by Jenna Kernan
Charlie tossed me a lifeline. “Gale, how’d you like to trail six of those mustangs to a rancher I know in Idaho and bring back a stud horse I’m looking to buy?”
I tried not to look too eager. Couldn’t have come at a better time; I needed some space to breathe. Even so, Alice gave me a sharp look.
“Yeah, be glad to.”
“Could you leave in the morning?” Charlie added.
“Yeah. You sendin’ anybody with me?”
“No. We’re shorthanded with Ernesto gone. You’re on your own.”
I spent the rest of the day packing up my gear and picking out the six mustangs so Skip and Jase could get them shod. Driving them from Oregon all the way to Idaho would take me the best part of two weeks. When I got back, it would be winter.
Consuelo packed me up a saddlebag full of biscuits and a slab of bacon. At the last minute I slipped in a bottle of whiskey. Figured I needed it.
When I rode out the Rocking K gate the next morning I had a strange feeling inside, part relief and part pain. Guess I pretty well knew that both had to do with Lilah Cornwell.
I had to stop thinking about it. Had to stop thinking about Lilah. She didn’t know much about being with a man, but, God, when I showed her, she took my breath away.
The sun was just coming up, and when I looked back there was Alice, heading across the meadow to my cabin to do something I’d asked her to do. It was a long shot, but I figured I didn’t have a choice. I had nothing to offer Lilah. Not a damn thing.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Lilah
I guessed that I would not see Gale much after the night we had spent together. Something about the way he’d looked when he had left that next morning...well, he’d looked almost scared. I kept busy writing a new story and sprinkling water on my new seedbed. They wouldn’t sprout until next spring, but I wanted to give them a head start.
The front section of my garden was beginning to stop passersby. Crimson and orange nasturtiums trailed in profusion around swirls of yellow black-eyed Susans. What an eye for color Gale had! The way he’d arranged the blooms in drifts made me catch my breath every time I looked at them.
One morning I was out watering when Alice Kingman drove up in her buggy. “I’m on my way to the train station to mail something for Gale.” She tipped her head at a large square package on the seat beside her. “Would you come for dinner at the ranch?”
I swallowed. “Thank you, but I’d rather not, Alice. I imagine you are all extrabusy with Ernesto gone.”
“Gale is gone, too,” she said. “Charlie sent him to Idaho to buy a stud horse.”
Oh. That explained why I hadn’t seen him for almost two weeks. “Alice, what is a stud horse?”
She had a fit of the giggles over my question. “My heavens, Lilah, you are a city girl through and through. A stud horse is a lusty male stallion. It mates with the mares.”
I nodded, and Alice grinned at me. “And don’t ask me to explain how a stallion mates with a mare.”
My face burned. “I won’t, I promise.”
“Come out to the ranch next week, then, before Gale gets back. It will do you good.”
I couldn’t imagine what good it could do me, so the minute Alice drove off toward the train station, I forgot about it. But on her way back to the ranch she stopped again and made me promise to come out on Sunday. She insisted in a rather peculiar way, which struck me as odd for a woman as easygoing as a ranch owner’s wife.
Lord knew I didn’t want to go. Christmas was just weeks away, and I had a million things to do: letters to write, cookies to bake. I even planned to make paper chains and decorate a tree. Besides, with Gale gone I knew I would have to fend off the attentions of Jason and Skip; Juan was too well mannered to do much flirting, and Charlie simply didn’t notice what went on under his nose.
I went back to my unfinished story. Lately I found myself saving more typewritten pages than I was crumpling up and tossing in the wastebasket, so I was writing in a fever. The words for my love stories were coming easier, and I blushed to think about why.
Sunday afternoon at the ranch proved to be even more uncomfortable than I had anticipated. I told myself it was not Gale’s absence, but the truth was I suspected Gale’s being gone had more to do with me than any stud horse Charlie wanted brought from Idaho. It made me feel all mixed-up inside.
I scarcely noticed the wild tales Jason and Skip bandied about; Juan was extratalkative, reminiscing about his uncle Ernesto and how they had come from Mexico together. After we had devoured one of Consuelo’s double-layer chocolate cakes, I noticed Charlie and Alice sitting close together on the porch swing with his arm around her shoulders, and a pain laced through my chest. After a while Charlie ambled off to the corral, and the ranch hands followed.
“You look somber this afternoon, Lilah,” Alice remarked when we were alone. “Are you thinking of Ernesto?”
“No. I’ve thought about him so often these past weeks I think my brain is tired.”
“About Gale, then?” Alice’s sharp eyes studied my face.
“N-no. Alice, the truth is it would do me no good at all to think about Gale.”
She stopped the swing’s motion. “Why is that?”
“Because I, well, I do not imagine he is thinking of me. I do not think Gale really cares very much about me.”
Until I heard my voice say the words, I hadn’t realized I felt that way, but it was true. I knew Gale had wanted me physically that night, but Gale was a man, a “stud,” doing what a man will do. He hadn’t even said goodbye before he’d left for Idaho.
All at once Alice again stopped the swing and stood up. “Come with me, Lilah. There is something I want you to see.”
Uneasy, I followed her down the porch steps, along the gravel path in front of the house and out across the grassy meadow. We were heading toward the cabin I had noticed that day Gale had taken me riding. Gale’s cabin.
“Gale told me no one ever comes to his cabin,” I said.
“No one except me,” Alice said with a smile. “Come on. I have his permission.”
She climbed the three split-log steps, crossed the narrow plank porch and ran her fingers along the top of the door frame. With the key, she unlocked the solid wood door, pushed it open and stepped inside.
I followed her into a sunshine-filled room and caught my breath. The cabin was neat and well cared for, with shelves spanning the walls that were stuffed with a haphazard array of books. Pencil sketches were tacked all over one wall. A fieldstone fireplace faced a narrow bed and a plain wooden chest, and an array of iron skillets and pots hung over the spotless woodstove. Raw wood beams soared overhead.
I turned to Alice. “Who built this?”
“Gale built it. It took him six years.”
One wall was completely covered with pictures. Paintings! Mountain scenes, rivers tumbling through rocky canyons; portraits, including a handsome one of Ernesto, one of Alice sitting in the porch swing, even one of Ernesto’s nephew, Juan, squatting by a campfire. There were paintings of horses in a golden field, ranch hands branding cattle, Jason leaning against the corral fence, his face hidden by his wide-brimmed hat. There was even one of my flower bed!
Paintings covered every spare inch of wall space. In the center of the room stood a large easel bathed in light from one of the large windows. A canvas drape covered it.
“Did Gale paint all these?”
Alice nodded. “He did.”
“You mean he is a...a painter?” I shook my head in disbelief. “But he’s your foreman. When could he find time to paint all these?”
“During the day he works for Charlie. At night he works for himself. I often see a light burning.”
“But...” I snapped my mouth shut. “This is what you wanted to show me?”
My own face looked back at me. It was done in tones of peach and warm red-browns, and I couldn’t stop staring at it.
“So you see?” Alice laid her hand on my arm. “Gale does think about you. He thinks about you all the time.”
I was speechless.
She covered up my portrait with a quiet smile. “You must not tell him that I showed this to you, Lilah.”
I was so overcome I could only nod. And then I burst into tears. I sniffled all the way back to the ranch house, where Consuelo gave me a worried look and brought me an extrabig cup of coffee.
I was still dazed the next morning when Alice drove me home in the buggy. At my gate, she made me promise, twice, that I would say nothing to Gale about seeing his paintings.
“Nothing,” she repeated, looking into my face with serious, unblinking eyes. “Not one word.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Gale
I delivered the six mustangs to Fort Hall, picked up the stallion Charlie sent me to buy and headed home. Have to admit I diddle-daddled along the trail, in no hurry to get back to Oregon and the Rocking K. And Lilah.
Some nights I lay awake wondering what the hell I was doing. Other nights, sitting up late by a smoldering campfire, I thought maybe I knew. I’d fallen in love with Lilah Cornwell, and that was the last thing I’d wanted to do.
I twisted it every which way, but it still came out the same. I wanted to see her. Wanted to touch her and kiss her and watch her eyes after a shot of whiskey or in those quiet moments after I made love to her. But...
I had to face it. I had nothing to offer her. Making love to her was one thing. Letting myself really love her, care about her...that was something I couldn’t risk.
It was a long, lonesome ride back to the Rocking K, and every single damn mile I was hungry for things I couldn’t have.
After four hundred miles it got to the point where I saw her face everywhere I looked and heard her voice on every breeze.
When I got back to the ranch I just wanted to turn around and head back to Idaho. I unsaddled Randy and rubbed him down along with the new stallion, stalled them and dumped some oats in their feedbags. Then I tramped across the meadow to my cabin and drank whiskey until I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t ever remember being this lonely.
I slept for two days. When I woke up and felt the sun warm on my face, I knew I had to see Lilah. I put it off for two days, and then Alice told me she was coming to dinner again on Sunday.
That made me sweat some.
“She may want to go riding again, Gale,” Alice confided after supper. “You’ll take her out? Consuelo could pack up a picnic lunch, and—”
“No.” I snapped the word at her. “It’s winter. Too cold to ride.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. I swore at her inside my head. That Alice was a woman full of yesses. Bet when she and Charlie were courting, she’d given him a run for his money. Maybe she still did.
When Juan drove up on Sunday on a crisp, windy day with Lilah sitting in the buggy in some sort of ruffly blue-striped dress I thought I’d died and gone to hell. Couldn’t keep my eyes off her, but I had to wait until she wasn’t looking to really gaze at her. Otherwise she’d see everything written all over my face.
Hell and damn, I couldn’t string her along any further. Better make a clean break.
I decided I’d do it on our picnic. But first she wanted to see the stallion I’d brought from Idaho.
She stood for a long time peering into the stall, and when she turned away to mount on Lady, she had a funny look on her face. I climbed up on Randy and we rode out to the river. The day was cold, but she didn’t seem to notice. Half a mile along the riverbank she reined in and sat waiting for me to catch up.
“I have something to tell you,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been waiting to tell you. It’s a surprise.”
“What is it?” My throat was so tight I could barely get the words out. “You’re pregnant,” I guessed.
Lilah laughed and all of a sudden I wanted to strangle her. “Oh, no,” she said, those blue eyes dancing. “Although that would be nice, too.”
“Well, what is it?” My voice came out as growly as a bad-tempered grizzly, and I opened my mouth to apologize, but she just smiled at me, and kept on smiling. Damn, under the brim of her felt hat her face was lit up like Christmas candles. Whatever it was, she was sure happy about it. I wondered if she’d feel that way if I had got her pregnant.
I reached over and tipped her chin up with my forefinger. “Tell me, dammit.”
“I sold one of my stories. To a lady’s magazine in New York.”
I sure didn’t know what to say about that except congratulations. So I said that.
“It’s a love story,” she said.
“Figured it was, since you told me that’s what you write.”
“It’s a really good love story, Gale. One I am proud of.”
She kicked Lady into a walk and kept talking. “It has lots of visual detail and suspense, just as you suggested, remember?”
Lord, yes, I remembered. I was afraid of what she might remember.
“You have a love scene in this story?”
“Oh, yes. An extremely romantic one.”
I caught Lady’s bridle and brought the mare to a halt. “You didn’t...” I couldn’t finish what I was thinking.
She tipped her face up to mine, and now her eyes looked troubled. “Oh, no, Gale. I could never, never write about that night with you. That is private. It always will be private.”
I released the mare and we rode on side by side. “What happened that night was just between us.”
“Just between us,” she repeated. “I would never share it with anyone.”
I waited for what I thought was coming next, a question about why I hadn’t been to see her all these weeks. But she kept on riding.
And I kept on waiting.
The next thing out of her mouth was an even bigger surprise. “Could we go swimming in the river?”
“Swimming!” Was she nuts? I’d see her naked, or almost, and all my sensible hands-off talk would fly away on the wind.
“Don’t think so,” I managed.
“Why not?”
“Water’s too cold.”
“Isn’t that why one goes swimming? To cool off?”
“Sometimes. Not today.”
She paid no attention. “I think so, after we have our picnic. Over there, under those trees.” She pointed to a stand of maples, rode over and waited for me to help her dismount.
I slid out of Randy’s saddle and she held out her arms. Putting my hands around her waist cut my breath off. She came down way too close to me.
Her hair smelled good, like lemons. God, she had no idea what she was putting me through. I must have let out a groan because she got that little frown between her eyebrows I remembered from the first time I ever laid eyes on her.
She looked up. “Are you hungry?”
That made me laugh. “Hell, yes.”
“Is this a good place for a picnic?” She waved one hand toward the slow-flowing river a few yards away.
“It’ll do, I guess.”
All at once she looked up at me. “You are not glad to see me, are you, Gale?”
Goodness, she could be direct. “Yes and no.”
“Explain.”
I swallowed hard. “Yes, because seeing you makes me damn happy. And no, because I’m trying like hell not to compromise you any more than I already have.”
Without a word she turned away and moved to a grassy spot under a hal
f-grown maple. I grabbed the blanket and the picnic basket tied behind my saddle and tramped after her. My jeans were starting to feel way too tight.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Lilah
I was so elated over the sale of my story I felt I could fly, but I sensed that Gale did not want to come on this picnic with me. Or even talk. We ate Consuelo’s bacon sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs and chocolate cupcakes, but my mood drooped lower and lower as I realized that Gale was foreman out here on the Rocking K ranch and I was a writer who lived in town.
There was no future for us. Gale was strong enough to face it, and he was trying not to hurt me, but I could not accept it. Soon I would have to follow Aunt Carrie’s example and lie to this man. I would have to tell him it did not matter.
But it did. No man had ever mattered to me the way Gale McBurney did. And I knew that no man ever would.
I swallowed the last crumb of my cupcake and stood up. Gale lounged on the picnic blanket, his hat pulled over his face. “Where are you going?”
“Swimming.” I unbuttoned my blue chambray shirt and shed my boots and riding skirt.
“Don’t.” He spoke from under his hat.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t take off any more.”
“You’re watching?”
“Damn right.”
I turned my back, walked to the riverbank and dipped one toe in the water. It was freezing cold! I wanted the man to kiss me, but I couldn’t ask him to. So I settled for a swim instead, no matter how cold it was.
“Watch out for rocks under the surface,” he called. I shot a glance back at him, and he was still lying with his hat over his face.
I splashed into the deep pool closest to the bank and almost screamed as the icy water closed over me. What was I thinking? It was almost Christmas, too wintry for swimming in anything but a bathtub full of hot water. When I surfaced, Gale was stalking back and forth along the edge with a scowl on his face.
“C-come on in,” I called, beginning to shiver. To keep warm I started to tread water.