The Cowboy Imports a Bride (Cowboys of Chance Creek)

by Cora Seton

  Rob nodded. He remembered those days, too. The reverend was right; he hadn't minded church that much when he was young. For one hour a week his brothers couldn't hassle him and no one said a word if he kept his mouth shut and daydreamed. As Halpern's voice droned on above him, he'd think about the stones he'd found in the creek that morning, how they'd got there and why there were different colors, or about the grouse he'd snuck up on, or why sometimes clouds were fat and puffy and sometimes thin as pulled cotton.

  He was happiest when he was alone, and quiet – watching something. Learning about it.

  But no one ever left him alone. Not for long, anyhow.

  "Mind if I take a seat?" Joe prompted.

  "Make yourself at home," Rob said and it occurred to him it was a particularly stupid thing to say to a man of God in his own church. Still, he slid over and made room.

  "Just say the word and I'll leave you to your thoughts," Joe said. "But in my experience, when a man shows up in church at this time of the morning, dressed in the same clothes he went out in last night, he might be looking to make some changes in his life."

  "Yeah," Rob said. "You got that right."

  "Tell me about it." Joe settled back, his gaze fixed on the pulpit at the front of the sanctuary. Like being in confession, Rob thought, as he sat back, too. His own gaze forward. If they had some walls around them they might be Catholics. Maybe the Catholics had the right idea.

  "Not much to tell," he started. "Just…this isn't who I want to be."

  "Who do you want to be?"

  "I don't know. A good man. Useful." That brought Georgette to mind again. Her clinging grasp and the way she'd dismissed his worth with a single word. Useless. Useless but pretty.

  Son of a bitch. He glanced toward the ceiling. Sorry.

  Joe nodded. "Do you have a calling?"

  A calling? "Like being a preacher?" That was the last thing he'd ever be. He tried to picture himself in that pulpit, preaching a moral lesson to the congregation. The idea was laughable.

  But it sparked another memory. An idea he'd had as a small boy, right in this church one Sunday morning. He'd been feeling particularly aggrieved at the way Ned and Luke liked to rush up whenever they spotted him and scare away the bird he'd been stalking, or stomp to bits the nest he'd found, or splash in the water of Chance Creek until every fish for a mile went into hiding.

  With the ignorance of youth, he'd thought that if only he could stand in Halpern's pulpit, he could take on the minister's authority and turn of phrase. He could tell everyone in the congregation about all the wondrous things he saw on the Matheson ranch – the tiny bugs and the towering trees; the ceaseless life that teemed and thronged in the grasses; the ever-shifting shades of light that filtered through pine branches in the hills; the sound of the water that ran in the creek – and by telling them about it, he could teach them to know God. No one ever interrupted the reverend when he was preaching. Maybe if Rob was able to preach in his own way, people would listen to him. And if the congregation listened to him, then his family would have to listen to him, as well. And then maybe his father would stop rushing around and barking orders all the time, and his brothers would stop bickering and pushing him around and…

  Beating on him.

  Joe held his silence beside him and Rob was thankful for that.

  No amount of talking about the natural wonders surrounding their home had stopped Ned from kicking his ass. Boys were boys, and four boys were too many for one ranch. He'd soon learned to cultivate his fists, his careless attitude and a wicked way of playing jokes that made his enemies the laughing stocks of all their friends. Ned backed off…in time.

  "I'm not sure," he said finally, the memories making him raw. Coming here was a mistake. There weren't any answers for him in church.

  "I think the trick is to think about who you were before the world got to you," Joe said.

  Rob looked at him in surprise. A bit too close to his own train of thought.

  Joe grimaced. "I see more of what goes on from that pulpit than people think," he said. "It looks like I'm the one on display – front and center for everyone to stare at when I preach. What people don't realize is from up there I can look just as hard at each and every one of them."

  Huh. That put Sunday mornings in a whole new light.

  "I see who's here and who's not." He elbowed Rob good-naturedly. "I see who sits next to whom. Who chooses a pew down front and who hides in the back. Who's playing hangman with his brother instead of listening to my sermon. Who's got a black eye and who's wiping away tears. The Mathesons are good people, solid citizens. Your father's done his best with his ranch and with the four of you. But every family's got its strengths and weaknesses, Rob. Your dad is loyal, strong, dependable. He's got no head for learning, though, and that's a shame. I always thought you'd head out to the University."

  Rob shrugged. "What's the point? Ranching doesn't require a degree." A new soreness pained his heart. He could have won any of those scholarships they handed out in his high school. Could've been the valedictorian, probably. But Mathesons didn't get straight A's. He'd learned that soon enough.

  "So you want to be a rancher?"

  "What else is there?"

  This time Joe did turn his head. "Everything. There's a whole world out there."

  A whole world. If that was true, why did he feel so hemmed in? His entire life took place on one ranch, in the confines of his family, trussed up in their opinions of right and wrong. Suddenly he longed to be out on the highway again, striding away. "I've got no idea what I'd be if I wasn't a rancher."

  Joe stood up. "You, of all the people in this congregation, can be whatever you want to be. My own father used to say that children are the only ones who show their true colors." He shrugged. "Try being the man you wanted to be when you were five. You might find it suits you best. I'll leave you to your thoughts. The Man Upstairs might have a few things he'd like to add to my lecture."

  The preacher made his way forward, past the pulpit and into the small room behind it. Probably getting things set for Sunday, Rob thought as he shifted on the hard seat.

  The man he wanted to be at five?

  Who was that?

  * * * * *

  "Are you bringing a guest on Saturday?" Duncan's grating voice cut through Morgan's thoughts. She was in the distillery room, checking the huge vats of aging wine, her first job every morning when she came to work.

  "Yes." No. She hadn't found a date yet.

  "I'm taking Anne Goodman." He pretended to read the gauges on the nearest vat, but she caught him slide a look her way. Anne was considered a fine catch. Rich and beautiful.

  "That's nice." She moved away, but not before she saw a triumphant smile cross Duncan's face. He must have guessed she didn't have a date. Since she'd rebuffed his advances several times, he'd taken every opportunity to show her what a mistake she'd made.

  He'd also taken every opportunity to block her at work, interfering with every task, bossing her around, and generally being a pain in her ass. She knew what he was trying to say – if she wanted to get any further ahead at Cassidy's, she'd better sleep with him.

  No way. She wasn't going to sleep with anyone again until she was married. She'd be damned if she repeated her mother's mistakes. She'd had a close call once a few years back that opened her eyes to how easy it would be to find herself pregnant and unmarried – like her mother had been with her. She would never subject a child to the life she'd led while she was growing up, not even if it meant staying celibate for years. Sure, this was the twenty-first century, and most of the stigma about being born to an unwed mother was gone, but when that mother went on and had a new family and left you behind – you didn't need stigma to feel as worthy as a piece of yesterday's trash.

  "I would rather have gone with you," he said, sidling up to her and touching her arm. "You know I'd like to spend a lot more time with you."

  "I don't think that's a good idea," she said. She couldn't believe
they were going to do this again. When would Duncan understand she wasn't going to fall for him, no matter what?

  "We'd make a great pair, you and I," he went on, sliding his arm around her waist, oblivious to her disgust. "We could get married, run this winery together some day."

  Ugh.

  There'd been a time when she would have considered going out with him, before she knew his true nature. When she'd started, all she'd seen was a young man who shared her passion for viticulture. On the outside, Duncan looked like a catch, with his flashy smile and slick good looks. On the inside he was all vinegar and no wine. Duncan Cassidy would expect to control his wife's every move the way he controlled the personnel who worked for the winery. He'd expect her to bow to his every whim.

  "Come on, Morgan. What's holding you back? We could have a lot of fun." His hand slipped down to her ass and he gave a hard squeeze.

  Morgan yelped and pushed him away. He folded his hands across his chest, blocking her path, and eyed her with all the confidence of a rich man who thinks he's holding all the cards.

  Well, he was, wasn't he? What could she do, report him to Human Resources? This was a family business and Duncan was family. That meant he could do pretty much anything he damn well pleased.

  "I don't think so." She wheeled around, wanting nothing more than to be away from him.

  "Dinner tonight," he called at her retreating back.

  "Nope!"

  "I'm not asking you – I'm telling you. Dad wants to take you out and celebrate. At the Rotunda." He named a brand new restaurant that was getting great reviews. Morgan's shoulders slumped. She couldn't turn down Elliot Cassidy, even if Duncan was a lecherous twit.

  "What time?" she said finally.

  "Eight o'clock. We'll pick you up."

  "No – I'll take my own…" but when she turned around, Duncan was gone.

  Damn it, a night with Elliot and Duncan after working with them all day? This was a nightmare.

  Nope. Not a nightmare.

  Just her life.

  * * * * *

  When Rob trudged the long dirt track up to the ranch house he felt like he'd been gone for a year rather than a night. Every muscle in his body ached and he couldn't wait for a long shower.

  "Where've you been?" His mother knelt in her garden beside the house he'd grown up in, a wide, two-story, clapboard affair with a verandah encircling it. "On second thought, don't tell me. I doubt I want to know."

  What would she say if he told her he'd been in church? Probably that it was about time. He watched her pop a cauliflower seedling out of a flat and place it in the hole she'd dug in the rich soil of a garden bed.

  Without conscious thought, he paced over to join her and knelt down, too. She handed him a trowel and he prepared the next hole while she eased another plant out of its container. "Needed to do some thinking," he said.

  "Some drinking, too, by the smell of it." Lisa wrinkled her nose, but patted him on the arm to let him know she was teasing.

  "Thinking it's maybe time for a change," he said.

  "You have something in mind?"

  He dug another hole as she set the seedling into the first one and filled dirt in around its sides.

  "Not really. But I can't keep on the way I've been."

  A wistful smile played on her lips as she worked beside him. "We haven't done this in years. Do you remember when you used to help me in the garden?"

  Sure he did. Back in grade school, his mother used to require him to help weed her vegetable garden at least once a week. The most hated chore on the ranch – at least among the menfolk – it was always passed off onto the youngest child who could competently complete the task.

  In other words, Rob.

  He hadn't hated the chore, though. He'd liked the feel of dirt between his fingers, and the way the vegetable plants looked bigger and happier as soon as he cleared the weeds away. His mother would chatter to him about the different plants, including the flowers that bordered her square garden. She didn't require him to answer back much, so he'd let his attention wander, half-listening to her, half-daydreaming in the warm sun, his mind slipping away to the hows and whys of seeds, dirt, water, and bees.

  Ned walked past on the way to the main house, probably raiding the fridge between chores. He did a double-take when he spotted Rob beside his mother.

  Here it comes, thought Rob.

  "Just like old times," Ned called out. "The flower-sissy's back!" He laughed as he continued on and clattered up the steps to the house. Beside him, his mother tsked.

  But in his mind Rob was seven again, on a spring-morning recess at the small public school in Chance Creek. A crisp wind blew down from the hills. The ground was damp beneath his feet from the receding snow. His classmate, Daniel Warden, waved at a green point breaking through the dirt.

  "Look – it's a tulip."

  "No, it's not, it's a crocus," Rob had corrected him without thinking.

  Daniel, a hot-tempered boy who couldn't bear to be wrong, had shoved him, hard. "Who cares what it's called, you flower-sissy!"

  Of course the name stuck.

  His own brothers thought it was hilarious and taunted him about it for days, rubbing crocuses into his face when their parents were out of sight, pushing him into his mother's newly dug flowerbeds when they ran to the house for mealtimes. The next time his mother called him to work in the garden, Rob had hid in the hayloft and refused to come out. He'd taken a paddling for it when he came in for supper, and then hid the following day, as well. When Lisa finally tracked him down and got the truth out of him, she'd sighed, and sent him on his way.

  She'd never asked him to weed the garden again.

  And Rob devised a suitable revenge on Daniel. His first practical joke. He slipped out of bed early one morning, picked a handful of tulips and hid them in his backpack until he reached school. There he slipped inside before the first bell rang, snuck into his classroom and left them on his teacher's desk – along with a note:

  To Mrs. Ramsey, from Daniel Warden.

  When the bell rang and he filed back into the classroom with the rest of the students, Mrs. Ramsey was holding the tulips, a smile on her face. "Look at what Daniel brought me," she said, lifting them high.

  "You teacher-loving, flower-sissy," Rob drawled, as loudly as he could.

  That particular whipping was worth it. And that practical joke was the start of a life-long run of tormenting first his enemies, and then his friends. He learned fast that a good shock or scare kept everyone at arm's length.

  "I've forgiven folks for plenty of things in my life," Lisa said, breaking into his thoughts. She sat back on her heels and gazed at him from under her cream-colored cowboy hat. "But the way your father and brothers destroyed your love for the garden, for everything natural," she waved a hand to encompass the whole ranch, "is something I've found it hard to forgive. I've found it hard to forgive myself for letting it happen."

  He looked down at his hands in the dirt. Remembered the peace of working in the garden. Remembered his early days exploring the ranch and all its wonders.

  The man he wanted to be when he was five.

  "They might have stopped me back then, but they can't stop me now," he said. He wasn't the smallest kid on a playground full of bullies anymore. And while he couldn't name his calling, he knew it wasn't being low man on the totem pole on a ranch that already had four other men to run it.

  He leaned over and kissed his mother on the cheek. "Don't give up on me yet."

  She tousled his hair. "Never."

  * * * * *

  At eight o'clock, Elliot Cassidy's black Lincoln Town Car pulled up in front of her apartment and Morgan let herself into the back seat. She'd been on these dinner dates with the Cassidys before and she knew what to expect. Elliot would be in the driver's seat. Duncan riding shotgun. She'd take her lowly place in back and play second fiddle to them for the rest of the night.

  At the restaurant, Elliot would send back the first wine, demanding
something better, while Duncan would dictate to her what she should order. The remainder of the meal would be spent listening to them pick apart the service, the food, other wineries, and their own employees. By the time she returned home she'd have a migraine and a strong desire to slit her throat.

  As she slid onto the seat and fastened her seatbelt, the car pulled away from the curb.

  "Only the two of us tonight," Duncan said, and she looked up with a start, her heart beginning to pound when she took in the empty passenger seat.

  "Where's your father?"

  "He thought we young folks might like an evening to ourselves." Duncan smiled into the rear view mirror, a self-satisfied smirk she longed to slap right off his face.

  "Forget it. Take me home."

  "I don't think so." Duncan pushed down on the gas pedal and the car leaped forward. Glancing out the window, Morgan saw they weren't headed downtown.

  "Where are we going?"

  "You'll see." He sped up again. He was driving way too fast for this neighborhood. Had he been drinking?

  Probably.

  "Duncan, I'm serious. Take me home."

  "Relax, Tate. You're always so uptight. Maybe if you were getting some you wouldn't be such a bitch."

  Getting some? She hoped he didn't think he'd be getting some tonight.

  She stealthily unlocked the door and gripped the handle. She couldn’t jump out of a moving vehicle but sooner or later he'd have to slow down. No way was she going to let him whisk her out of the city to some private place where she would be at his mercy. She knew all too well that men would use their strength against her, given half a chance.

  Against her will, a memory of the night she and Claire had gone after Daniel Ledstrom flashed into her mind. Daniel – Claire's ex – had taken thousands of dollars of interior design supplies from her home and stashed them in the garage of his mother's vacant house. Claire thought she knew where he'd put them, and when they'd gone to check it out, they'd been cornered by Daniel and two of his thug friends. Morgan closed her eyes against the memories of the man who'd tossed her over his shoulder, hauled her into the house and dumped her on a bed. When he'd climbed on top of her, she'd thought she'd never get away. He'd torn her blouse open – touched her…