Grace be a Lady (Love & War in Johnson County Book 1) (11 page)

Thad
shoved a blanket and pillow at Grace, and gestured to the fireplace. “Make
yourself at home.”

Grace
felt like her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. Then, when Thad
sauntered over to his bed and started peeling out of his clothes, the air
escaped from her lungs. Realizing she was staring, especially at his rippled
stomach, she lunged for the fireplace. She couldn’t get the blanket spread fast
enough. Trying to make herself small and insignificant, she curled up, facing
the fire, and tried to force herself to sleep
 . . .
on the cold, hard floor.

The
sounds of movement and clothes hitting the floor stopped. She flinched, sure he
was staring at her.

“You
gonna sleep in your clothes?”

Oh,
why can’t he mind his own business?
“Yes.”

More
silence. A moment later, she heard the door. The quiet told her he’d left the
room, but she didn’t dare check. She just wanted to curl up here and be left
alone. Fully-clothed, no one could tell she was a female. Anything less and the
ruse might collapse. She wished Thad slept the same way. He’d peeled down to
his long johns and she’d gotten a fine view of his broad chest and lean
stomach. She punched her pillow and ordered herself to sleep.

However,
a knock at the door foiled that. With the second tap, she rose and answered the
caller. Adam stood in the hallway grinning like he’d just eaten a caged bird.
He shoved a pile of clothes at her. “There’s a couple of shirts, one pair of
jeans, and one pair of long johns that have only been patched once in the rear.
Mighty comfortable for sleeping.”

“Adam,
I can’t—”

“Oh,
yes, you can. I can spare ’em.” He motioned with them and Grace acquiesced,
accepting the clothes. “I think they’ll be big on ya, but, like my ma used to
say, you can grow into them.”

“Yes.”
Grace hesitantly hugged the bundle to her. “Thank you. I’m sure they’ll fit . . .
fine.” She hoped they’d still be plenty big on her. Adam was much broader
through the chest than she was.

“Oh,
and hey,” he snapped his fingers, “Cheyenne has a new bawdy show. You can go
with Nick and me and the boys if you want. I hear some of the gals’ costumes
are downright racy.”

Adam’s
eagerness to see a burlesque show was both endearing and disappointing. He was
a young man trying to grow up in a hurry and eager to find trouble. She noted,
though, the name he didn’t mention. “What about Thad?”

Adam’s
face fell. The glee transformed to chagrin. “Thad doesn’t go. And he doesn’t
approve of us going. Says the show puts us in bad company.” The boy’s face
changed once more. His brow gathered and he set his jaw. “But you got to have
some fun sometimes.”

“I
guess.” Grace hated to scold the boy, but Thad was right about the type of men
who attended those shows. “There’s something else you should consider. Those
girls you’re gawking at are somebody’s daughters. Or sisters. Maybe even
mothers.”

Adam
winced. “Yeah, well . . .” he scratched his chin. “I guess so. I
don’t have a sister so I never thought of it that way.”

Grace
didn’t say anything else. She could see Adam’s conscience working on him. He’d
go or he wouldn’t. She hoped he’d choose the right path and be a better man . . .
like Thad?

“Night,
Greg.” Dispirited, Adam wandered away down the darkened hallway.

The
long johns did look appealing. Grace ran her hand over them as she pushed the
door shut with her hip. Soft and freshly-laundered. Did she dare risk changing?
She scurried over to the fireplace, glanced over her shoulder at the door once
more, and started unbuttoning her shirt.

She
was just sliding out of it when Thad knocked and burst into the room. Grace
gasped and pulled the shirt back up, grasping it closed in front. “Don’t you knock?”

Wearing
his long johns unbuttoned to the waist, his lean, upper body exposed, Thad drew
up short. He looked so honestly perplexed by the suggestion Grace had to stifle
a laugh.

But
thinking about what he
could
have seen sobered her.

His
bravado returning, Thad sauntered over to his bed. “I don’t think you’ve got
anything I haven’t seen before.”

Wanna
bet?
“Still, it’s polite to knock.” She stood with her
shirt pinched closed, hugging the long johns like a shield.

Thad
scratched his head as if she was an oddity he’d never figure out. “Okay, fine.
You like your privacy. How’s this?” He leaped onto his bed, slid beneath the
covers and put his back to her.

Grace
didn’t move for several seconds until she was sure he wasn’t
funnin’
her.
Convinced, mostly, she faced the fire and finished changing. The long johns
were big, but not big enough to hide her curves. She couldn’t be seen in them.
She wrapped the blanket Thad had given her around herself, and settled once again
on the floor. Unfortunately, it hadn’t softened any in the last few minutes. She
punched the pillow, shifted weight off her shoulder, shifted again, and rolled
over onto her back.

She
surveyed Thad’s room, painted in moving shadows from the fire; a bed, a
dresser, a desk, and a bookcase filled with books. Over his bed hung a painting
of a cowboy standing next to his horse. Because of the dim light, Grace couldn’t
be sure, but the man sure looked like Thad. Strong jaw, blond hair blowing in
the wind, he held the horse’s reins in one hand, his hat in the other, and
stared off at the distant mountains. His intense, meditative expression gave
the picture a sort of melancholy feel, as if he was looking for someone.

“A
fella named Charlie Russell did that painting.” Thad had rolled back over in
the bed and was watching her. “He’s gettin’ some notoriety now, I hear.”

“It’s
very good. But you look like you’re . . . searching for
something.”

Thad
considered her for a moment then settled on his back. Tucking his hands beneath
his head, he studied the ceiling. “Charlie was kind of a sentimental rascal. He
said I was lookin’ for
her 
. . . a woman . . .
the
woman.”

“Were
you?”

“I
don’t know,” he sounded a little frustrated and Grace got the impression he
didn’t really want to talk about this, yet he continued. “He saw me up on that
ridge and rode over. Asked if I’d stay put long enough for him to sketch me
in.” Thad wagged his foot beneath the covers, showing his agitation. “He asked
me the same thing. I said I was lookin’ for my future. He said
she
was
out there. That God was herding her to Wyoming. Just give Him time.”

The
strangely sentimental story left Grace puzzled. “You didn’t think she was
already here?”

His
foot stopped. “No, but I think she is now.” His expression went from thoughtful
to troubled. Grace could see the shadows of the creases in his forehead.

Thinking
she should change the subject, she spotted the guitar hiding in the shadows.
“Who taught you to play the guitar?”

“We
had a hand pass through a few years ago, Southern boy with a banjo. He sort of
helped me figure it out.” Thad chuckled softly. “We sure used to have some
lively parties here, before Ma died. Back then, Pa even liked the guitar.”

“Pardon
me for saying so, but he doesn’t seem to like much of anything now. Kind of
strikes me as a hard-case.”

“He . . .”
Thad paused here, so long that Grace thought he’d fallen asleep. Then, finally,
he said, “Pa is building a future for us; not just for his family, but for his
hands and for this state. It’s a lot of pressure.”

Grace
knew an excuse when she heard one, an excuse to cover up a man losing his soul.
It wouldn’t take much, in her opinion, for Earl Walker to rival Bull in
avarice, violence, and ambition. It wasn’t her place to say that. It wasn’t her
place to offer advice, either, but . . . “You love your pa?”

“Of
course I do.”

“Then
you should talk to him. Try to make him see what he’s changing into.”

“What
makes you such an expert on family?”

“I’ve
seen—”
The darkest side of a man
. “I’ve seen what Grace is married to.
Bull stops at nothing to run his little empire. I mean nothing.”

“How
did she wind up married to somebody like him?”

Grace
took her turn wagging her foot while she thought.
How indeed.
“He’s a
charmer when he wants to be. But it’s just a way he manipulates people. And he
moves fast. Pushes them into decisions they’re not ready to make.” Perhaps if
she hadn’t been so blinded by the glamour, the charm . . .

“And
she was young,” Thad offered. “We make all kinds of mistakes when we’re young.”
Grace knew he was thinking about the stampede again, but there was something
else.
Someone
else?

“Yes,
all kinds of mistakes,” she whispered, the absence of Hardy making her throat
hurt.

“Anyway,
I was just funnin’ you about sleepin’ on the floor. Unless you bust broncs in
your sleep, you’re welcome up here.” With that, he rolled over, putting his
back on display.

Grace
was stunned at the offer. Men sharing beds was certainly a common thing, but
she was . . . well, she was
Grace
.

But
he didn’t know that.

Her
lower back started pounding as the hard wood floor drove into her spine. She
eyed the bed  . . . and Thad’s outline beneath the quilt. The
mattress called to her.

Swallowing
her pride—or fear—she rose, went to the bed and slid in as gently as she could.
Her hips and back thanked her. She lay there for a moment, pondering the man
next to her, breathing in his scent. He smelled of leather and lilac water.
Lying in the bed with him seemed both scandalous and . . .
comforting
.
She flinched at the sordid thought and rolled over onto her side.

But
he was so near she could feel the warmth emanating from him.

“Thad,
have you ever been with a woman?” The question had leapt unbidden from her
mouth, but the way he longed for love, for Grace . . . intrigued
her. She thought perhaps he didn’t know love from physical attraction.

“You
mean in the Biblical sense?”

The
phrase caught her off-guard, but she thought she understood the meaning. “Uh,
yes.”

“There
was a girl a few years back. I thought I wanted to marry her. We almost, but . . .”
Again, he dragged out his response, the long silence full of thoughts Grace
wished she could hear. “But I suspected she loved something more than me and we
never . . .” He shifted in the bed, and the volume of his voice
said he had turned toward her. “Since then, I’ve come to learn the difference.”

“The
difference?”

“In
holding a woman . . . and holding the
right
woman.”

He
sounded a little . . . mystified, as if he were musing out loud.
Afraid of intruding, but still curious about Thad’s observation, she asked, “And
you learned that how?”

“Well,
my ma told me.”

“Your
ma? How did she know?”

“She
said Pa told her.”

Grace
had to ponder that. Earl Walker, at one point in his life, had a soft side, a
romantic side? She couldn’t imagine it.

“Greg,
you’ll get a lot of pressure from the ranch hands to visit the girls at the
Number Nine. Or maybe a girl will come along that you like
a lot
and
it’ll be hard to resist . . .” Thad laid his hand on Grace’s
shoulder. “But, if you call yourself any kind of a man, wait. Make sure she’s
the one you want to spend the rest of your life with. It’s the way God intended
things.”

Grace
didn’t know what to make of Thad Walker. And, she realized, based on his
standards,
she’d
never been with a man. A brute, a bully, a philandering
child in a man’s body—but not a real man.

Like
Thad.

What
in the world could a woman love more than him?
She frowned, perplexed by the question that he’d so casually glossed over.
“What did she love more than you?”

He
punched her shoulder and lay back down. “Excitement. Katie wanted to see the
world and write about it. One day she will. Right now, she’s writing stories
for the Cheyenne Daily Sun.”

“Did
she break your heart?”

Again,
he took his time answering. “In hindsight, I guess not. And I’m glad we didn’t . . .
you know. That wouldn’t have changed the outcome. It would have made things
worse.” He slapped Greg on the rear end. “So, you make sure you wait. Now get
some sleep.”

For
Grace, though, sleep was a long time coming.