Cowboys Don't Cry

by Anne McAllister

  McGillvray had met him at the door, looking worried and relieved and sad at the same time.

  He clapped a hand on Tanner's young shoulder. "I'm glad you're here at last." And before Tanner could apologize to him for whatever inconvenience Clare had put him through, McGillvray said to him, "I'm sorry as hell about the baby."

  Tanner said he was sorry, too. What he was was numb. Lost. Dazed.

  The baby was dead. His son. McGillvray told him it was a boy. Tanner never saw him. Never even saw Clare that evening. She'd had a hard time, they told him. She'd been sedated, and she was sleeping at last. He didn't wake her.

  He went home alone, his mind curiously blank. He woke up in the night and reached for Clare. She wasn't there. He remembered. His son was dead. He tried to summon emotion, pain, hurt. He felt empty. Light, almost. As if he'd escaped a close brash with disaster. It horrified him so much he went into the bathroom and was violently sick.

  He never told that to anyone. Certainly he could never tell Clare. He could never explain to her how he felt. He didn't understand it completely himself.

  Nor did he understand her.

  She cried a little when she got home. Then she just got very remote and quiet and barely spoke to him at all.

  She was coping in her own way, he told himself. And he was grateful, because he couldn't help her. Hell, he could barely cope himself.

  All he could do was work and ride. He spent more hours than ever before out on the range. He didn't feel good. He didn't feel happy. But he felt better there than facing Clare in the confines of their trailer night after night.

  It was sometime in late summer when she told him she'd been talking to Dr. Moberly, the doctor who'd delivered the baby. "He's worried about me," she said. "He says I need to get out of the house, get busy, do something."

  He was probably right, Tanner thought, but he didn't know what to suggest. Where the hell was she going to go, stuck out there in the middle of the ranch by herself?

  "He thinks I ought to go back to school," she went on.

  For the first time since she'd lost the baby, Tanner noticed that there was a little color in her cheeks.

  "Swell," he said, feeling the pressure more than ever. "And did he say how we were supposed to afford it? And how you're going to get there? We're thirty miles from the damned school. And tell me, did he suggest what you might study?" He knew he was being sarcastic. He knew he was wrong, that he was hurting her and that he had no right to. He couldn't help it. He'd have liked to go back to school, too. He'd have liked someone to suggest the answer to all his problems.

  "He said I could work as a receptionist for him," Clare told him quietly. "And you know I've always wanted to be a nurse."

  For a moment Tanner had just stared at her. His questions had been rhetorical. Her answers were not.

  "How're you going to work for him," he'd asked finally, "livin' clear out here?"

  "I thought," Clare said slowly, carefully, "that I might move to town."

  You could have heard a slot machine whir in Las Vegas two full states away. Tanner felt something hard and heavy as lead settle somewhere in his midsection.

  He looked at Clare, really looked at her, for the first time in months. She was still beautiful with her porcelain complexion and her fine-boned face. He could still lust after her without even trying. But he hadn't been able to make a home with her. He hadn't been able to give her what she needed. And whatever he might have needed from her, he hadn't found it, either.

  "Is that what you want?"

  "I want to study nursing, Tanner."

  "And ..us? What about us?"

  Helplessly, Clare shrugged.

  "Do you want a divorce?"

  She twisted her hands. "I...think it might be best. I mean, it's not as if we were in... I mean, I know you only married me because...because of the baby." She swallowed and looked up at him with watery blue eyes and he thought she might start crying again. "I'm tying you down."

  He didn't know how long he stood there looking at her, weighing her words and his thoughts.

  Maybe he should have argued with her. He didn't. He remembered all those hopes and dreams she'd shared with him, the ones she'd shelved after he'd got her pregnant. He remembered her the way she'd been when he first knew her, happy, smiling. He saw how much she'd changed, how much being married to him had changed her.

  "Yeah," he'd said at last.

  And no one had come close to tying him down again. Clare had done exactly as she'd said. She'd worked for Russ Moberly as his receptionist. She'd got her nursing degree. And last summer, Noah, who'd spent a night in the town as he traveled between rodeos, reported that she'd married her doctor.

  "Got two rug rats already," Noah had said with his customary cheerful insensitivity. "Looks happy. This time I think marriage agrees with her."

  Probably it did, Tanner thought. This time she had the right husband. A husband who had it in him to be the sort of man a woman needed, the sort she could depend on.

  Not him.

  Never him. He wasn't going through that again. Not ever. He'd learned his lesson. And he'd never even been tempted by another marriageable woman.

  Until Maggie.

  Three

  On Saturday morning Tanner stood in the doorway to the barn and watched as Maggie drove up in her little white Ford, pulling a trailer behind.

  She was wearing jeans today, and a bright yellow jacket that stopped just before it would have done him the favor of covering the curve of her slender hips. Then she spotted him, smiled and waved, and his gut clenched and his whole body came to attention.

  So much for any vague hope that his attraction to her might have been a one-time thing or a result of falling on his head. Tanner lifted his hand, then dropped it abruptly, sucked in his breath and turned away.

  Billy and Ev, of course, trooped right out to meet her, beaming and smiling, happy as a couple of cattle in corn. Bates probably would have been there, too, Tanner thought grimly, if he hadn't sent the younger man out at sunup to check on the cattle they were expecting to calve.

  He glanced out the door again as Maggie crossed the yard, smiling at Ev and Billy. He heard Billy's high-pitched voice and then Maggie's laugh. The morning breeze whipped through her long red hair.

  He wanted to run his fingers through it. He grabbed his saddle and heaved it onto Gambler's back, then drew the cinch up tight, put on the bridle, swung into the saddle and headed out. Billy came running to intercept him. "Maggie's here, Tanner! Ain'tcha gonna help her move in?"

  "Nope."

  "How come?"

  "It's not what she pays me for."

  She was standing with Ev on the porch, watching as he approached.

  "Morning," she called.

  He gave her a curt nod in greeting and rode on past.

  "What'sa matter with him?" Billy asked.

  Ev chuckled. "It's spring. The sap is risin'."

  "Huh?" said Billy, but Tanner, flushing as he dug his heels into Gambler, knew precisely what Ev meant.

  He was a grown man. A foreman, for God's sake.

  A responsible, wage-earning adult.

  He was also so hungry his stomach thought his throat had been cut. He lay on his bunk, listening to it growl, and reminded himself that he'd missed meals before.

  A guy didn't need to eat lunch or dinner every day, he reminded himself for the hundredth time. There wasn't a cowboy alive couldn't stand to shed a few pounds.

  That was why he hadn't gone up to the house for dinner, not because he didn't want to run into Miss Maggie MacLeod.

  "Yeah, right," Tanner muttered. And if he believed that, next thing you knew he'd be believing that nonsense about lemonade springs and big rock-candy mountains.

  All right, so he was avoiding her, had been avoiding her all week. There was nothing wrong with that. He was doing his job the way he was paid to do it, the way he'd always done it. And he didn't need to check with any angel-faced schoolteacher every few minutes fo
r directions. He wouldn't have gone up to see Abby.

  Of course, he would have seen Abby every evening at supper, anyway.

  All week long he'd managed to avoid Maggie.

  "Dietin'?" Ev had asked him, cornering him in the kitchen late one evening when he was ferreting through the cupboards in search of food.

  "Calves don't know when it's suppertime," Tanner replied gruffly.

  "Reckon not," Ev said. "Maggie's thinkin' you work too hard. Is that what it is?"

  "Of course," Tanner said shortly.

  "I wondered." But if he looked on speculatively as Tanner carried his sandwiches back to the bunkhouse, at least he didn't say what he was thinking.

  But tonight, another Saturday, an entire week from when Maggie'd arrived, Tanner was starving. It was because he hadn't even gotten breakfast, let alone lunch and dinner.

  He'd been headed up to the house for breakfast when he'd seen her sitting in the kitchen. Normally on days she drove off to school, he was in and out before she even came downstairs. But this morning, damn it, there she was, puttering around the stove. Ev was nowhere in sight.

  She was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved, dark green shirt, and as she moved, Tanner was struck by how long her legs were. They were damned shapely legs, too. He wondered how it would feel to have her legs wrapped around him.

  And that was when he knew he couldn't go in for breakfast. He'd taken off for the hills as fast as he could.

  Now, fifteen hours later, he was starving. Muttering under his breath, Tanner hauled himself up off the bed and stalked over to the cupboard, jerking it open and ransacking it once more. There had to be a can of beans, a packet of crackers, some beef jerky—anything!—that some long-departed hand had left behind.

  He didn't find a crumb.

  He hadn't had time all week to go to town and stock up on rations. During calving season, free time wasn't something he had a lot of, and he hadn't dared ask Ev. Ev would've wanted to know why he needed food when they had a kitchen full.

  Sighing, he turned on the radio and grabbed the latest Stockman's Journal, then dropped down again onto the narrow bunk. He'd read until the lights went out in the house and everybody' d gone to bed.

  Then he could sneak up to the house and fix himself a sandwich. Or four.

  His stomach growled. "Wait," he told it.

  The unexpected knock at the door made him jump. Please God it would be Ev, feeling sorry for him and bearing supper.

  It was Maggie.

  In one lithe movement he swung his feet to the floor and sat up. "What do you want?"

  "I missed you at dinner. Seems I've been missing you all week."

  "I wasn't hungry. Besides I've got work to do. Doesn't always fit in with mealtimes."

  "Maybe we should change the mealtimes," she suggested. She was wearing her hair piled up on top of her head. Tanner could see the pins. He wanted to remove them.

  "What do you want?" he repeated sharply. He got to his feet and strode over to the farthest window before turning around to face her.

  "I'd like to go out with you tomorrow."

  "Go out with me?" He almost choked on the words.

  Maggie's cheeks reddened. "Not on a date," she said quickly. "I just meant... Ev says you check the mother cows every morning and I'd like to come."

  "No."

  His vehemence made her blink. "What do you mean, no?"

  "Just what I said. I'm workin' when I'm out there, not guidin' pleasure tours. I don't have time to baby-sit." He folded his arms across his chest and stared at her. His stomach growled.

  "It wouldn't be baby-sitting," she said mildly after a moment.

  "No? What would you call it?"

  "Boss-sitting?"

  His teeth came together with a snap and he knew he was trapped. "So you're pullin' rank?"

  "Well, saying pretty please didn't seem to be doing me any good," she said with gentle irony. "What time do we start?"

  He considered her, took in the heightened color in her cheeks, the sparkle in her big green eyes, the soft thrust of her breasts and the lush curve of her hips that her jeans outlined. How about right now? his body suggested to him. Mother cows were the furthest thing from his mind.

  "Robert?"

  "Damn it! I told you my name is—"

  "Tanner. Yes, I know. Very well, Mis-ter Tanner, I will be accompanying you in the morning. What time do we start?"

  "I'm leaving at sunup."

  "I'll be ready." She started toward the door, then stopped and looked back at him. "Abby never said you were surly and hard to get along with, either. Or is it just me?"

  Tanner raked his fingers through his hair. "Sorry," he muttered. "It's just there's...I've..." But there was no way he could explain. "It's a busy time of year," he muttered at last.

  "Well, I don't want to make it worse for you. I just want to know what's going on, to learn all I can about ranching so I won't mess up." She smiled. "Ev says you're afraid I'll try to run the ranch when I don't know what I'm doing. He says you're afraid I'll make a mess of things and cause trouble in your life."

  Good old Ev. Tanner's mouth twisted. "Ev talks a hell of a lot."

  "He just wanted me to know," Maggie said simply. "He thought it might make things easier between us."

  What would make things easier, Tanner wanted to tell her, was if she'd hightail it back to Casper and stay the hell away from him.

  "He say anything else?" Tanner asked dryly after a moment.

  A smile flickered across her face. "He said you needed a woman in your life."

  Tanner gaped at her.

  She laughed. "Do you think he's matchmaking?"

  "The hell he is!" Tanner slammed his hand against the dresser, furious, hoping she couldn't see the hot blood that had rushed to his face. "I'll kill that nosy old coot. I'll—"

  "I get the point," Maggie said lightly. "You have nothing to fear from me."

  Oh, didn't he? Tanner wanted to say. He didn't say anything, just folded his arms against his chest once more and prayed she'd leave.

  She turned back to the door again, then paused once more and glanced over her shoulder. "Too bad you weren't hungry. We had the most wonderful savory stew with peas and dumplings. It was scrumptious. But perhaps you'll feel more like eating by breakfast time. See you then." He could hear her footsteps on the plank stairs and then she was gone.

  Tanner picked up the Stockman's Journal and tossed it on the table, flicked off the light and flung himself down on the bed.

  His stomach growled.

  Tanner got to the house before dawn. He was earlier than usual, but there was a lot to be done. And if he missed Maggie, well, that was just too bad. She'd have to understand.

  He looked in the window first, steeling himself in case she was already there. She wasn't. So he breathed easier and opened the door as quietly as he could, hoping not to make noise and wake her. He expected he'd have to fix his own breakfast. Even Ev wouldn't be looking for him this early.

  But he found bacon, still crisp and hot, in a covered dish on the back of the stove. In another there were scrambled eggs, and in a third, a pile of warm pancakes. There were hash browns and applesauce, too, as well as the usual pot of strong black coffee.

  Tanner breathed it all in, his knees weak from hunger. God bless the old man. He'd really outdone himself, Tanner thought, sitting down and putting it away with relish. "I take back every evil thought I've ever had about you," Tanner said to Ev's absent spirit.

  But he apparently didn't want any thanks. He was nowhere around. Just as well, actually, Tanner thought, though it showed a bit more circumspection than was usual for Ev. Tanner had fully expected knowing looks and a blatant wink or two.

  He finished off the bacon, eggs and hotcakes. He took a second helping of applesauce and downed another cup of coffee, glancing over his shoulder once or twice toward the stairs, afraid that at any moment Maggie would be coming down them.

  She never came.

  Probabl
y slept in, Tanner thought with a ghost of a grin. All that business about getting up and coming with him had been no more than mere talk. He shouldn't have spent the night tossing and turning after all.

  He carried his dishes to the sink and rinsed them off, then left them on the drainboard for Ev to wash up later. Still no sound of footsteps on the stairs. He felt easier with every passing minute.

  He wondered what she'd do if he tiptoed up the steps, stuck his head in her room and woke her. And there was the way to disaster, he told himself sharply. Thinking about Maggie in bed was no way to solve his problem.

  He flicked off the light and headed out the door, stuffed his feet into his boots and zipped up his jacket. Then, drawing a deep breath of clean frosty air, he made his way to the barn.

  Maggie was already there.

  Tanner muffled a curse under his breath and glanced around to check the possibility of getting out without her seeing him. There wasn't one. He sighed, then leaned against the doorjamb and watched.

  She had a saddle on Sunny, the ten-year-old sorrel gelding that Abby used to ride, and she held a bridle in her hand, trying to slip the bit into the horse's mouth.

  "It won't hurt you," she was saying to the horse. "It's a very humane bit. I checked. Honest. I read up on them just last night."

  Tanner shook his head, half amused, half amazed. Maggie approached the horse again, holding the bridle up, grinning widely at him, showing him her teeth, then opening her mouth and clacking her teeth together. "Open up," she said. "Like this."

  Sunny pulled back his big horsey lips at her.

  "That's it, Sunny," she cooed. "Just like that. And now I'll..." She tried to slip the bit between his teeth. He jerked his head away and clamped down hard. Maggie muttered under her breath.

  Tanner tucked his fingers into the front pockets of his jeans. "Why don't you try 'pretty please' on him?"

  Maggie spun around to face him, her eyes wide, her cheeks flushed. This morning she had her hair back in what he supposed was meant to be a utilitarian ponytail. But tendrils escaped around her ears and made him want to reach out and touch them. God, it was worse than with Clare. He'd never had to keep his hands in his pockets every minute around Clare.