by Arlene James
He studied her speculatively, as though waiting for some reaction from her. After a moment he went on. "I'll expect you to study this," he said, reaching into the top drawer of his desk. He pulled out a red-and-blue booklet and let it fall from his hand with a plop between them.
"It is a couple of years old, left over from when Gloria took her driving test, but I imagine it will suffice." A thought occurred to him, then, and he frowned. "How did you ever manage to get through high school without taking driver's education?"
Crystal picked up the manual and rolled it into a tube in her hand. "It was a summer course," she said deliberately, keeping her tone flat. "I spent my summers working to earn enough money to buy clothes to go back to school in the fall."
He tapped his finger on the top of his desk, regarding her with interest. "Sometimes I just don't know what to make of you," he said softly. He straightened up in his chair and cleared his throat. "I'll make an appointment for you with the license bureau in Llano—-for Friday afternoon," he added pointedly. "Be certain that you are ready. And, Crystal, I've decided that your job here is contingent upon your passing that test."
She wanted to protest at that, citing that he had not made a driver's license part of the original requirements for the job, but wisdom told her to hold her tongue. Besides, it might be a blessing in disguise if she failed the test. Only, where would she go if he fired her?
"Have you anything to say?" he asked shortly.
"No, sir."
His eyebrows made twin arches as he leaned back in his chair to survey her coolly. She noticed the tiny muscle in his jaw twitching. He seemed to want to say something to her, but balked.
She found this strange, but only sat stonily, waiting for him to dismiss her.
Finally he gave an exasperated sigh and came to his feet. "It seems that our city girl has had some of the starch taken out of her," he observed wryly, pacing about beside his desk. Suddenly his hands were on the arms of her chair and he was leaning to her, his face just slightly above hers.
Crystal could feel every muscle in her body tighten, every sense quicken to his nearness.
"Crystal, do you want to go home?" he asked, suddenly tender and gentle, and she knew immediately that if she said yes he would send her away.
She covered her face with her hands, trying to camouflage the uncertainty she knew must have been displayed there. Over and over the word "home" echoed in her brain. Where was that mystical place? Where could she make herself a home without him?
"I've got no home to go to," she said at last, letting her hands fall to her lap.
"Then you don't consider Dallas your home?" he pressed.
Crystal pushed him aside and stood up, backing away from him. If he touched her, she might well blurt out that she only wanted to be near him, and since that couldn't be, she mustn't say it.
"I don't have a home!" she reiterated sharply. "Anyplace I can get a job will have to be my home, and since this is the only job I have at the moment, this place will just have to do." She drew herself up proudly. "But I can manage perfectly well if you throw me out!"
"No one is throwing you out!" A big tanned hand came up to cover the grimace momentarily contorting his face. "I didn't say I wanted you to go!"
"What do you want from me, Garrett?" The words just slipped out, and instantly she regretted them.
He stared at her a moment, eyes unreadable and shadowed. "I want you to finish the job you were hired for," he replied shortly.
Crystal clenched her jaw. What had she expected, a marriage proposal? "Fine. Is that all? May I go now?"
"Not quite yet." He made her wait while he retook his chair and leaned back, bringing up one foot to rest on the edge of his desk. "I've told Lupe to borrow a bathing suit from Gloria for you, something more-shall we say—modest than that thing you were wearing the other day."
"You needn't have done that," she snapped angrily. She did not need to be reminded of that embarrassing incident. "I can do without the pool."
"I'm not only thinking of your comfort," he informed her sarcastically. "Connie's kids expressed a desire to swim in the pool, but she is afraid of the water herself. I think it's a good idea that the children themselves learn to respect the water rather than fear it. Rod agrees with me. Therefore, you will take them for a swim each morning just before lunch. I imagine you can work that into your schedule."
"All right."
He might have asked her about this before committing her to it, but since she would have agreed anyway, she did not pursue the matter.
"One more thing," he said abruptly. "You haven't asked, but I'll give my permission for you to ride the mare if you want. Rick assures me that you are a capable rider. Just don't go getting yourself into trouble. Use some common sense for a change, and stick close to the house. I don't want to have to come looking for you." He stressed that last sentence unnecessarily. "Understood?"
"Understood."
"You can go now, then."
He picked up the pencil he had been working with when she came in and bent his head over the column of figures on the paper before him. She left quickly, closing the door softly behind her. Once outside Garrett's office, she breathed a sigh of relief before heading for the kitchen to ask Lupe for the suit. Doubtless Gloria would not like having to lend her a bathing suit, but there was nothing she could do about that. And, frankly, she didn't care, not one whit.
Rod came with the children promptly at eight. Crystal was ready for them. She had their lessons laid out on the table waiting. The morning went smoothly, but she did not try to do too much with them. She was more interested in letting them get the feel of it and gauging their individual responses to her teaching methods. She found them willing and capable, though little Cruz tired easily and had not the attention span of the older children. He would require a special effort, but she did not mind. In fact, she thought she would rather enjoy working with him.
They had their first swim that very morning. Lupe had given her the bathing suit borrowed from Gloria, and the children had come prepared with their suits on beneath their clothing.
To say the suit was modest was an understatement. It had little-boy legs that were almost as long as Bermuda shorts, and a high, tight neckline. It was a drab thing of navy blue with a ridiculous four-inch stripe of yellow going the length of the right side, but Crystal noticed with satisfaction that it conformed nicely to her shape.
Petie took the children home for lunch, and Crystal went to prepare for her driving lesson. Cleave arrived about two, and they went out in the El Camino, which she managed easily because it was an automatic shift and required much less dexterity than the expensive sports car. He was more nervous than she, being painfully shy with women, but before long they felt comfortable with each other and were working well together.
She spent the rest of the afternoon studying the driving manual, and took her evening meal in her room before retiring early.
That set the pattern for the rest of the week. She avoided Garrett whenever possible, kept very much to herself, and began to relax into her position. She enjoyed working with the children. They were making better progress than she had expected. All in all, it was a satisfying week, except when she had to see Garrett. She even had to admit that she liked the feel of the steering wheel in her hands and the independence that came with being able to drive.
Friday came upon her suddenly, but it was just as well, for if given time to reflect, she might have been more nervous about taking her driving test.
As it turned out, there was no reason for her to be nervous. She passed the written portion of the exam with flying colors and only failed the parallel-parking portion of the driving test. Cleave went with her to the license bureau. When she emerged with that tiny little slip of paper that said she was a licensed driver, he was so proud of her that he insisted that she drive them home.
Crystal pulled the El Camino into the garage and pressed the button on the box on the visor that let the garage
door down. Before the sound of the automatic garage-door opener had died away, Garrett was standing in the side door, silhouetted against the bright sunlight, hands on hips. Crystal stepped out of the car and smiled over at him, then plucked the paper from her breast pocket and waved it in the air.
Garrett inclined his bare head. "Congratulations!" The soft, drawling inflection thrilled her.
"Thanks," she returned brightly, stuffing the paper back into its pocket. He stood looking at her for a moment, then turned and left. "Come on," she said to Cleave, feeling a little deflated, "I'll buy you a glass of Lupe's iced tea."
"Naw, better not," he refused apologetically. "Better get on back to work."
"I'm sure Garrett wouldn't mind if you just took time for a glass of tea," she cajoled.
He smiled but shook his head, hands worming down into the pockets of his jeans.
"Probably not if it was anybody but you," he blurted, his face slowly turning crimson.
"Just what is that supposed to mean?" Crystal demanded.
Cleave hunched his shoulders and licked his lips, obviously feeling that he had said too much already.
"Well," he mumbled, eyes glued to the ground at his feet, "you're sort of off-limits, if you know what I mean."
"No, I don't know what you mean!" Crystal flared. "Are you telling me that Garrett has told everyone to stay away from me?"
Cleave cringed. The man's ears looked as though they were about to burst into flame. He swallowed and shrugged, scuffing a toe across the cement floor of the garage.
"Well," he mumbled again, "he did sort of say that he didn't want anyone foolin' with you."
"Fooling with me?" she stormed. "That man has more gall than… than…"
Cleave danced uncertainly from foot to foot, eyes darting everywhere but at Crystal. Suddenly she felt compassion for him. It occurred to her why Garrett had chosen him to give her driving lessons. If there was one man on this ranch who would not dream of making a pass at a woman, it most decidedly was Cleave!
She sucked in a deep breath through her mouth and peered about the gloom of the garage. "In that case, Cleave," she said sweetly, "maybe you had better get on to work." He nodded and started to slip away. "Cleave," she called him back. "I just wanted to say thanks."
Fresh color flamed his cheeks, but he smiled and shrugged again. "Aw, that's okay. No problem."
She smiled lamely, and he escaped into the impersonal sunshine.
What Cleave had told Crystal both infuriated and worried her, but she decided not to confront Garrett with this particular bit of information. It just seemed wiser not to bring up any new problems. Besides, she was not desirous of attention from any male. She only wished that she had been allowed the prerogative.
As it turned out, she didn't have the opportunity to confront Garrett anyway. Later that evening, when she went to the kitchen to pick up her dinner tray, Lupe informed her that Garrett had taken off in his private airplane to attend to business matters elsewhere. The relief Crystal experienced was almost overwhelming, and for the first time she realized how depressed she had been lately.
It was difficult for her to stay in her room that evening. Her self-imposed solitary confinement had not been so difficult to bear when she thought that it would save her from contact with Garrett, but now that that threat was removed, she longed to go out and join the others in the courtyard. Still, since she was officially off-limits to the men on the ranch and Gloria despised her so, there was no real reason to go out. She toyed with the idea of going over to see Connie Hardesty, but remembered that Rod had said that morning that they were going to take the children to a drive-in movie over in Heritage Springs. Despondently Crystal resigned herself to another lonely evening—and there were many more to follow.
The weather turned sizzling. By day the ranch was very busy, in spite of the heat. It was branding time, and the cowboys worked from daylight to dark each day. Lupe was heavily into spring cleaning, and that helped to keep Gloria out of Crystal's way, but it also kept Lupe too busy to visit with her.
For a week Garrett stayed away, and though Crystal told herself that she was glad he was gone, she found herself hoping that he would return soon. To combat that feeling, she took to dropping in on Connie Hardesty for a visit when she delivered the children home each day. They usually had lunch together, but Crystal realized that Connie had her own life to live, and with five children, it was a very busy life. One long day stretched into another, and Crystal developed a severe case of restlessness.
It was Friday night, and everyone seemed to have a place to go except her. She had nothing but a long, lonely day to look forward to tomorrow, and she was dreading it. Thankfully the weather had cooled off again, but that only increased Crystal's desire to be out and moving around.
With a sigh of resignation she went to bed early, but found it impossible to sleep. After tossing fitfully for some time, she climbed down off the big rose bed, trod softly to the window seat, and pulled wide the green shutters. A delicate, compelling breeze wafted gently through the open window. A chorus of crickets chirped busily, serenading her through the black night.
Impulsively she dug out a pair of shorts and a big, gauzy shirt. She stripped off her filmy baby-doll pajamas and slipped into the shorts, then pulled the big shirt over her head and shrugged her arms into the elbow-length sleeves. She put a pair of rubber thongs on her bare feet and went quietly outside for a walk.
The whole world seemed to be sleeping, oblivious of her footsteps falling between the tufts of dense grass. The muted whinny of a horse sounded in the darkness, and Crystal decided to visit the stables. Pungent smells —oats, dung, and horseflesh—combined upon the night air to lure her onward.
For a few minutes she sat upon the top rail of the corral, drinking in the peaceful, silver-speckled sky. The barest sliver of a moon hung against the black velvet, wavering sleepily. A newly wakened chorus of crickets made music for her with their hind legs. An invisible whip-poor-will joined them with its hauntingly sweet cry, then hushed itself abruptly.
Crystal jumped down from her perch, nearly sliding through her thongs upon impact. Fine, powdery dust covered the ground around the corral, which was packed hard by the pounding it received daily from the horses' hooves. She straightened and wiggled her toes to get the sand out from between them. One ankle had taken the impact harder than the other and felt a little shaky. She decided to ignore it, hoping it would go away in few minutes' time.
The stable was quiet and pleasantly warm. The stalls were all along one wall, with a tack room at one end and a bin of hay at another. Some of the hay had fallen over onto the dirt floor in a little heap. Here and there, a horse bumped the walls of his stall and snorted out a hot, relaxed breath. Her presence did not disturb them.
Crystal walked down the long row of stalls, her ankle becoming more and more touchy with each step, looking for Sweet Momma. She intended to fetch a handful of hay for the old girl, but by the time she had located the horse and then gone for the hay, her ankle was paining her greatly.
Disgustedly she plopped down on the little pile of sweet-smelling loose hay and examined her tender ankle by the delicate light of the moon falling through a small dusty window.
"Is it all right?"
Crystal leaped backward, startled by the sound of Garrett's voice coming to her out of the shadows, and bumped her head against the hay bin.
"Ouch!" Her hand went immediately to, the bump on the back of her head, and his deep chuckle wafted through the opaque air.
"You better let me help you before you knock yourself out," he said half-teasingly, emerging from the darkness.
"You scared me," Crystal accused, her heart beating like a trip-hammer.
He went down on his haunches and lifted her foot gently in his large capable hand. He worked the ankle easily, saw her wince, and shook his head. "It's not a bad sprain," he said, "but I wouldn't go walking around on it."
The dusty moonlight glinted off his golden he
ad, casting silver highlights to it. Crystal wanted to reach out her hand and caress it softly. She stifled the impulse, bracing herself against the hay as he continued to examine her ankle.
"Where are your boots?" he asked suddenly, jerking his head up so that those breathtaking blue eyes impaled her squarely.
"In my room."
"Well, if you had worn them, this wouldn't have happened."
She pulled her ankle from his grasp, tucking it protectively beneath her. For a long, tense moment she cast about for something to say.
Garrett plucked a straw from the pile of hay and clamped it between his teeth, shifting his weight about on his cramped legs. When he spoke, his voice was soft and velvety. "I was looking for you." —
"Oh?" The sound was thin in the night air.
"I just got back a little while ago, and I went straight to your room. You weren't there." He slanted her a look.
"Oh," she repeated. Why couldn't she think of something more interesting to say?
With an exclamation Garrett snatched the straw from his mouth and speared it into the hay next to Crystal's bare leg. "We can't keep on avoiding each other," he said propelling himself upward to a standing position. Darkness shrouded his face. A shaft of moonlight fell across his chest, where his shirt, open to the waist, showed taut, tanned muscles dusted over with coarse blond hair. "I can't stay away just to keep from seeing you!" he said jerkily.
Crystal suppressed a thrill of joy. At once she realized how irrational and useless it was for her to feel that way. Never, not ever, could she trust his feelings for her, she reminded herself strictly, and never could she reveal her feelings for him.
"Listen, Garrett, I've been thinking," she rushed. "I really ought to get out of here. I mean, I need to be looking for a permanent position somewhere, and… and…" She covered her face with her hands as the flow of words died away.
"Look at me, Crystal," he commanded softly. Then again, "Look at me!"
Slowly she lifted her eyes to him. In the moonlight they were glistening green pools, like the eyes of a frightened animal. She could feel the rapid pulsing of blood in the veins of her neck, the constricting of her chest as the air caught in her lungs.