Countess in Cowboy Boots

by Jodi O'Donnell

  “That’s what I mean, Will! I’ve been there, where Jenna is right now, thinking she’ll find her Prince Charming like Carla did and never have to worry about another thing in her life. And when you find out how foolish you were to pin all your hopes on him...you feel you can’t come back, because no one would understand.”

  “But you do,” he said. He lifted her chin. “I’m not convinced it might not do Jenna more good to see what it’s like out there in the world. All I’m sayin’ is, don’t think that the time you spent with Jenna is wasted, Lacey, or that there’s nothin’ that you can do from here to help her, if you’ll just put your mind to it.”

  Lacey peered intently into his eyes, looking for any sign of insincerity or his humoring her. But she saw none, only a genuine believing.

  She closed her eyes, thinking. What would have made a difference, not only eight years ago but all through those thousands of days she was gone—or even since she’d come back—that would have helped her to find the truth in herself to know what was right for her, and the strength to do it?

  She opened her eyes and focused on Will. “I can let Jenna know she’s loved, accepted and supported, and that I’m here for her no matter what.”

  She gripped his wrist, his hand still cupping her chin. “And that, if the world falls down around her shoulders, I’ll be here to help her pick up the pieces and figure out how to go on.”

  His gaze ranged over her upturned face, the hardness she’d seen there a few moments ago now completely vanished, as if it had never been. “I think that’d help her a lot,” he said softly.

  A fullness suffused her chest, very different from the binding feeling she usually felt. This, she realized, was the good kind of tightness—as if she would burst from gladness.

  Lacey squeezed Will’s wrist, so strong and solid. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For listening.” She slanted him an embarrassed glance from under her lashes. “For your not trying to fix my problems.”

  In the golden light seeping through the slats of the blinds, she could see his lips lift into one of those irresistible smiles. “Am I hearing it correctly, or did you just tell Iron Will Proffitt he’s not quite the domineering, interfering ring-tailed control freak who tricked you into getting engaged to him?”

  Her face heated up like a Christmas bulb, and she tried not to let that smile get to her. “I’ve always maintained that people can change. I certainly believe I have that capability. Why wouldn’t others?”

  “Why, indeed,” Will murmured. “So—it looks like you’ve got a phone call to make.”

  He rose, and it seemed the most natural gesture in the world for her to take his hand when he offered it and allow him to pull her to her feet. He immediately dropped her hand, leaving her feeling bereft, although they remained standing so close she could feel his breath against her hair.

  It felt very good to be with him this way, as it had when he’d provided comfort before. Very right. Every instinct in her shouted it to the rafters. She lifted her chin just as he dropped his, bringing their gazes into contact—and almost their mouths.

  The moment suspended, then burgeoned and grew. Then as if choreographed since the beginning of time, she tilted her chin as he ducked his head—and their lips met in a stirring kiss.

  The feel of him seemed as familiar to her as her name, yet new as the morning dew.

  Perhaps that was because this kiss was not just his doing, but both their choice. For herself, she couldn’t have even said why she made it, only that she had to. Had to feel emotional again. Had to let go.

  Had to feel passionate again.

  But the kiss was like an electric current that traveled through her body, making panic explode in her chest. “No! Will, I can’t. I’m sorry. I thought...I could...but not yet!”

  With a mighty shove born out of sheer terror, Lacey pushed Will away. She shrank against the arm of sofa, her heart pounding a mile a minute.

  From the other side of the sofa, Will stared at her.

  “I don’t understand, Lacey,” he said raggedly.

  “That’s right, you don’t!” she lashed out, knowing she was being irrational but unable to stop herself. “You don’t understand...what it was like. To be constantly on your guard because someone wanted to own you, heart, soul and body. But it wasn’t about love! It was about domination, and he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had complete power over me and at his mercy!”

  She stopped to draw in a badly needed breath, and the hysterical shrillness of her voice resounded in her ears. She was hysterical.

  Lacey covered her face with her hands.

  “Do you think I want power over you, Lacey?” Will asked, his own voice low but just as penetrating. “Do you think that’s what this is about? I am not Nicolai Laslo!”

  “No, I don’t think that! But there is something that’s keeping me from taking the risk of finding out!”

  She tried to get a hold of her emotions, which were whirling with all kinds of impressions and sensations, not the least of which was a case of deep distrust of anyone or anything at this point. It made her question herself as to why she continued to feel this way. Was it truly because she’d lost all innocence and hope, that she could never completely trust another man?

  She trusted her father, though. And Lee.

  Forehead on her knees, she fought for calm, fought to get to the truth within her.

  “I think,” she said at last, “that having power and being in control are part of your makeup, though not all of it. I don’t know what happened while I was away, but people must call you Iron Will Proffitt for a reason.”

  She raised her head and looked at him, waiting. Waiting for answers she had long needed.

  His gaze searched hers, sounded its depths profoundly as if trying to find his own reasons to trust.

  And apparently not finding any, for as the seconds dragged on and on, the opportunity for them to both tear down barriers and reveal themselves to each other waned—and passed.

  From opposite sides of the sofa, they stared at each other like two foes over a bargaining table, neither of which was willing to give an inch. But how could she give in, give more, until she got what she needed from him?

  “It looks like neither one of us is willing to take the risk,” Lacey said softly.

  “It sure looks that way,” he said, expressionless.

  She felt inexpressibly sorry. Sorry for them both.

  Will was as impassive as ever as he helped her to her feet, dropping his hand on her elbow once she’d gotten her balance. The drive home was equally silent, the goodbye terse.

  The masks—both his and hers—as firmly in place as ever.

  * * *

  LACEY WIPED DOWN THE LAST stretch of kitchen counter and rinsed the dishcloth before folding it and draping it over the faucet to dry. She let her gaze linger on the scene outside the window over the sink, where a glorious sunset was overtaking the western sky in true “big, bigger, just right” Texas style. Blazes of orange and red burst over the horizon with the subtlety of a Sherman tank, leaving bold tracks of vivid gold in the wisps of clouds.

  She turned at the sound of footsteps coming into the kitchen.

  “Finished with the supper dishes already?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes. It doesn’t take much to clean up when you’ve got an industrial-size dishwasher,” Lacey observed. “It must take you a week to fill it when it’s just you and Daddy here. I don’t doubt you run out of dishes before then.”

  “Actually, I don’t use the dishwasher much for just that reason,” her mother said. “I’m kind of partial to hand-washing, anyway. Grew up that way and got used to it through most of my married life. I don’t see much reason to change now. So you see, I wouldn’t miss that dishwasher if I didn’t have it.”
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  Lacey nodded absently. She was still a little numb from today’s happenings, first with the computers, then with Jenna’s running away. Then with Will. She wanted to trust him, wanted him to trust her. And she did trust him...to a certain extent. But not completely. Something was stopping them both from doing so. She had an idea what the problem was on her side, couldn’t say and perhaps didn’t want to know what it was on his. But she couldn’t ever trust him completely until he trusted her with what was inside his head and heart.

  She didn’t know how much longer she could endure this tug of war with him—and her heart.

  “Lacey?”

  She glanced up. “Yes?”

  “I asked if I could fix you a glass of tea while I had the pitcher out for your daddy and me,” Rachel said.

  “Oh. Sure, thanks.”

  Her mother busied herself with the routine. After she had poured three glasses, instead of taking two of them to the upstairs sitting room, however, she marched to the table, slapped a couple of paper napkins under them, and sat down rather determinedly in a clear invitation for Lacey to join her there.

  Lacey sank into a chair kitty-corner from Rachel, eyebrows raised in question.

  Her mother got right to it. “I’m sorry about sendin’ those computers back today. I shouldn’t’ve done it, should’ve let you make that decision yourself, and I wanted you to know that.”

  “It’s all right, Mother,” Lacey said. She picked at the edge of the bandage on her hand. It seemed a million years ago that she’d injured it at this very table. “You must have been pretty worried about taking delivery on all those computers if you thought I’d be abandoning work on the center. I wouldn’t leave you and Daddy in the lurch, believe me. Don’t worry another minute about it.”

  “That’s it!” Rachel’s palm slapped the tabletop, making Lacey jump and bringing her head up.

  “Mother, what is it?”

  “I’ll thank you not to humor me again, Lacey Jane McCoy! I won’t say I haven’t done anything to deserve it, but I am tryin’ to understand why you still want to turn this house into a girls’ center!”

  Lacey sank back in her chair, her weariness of this morning returning tenfold. “After I told you about Nicolai’s treatment of me, Mother, how could you not know how much setting this center up means to me?”

  “I realize that. But you were also doin’ it mostly to keep your father and me in this house, weren’t you?” Rachel countered. “And it just seemed to follow how you’re going to be settled out on the Double R soon, which means we’d be on our own again and would have to look to what we wanted to do once you’re married. Because we don’t want to stay in this house.”

  “You don’t?” Lacey asked, dumbfounded. Was it not simply Will but her mother, too, that she was out of sync with? “But when we talked about it, you said there was no way you and Daddy could sell this house.”

  “Well, not for what it’s worth, certainly,” Rachel said tartly. “I was talkin’ to your daddy last night, and I said I thought surely we could get a fair amount of money, more ’n enough to buy a nice little place and put away the rest. It’d make sense, don’t you think?”

  For several moments, Lacey could only stare at her mother in stunned silence.

  “I don’t understand, Mother,” she said at last. “I simply don’t understand. I thought this house was important to you, the last status symbol you had now that I’m no longer America’s Cinderella.”

  “Well, it surely was nice to live here when you were. I’ll admit I enjoyed the luxury—and, I’m ashamed to admit, feelin’ superior to the other ladies around town.”

  Rachel’s pale complexion pinkened. “But now that you’re not married to a rich count...well, stayin’ in a house like this when it’s not affordable seems plain stupid. Your daddy and me, we’ve never been ones to live beyond our means, eating caviar on a pizza budget, as your daddy would say. Not when pizza is actually what suits him better. And me, too,” she added a trifle defiantly.

  Lacey continued to sit there in what she was sure was slack-jawed amazement. This was a side of her mother she’d never seen. Of course, she’d never seen the side of her mother which had been so prevalent since Lacey’s return—the holding-onto-the-past-with-both-hands, unable-to-accept-the-future, unhappy-with-her-lot side. Although there had always been shades of those characteristics in her mother’s personality, Lacey knew her own failed marriage and return to Abysmal in disgrace had magnified those traits in Rachel.

  So what had caused this change of stripes?

  “What’s different from yesterday that would change your mind, Mother?”

  Rachel fiddled with the edge of her napkin for a minute, eyes downcast. “I know I did you wrong by talkin’ to Nicolai, and that it brought a powerful lot of trouble on all our heads. I felt terrible about it. But then it seemed almost like a wish come true how things turned around, with Will proposing. I’ll grant it concerned me at first, even if I had a woman’s intuition that you two had feelings for each other.”

  “You did?” Lacey blurted out, wondering what exactly her mother’s instincts told her that Lacey was still trying to figure out herself. “How?”

  “You could just tell. Oh, I know you were angry with him when he kissed you at the Summer Fling. And I heard about the quarrel you had outside the tack and feed. But when you announced your engagement, it seemed to me that everything was going to work out after all.”

  She raised her eyes, and Lacey could see they’d filled with tears again. “It hasn’t, though. Last night when you came inside after Will left, I could tell you were desperate unhappy about something, and I thought maybe it was because you were worried what would happen to your daddy and me in this house. Then this morning the mix-up with the computers happened.... Honestly, Lacey, all I wanted to do was to help! And now, I thought you’d be happy to know you wouldn’t have to worry about things here and could start fresh with Will, but it’s plain to see you’re as unhappy as ever.”

  With a sigh, Lacey squeezed her mother’s hand. “I appreciate your wanting to help, Mother. But...but you never stopped working after you married Daddy, at least until I was born, and even after that you always kept the books and ran the finances for Daddy’s business. So why would you expect me to give up the girls’ center after marrying Will and just live the life of leisure?”

  “I didn’t expect you to,” Rachel contradicted. “I just thought you’d move out to the Double R and be a part of that with Will. Be a part of the dreams he’s buildin’ on, and bringin’ your own into the mix—like your girls’ center—so they become your dreams together.”

  Rachel went on hastily, “It’s not that we don’t appreciate what you’ve done to help us not have to go through too many changes. We do. It’s just that now it’s time for us to do for ourselves.”

  Lacey shook her head, thoroughly perplexed. “I still don’t get it. I mean, yesterday you were wanting to hold on to the past. And now you’re willing to just go with the flow?”

  “Well, yes.” Her mother’s blush grew even deeper. “Hank...your daddy...he’s been real patient with me gettin’ used to this whole situation and the changes to our lives. I haven’t been at my best, I know—sometimes I’ve been downright unreasonable. But thankfully we’ve been able to talk about it and work it out, so we could come back around to what’s really important to us. With you goin’ off to make your life with Will, your daddy and I needed to look at what was going to be right for just us two.”

  She gave an embarrassed laugh, and Lacey had to wonder only a second what it was about. “I’ll have to say, it’s been kind of exciting, planning together. I haven’t felt anything like this in years, sort of ‘you and me against the world,’ you know?”

  She regarded her mother with new perception. The two of them had never gotten along very well; where Rachel was concerne
d, Lacey had always felt she fell far short of doing the right thing. Now, Lacey saw that her mother really had been trying to give her daughter the support and advice she thought would help. The trouble was, it was difficult for Rachel to let go of control over the people in her life and just trust. Trust herself, mostly.

  It wasn’t easy to think about, but it occurred to Lacey that she was a lot like her mother in that respect. Yet her mother had been able to get past her issues to renew that sense of trust and taking risks, and now it seemed she had it all—along with a good man at her side.

  It was how Lacey had felt briefly with Will. So why was she running so hard from experiencing such a feeling again? What was wrong with her that she’d push away something that seemed so right?

  Lacey was silent, thrown into a sudden turmoil. Her mother must have sensed some of her conflict, however. “What is it, honey?” Rachel asked softly.

  She couldn’t tell the truth, mainly because she didn’t know what the truth was at this moment. Swallowing past the lump in her throat, Lacey focused on a drop of condensation running down the side of her glass, and said as honestly as possible, “I think I was too hasty, getting engaged to Will.”

  “Has that been what’s worrying you?”

  Lacey nodded jerkily. “That—and telling you.”

  “Oh, honey.” Rachel folded Lacey’s hand between her two. “Truly, neither your daddy or I would ever want you to go into another marriage where you weren’t happy! Do you want to call off the engagement?”

  “No...maybe...oh, I don’t know!” She knew that would invite so many more complications, including the possibility of Nicolai finding out and pursuing her again, but how much longer could she let the fear of what he might do dictate how she lived her life?

  “Then you must take your time to know for sure,” Rachel said. “Don’t worry about your daddy and me. We’ll figure out something to do about this house and the resource center. You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you like. All we want is your happiness.”