“Rather easily,” he said, grinning, “and with great pleasure. The same pleasure you felt, I might add.” “You attacked me!” she said, standing.
He grinned at her in such a knowing way that she looked away, her face red. “You have to take me home,” she said stiffly.
Hank stood. “Sure. We drive up with me shirtless, you in your underwear and my shirt and your hair wet.”
Amanda couldn’t even imagine what would happen if Taylor saw her like that. He would leave her, leave the ranch. She’d ruin her own life and her father would hate her for making Taylor leave. Sometimes Amanda thought her father liked Taylor more than he did his own daughter.
Heavily, Amanda sat down on the grass. “No,” she said softly, “I’ll have to wait until my dress and hair are dry.”
Hank turned away rather than say another word to her about her fear of the man she said she loved. How could he make her see that fear and love didn’t go together?
“You have a comb in that little purse of yours?”
“Yes,” she murmured, and he walked toward the car. She was feeling very confused at the moment and again she wished Dr. Montgomery had never come into her life. She had to get away from him. This evening she would tell Taylor that the professor was an impossible man and she didn’t want to spend more time with him. Taylor would understand. He would understand and give permission—No! she told herself. They were in love, not student and teacher, so they’d discuss this situation and—
“Hold still,” Hank said, and knelt behind her and began to gently comb the tangles from her hair.
“Dr. Montgomery, you cannot continue touching me,” she said, moving away from him.
“Because that’s your lover’s right? Look, I’m sorry about the cake, and this is my apology, all right? Now turn around and hold still. Besides, your fiancé doesn’t do this, does he?”
Amanda turned around, and his combing felt wonderful, so relaxing, so gentle. No, she thought, Taylor had never touched her hair—or held her chin in his hands, or kissed her lips. Yet she knew that he did love her. Love wasn’t just touching. It was also respect and being able to look up to the one you love. And neither of those qualities were in Dr. Montgomery.
“Are you married?” she asked abruptly, surprising herself.
“No, nor engaged, nor in love.”
“Ah, so you don’t know what it means to be in love.”
“Neither do you, so I guess we’re equal on that score.”
“Taylor and I are—” she began. “Oh, what’s the use? You have your mind made up, and nothing I say will be able to change it. Could we talk about something else?”
“You mean one of your ‘conversations’? Something about some foreign policy or a list of the causes of the War Between the States?”
“That’s a very good topic. You know, of course, that slavery was only one of several causes. As an economics professor—”
“Quiet, or I’ll kiss you again.”
Amanda almost smiled at that but she controlled herself. “Do you know anything about botany?”
“Do you know anything about your mother?” he shot back.
Amanda started to move away from him but he held her hair in his hands and she couldn’t move. “I believe that is personal, Dr. Montgomery.”
“Could I bribe you with lemon meringue pie?” he asked, his big hands gently combing the tangles from her long, thick hair.
In spite of herself, she did give a little smile. At the moment she couldn’t seem to remember Taylor. As she sat here in the grass wearing a man’s shirt, a man’s hands in her hair, Taylor and her father seemed far away. “My mother used to brush my hair and we used to eat lemon meringue pies together,” Amanda said softly. She hadn’t thought of her mother very often in the last two years.
“And when did it stop?” Hank kept stroking her hair, running the comb through it, letting it wrap around his bare forearms. He just wanted to touch her. He wanted to put his arms around her and kiss her neck and slide the shirt from her shoulders and—
“When I was told—” she said, “I mean, when I found out the truth about my mother. She was not a good influence on me.”
Hank could hear the wistfulness in her voice. So Taylor had taken her away from a mother who brushed her hair and fed her food with taste. “I had a cousin like that, one who was a bad influence on me, I mean. He gave me whiskey and cigarettes, took me to a…well, a house of wayward ladies, taught me lots of curse words, taught me how to drive too fast. If it was bad for my health or could possibly kill me, ol’ Charlie had me do it. It’s a wonder I lived to be sixteen. I guess your mother was like that, huh? Drank, did she? She didn’t take drugs, did she? Opium dens? Or men? Did she take lovers in front of you? Or—”
“Stop it!” Amanda said angrily. “My mother never did any such thing in her life. She was wonderful to me. She used to make all my clothes, pretty dresses with embroidered collars, and she bought me wonderful shiny shoes, and every Saturday she took me into Kingman and bought me ice cream and—” She stopped abruptly because she was aware of pain. More pain caused by Dr. Montgomery, she thought.
“I see,” he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “She does sound like a terrible influence.”
She turned away from him, then jerked her hair from his hands. “You know nothing about it. You are judging—and condemning—something you know absolutely nothing about.”
“Then explain it to me, Amanda,” he said, using her first name for the first time.
She put her hands to her temples. “You confuse me. Why should I explain anything to you? I don’t know you. You’re a stranger. You’ll be gone in a few days, so why should I tell you anything?”
“Is that it or are you afraid to tell me? Tell me what hideous thing your mother has done, so I can hate her too. I hate oppression. I despise tyrants who hurt those weaker than themselves. Tell me what awful thing your mother has done to you so that you two live in the same house but never see each other.”
“She never did anything to me,” Amanda half blurted. “She never hurt anyone in her life, but she used to…to dance!” She glared at Dr. Montgomery in defiance. Now he knew.
“Oh,” he said after a long pause. “Professionally? With or without clothes?”
Amanda could only gape at him. She had told him this deep, dark secret about herself, a secret that Taylor said tainted her blood and made Amanda not quite “good,” and yet Dr. Montgomery paid no attention to it. He was a dense man! “With her clothes, of course,” Amanda snapped. “Don’t you understand? She was on the stage.”
“Was she any good?”
Amanda made a sound that was half anger, half frustration and got up and started toward the car. The man had the sensibilities of a rock!
He caught her arm and turned her toward him. “No, I don’t understand. Maybe you could explain it to me. All I hear is that your mother loved you and you loved her, then somebody told you she used to dance and suddenly you hate her.”
“I don’t hate her, I—” She jerked her arms from his grasp. He confused her so much. He made her question things she knew to be true.
Hank saw the pain and anguish on her face and he calmed. “You know, you never did eat. Why don’t you come over here and eat and explain to me about your mother? I can be a good listener and sometimes it helps to talk about things.”
Obediently, Amanda followed him to where the cloth was spread on the ground and where the food was waiting. Suddenly, she did want to explain things to him. He kept condemning her, but if he heard the whole story maybe he’d understand—and if he understood, perhaps he’d stop making her angry with his sly innuendos.
He poured her a glass of still-cool lemonade and heaped a plate full of food and handed it to her. “Eat and talk,” he commanded.
“My mother was good to me as a child,” she began, her mouth half full, “but I didn’t know that the reason she spent so much time with me was because the other women of Kingman would have noth
ing to do with her.”
“Because she was a dancer?”
“Yes. You see, my father had no idea of her past when he married her. My mother comes from an illustrious family. They came over on the Mayflower and he was introduced to her in good faith.”
“Meaning that he thought she was pure and innocent and had been kept secreted away until he met her?”
Amanda frowned. “Something of the sort. It was only later, after they were married, that someone recognized Mother. It was a man who’d been forward with her, I believe, a man who she had repulsed. He told everyone in Kingman.” Amanda looked away. “He had a photograph of Mother in…in tights.” She almost whispered the last.
“So then what?” Hank asked. “The whole town ostracized her?”
“Yes,” Amanda said softly, and looked back at her food. “When I was in the third grade a girl said I thought I was so good because my mother rode on the Mayflower but she was just a cheap dancer.”
Hank was beginning to understand a great deal. “Who had told the townspeople of your mother’s background?”
“My father was very proud of his wife.”
Hank watched her eat silently, her head bowed. So, J. Harker had married a woman who he thought was pure, innocent and blueblooded and he’d later found out she had spirit and personality—and probably legs as good as her daughter’s, he thought with a smile.
“Dr. Montgomery, I do not believe this is a matter for amusement.”
“So your father had bragged to everyone about his wife being better than anybody else, then he finds out she had been on the stage where, I might add, she had turned away the advances of too-forward young men. So the town turned on her, did they? I’ll bet they were glad to snub someone they were afraid would snub them first. What did your mother do?”
Amanda hadn’t thought of the town being wrong, only of her mother’s scandalous behavior. She had run away from her family when she was eighteen, just after she’d become engaged to a man fifteen years older than she, and her father hadn’t been able to find her for two whole years, during which time Grace had supported herself by dancing in a chorus with seven other young women on stage in San Francisco. Grace’s father had forcibly returned her to his home, and six months later she was married to J. Harker Caulden—a man who wasn’t at all of the same social background as Grace, but Grace’s father believed that only the bottom of the barrel was good enough for a fallen woman such as Grace was.
“My mother stayed home with me,” Amanda answered. “We dressed dolls together and she read stories to me and she let me try on her jewelry and—” She stopped because her words were causing an ache inside her. She remembered the soft, powdery smell of her mother, the goodnight kisses of her mother, the times she woke from a bad dream and her mother came to her and held her.
“So Taylor Driscoll came into your life and told you your mother was a bad influence and you’ve stayed away from her ever since. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Amanda said softly, still thinking of her mother.
“I guess your mother encouraged you to go on the stage,” Hank said. “Did she let you try on her tights? What about her stories about life on the stage? Were they glamorous?”
“She never mentioned her time on the stage to me. And she certainly didn’t try to entice me to run away from home as she did.”
“Then tell me, Miss Caulden,” Hank said softly, “just how was she a bad influence on you?”
Chapter Nine
I don’t want to talk about my mother anymore, Dr. Montgomery,” Amanda said sternly.
Hank was watching her. “I don’t blame you. Terrible person she must be. Let’s talk about something pleasant, like when you’re getting married.”
“Soon,” she said, finishing the food on her plate.
“Cake?” he asked. “Or have you had enough?” His eyes were twinkling.
Amanda felt she should have refused the cake he offered but she didn’t.
“Let’s discuss something neutral,” he said. “Such as love and courtship and your wedding night with ol’ Taylor.”
Amanda choked.
“Lemonade?” he asked innocently, holding out a glass. “But I guess you know all about sex, what with a mother like yours and all the studying you’ve done. Tell me, does Taylor put lovemaking on your schedule or is it something he does spontaneously?”
“He doesn’t—” she said angrily, then stopped. “Taylor is a gentleman.”
“I’m sure he will be on your wedding night too. Did you ever think that as much as he likes educated women he’s going to be disappointed with a bride who knows so little about…shall we say, the physical side of marriage?”
“Taylor is my teacher and I’m sure he’ll teach me what I need to know.”
“So he’ll be your teacher even after you’re married? It won’t stop at the ceremony? Will you be given a schedule every day of the rest of your life?”
Amanda stood abruptly and glared down at him. “You are despicable, Dr. Montgomery.”
Hank sat with his eyes fixed on her legs—long, slim legs with those black silk stockings. “Amanda,” he whispered, putting his hand out to touch her calf.
But Amanda was already headed toward the pond to retrieve her still-damp dress. Within minutes she had it on and her wet hair pulled back into a tight knot. She walked back to the cloth where the food and Dr. Montgomery were sprawled. “I want to go home now,” she said as coldly as possible.
He looked up at her with angry eyes. “Home to the open arms of the man who loves you?”
“Dr. Montgomery, my life is none of your business. How can I make you understand that?”
In one rolling motion, he came to his feet to stand in front of her, his face close to hers. “I’ll understand when I see that it is your life. All I see now is a puppet, not a woman, and Taylor pulls your strings to make you do whatever he wants you to do.”
“That’s absurd! I control my own life. I—”
“Prove it!” Hank snapped. “Prove to me that Taylor wants you and not just your father’s ranch and I’ll leave you alone.”
She took a step backward. He had said, out loud, her most secret fear. “Of course he wants me,” she said in little more than a whisper. “Taylor loves me and he proves it every day. Every night he writes my schedule. He cares about what I eat, what I wear; he directs my learning, he—”
“Keeps his job,” Hank said, jaw clenched. “Your father can’t dismiss him as long as he’s still teaching you. You’re twenty-two years old, Amanda. When do you get to graduate? When do you get to cut your strings and be free?”
He was confusing her and making her angry at the same time. “You are making my head hurt, Dr. Montgomery. Please take me home.”
“Home to that automaton you say you love? My car has more feeling than Taylor Driscoll has.”
The confusion was beginning to leave Amanda and all that was left was anger. “What proof do you need?” she snapped at him. At that moment she felt she would do anything to make him stop antagonizing her. “Tell me what I need to do to prove to you that Taylor is the man I love.”
“Passion,” Hank said quickly. “The man is incapable of passion. Even if you marry him you’ll die an old maid. Make him prove he can cut the mustard.”
Her face turned red, embarrassment overriding anger. “I will ask him—”
“No, don’t ask him anything. Invite him to your room. Throw yourself at him. Sit on his lap and run your hands through his hair.”
Amanda stared at him for a moment, trying her best to visualize sitting in Taylor’s lap, but she couldn’t. She turned away from Dr. Montgomery and headed toward the car. “You are a frivolous man,” she said under her breath.
Hank grabbed her arm and spun her about, pulling her close to him. His mouth came down on hers with a mixture of hunger and anger.
Maybe it was Amanda’s anger, too, that made her respond to him, but her arms went around his chest, pulling him closer as his mou
th opened over hers and she tasted of his tongue with all the pleasure she gave to the food he’d introduced her to. Her breasts pressed against his chest, her hips against his as he pressed into her. His knee moved between her legs, and Amanda slid her body upward, letting him support her weight, with only the toe of her left foot touching the ground.
Hank moved from her lips, his mouth searing its way down her neck.
Amanda’s whole body was throbbing and pounding, her heart pumping wildly, but she managed to push away from him. “Is that what you mean by passion, Dr. Montgomery?” she was somehow able to say.
The rage in his eyes was enough to kill a person. He didn’t say anything as he grabbed the edges of the cloth and began rolling dishes and food together, then dumped it into the cardboard box and strapped it on the back of the Mercer.
“Get in,” he commanded her as he held the car door open, and Amanda obeyed.
He drove too fast back to the Caulden Ranch, then had a devil of a time getting the brakes to halt the car. At the garage Amanda started to get out, but he stopped her. “We have a wager, remember?”
Amanda didn’t want to look at him. His hands, his lips, his food, his words were all making her life hell.
“You’re to make Taylor show passion,” he said.
“Dr. Montgomery, I think—”
“It’s Hank,” he snapped. “I think you could be that intimate with me.”
She kept looking straight ahead, wishing he’d get out of her life so she could go back to what she knew and understood. “It was something said on the spur of the moment, and I don’t think—”
“If you win, I’ll leave Kingman.”
She turned to look at him then and the hope in her eyes made him angrier.
“If I win, you go to the dance with me tonight.”
With you and Reva Eiler, she almost said, but there was no reason to even think of the dance because she was not going to lose. She was quite willing to climb into most any man’s lap if it meant getting rid of the obnoxious Dr. Montgomery. “And what of your unionists?”
The Awakening Page 12