A Taste of Heaven (21 page)

The lantern in the wagon, the one that had
led him here, now cast Libby Ross's very feminine silhouette upon
the wagon canvas. She peeled away the wet blouse and hung it on
something in the wagon box. Then she stepped out of her skirt, and
dried her arms with what he assumed was a towel. She still wore her
petticoat and camisole; he could see the edge of the ruffle on her
bodice when she turned, and the swell of her breasts beneath. In
response to this display, his body answered swiftly with a hard,
heavy ache.

Tyler clutched the canteen to his chest and
took a deep breath, temporarily forgetting that the wind and rain
lashed his face, that he was hungry, that he was tired beyond his
capacity to measure. He forgot everything except the beauty of the
light and shadow in front of him. When Libby untied her petticoat
and pushed it down her legs, he turned away and leaned back against
the wagon wheel, a torrent of lust pulsing through him.

How the hell was he supposed to get back into
the wagon and pretend that it was like any other evening around the
old campfire? That she wasn't wrapped in just a blanket? This would
be even more trying than the episode with the liniment. At least
that night he could leave. He should have shot the lid off her
damned trunk so she could get dressed. But there was no help for it
now.

After waiting a moment or two, he went to the
front of the wagon and called up, “Are you—” But his voice came out
as a strangled croak. He cleared his throat. “Are you decent
yet?”

Decent, Libby thought, and looked down. In
her camisole and drawers? Why had nakedness been added to the
predicament she was already in? But she couldn't make him stand
outside in the rain any longer. Silently cursing her trunk as
vividly as Tyler had aloud, she grabbed the blanket he'd given her,
and flung it around herself. She was immediately enveloped in the
familiar scent of him.

“All right Come in.”

As soon as he climbed into the shelter, he
paused with the food cradled in his hands and stared. The wagon
felt charged with his presence, and his eyes deepened to turquoise
as his gaze swept over her. From another man, such a look would be
vulgar. Not so with Tyler. It was straightforward and powerful, and
made her suck in her breath. Her apprehension stemmed as much from
her own reaction to him as what she read in that look. She backed
up a step and felt the chuck box against her bottom.

Breaking the silence and eye contact, he
showed her the biscuits and pie. “I brought supper.” He took off
his hat and slicker, and plunged a hand through his hair. “I don't
know about you, but I'm starving.”

He was obviously waiting for an invitation—or
was it permission?—to sit in her presence.

“Please,” she said, and waved at a vacant
spot on the floor. She felt a tremendous disadvantage in having
only her underwear and a blanket for clothes. She had to hold the
wrap shut with one hand while taking the cups and forks he handed
to her.

“I didn't bring plates,” he said. “It was too
dark and rainy out there to do much searching.” When he sat down,
he slowly leaned against a pile of bedrolls and stretched out his
long legs. Libby heard him sigh tiredly.

“That's all right. We can eat out of the pie
pan.” Cautiously, she lowered herself to the only place
available—next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “It's been a hard day,
hasn't it?”

He sat motionless for a few seconds, as if
too exhausted to do anything else. Then he crossed his ankles,
brushing her thigh with his own as he moved. Libby tried to ignore
the fire that raced up her leg.

“I've sure had better.”

“Me, too.”

He chuckled, then they sat in silence for a
few moments, their attention focused on the food. Libby hadn't
realized how hungry she was until she tasted the sourdough.

He waved at the pie with his fork. “You know,
I've been meaning to tell you, you're one hell of a cook.”

Libby gaped at him. Tyler did not seem to be
a man who lavished praise on people. “Thank you. The men told me
you've had a run of bad luck with cooks in the last couple of
years.”

He smiled while he chewed and swallowed.
“Yeah, I suppose we have. But this—my old man would have called
this ‘a little taste of heaven.’ That's what he used to say when
something tasted really good—if heaven had a flavor, it would taste
like this.” He grinned at her.

Libby ducked her head and smiled, too. He'd
never mentioned anything about his family before. “Your father
sounds like he had a touch of poet in him.”

“Mostly he was just a cattleman who brought
us up here from San Antonio. Someone told him the sweetest
grassland on earth was in Montana, free for the taking, and that a
man could raise a herd better than any in Texas.” He speared a
cherry on the tines of his fork. “My mother didn’t want to come at
first. She said if he made a go of it, he could send for us. If he
didn't, we'd be waiting for him. She was a strong-willed woman. But
my old man . . .” He shook his head. “His word was law. He told her
we were his responsibility, and it was her duty to follow her
husband. So we came. I don't think she was ever happy here.”

“Has she been gone a long time?” Joe had told
her both of Tyler's parents were dead.

He poured water for both of them from the
canteen. “Yeah. She died of influenza our second winter here. I was
eleven years old. I think my father always felt guilty about it But
life up here isn't always easy. I guess you've figured that
out.”

"Yes, I have." Libby glanced at her hand. The
cut had been healing well, but pulling on the reins this afternoon
had partially opened it again.

“How's that finger?” Tyler asked, watching
her. “It was getting better, but after today with the mule team . .
.” She shrugged.

“Let's see,” he said, and held out his open
hand.

She hesitated just a beat before laying her
hand, palm up, in his. His touch was warm as he held it toward the
lantern light. “I probably should have put a stitch in this.”

“Oh, no,” she warned, pulling back a little.
There were limits to the amateur, ranch-house medicine she'd allow
him to practice on her. But the sensation of her hand in his warm
grip made her think it might almost be worth the risk to let him
try.

“Can't now, anyway. It's too late for it to
help.” He released her hand. She tucked it into the folds of the
blanket, telling herself that it hadn't really been as comforting
as she’d imagined. She was just tired and being foolish.

He gave her an even look. “I know you came
out here to marry Ben,” he said, taking a bite of sourdough, “but
I've wondered what it was that made you want to leave Chicago to
begin with. I don't get the feeling it was a pioneering
spirit.”

Libby heard the same polite, caring interest
she'd heard that night in his office. Underlying that was
encouragement to talk, and a lulling, assurance that he would
listen. She supposed it was only fair—he'd revealed more about
himself than she'd expected.

She pulled the edges of the blanket more
tightly around her shoulders and leaned back against a sack of
flour. With a little food in her stomach and his warmth next to
her, she let herself relax a bit. She began by telling him the
story of going to work for the Brandauers when she was
fourteen.

“They had a big, fancy house with deep
carpets and a fireplace in every single room. I'd never seen
anything like it. And Melvin, Birdie, and Deirdre, we were close.
They became my own family.”

Tyler kept his eyes on the blue enamel cup in
his lap. “It sounds as though you were content there. Why did you
leave?”

Why
. Libby's
memory fell back to a warm evening the previous August, to Wesley's
bedroom, and his impatient, groping hands, to the sensation of
utter horror when Eliza Brandauer, presumably visiting friends out
of town, had flung open her son's door with only a cursory knock,
before he took the cook's virginity—

Absently, she pleated a fold of the blanket.
“My life there became . . . impossible,” she
replied, and by her tone, asked him to press no further. Wesley
Brandauer was her private hurt. “I couldn't stay any longer.”

Tyler nodded, turning the cup in his hand.
“You're not the first person to come west for a new start.”

Overhead the rain slowed to a steady tapping,
now only occasionally driven by buffeting winds.

She resumed her story. “I saw Ben's
advertisement for a wife in a newspaper in Chicago. He said he was
looking for a woman to come to Montana and live on his ranch with
him. I needed to, well, put some distance between me and what was
going on in my life. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah. I know.” A tinge of bitterness colored
his answer.

“So I answered his advertisement. He wrote
back and told me he had a successful ranching operation, and that
he'd advertised for a wife because there are so few women in this
area.” She gave him a little smile, then she looked at her lap. “He
also said that he was thirty years old. I told him to send the
train ticket. It seemed like a good choice at the time.”

Tyler stared at her. “Thirty years old! Jesus
Christ, Ben Ross was over seventy. Both his health and his ranch
were long past their prime. Did he think you wouldn't notice?”

Libby shrugged. “I can't begin to guess. When
I got to Heavenly and learned the truth, I wanted a ticket to get
right back on the stage and leave. I'd have gone anywhere.
Anywhere. But I didn't have any money and neither did he. I didn't
have a choice, either. I was alone and scared. I realized I'd have
to make the best of things. So we were married in the sheriff's
office, and then we made the trip to his place. It was strange to
be in such a vast, open country, and yet have to live in a one-room
cabin so cramped I had to turn sideways to squeeze around my cot.”
She took a drink of water.

“Then winter set in. He took sick the first
night it snowed, and pretty soon he had pneumonia. The cabin seemed
even smaller after that.” She shifted on the hard wagon bed, and
tucked her feet inside the blanket. “I think Ben Ross knew he
wouldn't live out the winter, and he didn't want to die alone. He
wanted someone to keep him company. I can't blame him, I suppose,
but I wish he'd chosen a different way to get it.”

She fell silent, lost in the memory of the
night Ben took his last breath.

Tyler prompted quietly, “So as soon as he was
gone, you went to Heavenly?”

She shook her head. “No, not right away. When
he died, there was still a lot of snow on the ground and it was
frozen solid underneath. I found that out when I tried to bury
him.” Her voice faltered, and she took a breath, waiting to regain
control. She felt Tyler's hand on her blanket-covered forearm. “So
I sewed him into an old quilt and dragged him to the porch. H-he
didn't weigh much by the time he died. Some—sometimes at night, I'd
wake up because I thought I heard him wheezing. But it was only the
wind . . .  God, that wind. He was out there
for a month before it warmed up enough for me to dig his grave. I
was never really his wife—” She faltered for a moment. “Not in any
way that a woman can be a wife, but I guess I owed him that
much.”

His hand on her arm tightened and he sighed,
but she was afraid to look at him. Afraid that whatever she saw in
his eyes—and she wasn't sure what that might be—would crumble her
remaining strength and make her start blubbering again like the day
she'd shot the rattlesnake.

But she felt a sense of relief, too. She
hadn't told anyone about Ben. She'd carried the ordeal, locked in
her heart and head, while she relived it at night in her dreams.
Maybe now it would give her peace.

She felt his gaze on her while he considered
her. She had the odd sensation that he was seeing her for the first
time. “You've had a hell of a time, haven't you?” he murmured.

Finally she gathered enough courage to glance
up at him. She saw something very like tenderness written in the
lean planes of his face, and in the way his eyes smiled, even
though it didn't reach his mouth.

“Well, it wasn't a picnic in the park, but I
have to keep hoping everything will work out. How can any of us
survive in this world without hope?”

Tyler switched his gaze to the opposite
canvas wall as if there were something of great fascination to be
found there. “Does that mean you're going to marry Charlie?” he
mumbled.

“Charlie! How did you know about that?” She
stared at his cleanly defined profile—the slim nose, wide brow,
full lips, and sharp jaw.

“There isn't much that goes on with my ranch
or my crew that I don't know about So—are you?”

She thought about the expression she'd seen
on the cowboy's face earlier, when the storm hit. She wished she
could care about him. She suspected that he was a good, decent man.
“No, I'm not. If I ever marry again, it will be for love. I like
Charlie, but that isn't a good enough reason to get married. I'll
make it on my own in Chicago, even if the only work I can find is
scrubbing floors.”

Tyler felt two feet tall. He'd thought she
was a helpless, city-born woman. He'd thought she'd be a timid
burden on this trip, someone who'd have to be watched over and
hand-fed every mile of the way. That she wanted to go back to
Chicago because it wasn't soft enough here for her, or refined
enough. And every mile of the way, she'd proved him wrong.

What he couldn't understand was why he felt
even more protective toward her now that he knew how capable she
really was.

The night he'd bandaged her hand, she'd said
with some bitterness that Ben Ross had exaggerated a lot of the
things he'd told her. She'd been kind in her understatement. He
hadn't realized just how flagrant the old man's lies were.