The Horseman's Bride

by Marilyn Pappano

  He stiffened, the soft fabric knotted around his hands, the dresser providing support. “Go away.”

  “It bothers you for me to see you without a shirt?” Her voice was still soft, but strong in spite of it. “I’ve seen you naked thousands of times. I know your body as well as my own.”

  “Not anymore, you don’t.”

  The silence in the room was heavy, tense. He stood motionless, willing her to leave but to not go far. No farther than the living room or the porch.

  Finally, when he was about to accept that she wasn’t going, she sighed. “You know, Easy, if I’d just wanted a pretty face and a nice body, I would have stayed with Guthrie or taken up with Reese or any of a dozen other guys. I admit, you were handsome and you had a great body, but that wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t what I fell in love with. It was you. The package didn’t change the fact that you were a good, decent, honorable man. It still doesn’t.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said savagely, turning instinctively to face her. “I showed a lot of honor in seducing my best friend’s fiancée. I had tons of honor when I begged you to run away with me. Hell, I had so damn much honor in treating you the way I did while keeping you away from Guthrie and your family that I’m surprised someone didn’t pin a damn medal on my chest.”

  Her brown-eyed gaze was steady on his face as she quietly pointed out, “A dishonorable man doesn’t grieve over the dishonor he commits.”

  And he had grieved. Not every day. No, there’d been plenty of days when he’d thanked God for having her, days when he’d thought there was no price on earth too dear to pay for her. And there’d been days when he’d been sickened by what he’d done, when he’d known all the love in the world couldn’t justify the way they’d betrayed Guthrie.

  “Guthrie is happy now,” she went on.

  “And he hates me.”

  “So what? Regret it. Be sorry for it. But don’t let it ruin your entire life. He’s happy.” Her voice took on a fierce tone. “There’s no reason why we can’t be happy, too.”

  He wanted to believe her more than he could admit, but it was too simple. Guthrie no longer suffered and so they were off the hook? Life didn’t work that way. Life demanded punishment, penance.

  He’d been doing penance for fourteen years. He figured he’d be doing it for forty more.

  After a moment he turned his back “Go away. Let me get dressed,” he said softly—he pleaded softly.

  She left. He listened to determine where she went, but her footsteps faded before she left the hall. His movements jerky, he pulled on the shirt, stnpped off his damp jeans and put on a pair of sweatpants. Then he went to see if he’d driven her away—again.

  He hadn’t. She was sitting at one end of the sofa, the quilt tucked over her feet and legs. It was a bright, colorful sight in the drab room—blond hair, red dress, quilt in yellow, blue and green. It was a sight he could easily become accustomed to brightening his entire house—his entire life.

  He considered sitting in the rocker, but the hard wood seat combined with the damp chill wouldn’t be kind to his bones, especially after the time he’d spent on the porch swing. Besides, he wanted to sit close to her, close enough to smell her fragrances. Close enough to reach out and touch her if he thought he might. If he thought he could.

  “Why did you ask Olivia to call me?” she asked as he lowered himself to the cushions, then turned toward her to ease the weight on his hip.

  “Gee, where have I heard that question before?”

  “I’ll keep asking until I get an answer. I’m stubborn that way.” A smug smile touched her lips. “I took lessons from the most obstinate man alive.”

  He gazed out the west window for a moment before focusing on her. “I wanted to ask a favor of you.”

  “Ooh, Easy Rafferty asking favors. Mark this day on the calendar,” she teased. “What do you need?”

  You. A new hip. A new hand. A new life.

  Or maybe just a chance at a different life.

  “It occurred to me that this place is...”

  “A little drab? A wee bit gloomy? A tad depressing?”

  “A dump,” he replied less generously. “If I’m going to stay here—”

  “If?”

  “I’ve got to do something.”

  Her gaze swept around the room before coming back to him. “By ‘do something,’ I assume you mean to the house. Paint, paper, buy furniture?”

  He nodded.

  “And the favor?”

  That was the hard part. Though she’d teased, it was true that he didn’t often ask for favors. If he couldn’t do something for himself, he’d just as soon not do it. “I’d like your help. I’ve never painted, papered or bought furniture.”

  He’d expected an immediate agreement, because Shay was a generous person. Because, for whatever reason, she wanted to spend time with him. Because she knew how rarely he asked for help.

  A quick yes wasn’t forthcoming, though. Instead, she studied him—and for the life of him, he couldn’t read anything in her expression. Finally she asked, “Do you want me to do this for you? Or do you want me to help?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “If you want me to it for you, so that you can avoid going to the paint stores, furniture stores and so on, then the answer is no. If you want me to help—to go shopping with you, to help you make your choices, to actually help do the work—then I would be glad to.”

  He thought about it, about going into not one store but a half dozen, dealing with sales people and clerks in store after store, facing all the other shoppers.... “Then forget it.”

  “Easy—”

  “Forget I asked.” He didn’t need her help. Joelle would pick up a few cans of paint for him, and everything else he needed he could get from mail-order catalogs. One phone call to his mother would get him more catalogs than even he had time to look through. For that matter, one phone call would bring Betsey here. She would be more than happy to do the shopping for him and would never suggest he should do it himself: It was hard enough for her to be around him. She would never think that he should inflict himself on strangers.

  “Easy, damn it—”

  “I said forget it. I’ll take care of it.”

  She muttered a curse that would have gotten her mouth washed out with soap when she was a kid. Even now, he thought, it would earn her a stern warning from her mother. “Have you been out at all since you got out of the rehab hospital?”

  He shifted so that he wasn’t facing her, propped his feet on the coffee table, picked up the remote and switched on the television. The annoying sounds of a game show filled the air before the picture filled the screen. He hated game shows and flipped to the next channel to a talk show. He hated those more. He found kids’ TV, religious programming and two more talk shows before she reached across and hit the off button. Stubbornly he turned it on again. More stubbornly, she got up and unplugged the damn television.

  She stood between him and the blank screen, hands on her hips, and demanded, “Answer me.”

  “What constitutes ‘out’?”

  “Have you eaten in a restaurant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Besides mine?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Have you gone shopping for clothes? Have you gone out for a beer? Have you been to a movie? Have you gone anywhere at all?” She gestured toward the screen door. “Did you even pick out the truck yourself?”

  “No,” he replied angrily. “My dad did. My mom bought my clothes. He brought my beer to the house. She picked up movies at the video store. Between them, they pretty much took care of everything.”

  She stepped over his left leg and sat on the coffee table. It was an intimate position. If he pulled her closer, if she reached out...

  Swallowing hard, he closed off that line of thought.

  “Where have you gone since you got out of the last hospital?” Her voice was steely quiet. He knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t let it
rest until he answered, and so he did.

  “I’ve had doctors’ appointments. Physical therapy. Coming here, I had to get gas three times, and I stopped at drivethroughs twice. I went to the café and to your house.” And that was it. He’d left the house maybe ten times in three months, plus the trip from Houston to Heartbreak.

  “Jeez, Easy.” That was all she said. It was enough.

  Though he told himself he owed her no explanation, he offered one, anyway. “The doctors’ appointments and physical therapy—those were at the hospital, where they’re used to seeing people like me, and I still got stared at. People still looked at me with pity and whispered behind their hands. What do you think they’re going to do if I walk into a paint store or a furniture store where they don’t see freaks every day?”

  “Did you hear the whispers?”

  “Of course not,” he grudgingly admitted.

  “Then how do you know they weren’t saying, ‘Look, there’s Easy Rafferty. He won the National Finals championship in calf roping last year’? Or maybe it was ‘Look at that incredibly handsome cowboy—’ Olivia’s words, not mine ‘—I wouldn’t mind playing rodeo queen with him for a while’”

  Wearily he dragged his fingers through his hair. “Because I know. You spend enough time with people who can’t look at you, who talk to your chest because that way they can avoid the scars, the hand and the cane, or with people who can’t stop looking at you, you know.”

  Wry, dry humor softened her voice. “Men have talked to my chest for twenty years. I didn’t realize it was because they were avoiding my face.”

  He didn’t try to stop the smile that tugged at his mouth, because he knew it was true. He’d watched too many cowboys over the years all but drool over her—but their dazed, lusty expressions hadn’t turned to revulsion once their gazes finally made it to her face. “Any man with eyes in his head would love looking at your face. You’re so damned beautiful.”

  “And you’re too damned handsome. You’ve been told so by too many women to doubt it. One nice, neat scar doesn’t change that.”

  “It’s not just the scar. I could live with the scar. It’s all of it together. The package, as you called it, is damaged and deformed in ways people can’t bear.”

  “Then you’re seeing the wrong people.”

  Joelle had said the same thing the night they had dinner together. It meant no more now coming from Shay. “You’re right. And the only way I can control the people I see is to stay here. That way no one comes around who isn’t prepared for what they’re going to see.”

  Looking weary herself, she didn’t argue the point with him for one simple reason—there was no argument to make. The only way to preserve even a shred of his dignity was to stay here in this house. No matter how dependent it left him on others. No matter how lonely it made him.

  After a long, still moment, she stood up, and he lowered his foot to the floor to let her pass. “All right,” she said in a defeated sort of voice as she turned in a slow circle “What do you want to do with this room?”

  On Wednesday afternoon Shay took a break to walk down the street to Heartbreak’s only hardware store, located in a block of empty buildings Over the years every other business had gone under, but Prescott’s had managed to survive. It was probably more a testament to Jed Prescott’s tightfistedness than his business sense. It was said around town that he could squeeze blood from a turnip. He’d certainly managed to squeeze a living from the hardware store—and the life from his wife and daughter. His wife had had the good sense to run off years ago. His daughter hadn’t been so lucky.

  Grace sat at a desk behind the counter, her head bent over the books. She was eight or ten years younger than Shay, so their paths had never crossed in school. Unless Shay had reason to come in here—which she rarely did—she never saw the girl. She came to work with her father in the morning, went home with him at night and had no life of her own. She was a sad child, Mary always said when she came up in conversation, and Shay had to agree.

  “Hi, Grace.” Shay leaned on the counter that could give her own counter back in the café a run for its money on cleanliness.

  Grace looked up so quickly that her glasses slipped down her nose. She was really a pretty young woman, but she wore no makeup, her auburn hair was pulled straight back into a tight ponytail, and her glasses gave her an owlish look—a baby owlish look. “Miss Stephens.”

  “Please, Grace, call me Shay.” It wasn’t the first time she’d made the request. It wouldn’t be the first time it went ignored. The next words out of Grace’s mouth proved her right.

  “What can I do for you, Miss Stephens?” she asked, glancing nervously over her shoulder, no doubt looking for her father. Prescott was a hard man, who lived by rigid rules and expected everyone else to do the same. He commanded instead of asked, ordered instead of requested, shouted instead of talked. Frankly, he scared Shay. She could easily see him resorting to physical violence against anyone who crossed him—including his timid little daughter.

  “I need some paint samples, and I was wondering if you had any wallpaper samples I could borrow to show a friend.”

  “The paint samples are over here,” Grace said, coming out from behind the counter to lead the way to the farthest corner. “The wallpaper samples are right next to them, but I’m afraid I can’t—I’m not allowed—” She drew a deep breath and blurted out, “They can’t be taken from the store.”

  “That’s all right. I can get some ideas to talk over with Easy.” Shay pulled out a stool and slid onto it. Grace hadn’t even blinked at the mention of Easy’s name. There were probably only two people in the entire county who wouldn’t have some reaction to Easy, his misfortune or his return. Grace was one. Her father was the other.

  The girl hovered nearby, so tense that she damn near hummed with it. After flipping past a couple of samples, Shay glanced at her. “Are you all right, Grace? You look—”

  “I—I think I’m coming down with—with a cold or some—something. I—I’d better get back to the books. If you need anything...” With an awkward shrug, she rushed away.

  Shay stared after her. The girl was extraordinarily pale, with shadows under her eyes. She looked thinner than usual, too, and nervous enough to quake. On top of that, she’d interrupted a customer—something she’d probably never done in her entire life. That must be one hell of a cold.

  Dismissing Grace and her problems, Shay turned her attention with some reluctance to the samples before her. Some part of her was convinced that doing Easy’s shopping for him was wrong. He couldn’t live the rest of his life cooped up in that house, all for the sake of avoiding insensitive fools, and she was doing him no favors by making it possible.

  On the other hand, if he was determined to stay there, then he deserved someplace that wouldn’t depress the hell out of him. Maybe coming to grips with other people’s reactions to him was something he had to do on his own terms—on his own timetable. Maybe, if he wasn’t surrounded by shabby gloom every day, he would subconsciously choose to speed up that timetable.

  She studied the patterns and colors, seeking ones that would suit Easy, too often distracted by what would suit her. She’d once thought she would be living in that house, sleeping in that back bedroom with him, cramming kids into the other two bedrooms. She had amused herself through endless miles of travel by remodeling on a sheet of paper, adding a new bedroom and bath for them, enlarging and updating the kitchen, giving Easy an office where he could oversee his enormously successful horse business.

  The exterior hadn’t escaped her daydreams, either. In her mind she’d scraped every flake of that beige paint and darkbrown trim and painted the house white with classic black trim, or pale gray and dark smoky green, or the exact hue of a well-baked pumpkin pie, framed in crisp white. She’d chosen a dozen color schemes, depending on her mood, and painted the outbuildings and fences to match.

  Of course, back then, she’d had the right to completely redo it. All Easy was
asking for now was her advice, her shopping and her able-bodied help.

  She wished he wanted more from her body than redecorating.

  “Do you need help?”

  The harsh voice was an unpleasant interruption that drew her features together in a scowl even before she shifted her gaze from the pattern books to the speaker. Jed Prescott, all six foot five of him, in the flesh. His scowl was as hard as hers, his expression accusing, as if every minute she sat there looking was costing him money.

  “No, thank you,” she said coldly. “I don’t.”

  “Girl! What’re you doing over there with your nose in a book while you’ve got a customer here?” he shouted loudly enough to make Shay cringe. “Get over here and do the job I pay you for.”

  She would have snorted if she hadn’t feared it would make him even angrier with Grace. It was a well-known fact around Heartbreak that Grace had never received one dime in salary for the six-day weeks she put in here at the store. Prescott had boasted about it—how other businessmen had to pay their help when he had just raised his. He’d put food in her belly, clothes on her back and given her a bed to lie in for more than twenty years. Working for free was no more than she owed.

  Bastard.

  Shay got to her feet and fixed her chilliest gaze on him. “Grace has been most helpful. I asked her to leave me alone while I made my decisions.”

  “Have you made them?” he demanded.

  Yes. I decided to go elsewhere. Shay bit back the automatic retort because, in Prescott’s eyes, it would somehow be Grace’s fault. Besides, she made a practice of supporting Heartbreak businesses as thanks for the support her own business received—not that Jed Prescott had ever set foot inside the café, and nor would he be welcome there.

  Ignoring him, she turned to Grace, who’d scurried to his side like a frightened little mouse. “I’m going to collect some paint samples to show Easy. I’ll be back after he chooses. Thanks for your help.” Her smile slid back into a scowl as her gaze moved from the girl to the father, then she turned away.