by Jane Toombs
He was sitting at the kitchen table finishing up one of the bran muffins Willa had baked the day before. Willa was at her own place this morning.
“Join me,” he invited Mari. “You look like you could use a muffin. How’s Joe?”
“In fine fettle when I left,” she said as she poured herself coffee and slid into a chair across from him. “By the way, thanks for telling him about my lilac pendant—it meant a lot to him as a memento of Isabel.”
“I had no idea there was a history to the pendant, so I can’t take any credit. I happened to mention it to my dad, and he was the one who understood its significance.”
Though Mari badly wanted to ask Russ why he’d bothered to discuss her pendant if he didn’t know it was a Haskell artifact, she forced herself to stay quiet. Best to keep away from anything remotely intimate.
He grinned at her. “I can see you’re dying to ask the obvious question. It’s a long story, but I’ll condense it. My dad and I get along now better than we have in years. I won’t go into why—I’m sure you know. So we talk. When he asked me about you, for some reason I told him how much you loved lilacs, and I mentioned the pendant. He called Joe.” Russ paused, then added, “I’ve always enjoyed watching you drink coffee.”
Startled, she almost choked on a swallow. When she recovered, she told herself not to take anything he said as truthful. But what an odd thing to say if it wasn’t true. She glanced at him, and the intensity of his gaze caught her unaware, trapping her, making her feel the sizzle of what she couldn’t deny was still between them.
“The evening star is especially bright this month,” he said softly.
Mari almost melted. Finally forcing her gaze away from him, she rose and announced, “Time to get Lucy on the road to her new home.”
“You could saddle up and ride over with us.”
She shook her head. “Too busy. Thanks, anyway.”
He’d brought a lead rope and, after murmuring sweet nothings to Lucy, had no trouble fastening it to her bridle, or leading her through the fence gate.
He mounted Black Knight and set the gelding into motion. Lucy walked behind docilely enough until they passed Mari, who stood watching. At that point Lucy balked, refusing to move.
Since Lucy was a lot bigger than the gelding, Black Knight was forced to a halt. No amount of tugging or coaxing had any effect on Lucy. She just wasn’t going anywhere.
“I think it’s you,” Russ told Mari finally. “Lucy doesn’t want to leave you, and who can blame her?”
Because she couldn’t think of any other solution, Mari saddled Tennille and rode up even with Russ’s black. “See, Lucy, I’m coming, too,” she said.
Russ urged Black Knight on again, and with Mari riding beside him, Lucy obligingly walked behind on the lead. Since the scheme was working, Mari realized she’d have to go all the way to Russ’s new property to make sure Lucy wouldn’t balk again.
“I told you she could be stubborn,” Mari said.
“Looks to me as though you could go anywhere and she’d follow.”
“Just don’t call me if she won’t let your stud—what’s his name, by the way?—near her.”
“King Arthur.”
Disarmed, Mari chuckled. “He may demand a Guinevere rather than a Lucy.”
“Arthur’s more practical than romantic. He’s got horse sense.”
“I was just asking Tennille the other week why humans weren’t lucky enough to be born with horse sense.”
“Get any answer?”
She shrugged. “Horses keep their secrets well.”
Though she realized she’d fallen into an easy exchange with Russ, endangering her determination to be aloof, she couldn’t seem to back off. How she’d missed being with him!
Once they reached the old Curwith property, Mari was surprised by the improvements Russ had already made. As Stan had said, the new barn was already up, and men were working on the house.
Between the two of them, Russ and Mari managed to convince Lucy she wanted to go into a paddock. Mari dismounted, then stood and talked to her for a few minutes, feeding her a carrot she’d brought along.
“You’ll like it here, Lucy. Russ’ll take good care of you, and one of these days you’ll get to be a mother and have the greatest, most magnificent foal in the whole world. A foal fit to carry a knight on its back once it’s old enough, even though there are no knights anymore. A shame, don’t you think?”
“Are you sure?” Russ asked.
She glanced at him. “Sure that there aren’t any knights around? Positive.”
“Then I guess I’m demoted. You’ll have to let a mere commoner show you around the place.”
Time to mount Tennille and get away. But instead, Mari found herself following Russ, listening, then responding to his enthusiasm as he told her what he planned to do.
“I’m temporarily living in that camper,” he said, pointing.
“But that’s Stan’s,” she blurted.
“Yeah, he offered to lend it to me. Your uncle’s quite a guy.”
Stan and Russ were buddies?
She’d been here far too long. Firming her resolve, she said, “I’ve got to be getting back.”
He followed her to where the horses were tethered, and helped her mount Tennille. She was about to say goodbye when she saw him swing onto Black Knight.
“Take a short detour with me down to the creek,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
After hesitating for a moment, she agreed. Why not?
“It was there already, but really rackety. Rebuilt it myself.” He sounded inordinately proud of whatever it was. “Like you with the gazebo, this is something I’ve always wanted.”
They crested a small rise and he pointed ahead to the row of trees hugging the creek. “See that big cottonwood?”
She nodded.
“Whoever it was made the first one knew his trees—a perfect choice,” Russ continued.
Finally seeing the light, she said, “We’re talking about a tree house here, right?”
“Didn’t I say so?”
“Not clearly enough.”
“Just wait till you see it.” He sounded as eager as a boy to show off the project he’d built.
When they reached the cottonwood, she peered through the leaves and saw what looked to be a structure a lot more elaborate than the scrap lumber platforms she remembered as a child. It not only had four walls and a roof, but two real windows, as well.
“Good heavens, you made it out of redwood,” she commented.
“Wanted it to last.” He dismounted, jerked a rope hanging from the tree, and down came a ladder. “Climb up.”
Feeling like a kid again, Mari slid off the mare and pulled herself up the ladder into the interior of the tree house. Gazing around, she took note that he’d made two benches for furniture. A fuzzy green rug covered most of the floor. Just as she spotted the red telescope, Russ entered the tree house.
Noting what she was looking at, he said, “I always wanted one, and this seemed the perfect place to put it.” He couldn’t tell whether the telescope reminded her, as it did him, of their time in the cupola. “I focus through an open window.”
“Don’t the leaves get in your way?” Either her voice sounded the least bit strained or it was wishful thinking on his part.
“I chopped off a few limbs for a clear view.” He leaned down to peer through the finderscope. “Look, here’s the Crowley Ranch.”
She hesitated, but then moved to stand beside him and look into the eyepiece, close enough so he could catch a faint scent of lilac. The impulse to gather her into his arms was so strong he had to force himself not to move.
Mari lifted her head from the telescope and stared into his eyes. “So you’re still spying on me,” she snapped.
Anger shot through him. He gripped her shoulders. “That’s nonsense and you know it. What’s past is past.”
But it wasn’t past, neither the betrayal nor the need for her. He h
auled her closer and his mouth came over hers in a kiss that held both the anger and the urgent desire roiling in him. For a long, desperate moment he felt no response, and then her body melted against his and her lips parted to welcome him. He could have shouted for joy that this bond between them hadn’t been destroyed.
He deepened the kiss, tasting her while she tasted him, relishing the feel of her in his arms, wanting the moment never to end, while knowing he needed more, needed all of her. Now.
He felt her fingers threading through the hair at his nape, holding him to her. He cupped his hands under her butt, pressing her against his arousal, an invitation without words, and caught her moan of desire in his mouth. She wanted what he wanted. There was no reason to wait any longer.
Except one. He felt in his bones that if they made love with her still casting him in the role of bad guy, she’d be angry later—at herself and at him—driving them further apart. Mari had to come to terms with what he’d done at his father’s bidding before he made love with her, or there’d be no future for their relationship.
Still holding her, he lifted his lips from hers. “I need to know one thing,” he whispered. “Have you forgiven me?”
Mari stiffened, jerked from her daze of desire. Forgiven him?
Before she could try to pull away, he let her go, saying, “I take it you haven’t.” He stepped back, widening the space between them.
Then she understood. If she couldn’t forgive him, he didn’t want her. Angry and hurt at his abrupt rejection, she turned away from him, scrambled down the ladder, mounted Tennille and fled for home.
Why had she allowed herself to fall under his spell again? Even now, upset as she was, she yearned to be in his arms. It was clear she couldn’t trust herself where Russ was concerned.
Chapter Fourteen
Willa was in the kitchen of the ranch house when Mari came storming in the back door. She tried to hurry past, but Willa took hold of her arm. “Young lady,” she said, “I’ve had about enough of your carry-on. Sit you down. I’ll fix some of my special mint tea and then we’ll talk.”
Mari, who’d done all the crying she intended to while in the stable tending to Tennille, didn’t look directly at Willa, hoping to conceal her red eyes. “Carry-on?” she asked.
“You know very well what I mean. Sit you down.”
Slumping onto a chair, Mari sighed and, while Willa bustled about getting the tea ready, tried to think of how to glide over what was troubling her. No one could help her, so it was useless to talk about the problem she had with Russ.
After Willa plunked the mug of tea before her, Mari leaned over, inhaling the minty scent.
“Drink it,” Willa ordered. “Mint tea is good for the heart.”
Involuntarily, Mari put a hand to her chest.
Sitting opposite her, Willa picked up her own mug and took a sip. “Nothing wrong with my heart, but it don’t hurt to take precautions.”
Fully intending to say there was nothing wrong with her heart, either, Mari found herself blurting, “I can’t forgive him.”
“Why not? To err is human, to forgive divine.”
“Maybe so, but I hate liars, you know that. Russ betrayed me.”
“From what you said your grandpa Joe told you, Russ did what he did because he felt obligated to his father for disappointing him.”
Mari stared at her for a moment. “He didn’t say exactly that.”
“That’s what he meant. Think about it. Russ allowed his father to pay his way through law school, then turned around and refused to practice law. Don’t you think he felt guilty?”
“But Russ wanted to raise horses. He had a real struggle to succeed.”
“What you want to do, then doing it despite the odds, don’t prevent guilt. I suspect his father was too proud to come right out and tell Russ he was sorry about casting him off, just like Russ felt too guilty to try to approach his father. Think of it in another way, gal—if it hadn’t been for you, years may have gone by before they became reconciled. If ever. You were responsible.”
Mari took a couple swallows of mint tea while she tried to make sense of this. Willa had the strangest way of turning things head over heels.
“Lou Simon figured I was the seventh impostor—there’d been six before me who really were impostors,” she said finally.
“Lucky seven, as Stan would say. Never saw a man as superstitious. Unlucky black cats, don’t walk under ladders, knock on wood, wish on the first star—he believes it all. I told him the first star in the evening is often not a star at all, ’tis one of the planets, but did that change his mind?” Willa shook her head.
“The evening star,” Mari repeated. “Is it really a planet?”
“Right now ’tis Venus,” Willa told her.
“Russ told me a Native American legend about the evening star.”
“Always ready to hear a story, that’s me,” Willa said.
Mari told her how a maiden was loved by one of the Sky People, her father’s cruel treatment, and how her lover rescued her by sliding down a ray from the Evening Star and bringing her back to his home in the sky.
“A romantic tale, don’t you think?” Willa commented.
Mari sighed. “Yes, I suppose so, but those legends belonged to another time and another people.”
“Don’t forget that Venus, during another time and to another people, was the goddess of love.”
“What’s that have to do with the legend?”
“Goodness, what a dense gal you can be. Didn’t I just say Venus was currently the evening star?”
“Oh.” But Mari still didn’t understand what point Willa was trying to make.
“You listen to me. What you got to do is ask your heart what it wants and then pay attention to the answer. Can’t be happy otherwise.”
Mari carried this advice around for the rest of the day and finally took it to bed with her. It proved to be poor company, for it kept her awake.
The next morning at breakfast, she told Stan how Russ had built a tree house, wanting to get what had happened there out of her mind by presenting the tree house as though it had nothing to do with her. Just a building in a tree.
“I guess Russ never had a tree house when he was a boy,” she finished.
“Yeah, that can stick with you, never getting what you long for. I finally got to understand I never would if I stayed a gambler. You see, compulsive gamblers don’t really care if they win or lose—it’s the game that counts. So you can’t ever get what you long for, can you? All you can do is win or lose money. And it’s mostly lose. So I quit.” He smiled wryly. “’Course, it was either quit or Blanche’d kick me out—that played a part.”
“I miss her.”
“Yeah, we always will, I guess. But you got your grandfather now.”
Willa came in the back door carrying eggs for them. “My dang chickens lay more’n I can eat,” she grumbled as she stowed them in the fridge. “Stopped to look at the pups. They got their eyes open—pretty soon now they’ll be out of that shed and underfoot.”
“Only going to keep Maisie,” Stan said. “I already got Zed Adams interested in taking one of the pups.” He turned to Mari. “Speaking of Zed, I remember you, as a kid, always wanting a gazebo like the one on his ranch. You never did get one, just like Russ did without a tree house. But nothing’s stopping you from having a gazebo built now that you’re a Haskell.”
What he said was true. She could afford to build a gazebo on the ranch. “With lilacs,” she said aloud. “Lilacs all around it.”
Stan shook his head. “You and them lilacs. “
“Best get it done quick,” Willa suggested, “seeing as how you’re only here on a visit.”
Visit. The word stuck in Mari’s craw. Instead of going out with Stan to help with the morning chores, she lingered to talk to Willa.
“I can’t help loving Grandpa Joe,” she began.
“’Course not. He’s your blood.”
“He—well, he take
s over. I know he thinks it’s what’s best for me, but that’s not necessarily so. And I understand why he wants me with him instead of off in Nevada. I want to be there for him and yet live my own life, too. I’m just not sure how to go about it.”
“You ain’t got around to letting him know how you feel. You better. And soon.”
“I keep telling myself I will, but then I think about Isabel and how they didn’t get along. Look what happened there. I don’t want to upset him.”
“Joe didn’t get where he is without being tough and aggressive. You got to remember you’re a Haskell, just like he is. So was Isabel. You can’t be passive with a man like Joe—he’ll run right over you, like he tried to do with his daughter. By the sound of it, she chose not to stay and fight it out with him, but ran away. Be what your blood says you are—stand up to your grandfather and tell him no matter how much you love him, you have your life to live.”
Mari sighed. Easier said than done.
“What about Russ?” Willa asked.
After all the “carry-on,” as Willa put it, that Mari had done over Russ, how could she come right out and admit she’d been narrow-minded? Because she had been. “I guess you were right about my pride being hurt,” she said finally.
“Pride’s in the head. Got to listen to the heart.”
“I don’t know how to go about undoing what I’ve done.”
“Get that dang gazebo built first.”
“But—”
“Just do it. You’ll see.”
Stan came in the back door. “Hailed Russ’s builder on his way past here,” he said. “Man says he can have one of his workers here after lunch. Take less’n a week to get it done, he figures. How’s that sound?”
It took Mari a moment to understand he was talking about her gazebo. When she did, she rushed over and hugged him. Having a gazebo at long last wouldn’t solve her problem with Russ, but she was pleased at the thought of getting one. Is that what Willa had meant? That she’d be in better spirits with that wish coming true, and so more able to know what to do about Russ?