by Jeanne Allan
'The hell you are. If you think—'
'Nicky and I have to live somewhere. For some inexplicable reason she's crazy about you and it would break her heart if I separated the two of you. She likes it here, and I don't want to move her. Then there's your father to consider. Nicky is his only grandchild and, based on the prospects, all he's likely to have.' Clay scowled at her, and she shifted on the bed, hoping her injury was enough to save her from being strangled. 'I considered buying a house in town, and then I decided, why should I when you have this perfectly good place here?'
'Where am I going to live?'
'You can live in town.'
'That might make running the ranch a little inconvenient.'
'Then live in the barn. And take that stupid cow downstairs with you.' This wasn't going at all how she'd planned. First Clay was supposed to be properly abject and then he was supposed to beg her to stay. He wasn't supposed to logically argue. The fact that he was proved he cared nothing for her.
Clay took a few steps around the room and then leaned one elbow on top of her chest of drawers. 'I thought you hated it out here.' His voice was deceptively mild, his face hidden in the shadows beyond the pool of light from her bedside lamp.
Dallas leaned back against her pillows, exhausted. Clay was determined that she leave. 'You thought wrong,' she said dully. 'Besides, Nicky belongs here.'
'And you'd sacrifice so she could stay?'
'It's no sacrifice. I like it here.' Her fingers prowled restlessly over the covers. 'I think I'm needed at the school. I like the people I've met. I know you don't think I fit in, but I'm happy here.' The silence that followed her declaration seemed to vibrate 'with tension.
Clay had moved to the window and was staring out into the dark night. 'You say that I owe you and that you want half the ranch. Fine. We'll split everything half and half. My way. To begin with, the house. It's too damned big for either one of us to live here alone. We'll split it down the middle.'
His dispassionate voice bewildered her as much as his words. 'Down the middle… I don't understand. You mean that you'll live in one half of the house and I'll live in the other?'
'I mean you get half of each room and I get half. Including the bedrooms.'
'The bedrooms…' Dallas repeated in confusion.
'And,' he continued relentlessly, 'the division includes my bed. Half is yours and half is mine.' He turned and glared at her. 'When I wake up in the morning I want to see your head on the next pillow. I'm sick and tired of separate bedrooms.'
'Now wait a minute!' Dallas sat up and glared back, refusing to acknowledge a faint tinge of hope. 'I'm not the one who sneaks out every night like some thief.'
'What did you expect me to do? I knew Nicky was in the habit of running in and crawling in with you in the morning. I figured you'd explain things to her and then I could stay. Or you would move into my bedroom. But you never did. At the hotel, when you came to my room you made it perfectly clear that sleeping with me was along the lines of a service station stop. Drop in, get what you wanted, and take off.'
'Of all the disgusting—' Her voice came to an abrupt halt. 'Is that why you were so mad the next day? I thought you didn't want me to stay? You always left me… I thought…'
'You thought what?'
'That you were sorry I wasn't Alanna.'
'Alanna!' he exploded. 'She's the last woman on earth I would have wanted to sleep with.' Clay moved to the side of the bed, a frown on his face. 'Where did you get that dumb idea?'
Dallas picked at the covers, unable to meet his eyes. 'Things people said. Your reluctance to talk about her. My—my nightgown. You knew she had one like it.'
He heaved a heavy sigh. 'I should have known that, even in her diary, Alanna wouldn't tell the truth.'
Dallas looked down at the abandoned tray sitting on her lap. 'I only read part of the diary,' she confessed. 'Alanna wrote about her affair with Terry.' She ignored Clay's indrawn breath. 'She called him D.P. I—I thought she was talking about you. Last night at the cabin I realised the truth.'
The crooked smile on Clay's face didn't extend to his eyes. 'What a nice notion of my morals you have. Believing that I would sleep with my brother's wife. You must think I'm perfectly capable of any perfidy.'
'I didn't want to believe it,' she cried, 'but you kept making all those cryptic remarks. And then… the nightgown…' she finished miserably.
'The nightgown. Yes, I'd seen Alanna in hers. She was wearing it when Kyle found her in my arms. Why the horror?' he lashed out as she recoiled. 'I told you about that before.'
'I'd forgotten,' she half whispered.
'Then let me remind you. The night Kyle died he was drinking because his brother had betrayed him with his wife. I'm as guilty of his death as if I'd shot him.'
'No.' The torment in his eyes pierced her heart. 'I don't believe it. Even if you did love Alanna, you'd never be disloyal to your brother. Honour is too important to you. If Kyle found her in your arms, there must have been an innocent reason.'
'What could be innocent about it?'
Hearing the anguish in his voice, Dallas reached out to him. 'I don't know. I just know you'd never hurt Kyle.'
Clay took the tray from her lap before dropping heavily on the edge of the bed. 'Kyle didn't have your faith in me. He died believing that I had betrayed him.' Overcome by his memories, Clay seemed to have forgotten her presence. 'I tried to explain, but how do you tell a man his wife threw herself into your arms? He was my brother. Why didn't he trust me?'
Dallas felt Clay's pain and struggled to find words of comfort. She remembered what Vicky Gomez had said. 'I think Kyle spent most of his life searching for an identity. Because you've always known yours, he felt somehow inadequate around you. Because he felt you were the better man, he thought it natural that Alanna would prefer you.' She slipped her hand into his.
'They fought about it, and Kyle was drinking that night. Their accident—'
'Was not your fault,' she said quickly. 'You weren't with them. You didn't know that he was drinking. You're not responsible for what Kyle thought or how he reacted.' Clay, she wanted to cry, he was weak, can't you see that? Instead she said, 'Alanna wasn't perfect, I understand that now. She had her demons to slay. More than anything in the world, Alanna feared being unloved. She always wanted to come first with everyone.'
'I know. Even at her wedding Alanna was jealous that I preferred you. She tried to tell me that it wasn't fair of me to drag you all over Washington DC to look at mouldy old buildings.'
Dallas blinked back tears. 'Poor Alanna. Driven to an affair with Terry, then falling in love with him so that she had to use you as a red herring to protect him when Kyle began to suspect her unfaithfulness. I know what she did was reprehensible, but she was always so terrified of being abandoned. The discovery that Kyle was having an affair…' Dallas correctly interpreted Clay's convulsive movement. 'It was in her diary, but I already knew from something Mercedes said. Alanna started the affair with Terry to prove to Kyle that she was worth loving. Then she was afraid of losing Nicky. She must have felt her whole life was being threatened by Mercedes.'
'About Mercedes. Our engagement just sort of happened. I was more relieved than heartbroken when she changed her mind.' Clay had discovered her hand in his and he was tracing the lines of her palm. 'You haven't said whether you'll accept my conditions of the divorce settlement.'
She closed her eyes to block out the gleam in his. 'It would be an awfully weird divorce.'
Clay laughed softly. 'We've had an awfully weird marriage.'
Disappointment stung her. Nothing had changed. Clay still wanted her to care for Nicky and warm his bed. Nothing more. 'And if I refuse your conditions?'
'I'll refuse to give you a divorce.' He swung his long legs up on the bed beside her.
'But you're the one who wanted the divorce.'
'It seemed the least I could do for you. You accused me of dragging you out here. Since then, you've fallen off h
orses, trucks, ladders, you've been lonely, tangled with rustlers, got lost…' He slipped his arm behind her shoulders. 'How was I supposed to know that's your idea of a good time?'
'Are you saying you don't really want a divorce?' Dallas asked carefully.
'Are you kidding? Dad, Sara, Jim, the school, the whole neighbourhood would rise up in revolt if I divorced you.'
'I see.' Her voice caught on a sob.
'That's more than I did for a long time.' There were wry undertones to his voice. He ran his fingers up and down her arm. 'Only a fool would propose marriage to a woman just to have someone to take care of his niece. You seemed the perfect choice. I remembered you as a sweet kid and I knew you loved Nicky. And marrying you took away the threat of your winning custody. Two birds with one stone.' His laugh was derisive. 'I was such a fool, I never considered beyond the court hearing.' He tilted her chin up with his finger. 'I never considered what would happen when a honey-blonde witch used her charms on me. The first time you fell off Molly and lay there on the ground joking about it, I felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck me.'
The tender light in his eyes took her breath away., 'You—you said that love couldn't be forced, that you could never love me. You were always snarling at me.'
'I never said I couldn't love you. I thought you couldn't love me, and I didn't want you to feel guilty because of it.' He smoothed his thumb over her trembling mouth. 'Why do you think I snarled at you? Because I'd fallen crazy in love with you, and you made it quite plain that you were only interested in Nicky. Unrequited love is enough to make a saint snarl.'
'You're hardly a saint,' she said automatically, her head awhirl with Clay's admission. He loved her!
Before she could respond to that, he lifted her hand to his lips and began kissing her fingertips. 'I've made a decision,' he said between fingers. 'From now on, I'm taking a lesson from you. You fall down, you get up. You never give up. Well, I don't intend to give up either. Not until you say you love me.'
'And if I never do?' she teased, her heart buoyant.
'I'll just have to persuade you.' He lowered his head.
'Clay,' she shrieked, 'you can't make love to me now. I've spent the day lying in bed with my foot in a huge cast, my hair is a mess, I don't have on any make-up, and I'm wearing an old flannel nightgown.'
'OK.' He flattened the pillow behind her, slid lower on the bed, crossed his hands over his chest and closed his eyes.
'OK, what?' she asked suspiciously.
'I won't make love to you until your ankle is healed, you've been to the beauty parlour, gussied up your face and you're wearing a new nightgown. I'll even buy it.'
She slipped down beside him. 'A green one. With ruffles.'
'Nope. Gold to bring out the gold highlights in your eyes. And slinky.'
'All right. Gold,' Dallas said, sliding a hand across his chest. 'You're the boss.'
Clay laughed.