The Horseman's Bride

by Marilyn Pappano

  She left him to think about that while she fixed dinner. She’d brought home leftover turkey and roast, along with Geraldine’s homemade bread and a half dozen of Manuel’s oatmeal cookies. She was a chocolate chip fan herself, but Easy liked oatmeal. Once, while they were staying with friends in Utah, she’d baked a batch for him, but they’d never found out whether they were any good. He’d lured her off to bed to make love while their friends were out shopping, and the cookies forgotten in the oven had burned to a crisp. While they’d been busy airing smoke out of the kitchen, their hosts’ dog had been busy polishing off the rest of the dough, which he had immediately thrown up.

  They had cleaned up, gone back to bed to make love again and innocently denied when their friends came home that they smelled anything at all funny in the kitchen.

  They really had had some good times. If only they’d learned to get through the bad....

  But it wasn’t too late. As long as they lived, it could never be too late.

  She fixed sandwiches and pop, added chips from the cabinet, then carried it all into the living room in two trips. She pulled a small table to the left of his chair so he could set his drink there, then left hers there, too, for good measure, before she settled on the sofa again. “So... what were we talking about?”

  “I don’t remember,” he said.

  He lied, and she let him. Instead, she turned the conversation to people they’d gone to school with—the shy dweeb who’d become a renowned heart surgeon, the flamboyant cheerleader working some glamorous job in Hollywood, the brainy bookworm who was writing her own books now. Of course, those few—plus the brash cowboy who’d become a rodeo star—were the exception. Most of their classmates were living ordinary lives—working for a paycheck that was too often too small, raising families, trying to make marriages work or still looking for Mr. or Ms. Right.

  When she’d recited the abbreviated life stories of virtually everyone they’d known, she fell silent. It was a good silence, though, not angry, not tense. Just two people with enough history between them to not require constant chatter.

  After a time she unfolded from the couch where she’d curled up, and collected their dishes. “Want some coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Another pop?”

  He shook his head and lowered his foot to the floor as he reached for the cane. “I’d better head home.”

  She left the dishes in the kitchen, then returned with the remaining cookies in a plastic bag. At the door she turned on the porch light. He turned it off again before he stepped outside onto the tiny porch.

  Even though she was barefoot and it had gotten chilly after the sun went down, she walked to the truck with him. While she hugged herself, he opened the door and eased inside with great care, sparking a distant memory. “Remember Custer?” she asked out of the blue.

  He glanced at her as he settled in. “The general, the town or the—” the same memory flashed into his mind and made his mouth quirk in another near smile “—the bull.”

  They’d been at a small rodeo somewhere in Oregon, and a bull rider friend had bet that he could do better in Easy’s event than Easy could in his. For whatever reason—too much testosterone, booze or just plain conceit—Easy had accepted the bet. He’d won, too, but it hadn’t been a pretty sight.

  “You were moving like this then, too.”

  “Yeah, but then it went away. Now it won’t.”

  Her smile faded at that reality as he closed the door and started the engine. An instant later he rolled down the window. “As I recall, Custer paid off pretty well.”

  “A few hundred bucks,” she scoffed, “plus the hundred from the bet.”

  “Actually, I was talking about that night.”

  Her cheeks grew warm under his gaze. That night... oh, yeah. Once she’d gotten him, bruised and battered, back to the motel, she had put him to bed, raging all the while. He wasn’t a bull rider, he could have been killed, how could he be so reckless. And he had grabbed her by the shirt, tumbled her into bed and told her between greedy kisses exactly how she could make him feel better. In spite of his limitations—or perhaps because of them, because she had been totally in control—they’d had an incredible night.

  But most of their nights had been incredible.

  “Thanks for dinner.”

  Reminded, she gave him the cookies.

  “And the cookies.”

  “Come back sometime.” Like tomorrow. And the next night. Every night. “If I’m not at work, I’m usually here.”

  His only response was a faint smile as he shifted into gear.

  “Easy?”

  He looked at her.

  “What did it mean?”

  Does this trip into town mean that you’re not going to hole up out there forever? she’d asked, and he’d replied, No. It means—

  Second after second ticked by before he finally answered. “I wanted to see you.” Then, before she could respond, he backed out and drove away.

  Pleasure bubbled up inside her as she watched his taillights disappear around the corner—pleasure and pure, sweet need. Maybe she was a fool for falling for him all over again. Maybe their history should have proven to her that theirs was one of those grand passions that weren’t destined to last. Maybe she was going to get her heart broken all over again.

  But she couldn’t turn away—not from him or her feelings for him. She couldn’t not give them another chance. She couldn’t stop hoping, and Easy was her best hope.

  Always had been. Always would be.

  Tuesday dawned a gloomy day. Before he even opened his eyes, Easy knew it was going to rain. He could smell it in the air that came through the open windows, could feel the humidity on the sheets, on his skin. He could feel it in his bones literally, he thought with a grunt as he sat up. His joints protested every move with more than the usual early-morning stiffness. Rodeo was hard on a body, to say nothing of the endless traveling and the excessive partying that were part of the whole life. Add in a nearfatal car crash, and he was fast approaching decrepitude.

  As he turned to sit on the side of the bed, his gaze swept across old varnish and older wallpaper. For as long as he could remember, the room had looked like this, and that was a long time. It needed new paper, or, better, paint in some color that was soothing and easy on the eyes. The floor needed to be stripped, refinished and sealed and could use a couple of rugs to ward off the coming winter chill. Curtains or blinds would be nice, too. Even though he lived in the country, that didn’t guarantee privacy. Hadn’t he already had six unexpected visitors in only a week?

  But what did he know about paint and curtains—about making a house a home? Less than nothing. But he knew someone who’d done just that with a tiny little place with far less potential than this house had.

  “Ah, Jeez, Rafferty,” he muttered as he dragged his fingers through his hair. Redoing his whole damn house, just so he’d have an excuse to spend time with Shay? That was pathetic. Why couldn’t he just admit that he wanted to see her? Why did he even need an excuse?

  Damned if he knew. He could just drive into town tonight after the café closed. Hell, he could go this morning, instead of overcooking his own eggs here. At worst, he could have an appetizing breakfast. At best, he could have it with Shay. If she wasn’t too busy, if he could persuade her to join him. He was pretty sure he could.

  He was also pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t going to become Heartbreak’s resident freak. He wasn’t going out where people might recognize him, where they would look and whisper even if they didn’t recognize him. He was safer here.

  And if he was going to hole up here, then he needed Shay’s advice. He couldn’t spend twenty-four hours a day in a place that rivaled the dingiest of motels for bleak, drab and depressing. There were too many things about his life he couldn’t change. This was one he could.

  After getting dressed, he went into the kitchen to pour a glass of juice. He was heading for the front porch
with it when a knock sounded at the door.

  Elly Hams, wearing a bright yellow slicker over a red, orange and green outfit, greeted him with a broad grin Tied to the railing eight feet behind her was Cherokee, munching contentedly on the tall grass there.

  “Mornin’,” she said, then thrust out a paper napkin. “Mama made doughnuts—made ’em. She never did that back in Atlanta. Back there if we wanted doughnuts, we went to the Krispy Kreme and bought ’em.” She gave an admiring shake of her head. “I love Oklahoma.”

  He accepted the napkin and found two warm, if slightly squished, doughnuts inside. They were glazed—his favorite. When they were kids, Shay’s mother had made a big batch every Saturday morning, using the recipe handed down from her mother-in-law. He, Shay and Guthrie had always managed to be there, waiting for samples fresh off the cooling rack. He would bet this was Mary Stephens’s recipe, passed down not to a daughter who couldn’t cook but to an almost-daughter-in-law who could.

  Elly pulled another napkin from a pocket inside her slicker. “I thought we could have breakfast together, so I’d bringed extra.” Eyeing his juice, she smiled sweetly. “I like orange juice, and it’s good for you. It helps build strong teeth and bones.”

  “I think that’s milk,” he said dryly. “Come on into the kitchen and I’ll get you some.” As he began retracing his steps, he asked, “Do you remember what I told you last time?”

  “That you was Cherokee, just like my horse. And you can’t work with horses no more.”

  “And?”

  She climbed into a chair at the kitchen table and shrugged out of her slicker. In the drab, forty-year-sunpainted room, her mismatched outfit provided a welcome—startling—splash of color. Like the flowers on Shay’s kitchen table. Like Shay herself. “And that I had to ask my mom before I came here again.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yup.”

  “And did she say yes?”

  She unfolded both napkins, smoothing them away from the doughnuts, then, with the same gestures, smoothed her hair away from her face. “She said, ‘You’re too young to go riding by yourself, Elly. You know that.’”

  He set a glass of juice in front of her. “So she didn’t say yes.”

  “No-o-o-o.” Then her blue eyes brightened. “But she didn’t say no, neither.”

  “But she meant no.”

  She waited until he sat down, then slid two doughnuts over. “You should always say what you mean and mean what you say. That’s in one of the books Daddy reads to us at bedtime.”

  Daddy. Easy gave a bemused shake of his head at hearing Guthrie called Daddy. It had always been a part of their plans—the ranches, the cattle and horses, marriage and kids. But it was hard to imagine Guthrie, frozen in Easy’s mind at the age of twenty, father to twin girls, reading them bedtime stones, answering to Daddy.

  Under better circumstances, Easy would have been close to Guthrie’s kids—probably would have been their uncle Easy, named their guardian in case tragedy struck. Now he didn’t have the right to even know them.

  “Can I ask you somethin’?” Elly asked. When he nodded, she went on. “How come your name is Easy? Didn’t your mama like you?”

  Better at one time than she did now. Now she liked him. She just couldn’t bear to be around him. “Easy’s my nickname. My name is Ezekiel, but no one ever called me that.”

  “That’s an old man name, with a gray beard and a funny walk and a cane.” Her gaze shifted to his cane and suddenly she became earnest. “It’s okay that you got the cane, ’cause you don’t got the gray beard and you’re not old. At least, not very.”

  He gave her a wry smile. “Do you always say exactly what you think?”

  “Uh-huh. Sometimes,” she added matter-of-factly, “it gets me in big trouble. Don’t you always say what you think?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  He thought of Shay—of all the times he’d hurt her, of all the apologies he owed her—and grimly replied, “Because sometimes it’s easier not to.”

  “Like when?”

  Like when you had a fourteen-year history with someone, of love and hate but never indifference. When you needed her desperately, even though she didn’t need you at all. When you’d done too many wrongs to ever make them right again.

  He finished his doughnuts and juice and changed the subject. “Are you in Miss Barefoot’s class?”

  “Nope. I got Miss Gardner. Emma’s got Miss Barefoot. The principal, he wouldn’t put us in the same class and Emmy cried the first four days of school. Mama says Emma is timid. Our other dad, the dead one, he said she was a big dumb coward.”

  Wondering what kind of father made such a comment to a child, Easy asked, “And what does your new dad say?”

  “He says she’s his best girl. And so am I. And so is Mama. And he loves us all best.” She answered with the complete faith of a child. It made him envy Guthrie—and her.

  “Miss Barefoot’s an Indian, too,” Elly said. “Is she your girlfriend?”

  “No. Just a friend.”

  “She’s a nice lady. Emma likes her a bunch—and she don’t like a lot of people, on account of her bein’ timid and a coward and—”

  Out front a car door slammed, interrupting her and making her eyes double in size. “Uh-oh. I think I’m caught.”

  He started for the front door, with Elly following a cautious half dozen paces behind. Through the screen he saw Olivia Harris, looking perturbed and short-tempered. She didn’t knock, but kept her hands in her jacket pockets until they were only a few paces away. Then she freed one hand and snatched the door open. “Eleanor Marie Miles Harris, get on that horse.”

  “Oh, boy, now she’s got four names to yell at me with,” Elly muttered. “Thank you for the juice.”

  “Thank you for the doughnuts.”

  She slipped past him and onto the porch. “Mom—”

  “On the horse. Go home with your father.”

  Her words made Easy look past the porch. An older pickup was parked near his, with Elly’s timid twin inside. Between the two trucks stood Buck, with Guthrie on his back.

  It sounded stupid, but he’d hardly changed. Easy would have known him anywhere There were more years on his face, he’d put on some muscle, and he had an older-wiser-experienced-more look, but he was still the same man Easy remembered.

  The same man who’d long hated him.

  Ignoring Olivia, Easy walked to the top step, where he could lean against the post for some badly needed support. “Hello, Guthrie.”

  For a moment it was as if his words had gone unheard. Then Guthrie shifted, tilted his Stetson back a bit and fixed his cold, dark gaze on him. “She won’t be back again.” His voice was hard, unforgiving.

  “She wasn’t bother—”

  Guthrie wheeled Buck around. “Let’s go, Elly. Now.”

  As she nudged Cherokee forward, Elly flashed him a sad smile and waved goodbye.

  Once they’d turned onto the main drive, Olivia came to stand at the opposite side of the steps. “We were worried when we realized she’d gone off alone on her pony. She’s so little—”

  “She was just curious. She brought me breakfast.” His throat was tight, and he wasn’t sure why. Because Guthrie had looked at him as if he’d always despised him? Because he hadn’t wanted to hear one word Easy might say? Or because he’d lost one of the only two visitors who truly didn’t care that he was crippled?

  Regretting the loss of a five-year-old girl’s company. Hell, he really was pathetic.

  “It’s not you,” Olivia went on in that soft Southern voice. “She’s just a child. She can’t think it’s all right to go wherever she wants.”

  “Of course not.” Especially when where she wanted to go was the home of her father’s most hated enemy. He glanced at Olivia. “I would have made sure she got home okay.”

  She didn’t ask how, but simply nodded. After a moment, it was her turn to glance at him. “Guthrie will come around... eventu
ally.”

  “Shay said he wasn’t holding a grudge.”

  “Shay has a sick sense of humor,” she said, her dryness underlaid with affection.

  And was he a part of it? he wondered bleakly Was that why someone so beautiful, someone who could have any damn man she wanted, wanted to spend time with him?

  Because the possibility, however remote, was too hurtful to contemplate, he forced his attention back to the subject. “I never meant—” To hurt Guthrie. To make him so unhappy. To destroy their friendship.

  “I know. And in his heart, Guthrie knows, too. But his pride and his ego...” She shrugged, then repeated, “He’ll come around. He just needs time, and a subtle little push in the right direction.”

  “Is that your job—subtle pushes?”

  Her smile this time was more normal, more genuine. “I like to think of it as putting things in perspective for him. After a while, holding grudges becomes habit. He’s had fourteen years of being angry with you and Shay. It’s routine, like taking care of the cattle and doing the books. But the truth is, what you did has no importance in his life today except what he chooses to give it. If he’s going to choose, it’s easier to choose to invest in a good relationship than a bad one.”

  “You make it sound simple.”

  “Forgiving someone you love can be the easiest—and the hardest—thing you’ll ever do.”

  To a man who needed a lot of forgiveness, that wasn’t particularly encouraging.

  “Are you planning to stay?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “When you’re ready to start fixing up the place, let me know. We’ll help.”

  Maybe she would, and Elly, and maybe even Emma, but not Guthrie. The only help he would give would be to move Easy out of here.

  “Fix it up for what?” he asked.

  “You can’t bring horses in here with the fence like that. And the barn needs some work and the corral—”

  “I’m not bringing horses in. I’m not doing anything.”

  She studied him for a long moment before slowly smiling. “Maybe not. I’ve got to get Emma back home. The bus will be by any minute for them. I’m sorry Guthrie’s being so stubborn.”