The Horseman's Bride

by Marilyn Pappano

  “He was born that way,” Easy remarked as she descended the steps.

  “From what I’ve heard, so were you. You two must have been quite a pair.”

  She was halfway to the truck when he spoke. “Hey. Olivia.” Her name in his voice sounded odd—friendlier than her husband would want them to be. “Could you—” Breaking off, he gave himself a moment to think better of his request, a moment to come to his senses, for Shay’s sake if not his own. It didn’t work. “Could you call Shay for me?”

  “Sure. And tell her what?”

  Right. Tell her what? That he was lonely? He wanted to see her? He wanted her advice on his house? He needed her presence in his life? Was there one single thing he could tell her that wouldn’t be better left unsaid?

  Nothing he could think of.

  “Forget it. Never mind.”

  She watched him for another long moment before nodding. “I’ll see you,” she called, then climbed into the truck and backed away.

  Not likely, he thought morosely. No doubt Guthrie had given Elly a stern lecture all the way home. She would never sneak over here again. He would probably repeat the lecture to Olivia if she tried giving one of those subtle pushes. He was comfortable holding his grudge, and he wasn’t going to give it up.

  Frankly, Easy couldn’t think of one damn reason why he should.

  Rainy days weren’t good days for the diner. They had their regulars—mostly people who worked in town, plus a handful of retired folks who sat around all morning drinking a dozen cups of coffee for the price of one—but there was little new business. Most days Shay didn’t mind. Today she could have used a few more customers—say, oh, fifty or so—to occupy her time.

  Instead, she was sitting in a booth that looked out on the drizzly, gray day, with the Tulsa newspaper open in front of her, alternating her time between reading and watching the water run along the curb. If the temperature would drop fifteen degrees, it would be the perfect day for curling up at home with a good book and a pot of beef stew simmering on the stove.

  Not that she could make beef stew. Or could concentrate on a book. Or cared to curl up at home alone.

  She gave a melancholy sigh and turned back to the newspaper. She’d had the pages opened to the movie schedule for twenty minutes now and hadn’t yet gotten around to reading what was playing. Of course, she didn’t want to drive to Tulsa today, either, not in this steady soaker rain that wasn’t about to quit. And she didn’t want to sit alone in a darkened theater and watch some superhero save the world or some superbeauty fall in love.

  When the door opened, she automatically looked up. A royal blue slicker came in, the hood pulled far forward to protect from the downpour. From under it emerged Olivia, her brown hair mussed, her face damp. She hung the slicker on the coatrack just inside the door, looked around, then started toward Shay. “Amalia, could I get a cup of coffee, please?” she asked as she passed the waitress.

  “Shay’s got her own pot. I’ll bring you a cup,” the waitress replied.

  Olivia slid onto the empty bench, combed her hair back, then smiled. “Good morning ”

  Shay made a production of looking outside at wet and dreary, then at her friend. “That’s debatable. What are you doing in town?”

  “The girls missed the bus, so I had to take them to school. I figured I might as well get groceries, too, and stop by McCaffrey’s.”

  No one who lived in the country missed an opportunity to make the most of a trip into town. For some of them, they came too rarely. For one in particular.

  They both watched as Amalia brought a cup, then filled it from the pot Shay had set on the table. It was strong stuff, and after a grimacing taste, Olivia doctored it heavily with sugar and cream. “We’ve had quite a morning,” she said when they were alone again. “Elly went out to see Cherokee this morning, like she always does, and when I sent Emma out to get her, she was gone. So was Cherokee. I had to get Guthrie, who was already out on Buck, and we went looking for her. We found her at our nearest neighbor’s house.”

  Shay’s interest in the story doubled immediately. “Guthrie went to Easy’s house?”

  Olivia gave her a wry smile. ‘Thank you for your concern for my five-year-old daughter who wandered off alone.”

  Shay’s gesture was impatient. “Elly’s like I was at her age. She gets into trouble, and she always comes out unscathed.”

  “Well, I think she’s a little scathed today, after the talk Guthrie had with her.”

  “Did he talk to Easy?”

  Her smile dimming with regret, Olivia shook her head. “Other than to say, ‘She won’t be back again,’ in his most hostile voice. He greeted Ethan after the wedding with more warmth.”

  Shay was disappointed by the report. “Hell, Magnolia, can’t you work some of your Southern charm on him? It’s so stupid of them to not be friends just because of me.”

  “It’s not just you, Shay. In Guthrie’s eyes, the person he loved most, the person he trusted most, betrayed him. That’s not an easy thing to forgive.” Olivia smiled. “But I’m working on it. I’ll do what I can.”

  A black-and-white Blazer belonging to the sheriff’s department drove past out front, and Shay allowed it to distract her for a moment. But a moment’s distraction was all Olivia allowed before she prodded, “Well? Aren’t you going to ask about Easy?”

  “Ask what?”

  “How he looked, how he acted.” Olivia’s smile turned sly “If he asked about you.”

  Shay would have given a lot to play it cool, to airily say she knew how he looked and acted and didn’t really care if he’d asked about her. But Olivia wouldn’t be fooled. She did care, damn it. Still, she deliberately downplayed her interest, running the questions together as if their answers were insignificant. “Okay, Magnolia. How did he look, how did he act, did he ask about me?”

  “He asked me to call you.” Olivia beamed, then her smile turned bittersweet. “But when I asked what I should tell you, he got an odd look on his face and said forget it. Like he didn’t know what to say or if he should even say anything.”

  It wasn’t necessarily bad news, Shay thought. At least he was thinking about her. Though he’d stayed away yesterday, she was on his mind. He wanted some contact with her. He just wasn’t sure about letting himself have it.

  “Why don’t you go see him?”

  “Great idea. It’s only eleven hours until closing.”

  “It’s raining. You won’t have as many customers today as usual. Geraldine and Amalia can take care of them.”

  That was true. Her employees were as efficient as they came. Just as she’d taken off last Tuesday, when it wasn’t raining, she could take off today and no one would miss her. And didn’t she deserve an extra day off now and again? Hadn’t she worked steadily for six years—fourteen-hour days, often seven days a week?

  And didn’t she want, more than anything, to see Easy again?

  “You’re trying to be a bad influence on me, Olivia.”

  “Ooh, O-li-vi-a. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard that come out of your mouth. I think you might be trying to influence me.” Teasing passed, she turned serious again. “Go see him. Maybe you’ll catch him in a weak moment.”

  “And what would I do with him then?”

  As she stood up, Olivia gave her a wide-eyed, innocent look. “You’re the one who can steam up a room by simply walking in—the one who makes men’s heart rates soar and sends their libidos into overdrive. If you don’t know what to do with one incredibly handsome cowboy, I’m going to be incredibly disappointed.”

  “And, of course, the last thing I’d want to do is disappoint you.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  Shay walked to the door with her, helped her pull the wayward hood over her hair. “See you, Magnolia.”

  “Give my best to Easy. Better yet, give him your best.”

  Standing in the open door, Shay watched her run to the truck, then glanced up at the sky. It was dark all the way to
the horizon. There was a front stalled in the area, according to the old farmers guzzling her coffee, so the rain would be around awhile.

  She didn’t want to be around awhile. Not around here, at least.

  Abruptly she let the door close, told Amalia she was leaving, repeated the message to the others in the kitchen, then grabbed her umbrella and handbag. By the time she got to her car, her clothes were damp, her shoes soaked. She stopped by her house to change, then drove to Easy’s house.

  He was sitting on the porch swing, wearing jeans and nothing else. Wet sneakers had been kicked off near the door, and a wet chambray shirt hung over the swing’s arm. His hair was wet, too, slicked back from his face, giving him an appealingly wicked look.

  As she climbed the steps, he laid an apple and a knife aside, picked up the shirt and pushed his arms through the sleeves. He didn’t try to button it, simply pulled the two edges together—but not before she caught a glimpse of the scars across his chest. They sparked her sympathy and made her swallow hard, but she made damned sure nothing showed in her expression.

  “Are you so low on groceries that you’ve resorted to picking apples in the rain?”

  “Nope. I saw them from the window and wanted one. I’m surprised that old tree’s still standing, much less bearing fruit.” He picked up an apple from the bowl on the floor in front of him and tossed it.

  She caught it easily as he resumed peeling his. Holding it in one hand, she wriggled out of her jacket, then strolled to his end of the porch. While he watched intently, she spread the jacket over the damp slats of the swing, seated herself beside him and took a slow, deliberate bite from the apple.

  She knew from his stillness that she was sitting closer than he wanted, though not as close as she wanted. But if he wanted to protest, she could play innocent. After all, it was the only place on the porch to sit. Surely he didn’t expect her to sit on the floor. Taking a modest seat on the floor in her very short, very tight red dress would be nearly impossible, and who knew what those rough boards would do to the fabric? Why, she might wind up with snags and possibly even splinters in places where she wanted neither.

  “Isn’t the café open on Tuesdays?” His voice sounded a bit strangled as he turned his attention back to the apple.

  “It’s open seven days a week, except holidays—7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Sunday.”

  “And you’re there every day but Saturday? When do you find time for a life?”

  “The café is my life,” she said with a laugh that she knew sounded regretful, because the statement was more true than not. “I can do a lot on Saturdays, and I have a good staff who can run things without me from time to time.”

  “You put in a lot of hours.”

  “That’s easy to do when something’s important to you.” She surreptitiously watched him with the fruit. When they were kids, they’d all snatched apples off the trees that grew in each other’s yards. She and Guthrie had eaten them as they were, but Easy, from the time he was old enough to have a pocketknife, had peeled his. He’d gotten good at it, finishing up with one long, paper-thin strip of skin and a smooth, unblemished apple.

  The skin falling into the bowl this morning was in short strips, unevenly cut, taking more flesh in places than it left. It looked like the apples he’d peeled when he was six or seven. But he had learned then. He would learn again now.

  “What brings you out here?” he asked as he removed the last bit of skin, then cut a wedge of fruit. His tone was cautious. So was his glance. Was he wondering whether Olivia had disregarded his forget it and called her, anyway? Probably. But she didn’t intend to volunteer the information. She wanted to see if he brought it up first, if he confided that he’d seen Guthrie.

  “Business is always slow on rainy days. They didn’t need me, and I—” She looked at him. “I wanted to see you.”

  He took another quick glance as a flush gave his cheeks a deep coppery hue. Did her admission please him as much as his had pleased her Sunday night? Or was it embarrassment that she was being so obvious?

  “I had thought you might come by last night.” She’d cleaned up early, closed at exactly eight and gone straight home, just in case. She’d been prompt for nothing.

  “You could have come out here.”

  “I didn’t have an invitation.”

  He gave her a chastising look. “When did you ever wait for an invitation?”

  “When I showed up without one last week, you got a little testy.”

  “Me? Testy?” His tone was dry, mocking. “Gee, what do I have to be testy about? Ending my career? Damn near killing my best horse? Spending the rest of my life as a cripple?”

  “So your horse didn’t die. That’s a good thing. You’re living back home on the ranch you love. You have the money to support yourself. You’re in pretty damn good shape, considering.” She smiled as she tossed the apple core over her shoulder and heard it splash in a puddle. “Olivia thinks you’re incredibly handsome.”

  Scowling, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and snagged another apple to peel. The position pulled his shirt taut across his back. “So she called you, anyway.”

  “No. She had to take the kids to school, so she came to see me.”

  “And you’re here to find out what I wanted her to tell you.”

  “I told you why I’m here. I wanted to see you.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, let’s see... We were best friends all our lives. I fell in love with you when we were twenty. I jilted my fiancé to be with you. I lived with you for eight years. I traveled hundreds of thousands of miles with you. You broke my heart when I was twenty-eight. You disappeared from my life for six years. Now you’re back again. You tell me—why would I want to see you?”

  He turned his head to look at her. The too-long black hair combed straight back and the scar that slashed down the side of his face added to the hardness of his gaze. “Olivia says you have a sick sense of humor.”

  She wondered how in the world that had come up in what she’d assumed was a brief, polite conversation. “I suppose you could say that—though I would prefer dry, sarcastic or cynical. What do you think, Easy? My being here is some sort of joke and you’re the punch line?”

  “No,” he said grudgingly.

  What would he say if she told him the truth? That she was here because Reese and Olivia had persuaded her that seducing him was in her best interests? Because she’d long known that he was in her best interests? Because she’d never been able to get over him, no matter how many ways she’d tried. Because she’d sworn to love him forever when she was twenty, and forever was still a long way from over.

  “What makes Olivia think I’m sick?” she asked conversationally.

  “You said Guthrie wasn’t holding a grudge.”

  “Maybe I exaggerated a bit—”

  “I saw him this morning. You exaggerated a lot. He wouldn’t talk to me—wouldn’t even listen to me.”

  And that hurt. Easy wouldn’t say so, but she knew. She’d lived with him too long, had seen how melancholy he’d gotten on holidays and birthdays. Even seeing a road sign for the central Oklahoma town Guthrie was named for had been enough to make him fall silent for hours. The anniversary of the first time they’d made love had become cause for sorrow, because for him it had marked the day he’d betrayed his best friend.

  If only it had been Easy who had asked her to the spring dance, Easy who had proposed on her birthday... It would have been like a fairy tale. And they lived happily ever after.

  They could have, if Guthrie hadn’t been such an intimate player in their romance.

  “He wouldn’t talk to me, either, when I first came back,” she said with a sigh. “It only took—oh, six years before he could speak civilly to me.”

  “And you suggested that I go see him?” he asked cynically.

  “He’s different now. So are you.”

  “Oh, so you think he’ll pity me enough
to be friends with me again?”

  “No. I mean, he’s not alone anymore. He’s not lonely and feeling betrayed. He couldn’t be happier. He’s got Olivia and the kids, and he’s got to set a good example for them. He’s got to consider what’s best for them. And you’re not running anymore. You came back here to stay.” She smiled triumphantly. “And like it or not, Easy, that means you came back to resolve the past. With Guthrie and with me.”

  Chapter 6

  Losing his appetite for both apples and conversation at the same time, Easy tossed the apple away, wiped the knife blade clean on his shirttail, closed it and stood up. He stepped over the bowl on the floor, then walked to the door, where he turned back to her. “You’re full of—”

  Shay wagged one long, slender finger. “Watch what you say. It’ll save you from having to apologize when you prove me right.”

  “My reasons for coming back had nothing to do with resolving my past,” he insisted. “I came because my parents were suffocating me with their pity. Because I had no place else to go. Because I wanted to be left alone. Because I thought both you and Guthrie would give me that much.”

  “I don’t believe you.” She uncrossed her long, long legs and stood up gracefully.

  He wanted to move like that so badly he could taste it—or was that bad taste the lies he’d just told? He wanted to make things right with Guthrie almost as much as he wanted to fix them with Shay. But when the best friend he’d ever had could look at him with nothing but contempt, when he’d snap at his beloved stepdaughter rather than hear a word Easy had to say... It was easier to lie, to pretend he didn’t care, than to add one more thing to his list of things he wanted but couldn’t have.

  “You believe what you want, Shay,” he said quietly. “I’ll believe the truth.”

  The truth. If he told many more lies, he wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him.

  He went inside and to the bedroom, where he removed his wet shirt. He’d taken a dry T-shirt from the dresser and was about to yank it over his head when she spoke softly behind him. “Why did you ask Olivia to call me?”