But she could do it. She had to.
And still he didn't say a word.
Just as well, Ellie thought. There was nothing at all Rance could say now that she wanted to hear. Finally she realized she was holding her breath—had been for she didn't know how long. She let it out shakily. She loosed her grip on the afghan. She ran her fingers through her hair.
"I—I've had a long day, Rance. A hard day. I need … I need to go to sleep." She looked away from him then, to gaze pointedly at the door.
He didn't seem to hear her for a moment. He didn't move, just stood there, as if he'd been turned to stone. And then, at last, he nodded. He crossed the room, moving like he'd aged fifty years. "Fine. We'll talk in the morning."
No, Ellie thought. We won't. We've said all there is to say. But she wasn't going to argue with him now. She couldn't argue.
She followed him to the door and opened it, holding it wide. "Thank you for helping with Daniel." Ah, Ellie, she could almost hear Spike drawling, polite to the end. That's my girl.
Not that Rance noticed. He didn't even look at her, and only grunted absently on his way out.
Ellie shut the door after him, then stood watching in the darkness, waiting for him to get into his track, waiting for the track to head over the hills and far away.
He didn't. He opened the back, took out a sleeping bag and headed for the barn.
It didn't change anything.
It changed everything.
It didn't matter.
It mattered more than he could imagine.
He'd been going to ask her to marry him, anyway. So what difference did it make whose child Josh was? Rance asked himself that over and over.
For whatever reasons he didn't know, it made a world of difference.
He had a son.
When he'd confronted her with the question, he made it sound as if he'd accepted it without batting an eye, when the pieces had fallen together in the doctor's office that afternoon. In fact, he'd felt poleaxed, as if all his moorings had been cut from beneath him.
He had a son.
Every assumption that he'd made about his life in the last eleven years had been, in that single moment, shot to hell. Fundamental things that he'd been certain were true, weren't true at all. He who had prided himself on remaining unattached, unencumbered, uninvolved with the future of the human race, had already unknowingly done his part. He had unwittingly perpetuated the Phillips dynasty.
He had a son.
A son that Ellie had kept from him. A son that she'd given to another man to raise. A son who, to be honest, didn't even seem to like him very much.
Rance didn't sleep a wink all night. He sat, he paced, he prowled, he stewed. He thought about how he might never have known—about how if that skunk hadn't been where he was, if Sunny hadn't bolted, if that damn magazine hadn't written that article, if his father hadn't come up with that flaming tour bus—
Cripes, the old man would be over the moon!
And he would think it was all because of him. Rance ground his teeth.
It had nothing to do with the old man, he decided. It had nothing to do with the Phillips dynasty.
It had only to do with himself and Ellie.
And Josh.
And Daniel, Caleb and Carrie.
In the end it came right back to doing what he'd come to do in the first place: marrying Ellie—for yet another reason. And the sooner the better.
It was true then. Nothing had changed.
He waited until the boys had all gone off to school the next morning. He saw Sandra drive up, look at his truck speculatively, then go inside and almost at once return with Carrie and the bears. She put them into the truck and drove away.
She left Ellie alone. For him.
Rance sucked in a breath, squared his shoulders and crossed the yard. He climbed the steps, opened the door and walked in.
Ellie stood facing him.
"I didn't come back to bring the bear yesterday," Rance said without preamble. "I came back to marry you."
Ellie's eyes widened. She stared at him. She didn't look nearly as pleased as she ought to.
Rance wondered if she wanted him to get down on one knee. Well, he wasn't going to. He might love her, but he was hurt and he was mad as hell at her.
He would propose, however. He owed her that much.
"Will you marry me?" he said.
She said, "No."
Chapter 9
« ^ »
"No?"
If there was one thing Rance hadn't counted on, it was finally getting around to asking a woman to marry him and having her tell him no.
No? He was shocked. Astonished. Stunned. "What do you mean, no?"
Ellie blinked, as if his amazement was amazing in itself. "Just what I said," she told him with the calm of the flaming Dead Sea. "No." And then she turned her back on him to put a load of wash in the washing machine, as if he'd ceased to matter, as if she could just shut him out!
"You have my son." He said the words in measured firm tones.
"He's my son, too." She put the laundry in, not looking at him until she was finished. Then she glanced over her shoulder and said with pointed emphasis, "He was Spike's son, too. Josh adored his father."
"I'm his father!"
"There's more to fatherhood than simply donating sperm."
"I didn't damn well 'donate' sperm! And you didn't give me a chance to do more!"
"This is all my fault, is it? Well, maybe it is. But I had to think about what was best—for him, for you, for me. You didn't want a child. You didn't want to perpetuate the family dynasty. Remember?"
Rance remembered. He didn't want to, but he did. Every single word. "That was then," he argued.
"And this is now," Ellie agreed. "And as far as I can see, nothing has changed."
"Of course it's changed! I just told you, I came back to marry you!"
Ellie looked at him. "Just like that," she said, giving her fingers a little faint snap.
"You love me! Damn it, I know you love me!"
"Yes." Ellie didn't deny it. But she didn't look especially happy about it, either. "And even eleven years ago it wasn't enough, was it?"
He stared at her, nonplused. "What do you mean, it isn't enough? Do you think I don't love you? I do." He threw the words down like they were a gauntlet.
They lay there between them, almost tangible. Ellie seemed to be staring at some point halfway between them for a very long time. Then she looked at him again. "And that's not enough, either, now. Is it?" she asked him.
His brows drew down. "Why not? What isn't enough?"
"There's more than me and you involved in this."
"The kids, you mean? What about them? Daniel and Caleb and Carrie like me well enough. I don't think they'd mind."
"Josh would mind."
"What?"
She lifted her shoulders. "Josh doesn't want me finding a replacement for his father."
"He told you that?"
"In so many words."
"In how many words?"
"You sound just like a lawyer."
"I am a lawyer."
Ellie shuddered. "Don't remind me." Then she muttered, "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that."
"Why? Do you think I'm going to take you to court? Sue you for custody, maybe?"
Her face went paper white.
"I didn't say I was going to do it!" Rance snapped. "Stop looking at me that way."
But even though she breathed again, it took her color a while to begin to return. She turned on the wash and sank down into one of the kitchen chairs. "You wouldn't," she said shakily.
"No," Rance said through his teeth. "But that doesn't mean you're not going to have to tell him."
She didn't answer that. She seemed to be concentrating on simply getting enough air. He waited, just watching her breathe, biding his time. They weren't done with this yet.
"You are going to have to tell him, Ellie. Or I am."
"No!"
Ellie ran her tongue over her lips. She pressed her fingers against her eyes. "He loved Spike," she said softly. The words sounded as if they were being torn from her. "Of all the boys, Josh was the one who…"
"I know that," Rance said. "Don't you think I've seen it? I only had to talk to him for ten minutes to know that everything he and I did while I was here, his fath—Spike—could have done better!"
"Well, it was true!" Ellie's temper flashed.
"I don't doubt that. I just—" His fingers closed into fists. He wanted to hit something. There was nothing whatsoever to hit. "He's my son, too, El," he said hoarsely at last.
Her shoulders slumped. Her fingers knotted. "I know." She drew a breath. "I know."
"So tell him."
"It will hurt him."
"Too bad. Sometimes the truth hurts. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have to face it. I know he won't be happy. Tough. He can damn well get over it! Maybe he can even learn to like it if he tries hard enough."
"The way you learned to like doing whatever your father wanted?"
He felt like she'd punched him in the gut.
It wasn't true. He wasn't doing what his father had always done! He wasn't. This had nothing to do with him being like his father. It had to do with finding out he was a father—and then facing what he had to do about it.
He was grown up now, for God's sake. He had a degree, a job, a life—a sense of who he was at last. He was prepared to be a man and accept his responsibilities.
And that was all it was. Wasn't it?
Or—the question came to him as he turned his back on her and walked out—was this one more example of his selfishness?
It would have been so easy to let him have his way.
Ellie sat in the kitchen, her world in shambles around her, and thought how simple things would have been if she'd just said yes. The ranch would survive if Rance took it over. The children would have everything they could ever need—and more. Josh would have the legacy that should rightfully be his.
It would be so simple.
Not quite.
Because life wasn't that simple. Ellie herself wasn't that simple. She couldn't bring herself to just jump at his offer, though she was honest enough to admit that if he'd made it eleven years ago, despite what she said now, she would have taken it.
She had grown up in the meantime, just as he had. She knew that whatever love she felt for him was important, but it wasn't enough. And as for his loving her—well, she wasn't even sure, despite his protest that he'd been going to propose even before he found out about Josh, that love had anything to do with it.
Sex. She would believe it had to do with sex.
But they couldn't build a marriage based merely on sex and on Rance's determination to have his son. She knew what made a good marriage. She'd had one with Spike.
If she was ever going to marry again, she was determined it would be the same kind of marriage. And it would last—the way her marriage to Spike would have lasted—if they'd been given world enough and time.
Sorting it out in her head like that helped. It gave her resolve. It gave her courage. She went out the door after him.
He hadn't gone far. He was standing by the corral watching Ruckus. He turned when she came up to him. He looked at her, but apparently he didn't see what he wanted to see because, wordlessly, he turned away again.
"I do love you," she said. "You were right about that. I loved you eleven years ago. It's why I let you go without saying a word. I knew tying you down would make you hate me—and the baby."
He opened his mouth to speak, but she forestalled him.
"I didn't want that then. I don't want it now. You think you want me and Josh and you'll take on the rest because it's part of the deal, but I don't know that you really want any of it. It's certainly not what you were saying when you came a couple of weeks ago. Then you were hiding out—trying to avoid getting trapped into the very life you're telling me now that you want." She paused for breath.
He didn't interrupt her. He looked at her, waiting for her to get to the point.
"I knew Spike could do it because he always had done it. He'd been my friend for years and years—"
"You want me to wait years and years?"
She shook her head. "I doubt it will take years and years. I think you'll know pretty soon. And I will."
His gaze narrowed. "Spell it out, Ellie."
She pressed her lips together, then nodded. "You have money. You have prestige. You have power. They're nice. They're not important. Not to me. Not to my family. Love and support and care—just being there and helping like Spike did—that's what's important."
"Put up or shut up. Is that what you're saying?"
"I guess it is, yes."
Their eyes met, locked. Rance seemed to gather himself together even as she watched. He looked stronger. Sterner. Taller. More powerful than ever.
He gave her a curt nod, and she felt as if he'd picked up the challenge she'd tossed down.
Then, "Tell him," Rance said, almost as an afterthought.
Ellie expected he would do one of two things.
Either he would go away and marshal his formidable financial and legal forces and the next time she would hear from him would be a one-hundred-percent linen letter with a watermark and a demand for sole custody of Josh or he would decide it wasn't worth the trouble, that it made a whole lot more sense to go away and forget the whole thing.
She was ready to do battle on the one hand. She held out a tiny ray of hope on the other.
She was not at all prepared for the third option—the one that he took.
He moved back into the barn and dug in.
Rance wasn't quite as sanguine about his move into the barn as he gave her the impression of being. It was his legal training. Never show your hand. And never ever let 'em know when you're bluffing.
He didn't even know if he was bluffing himself.
God knew it would be easier to go away. Ellie would never come after him. She would never even ask him for support. He could give it of course—would give it—behind the scenes, and unless someone else ferreted out the reason, Ellie would never give him away.
But he didn't go. He stayed. He wasn't sure why. Stubbornness, maybe. Willful irritation at being rebuffed. Not many people had told Rance no in his life. He wasn't used to it. He didn't like it.
And—and this gave him pause for considerable thought—maybe she was right. Maybe he didn't have it in him to be a husband and father. Maybe when things got tough, when the demands were too irritating, niggling and annoying, he wouldn't want to bother. Maybe when push came to shove, he'd shove off.
It wasn't a particularly flattering picture. He didn't like thinking he might. But he'd never tried it so how did he know?
He thought he'd better find out.
He was used to the barn. And now that Lilly Belle had been reunited with her bovine colleagues, and the calf he and Ellie had delivered was also big and strong enough to be out following its mother around, he and Sunny had the accommodations to themselves.
He dumped his sleeping bag and a duffel full of clean jeans, shirts and underwear. He found a place for his laptop computer and cell phone. He hadn't expected to be using them in the barn, but if that's what it was going to take…
He looked up at the house. Ellie was hanging out a load of laundry. Her bras were flapping in the breeze again, taunting him.
There were no kids around. The coast was clear. Everything in him wanted to take advantage of the moment. "Carpe diem, isn't that what they say?" he muttered. "Seize the day."
Except he had a fair idea what making a move on Ellie would get him right now.
He seized a bridle and began to put it on Sunny instead.
She had to give him credit.
He was hanging in. He drove back and forth to his law office twice a week, which was no smal
l effort. She saw him wrangling cattle and talking on his cell phone at the same time. Sometimes, when he had to be in court in Billings, he didn't get back until the wee hours of the morning.
But he always came.
Carrie was delighted.
She confided that she had missed her Lone Bear stories. And every night found her sitting on Rance's lap while he concocted another one. Pretty soon Carrie was telling the stories herself. And during the day it seemed to Ellie that half her daughter's sentences now started with the words, "Rance said…"
The twins were equally thrilled to have him back. As far as Daniel was concerned, Rance was his best friend. Having been through the broken ribs with Daniel, and being willing to admit how much his own broken bones had hurt, Rance was a man who could be trusted.
He also seemed to know exactly how much Daniel could do without hurting his ribs. He encouraged the boy to do what he could, even spending time with him picking out Ruckus's hooves, when Ellie wouldn't have let her son near the horse.
"Daniel won't be afraid if you don't make him that way," Rance told her.
Ellie knew that was true. But it wasn't always easy to do. Life seemed pretty fragile to her these days. But she tried to keep her mouth shut whenever Daniel and Rance went to deal with Ruckus.
She was having to keep her mouth shut a lot, it seemed.
She was tempted, every time she saw Caleb hovering around Rance, eager to get his hands on Rance's laptop computer, to say, "Don't pester him now, Caleb. Don't bother him."
But then she told herself that dealing with an inquisitive eight-year-old was something Rance would have to do if he got his wish and married her. Let him find out how many "Can I try now?"s and "Why does it work like that?"s and "Will you show me how?"s it took to drive him round the bend.
It turned out that he had far more patience with that sort of thing than she did. She came downstairs one evening after putting Carrie to bed to find Caleb studiously punching numbers into the computer.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Adding up billable hours," Caleb said.
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