Loveland

by Andrea Downing

  “Well, money isn’t ever’thing. And as for age, heck, I’m eight year older than Annie.”

  “You are?”

  “I need a strong arm, Jesse Makepeace,” Alex called across the room. “Someone who has muscle from throwing a lariat all day long.”

  Jesse wore a little half-smile as he sauntered over. “So what’s your problem, lady?”

  “My problem? My problem is mixing this because it has to get thick to frost the cake and I’m not strong enough to keep stirring it. That’s my problem.”

  “I don’t remember ever hearin’ you say you couldn’t do somethin’,” he mused. “That’s a first.”

  “Well, if you want me to risk dislocating my shoulder again—”

  “No.”

  Alex put a finger in the bowl to taste the mix.

  “Hey, watch it.” Annie smacked her hand. “That’s for the cake.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Alex went to offer some to Jesse but he pulled away and she caught him on his cheek.

  “Alex!”

  “Oh, here. It’s like Indian war paint. Stop complaining.” She searched for her hankie.

  “You’ll ruin that now,” he told her but she took the lace hankie and started to wipe his face.

  Jesse’s hand came up to take the handkerchief himself but stopped, holding her gently about the wrist with her fingers just brushing his cheek.

  The kitchen noises seemed to stop and Alex looked at Jesse as if she were seeing him for the first time. She was somehow aware Tom and Annie were both staring at them, yet she couldn’t get herself to move.

  Later, she would wonder if that was the moment she first realized how much she loved him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  To Alex’s surprise, the men acted completely normal around her that afternoon, as if it had been decided that was the best way to handle the situation. Of course, no mention was ever made of that day at Boyd, and Garrett did seem particularly kind and friendly. The usual joshing went on unabated with Garrison and Cal getting their favorite digs in every chance they could.

  “Well, heavens to Betsy, Lady Lex, I hardly recognized ya in a dress,” Garrison said. “You’re not goin’ all feminine-like on us now, are you?”

  “It’s a party, Garrison. I wear dresses to parties. Usually.”

  “Heck,” said Cal, “it couldn’ta been you, Ladilex, in that kitchen over yonder, in a dress. That would jus’ have to be some other gal impersonatin’ y’all.”

  “Impossible. I don’t think anyone anywhere could impersonate our Lady Alex.” Tom came out and started to throw steaks on the fire. “Chicken for y’all,” he said to Alex, “knowing as living here on a ranch and all—”

  “All right, Tom.” Annie stopped him. “Alex go throw a coat on, it’s a bit chilly out for your thin frame.”

  Alex marched back into the house then came out with one of Tom’s light jackets.

  “Got a tear in your pocket, Tom.” Alex pulled out the pocket lining to show him. “Your woman’s falling down on the job.”

  “Alex, any time you want to start mendin’ for us, you just let Annie know,” he replied turning a steak.

  Garrison introduced her to his lady friend, Millie. Sara Beth was there, sitting primly by Cal’s side, but not looking like she was particularly enjoying it.

  The two children came running out with the presents Alex had brought them—puppets she had made from papier maché, with gloves for their hands which she had had Rose sew.

  “Let me see that now.” Tom pulled his son over. “You make this?” he asked Alex.

  She nodded. “Had some spare newspaper, you might say.” She pointedly looked in Sara Beth’s direction.

  “You sew it and all?” Tom asked.

  “Well. I didn’t actually do the sewing, no.” She felt Jesse’s hand on her shoulder as it slowly moved to around her waist. She wished she could turn and kiss him there and then, her body ached so much for him, but she just huddled further into the large jacket. “I fashioned and painted the heads and Rose sewed the bottoms. See, here you are Tom.” She pointed out the one with which Sue Ann was currently playing. “Is it a good likeness?”

  “I tell you it’s a wonder what this woman can and can’t do.” Jesse looked at her lovingly. “One day we all are gonna have to just figure it out.”

  ****

  In the late afternoon heat of the following Saturday, Oliver and Alex stood at the corrals with Tom and Jesse, watching the boards go down, the torches and lanterns go up and the tables come out. The July Fourth party was that evening, and Oliver gave directions he needn’t have bothered about, while Alex shrugged at Jesse as much as to say Oliver was wasting his time as everyone knew what to do. Tom was just silent.

  Suddenly he said to Alex, “You know he’s planning a big party for your birthday?”

  “What?” Her eyes narrowed at Oliver who’d gone to direct work on the bandstand. “Is it supposed to be a surprise?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Said he was gonna discuss it with you. Alex? Alex!” Tom stood helpless as Alex marched to Oliver and started an almighty row. Everything came to a halt.

  “I do not want a party!”

  “Why ever not?” Oliver asked in true surprise. “It’s your eighteenth birthday. That’s a very big occasion here.”

  “Well, not in England!”

  “We’re not in England, we’re in Colorado.”

  “I don’t care if we’re in bloody Timbuktu. I’m not having a party!”

  “And may I ask why?” Oliver was keeping unusually calm about this and it infuriated Alex.

  “Because such a party as you have in mind—”

  “How do you know what kind of party I have in mind?”

  “I know you, Uncle Oliver. I know it will be some sort of money-wasting extravaganza with all your bloody awful friends from the Cheyenne Club, or what remains of it, and I’ll be miserable all night. It’s my birthday and I am not having a bloody party. Parties like that are nothing more than asking people to buy one gifts one certainly doesn’t want and which the givers can barely afford but are forced to try to outdo their friends and neighbors by giving. The whole thing is in bad taste, exceedingly bad taste I might add, when half the ranches are going bust—”

  “You had a coming out party.”

  “Against. My. Will. And that was something totally different anyway. Frederic could well afford it.” She stopped to see Jesse and Cal standing there amused, and widened her eyes, beseeching them for support.

  “We’ve always had a birthday party for you, Lady Lex.” Jesse raised his eyebrows a bit and she understood the signal he couldn’t speak his mind in front of Oliver.

  “No you haven’t. Oliver gave dreadful dinner parties, which I abhorred, and Annie gave me a couple of delightful luncheons, but I’m not bloody twelve years old anymore. Anyway,” she continued, turning back to Oliver, “I don’t suppose you were counting the punchers in, were you? I mean, heaven forbid I have anyone at my birthday party I actually like!” She stomped off toward the house.

  “You’re swearing an awful lot these days, young lady, and I don’t like it one bit,” Oliver called after her.

  Alex didn’t turn back.

  By evening, she was calmer. Tom came over while Alex was putting out some dishes.

  “You settle the matter?” he asked.

  “We reached a compromise—two parties in one. His grand guests over at the house for a dinner-dance, which I attend until 9 p.m., then I can come over here for the better part for the rest of the evening. Oh, dear, I do wish I hadn’t agreed but he kept going on so. He said we all needed our spirits raised.”

  “That’s so.” Annie joined them and Tom put his arm around his wife. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe we could all use a darned good party before fall round-up—”

  “If there is one,” Alex finished.

  Cal wandered over, said “Evenin’” and nodded to them all.

  “Cal, you sort of look like you got out of t
he barber’s chair a moment too soon.”

  “Oh, Alex,” admonished Annie. “You sure do call things as you see ’em!” She laughed and took Tom away to dance.

  “Ah, heck, Ladilex, what am I gonna do when you’re an old married woman an’ stop bein’ a smart-mouthed li’l gal?”

  “Why would I stop, Cal?”

  “Y’all’ll have about a dozen chil’ren followin’ you and you’ll haveta give ’em a good example.”

  “Anyway, I’m not getting married, remember? So, no marriage, no children, smart mouth forever.”

  “Well, Jess may have a might to say ’bout that.” Alex shrugged at him, before her eyes slid over to where Jesse was talking with Sara Beth. She raised an eyebrow. “She’s my guest, Ladilex,” he assured her.

  “Don’t go out with Sara Beth, Cal. You’re far too good for her.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  Alex gave him a squeeze and wandered off toward the stables. Music was playing and quadrilles formed for the dance. She noted that Garrison and Millie danced together for a while and she wondered what makes a man or woman fall in love with one person over the other. Why did she melt every time Jesse was near, but not with Cal? Jesse led Sue Ann out to join Tom and Annie, and she recalled how he had danced with her when she was that age, and how much more simple life had been then.

  The stable was quiet, the horses calm. Alex moved down to Ranger’s stall and fed him a carrot from a basket. She propped herself against the stall door and stroked his blaze, running her finger gently along its outline. The door opened and Jesse came in.

  “I thought you were dancing with Sue Ann,” she said as he came up to her.

  “J.J. felt left out, took over my place. Anyway, what’re you doin’ in here? Everyone’s lookin’ for you, wantin’ a dance.”

  “I was waiting to see if you’d kiss me.” The words just seemed to tumble out. Alex tilted her face almost boldly toward him.

  He hesitated, surprised. “I can’t kiss you, Alex.”

  She looked away for a moment, but was drawn back to that familiar face. Jesse was so gentle, yet so strong. She knew now she had always loved him—for as long as she could remember, she had loved him.

  “If I kiss you,” he went on, “I won’t be able to stop.”

  “We could have an experiment,” she said softly, “to see if you could stop.”

  “Is there a prize involved?”

  She thought for a moment. “No. Just the kiss. I guess that’s the prize. Anyway, it’s an experiment, not a competition.”

  He looked at her. “You jus’ want your way. As usual.”

  “I won’t deny that.”

  “No, don’t. If I was to tell you the moon was shinin’ tonight, you’d move heaven and earth to prove the sun were out, if that’s what you believed. That’s the way you are, ain’t it?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. You know me best, it seems.”

  “Yeah.” He extended his hand to her. “Gonna dance then?”

  “Mebbe,” she said putting on her Colorado accent. “Mebbe I will, mebbe I won’t.” She took his hand and jumped down from her perch.

  He laughed. “Yeah. That’s what I thought. At least with dancin’, there’s no argument as to when the music stops.”

  Jesse led her back to the party. Alex saw Oliver look at the two of them across the corral dance floor; no doubt he was wondering exactly how involved Alex had managed to get herself with the young puncher. He nodded to Alex, waved good-bye and left. She considered for a moment what Oliver would make of her and Jesse, decided she didn’t care a damn, and followed Jess to join the circles for the next dance.

  They had just missed a two-step and now everyone gathered for a square dance to music that was no longer strange to Alex’s ears. The men and women wove in and out of each other, formed couples, went round, formed quadrilles, and the whole thing started again. Every time Jesse took Alex’s hands, he found he wanted to stop, just stop right there, and hold her. He wondered if the experiment was not so much if he could stop kissing her if he started, but whether he could resist kissing her at all. He knew he couldn’t, not that evening, not with her looking like the first wild flowers of spring, something fresh and alive yet exotic and untamed.

  When the music stopped they were not together and he politely nodded to the woman opposite him and turned to find Alex. A waltz was next and they moved toward each other as if someone had thrown a loop about the two of them and were pulling it tighter and tighter. He held out his hands but when she placed hers in them, he didn’t hold them for the dance but stood there caressing them, their fingers moving in and out of each other’s as if the hands had a life of their own. At the same time, his eyes lost in hers, Jesse had no sense of where they were, where they stood. Alex kicked off her shoes as she had done when she was young and stood on Jesse’s toes when he slid his arms back around her and held her to him for a moment. She tilted her face up to his, brushing his lips lightly with hers before he sought her mouth. Then, for a moment, the magic was broken by a small voice to his side.

  “Mama?” Sue Ann gave her mother a jab as Annie filled a plate for her. “Are they kissing or eating each other?”

  From the corner of his eye, Jesse saw Annie look up. She gently turned her daughter’s face back to the table of food and smiled. “Oh, they’re just in love, sweetheart,” she said.

  Alex sensed Jesse guiding her back into the shadows, out toward the darkness at the edge of the dance floor. For a moment they stopped as the kiss got deeper. Yet Alex was suddenly aware of the people, friends and otherwise, around her.

  “That’s positively disgusting.” Sara Beth turned to Millie, nodding in the couple’s direction.

  “Oh, Sara Beth, I wish I had me that kind of disgusting—and so do you!”

  And then Alex heard the familiar voice as Cal stood with Garrison and just laughed.

  “I guess that smart mouth of hers is learning its lesson at last,” he said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jesse knew with Alex there would be no half measures, that once she accepted she was in love with him, she would want it all, the whole experience of love, the whole of Jesse in the same way she went at everything, a summer cyclone sweeping everything up into its vortex. But he also worried that, while what she felt was real at the moment, that cyclone could blow itself out. Without nurturing her love for him, without keeping that fire stoked, he would lose her. For Jesse, it was a conundrum. He needed his own independence, he needed to take charge, but he also badly needed Alex.

  Independence was the key word. While Jesse was aware that Alex’s feelings for him were intense, almost consuming, they would conflict sharply with her desire for freedom. From the moment she had pulled the trigger at camp Boyd, their lives had become permanently entwined yet she had no idea how to accept Jesse into her life while maintaining her independence.

  When Jesse told Alex one morning in mid-July he was going into Greeley for a haircut, Alex did not ask to go, nor did she question it. It was only later it struck Alex as odd he had taken the rig rather than one of his mounts, but before she had time to dwell on this too long, Jesse returned, his hair still shaggy and long, but with someone in the seat beside him.

  “David!” screamed Alex seeing him there. Her brother hardly had time to step out of the buggy before Alex jumped into his arms and practically toppled the young man over. “Oh, David, David! I’m so happy to see you.” She cried and laughed all at once, gave Jesse a big smile and even her Uncle Oliver a happy glance. “You kept this as a surprise, the lot of you. Oh, how mean,” she added, although she didn’t really think so.

  “Well, let him come into the house for heaven’s sake, Alexandra.” Her uncle gave his nephew a hearty handshake. “We all have a lot of catching up to do.”

  Jesse sighed as he heaved another great case off the back of the rig and helped the footman get the bags inside. It wasn’t that after the two-hour ride back from Greeley he disliked David, but he had already
ascertained Alex’s brother was far truer to his background than was Alex. In believing this, he couldn’t help but wonder if David posed a threat to Alex’s happiness in Colorado and, consequently, to their relationship.

  As it happened, he needn’t have worried. Alex remained in her western pants outfit and David made constant good-natured jokes about his “hobo sister.” Cal told Jesse it was like watching puppies playing together, and Tom added that it was a lesson in how the “leisured classes behave.” David kept to his English attire for all occasions, riding in jodhpurs and hacking jacket, or otherwise wearing a white linen suit, which always managed, by some miracle, to stay clean. He had been visiting friends in Newport and Virginia prior to coming to Colorado, and so he came equipped with lawn tennis rackets and polo mallets. As Jesse and the punchers rode in from herd one evening, they stopped to watch curiously as the siblings hit the tennis ball back and forth across the lawn at the rear of the house.

  “Lady Lex is sure better’n him,” Garrett noted loyally.

  “Yeah, she’s real good with watchin’ that ball, that’s fer sure,” added Cal.

  “Funny sort of fella,” said one of the others. “Looks like a real dandy, talks sort of uppity like, but seems nice enough.”

  They all turned to Jesse.

  “Well, don’t look at me. I ain’t got the answers.”

  “Yeah, but you brought him in from Greeley, Jess. You didn’t sit in silence for them two hours?” prodded Terry.

  “Well.” Jesse thought a moment. “He sort of made polite conversation like. Said it was real nice to be back, good to see me again, that sort of thing.”

  “For two hours?” they pushed.

  Jesse leaned forward and adjusted his seat, the reins loose in his hand. “Just what is it you all are askin’ me now?”

  “You know what the heck we’re askin’, Jesse,” taunted Reb. “We’re askin’ if you were askin’!”

  Cal laughed. He stuck a bit of chicle in his mouth and exchanged a look with Jesse. “Ladilex is more likely to tell us—if she knows—than Jesse is. You’re wastin’ your time here, Reb, if you all think Jess is gonna sit here and recount a conversation with Lord David.”