One Texas Night (16 page)

When she knew no one was watching, she climbed on her horse and rode into the darkness. She didn’t need much light, for she knew the trail by heart. In fact, she knew the land for miles around. For as long as she could remember, she’d saddled up before dawn and rode out to watch the sunrise, crisscrossing the land before anyone else was up and about.

When she was in sight of her home, she remembered what her father had said about staying long enough to dance. If he got home and found her already there, he’d probably yell at her.

Laurel turned toward the cottonwoods along the creek that separated the captain’s land from the Darnell place. She rode through the shallow water until she reached a spot where cliff walls on either side of the creek were high enough to act as fence. There, twenty feet into the walled area, she found the slice in the rocks just big enough for a horse to climb up out of the water and through. No one watching from either ranch could have seen her, but one minute she was on Hayes’ land and the next on Rowdy’s property.

She knew he’d still be at the rodeo grounds. Everyone would want to shake his hand. She’d even heard several say that his ride was the best they’d ever seen.

As the land spread out before her, Laurel gave her mount his head and they began to run over the open pasture. Rowdy’s place had always been so beautiful to her. The way the ground sloped gently between outcroppings of rock colored like different shades of brick lined up. The landscape made her feel like every detail had been planned by God. Almost as if He’d designed the perfect ranch. Rich earth and good water. Then, He had set it down so gently in the middle of the prairie that no one had even noticed it.

She rode close enough to the ranch house to see that no light shone, then decided to turn toward home.

At the creek’s edge, she thought she heard another horse. Laurel slipped down and walked between the trees until she saw a man standing shoulder deep in the middle of the stream.

Her first thought was that she might have been followed. But most of the men who worked for her father were at the dance and someone following wouldn’t be a quarter mile away from the pass-through wading in the deepest part of the stream.

She stood perfectly still in the shadows and listened. The sound of a horse came again not far from her. As her eyes adjusted, she spotted Cinnamon standing under a cottonwood with branches so long they almost touched the water.

Rowdy had to be the man in the water.

Laurel wanted to vanish completely. She couldn’t get to her land, he stood in between her and the passage. If she moved he might spot her, or worse, shoot her as a trespasser for she
was
on his property.

Closing her eyes, she played a game she’d played when she was a child. If I can’t see him, he can’t see me, she thought.

“Laurel?” His low voice was little more than a whisper. “Is that you?”

She opened one eye. He’d walked close enough to her that the water now only came to his waist. His powerful body sparkled with water. “It’s me,” she admitted, trying not to look directly at him because there was no doubt that he was nude.

“I was . . . I was . . .”

“Turn around,” he ordered.

“But . . .”

He took a step closer. “I don’t plan to come out until you turn around.”

She nodded and whirled. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I swear. I was just riding and I thought you’d be at the dance, so you wouldn’t be home and I could ride on your land without anyone bothering me.” She was rambling, but she couldn’t seem to stop. She didn’t want him to think that she was looking for him, or worse, spying on him. “I know I’m trespassing, but you’ve been gone so long I didn’t think about anyone being on the place.”

“Laurel.” He barely whispered her name, but he was so near she jumped. “You can turn around now.”

Squaring her shoulders, she faced him. He’d pulled on his jeans and had a towel wrapped around the back of his neck. The same towel she’d given him that morning. She couldn’t say another word. She could only stare. Until this moment she’d thought she saw the boy she remembered from school when she looked at Rowdy, but no boy stood before her.

“I’m glad you came.” He shoved his wet hair back. “I looked for you after the rodeo. I wanted to say I was sorry I snapped at you. I was nervous about the ride and didn’t feel much like talking.”

“You were right. You did know what you were doing. That ride was magnificent.”

He didn’t seem to hear her as he continued. “I’m not used to much conversation, but you had a right. We’re partners after all.” He smiled at her and she swore he could see her blush. “If you ride by here often, I might want to change my bathing habits.”

“I’m sorry . . .”

He reached behind her and grabbed his shirt off the cottonwood. “How about we stop apologizing to each other and relax? Deal, partner?”

“Deal,” she managed. “Why aren’t you at the dance?”

“Why aren’t you?” he countered as he buttoned his shirt.

“I . . . I . . .” She could think of no answer but the truth and she didn’t want to tell him that. He could figure it out for himself. She wasn’t the kind of girl anyone asked to dance. First, she was taller than half the men. Second, she was so shy she couldn’t talk to them and, third, everyone knew she was the captain’s plain daughter. The old maid.

“I can’t dance either,” he said.

She smiled. He’d given her a way out.

Without a word, he took her hand and led her to a spot of moonlight shining near the water’s edge. She sat on a log and he stretched out in the grass as if they were old friends settling down for a long visit.

Somehow the shadows made it easier to talk. She told him everything she’d heard about the stock and the other riders. He said he’d drawn calf roping for tomorrow. She mentioned all the extra things going on around the rodeo. Besides the dance, there was a box supper one night and a horse race, as well as a sharpshooting contest.

When they talked of the competition, she told him of her dreams of working in a bank and maybe buying her own little house one day on a quiet street. With the money they’d get if he won, she might have enough for a down payment. Though she planned to put most of the money away for a rainy day. A woman alone has to prepare for that.

He told her of living on a ranch, a busy, productive one, not a dead one like his father’s place. She had the feeling as he talked of what he wanted to do that he was voicing a boy’s dreams he’d tucked away at fifteen and hadn’t brought out again until tonight.

They settled into an easy silence, listening to the sounds around them. Finally, he said, “I talked with Dan O’Brien after I rode. He said he’d heard I’d been in prison and wanted to know if it was true.”

“What did you say?” She knew it wouldn’t be a secret for long, but she thought they might make it through the rodeo without everyone knowing.

“I said I had.” Rowdy stared up at her. “No matter what folks say I’ve done, I’m not in the habit of lying, Laurel. Not now, not ever.”

Even when she looked at the water she could still feel his dark eyes watching her. “What did Dan say?”

“He said it didn’t matter to him; he was in the habit of judging a man for himself, not by what he heard, but he wanted to know from me if the rumors were true.”

She’d never given the farmer a glance, but the next time she passed Dan O’Brien on the street she planned to nod politely, maybe even say good morning to the man.

“From the morning I heard about the shooting, I didn’t believe you did it,” she said, almost to herself.

“You were the only one,” he answered.

She agreed. “I went away to school before the trial, but I kept up with it in the papers. No one wanted to believe it might have been a stray bullet, but after you went to prison all the boys who’d been on the creek that night found reasons to leave town. I think they felt sorry for what they’d done.”

“Not sorry enough to drop me a note.” Rowdy stood and walked to the water’s edge. “You have any idea what prison’s like when you’re fifteen? I spent the first year mad at the world and the second wishing I was dead. No one would have cared, one way or the other.”

“I would have,” she answered, then hurried on when he glared back at her as if he was about to call her a liar. “I know it couldn’t have been as bad as prison, but the school my father sent me to was dark and hard. Most of the girls were two or three years older than me and offered no friendship. I had no one to talk to and my family never wrote. On Sundays, we had to go to chapel and pray.” She straightened. “I prayed you were safe.”

All the anger melted away from Rowdy. He walked back to her and knelt down beside her. “Why?”

She shook her head. “Maybe because you were the only person I knew who had also been sent away to hell.”

She stood, embarrassed by her own honesty, and straightened her skirts as if they’d been having tea in her parlor. “I’d better get back.”

He held the reins of her horse. “Let me help you up,” he said from behind her as she reached for the saddle horn.

She almost said that she’d been climbing on a horse by herself since she was six. Instead, she nodded. She felt the warmth of his body only an inch away from hers.

Hesitantly, his hands went around her waist. He lifted her up. Laurel closed her eyes and imagined that he was really touching her out of caring and not politeness.

His hands remained at her waist for a moment. “I haven’t been around a woman in a long time,” he said. “I’ve forgotten how they feel. I know you’re strong, but I’m afraid I’ll break you if I hold too tight.”

She almost said that she’d never been touched with such care. He’d lifted her as if she were a treasure.

He moved his hand over hers. “I like the way you feel, Laurel. I’ll be careful helping you up if you allow me to when we’re alone.”

When he started to move his hand away, she caught his fingers in hers and held on tightly. She might not be able to tell him how she felt, but she had to show him.

He finally pulled his hand away and whispered, “It’s all right, Laurel. I think I understand.”

When she took the reins, he stepped back and watched her leave. Neither said a word.

She rode back through the passage and straight home, her thoughts full of the way he’d touched her.

When she walked down the hall, she wasn’t surprised to see her father’s study light still on. The man never went to bed if he could walk straight.

“There you are, girl,” he yelled in a slurred voice watered down by a dozen drinks. “I’m glad to see you stayed awhile at the dance. Filmore mentioned that he worried about you being so shy. A banker needs a wife who can be part of society, not a mouse running to the corner every time someone talks to her.”

“Jeffery Filmore never talks to me, only at me.” Laurel voiced her thoughts for once.

Her father laughed. “That doesn’t matter, girl. I never did have a conversation longer than a minute with my Rosy and we got along just fine.”

Rosy had been his second wife. She’d died ten years ago, but he still mourned her, especially around bedtime.

Laurel tried again. “What if I don’t want to marry Jeffery?”

The captain gave most of his attention to refilling his drink. “You won’t get a better offer. Best take this one. His being twenty years older is a great advantage. He’ll die and leave you comfortable.” He looked up at her through bloodshot eyes. “In the meantime, he’ll make a woman out of you. You’re stiffening up, drying on the vine, girl. You need a man to fill your belly with his seed so you’ll ripen.” He looked down at her blouse. “You look more like a boy than a woman. Most men aren’t interested in a woman like that.”

She stood silent and took his abuse. All her life she’d never been right, she’d never passed muster. She’d been too thin, too tall, too flat, too shy, too ordinary. But tonight, his cutting ways didn’t hurt so badly because Rowdy had touched her if only for a moment and he didn’t seem to find her lacking.

She went up to her room, changed into her cotton gown and stood in front of the mirror for a long while. For the first time she saw herself through another man’s eyes besides her father’s and she liked what she saw.

Chapter 5

Rowdy was up and shaving when he heard Laurel drive a wagon into the front yard. He wiped the last of the soap off and went to meet her. She’d been on his mind so thick all night he didn’t feel like they’d been apart.

“I have news,” she said as if she thought she needed a reason to visit him. “And breakfast.”

“For me or Cinnamon?” He smiled when he noticed she’d left her bonnet at home.

“Both.”

She handed him a basket and a campfire coffeepot, still steaming. “I hope it’s still hot.”

“Looks grand,” he said, but he was staring at her, not the breakfast. Something was different about her. She seemed more confident, happier.

They ate on the porch steps laughing about how she’d managed to fix breakfast, even coffee, without waking anyone up. “In my father’s younger days he would be in the saddle by dawn, but after twenty years of drinking late, he’s decided the sun could come up without him. Since my sisters never rise before nine, the cook doesn’t bother to ride over until full daylight.”

“And you?”

She looked surprised that he asked. “Me? I like to get up early and ride. Before I hear anyone else out of bed I’ve usually finished half a pot of coffee and worked on the books for an hour or more.”