"You're welcome." She didn't budge from behind the chair.
He looked at her for a long moment. She was even prettier than he remembered. Vital. Vibrant. Pregnancy agreed with her. He imagined her big with his child—and the thought, far from making him panic, brought a grin to his face.
"You look beautiful," he told her.
She glared at him. "Go away, Gus."
He kept on grinning, even as he nodded and headed for the door. "I'm goin'," he assured her.
But I'll be back, he thought to himself as the door closed behind him.
Because he wasn't drifting now. He wasn't aimless any longer. He had a goal again.
Mary.
* * *
Damn him.
Damn, damn, damn him. That was all Mary could think as she tossed and turned in bed that night. Usually the baby's kicks kept her awake, but the baby was uncommonly subdued this evening. Or maybe Mary just didn't notice any other agitation because her own was so great.
She'd tried to grade papers after Gus left. But she couldn't concentrate. Then she'd tried watching a movie on television. But it couldn't keep her attention. She kept rubbing her belly, distracted, kept thinking that something was touching it.
But nothing was touching it—except the memory of Gus's lips.
How could he do something like that?
How could he kiss her—there—of all places?
Most men she knew took one look at her expansive midriff and backed away, as if they thought her pregnancy might rub off and make them fathers.
Single men were particularly susceptible. But even the happily married men she knew—Felicity's husband for example—tended to give her wide berth because, as Taggart said, "There have been enough babies at the Jones house."
But Gus hadn't backed off.
He'd leaned forward—and kissed her belly!
The intimacy of it shocked her. And no matter how she tried to blot it out, she could feel it still. It unnerved her more than the kiss he'd given her yesterday. That one was easily rationalized as Gus behaving like Gus. This … this wasn't Gus at all.
The gentle press of his lips against her abdomen was a sensation that should have vanished hours ago. It hadn't.
Nor had the memory of his lopsided grin and the sparkle in his deep-green eyes. She didn't want to think about them—about him!—but she couldn't seem to stop.
No man had ever tempted her the way Gus had.
No man had hurt her like Gus.
She dragged the pillow over her face and shut her eyes as if that would help. In a dozen years she hadn't been able to blot out the memory of Gus Holt.
Why should she be able to tonight?
It was a relief when the phone rang, even though it was past midnight. She snatched it up. "Hello?"
"Hi." It was Ruthie sounding breathless. "Are you all right?"
Mary took a deep breath. "Of course. I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?" She'd been reassuring Ruthie for the past six months—ever since they'd found out for sure that the pregnancy was proceeding.
"I've been getting vibes," her sister said.
"Well, you'd better stop getting them," Mary replied firmly. "Everything's fine."
It was uncanny, really, how her sister seemed so attuned to things going on in Mary's body even though Ruthie was a thousand miles away. But early on she had somehow sensed those days when Mary had been most nauseated with morning sickness. And she had called, flustered and convinced something momentous had happened the night Mary had felt the first faint flutterings of the baby kicking in her womb.
"How did you know?" Mary had demanded then.
"I'm the mother," Ruthie had replied. "I know."
Now Ruthie demanded, "Are you sure? I feel something. Nothing's happening?"
"Nothing," Mary said. "Except … Gus is here."
Why she said it, she didn't know.
Maybe she just needed to talk to someone. And Ruthie had been so supportive the first time. Ruthie had been the rock Mary had leaned on, the one who had assured her there was nothing wrong with her, that she had nothing to be ashamed of when she'd had to call off the wedding. She'd even come up from Arizona to be there with her. She was the one who had talked Mary into leaving Montana and moving down to live with her and Jeff to attend school at Arizona State.
"Gus! Gus Holt? That jerk?"
"He's not exactly a jerk."
"Don't defend him!" Ruthie said hotly. "He jilted you. He left you at the altar. He got cold feet and ran off!"
"He didn't jilt me," Mary corrected. "And he didn't leave me at the altar. He called a week ahead of time."
"To tell you he had cold feet and couldn't go through with it."
"Yes, but—"
"It amounts to the same thing," Ruthie said firmly. "I remember how hurt you were. You were a wreck. I don't want him hurting you again."
"He won't." Mary was sure about that. She wouldn't let him. "He's just passing through."
"As fast as he can, no doubt."
"Probably," Mary agreed. She hoped so, anyway. He'd been around far too long already for her peace of mind.
She wished she'd asked him how long he would be here, but she hadn't wanted to act as if she cared. She didn't care, she reminded herself. She only cared that soon he would be gone!
"How's our guy?" Ruthie asked, changing the subject and the tone of her voice. It softened every time she mentioned the baby. There was a wistful, gentle ache in the mere sound of it. "Did he have a good day?"
"Yes," Mary said. Gus kissed him. She didn't say that "He's doing very well."
"And you are, too?" There was always a thread of apprehension in Ruthie's tone when she asked that question, as if something might happen. "You don't have to stay up there, you know," Ruthie said for the umpteenth time. "Montana is a long way away. You ought to come home." Ruthie hadn't totally given up trying to persuade Mary to come back to Arizona. "You wouldn't have to teach. You could just rest," she said now. "You need your rest."
"I need to keep busy, too," Mary replied and went on to talk about the kids and their speeches. She talked at such length that Ruthie was finally the one to end the conversation.
"You need your sleep," she said at last "It must be later there. I'll talk to you on Sunday."
"Yes," Mary agreed. She hung up, too. And lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, trying to think about the speech contest. The baby kicked—just about where Gus had kissed her.
She rubbed her belly.
* * *
Gus had never been to a junior high speech contest in his entire life.
If you'd asked him a week ago if he ever thought he'd go to one, he would have given you a one-word answer—and it wouldn't have been yes.
But when Becky asked if he'd like to come watch her give her speech on Saturday, he surprised her and her parents and even himself by jumping at the chance.
"You mean it?" Becky goggled at him. She gulped hard and, he thought, looked a little sick.
"Yeah, I'd like to," he said. "Noah said he didn't need me on Saturday, so why not?"
Why not, indeed? He'd get to spend the entire day watching Mary.
He'd watched Mary every afternoon for the rest of the week. He'd made it a point to be the one who went in to pick Becky up at school. And he'd always managed to get there early so he could sit in the back and listen. And watch Mary.
He'd tried doing more. He'd called her the day after she'd told him about the baby. He'd asked if she wanted to go out to eat.
No, thank you, she'd said.
Did she want to catch a movie in Bozeman, then?
No, thank you. Again.
Did she want to come have dinner at Jones's? Felicity had said to invite her.
No, thank you very much.
She was busy Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. She was busy whatever night he asked.
She didn't want to go out with him. She finally told him that point-blank last night when he'd called.
"You don't like me?
" he'd asked. "You used to like me. You used to love me."
"That was then," she'd said. "And it was a long time ago."
"Yeah, it was. We were kids. We're grown-ups now. You could give me another chance."
"No," she'd said. "Goodbye, Gus. Don't call me again."
He supposed he couldn't really blame her. He'd hurt her.
But he wouldn't hurt her this time, damn it! It didn't seem entirely fair to hold his nineteen-year-old self's stupidity against his thirty-one-year-old self's hard-won maturity—such as it was—but he didn't think Mary would buy that.
So he figured he'd take it easy. Take it slow. Turn up where she was. Let her see he'd come a long way in a dozen years.
Having Becky invite him to the speech contest was like having a roast duck fall into his lap.
The day-long contest was being held in a small auditorium on the Montana State University campus. Mary was already there when they arrived. She was wearing a navy blue maternity jumper and a white blouse that had the effect, Gus thought, of making her look like a very pregnant, very sexy nun. Her long golden hair was done up in some intricate knot at the back of her head. It looked neat and orderly and made Gus long to thread his fingers through it and mess it up.
She already had several of her students in a group at the front of the auditorium, and when she spotted Becky she waved her over. Her hand stopped midwave when she spotted him.
Gus grinned, waggled his fingers in a little wave in her direction, then followed Taggart and Felicity to their seats.
He'd had a week now to watch the way Mary worked with her students in small groups as well as individually.
Today he saw the results she got. He was impressed.
She gave her students confidence in themselves. She showed them how to do a good job, then she got out of the way and let them do it.
The boy she'd called Race had come a long way. He might have been white-knuckling the podium through his whole speech, but it didn't slow him down any. And he never stood there, tongue-tied and helpless, the way Gus was sure he would have been.
The two seventh-grade girls were good, too. And so was the boy, Tom, who looked like a wrestler but talked about computer circuitry and telecommunications in the twenty-first century.
But Becky was the best. No doubt about it. He wasn't at all surprised when the winner in her category was announced and Becky won.
He was as proud as Taggart—and not just of Becky. Of Mary, too, who had taught her well.
That was what he told her afterward.
"You did good," he said as they were all milling around, parents and students and teachers, getting ready to leave.
"I didn't do anything," she said, struggling to pull on her coat.
Gus took it out of her hands and held it for her to slip on. She scowled at him. He just held it out and waited. When she still didn't move, he grinned at her and waved the coat a little. It was red. "I feel like a bullfighter."
Mary's lips twitched, and finally she laughed just a little. She also slipped her arms into the sleeves of her coat. Gus settled it around her shoulders, taking way more time and care than he needed to. Her hair brushed his cheek. He could smell her shampoo—and a subtle smell he remembered as being just purely Mary.
It made his knees wobble.
"Ready for dinner?" Taggart said cheerfully with Willy on his shoulders as they headed for the parking lot. It was beginning to snow a little. "Let's all go celebrate. You, too, Ms. McLean."
"Oh, no. I don't want to butt in," Mary said quickly. "This is Becky's party."
"And Becky would be delighted to have you celebrate with us," Taggart said. "Wouldn't you?" He anchored Willy's feet with one hand and gave his older daughter a one-armed hug.
Eagerly Becky nodded. "Yes, please." She was grinning all over her face, had been since she'd finished her speech.
Gus would have said yes, please, too, but he figured that would just drive her in the other direction. As it happened there were enough other people to persuade her. Taggart's parents, who lived in Bozeman, had come for the contest, and they added their wish to have Mary join them. And when Felicity made her admit that she didn't have anywhere else to go, Mary had no choice but to agree to come along.
They went to a steak house west of town. It was a rambling low-slung building with dark wood paneling and an old-time western flavor. It wasn't yet crowded in the late afternoon, though Gus knew it would be jammed and rocking off its foundation later. He'd spent many a Saturday night there, flirting with the waitresses and local buckle bunnies and the occasional out-of-her-element college girl.
The waitress eyed him appreciatively this time, too, but Gus wasn't interested in flirting. He was interested in Mary—and perfectly happy to be part of a family group.
He didn't have to work too hard to end up sitting next to her. Taggart got them a big round table where Gus wound up with Becky on one side of him and Mary on the other.
"The two prettiest girls in the room," he said in a voice loud enough so only they could hear.
Mary shot him a disapproving look, but Becky turned red. He reached out and tweaked her long braid. "You did great today."
She beamed. "Thanks."
He was careful to spend at least half the meal talking to her. It was enough, he assured himself, to have Mary next to him, to casually and accidentally let his knee nudge hers, to let his fingers brush hers when he asked her to pass him the cole slaw or the apple sauce.
They talked about Becky's speech, then Taggart told his own version of training Domino, which led to more stories from his dad about horses they had trained. That led, naturally enough, to Gus telling stories about horses his own trainer father, Dan, and J.D. had worked with.
"How is J.D.?" Mary asked.
It was the first real interest she'd shown. He took heart. "He's fine," Gus said heartily. "Gettin' married, would you believe? To Lydia Cochrane."
He could tell that surprised her as much as it had surprised him. Proper lawyer Lydia had never seemed the sort of woman who would want to take on a hardheaded son-of-a-gun like J.D.
"People change," he explained, meeting her gaze.
They looked at each other a long moment. She didn't reply.
Then Willy wanted to share his sandwich, and Abby offered him some French fries, and they never got back to the stuff that mattered.
Not until Mary suddenly lurched beside him, and Felicity laughed and said, "Baby kick you?"
And Mary flushed and nodded. She pressed a hand on her belly.
"Can I feel?" Willy's eyes were like saucers. And when he had, Abby needed to—and then Becky.
Gus wasn't about to be left out.
"I've never felt a baby kick," he said, and put his hand on her belly before she could stop him. Then the baby kicked, and Gus, not Mary, was the one who jerked.
"Holy cow!" he exclaimed, astonished.
And Mary laughed, then quickly looked away. But not before Gus had seen a flicker of warmth in her eyes. He was elated.
When they came out of the restaurant into a howling snowstorm, things got even better.
"You'd better take Gus with you," Taggart said to Mary as they were walking to their cars.
But she shook her head. "That's not necessary. I'll be fine."
Gus opened his mouth to argue with her, but he didn't have to. Taggart did it for him.
"Not in that, you won't," Taggart said. Her car was a late-model foreign import. Not like the full-size pickups and wagons everyone else drove.
Even Felicity shook her head. "You shouldn't be driving over the pass alone in bad weather. You said yourself you don't remember much about driving in snow."
Still Mary hesitated. "Well, I—"
"It's nothing to fool around with," Taggart said firmly. "I got hit a few years ago in a storm no worse than this one."
"He almost died," Becky told her with ghoulish good cheer.
Mary blanched.
"Don't take a risk, my dear," Taggar
t's mother said.
"Not when you can have Gus take you," his father added.
Mary gave Gus a hard look, one that accused him of having put them all up to this.
But for once Gus was entirely blameless. He grinned guilelessly. "If you'd rather I didn't…"
She ran her tongue over her lips, then pressed them shut in a firm line and shrugged reluctantly. "I guess you'd better," she muttered ungraciously. Then added with equal reluctance, "Thanks."
"Do you have a cell phone?" Felicity asked.
At Mary's nod, Taggart scribbled down a number and handed it to her. "That's ours. We'll drive ahead of you. You can watch the taillights," he said to Gus. "Call if you have problems."
"We won't have problems," Gus said firmly. He held out his hand for Mary's keys.
She looked at him once more a little nervously, then fished them out and handed them to him.
Smiling, Gus unlocked the door. Then, like the chivalrous gentleman his dear sainted dead mother would have been astonished to finally see, he opened it for her and waited while she settled herself inside.
"We'll be fine," he promised. "Piece of cake. Nothing to worry about."
Mary muttered something under her breath. It sounded like, "We'll see."
* * *
Chapter 5
« ^ »
"You don't have to do this," Mary said as he got in the driver's side.
"I want to."
She scowled. "I know."
Their eyes met again, and hers flashed with annoyance.
Gus just grinned. He settled in beside her, then reached over and took her gloved hand in his and squeezed it. "Trust me, Mar'. I'll get you home safe and sound."
She didn't look at him, just slid her fingers out of his and knotted them with her others on top of her blooming belly. It sobered him at once.
He realized all at once that this wasn't a game—and it wasn't just about him and Mary.
He had a baby to get home safe and sound, too.
He looked at where her hands lay protectively on her abdomen. "You're not … havin' it … or anything. Are you?"
She shot him a quick astonished glance. "What, now? No. Of course not. I'm not due for nearly three months."
A COWBOY'S GIFT Page 6