Affair of the Heart (13 page)

“Can you make it upstairs by yourself?” It was Jay speaking.

“Oh yes.” She smiled brightly at the two of them. “I’ll see you in a little while.”

Mary Anne smiled back. “Have a good rest.”

Jay didn’t say anything.

Dinner seemed to go on forever. Joe was obviously delighted to see Mary Anne and pressed her to stay for a few days.

“Yes,” said Jay, with every sign of pleasure. “Why don’t you?”

“Well, I’d like to, if you’re sure it’s all right.” She looked shyly up at Jay. “You promised to show me the horses, remember?”

Mary Anne was really very pretty, thought Caroline dismally. She was very sweet too. Jay was very attentive to her all during dinner and afterward over coffee in the living room.

Caroline took refuge in her room at an early hour. She tried to read, but her eyes didn’t see the print. They saw instead the face of her stepbrother as it had looked as he bent over her at the spring—and as it had looked as he smiled at Mary Anne.

It was quite a bit later when she heard the sound of Mary Anne’s feet coming along the hall. She was to have the room next to Caroline’s—the room between Caroline and Jay.

Then Joe came, and last of all Jay. The house settled down, and Caroline turned off her light. She wouldn’t see Jay tonight. The silence of the house was unnerving, and the loneliness of her bed made her ache. She closed her eyes, snuggled down into her pillow, and determined to go to sleep.

An hour later she was still very much awake when she heard the soft sound of a doorknob being turned. She jolted up in bed and stared toward the door. The tall shadowy figure came silently into the bedroom and approached her on noiseless feet. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Shh,” he whispered. “You’ll wake them up.”

“You’re crazy,” she whispered back. “Mary Anne is right next door.”

“I know.” He sat down on the edge of the bed. He was wearing only a pair of beltless jeans. “We’ll have to be very quiet.”

“You should go right back to your own room,” she whispered.

“I will.” He pulled the covers off her and swung into the bed. “Later.”

“Jay ...” She felt a surge of triumph as his mouth descended on hers. He had come to her after all. With Mary Anne in the next room, still he couldn’t stay away. His body crushed hers down into the softness of the mattress, and soon she couldn’t think at all.

Mary Anne stayed for four days, and for four days she was sweet and friendly and helpful to Caroline. Under any other circumstances. Caroline would have liked her very much. That she did not like Mary Anne was something she could not disguise from herself. Nor could she disguise the reason. Caroline had never been jealous in her life, but she knew damn well she was jealous of Mary Anne.

It was ridiculous, she scolded herself when she first realized what was the matter with her. Jay was only being polite to a guest. He could scarcely ignore the girl, after all.

This excuse lasted her for three of the four days of Mary Anne’s visit. It was enough for her, during this time, to know that she, not Mary Anne, was the woman who held his real interest. He came every night to her room, and Caroline, dizzily and hopelessly in love, welcomed him with a passionate abandon she had not dreamed she possessed.

On the last day of Mary Anne’s stay they took a trip up into the mountain pastures to see the mares and foals of the Double Diamond breeding herd. The stallion, Mahogany, was still down at the ranch house being prepared for the race in Utah, but the mares hadn’t been moved.

Joe came with them. The day was windy, with high clouds scudding across the sky and occasionally dimming the otherwise bright sun. Caroline rode Magic. She was still not using her irons, and this brought a surprised comment from Mary Anne.

“She doesn’t need them,” Jay said briefly. “Rides just as well without.” He glanced at Caroline. “Better, probably.”

“So I hear,” Joe grunted. “The boys want you back to ride Mahogany for them.”

“You rode Mahogany?” Mary Anne sounded incredulous.

“Yep.” Joe looked at Mary Anne. “I’ll admit I wasn’t too pleased when I first heard of it. He’s not a vicious horse, but he’s a stallion and only half-broke. But I got the whole story from Frank the other day. She managed him fine.” Joe shook his head. “What I don’t understand is how a gal who can ride Mahogany managed to fall off Dusty and sprain her ankle.”

Caroline grinned. “Pure carelessness, Joe. No excuse, I’m afraid.”

“Well,” Joe continued to Mary Anne, “Caroline sure put the boys in their places but good. They had all been looking down their noses at her little saddle and the way she posted to the trot, you see, and then she got on and rode the damn stallion better than any of them could!”

“Good for you, Caroline,” said Mary Anne warmly.

Caroline cleared her throat. “How are they coming along with Mahogany, anyway, Joe?”

“Not so good.” Joe looked at his son. Jay ignored him. “It sure is important to them to run that horse,” Joe said, his eyes on Jay’s profile. “I hear they made a lot of noise about him at roundup time. Put some money down as well.”

“That was foolish of them,” said Jay.

“Isn’t there anyone who can ride him?” Mary Anne asked innocently. “Apart from Caroline, I mean.”

Joe didn’t answer, but his eyes remained on his son’s face. “The race is supposed to be for the men, Dad,” he said at last, irritably.

“But the men can’t ride him,” his father replied patiently. Then, as if a thought had struck him, “Perhaps Caroline ...”

‘Whoa!” Jay glared at his father. “You can’t seriously expect her to hold that horse on a track with other stallions.”

“I don’t know,” said Joe thoughtfully. “She’s damn good.”

“I’ll ride him.” Jay’s voice was cold and flat.

Joe grinned. “Well now,” he said heartily, “that’ll please the boys mightily.”

“Are you sure it’s just the boys you’re aiming to please?” his son asked disagreeably.

Joe chuckled. “Well, I’d surely like to see that horse win myself.”

Jay only grunted, and Joe, having won his point, obligingly changed the subject.

“Why didn’t Jay want to ride Mahogany?” Caroline asked Joe later as they sat together on a rock overlooking a field of wildflowers.

“Jay doesn’t like Owen Macdonald,” Joe said bluntly. “The boys don’t either, and that’s why they’re so eager to win this race.”

“And Jay isn’t?”

“The difference between Jay and the boys is that they want to show Owen up—Jay just wants to keep clear of him.”

“And you?”

Joe grinned. “I wouldn’t mind winning that race. Owen sorta rubs me the wrong way too.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Jay and Mary Anne were walking through the field together, and Caroline’s eyes were on them as she spoke.

“Nothing radical, I guess. It’s his attitude that folks object to. Thinks he’s better than other people around here. He spends half his time in England, hobnobbing with the lords and such. Then he comes home and looks down his nose at the rest of us.” Joe shook his head. “But he sure does have some good horses.”

Down on the field, Mary Anne slipped her hand into Jay’s and looked up at him to say something. His head bent down toward her, and at the sight of them Caroline felt an almost physical pain.

“Now that’s a pretty sight,” said Joe with a truly monumental lack of perception.

“Yes,” Caroline croaked.

“I like that little gal,” her tormentor went cheerfully on. “And what’s more, I think she’s the right woman for Jay. He thinks so too, I reckon. He respects her, and that’s important. There’s not too many girls he does respect, I’m afraid.”

“Because of Nancy, do you mean?”

“Partly. And partly it’s the gals’ own fault.” He gave Caroline a humorous look. “I guess I’m old-fashioned, but in my day it was the men who did the chasing. Nowadays it seems it’s the other way around.” He chuckled. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Jay became interested in Mary Anne because she was the first girl who refused to go to bed with him.”

The earth seemed to drop away from beneath Caroline at these words. “Oh, surely not the first?” she managed to get out.

Some of the humor left Joe’s face. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said darkly. “He seems to have the knack of charming women into doing whatever he wants. Even Ellen is his slave.” He looked at Caroline, and his smile came back. “Except for you, Caroline. You just keep on giving him the sharp side of your tongue. It’s good for him.”

Caroline could find absolutely nothing to say.

The result of that conversation with Joe was to change her whole perception of the relationship between herself and her stepbrother. For the first time she realized that she might be reading more into it than was really there.

Why was he so carefully throwing dust in the eyes of his father and Mary Anne? For without a doubt that was exactly what he was doing. And successfully, too, to judge by Joe’s conversation. Joe hadn’t a clue that there might be more between Caroline and Jay than appeared on the surface.

The answer to this question would have been evident days ago to anyone more sensible than she, Caroline thought dismally. Jay was going to marry Mary Anne. With Caroline he just wanted an affair, a casual secret liaison that could stay hidden from his future wife and his father.

It was a devastating piece of knowledge, and it hit her as hard as a physical blow between the eyes. Caroline had been thinking of marriage.

She was very quiet on the ride back to the ranch. Her eyes were drawn, again and again, to the vivacious dark face of Mary Anne—the only girl Jay couldn’t get into bed with him.

“You look as if you had the weight of the world on your shoulders.” It was Jay’s voice breaking into her thoughts, and she turned, a little startled, to look at him. She had no idea how beautiful she looked as she sat, slim and erect in the saddle, with her marvelous hair loose on her back, her eyes startlingly light in her honey-tanned face. She smiled fractionally but did not answer. “Your ankle isn’t hurting, is it?” he asked.

“No.” She took a deep breath. “No, in fact it’s getting much better. I should be able to get back to work very soon.”

He frowned. “You can’t go back to Washington just yet.”

Both Joe and Mary Anne were listening. “Why not?” she asked lightly.

“You have to come and see the horserace,” he answered promptly. He turned to his father. “Isn’t that right, Dad? If I’m going to ride Mahogany, the least Caroline can do is come and watch.”

“Jay’s right.” The big rancher smiled at her good-humoredly. “You’ll enjoy seeing the Macdonald spread. It’s really something.”

Part of Caroline knew she should leave, leave before she was hurt any more. She met Jay’s eyes. They were dark, dark blue and very commanding. “Come to Utah,” he said.

Caroline had never allowed herself to be dominated by a man before. She looked into his eyes and was lost. “All right,” she said. “I’ll come to Utah.”

“Good.” He smiled at her for a very brief second and then turned back to Mary Anne. “You could say Caroline is the person who got me into this race,” he said good-naturedly. “If she hadn’t so clearly demonstrated that Mahogany could be ridden, I might have gotten out of it.”

“I doubt that,” Mary Anne retorted. “Your father would have thought of something.” And both Jay and Joe laughed.

* * * *

Mary Anne left the next day, which took some of the strain off Caroline. She thought about her present situation and decided she had the advantage at the moment: She was here and Mary Anne was not. Caroline had decided to fight. She was going to do her damnedest to make Jay fall so in love with her that he wouldn’t be able to live without her. She had done it to Cliff and to Gerald without even trying. Why shouldn’t she be able to do it to Jay?

Caroline was neither lukewarm nor cautious. In this, the most important crisis of her life, she was ready to risk heartbreak and humiliation, to go all-out, to give of herself wholly, utterly, if it would win her the one thing she knew she wanted in this world: Jay Hamilton. And so she resolutely pushed the thought of tomorrow from her mind and threw herself into the present.

They had a week before they would have to leave for Utah. Caroline and Jay were almost constantly together, and still it seemed as if neither Joe nor anyone else about the ranch was suspicious of what was going on right under their noses. Their lack of perception astonished Caroline, who thought her whole body must be blazing forth with the love that flamed within her.

“It’s odd, isn’t it, how no one seems to
notice?”
she said to Jay one afternoon. They were at the spring, where they went every day, ostensibly so Caroline could swim and exercise her ankle.

She sensed a slight withdrawal on his part. “Not really,” he said then. “You may be the most beautiful thing to ever grace the state of Wyoming, but they all know how I feel about Eastern women.”

Caroline gazed at the sparkling water. “I see.” And she did see, all too well. She represented everything Jay had hated in his mother. But I’m not like Nancy! She wanted to cry that out to him, to make him understand that underneath her Eastern establishment upbringing, her designer clothes, her holidays in the south of France, she was just Caroline, and all she wanted in the world was his love. “Well, I’m not just an ordinary Eastern woman.” She managed to sound careless.

He was lying with his eyes closed against the sun, and now they lifted just slightly. “That is certainly true,” he said. “You aren’t ordinary anything, Cara sweetheart.”

“Well, that’s a comfort to know.”

He chuckled and closed his eyes again, and she

went back to her ruminations. She was playing

the wrong part in this particular romance, she

thought wryly. The heroine should be Mary Anne—the pretty virginal hometown girl. Caroline was clearly cast as “the other woman”: a rich, phony blond from the East, most definitely not virginal. In this little drama of East versus West, she was afraid she was on the losing side. “Damn,” she muttered under her breath.

Jay opened his eyes. “Did you say something?”