. She argued her way around the questions and back again without coming to any conclusions. She examined her behavior from the day she’d arrived until this minute and couldn’t find anything she’d done wrong. She’d had no way of knowing things would turn out as they had.

Exactly how
had
things turned out?

For one thing, she liked Russ far too much for her own comfort. For another, every minute she spent in his presence seemed to increase this dangerous attachment. In addition, his feelings for her didn’t match his words. If she was any judge, Russ was fooling himself about these kisses. He might have lots of logical reasons for saying he wouldn’t marry her, but his brain wasn’t the only part of him to have a say in this decision. If he didn’t watch his step, his brain was going to find itself on the losing side.

Her brain wasn’t faring much better. She had good arguments for not marrying him, but she was finding them harder and harder to remember. She couldn’t remember them at all when he kissed her. She’d wanted him to go on kissing her forever, to hold her tightly every night, to make love to her—

Oh my God! When did she start thinking about Russ making love to her? She couldn’t, she
wouldn’t!
If she knew what was good for her, she’d leave this very minute, but she didn’t have anywhere to go. That meant no more kisses and no more going off alone with Russ. He didn’t try hard enough to resist temptation and she wasn’t doing any better. The best thing would be to have Tardy spend the day with her, but the problem didn’t lie with Tardy or Russ. It lay with her.

It was up to her to act like the responsible adult she considered herself to be. If she wanted her husband to respect her opinions and consider her wishes, she would have to show more strength of character than she’d shown so far. Why should Russ care for her opinion if she would let one little kiss overset her arguments?

Well, it wasn’t
one little kiss.
It was an earth-shattering moment she’d remember for the rest of her life, but she couldn’t allow it to cause her to ignore what she knew was possible and what was impossible. And life with a man involved in a feud was impossible.

“I wish you hadn’t made me come with you,” Tardy said to Tanzy as they left Boulder Gap behind, their buggy loaded with supplies for the ranch. “I knew Aunt Ethel was going to do everything she could to get me to go back home. I’m surprised she didn’t get the sheriff to arrest me.”

“Russ says you’re doing really well, but you are still awfully young. I think you ought to consider going back home, at least for a while.”

“I might if she didn’t treat me like I was six. Why is it strangers treat me better than my relatives?”

Tardy had quickly become a favorite of all the men, even Welt. He worked hard to master the skills to do his job, believed everything they said like it was gospel, and took their kidding and criticism with a cheerfulness that defied anyone to stay annoyed. He offered to help with any job and was so unfailingly cheerful and optimistic, he almost singlehandedly improved the spirits of the whole group. The men had started to treat him like a younger brother, one they kidded unmercifully but for whom they had a growing affection. It thrilled Tanzy to see Tardy blossom into a happy young man quickly developing confidence in himself. If he spent the rest of the summer here, he would go back to Boulder Gap a very different person.

“Are you really leaving after two months?” Tardy asked.

“Yes.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I will have repaid my debt and I’ll have enough money to get settled elsewhere.”

“Why do you have to go somewhere else?”

Tanzy had asked herself that same question. It didn’t worry her so much that she didn’t have a good answer as it did that she had asked the question in the first place.

“One day I would like a husband and a family, but a woman has to have a blameless reputation if she wants a respectable marriage. I don’t have such a reputation in Boulder Gap.”

“Do you want to marry anybody in Boulder Gap?”

“No.”

“Then why do you care what they think of you?”

Another good question, one she couldn’t explain to a boy on the edge of manhood. She couldn’t make him understand that men could actually gain stature by disreputable behavior, but that a woman’s chances of a good marriage could be destroyed by even a whisper of scandal.

“I wouldn’t want my children to suffer because of my damaged reputation.”

“Russ doesn’t think you’re damaged. He thinks you’re wonderful.”

That was the kind of thing Tanzy didn’t want to know. She didn’t really believe Tardy knew what Russ thought. She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter if he thought she was the most wonderful woman in the world. Unfortunately, she was rapidly coming to the conclusion that her foolish heart was determined to make her fall in love with the one man she couldn’t possibly marry. If she’d had any sense, she’d have stayed in town, begged Ethel for her old job back, and sent Tardy back with the supplies.

But she didn’t have any sense. She
wanted
to go back to the ranch. She had been happier these last days than she had ever been before. No one had complained when she rearranged the furniture or objected when she said she intended to buy material to make curtains for the windows. She had only to express a wish and someone rushed to fulfill it. They all told her repeatedly how much they liked having her there, that they wanted her to stay forever. All except Russ.

“Russ is happy the men seem happy, but he doesn’t like me.”

“He does. I know because I asked him,” Tardy said when Tanzy looked doubtful.

“You what?” It was good Tardy was driving. The shock would have caused Tanzy to jerk back on the reins, probably causing the horse to rear and get tangled in the harness.

“I asked him if he liked you.”