by Tina Leonard
Chapter Nine
“In fact, I didn’t need my gown in the first place,” Liberty said with a frown, “since I apparently wasn’t ready to marry. However, I’ve decided to donate it to someone who is very ready.”
“Donate it!” Duke’s skin turned pale.
“Are you all right?” she asked, concerned. “Why don’t you sit on this stool, Duke?”
He sat, but he wasn’t happy. “Liberty, you need to be wearing that gown, not donating it.”
“Oh,” she said, looking at it. “Duke, I’d rather give it away. The girl I’m giving it to is an unwed mother in Dallas whose boyfriend has decided he wants nothing more than to marry her. I’d like her to have something special to wear. She’s such a sweet girl.”
Sighing, he said, “You probably own the only wedding shop that donates gowns. Specifically your own.”
“For the record,” Liberty said, “my business operates very much in the black, thank you.
Second, this is the only time I’ve done this. I could have sold it on eBay, or I could have sold it secondhand in Dallas, but I saw this girl peering in the window, and I…”
He frowned at her. “Go on. I’m listening.”
She raised her chin. “I saw myself in her. She would never have dreamed of having something so pretty. It was obvious that she was expecting a baby.” Her gaze held his defiantly. “I really don’t have to explain myself.”
“No, you don’t.”
“But I don’t mean to upset you.”
“Upset? How else should I feel?” he asked her.
“I’m not exactly delighted to see the woman I nearly married ripping up her gown. I’m sure I’m behaving normally, though everyone in this town is trying to convince me otherwise.”
“Okay. You have a point.” She put down the seam ripper. “Duke, I made this gown with my own hands. It makes me happy that someone who can use it will look lovely on her own special day. Frankly, it was hanging in my closet like an unhappy ghost of weddings past, and I really want to move beyond all those feelings.”
“Yeah.” He scratched his head and stood. “So do I.”
They looked at each other for a long moment, and Liberty realized Duke misunderstood her. “I don’t regard what we did as a mistake.”
“You sure sound like you do.”
“Come on.” Taking him by the hand, she pulled him from the sewing room. “We can talk better out here.”
“Personally, I think we’ve done enough talking. That’s all anybody does in this town is talk. Yakkity-yak-yak. But nothing really gets said! Have you noticed that? If we could bottle all the hot air around here, we could melt the polar ice caps with it.”
She looked at him, assessing the lines around his mouth and the grooves near his eyes. Had they been there before? “Do you feel well?”
He shrugged. “Guess as well as can be expected.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I feel wonderful. Better than I ever have in my life.” She smiled. “I love being pregnant.”
He grunted. “Glad to be of service.”
Seated upon the sofa, he looked stiff and out of place in the fancy parlor room. Liberty realized she’d intended this room to be a reception area of sorts, for any visitors, business or otherwise, who stopped by, but Duke no more fit this room than the sewing room. “You don’t look comfortable,” she said. “Let’s move you to the kitchen.”
But there wasn’t a bar stool or a table in there yet. He seemed big and cramped in the small kitchen. And still awkward. “You just don’t fit in this house.”
“I know,” he said. “I knew that when you told me you’d bought it. So that was fine, but then I started thinking about how you’re going to raise a baby in this house.”
She smiled. “Children are raised in much smaller dwellings, Duke. Not every child grows up on a place the size of the Triple F ranch. Besides, it’s all about the love in the home.”
“Yeah.” He looked happier about that.
“So, was there a particular reason you stopped by?”
“The old ladies are after me,” he said. “They’ve denied me their approval ever since you returned, and it’s starting to hurt my feelings.”
Liberty laughed. “They are dears.”
“I don’t think so. My opinion is that they’re tyrants, and they like it that way.”
“They’re your best friends. I’ve just set everybody on edge,” Liberty said, knowing it was true and feeling worse for it. “I’m so sorry, Duke. I really didn’t know that they’d take sides the way they have, at your expense. I certainly didn’t want that to happen.” She gave him a peacemaking smile, thinking he really was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. “Duke, they just love you so much. They treat you like a son.”
His eyebrows rose. “I want you to love me so much.”
She hesitated, not about to tell him that she did. Nothing between them would change, so why get caught in that which would only lead to pain later? And even more so for their child? “I don’t regret that we wanted to get married,” she said carefully. “We both believed we were in love, and we both felt strongly about that. It’s a memory I treasure.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not going to try to pretend that I don’t love you anymore, because I do.” He stuck his chin out, a stubborn trait she remembered too well. “And I believe you’re showing, Miss Wentworth.”
“Showing what?”
“Showing just what my love for you did to you,” he said proudly. “You’d need a much bigger wedding gown now.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Of course I’ve gained weight. I have our baby growing inside me.”
“You’re very attractive as an expectant mother, Miss Wentworth. Have the ladies of the saloon been taking care of your gastronomic health?”
“They bake me cookies, yes. Make sure I’m taking my vitamins.”
He grinned. “Those little blue-haired friends of ours have been taking very good care of their girl, I believe. I’ll have to thank them for that.” Putting on his hat, he gave her belly a last, satisfied glance.
“You’re quite curvaceous, my sweet, like a happy pumpkin in a patch.”
“Duke,” Liberty said, following him as he strode to the door like a conquering lord, “my stomach is nowhere the size of your head.”
He turned and grinned, unaffected by her retort.
“You’re beautiful, pumpkin.”
“That’s not funny,” she told him, but he kissed her forehead and left.
That bothered her more than anything. A kiss on the forehead? Duke had never failed to romance her lips every chance he got. Now she was the recipient of a brotherly peck?
“I don’t like it,” she called to him.
On the sidewalk, he turned to look back at her. “The complaint desk is open. Lodge your complaint.”
“I never did like your stubborn side,” she said, “and I don’t want you kissing me.” Not on the forehead, anyway.
He shrugged. “The complaint desk is now closed.”
She watched him walk on, and heard him whistling a happy tune. He wasn’t going to change, she realized; it was always going to be his way or no way.
The waiting game she was playing was a dangerous one.
If she thought Duke was going to realize that he intimidated people by being such a jock, such a man, such a meathead, she was destined to be disappointed. The man simply thought he was right about everything. “Your father is a…wonderful man,” she told her baby, rubbing her stomach. “You’re the luckiest baby.”
Her stomach rolled with a sudden cramp, as if the baby were kicking an agreement. The cramp turned dull and throbbed. Liberty went inside, returning to the wedding gown she’d been taking apart.
It was a beautiful dress, but it no longer represented all of her dreams. It was the gown of someone else’s dreams now, and Liberty was delighted that she could give it to someone less fortunate. Maybe, just maybe, it would make her fut
ure a wonderfully romantic one to match the hope and dreams she’d seen in the young girl’s eyes.
Her eyes had held those stars once.
The cramps came again. Liberty breathed slowly, telling herself to relax before beginning to repin the seams. If it took all night, she was determined to finish this job—and she wasn’t going to think about Duke at all.
Or at least, not much.
IF LIBERTY THOUGHT Duke was going to sit in his office and ignore the fact that she’d made him a father, she was in for a surprise. Nothing had changed at all for him—not his love for her, nor his desire to marry her. And the sooner, the better.
Very likely the only way to achieve his goal of spending the rest of his life with Liberty was through a different avenue, one heretofore unchartered. The Tulips Saloon Gang was not on his side, but they easily could be, he thought, with a little prodding.
Since he was a man, and since he’d always engaged in a wee bit of cat-and-mouse with the ladies, his request for assistance might meet with a brick wall of sorts. But a big idea had come to him—which was that no woman could resist a man who honestly loved her, and that would include the women of the Tulips Saloon. He needed them on his team.
If he had a good old-fashioned hen session with them—as much as it would grate against his principles to do so—they would realize that they were on the wrong side. “So, hennies, here I come,” he muttered, adjusting his hat for courage as he broached the saloon door.
Pansy and Helen were laying out new tablecloths. Fall colors, with rich burgundies and plums and some evergreen. “Hello, Sheriff,” Helen said. “You’re just in time to help us.”
So he helped them spread out tablecloths, and when every table was ready for business the next day, Duke cleared his throat. “If you have a moment, Miss Helen, Miss Pansy, I sure could use your advice. Even though you’re not giving advice anymore,” he said, feeling quite cagey, “this is more of a personal matter.”
“Oh,” Pansy said, and he saw the interest lighting her eyes. Helen wasn’t immune, either, and he saw her objections faltering.
He took off his hat, holding it in his hands. “I don’t think Liberty loves me anymore.”
“Oh-h-h,” Helen and Pansy said. Pansy patted his shoulder and pressed him into a chair, and Helen placed a teacup into his hands.
He sighed, smiling inwardly. He was in! Just like Holt, he was going to get a hen session with the ladies!
It almost felt good—and not sissy at all.
“I’m sure she loves you,” Pansy said, sitting next to him. “She just learned to live without you.”
That wasn’t what he’d come to hear. He felt his eyebrows furrowing together and made certain he wiped the frown away. “Of course, I don’t want my child to learn to live without me. I want to be a big part of its life.”
“That’s why Liberty moved back,” Helen said. “She knew you’d feel that way. Everybody knows you’d want to be with your child, Duke. You’re a good man.”
“So that brings us back to Liberty,” he said, making his way back to the subject that most interested him. “I want to be with her, too. We belong together. As a family, and as man and wife.”
Pansy sighed. “I don’t think that will happen, Duke.”
Helen shook her head.
He couldn’t help the frown that jumped onto his face now. “I don’t understand why, though. How can she be carrying my child and not want to marry me?”
“Women do that all the time,” Pansy said. “Sometimes men are too much trouble.”
“Women are too much trouble,” Duke said. “She’s the one who’s being ornery!”
Helen shook her head. “Although I try not to take sides, I do understand that you can be quite intimidating, Duke.”
“You need a more…submissive type of girl,” Pansy offered. “One who doesn’t mind a man running everything for her. There are lots of—”
“I need Liberty!” he stated, not meaning to roar but realizing he’d gotten a little loud from the dismayed expression on the ladies’ faces. “Oh, damn it. I mean darn it. I mean…don’t start getting all puckered on me. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. I swear, everyone in this town is as delicate as a china cup.”
“And you’re pretty much our bull in the china shop,” Pansy offered, her voice soft and hesitant. “Though we do love you. But you do have a tendency to roughness.”
He sighed. “I don’t remember any of you mentioning that before. I have never raised my voice to a woman. If I get a cat’s whisker above what it would take for a mouse to hear me, you two act like I’m at a college keg party. I haven’t had a chance in my life to be rowdy around women, because either you or my mother was always after me to be certain that I was a gentleman.”
“But as we said, we love you anyway, though we’re not certain where you got your rascal side,” Helen said.
He shook his head. “So where do I stand with Liberty?”
“Well, you’ll always be connected through that little dumpling you’re going to have in a couple of months,” Pansy said. “That’s the bright side. It’s just such a shame you don’t handle change better.”
“Change? I handle change just fine.”
Helen shook her head. “You have never liked anything of the sort, Duke, from the time you were a child. You don’t want to change, you don’t want us to change, you don’t want the town to change. And then Liberty changed on you, and…well, it’s an unfortunate problem you have.” She looked very sad about that.
He put his hat back on, completely dissatisfied with his “hen session.” If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was no better off than when he’d come in.
“Guess I’ll go with the bright side, then,” he said, not feeling brighter at all. “Thanks, ladies.”
Pansy leaned up to give him a peck on the cheek. “We’ll ruminate on your dilemma some more, Duke. Maybe we can come up with something.”
“Thanks.” He perked up. “I’d appreciate that.”
Helen smiled and gave him a hug as she stared up at him. He loved these two women, he really did. They might be the bane of his existence, but without them, his life would be very dull. They kept him sharp, focused.
“You really do love her, don’t you?” Helen asked.
“Yes, ma’am, I do,” he said. “Always have, always will.”
They smiled at him. Duke left, wondering why he always had to be the one to prove how much he loved Liberty, then realized he didn’t care. If he had to say it every day, if he had to shout it from the roof of the Tulips Saloon, then he’d do that.
Although he wasn’t certain Liberty was in a listening mood.
At the jail, Bug Carmine was sitting in the cell with Mr. Parsons. The two of them were tweaking some coiled wires that were connected to a black box. Duke sat in his chair. “Fellows, what trouble are you getting into now?
“Not the kind of trouble you’re in,” Mr. Parsons said.
Duke frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means Liberty just called. She said to tell you that she’s going into Dallas to fit a gown on a bride.”
“Why does that mean trouble for me?” Duke asked. “Liberty’s free to do as she likes.”
Bug got up. “In my house, it’s the man that does the departing.”
Duke and Mr. Parsons stared at him. “First of all,” Duke said, “that sounded slightly male chauvinistic, which I’m always getting in trouble for in this town, and yet, I believe that statement has anything I’ve ever said beat. Second, you and Mrs. Carmine are married. Liberty and I are not. She called me, and that alone was more than she had to do, as much as that pains me to say it.” He grimaced.
“Well, that’s not where the trouble comes in,” Bug said helpfully. “That was just the warm-up.”
Duke sighed. “So?”
“Your sister called. She bought a building in town.”
“A building?” Duke shook his head. “Why would she do that? We have plenty of
room at the ranch.”
“This is for a clinic,” Mr. Parsons said helpfully. “I know, because it’s information that will have to go in the file.”
“Which file?” Duke asked carefully. “I’m still a bit confused on the filing system in my office. It’s a problem I intend to sort out soon.”
“Why, the appropriate file,” Mr. Parsons said, amazed that Duke couldn’t understand such a simple system. “And your brother called. He said he’d be gone for the evening with a pair of twins from another town. He sounded extremely happy about that.”
Duke shook his head. “And the old ladies beat me up for being a rascal.”
“Well,” Bug said, “as interesting as that was, I’ve got something to do.” He stood, and Duke noticed he was holding a brown paper bag.
“Excuse me, Bug,” he said, “but I don’t think it’s your time of the month, is it?”
“Pardon me?” Bug asked. “I’m not a woman. I don’t have times of the month. And for your information, Mrs. Carmine has gone to see her sister. I’m a free man and can do what I please. Within reason, naturally.”
Duke didn’t think that sounded like a good idea. Though he still had Bug’s firearm, Bug going off without Mrs. Carmine to keep an ear out for him felt wrong. “I’ll come with you,” Duke said.
“I could use the company,” Bug said, “if you don’t talk too much.”
Duke put on his hat. “I don’t want to talk at all.”
“Bye, Hiram,” Bug said, “and Jimbo.”
“Her name is Molly,” Duke said as he followed Bug out.
“You said you’d be quiet,” Bug reminded him. “This is my quiet time. It’s when I focus.”
“Sheesh, Bug, it’s not like your wife is exactly loquacious,” Duke muttered, trying to sound sarcastic in a halfhearted way. What was wrong with all the people in this town? Everybody wanted to be so difficult—except him. He really felt as if he were the easy sort among a population of troublemakers.
Bug rounded on him. “Look, if you’re going to chatter like a girl at a dance—”
Duke held up a hand. “I promise not to say a word.”
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, he and Bug were staring at the sky in a remote field. After a few healthy swigs of Bug’s tonic—and then a few more—Duke was glad it was September, didn’t care so much that Liberty wouldn’t marry him and had nearly convinced himself that fatherhood wasn’t scaring the tar out of him. “It’s change,” Duke says. “Change apparently bothers me.”