No Angel's Grace

by Linda Winstead Jones

  Grace stepped away from him and leaned against the wall. The strength had gone from her legs, and she felt as if she might collapse. “You told me…I remember…when you found me….”

  “That was a dream, Grace. A hallucination.” He sounded so certain, she began to doubt her own foggy memory.

  “Then…why? Why did you…” Her words faded away into nothing.

  “Why did I take to sleeping in your bed?” He gave voice to the question she couldn’t ask. “Because it had been a long time for me, and you were…you are a very beautiful woman. It was just too tempting, having you under the same roof and not being able to touch you.”

  His voice was so cold Grace shivered. There was not a hint of affection in his words, no love or warmth. Dillon Becket was just like all the rest, only he had succeeded where they had failed.

  “But…you said you were going to keep me.”

  He opened the bottle and wrapped his fingers around it, and still he didn’t lift the bottle to his lips. “I did keep you, Grace. For a while.”

  Grace took a deep breath and steadied her legs. How could he have fooled her so completely?

  He couldn’t have.

  “Stand up and look at me,” she ordered in a suddenly strong voice. “Tell me to my face that you don’t love me.”

  Dillon hesitated, but he finally pushed his chair away from the table and turned to face her. He’d always had a hard look about him—in the way he stood and in the strength in his face—but he had never looked so stonelike to her. Cold as marble. Hard as granite.

  “I don’t love you, Grace,” he said coldly. His arms were hanging at his sides, and his fists were clenched. “I never meant for you to believe that I did.”

  She searched for a hint of tenderness in his eyes, but there was none. “Do you…do you love Abigail?”

  “No. Only a fool marries for love,” he said gruffly.

  He dropped his eyes first. “Don’t worry. I’ll still take care of you.”

  “Like hell you will,” Grace snapped. She’d finally let her control slip, and look where it had gotten her. “If you think I’ll stay here while you…with…with Abigail…you’re even denser and more ignorant than I thought you were!”

  “We’ll find you a husband.”

  Grace took a step forward, trying to make herself forget that she had fallen so completely in love with this man. “You’ll do what?”

  “Find you a husband. You’re of a marriageable age, Grace; we’ll introduce you around—”

  She slapped him with all the strength she could muster. It didn’t faze him at all. “You’re finished with me, and now you’re going to palm me off on some poor unsuspecting dupe. Do you plan to tell him that he’s getting secondhand goods? Or should we save that as a surprise for the wedding night?”

  At least he paled a little, though his eyes remained distant.

  “What if there’s a baby?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper. “Did you ever think of that?”

  It was clear by the expression on his face that he had not.

  “Here you go, sir. And a bonus! She’s already breeding!” Grace felt ill. Her stomach churned and her head swam. Her memories were so vague, so distant, and she had tried so hard not to remember. “I don’t suppose we have to tell him about Hartley, either, or the possibility that the bastard child might be the spawn of a—”

  “No.” Dillon reached out and almost took her arm, but his hand fell away. “I…He didn’t touch you. Not that way. I thought you would remember.”

  Grace felt a wave of uneasy solace wash over her. “I don’t remember much.” As she spoke, Dillon’s face softened just a little. “Images and…hallucinations. Dreams that make no sense.” Like the one where you told me you love me. She couldn’t say that aloud.

  “Grace, do you think…A baby?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea what to think, Becket.”

  “If you are…if there’s a baby…I’ll take care of you.” He sounded as if he were about to choke on the words.

  “I don’t want you to take care of me.” She gathered every bit of self-control she had and faced him defiantly. “Find me a husband. I’ll let you choose. But he has to have money, and he’d best not be too ugly. I’d prefer an educated man, but I seriously doubt that you know any. At the very least, please choose one of your less moronic acquaintances.” She felt the heat rise in her face, and her legs wobbled. She was still weak, and had no business fighting with Dillon at the moment. But she couldn’t stop. Not now.

  “We’d better make it a hasty wedding, Becket, just in case I am with child. If we’re lucky I can pass it off as his, and you’ll never have to be bothered with either of us.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she hated herself for it. She didn’t want Dillon Becket to see any weakness in her. She would be as strong as he was. And as cold.

  She took a step away from him, and her legs quivered, just a little. He reached out and grabbed her arm, but she jerked away from him and leaned against the wall for support.

  “Don’t touch me, Becket. Never again. I’d rather crawl up the stairs than have your hands on me.”

  Suitably cold, she decided, when Dillon stepped away from her and allowed her to walk away under her own questionable power.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dillon watched Grace leave the room, her head held high, her shoulders trembling slightly beneath the thin blue wrapper she wore. He was such a bastard, but there was no other way.

  This was for the best, a clean break that left her with no tender feelings. She had to hate him with all her heart. He had no doubt that Grace hated the same way she loved—with everything she had inside her.

  It served no purpose to think of what might have been. Only a fool wasted time and energy on such recriminations. And he had been a fool to allow his heart to make plans he couldn’t possibly carry out.

  The cattle drive had brought in about half of what he needed to pay off old man Plummer. Half. Hell, if the money had even come close, he could have found a way to raise the rest. But the herd had been cut south of Abilene, and there had been a glut at the market, so prices were low.

  The only way to save the Double B was to marry Abigail Wilkinson, and that was exactly what he would do come hell or high water. At least one thing he’d said to Grace had been true. Only a fool marries for love.

  But that was where the truth ended. He did love Grace. He hadn’t known it was possible to love another person so much that you hurt when they hurt. When he’d lifted her into his arms, after he’d shot Hartley, he’d known what it was like to be truly helpless. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried.

  If he’d been able, he would have gladly taken the pain from her, would have gladly suffered for her. He’d killed without a second thought, something he’d sworn seven years ago, coming home after an awful, bloody war, that he would never do again.

  But if he could kill Hartley again, he would.

  Perhaps he would always love her, deep inside. Even when he was married to Abigail and Grace was another man’s wife. It would be comforting to believe that he might stop loving her one day, but he knew that was just another lie.

  He should have regretted taking her virginity and going to bed with her night after night, making her love him, but he couldn’t. It was all he would ever have of her, memories of a few short weeks.

  With a disgusted sigh, Dillon lifted the whiskey, bringing the bottle to his mouth. Perhaps he was just like his father, after all. The old man had gotten lost in the bottle on more than one occasion. More and more, toward the end. It had never been a pretty sight, the old man drunk and wasting away, in the end choosing whiskey over food, his son, his friends.

  Dillon threw the bottle across the room and watched with a grain of satisfaction as it crashed against the wall, shattering and staining the wall and the floor with the last of his father’s personal stock.

  Without the Double B he had nothing to offer Grace…literally nothing. Ev
ery dime he had was tied up in the place. If he were to lose it to Plummer, he’d leave the ranch with nothing more than a few personal items and his horse. Grace deserved more than that.

  “I don’t believe you.” She spoke so softly, and still he jumped in his chair.

  “Go away, Grace.”

  She shook her head and walked toward him. Her hair was loose and falling over one shoulder, over that silky blue wrapper she wore. This time she didn’t hide behind him, but faced him defiantly.

  “I’m not going to make this easy for you, Becket. I want the truth. Is it Hartley? Were you lying when you said that he didn’t…that he didn’t touch me?” Her face was white, her eyes red and swollen. He could see the fear there, in her eyes, and he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, assure her, tell her that he would never allow another man to touch her.

  But he was going to hand her over to another man, a husband who could provide and care for her the way she deserved.

  “No.” He remained in his seat. “I would have told you sooner if I’d known you didn’t remember.” He could have asked her how she could think so little of him, could have told her that he would never turn from her for such a reason…but of course it was best if she thought him a bastard.

  “Then what?” she demanded. “Have I done something wrong? I can’t believe that your feelings can change so quickly. Almost overnight. You can say you don’t love me all you want, but I don’t believe you.” Her eyes flashed at him, cold, blue fire.

  “It’s nothing you’ve done,” he said tiredly. “It’s just…I have no other choice.”

  “There’s always a choice, Becket.”

  He leaned back in his chair and looked up at her. “The trail boss I hired to take the herd to market arrived last night.” The truth. Nothing but the cold, hard truth.

  “Good. You can pay off the banker who’s holding the deed. What does that have to do—”

  “You know?”

  “Billy told me,” she said impatiently.

  Grace laid her palms on the table and leaned forward, staring at him with anger and hate and even love in her bluebonnet eyes.

  “Rustlers cut the herd south of Abilene, and what my men brought back isn’t enough to pay off the loan. And there’s less than two months before it’s due.”

  “So? Sell something.”

  “Like what?”

  Grace waved an impatient hand in front of his face. “A parcel of land, some horses…”

  “The only parcel of land worth having has the water source on it. Without it the rest of the ranch is worthless. The horses, even what’s left of the herd, wouldn’t bring in enough to pay this loan off.” He raked a hand through his hair, impatient, frustrated. “The past couple of years haven’t been so great around here. Plummer and Wilkinson are the only ones who have any money to speak of, and it’s definitely not in their best interest to help me out by buying a worthless plot of land for more than it’s worth.”

  She straightened, and a light came over her face. A very unpleasant light. “So what you’re saying is that you’re going to marry Abigail…for her dowry? So you can pay off the loan? That’s positively medieval, Becket. You’re choosing this ranch over me.” It was clear she found that easier to believe than the lie that he didn’t love her.

  Dillon stood and slapped his hand on the table. “Dammit, I don’t want to marry Abigail. I should have been on that trail drive myself! Maybe if I’d been there—”

  “Well, why weren’t you?” she shouted. “God only knows that no one else can get anything properly done! If you’d been there you could have taken on those rustlers single-handedly and saved the blasted herd. So why weren’t you there? What made you decide to trust such an important task to a mere mortal?”

  He opened his mouth to tell her, and then shut it again. It wouldn’t help matters at all. But he saw the knowledge when it dawned on her face, and she paled.

  “It’s because you were in New Orleans…to meet me,” she said softly, her anger dissolving.

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  Grace nodded her head slightly. “I think it does matter. I think it matters very much, to you. You blame me.”

  “I don’t. Even if I had been there, it wouldn’t have made any difference.” She must have heard the hesitation in his voice, because she clearly didn’t believe him.

  Shakily, she sat in the chair across the table from him. “So you’re going to marry Abigail, and I’m supposed to marry someone else.”

  “I won’t force you to marry.”

  Grace lifted her face to look at him, and he wished she hadn’t. He could see the pain in her eyes, the disbelief. She found the truth harder to take than the lie he’d tried to hurt her with. “I meant what I said. I won’t live in this house after you marry her. I won’t sit across the table from the two of you and make small talk with your wife while I pretend that I don’t love you. I’ll marry…or I’ll leave here on my own.”

  And she would. Her face was every bit as determined as he’d tried to make his. And as cold.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t,” she said as she stood. “Don’t apologize, Becket. It was…educational.”

  She turned her back on him and left again, and this time he knew she wasn’t coming back.

  Dillon was the only gift her father had ever given her, and she wasn’t going to be able to keep him.

  Grace had dressed, the first day in more than a week that she’d felt she could leave her room. What if she couldn’t face Dillon?

  No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t imagine herself married to anyone but Dillon. She could teach, maybe, or take a position as governess with a wealthy family. Neither option seemed likely.

  She drew back the lacy curtain at the single window in her room and looked across the ranch. She would miss this place, but there was no way she could stay once Dillon had married Abigail.

  He stepped from the barn, leading his bay stallion. Dillon had taken to staying away from the house all day, sleeping in the line shack or in the open, or occasionally in the bunkhouse. Olivia had told her that much, mystified that even a young man could work so hard.

  But Grace already knew that Dillon had not been sleeping in his room. She knew because she listened for his footsteps every night, waiting in her bed breathlessly to hear his booted step outside her door. But the hallway outside her room was quiet, deserted and silent long after dark.

  Dillon mounted his stallion and turned his head to look toward the house. She couldn’t tell, with his hat pulled down over his eyes, but he seemed to be staring right at her. She wondered if he could see her there, or if all he saw was the curtain and darkness beyond. She was tempted to stick her head out the window and shout at him. To call him every name she had ever heard, and then some.

  He did love her; she was certain of that. And she loved him. Even if he was stubborn and couldn’t seem to get his priorities straight.

  She watched him ride away, and the beginnings of an idea tickled her brain. He did love her, but maybe he didn’t know it. Maybe he didn’t know that he needed her more than he needed this ranch. It was up to her to show him, somehow, that neither of them would be happy married to anyone else.

  It was a risky plan, and could easily backfire, but it was certainly preferable to sitting around and waiting for Dillon to choose a husband for her.

  After a loveless childhood, she’d found she had a heart. Dillon had awakened her heart as surely as he’d awakened her body. She’d come close to death, and had survived. For what? To give up everything she wanted? When she was so close?

  For the first time since Dillon had told her of his plan to marry Abigail Wilkinson, Grace felt lighthearted. It was as if those dense Texas storm clouds had parted and allowed the sun to peek through.

  She had nothing to lose—and everything to gain.

  It was three more days before she caught another glimpse of him, and she was ready. It was just after sunup, and he was lead
ing his bay from the barn. Grace stepped right in front of him. He would have to stop, or run her down.

  For a moment she thought he was going to run her down.

  “Good morning, Becket,” she said sweetly. She had dressed for the occasion, choosing a simple yellow calico that she had fitted herself, nipping in the waist and taking in the shoulders. This was no baggy hand-me-down.

  “Grace,” he said by way of a greeting, and then he tried to step around her. But Grace was prepared, and quicker than he was as she had no horse to guide. She quickly blocked his path again, and he lifted his eyes from the ground to her face.

  “What do you want?” he asked gruffly.

  “Well.” Grace lowered her voice and spoke in confident tones. It wouldn’t do for him to hear any hesitation in her words. “I thought you might want to know that I’m not going to have a baby.”

  There was a brief pause before he answered, “Good.”

  “So I suppose it’s time we started looking for a husband for me.” She glanced up and stared at the twitching muscle in his jaw. “When do we start? Or have you already begun the search?”

  “I’ve been busy,” Dillon said, a gruff attempt at an explanation.

  “I know. We’ve missed you at dinner.” She made no mention of missing him in her bed, or listening for him every night. It was difficult not to reach out and grab him and shake some sense into his muddled mind. But Grace kept her hands to herself. Dillon did the same.

  “I haven’t given it much thought,” he said almost sullenly.

  “I have,” Grace said, and she smiled brightly. “Someone from Plummerton, do you think? I really don’t know anyone, except the people I met at the Wilkinsons’ party. What about Wade Wilkinson? We’d be related, Becket. Our children would be cousins. You and Abigail could visit us for Sunday dinner, and every holiday.”

  “You wouldn’t like Wade,” Dillon said shortly.

  Grace nodded her head thoughtfully. “He has a brother, doesn’t he? Kirby? He wasn’t at the party, so I don’t know if he’s—”