The Reluctant Bride

by Leigh Greenwood

  “If you’re trying to figure out a way to say you won’t do it, just spit it out,” Russ said.

  “It’s not that. It’s—”

  “Are you afraid you’ll lose your job?”

  She hadn’t even thought of that. “Would they fire me for teaching you?”

  “They might.”

  “They don’t have anybody else to teach their children.”

  They may hate me so much they won’t care.”

  Tanzy’s hesitation vanished without a trace. “I’ll do what I can to help, but I can’t do it while the children are here. You would be too much of a distraction.”

  “Their parents would run us both out of town before they’d let me have that much contact with their daughters.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. If other women felt as she did, and she was certain they did, it was probably wise for parents to keep their daughters well away from Russ Tibbolt. She didn’t believe he would take advantage of a young girl’s innocence, but there was no assurance the young girl would be equally restrained.

  “Why didn’t you ask Welt to teach you?” She couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t thought of that in the first place. It just went to show she couldn’t think clearly when she was near him. “He’s right there on your ranch. He could work with you every day without your having to ride so far.”

  Russ’s face stiffened, the light in his eyes became hard as stone. Even the muscles in his jaw seemed to tense and bulge. “Welt doesn’t know I can’t read,” he said. “Nobody knows.”

  Only then did Tanzy begin to understand how much courage it had required for a proud man like Russ to admit he couldn’t read. “What made you decide you couldn’t keep your secret any longer?”

  “You.”

  “Me! How?”

  “It took a lot of courage to come out here to meet a man you didn’t know, to subject yourself to his approval, to know you’d be on your own if things didn’t work out.”

  “Not half as much as it must take to face this town every day.”

  “I’d like to keep this secret. Admitting I can’t read will give folks a real reason to look down on me.”

  “I imagine there are others who can’t read either.”

  “It doesn’t matter, because they’re solid citizens. I’m an ex-con. Any fault they can find in me will just prove they were right to despise me.”

  “You’re too smart for it to take long to learn to read. No one will have to know.”

  “How will you explain my coming to the schoolhouse?”

  “We can meet at the hotel.”

  “Where? In your room? That would be even worse.”

  She racked her brain, but she couldn’t think of a solution off hand. “We can think of something.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Secrets always manage to leak out. This one will, too, especially if we have a chaperone.”

  “Why would we need one?”

  “Your reputation would never survive being alone with me.”

  He moved for the first time since stepping out of the shadows and came closer. Tanzy could practically feel the heat generated by his presence. She had to make a conscious effort not to get up so she could put more space between them.

  “I don’t care about that.”

  “You will. When is the best time for me to come?”

  After school would have been the logical time, but that would assure that everyone would know what he was doing. “I think coming before school starts would be best.”

  “Get me out of sight before the students show up?”

  “I was thinking of your comfort rather than mine.”

  He seemed to feel admonished. Maybe he wasn’t as impregnable as he appeared.

  “I’d hate for you to have to get up so early.”

  “I prefer it.” She laughed suddenly. “I wonder if Tardy will, though.”

  “What’s he got to do with it?”

  “He’ll be our chaperone unless you prefer someone else.”

  “When can I start?”

  “Why not now?”

  “What about a chaperone?”

  “A single visit isn’t likely to cause comment.” She handed him a reader used by the younger children. “Show me which words you recognize.”

  “Where’s Tardy?” Tanzy asked when Russ entered the schoolhouse alone the next morning.

  “Archie said he took sick last night,” Russ said. He walked briskly to the front where Tanzy sat waiting at her table. He put down a piece of paper with some writing on it. “He had his head hung over the back fence throwing up his dinner, but Ethel expects he’ll be okay by tomorrow.”

  “Why did you come?”

  “I was already here. Besides,” he said pointing to the paper, “I wrote something.”

  It had taken just one lesson for Tanzy to realize Russ knew a great deal more than he thought. He could puzzle out many sentences with only minimal help. He had an excellent memory, and in only two lessons had learned enough to read simple sentences. She hoped he wasn’t memorizing the words rather than sounding them out.

  “When do you find time to study?” she asked, knowing he didn’t want his cowhands to know he couldn’t read.

  “I assign myself lookout duty twice a week. That means I’m stuck in the mountain pass with nothing to do but watch for rustlers.” He grinned. “For the past three weeks my horse has been doing more watching than I have.”

  She was no more immune to his smile now than she had been in the beginning. The fact that Tardy commented last week that it was the first time he’d ever see Russ smile made it even more significant.

  He smiled because of her.

  She was probably the only woman in Boulder Gap who didn’t screw up her face into a frown when she met him. He could relax and be more like himself with her. And that was part of the problem. She liked the man she’d seen in her classroom the last three Wednesday mornings. He got angry when he couldn’t master everything the first time, but he also laughed at his mistakes. He even relaxed enough to let Tardy work with him. When Russ finally allowed Tardy to help him, the boy’s chest swelled with pride. The look in his eyes was almost hero worship. Tanzy knew Ethel wouldn’t approve, but she was glad for Tardy.

  She was less glad for herself. She was a little jealous, a little peeved, and quite disgusted she should feel either of these emotions. She shouldn’t be jealous of the time Russ spent with Tardy. The excuse she’d made up for coming to school so early was that she needed to prepare for her students. If Tardy helped Russ, that would give her time to do exactly that. Now she had Russ all to herself and she was wishing Tardy hadn’t been so foolish as to fall sick. She wasn’t going to be happy either way, apparently

  “Here,” he said, pointing to the paper he laid on her desk. “Read what I wrote.”

  Correcting it would give her something to take her mind off the fact that she was alone with Russ and that her reaction was alarming.

  Roses are red, violets are blue,

  Wherever I go, I’ll take you, too.

  She looked up at Russ. “Why did you write this?” He couldn’t have meant it for her. He’d said he didn’t want to marry her. Though he’d been extremely nice to her, he’d done nothing to indicate he’d changed his mind.

  “It was something my mother used to say all the time.” His expression was grim. “She didn’t mean it. I don’t know why I thought of it. I guess it made me think of you.”

  Her stomach lurched. “Why?”

  “If you had a son, you’d never turn your back on him, would you?”

  The meaning of his words was obvious. His dark expression eliminated any doubt he might be referring to somebody other than himself. She didn’t know what to say. Her father had never valued her except as a workhorse, but he’d have defended her to the death.

  “No,” she said, feeling the weight of his sadness. “I can’t see how any woman could.”

  “It depends on what you value most.”

  “I value
people I love above everything else,” she said.

  “That’s why you refused to marry me, so your husband and sons wouldn’t die in a feud. Or go to jail for killing Stocker Pullet.”

  “It was one reason.”

  “What was the other?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Call it pride. You’re a sensible, intelligent woman. I figure you had a good reason. I expect it’s something I ought to know, maybe something I need to change.”

  “So you can marry somebody else?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe you’ll figure out I’m not having a feud and you’ll change your mind about marrying me.”

  Tanzy wished she’d insisted they cancel the lesson when Tardy didn’t show up. This was exactly the kind of conversation she had hoped to avoid.

  “I won’t change my mind about the feud.”

  “Nobody’s shooting at anybody.”

  “You and Stocker can’t meet without getting into a fight. That’s how hatred feeds on itself until it consumes everyone around it.”

  “It hasn’t consumed me.”

  “It has Stocker.”

  “That’s Stocker’s problem.”

  “Would it be your problem if he killed some of your hands?”

  “We’ve got laws and courts to take care of things like that.”

  “Like they took care of you when you killed Toley Pullet?”

  “If you’re not careful, you can end up wasting your life being afraid of things that’ll never happen.”

  “Maybe, but there are some things I’m not willing to take a chance on, and feuding is one of them. You can’t know what that’s like until you’ve lived through it.”

  “So what’s your other reason?” Russ asked.

  Chapter Nine

  “You don’t have any respect for women.”

  Her answer surprised Russ. He’d shown her more respect than any woman he’d ever met. Hell, he’d put her up in a hotel for a week even though he’d never wanted her to come to Boulder Gap. He hadn’t told her she was crazy when she decided she couldn’t marry him because he was having a feud. He hadn’t told her no sensible man would marry her because she hadn’t the foggiest notion how to be a rancher’s wife. Most of all, he’d told her he couldn’t read. She could have spread the information all over town, turned him into a laughing stock.

  “Of course, I do. You know I think Ethel Peters is the most remarkable person in Boulder Gap.”

  “Would you marry her?”

  “Hell, no!”

  “Why not?”

  “Inside of a week she’d be running my ranch as well as my house and my life. I’d probably have to shoot her to get my own life back.” Much to Russ’s surprise, Tanzy laughed.

  “I gather you don’t like competent women.”

  “I don’t care what any woman does as long as she’s not my wife.”

  “What kind of wife do you want?”

  “I’ve already told you I don’t want a wife. The boys and I are getting along just fine as it is.”

  “Is that the reason you didn’t want to marry me?”

  Russ didn’t know why women couldn’t just accept things as they were, why they were forever asking questions. They wanted to know what you liked, what you didn’t like … and why. They wanted to know how you felt about things … and why They wanted to know if you were happy or unhappy … and why. And once they pried all the whys and wherefores out of a fella, they would set about trying to fix things. Hell, wasn’t a fella allowed to wake up grouchy, not want to visit with his neighbor, or be just plain mad at the world in general without them setting up an inquisition? He didn’t want to know all the garbage that filled people’s heads. He couldn’t see why women wanted to, either. Even the best of them were always planning and plotting. It was like living in the middle of a conspiracy.

  “Are you going to answer me?” Tanzy asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re asking for personal information.”

  Tanzy looked a bit surprised, then embarrassed. That was something else about women. They wanted to know everything about you, for your own good, of course. As far as he was concerned, people knew too much about everybody.

  “I wasn’t asking for personal information,” Tanzy said. “I assumed your reasons were general.”

  “Like saying I don’t respect women?”

  “Something like that.”

  “But I’d have to have some personal experience to base that on, wouldn’t I? I mean, it’s stupid to go around not respecting one half of the population without a reason.”

  “I wasn’t asking for your personal experience, just your reason.”

  “I don’t trust women.”

  She looked surprised. “You mean that’s your reason for not marrying me?”

  “For not marrying any woman.”

  He knew she wanted to ask for his reason. He could see it in her eyes. He watched her lips form the beginning of one word after another without speaking any of them. He watched as she gathered herself and prepared to go on as though nothing had happened.

  “Thank you for telling me. It’s a relief to know your decision wasn’t based upon some deficiency in me.”

  Apparently she didn’t think she was like other women. He supposed nobody liked to think they were like other people, especially when the similarity implied they had faults.

  “Let’s hear what you’ve done this week.”

  Russ pulled out the book and turned to the pages he’d practiced. He read everything without a mistake.

  “Do you really know the words, or have you just memorized all six pages?” Tanzy asked.

  “I make myself write words all the time to make sure I remember what they look like. That’s why I wrote those lines.”

  “Good. I want you to write something else for next week. Something a lot longer.”

  “What?”

  “Whatever you want, anything that comes to mind.”

  “It’s easy to write a word I’ve had in a reading. But when I try to write what I’m thinking, I find I haven’t learned all the words I need.”

  “Just leave out the ones you can’t remember. Now are you ready to read?”

  This was the part of his lesson Russ liked best. Tanzy would open a book just like his and read a story while he followed along. When she finished, he would ask her about any words he didn’t know, and then she’d read it again. Sometimes he’d ask her to read the passage a third time. Then he was supposed to go home and learn all the words. He didn’t need her to read anything three times. He could memorize pages and pages if he was really paying attention. He asked her to read things over because he liked the sound of her voice.

  It sounded stupid to get out of bed in the middle of the night and ride two hours in the dark just to listen to a woman read. His liking for Tanzy’s voice was a weakness, but he did want to learn to read. Ranching wasn’t always going to be about who could hire more gunfighters. Soon it would be about the quality of the beef and efficient management, and Russ knew he had to be able to read if he was going to succeed.

  However, Russ was too honest to talk himself into believing he was here just because reading would make him a better rancher. He was here because of Tanzy. And he would keep coming until he figured out what kind of hold she had on him.

  Any fool could see she was pretty. There was something about her that would attract any man’s attention. It was hard to describe it, but a man could see it the moment he clapped eyes on her. It was femininity, whatever that was. The very essence of what it meant to be a woman had been distilled in her. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the world and she wasn’t the sexiest, at least what was usually considered sexy. No, it was a quiet kind of sexiness, the subtle kind.

  Like her voice.

  It was quiet and soft, yet it had strength and clarity. There was a fullness to it that caressed the words, rounded out the sounds, caused them to fall gently on the ear. It was sensual
in a way that made him aware of his senses, the temperature of the air around him, the fragrances in it, even the muted sounds from the outside. It softened colors and intensified sensations. It made him more in touch with his world and more detached at the same time.

  “Any questions?” Tanzy asked when she finished.

  “A few, but I think I can figure them out if you read it again.”

  The way she looked at him made him wonder if she knew what he was doing.

  He liked to watch her read. There was a quietness about her, a kind of peace that enveloped him as well. Nothing in his life had ever been quiet or peaceful, and he found the sensation too intoxicating to resist. For these few moments he could forget that he was the bastard son his mother never loved. He could just be—

  The schoolhouse door banged open. With a reflex action that was so instinctive it happened before he had time to think, Riiss threw himself out of the chair, rolled six feet to the left and came to his feet behind a bookcase, his gun drawn and pointed at the figure entering the door.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Tardy said as he hurried toward Tanzy, “but Aunt Ethel said I had to stay in bed today. She locked me in, so I had to crawl out the window.”

  Russ turned to Tanzy, who was staring at him. His reaction had reinforced all her suspicions about the feud. Tardy broke into a wide grin when he turned to Russ.

  “I never saw anybody move so fast. Did you think I was Stocker?”

  “One of the rustlers,” Russ said, holstering his gun and moving back to the center of the room.

  “Maybe they don’t know you’ve got the best gun hands in the territory working for you,” Tardy said.

  “I’ve got cowhands,” Russ said.

  “Mr. Pullet thinks they’re gun hands,” Tardy said. “I heard him telling the sheriff he ought to arrest them as a public hazard.”

  “He can’t arrest them as long as they don’t leave my ranch,” Russ said.

  That’s what the sheriff told him. Mr. Pullet said he might see about finding a different sheriff.”

  “What did the sheriff say?” Tanzy asked.

  “He said that was all right with him, that he was tired of being told how to do his job. He suggested that Mr. Pullet talk to Colonel McGregor at Fort Lookout, but Colonel McGregor has already told him he’s here to deal with the Indians, not meddle with feuding neighbors. Mr. Pullet got so mad the colonel had him escorted off the fort and told him not to come back. Mr. Pullet said he’d write the government and get him posted to the backside of nowhere. The colonel said Boulder Gap was the backside of nowhere.”