"You seem pretty desperate to get over there." Taggart gave her a narrow, assessing look. "You wouldn't be meddling, would you?"
Becky's eyes widened. "Meddling?"
"Pokin' your nose in where it doesn't belong." Taggart's finger tapped the tip of her nose. "Checking up on Tom and Jenny."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because you're you," her father said with a fatalism born of long experience. "And you've been known to stick your oar into water you got no business paddlin' in."
"Moi?" Becky said with all the innocence she could muster. It sounded better when Felicity or Miss Piggy said it.
Taggart drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Oui, mademoiselle. Tu." He fixed her with a warning look. "You let Jenny and Tom be. And just in case this is some misguided attempt to mess with Mace and Jenny, you let them work out their own problems."
"I wouldn't—"
"I mean it," he said sternly. "Messin' in my life was bad enough—"
"I didn't mess in your life," Becky said hotly, stung by his ingratitude. "I introduced you to my teacher—"
"By not doin' a lick of work," Taggart reminded her grimly.
"It was very hard work," Becky contradicted. "I didn't want to miss all those assignments. An' you're glad I did," she added. "You wouldn't have Felicity and Abby and Willy if I hadn't."
Taggart scowled. "I'd have managed on my own."
"In about a hundred years, maybe."
"Taggart!"
They both turned at the sound of Felicity calling from the porch. She was scanning the area desperately, with two crying, wriggling bundles in her arms.
"Finish this, will you, Pard?" Taggart thrust the pitchfork at Becky. He started toward the house, then turned back. "Just remember—you've done all the messin' you're going to. You behave yourself or else."
Becky, feeling annoyed and just a little reckless, said, "Or else what?"
Taggart fixed her with a level gaze. "Or else, mademoiselle, you're going to feel my hand on your derriere."
Then he turned and loped toward Felicity and the babies.
Becky watched him go. She watched Felicity smile and hand him one of the babies. Watched the four of them go into the house together.
She stabbed the pitchfork into the hay and sighed. That was what you got for trying to be helpful.
Who'd have thought her father knew that much French?
It was the finest sermon Reverend Wilson ever gave. Jenny didn't hear a word of it. The children's choir had never sounded better. Jenny didn't even realize they were there. The men's benevolent society was selling chances on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. She bought all they had left.
"You must really want to win, huh, Jenny?" Tuck McCall said admiringly. "Who'd a thought it? If you win will you give me a ride?"
"Of course," Jenny said absently.
She was walking on air. All around her parishioners chatted and smiled, said, "Good morning" and "Hope all is well."
For weeks she'd put on her best smile and had assured them it was.
Now she was—for real—smiling all over her face.
She wouldn't have left Mace this morning if she hadn't had to teach Sunday school.
It had been too late to get a substitute when she'd woken up this morning to find herself still snugly wrapped in her husband's arms. But oh, would she have loved to stay right there.
Still, maybe it was right that she'd come. She had some prayers of thanksgiving to say.
"So, what happened last night? Was Mace all right?"
Jenny blinked, then looked up to see Tom standing in front of her.
She tried not to smile her head off. "Oh, um, yes. Yes, he is, as a matter of fact."
"I'm glad," Tom said. He waited then, as if expecting her to explain.
She knew she ought to. She knew she owed him at least that much. Hadn't she practically thrown him out of her house last night in her haste over Rooster's phone call? Hadn't she been promising a threat of mayhem in the tone of her voice?
"He was … unwell," she said, picking her words carefully. "A friend called from Bozeman to tell me. I had to go down and pick him up."
"But he's all right now?"
"Fine."
More than fine. He was home!
Jenny had told herself she was being a fool last night when she slid beneath the quilt next to Mace in bed.
She'd told herself she was only going to hurt worse in the morning.
She'd told herself she'd regret spending the night lying next to him, wishing for things to be the way they once had been.
And as she'd lain there, stiff and aching, the minutes stretched out and so did the pain.
She thought she would have to get up and leave. And then he touched her.
He moved back against her. At first she'd thought he was asleep, thought the slow steady inching of his body toward hers was nothing more than the natural movement of a man in a drunken slumber.
But then he'd turned and burrowed closer. He'd slipped his arms around her, had drawn her into an embrace she had wondered if she would ever know again.
And he'd loved her.
She'd relived every moment of it all night long—the urgent touch of his hands on her body, the desperate search of his mouth for hers. It was a stronger, sweeter, by far headier experience than the wine she'd drunk with Tom.
"So, it's not a problem, then?"
Jenny jerked back to see Tom's smiling face looking at her hopefully.
"Well, I—" She didn't know what to say.
What could she say that wouldn't sound as if she'd only been using Tom as long as Mace wasn't around?
It hadn't been like that. Not really.
She'd enjoyed his company. A lot. If Mace weren't her husband, she thought she might well be able to fall in love with a man like Tom. But Mace was her husband, and…
Her helpless stop brought out a ruefulness in Tom's smile.
"I know," he said gently. "It takes time."
He reached out and gave her hand a squeeze. "I'll call you later in the week. Maybe we can go ride fence or something."
Jenny smiled. She couldn't help it.
Maybe he and Mace could learn to be friends.
Mace had had the nightmare to end all nightmares.
He'd dreamed that he and Jenny were getting a divorce, that he'd left home—left her. He'd dreamed that their marriage was shattered, their hopes destroyed. He was alone.
And Jenny … Jenny had someone else.
He lay in bed, shaking and sweating, barely able to do more than thank God that he was awake now and the nightmare was over.
Still, it felt so real he had to open his eyes and look around to be sure.
He drew an unsteady sigh of relief at the sight of his dresser across the room, of Jenny's robe on the hook by the door.
He was here where he was supposed to be—in his own bed.
He sighed and stretched—and stopped.
His body hurt—in places that had nothing to do with normal everyday riding horseback. His head ached. His mouth tasted foul—like beer and tequila and not just on a one-way ticket, either.
He hadn't felt like this since the morning after his bachelor party, when he and Taggart and Jed had got tanked on a couple of fifths of Wild Turkey and he'd met the flock going the other way the next morning.
He shuddered.
And then he remembered … the Six Gun, Rooster, Sherpa's. The judo chopping college prof. The coffee. The car ride. Jenny.
And then he realized that his nightmare wasn't a nightmare. It was his life.
He groaned and dragged himself to a sitting position, looking around for Jenny. Listening for her.
He heard nothing. She wasn't there.
And yet … a flicker of memory—of warmth—surfaced in his brain for an instant. It vanished.
He tried to focus on it, to drag it back. It was gone.
The effort to bring it back, to expand on it, caused a small shudder to run through
him. He could hold a glimmer—the memory of love deep and intense and desperate.
But that was all.
"You're dreaming, Nichols," he muttered to himself. "It's called wishful thinking." Because God knew it was.
"You're drunk." And God knew he was that, too. Or hung over.
Carefully, still keeping one hand against his head, Mace hauled himself to his feet. God, yes, he hurt. His back. His butt.
He groaned and straightened and stumbled into the bathroom to turn on the shower.
It helped. But not much. Not nearly enough.
He stumbled out again, wrapped in a towel, to look for clean clothes.
There were none. He'd taken the rest to the cabin the last time he was here.
He put his grubby jeans back on. His shirt was too awful to wear. He opened Jenny's bottom drawer to find a sweatshirt he could wear.
There was a new one right on top. Bright blue. It said MONTANA STATE.
Mace pushed past it and pulled out an old gray one advertising the National Finals Rodeo. Once it had been his, but Jenny had taken it over. It had always been big on her, and he'd done his fair share of sliding his hands up beneath it to cup her naked breasts.
The memory tantalized him. He tugged the sweatshirt on over his head.
There was a pot of coffee still hot in the kitchen. The memory of last night's coffee made his insides clench. But he had to put something in his stomach, and Jenny made good coffee. Lots better than he made for himself. He poured himself a cup.
Then he carried it into the living room and stood, breathing in the pungent aroma, while he let his mind and his stomach adjust.
He was home.
Jenny had brought him home.
He stood now, gazing around the room, taking it all in, thinking how much he'd missed it.
He rubbed a hand over the rough stone of the fireplace he and Jenny and Taggart and Jed had built. They'd even gathered the stones themselves, packing them down out of the mountains and up from the rivers. It had been hard work, but worth it. His gaze lit on the rocking chair that had been Jenny's mother's. It was the one piece of furniture she'd brought from her family home, because she remembered being rocked in it when she was a child. Beneath it was the rug that Jenny had braided for three long winters. And it lay on top of pine floors that he himself had laid.
There was a world of memories in this room—in this whole house. Memories he and Jenny had made.
He walked around, cataloguing everything: the old oak table his grandmother had given them from her house, the old grandfather clock they had bought at an estate auction in White Sulphur Springs, the pink-and-blue afghan Jenny had knitted for the baby they'd always hoped for. The baby they'd never had.
Mace swallowed hard against the sudden thickness in his throat as he remembered how young she'd been when she'd finished it.
Scarcely more than a child herself, bright-eyed and eager, she'd twirled it around her like a cape and danced in front of him, just out of his reach. Laughing, he'd snagged it and hauled her into his arms and kissed her senseless.
He picked up the afghan now and curled his fingers around it. It slid through his hand, a fine wool, soft and worn.
It had been washed plenty of times since that day. Somewhere along the years, it had ceased to be the "baby's blanket" and had become the one Jenny wrapped herself in when she sat on the sofa to watch TV or read a book.
He bunched it up and rubbed it against his cheek. It smelled of soap, of wool, of Jenny.
He shut his eyes, pressing the afghan against them, fighting the tears that pricked behind his lids, fighting the need, the ache, the desire.
If only…
Still holding the afghan, he turned and walked back into the kitchen. If only…
But before he dared even think the only if that mattered, he saw the dishes on the counter where she'd left them.
Two plates. Two cups. Two knives. Two forks. Two spoons.
Not one.
Not only Jenny's. Tom's and Jenny's.
Mace's fingers strangled the afghan. His lips drew thin. His heart ached.
He looked down at the counter and saw a photo lying there of Tom and a young girl, laughing.
He felt as if he'd been sucker punched. As if God didn't think he was bright enough to figure it out for himself and so had decided to spell it out for him.
Well, okay. He got it—Jenny wanted a family. Always had. Always would.
She could have it with Tom.
She would have it with Tom.
She'd brought Mace home because it was her duty. That was all.
Nothing had changed.
But damn it, Mace thought, giving up the fight and letting the tears slide down his cheeks, his only dream that mattered now was of her.
When would she ever learn?
It was like the refrain of the old song. And Jenny made herself sing it over and over as a penance.
When would she ever learn not to be so unfailingly sanguine? When would she learn not to trust that what she wanted, hoped for, dreamed about, was inevitably going to become her future?
When would she accept that her marriage to Mace was over, that while the physical side of their love seemed as bright as ever, the rest of it was dead?
"I'm like that donkey you have to hit on the side of the head to get its attention," she told Brenna in dry-eyed, toneless disgust the day after she came smiling her way home from church to discover that Mace had left without a word.
Brenna patted her hand and gave her a cup of tea and a dose of sympathy. But since she didn't know the bottom line, she couldn't do much more.
Jenny knew Brenna was being kind. She also knew there was nothing much Brenna could say.
Her life was up to her.
She had been a doormat long enough.
She had tried to keep things together. She'd had the door slammed in her face.
But what rankled more than anything—what made her mad enough to spit—was that before he'd slammed it, Mace had so liberally sampled the wares.
The very thought of it made her teeth come together with a snap. The mortifying memory of how eagerly she had loved him and how willingly he had accepted it—and then walked out!—straightened her up and stiffened her spine as nothing else.
Was she going to spend the rest of her life waiting for Mace to come to his senses?
No, she damned well was not!
She took out the last letter from his lawyer, the one in which Anthony had tried to respond to her nitpicky questions about the division of property, including the herd and the horses, the barn and the house and furnishings.
She had been stalling when she'd written it.
She'd been giving Mace time. Well, she was done with that.
Mace had had time enough.
"We did it. It's all set." Anthony crowed over the telephone.
"What?" Mace said.
Anthony made an impatient noise. "What did you hire me for, Nichols? The divorce!"
"Already?" Mace scowled. He'd thought it would take months. A no-fault divorce, Anthony had told him, meant they would have to live apart for 180 days. "What about the time requirement?"
"There's an exception," Anthony reminded him. "If you both agree that there's serious marital discord and nothing's going to change."
"There's no way things are going to change," Mace had said when he'd hired Anthony.
Jenny, in her response, had disagreed.
She'd urged counseling. Mace had said no. She'd urged a cooling-off period. Mace had declined. It didn't matter how cool he got, he was never going to have any sperm. What was the point?
"She's thrown in the towel," Anthony said cheerfully. "She isn't contesting it. In fact, I got a letter from her lawyer this morning saying she agreed. Great, huh?"
"Swell." Mace licked dry lips. "What about the division of property?" he asked Anthony. "I thought she was going to argue over the custody of every cow."
The last letter Anthony had received fr
om her lawyer had made it sound like that.
"Apparently not," Anthony said. "Travis—that's her lawyer—said he was willing to come up with a 'fair and equitable settlement.' How about that?"
"So she's … she's just … giving up?"
"She's giving up," Anthony agreed wholeheartedly. "Seeing the light, if you will. There's no way she can stop it, and she's finally realized it. So she's agreeing, and she's saving herself—and you—some money. With no long court battles, things can be done relatively economically. You keep more of the cows, basically," Anthony said. "You gotta like that, pal."
Oh, yeah. Mace tried to work up a smile. "But I can't afford to buy her out right now."
"She doesn't want you to buy her out."
"She doesn't?"
"Says not." There was a rustling of paper, and Anthony said, "I'm sure Travis argued long and hard against it, but he says she wants to—and I quote—'Dissolve the partnership so that Mace can have the ranch.' Then Travis writes—'We are naturally counting on him doing the honorable thing.' You got it made, buddy!"
Mace let out a breath. "I guess." He hesitated. "Does it say what she's going to do?"
"Just 'getting out of ranching.' Can't blame her, can you?"
Mace's fingers were limp on the receiver. "Nope." He couldn't blame her at all.
She was getting out of ranching, all right. She was marrying Tom.
She didn't say so. She didn't have to.
He might not have a college degree, but Mace could read between the lines as well as the next guy.
"You don't find many women that generous," Anthony continued.
"No."
"You really picked a good one." There was a long pause. In it Mace heard the unspoken question "Then what the hell are you divorcing her for?"
He didn't answer it. He said, "Thanks for calling. Is that all?"
"I do the paperwork. You and I go to court and get it finalized. Piece of cake. A few days, a week or two at most—depending on the judge's schedule—and you're a free man."
A free man?
"Swell." Mace's voice was toneless. He didn't bother saying there would never be any chance of that.
Tom called on Wednesday while Jenny was sitting at the kitchen table looking at the classifieds. "So, do you want to ride fence?"
A Cowboy's Tears Page 16