Spence glanced down and studied his hands. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want one. I’ve always wanted a family of my own. I just thought it would never work. That it wouldn’t be fair to ask a woman to spend her life with a man who sometimes can’t even take care of himself, let alone a family.”
LaRisa’s heart cracked. She knew how hard it was for him to say that to her.
“But, unless I’m mistaken, my malaria doesn’t really bother you. You don’t seem to…think less of me because of it.”
“Of course I don’t. You know that.”
“Since we’re already married, I don’t see any point in worrying about it. I think we could get along well enough together. As you’ve pointed out more than once, I have plenty of money. You won’t want for anything. You can help me with my patients. You won’t have to worry about living off anyone’s charity.”
Over the pounding of her heart, LaRisa tried to think. He sounded so…matter-of-fact about it, as if this were an ordinary piece of daily business that needed settling. She was…handy. They were already married. She didn’t mind his malaria. So why not just stay married? Why shouldn’t she give up all hope of freedom because it was convenient for him?
She tamped down on her growing anger in favor of trying to learn exactly how he thought this so-called marriage of their would work. And why. “Why?” she asked him.
“Why, what?”
“Aside from the fact that I’m…convenient, why would you want to stay married to me? I mean, I know what you said yesterday about not having grounds for an annulment.” She felt a blush stain her cheeks, but went on. “I know what I get out of it. I get food, shelter, clothing, a whole new family in yours. I won’t have to worry about my future ever again. I have everything to gain—if you don’t count having to give up my freedom,” she added tersely. “I don’t see where you gain much of anything.”
“I gain plenty. As a married man, the first thing I get is relief from mothers and their over-anxious daughters trying to get their hands on some of the Triple C money through me.”
“I see.” She forced a quick smile. “I’m to be your bodyguard then, instead of your wife.”
“In addition to,” he said with a half-smile. “I get someone to take care of my home, fix my meals, see that my shirts are ironed.”
She raised a brow. “Housekeeper, cook, and laundress?”
He scowled. “I get a companion, someone to talk to. Someone to argue with.” He looked away, “I get a lover. Children, if they come.”
LaRisa’s breath backed up in her chest. Bedmate. Broodmare.
“We’ll be moving into town in less than a week.”
She glared at him. “Just like that? I get no say at all? This is my life you’re arranging, white man. I think I’m entitled to decide for myself.”
Spence leaned back and narrowed his gaze. “Providing I was inclined to agree with you, what would you decide?”
She swallowed nervously. “I honestly don’t know. We’ve never talked about the possibility of staying married to each other. We’ve always planned on getting an annulment. I…I could still go back to Alabama. You know I’d never hold you to the promise you made to my father.”
“Maybe I’m the one holding both of us to those promises. One of the things we promised was that we would stay married.”
LaRisa ground her teeth and took a deep breath. “Why are you doing this? And don’t give me any of that business about how good we are in bed together. You’ve had other women before me, you’ll have others after. Half the time, you don’t even seem to like me. Why are you now insisting we stay together?”
Spence did some teeth-grinding of his own. Dammit, if he knew why the hell he was doing this, maybe it wouldn’t be eating a hole in his stomach lining. All he knew was that he couldn’t stand the thought of letting her walk out of his life. Not yet. Not until…good God. “You could be carrying my child.”
LaRisa’s mouth turned as dry as cotton. Her hand went to her abdomen.
“I see you hadn’t thought of that. In case no one ever told you, what we’ve been doing does, many times, result in a baby.”
Fire shot out of her eyes. “Believe it or not, I’m not entirely stupid.”
“Then you thought of the possibility before you threatened to murder me if I didn’t make love to you that first time?”
LaRisa squeezed her eyes shut and prayed harder than she’d ever prayed in her life. But the ground did not open up and swallow either one of them. It figured. When were her prayers ever answered? She glared at him again. “Did you think of it?”
“Hell, no,” he said with a rueful grin. “I don’t believe I was thinking at all. At least not with anything that resembled brains.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I see that we made a mistake, we committed an…indiscretion, if you will, and now you expect us both to pay for it with the rest of our lives.”
“You would think of a child of mine as a mistake?”
When she failed to answer, Spence felt his insides turn to ice. But what else could he expect from her? Why should she welcome a child of his? Why should she want to be his wife? From the very start, she had been emphatic about wanting to make her own decisions. Now, here he was, telling her how she would spend the rest of her life. He was the one declaring they would stay married. He was the one who took her down on that blanket in the twilight and sealed their fate.
But she wanted me as much as I wanted her.
The reminder calmed him. He had given her a chance to tell him no, and what had she done? She’d threatened to kill him if he stopped. He may have started it, he may have pushed the issue, but she was the one who had made the final decision.
He had to ask himself why. If she had no desire to stay with him, why had she given herself to him so boldly, so totally? She’d given him the priceless gift of her virginity, and he knew he hadn’t left her wanting. Pride and ego aside, he knew he had more than satisfied her every time they had come together.
Even yesterday, he hadn’t even had to touch her, yet she had wanted him. She’d tried to deny her feelings, but her body had betrayed her.
“This entire conversation is ludicrous,” she said tightly.
Spence studied her face. She was still trying to deny her feelings. Maybe she needed some time away from him, time to think about all that had passed between them. Time to grow more comfortable with the idea of being his wife.
To hell with that. From the look of ire and panic in her eyes, if he left her on her own, she was more likely to take off for Mexico again than to come to him.
“I’m sorry you look at it that way,” he told her quietly.
“How else am I supposed to look at it? From the time I was eleven years old, some white man has been ordering me around, telling me what to do, where to live, how to act. I thought by coming back to Arizona I could be free. Instead, I find myself with another warden. If that’s to be the case, I might as well go back to Alabama and live with the tribe.”
Her words stung, made him angry. “What the hell would that prove, except what a loyal little martyr you are? Poor LaRisa, can’t have her own way. Well I’ve got news for you, honey, most people don’t get their own way in this life. What is it you want to do so bad that you think you can’t do here, with me?”
“Walk away.”
“You think you could walk away from Alabama? On your own? And do what, dammit? Go where?”
“I don’t know!” she shouted, her cheeks flushed.
“Well, I do. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference where you go. If you want to survive, you’re going to have to find a man to protect you, provide for you. I know I’m not the warrior you wanted, but grow up and open your eyes. There aren’t any warriors left. You’re stuck with an ordinary man. This whole damn thing about me going back into medicine was your idea. If I’ve got the guts to try it, you by God better have the guts to see it through with me. You m
ight think about packing. We’ll be moving to town by the end of the week.”
“You don’t care at all about what I want, do you?”
“I don’t know what you want!” he cried. “All you ever talk about wanting is your freedom. What the hell does that mean? As far as I can see, you’re as free as any wife, white or Apache. A wife goes where her husband goes.”
“I never asked to be your wife!”
“Maybe not, but you sure as hell asked for me to spill my seed in you. Demanded it, if you’ll recall. What is it? Am I good enough for that, but not good enough to live with? Is that it?”
LaRisa blanched. She closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath. “I don’t believe you said that.”
Spence felt the fight drain out of him. He scrubbed his hands over his face, then sighed heavily. “I don’t either. You make me crazy, LaRisa. Just…dammit, don’t fight me on this. Come to Tucson with me. You can use those nursing skills of yours and help me with Mac’s patients. Give it a try. You never know—you might not mind being my wife half as much as you think you will.”
Chapter Nineteen
The move to Tucson took place three days later. LaRisa went, because she didn’t see what else she could do, short of stealing a horse and running away. Where would she go? Back to Mexico? Even if she could find her way to Pa-Gotzin-Kay, which she knew she couldn’t, Broken Hand was there. Broken Hand, who expected her to take the place of the wife he’d lost.
No, she couldn’t go back to Mexico.
Alabama, even without Broken Hand’s presence, was no solution, either. Not if freedom was what she really sought.
She could strike out on her own, choose a new town, a new territory, but that took money, and she had none. It also took courage she feared she lacked. To go to a strange place where she didn’t know a soul, to ask strangers for a job. To live totally alone. What kind of freedom was that? The freedom to be lonely and homesick.
She supposed she could have insisted on staying at the ranch, but she was the one who’d been so adamant about not living off the charity of Spence’s family. Then, too, her pride wouldn’t allow her to ask the Coltons to shelter her from one of their own. What excuse could she use? That she feared the things Spence made her feel? Wouldn’t they—and he—just love to know that.
Of course, since the day Spence had informed her they were moving, she’d had nothing to fear from him. He had not touched her, had not kissed her. He had spent his days in town with Mac. At home, he’d spent late into each night pouring over the latest medical journals. He had come to bed sometime after she’d finally fallen asleep each night, and had risen before she woke each morning.
She hoped fervently that tonight would be no different. Unlike the thick adobe walls of the Triple C ranch house, the walls in Mac’s rooms above his office were as thin as wet paper. She and Spence had moved into the guest room of the tidy two-bedroom quarters that morning.
It was a small room with one window that, if one were desperate enough to raise the shade, looked out over the side alley where the merchant across the way tossed his empty packing crates.
Before the window stood a bed large enough for two, with an iron bedstead. A small bedside table bearing a lamp and a wind-up alarm clock stood next to it. A dresser, a wardrobe, and a small spindle-backed chair made up the rest of the furnishings.
Next door was Mac’s bedroom, then there was a small parlor, a tiny dining area, and a minuscule kitchen.
Downstairs were Mac’s office and reception area, his examination room, a separate surgery room, and two small rooms in the back, one for storage of supplies, and one containing three cots for the few patients who sometimes needed to stay overnight.
The deep rumble of voices floated up through the floor. Spence and Mac were down there now, waiting for her. Spence had insisted she be present when Mac went over his files and bookkeeping system.
“He doesn’t need a wife,” she muttered as she checked her hair in the mirror over the dresser, then made her way to the narrow stairs at the back of the quarters. “He needs an assistant. I can do that. I can be a doctor’s assistant.”
“There she is.” Mac’s voice boomed down the narrow hall as LaRisa stepped into the office. “Did you get settled all right? Is everything okay? Do you need anything?”
LaRisa smiled. It was hard not to smile at Doctor Ira McIntosh and that blatant twinkle in his eyes. “Everything’s fine. Thank you for asking.”
“Good, good,” he said. “Well now. You’re just in time. I was just getting ready to explain my bookkeeping system. It’s as simple as pie. Shouldn’t give you any trouble at all.”
Which was a blatant lie, LaRisa soon found out. He purposely glossed over many of the entries. When she looked at them later, she understood why. Just how did one record the value of a payment made not in cash, but in farrier services, eggs, vegetables, beef, or chickens?
Then she noticed an entry from last April. Maybe “as simple as pie” was more appropriate than she’d thought. For curing her stomach ache, Mrs. Hank Ruebins had paid Mac with “three pies: one apple, two cherry.”
What, she wondered, would the local undertaker try to offer in lieu of cash?
The morning after Mac left, Spence was in the examination room patching up a man who’d had too much to drink the night before and had gone a couple of rounds with a hitching post. The post had won. Now the man was moaning in desperate misery as Spence cleaned the cuts and scratches on knuckles, cheeks, and forehead.
LaRisa was dusting in the reception room when the front door opened. A smiling woman not much older than herself came in, holding hands with a girl of about five, obviously her daughter.
The girl looked familiar, but it took LaRisa a moment to remember that she’d seen her in the dress shop the day Joanna had taken her shopping. Thank heaven the older woman, Mrs. Masters, was not with the child this time.
“Good morning,” LaRisa offered with a smile.
“Hello.”
An instant later, LaRisa realized she’d been thankful too soon, as another shadow filled the doorway. LaRisa recognized the woman instantly as Lettie Masters, the woman who had taken one look at her and claimed to smell something foul in the air.
The sudden chill in the woman’s eyes told LaRisa that she, too, remembered that day.
“Mother,” the younger woman said, turning toward Lettie Masters, “I told you, you didn’t need to come with us to get Janey’s stitches out. I know you were supposed to help get ready for the bake sale at church.”
“I still have time,” Mrs. Masters replied. Her hard eyes on LaRisa were in sharp contrast to her pleasant tone to her daughter. She glanced at the dust rag in LaRisa’s hand. “Do you work here?”
LaRisa forced a smile. “Something like that. I’m helping my husband while he fills in for Doctor Mac.”
The younger woman eyed her mother warily, then gave LaRisa a tentative smile. “You must be Mrs. Colton, Spencer’s wife. I’m Harriett Swanson. Your husband—”
Mrs. Masters snorted at the word husband.
“—was several years ahead of me in school…” Harriett shot her mother a pained look. “But I remember him. This is my mother, Mrs. Masters, and my daughter, Janey.” She smiled down at her blue-eyed daughter. “We’ve come to get Janey’s stitches out.”
Mrs. Masters shot her daughter a sharp look. “You didn’t tell me Doctor Mac wouldn’t be here.”
Harriett smiled tentatively at LaRisa. “Janey fell and cut her arm on a sharp rock.”
Beaming with pride, the child raised her forearm to show LaRisa the neat row of sutures along the back side.
“Oh, you poor thing,” LaRisa said. “I’ll bet that hurt.”
Janey nodded, still grinning. “I cried and cried. But it’s all better now, an’ today I get my stitches out. Billy Harkins is jealous ‘cause I’ll have a neat scar and he won’t.”
“Young ladies do not brag about their scars,” Mrs. Masters scolded.
J
aney hung her head, but her lips still edged upward at the corners. “Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Masters turned cold eyes on LaRisa. “You say you are Doctor Colton’s…wife?”
LaRisa bristled. The woman clearly made the word “wife” sound as though it were a joke. Still, these ladies were Spence’s patients. LaRisa did not wish to alienate them on his first day in practice. She swallowed her bile. “If you’d care to be seated, he’ll be with you shortly.”
“I don’t think so,” Mrs. Masters said indignantly. She took her granddaughter’s hand and reached for the door. “The day I’ll let a filthy Apache near my own flesh and blood will be the day my poor Hiram, God rest his soul, turns over in his grave.”
“Mother,” Harriett whispered, a deep blush staining her pale, freckled cheeks.
LaRisa bit the inside of her jaw to keep from flinging a sharp retort. The voices through the open door of the examination room had fallen silent. Perhaps that meant Spence was almost finished. If only he would hurry before the woman hauled Janey out the door.
Spence and his battered patient stepped into the room.
“Good morning, ladies,” Spence offered.
His patient sheepishly edged his way sideways past the ladies and toward the door. Through swollen lips, he muttered, “Ma’am,” and doffed his hat to Mrs. Masters. “Ma’am,” he added for Harriett. Then with a slight smile and a blush, he tipped his hat to Janey. “Little ma’am.”
Janey giggled. Her mother and grandmother nodded politely as the man slipped out the door.
“Mrs. Masters, Mrs. Swanson,” Spence greeted. He squatted down before the child. “You must be Miss Janey Swanson, the young lady Doctor Mac says likes to run too fast through those rocks out past the gully. How’s that arm of yours doing?”
Janey grinned and held her arm up for him to see. “It’s all better now. I come—”
“Came,” Harriett corrected.
“I…need to get my stitches out,” Janey finished with sly a grin. “What do I call you?”
Harriett knelt next to Janey. “This is Doctor Colton.”
Apache-Colton Series Page 175