by Laurie Paige
Sam had surprised her by inviting her family out for a dinner of grilled chicken and a bakery pie for dessert the previous night. She’d made a salad and twice-baked potatoes to complete the meal.
Her suitcases were stored in the trunk of the car. Next week she would get the rest of her clothing and decide exactly what furniture she wanted to move. And there were all her dishes, linens, pots and pans plus the collected treasures of ten years to consider.
The church had already asked to rent her cottage for their caretaker and grounds keeper. She’d agreed, but asked for a month to sort through her stuff. At the moment, following Sam into her new home, her thoughts were too distracted to consider the furnishings.
“Let’s get Lass settled, then I’d like to change,” she told him. She wondered what brides wore in the interim between the wedding and preparing for bed. A going-away suit hardly seemed appropriate since she was already at her destination.
The new sports outfit she’d bought last month, she decided. It was a soft knit the color of spring grass with eyelets embroidered in gold and rust-colored satin thread.
“Right. I’ll bring your luggage in.”
She watched as he headed back outside in a long stride. She wondered if he felt as awkward as she did. There’d been no more torrid sessions like the night in her kitchen. Sam had been almost rigidly circumspect after that.
A niggling fear that she expected more of this marriage than she was going to get nagged her. No words of love had been spoken by either of them. Kisses had been brief and very few.
Had he married her only to protect Lass and save his land from his father-in-law? No. She couldn’t believe that after the passionate interlude they’d shared.
Memories of those kisses had haunted her dreams. This moment might have been easier if they’d already become lovers, she thought, standing awkwardly in the middle of the living room.
Lass stirred and whimpered slightly. Molly carried her to the bedroom and put her in the crib. Lass smiled up at her, then promptly closed her eyes, pulled a corner of the blanket around her thumb and stuck it in her mouth.
The sleep of the innocent, Molly mused, gazing at the child with a heart filled with love. Hearing Sam’s footsteps in the hall, she stiffened. Clutching the billowing skirt of her dress, which had been her mother’s and grandmother’s before her, she rushed out and closed the nursery door behind her.
“Lass asleep?” he asked.
She nodded.
“She’ll probably be out for the night. It was a long day, and she didn’t have a nap this afternoon.”
They stood there for a minute. The silence intensified. Only the night-lights were on in the hall. They were a foot from the polished stone floor, shaded by a clever adobe awning that was part of the wall. The effect was one of semicircles of light along the hallway.
“Your room is this way,” Sam finally said. Heat slid down and pooled in the lower part of his body. He wasn’t sure he could keep his vow to give her time to adjust to him and decide if she really wanted this marriage. But he had to. He had to play fair with Molly.
She followed behind him. He opened a door at the end of the hall and on the opposite side from Lass’s room. It was a neat room with Spanish oak furniture—an ornate bedstead and matching dresser. Two chairs and a table formed a sitting area.
“This is a guest room,” she said.
He saw the puzzlement on her face. He set her two pieces of luggage on a bench at the end of the bed and rubbed his hands down his thighs. He felt sweaty-palmed and as awkward as an adolescent on his first date.
“Molly,” he began. The room was lit only by the sunset. It felt too dark, too intimate. He flicked the wall switch and two lamps beamed pools of light, one on the bed, the other on the table. “Listen, we don’t have to begin our marriage right away. I realize I sort of forced you into it.”
He stopped, unable to explain that he valued her friendship, that he was afraid she’d dislike his love-making. She was a lady, and sex was… well, it could be sort of wild.
She said nothing. Just stood there watching him.
He felt a prickle of misgivings, but having started he had to finish. “Later, if you want an annulment, if you find ranch life boring, well, it would be easier all around if things were kept… simple.”
“Simple,” she repeated.
“Yeah.” He didn’t like the look in her eye. The satin moved over her breasts, then stopped. He realized she’d taken a deep breath and was holding it. He stared, fascinated, until the material moved again, slowly, deeply… again, then again.
“And in the meantime, I’m to be a guest here?” Her voice was deadly quiet.
Sweat popped out on his forehead. “For your sake, I thought it would be best.”
“Because you think I’ll grow bored and want to leave.” She finished the thought for him. “Is that what your first wife did?”
“Yes.”
He was pretty sure he’d made a bad mistake in not explaining all this before the wedding. Molly’s mouth primmed up and her stance subtly shifted. Flags of color flew in her cheeks.
If he didn’t know her better—that she was a sensible, levelheaded woman—he’d have thought she was furious.
“So we’re to have a trial run before we commit ourselves?”
Put like that, it sounded pretty silly. “Well, yes. I think that would be reasonable.”
He tried to explain, to show her he was being gallant about it, that he wouldn’t expect more than she wanted to give-She gave him a look that would have stopped a charging buffalo, much less his stumbling, rambling explanation, and walked to the door.
“How long do you think it will take before everyone in the county knows we’re sleeping in separate rooms?” she questioned. “Then they’ll really have something to talk about.”
She left the room. He heard a door slam. She’d left the house. He hurried after her, wondering how to make things right when every word he’d uttered had made them more and more wrong.
Molly gripped the top rail of the fence with both hands. Anger burned hot and bright within her. She couldn’t figure anything out, not Sam, not their hasty marriage, nothing.
Except he didn’t really want her.
He had made her think they were in love. Those kisses in her kitchen, he had wanted her then. However, she was old enough to know that sex didn’t mean love. As of this moment, she hadn’t a notion of what it did mean.
Across the paddock, a big red horse eyed her, then snorted a couple of times. He threw up his head and neighed.
Molly gave him her teacher’s stare. His racket interfered with her thinking. She pressed a hand to her temple, causing the ruffles of Brussels lace at her sleeve to cascade down to her elbow. Thunder rumbled. She glanced up in surprise.
The horse charged toward her. She moved back a step and watched it in a disinterested fashion. It came right up to the fence and stopped, then, arching its neck over the rail, it tried to bite her!
She slapped it on the nose, then was appalled. She’d never touched another living thing in anger before.
It threw up its head and screamed, then ran around the paddock kicking its rear legs up in the air like a ninny.
Molly leaned on the rail. “Stop that,” she ordered. “You look silly.” She snatched a clump of succulent grass from beside a boulder and held it over the rail. “Here, you spoilt bully.”
The big red monster quit its act and watched her from a distance. Finally it began to sidle over that way.
From the shadows of the back patio, Sam shook his head at the two cowhands who’d come out of the barn to see what the ruckus was about. One held a lariat in his hand. The other held a pitchfork ready to drive the stallion back if necessary.
Sam watched as the stallion, known as a man hater, edged closer to Molly’s outstretched hand. He wanted to grab her and shield her from danger, but was afraid to move, afraid he’d startle the red into more of a fury.
“Molly,” he call
ed softly. “Move back. That horse is dangerous. He hates people.”
She didn’t show that she’d heard his words, just continued to stand there. On the night air, he heard her murmuring voice calming the big horse. To his amazement, the horse reached out and took the tuft of grass. Then Molly stroked its neck and ran her fingers through its forelock.
When the stallion snorted and galloped to the far side of the paddock, Sam ran across the yard and grabbed Molly away from the fence. “Don’t ever disobey me again,” he ordered.
“What will you do—beat me?” And she smiled up at him with all the insolence of the boy he’d once been, bent on defying his stepfather and running the ranch the way his father had.
“Don’t tempt me,” he advised and knew from the flare of anger in her eyes that she’d drawn a battle line between them.
“Ah, hell,” he said and hoisted her into his arms.
Startled, she clutched his shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed.”
Molly burned with humiliation as Sam carted her toward the house. Behind them, she could hear laughter as well as shouts of encouragement from the two cowboys who were helping out on the ranch that summer.
She felt utterly ridiculous—the plain-Jane who had naively thought this dashing, handsome man was in love with her. How could she have been so stupid?
Her foolish heart had read more into the situation than had been there. She’d been too inexperienced to understand.
“Put me down at once,” she ordered in a voice sure to bring the desired action in the classroom.
He ignored her. Sam Frazier wasn’t a four-year-old used to obeying the teacher. He carried her into the house and into a suite of rooms that opened off the living room.
After setting her down on the carpet beside the bed, he caught her arms. When she struggled, he simply held on, his thumb and fingers encircling her wrist, not hurting, but holding her securely.
She realized the futility of trying to break his hold. “If you think I’ll…I’ll…cohabitate with you after that insult, I can tell you right now—I won’t.”
“What insult?” He looked thoroughly puzzled.
He didn’t even know! She certainly wasn’t about to enlighten him on her lovelorn expectations.
“I was thinking of you and your comfort,” he said impatiently. “I know you haven’t slept with a man—”
She couldn’t control the gasp, nor the heat that rushed into her face. “You can’t tell,” she began, then stopped, uncertain.
His knowledge of the female body exceeded hers on certain subjects. Another humiliation. She gave him a fulminating glance, crossed her arms over her chest and stared out the window at the cactus and sage growing on a nearby hill.
Sediments of the multicolored silt that had once covered the floor of an inland sea were exposed by erosion, forming layered hues of rusty red and ocher and tan over the terrain. She stared at the hill until the colors blurred and she had to blink.
“Look, I’m not asking you to cohabitate.” His very tone mocked the word and her use of it. He knew very well what she meant. “You were the one who brought up what people would think about us having separate rooms. You’re right. No matter how careful we are, things have a way of getting out.”
She rounded on him, words rushing so sharply to her tongue she had to bite them back. To say them would be to admit her fantasy that he’d fallen in love as she had. Pride wouldn’t allow her to concede that much to him. “I’d rather sleep with a rattlesnake,” she said instead.
“You’ll sleep with me,” he snapped. “And like it.”
“I will not!”
A weary smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. “Well, maybe you won’t like it, but you’ll sleep in this bed. And I probably won’t sleep at all,” he added with a smile dipped in acid and stalked out the door.
She stood in the too-silent room and wondered what she should do now. Going to the window, she watched the long shadows of evening color the mesa lavender and magenta and purple.
Diablo Mesa. The Devil’s land. And she was going to be sleeping in his bed!
A thump outside the door brought her heart to her throat. Sam brought her bags in, placed them none too gently on the floor and walked out without saying a word.
She pushed the door closed and laid her hand on the lock.
Sam’s headache rose a notch at the slam of the door behind him. He sighed. There were chores to be done. He grimaced at his suit. Damn. He went out to the barn anyway.
Sandy and Tom were mucking out the stables. He nodded to them and grabbed a bucket. After putting it in the stallion’s manger, he eased the outside door open, then quickly retreated, getting the stall door closed before the big horse could come inside and try to kick him into oblivion.
Although he could use a little oblivion right now.
He leaned on the stall gate and watched the red come tearing inside and dip his nose into the oats.
It was a fact, he’d never understand women. Here he’d tried to be gentle and patient with Molly, considerate of her feelings and all, and what had happened? She’d gotten huffed up like a puff adder and nearly taken his head off.
Hell, he should have just taken her to bed and done all the things he wanted to do to her. That would show her.
But, he reasoned, he was trying to be fair to her. Dammit, he was trying to act like an honorable man rather than a rutting stag crazy with lust.
He knew Molly wasn’t the spoiled prima donna his wife had been, but she might not like ranch living. She might not like him once she got to know him. However, he had to convince her to stay with him for a year. Maybe by then everyone would forget or disregard any rumors spread by Tisdale.
The big red threw up his head and whickered for more oats when he finished. Sam glared at the animal.
“Hey, boss, watch out for that man hater,” Sandy called, stopping work to lean on the pitchfork and toss a grin his way.
“Yeah. He’s a mean’un all right,” Tom agreed, coming out of a stall after spreading clean straw. “Won’t let a man within a hundred feet, but now gals is a different story. B’lieve the red has a soft spot for pretty little fillies.”
“Yep,” Sandy chimed in. “She walked right in and wrapped the meanest bronco this side of the Pecos around her finger. Think the boss eats out of her hand, too?”
The two cowboys laughed uproariously at their humor. Sam gave them a narrow-eyed glare, then grinned, too. An idea came to him. “Hey, you may be right. The red might take to a human female.”
The rope burns on the mustang’s neck testified to his misuse at the hands of the men who’d tried to catch and tame him. It had been a stroke of pure luck that the red had entered an open paddock when the men were moving the remuda. The big mustang had been after his mares.
Sam saw the men had the chores well in hand. He headed for the house. He had other fences to mend.
He entered the kitchen cautiously. No pot hurled past his head the way it once had.
Molly wasn’t there. He hurried down the hall, worried that his bride might decide she didn’t want to stay even one night on the ranch. After checking on Lass, who was out for the night, he silently tried the doorknob to his room. It turned.
He was grateful for small favors. At least she hadn’t locked him out. “Molly?”
No answer.
She wasn’t in the room. Her luggage was gone. He whirled around, intending to go down the hall and get her. A noise from the adjoining room stopped him. Opening the door, he saw her.
As if he weren’t there, she calmly hung a dress in the closet. She had changed from the wedding gown to a pants and top outfit. He couldn’t help but notice how nicely curved she was.
“What are you doing?” he asked after clearing his throat.
“Unpacking.” Her face, usually so open, was closed.
“In here?”
“Yes.”
The room reflected the tradition of the past ce
ntury when a smaller room commonly adjoined the master suite. It had been used as a nursery in the past. His mother had used it as a sitting room where she read and sometimes entertained close friends.
It had a daybed against one wall. A Greek recliner and two comfortable rockers along with a dressing table and three smaller tables completed the furnishings.
“Then you’re going to stay?’’
She gave him that drop-dead glance again. “Of course. Our marriage has hardly begun.” She placed the hanger in the closet, closed her empty suitcase and placed it inside before closing the closet door.
For a second, she stood there as if thinking, then she looked him square in the face. “Did I tell you I don’t believe in divorce?”
Relief washed over him. “No.”
“I don’t.”
“All right.” Whatever she wanted, he was agreeable. If she’d left before the first day was over…God, he wouldn’t live that down in two lifetimes.
He didn’t like the idea of marriage, but he liked Molly. If ever a marriage had a chance, it should be this one. Without the confusing issue of love, which was a nice name for lust, they’d get along fine. They’d be friends, then they could be lovers.
But he wouldn’t rush her. He’d control his impulses. He’d show her how much fun life on the ranch could be.
A sinking sensation hit his middle. He’d tried that once. But Molly was different. She was interested in all kinds of things—the land, history, people, weather, everything. She was a woman a man could talk to.
Except she didn’t seem to be speaking to him at the present.
She walked across the room. He moved aside, then followed her down the hall to the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator.
“I’m hungry. Do you want a sandwich?” she asked.
“Yes.” A question burned in the back of his mind. “If you don’t believe in divorce, how long are you going to stay in the other room?”
“Until the time is right.”
Chapter Seven
Sam turned on his side, lay there, then flipped over to the other side. He settled on his back and stared at the patterns of moonlight on the ceiling.