by Diana Palmer
“Let go of me,” she whispered. Her voice shook, and she hated her own cowardice.
He scowled. She was paper white. Belatedly he realized what was wrong and his hands released her. She backed away as far as the snow would allow and stood like a young doe at bay, her eyes dark and frightened.
“Did he hit you?” he asked quietly.
She didn’t have to ask who. She shivered. “Only when he drank,” she said, her voice faltering. “But he always drank.” She laughed bitterly. “Just…don’t come any closer until you cool down, if you please.”
He took a slow, steadying breath. “I’m sorry,” he said, shocking her. “No, I mean it. I’m really sorry. I wouldn’t have hit you, if that’s what you’re thinking. Only a coward would raise his hand to a woman,” he said with cold conviction.
She wrapped her arms around herself and stood, just breathing, shivering in the cold.
“We’d better get back before you freeze,” he said tautly. Her very defensiveness disarmed him. He felt guilty and protective all at once. He wanted to take her to his heart and comfort her, but even as he stepped toward her, she backed away. He hadn’t imagined how much that would hurt until it happened. He stopped and stood where he was, raising his hands in an odd gesture of helplessness. “I won’t touch you,” he promised. “Come on, honey. You can go first.”
Tears filmed her dark eyes. It was the first endearment she’d ever heard from him and it touched her deeply. But she knew it was only casual. Her behavior had shocked him and he didn’t know what to do. She let out a long breath.
Without a quip or comeback, she eased past him warily and started back the way they’d come. He followed her, giving thanks that he’d been in time, that she hadn’t run afoul of old McNaber’s traps. But now he’d really done it. He’d managed to make her afraid of him.
She went ahead of him into the house. Elliot and Harry took one look at her face and Quinn’s and didn’t ask a single question.
She sat at the supper table like a statue. She didn’t speak, even when Elliot tried to bring her into the conversation. And afterward, she curled up in a chair in the living room and sat like a mouse watching television.
Quinn couldn’t know the memories he’d brought back, the searing fear of her childhood. Her father had been a big man, and he was always violent when he drank. He was sorry afterward, sometimes he even cried when he saw the bruises he’d put on her. But it never stopped him. She’d run away because it was more than she could bear, and fortunately there’d been a place for runaways that took her in. She’d learned volumes about human kindness from those people. But the memories were bitter and Quinn’s bridled violence had brought them sweeping in like storm clouds.
Elliot didn’t ask her about music lessons. He excused himself a half hour early and went up to bed. Harry had long since gone to his own room.
Quinn sat in his big chair, smoking his cigarette, but he started when Amanda put her feet on the floor and glanced warily at him.
“Don’t go yet,” he said quietly. “I want to talk to you.”
“We don’t have anything to say to each other,” she said quietly. “I’m very sorry for what I did this afternoon. It was impulsive and stupid, and I promise I’ll never do it again. If you can just put up with me until it thaws a little, you’ll never have to see me again.”
He sighed wearily. “Is that what you think I want?” he asked, searching her face.
“Of course it is,” she replied simply. “You’ve hated having me here ever since I came.”
“Maybe I have. I’ve got more reason to hate and distrust women than you’ll ever know. But that isn’t what I want to talk about,” he said, averting his gaze from her wan face. He didn’t like thinking about that kiss and how disturbing it had been. “I want to know why you thought I might hit you.”
She dropped her eyes to her lap. “You’re big, like my father,” she said. “When he lost his temper, he always hit.”
“I’m not your father,” Quinn pointed out, his dark eyes narrowing. “And I’ve never hit anyone in a temper, except maybe another man from time to time when it was called for. I never raised my hand to Elliot’s mother, although I felt like it a time or two, in all honesty. I never lifted a hand to her even when she told me she was pregnant with Elliot.”
“Why should you have?” she asked absently. “He’s your son.”
He laughed coldly. “No, he isn’t.”
She stared at him openly. “Elliot isn’t yours?” she asked softly.
He shook his head. “His mother was having an affair with a married man and she got caught out.” He shrugged. “I was twenty-two and grass green and she mounted a campaign to marry me. I guess I was pretty much a sitting duck. She was beautiful and stacked and she had me eating out of her hand in no time. We got married and right after the ceremony, she told me what she’d done. She laughed at how clumsy I’d been during the courtship, how she’d had to steel herself not to be sick when I’d kissed her. She told me about Elliot’s father and how much she loved him, then she dared me to tell people the truth about how easy it had been to make me marry her.” He blew out a cloud of smoke, his eyes cold with memory. “She had me over a barrel. I was twice as proud back then as I am now. I couldn’t bear to have the whole community laughing at me. So I stuck it out. Until Elliot was born, and she and his father took off for parts unknown for a weekend of love. Unfortunately for them, he wrecked the car in his haste to get to a motel and killed both of them outright.”
“Does Elliot know?” she asked, her voice quiet as she glanced toward the staircase.
“Sure,” he said. “I couldn’t lie to him about it. But I took care of him from the time he was a baby, and I raised him. That makes me his father just as surely as if I’d put the seed he grew from into his mother’s body. He’s my son, and I’m his father. I love him.”
She studied his hard face, seeing behind it to the pain he must have suffered. “You loved her, didn’t you?”
“Calf love,” he said. “She came up on my blind side and I needed somebody to love. I’d always been shy and clumsy around girls. I couldn’t even get a date when I was in school because I was so rough edged. She paid me a lot of attention. I was lonely.” His big shoulders shrugged. “Like I said, a sitting duck. She taught me some hard lessons about your sex,” he added, his narrowed eyes on her face. “I’ve never forgotten them. And nobody’s had a second chance at me.”
Her breath came out as a sigh. “That’s what you thought this afternoon, when I kissed you,” she murmured, reddening at her own forwardness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you might think I was playing you for a sucker.”
He frowned. “Why did you kiss me, Amanda?”
“Would you believe, because I wanted to?” she asked with a quiet smile. “You’re a very attractive man, and something about you makes me weak in the knees. But you don’t have to worry about me coming on to you again,” she added, getting to her feet. “You teach a pretty tough lesson yourself. Good night, Mr. Sutton. I appreciate your telling me about Elliot. You needn’t worry that I’ll say anything to him or to anybody else. I don’t carry tales, and I don’t gossip.”
She turned toward the staircase, and Quinn’s dark eyes followed her. She had an elegance of carriage that touched him, full of pride and grace. He was sorry now that he’d slapped her down so hard with cruel words. He really hadn’t meant to. He’d been afraid that she was going to let him down, that she was playing. It hadn’t occurred to him that she found him attractive or that she’d kissed him because she’d really wanted to.
He’d made a bad mistake with Amanda. He’d hurt her and sent her running, and now he wished he could take back the things he’d said. She wasn’t like any woman he’d ever been exposed to. She actually seemed unaware of her beauty, as if she didn’t think much of it. Maybe he’d gotten it all wrong and she wasn’t much more experienced than he was. He wished he could ask her. She disturbed him very much, and now he wonde
red if it wasn’t mutual.
Amanda was lying in bed, crying. The day had been horrible, and she hated Quinn for the way he’d treated her. It wasn’t until she remembered what he’d told her that she stopped crying and started thinking. He’d said that he’d never slept with Elliot’s mother, and that he hadn’t been able to get dates in high school. Presumably that meant that his only experience with women had been after Elliot’s mother died. She frowned. There hadn’t been many women, she was willing to bet. He seemed to know relatively nothing about her sex. She frowned. If he still hated women, how had he gotten any experience? Finally her mind grew tired of trying to work it out and she went to sleep.
* * *
Amanda was up helping Harry in the kitchen the next morning when Quinn came downstairs after a wild, erotic dream that left him sweating and swearing when he woke up. Amanda had figured largely in it, with her blond hair loose and down to her lower spine, his hands twined in it while he made love to her in the stillness of his own bedroom. The dream had been so vivid that he could almost see the pink perfection of her breasts through the bulky, white-knit sweater she was wearing, and he almost groaned as his eyes fell to the rise and fall of her chest under it.
She glanced at Quinn and actually flushed before she dragged her eyes back down to the pan of biscuits she was putting into the oven.
“I didn’t know you could make biscuits,” Quinn murmured.
“Harry taught me,” she said evasively. Her eyes went back to him again and flitted away.
He frowned at that shy look until he realized why he was getting it. He usually kept his shirts buttoned up to his throat, but this morning he’d left it open halfway down his chest because he was still sweating from that dream. He pursed his lips and gave her a speculative stare. He wondered if it were possible that he disturbed her as much as she disturbed him. He was going to make it his business to find out before she left here. If for no other reason than to salve his bruised ego.
He went out behind Elliot, pausing in the doorway. “How’s the calf?” he asked Amanda.
“He wasn’t doing very well yesterday,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe he’s better this morning.”
“I’ll have a look at him before I go out.” He glanced out at the snow. “Don’t try to get back to the cabin again, will you? You can’t get through McNaber’s traps without knowing where they are.”
He actually sounded worried. She studied his hard face quietly. That was nice. Unless, of course, he was only worried that she might get laid up and he’d have to put up with her for even longer.
“Is the snow ever going to stop?” she asked.
“Hard to say,” he told her. “I’ve seen it worse than this even earlier in the year. But we’ll manage, I suppose.”
“I suppose.” She glared at him.
He pulled on his coat and buttoned it, propping his hat over one eye. “In a temper this morning, are we?” he mused.
His eyes were actually twinkling. She shifted back against the counter, grateful that Harry had gone off to clean the bedrooms. “I’m not in a temper. Cheap little tarts don’t have tempers.”
One eyebrow went up. “I called you that, didn’t I?” He let his eyes run slowly down her body. “You shouldn’t have kissed me like that. I’m not used to aggressive women.”
“Rest assured that I’ll never attack you again, Goody Two Shoes.”
He chuckled softly. “Won’t you? Well, disappointment is a man’s lot, I suppose.”
Her eyes widened. She wasn’t sure she’d even heard him. “You were horrible to me!”
“I guess I was.” His dark eyes held hers, making little chills up and down her spine at the intensity of the gaze. “I thought you were playing games. You know, a little harmless fun at the hick’s expense.”
“I don’t know how to play games with men,” she said stiffly, “and nobody, anywhere, could call you a hick with a straight face. You’re a very masculine man with a keen mind and an overworked sense of responsibility. I wouldn’t make fun of you even if I could.”
His dark eyes smiled into hers. “In that case, we might call a truce for the time being.”
“Do you think you could stand being nice to me?” she asked sourly. “I mean, it would be a strain, I’m sure.”
“I’m not a bad man,” he pointed out. “I just don’t know much about women, or hadn’t that thought occurred?”
She searched his eyes. “No.”
“We’ll have to have a long talk about it one of these days.” He pulled the hat down over his eyes. “I’ll check on the calves for you.”
“Thanks.” She watched him go, her heart racing at the look in his eyes just before he closed the door. She was more nervous of him now than ever, but she didn’t know what to do about it. She was hoping that the chinook would come before she had to start worrying too much. She was too confused to know what to do anymore.
Chapter Five
Amanda finished the breakfast dishes before she went out to the barn. Quinn was still there, his dark eyes quiet on the smallest of the three calves. It didn’t take a fortune teller to see that something was badly wrong. The small animal lay on its side, its dull, lackluster red-and-white coat showing its ribs, its eyes glazed and unseeing while it fought to breathe.
She knelt beside Quinn and he glanced at her with concern.
“You’d better go back in the house, honey,” he said.
Her eyes slid over the small calf. She’d seen pets die over the years, and now she knew the signs. The calf was dying. Quinn knew it, too, and was trying to shield her.
That touched her, oddly, more than anything he’d said or done since she’d been on Ricochet. She looked up at him. “You’re a nice man, Quinn Sutton,” she said softly.
He drew in a slow breath. “When I’m not taking bites out of you, you mean?” he replied. “It hurts like hell when you back away from me. You’ll never know how sorry I am for what happened yesterday.”
One shock after another. At least it took her mind off the poor, laboring creature beside them. “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I shouldn’t have been so…” She stopped, averting her eyes. “I don’t know much about men, Quinn,” she said finally. “I’ve spent my whole adult life backing away from involvement, emotional or physical. I know how to flirt, but not much more.” She risked a glance at him, and relaxed when she saw his face. “My aunt is Mr. Durning’s lover, you know. She’s an artist. A little flighty, but nice. I’ve…never had a lover.”
He nodded quietly. “I’ve been getting that idea since we wound up near McNaber’s cabin yesterday. You reacted pretty violently for an experienced woman.” He looked away from her. That vulnerability in her pretty face was working on him again. “Go inside now. I can deal with this.”
“I’m not afraid of death,” she returned. “I saw my mother die. It wasn’t scary at all. She just closed her eyes.”
His dark eyes met hers and locked. “My father went the same way.” He looked back down at the calf. “It won’t be long now.”
She sat down in the hay beside him and slid her small hand into his big one. He held it for a long moment. Finally his voice broke the silence. “It’s over. Go have a cup of coffee. I’ll take care of him.”
She hadn’t meant to cry, but the calf had been so little and helpless. Quinn pulled her close, holding her with quiet comfort, while she cried. Then he wiped the tears away with his thumbs and smiled gently. “You’ll do,” he murmured, thinking that sensitivity and courage was a nice combination in a woman.
She was thinking the exact same thing about him. She managed a watery smile and with one last, pitying look at the calf, she went into the house.
Elliot would miss it, as she would, she thought. Even Quinn had seemed to care about it, because she saw him occasionally sitting by it, petting it, talking to it. He loved little things. It was evident in all the kittens and puppies around the place, and in the tender care he took of all his cattle and calves. And although Q
uinn cursed old man McNaber’s traps, Elliot had told her that he stopped by every week to check on the dour old man and make sure he had enough chopped wood and supplies. For a taciturn iceman, he had a surprisingly warm center.
She told Harry what had happened and sniffed a little while she drank black coffee. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked.
He smiled. “You do enough,” he murmured. “Nice to have some help around the place.”
“Quinn hasn’t exactly thought so,” she said dryly.
“Oh, yes he has,” he said firmly as he cleared away the dishes they’d eaten his homemade soup and corn bread in. “Quinn could have taken you to Mrs. Pearson down the mountain if he’d had a mind to. He doesn’t have to let you stay here. Mrs. Pearson would be glad of the company.” He glanced at her and grinned at her perplexed expression. “He’s been watching you lately. Sees the way you sew up his shirts and make curtains and patch pillows. It’s new to him, having a woman about. He has a hard time with change.”
“Don’t we all?” Amanda said softly, remembering how clear her own life had been until that tragic night. But it was nice to know that Quinn had been watching her. Certainly she’d been watching him. And this morning, everything seemed to have changed between them. “When will it thaw?” she asked, and now she was dreading it, not anticipating it. She didn’t want to leave Ricochet. Or Quinn.
Harry shrugged. “Hard to tell. Days. Weeks. This is raw mountain country. Can’t predict a chinook. Plenty think they can, though,” he added, and proceeded to tell her about a Blackfoot who predicted the weather with jars of bear grease.
She was much calmer, but still sad when Quinn finally came back inside.
He spared her a glance before he shucked his coat, washed his hands and brawny forearms and dried them on a towel.
He didn’t say anything to her, and Harry, sensing the atmosphere, made himself scarce after he’d poured two cups of coffee for them.