Heartstrings (34 page)

He looked down at the ground, watching as the breeze blew through dead leaves. “The bad guys.”

“Bad guys?”

“They were three women.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Well, one was a woman and the other two were girls who grew up into women.”

Three!
Theodosia thought. “Will you tell me about them?”

He heard tenderness playing through the sound of her voice and remembered she was his friend, as he was hers. He squeezed her hand and nodded.

“Yes.”

She hadn’t expected him to yield so quickly. A thrill spun through her. “Truly? Why?”

“Why? That’s a strange question.”

“Be that as it may, I’d still like to know why.”

“Who the hell knows?”

“But surely there must be a reason.”

“I just feel like it! God, why does there have to be a reason for everything, Theodosia? Can’t you just accept things the way they are without picking them apart?”

“You don’t have to shout, Roman.”

He felt immediately contrite. She couldn’t help her inquisitiveness. It was as much a part of her as his hot temper was of him. “I shouted so you could see my uvula,” he said, hoping to soothe her with a bit of teasing. “Don’t you like the look of my uvula?”

“You—”

“I’ll have you know that I have the sexiest uvula in all of Texas, Theodosia. Maybe in all the country. Hell, probably in the entire world.”

“Roman, you are—”

“Handsome?”

She stared at him blankly for a moment before recovering from the surprise his question caused. “Yes, you are very handsome, but you are also—”

“What do you think is handsome about me? My face?” He turned his face so she could see his profile. “My muscles?” He flexed his arm muscles for her.

“Everything about you is handsome, Roman, but you would do well to know that you are incorrigible. Unmanageable, if you will.”

“Is that a compliment?”

She couldn’t resist laying her hand on his chest. His heart beat steadily beneath her palm, and she loved the feeling.

If Roman behaved any way other than the way he behaved, she mused, he would not be the Roman with whom she was so taken. “Yes, Roman, your being incorrigible is a compliment.”

Smiling smugly, he took her leaf from her fingers and folded it. Holding it to his mouth, he blew into it.

His action created a loud whistle that so startled Theodosia, she almost fell off the limb.

Roman steadied her instantly. “Want to try?” He folded another leaf and handed it to her.

Blowing into a leaf was the farthest thing from her mind, but she tried it anyway.

Roman laughed when the noise she produced sounded more like a snorting hog than a sharp clear whistle.

“I have not had the practice you have, Roman,” she said. “Perhaps if I had spent youthful days hiding in trees and eating raisin sandwiches, I would be as proficient at leaf-whistling as you are.”

He slid his knife from the sheath tied around his leg and used it to scratch into the limb.

Bits of bark flying into her lap, Theodosia waited for Roman to begin his story. She sensed his need to ponder his memories for a while and so summoned all the patience she possessed.

Her silence had a sound to Roman. Strange as it was, he could hear her understanding, her very real interest in him.

He felt as though he were hearing a song he’d never heard before. A beautiful song whose melody and lyrics had been written especially for him. And he knew then that sharing his past with the beautiful composer of that song would bring him a peace he’d longed to feel for years.

“Flora was her name,” he murmured. “She was my stepmother for thirteen of the longest years time has ever made. And then there was Cordelia. And Veronica. They were her daughters, my stepsisters. Cordelia was eight when they came to live on the farm, and Veronica was nine. I was five.”

He dug his knife into the tree limb for a while before continuing. “My mother died soon after I was born. I don’t know how my father met Flora, but I know he died about a year or so after he married her. Unlike you, I didn’t have any blood relatives to go to, so I had to stay with Flora and her daughters.”

Just the sound of Roman’s voice convinced Theodosia that his memories were going to be as sad to her as they were to him. She swallowed, trying to prepare herself.

“I don’t remember a whole lot about those early years, but one thing I recall well is that Flora and her daughters cried all the time. God, they never stopped.” Roman paused and ran his fingers over the marks he’d scratched into the limb. “Whenever something didn’t go their way, they cried. Flora didn’t make any sound when she cried, but Cordelia and Veronica wailed so loud that sometimes I thought they were in horrible pain. I guess I used to cry when I was little, but after I met Flora and her girls, I never cried again.”

He continued digging the tip of his blade into the limb. “Pa’s name was Bo. Bo Montana. Sometimes, if I don’t think real hard and just let the thoughts come, I can sort of remember what he looked like. He had black hair, and he was tall. I can’t recall what color his eyes were, but maybe they were blue like mine.

“Before Pa married Flora, he’d had a woman come to cook, clean, mend, and all that other stuff for us. She made big meals and lots of pies. When Flora moved in, the pie lady never came back again.

“I guess Flora started doing everything then. A year later, when Pa was gone, things changed. Flora gave Cordelia my bedroom. I must have been seven then. Before that, Cordelia and Veronica had shared a room. I had a collection of snakeskins on my bedroom wall, a squirrel-and-raccoon-tail rug on the floor, and rows of strange rocks on my windowsill. Cordelia took all my things out of the room. Flora wouldn’t let me put them anywhere else in the house, so I ended up taking them to the barn. Anyway, I started sleeping in the front room, and I slept there for thirteen years. But sometimes in the summer I slept outside.”

Though her eyes stung, Theodosia successfully won her battle with tears. “Who did all the chores when your father was gone, Roman?” she asked softly.

“I did the ones I could. Flora had some man come do the heavier jobs. But as soon as I was nine…or maybe I was ten…I don’t remember, anyway, around that time Flora gave me more to do so she wouldn’t have to pay the man as much money. We had our horse, a few cows, some pigs and chickens, a couple of turkeys, a vegetable garden, and small crops of corn and sorghum to tend to. I got up early and finished as much as possible, and then I went to school with Cordelia and Veronica. After school, I’d come home and work until night made it impossible to see.”

Theodosia could see by his scowl that his mood was steadily darkening. “How long were you able to stay in school?”

“Not long. Four years was all. I guess I was about fifteen when Flora decided I was old enough to take on the farm by myself. After that, I didn’t have time for school anymore. Cordelia and Veronica had a lot of books, though, and I’d borrow a few every now and then without them knowing. I’d read when I could, but God, there was always so much to do. So many chores, and Flora and her girls wanted so many things, made so many demands—”

He broke off as years-old bitterness erupted inside him, and took a moment to control his heated emotions. “They were three of the greediest people ever born. They had to have new furniture, a bigger porch, a better wagon, wider windows. Some of the things they wanted I made myself, but others I had to buy. To get the money, I started working for neighbors. By the time I was sixteen, I’d done all sorts of work and there was very little I didn’t know how to do. When I was seventeen, I rebuilt the house and added three new rooms. Flora used one as a tea parlor, one as a study for her girls, and the other for her own personal sitting room.”

Theodosia felt real fury toward the three women she’d never even met. Three rooms! she raged. And Roman hadn’t been given a one of them!

“But Flora and her daughters were never satisfied,” Roman went on, still carving the limb with his knife. “It didn’t matter how hard I tried to please them, they never said thank you. Instead, they complained. If I made them a table, they said it wasn’t big enough, or smooth enough, or high enough. The wagon I was able to get them wasn’t fancy enough, so they decided they wanted a carriage with velvet seats. I wasn’t able to get them that carriage, and they never let me forget it. I bet they cried over that for a solid six months.”

For a while he watched a bright red cardinal hop along a higher branch. “Maybe the worst thing, though, was that I always felt like they didn’t trust me to do things right. I tried so hard, Theodosia, but they never had any confidence in me, not even when I’d finished a big job well.”

Theodosia curled her hand around his shoulder. “Did Flora ever hurt you physically?”

“No, but you know what? She ignored me so much that a spanking every now and then might have been nice. Sounds strange, huh?”

“No, Roman,” Theodosia whispered, her heart in her throat. “It isn’t strange at all. A spanking, although negative, would have been a bit of attention, and that is what you were seeking.”

He saw the cardinal spring off the branch and watched until the bird flew out of sight. “Yeah, well, Flora never spanked me. Except for when she told me what she wanted me to do, she acted like I didn’t exist, and so did her daughters.”

Theodosia remembered his reaction to the shirtsleeve she’d mended for him and realized then that Flora Montana had never performed such menial tasks for her stepson. Whatever Roman had needed, he’d provided for himself.

“It occurred to me once that maybe they acted like that because they didn’t know me well,” Roman added quietly, and sighed. “So I started trying to tell them about the things I thought about. Things I wanted to do one day. Even before I had Secret, I’d wanted to raise horses. I told Flora about my dream of turning the farm into a horse ranch, and she said my plan was a castle in the air. She told me that I would never amount to much more than a dirt farmer. After that, I never told her anything again.”

Theodosia closed her eyes. So many bewildering questions had been answered that she didn’t know which one to ponder first.

Finally, one settled in her mind, and she dwelled upon Roman’s ignorance of unselfish love. Raised by demanding women, he had no way of understanding that giving was as much a part of love as receiving.

The thought caused her to remember his refusal to consider marriage. She knew now that his hesitation stemmed not only from his adverse feelings toward women but because after thirteen years of providing for his thankless stepmother and stepsisters, he simply could not bear the idea of having to take care of another woman.

And then there was his reluctance to discuss his goals. Yes, he’d eventually told her about them, but she suspected he’d never revealed them to anyone else. He was right to keep such lucrative plans to himself, but his secrecy involved more than that. Talking about his ambitions would have made him vulnerable to the same ridicule and lack of faith his stepmother had shown him.

Sighing, she opened her eyes again and saw that Roman was watching her. “Why didn’t you leave Flora and her daughters, Roman? I realize you were young, but as proficient as you were, you could have made your way in the world.”

The very real sorrow he heard in her voice touched him so deeply that he could not answer immediately. “I thought the farm would belong to me one day. Flora always said it would pass to me when I was eighteen. God, I loved that farm, Theodosia,” he murmured, clenching his hand into a fist. “It was home to me, and both Ma and Pa were buried on it. I couldn’t imagine ever leaving it, especially when I believed it would be mine. And I wanted to show Flora what I’d do with it. She said I’d be a dirt farmer, so I was hell-bent on becoming a rancher right before her eyes.”

Theodosia watched his fingers turn white around the hilt of his knife. “You didn’t get the farm, did you, Roman?” she asked achingly.

He turned away for a moment, his pain so agonizing that he didn’t want her to witness it. “No. I didn’t get the farm. She lied, Flora did. Pa hadn’t left a will. So when he died, the farm and everything on it passed to Flora. She lied to me to keep me there working for her. I’ve asked myself a million times why I didn’t ever ask to see Pa’s will, but I can never think of an answer. I don’t know why I believed Flora. I just don’t know. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’ve felt damned stupid over it for a long, long time. Every time I think about it, I curse myself for a fool.”

Theodosia realized Roman had every reason in the world to distrust women. Flora Montana had been beneath contempt, and the betrayal he’d suffered at her hands was unconscionable. “Roman,” she began, summoning every shred of the knowledge she’d gained from her years of intense study, “the human mind is incredible in many ways. Sometimes, when it senses the possibility of terrible grief, it devises a sort of defense mechanism to protect its own sanity.”

He turned back to look at her again.

She saw the hope in his eyes. Hope that she would somehow make him feel better.

And she knew then that she was speaking not only to Roman the troubled man, but to Roman the hurt little boy as well.

Taking a shaky breath, she chose her words with the greatest and most tender of care. “I think perhaps that you allowed yourself to trust Flora’s promise because you simply could not conceive the possibility of losing the land that meant so much to you. You shut away the terrible prospect to keep the worry from tormenting you. And you loved the land far more than you hated Flora. It was that love that gave you the strength to bear her cold treatment of you. Such feelings do not label you a fool, Roman, but a man with a gentle heart full of wonderful dreams.”