She didn't speak. She stared at him as if she were dumbstruck.
Then she blinked rapidly and gave a little shake of her head. Her fingers clenched on the mug in her hands, and her gaze dropped and she stared down into it. "Hell," she muttered softly. "Oh, hell."
He took three long strides across the room and hunkered down in front of her so that, if she would just lift her gaze, they would be on eye level. He put his hands on her knees. "What's that mean? 'Oh, hell'?"
She gave a small shudder and looked up at him, still blinking. "It means exactly what I said. Oh, hell. I didn't want you to have a good answer. I didn't want you to say the right words." She turned her head away and wouldn't look at him.
He took the mug from her and set it aside. Then he grasped her hands in his, silently urging her to look at him. "Mary?"
Still she wouldn't. She gave a quick hard shake of her head. "No, Gus. Go away."
"I love you, Mar."
She shut her eyes.
"I want to marry you, Mar'. I want to be there for you. I want us to have all that stuff you wanted all those years ago."
She tugged her hands out of his and crossed her arms over her breasts, tucking her hands away so he couldn't hold them. "No," she said, her tone agonized. "You can't."
"But I do. Don't you?"
She opened her eyes and looked at him squarely then. "I can't, Gus. I can't go through it again."
"Why not?" Hadn't he just said everything she wanted him to?
"Because," she said flatly, "I don't trust you."
He stared at her, shocked.
Then he realized he had no right to be. Why, after all, should she trust him? She'd trusted him once, and he'd walked out on her. No. Worse. He hadn't even walked out. He'd asked her to marry him, and then, when he'd panicked, he hadn't even had the decency to come back and tell her face-to-face. He'd blurted something over a long-distance phone line, then took off back to his buddies and the next rodeo. He'd left her to make excuses, to cancel everything, to face the people he'd never bothered to face.
He bent his head, shut his eyes, and hoped the Almighty listened to cowboys who took a dozen years to wake up and smell the coffee. Then he got to his feet and stood looking down at her, waiting until she looked up at him.
When she did, he smiled a little wryly. "Fair enough. I guess I'll just have to teach you to trust me, Mar'."
* * *
Mary heard the front door close with a soft click.
Then she heard nothing save the sound of the old mantel clock's ponderous tick, tick. And then she heard a truck door shut. An engine started.
And at last she heard him drive away.
She took a huge, desperate gulp of air. And it wasn't until she'd let it out again with a shudder that shook her to her toes that she realized she must have been holding her breath.
The baby within nudged her belly. A small poke of reality.
Thank God, she thought, patting it absently and taking another shaky breath and exhaling again.
"Gus," she murmured. His name seemed to tremble on her lips. "Oh, Gus. How could you? How could you do this to me?"
She wanted to blot it all out. To pretend he hadn't come, that he hadn't said the things he had, that she hadn't heard from his lips all the things she'd once longed to hear him say.
Please, dear God, she didn't want to fall in love with him again.
He might say all the right things, but talk was cheap. Gus was Gus—and, to quote the old cliché, a leopard didn't change his spots. How could she trust him?
How?
She couldn't. Couldn't afford to.
But what her mind told her and what her heart heard were two different things. Her mind could steel itself against him. Her heart was another story.
When she went to bed that night she was afraid.
* * *
He called her the next morning.
"I've only got a minute. We're buckin' horses again soon as we finish a quick break. But I wanted to see how you were." His voice was soft, concerned.
And Mary, who had been padding around the house telling herself that in the bright light of day she would know better than to succumb to his charm, said briskly, "I'm fine."
"Good. Got plans for tonight?"
"I'm having leftovers at my neighbor Cloris's. She's a retired teacher, and she gets lonely. Her family came for the holiday but they're gone now so she invited me over."
"Think she'd invite me, too? What's her number?"
"You can't just call up someone you don't know and invite yourself for a meal!"
"I'm not invitin' myself. I'm askin' her to invite me."
"Well, I won't give you her number."
"Okay, make it difficult," Gus said cheerfully. "See you tonight."
"Gus!"
But he had already hung up.
Mary put down the phone and shook her head. See, she told herself, he hadn't changed. He was still Gus, through and through. Going after what he wanted come hell or high water. Well, he wouldn't run over Cloris Steadman, of that she was sure.
As it turned out, he didn't have to. Cloris apparently simply opened the door and ushered him in!
He was sitting in her living room, entertaining her and Alice Benn with rodeo stories, when Mary arrived. He got up at once and helped her off with her jacket.
"I'd have stopped to get you," he said, "but I thought you might already be here."
"You were afraid I wouldn't let you come with me," Mary said tartly, shaking out her hair and trying not to answer his grin with one of her own.
"That, too," Gus agreed. "You look gorgeous."
The appreciative sighs of Cloris and Alice were audible all the way across the room. Mary shot them a hard look. They beamed at her.
"So nice your young man was able to come, too," Alice said. She patted the sofa next to her. "When Cloris invited you, we didn't realize he was in town."
"He's not my young man," Mary objected, going to sit beside Alice. "And he's not in town. He's living out at Taggart's."
"That's what he was telling us. He said that Noah told him there's enough work between the schools here and the ones they do on the road that he can stay on permanently. I'll bet you're pleased!" Alice beamed, and Cloris, on her way to the kitchen, gave Mary a thumbs-up sign.
Mary's eyes widened. She felt an odd flutter in her middle that, for once, she didn't think had anything to do with the baby. She turned to Gus. "What do you mean, permanent?"
A corner of his mouth lifted. "Something about the word you don't understand? It's pretty straightforward. It means, basically, from here on out."
"Live here, you mean? You're going to live at Taggart's?"
"For now." He lifted his shoulders. "I was thinkin' maybe I could get my own place before long." His eyes were smiling at her.
"What about your itchy feet? What about going down the road? What about that horizon you're always heading toward? What about feeling smothered when you stay in one spot?" She dragged up every single example she could remember of his earlier view of how he wanted to live his life.
"Reckon I've seen enough horizons for a while," he said easily. "And I'm gettin' a little old to be goin' down the road all year long. Rodeo's a young man's game."
"You're not old!"
"Not yet. But I'm gettin' there. And I like a pillow and a mattress more'n I ever thought I would. A guy gets a crick in his neck, he sleeps too many nights in his truck. No, I think settlin' down is gonna suit me fine." He looked positively cheerful at the thought.
Mary wished she believed it—or maybe she wished she did not!
She didn't know what she wished. She got to her feet quickly. "I'm going to go see what I can do to help Cloris in the kitchen."
"You can't do anything for Cloris in the kitchen," Cloris said, having overheard. "Dinner is ready. Everyone come and eat. Gus, we're having the half of the turkey that didn't get eaten last night when the family was here. Will you carve?"
He looked
momentarily nonplussed, then nodded. "Sure. I'll do my best."
He did his best all evening. And, Mary had to admit, when it came to charming old ladies—or young ladies or any ladies, for that matter—Gus Holt's best was very, very good.
He told them stories about Mary growing up that had her blushing and trying to kick him under the table. She blushed even worse when it turned out to be Alice's ankle she connected with and the older woman gave a startled, "Oh! What was that?"
"Sorry," Mary muttered, mortified.
Gus laughed, delighted, and Cloris and Alice looked at each other across the table and smiled like conspirators.
Mary gave up protesting and focused on her meal. There was no point, she told herself. Gus at his most charming was simply too much of a force to overcome.
Her best hope was that he would burn bright, then fade fast. That's what she'd do—she would simply sit back and wait.
Decision made, she simply made up her mind to enjoy him, to laugh at his stories, to take his compliments with a smile, to accept his solicitous behavior, his fetching and carrying of cups of tea and plates of pie. And when, after dinner, he said he would walk her home, she didn't demur.
She even permitted herself to enjoy his escort. Her balance, since the baby had gotten so much bigger, was not too reliable, and the path between her house and Cloris's wasn't well cleared.
"You go see her a lot?" Gus asked as they went up her steps.
"Fairly often. She gets lonely otherwise. She's alone. Her children are in Billings and Cheyenne." She turned on the top step to thank him and to say goodbye to him there, hoping she would be able to prevent him from following her in.
But Gus just said "Got a shovel? Give it to me. I'll clear you a path."
She supposed she should have objected, but it would be nice to have the way better shoveled, and she certainly wasn't up to doing it. "Thanks."
Gus went down the steps with the shovel. Mary shut the door. Resolutely she walked into the living room and opened her briefcase. She had a set of papers to grade. No time like the present.
And it would keep her from standing by the window, staring out, watching Gus.
It would give her time to think of a reason not to let him in when he came back. She had no doubt he'd be angling to.
She took the papers out to the kitchen and spread them out on the table and began to work. Outside she could hear the scritch, scritch of the shovel moving the snow. She had to steel herself to stay put, not to go watch Gus.
"Why would you want to watch a man shovel snow?" she asked herself in a disgusted mutter.
Because the man was Gus.
That was the answer. And she didn't like it. But the fact was, watching Gus do anything physical was a treat. He was so capable, so confident, so in control of his body. Whether it was riding a bronc, changing a tire or pitching hay, he drew the eye.
At least he'd always drawn her eye.
She forced her eyes back to the paper she was grading.
The phone rang.
"I wish you had come for Thanksgiving," Ruthie said. "I want to see you. I want to see how big you've gotten."
"Big," Mary said. "I'll have someone take a picture."
"It's not the same. You're coming for Christmas, aren't you?"
"The doctor said it would be better to stick around the last couple of months. And the weather is unpredictable. We don't have those eighty-degree days you do."
"You shouldn't have left." It was becoming Ruthie's mantra.
"I needed a job and I wanted to come back to Montana," Mary said. It was her own mantra.
"And you didn't want me breathing down your neck." Ruthie wasn't stupid.
"I thought it would be better for both of us."
"And you were probably right," Ruthie admitted. "But I still wish you were here. I'm quitting February 1st. I've told Jeff we're corning up a week before your due date so we'll be sure to be there in time. If the doctor thinks it's going to be early, you let me know. We've got reservations, but we can change them. I don't want to miss it. I can't wait. I'm taking classes. Lamaze classes. So I can coach you."
"You'll be better prepared than I am." Outside she could hear the clump of Gus's boots on the porch.
"Haven't you started yet?" Ruthie asked.
"I've got two and a half months left to get ready."
The door opened and Gus came in, his tanned face slightly flushed from the exertion. There was a dusting of snowflakes on his shoulders and his hat, and a lopsided seductive Gus Holt grin on his face. He looked seriously gorgeous and he wasn't even really trying.
Mary swallowed hard. If he could make her knees quiver for no reason at all, she was in very deep trouble indeed.
"I need to go," she said to Ruthie. "I'll call you later."
"But—"
"Later," Mary promised and hung up. She needed all her wits about her to deal with Gus. If she kept on talking to her sister, she was fairly sure that the next time she looked around Gus would be in her bed.
She took a deep breath and laced her fingers together, then pasted a bright I'm-your-friend smile on her own face. "Well," she said briskly. "That was very kind. Thank you so much."
Gus's grin just got wider. "Tryin' to get rid of me, Mar'?"
"Yes." She beamed determinedly. "Is it working?"
He laughed. "For the moment," he said, surprising her.
He took three steps across the kitchen until he was close enough that his jacket brushed the front of her shirt, close enough that she could see the beat of the pulse in his throat, close enough that she could have counted each individual whisker on his jaw. She would have backed up, but the table was behind her.
"Hold still," he said, his voice soft and rough at the same time. He touched her chin with his hand and then, her mouth with his lips. His nose was cold but his mouth was warm as he tasted her gently. Tenderly. Softly.
Mary swallowed a moan.
Then all at once, he stepped back and smiled a little crookedly. "Love you, Mar'."
And as she tried desperately to shore up her trampled defenses, he left.
* * *
Chapter 8
« ^ »
It was the hardest thing he'd ever done—walking away like that, not pressing his advantage, not taking her into his arms and kissing her with the urgency he felt.
"Don't forget about subtle," Becky had told him that morning. She and Susannah had come to watch Gus's students ride broncs, and whenever he had a free minute, they continued their counseling.
"Just 'cause you're doin' good, don't think you can bowl her over," Susannah said.
"I'm not tryin' to bowl her over," he'd said. "I just know what I want."
"But Miz McLean doesn't know what she wants yet," Becky had put in.
"She wants me."
"But she doesn't want to," Susannah had explained, as if he were some flunk-out from courtship school. "So you have to let her want to on her own terms."
"How?" How in heaven's name could he let her come to him on her terms if he wasn't there?
That was when they'd agreed it was okay for him to get himself invited to Cloris Steadman's for dinner.
"But that's all," Becky had said. "Nothing else. Then you come home."
"Nothing?"
"You can walk her home," Susannah said. "That's it."
He wasn't going to be reduced to begging to be allowed to kiss Mary. He knew what they'd say. He'd grumbled. And frankly he hadn't thought much of their game plan, but his own was pretty shaky.
So he'd done what they said—more or less. He'd walked Mary home. The shoveling bit had been improvisation. But it had seemed like a smart move.
Doing more than that, he realized, was not. So when his gut and all his instincts told him to press for more, he'd done what Becky and Susannah said.
He'd backed off.
"You've got to leave her wanting you," they'd told him, nodding sagely, as if they had all the answers, these two pip-squeak matchmakers.
So he'd left—and hoped to heck he'd left her wanting him
He sure as hell was wanting her!
He wanted to go back the next night after he'd finished with the bronc riders.
"No," Becky and Susannah decided. In fact, they barred his way to his truck. "It's too soon."
It wasn't too soon as far as Gus was concerned! He'd been thinking about Mary all day. He'd barely slept a wink all night just thinking about her, remembering how soft her lips had been under his, thinking about bow much more they could have done. He'd been anticipating it all day.
He scowled at the girls who stood, arms folded across their chests, between him and his truck. "It's Saturday night! Date night! I could just drop in. Casual-like."
"No."
"She might be expecting me."
"She won't be. Unless you said you'd be there." Becky's green eyes accused him.
"I didn't say I would be there." He tried to look righteous and proper. He did not tell the girls he'd kissed Mary. They wouldn't have understood how a fella could just stand so much temptation. "I can't even call her?"
"No."
"But—"
"No."
He glared at them. This wasn't what he'd had in mind when he'd asked for help. "You're supposed to be figuring out how to get us together, not keep us apart," he complained.
They just looked back at him impassively. "You like watchin' me suffer," he muttered.
"Maybe a little," Susannah agreed cheerfully.
"No, we don't. Not really," Becky said earnestly. "It'll work out in the end, Gus," she promised. "Really it will."
"How do you know? This isn't what you did for your old man. What makes you such experts?"
"We're women," Susannah said simply.
He couldn't argue with that.
"I don't have to do this a long time, do I?" he asked Becky.
"Not long. Maybe a week."
"A week?"
Becky shrugged narrow shoulders. "She knows you care, right? So she's expectin' you to be there. Looking for you. Waiting."
Was she? Gus wasn't sure he dared hope.
"So you gotta wait a little," Becky explained. "Be just a little hard to get—just right now—so she'll miss you. You can help me with my homework."
A COWBOY'S GIFT Page 10