Before she could set off again, Jorge stopped her with, “Tía?” She watched him dig into a pocket.
“Para ti.” He held an open hand toward her.
For the longest time she could only stare at the small carved figure of a horse that rested in her nephew’s dirty palm. When he moved closer she took it, squeezing his hand, while tears brimmed in her eyes. Once again her vocabulary failed her. “You made this?” she asked, exaggerating every syllable and accompanying the words with facial expressions.
He must have understood, for pride shone in his green eyes. “Sí, tía. Para ti.”
“For me? Oh, my. My, oh, my. Gracias, Jorge.” To show she felt more than simple gratitude, she pressed the perfectly carved little horse to her breast.
Her heart still palpitated out of control when she arrived at the next boy, who, like Jorge, wore a red calico shirt, fashioned from the piece goods Madolyn had intended for their mother to make into a dress. Oh, well, didn’t it prove that Carlita was a good mother in spite of her submissive nature—and not being married to their father?
Perhaps most of all, Madolyn hated to leave without effecting a change in Morley’s despicable situation. Thinking on it as she continued, she realized she could not run out on this one last responsibility: She must see Morley and Carlita married, for their children’s sake.
Each boy in turn beamed with delight when Madolyn spoke to him in Spanish; and each wore a red calico shirt.
Even Little Jeff, who did not wait for Madolyn to find the courage to hug him, but jumped up on the wagon seat and hugged her. Filled with melancholy, she cradled him to her bosom.
“¿Donde está tío?” he wanted to know.
“Tía,” Madolyn corrected. “Estoy tía.”
“Sí.” Little Jeff tapped her chest. “Tía Maddie.”
“Sí.”
“¿Pero, donde está tío? Tío Tyler.”
Uncle Tyler? Madolyn’s heart lurched. She hugged the child closer. Uncle Tyler, Aunt Maddie. Spoken together the words sounded like lyrics to a song, a sad and beautiful song—a requiem.
By the time she struggled with the brake, climbed down, and tethered the team at the hitching rail, her commotion—or Little Jeff’s chattering—had called Morley from the barn.
She stood her ground, watching him stride toward her. She felt none of the eagerness to rush to him that had fairly smothered her on her first trip out; none of the eagerness to hug him, that she felt for the children.
His gaze riveted on the back of the wagon. “What’re you bringin’ now, Maddie?”
“Not as much as before.”
“Good thing, that damned table takes up all the room.”
“Just books and things this time. The rest is still in town.” Stepping to the side, she withdrew a book from the top box. “Little Jeff, run inside and tell your mother I’ll be in directly.”
Morley eyed the book, which she kept in her hands. “Rest of what’s in town?”
“Beds and things.”
“Beds! Not for me.”
“For your family.”
He frowned. “We don’t have room for beds, Maddie.”
“You will have.” He must be getting used to her, she decided. Although he still bellowed, he was less belligerent by half than when she had brought the table. Drawing a steadying breath, she handed him the book.
“Look over these mail-order houses, Morley. You and Carlita sit down together and pick out the one you want. Goldie will store the beds and things until the house comes in.”
“HOUSE? House! Damn you for a meddlin’—”
“I am not meddling, Morley. I’m concerned about my family. In fact, I’m on my way back to Boston.”
“Boston?” He squinted at her, taken aback. Or did she imagine it?
“Yes. As soon as I finish my business in town.”
“I’ve heard about that business. There’s only one way for you to reunite Buckhorn, and that’ll never happen, not in a million years.”
“You mean you and Tyler would have to make up?”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
She ignored his warning. “It’s a wonderful idea, Morley. I know exactly how it can be accomplished.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“When Parson Arndt comes out to marry you and Carlita, Tyler can stand up for you. That’ll cement your relationship—”
Morley’s belligerence returned in full force: His face turned purple; his eyes narrowed to two dark green pools; and when he spoke he bellowed loud enough to call the cows from the back forty, an expression Lucky was fond of using when Goldie’s girls hollered to one another down the staircase.
But Goldie’s girls were rarely angry. Morley was furious. “Madolyn Sinclair, you listen to me. There will be no weddin’. If Parson Arndt shows his face around here, he’ll get his butt filled with buckshot.”
“Morley! It’s for these precious—”
“Who asked you to judge me an’ mine?”
She straightened her bonnet and stiffened her spine. The sun had climbed to high noon, and she wished for her parasol, but not enough to quit the fight when she smelled progress.
“Claiming the children is definitely an improvement, Morley. After you marry their mother—”
“I am not marryin’ their mother. Do you hear me? I’m not the marryin’ kind.”
“You should have thought about that before…before…”
Carlita came out the back door. Unlike on Madolyn’s previous visits, Carlita approached her with a warm, if quiet, welcome. “Bienvenida, Maddie. Dinner is on the table. You will eat, sí?”
“Carlita,” Morley hissed, “get on back to the house. Maddie’s leavin’.”
“I’m in no rush, Morley. Really. Carlita and I must discuss wedding plans before I leave for Boston.”
“Damnation, woman! You don’t have the sense God gave a goat! There will be no weddin’.”
Madolyn linked arms with Carlita. “As soon as the date is set, Morley, you can find Tyler and invite him to stand up for you.”
Morley grabbed her arm, jerking her around. His eyes were afire. “Maybe you don’t hear very good. Else you just don’t listen. There will be no weddin’. And definitely, no makin’ up with that sonofabitch Grant.” He glared at her. “I know what you’re up to, but it won’t work. You’re hell bent on joinin’ those towns up again. An’ you can’t win unless Grant and I…”
Morley’s eyes bore into hers, but Madolyn could tell his thoughts had changed horses in midstream. Of a sudden, he pulled her toward the wagon, where he grabbed her around the waist and tossed her to the hard wagon seat. Her bustle collapsed.
“Keep my dinner hot,” he barked at Carlita. Then without so much as a by-your-leave, he climbed up beside Madolyn and whipped up the team.
Madolyn held on for dear life. Fury swept through her. “I can drive myself back to town, Morley Sinclair. I managed to find my way out here.”
“Once and for all, Maddie, I’m gonna git you outta my hair. If you’re so het up to see Tyler Grant, I’ll take you.”
Fourteen
Strive as she did, Madolyn couldn’t summon an ounce of indignation at Morley. Indeed, during the whole bouncing, bumping ride, her emotions vacillated between anxiety over how she would face Tyler—would she be able to look him in the eye?—and euphoria at having one last chance to see him.
An hour or so later Morley drew rein in the middle of nowhere. At first Madolyn was scarcely able to see the landscape around her, so frightened was she of her own wicked self. Then, when she could see, she decided he must be resting the team. From the way he had driven them, they surely needed it.
“Where are we?” she asked, only to have Morley interrupt her with a bellow aimed at the sheer side of a rocky cliff.
“Tyler Grant, get your damned ol’ carcass out here!”
Before Madolyn recognized the slab of weathered wood for a door, it opened, and Tyler stepped out of the side of the hill. Her breath ca
ught at sight of him. He filled the space, wide-open though it was. He was bare to the waist; her first coherent thought was of her wish to see him nude. Next she recalled the morning she had, the morning Penny-Ante twirled her finger in his navel. Sitting primly, parasol hoisted against the blazing sun, Madolyn wondered what it would feel like. Her finger twitched and she gripped the parasol tighter. And her wits.
It was the way he looked at her, she reasoned, that caused such a scandalous, unwelcome notion to take control of her sanity. He just stood there, slouch-like, even though there wasn’t anything in sight for him to lean against. In truth, he could have been part of the hill itself. But his attention was on her, and his expression was one she knew well. He wasn’t quite grinning, but his eyes danced over her, mesmerizing her, tantalizing her, setting her senses to humming like locusts on a still summer night. Morley bellowed again, bringing her back to reality.
“I’ve come to take you up on that trade you offered.”
“What trade?” Tyler asked, but his eyes never left Madolyn.
“Day you drove Maddie out to the house.”
Tyler blanched. His eyes darted to Morley. Madolyn looked around in time to see the set to Morley’s jaw. He looked like the cat who had just eaten the proverbial canary. Although from the gloating way he grinned, she figured it must have been more like a buzzard.
“What trade?” Even as she echoed Tyler’s question, an uneasiness crept into her euphoria. Before Morley could answer, Tyler spoke again.
“You know the conditions, Morley.” His words sounded strained. Turning, Madolyn saw that his face had lost its color.
“A filly for a filly,” Morley hissed. “Where’s my damned horse?”
Her uneasiness turned to disbelief. She glared at her brother, furious, embarrassed. Sick, her only wish was to disappear, to crawl under one of the numerous stones and hide.
Since that was out of the question, she jumped into the fray. “How dare you, Morley Sinclair? You’re a beast!” Her brain, however, replayed Morley’s opening statement—that he was taking up Tyler’s offer.
Tyler had offered to trade her for the horse? Her for a horse? She turned furious eyes on him. As if she were his to trade! “How dare you?”
He had moved closer now, and stood within a couple of feet of her. “Whoa, now, Maddie, it wasn’t like that.”
“What do you mean, it wasn’t like that? What difference does it make what it was like? A trade’s a trade. A woman for a horse? Men! Miss Abigail is right, you’re no damned good. None of you! None of you—”
Tyler interrupted her, speaking in a low, controlled voice. “Have you fulfilled the rest of the bargain?”
“A filly for a filly,” Morley repeated to Madolyn’s everlasting chagrin.
“Not quite. The offer hinged on you securin’ Maddie’s inheritance.”
Madolyn’s eyebrows lifted.
“Not on your life, Grant,” Morley bellowed. “I said—”
“I know what you said, Morley. And I know what I said. My offer was to see Maddie off to Boston, after you gave me ’Pache Prancer and secured her inheritance.”
Madolyn watched Morley grip the reins in tight-gloved fists. His jaws were clinched. He frightened her. She wanted to climb off the wagon seat, to run from him. But she dared not.
“Where’s ’Pache Prancer?” Morley was demanding.
Tyler laughed. That easy, deep-throated laugh Madolyn had so envied him. “You think I’d keep her around for you to find? I’m not stupid. I knew you’d come after her sooner or later. You’re as easy to read as McGuffy’s Primer.”
“That so? That damned so?” Twisting the reins around the brake handle, Morley lumbered down from the wagon seat. “Get on down from there, Maddie. Stretch your legs.”
She did need to do that. Her knees were stiff from the hour’s ride over rutted terrain, and her bottom ached from bouncing on the hard wagon seat in her collapsible bustle. An equally harrowing ride awaited her when they started back to town—or wherever her brother took her next.
“Go ahead, Morley,” Tyler was saying. “Look around. See what you find.” He winked at Madolyn and she went weak.
“You, too, Maddie. Climb on down.” He reached for her parasol. Her hand was so limp, he took it easily, closed it, and tossed it to the wagon bed. When he reached to help her down, her arms trembled.
“Welcome to my humble abode.” His voice flowed over her. Her resolve to remain aloof weakened. When had she ever been able to keep her wits around this man? He filled her senses. And this would surely be the last time she ever saw him on this earth. Curiosity nudged the edges of her anxiety. She watched Morley disappear around the edge of the cliff.
Tyler pulled on her arm. Although it was no more than a tug, it triggered the glow inside her. She stepped from the wagon seat, lost her footing, and tumbled into him.
Into his bare chest. Her body quivered as if she had landed in a prickly pear patch. She glanced up inadvertently, and in that instant, she knew he had done it on purpose. Stiffly she tried to pull back, but he had her by both arms now.
“Maddie.”
That was all he said, one word, Maddie, but it left her breathless. His eyes held hers until she could resist no longer and cast her gaze over his face, taking in every feature. The eyebrows she had stroked, the eyes she had kissed, the dark hair that was always so neatly trimmed yet never seemed to stay in place, the lips…Her knees went weak. Why didn’t he kiss her? Didn’t he realize this might be the last chance they ever had? Ever?
“Sorry about my attire—or lack of it. I was just fixin’ to…” His words drifted off; his gaze danced over her. Her throat constricted. She pursed her lips. Did he know how she felt? Could he tell what the sight of him had done to her?
“Want to look around?” His voice was husky, dangerously low, underscored by an ever-so-slight tremor.
She glanced toward the edge of the cliff. “Where’s Morley?”
“Lookin’ for that damned horse.”
“Will he find her?” She tried to move aside, but couldn’t. She felt as though her feet were rooted in the rocky soil.
“Not likely. Come on. Let me show you my house.”
Curiosity claimed a bit more of her discomposure. She squinted toward the cliff, where the only thing that looked like it belonged on a house was the door. “Is that it?”
“It’s a dugout. Sort of.”
She stared at the heavy wooden door—more like the corral gates she had seen in Buck, large, solid, with steel hinges and a leather thong for pulling it open. It fitted into an opening that had obviously been chiseled just to accommodate it.
“God, Maddie!” He released her suddenly. “I wasn’t expectin’ company. I’ll be right back.”
She watched him cross the short distance. Reaching the cliff, he pulled the latch and disappeared behind the heavy wooden door, leaving it ajar. Curiosity nudged again.
What harm could it do to look? One look. One more image to carry back to Boston inside her locked heart. Without further consideration, she followed him to the door, where she stood outside the opening, staring inside.
She wasn’t sure what she had expected. Everything had come upon her so suddenly she hadn’t had time to speculate. But looking into the interior of the dugout, she knew she would never have imagined, not in a million years, the scene that stood before her.
It was filled with Tyler, the essence of him. She inhaled deep drafts of his own personal scent—a mixture of soap and bay rum and man. She would have known he lived here if she didn’t have sight.
The furnishings were a further surprise: A pot-bellied stove with flue extending through the limestone roof; pine table, simple but serviceable, and matching chair; kerosene lantern, and books—books stacked everyplace, enough books to fill all the shelves in the library in her home in Boston, or so it seemed.
But it wasn’t the books that captured her attention, it was the bed—an iron bedstead, fitted with a mattress that looked s
ubstantial, topped by a Mexican serape.
Everything was neat as a pin; she would have expected no less, neat and clean and proper. But her thoughts were not proper, not by a long shot, as he would say.
Midway down the length of the room, Tyler stood with his bare back to her. Without warning, he turned and caught her watching him struggle into a shirt.
“Come in, if you want…” He looked disconcerted. For what reason she couldn’t guess. It was she who should be disconcerted. She, who was.
Returning his attention to his shirt, he finished buttoning it, and tucked it into his waistband as best he could without unbuttoning his fly. The thought helped Madolyn move her gaze from him to his house.
“It’s nice.” Her voice wavered somewhere near the top of the scale.
“Nice isn’t the word I’d use,” he said, “but then I didn’t grow up in confined quarters.”
Suddenly she was filled with questions: Where had he grown up? In town? In the country? What kind of house had he lived in? Who were his friends? What games had he played as a child? What food had he liked? What girls—
“Caught me ironin’.”
She glanced back at him, astonished. “Ironing?”
Moving aside, he picked up a smooth flat rock to which he had attached a wire handle. Curiosity nudged her into the room. He handed the iron to her.
“You made this?”
He nodded. “It’s flint. Feel it…smooth as any ol’ iron you ever saw.”
She weighed it in her hand. “It’s a lot heavier than one made of iron. How does it work?”
Taking the iron back, he placed it on the flat surface of the pot-bellied stove. “Set it right here and before you know it, you’ve got an iron hot enough to smooth out the most stubborn wrinkle.”
She laughed. “I’ve never known a man who cared so much for…” She looked up. His intense scrutiny stopped her words. “I mean…”
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