Affair of the Heart (3 page)

“Yes.” A muscle flickered along his jaw, but otherwise his expression did not change.

“It was your great-grandmother’s and then your mother’s. She wanted you to have it.”

“That was nice of her.”

His voice was flat, and it provoked her to ask, challengingly, “Did you get Daddy’s message about her death, or were you out on roundup?”

“I was on roundup, but they got the message to me.”

“I see.” Caroline could feel her temper rising. “And you didn’t think it worthwhile to fly in for the funeral?”

“No,” he said, “I didn’t.” His voice was cold, warning her clearly that she was trespassing on private territory.

“Why not?” she asked recklessly.

“You and I will get along a lot better, Caroline, if you refrain from meddling in the affairs of your elders,” he said pleasantly.

Her elders! She was all of three years younger than he was, she thought furiously. “You may be older than I, but I think you’ve been acting like a spoiled brat,” she told him heatedly. “Do you think you’re the only child in the world whose parents got a divorce?”

“Yes,” he said with lethal irony, “I do. I’ve never forgiven my mother for leaving, and consequently my whole personality has become warped and bitter. Is that what you were going to say?”

He had succeeded in taking the wind out of her sails. “You know so much,” Caroline replied acidly, “that it hardly seems worthwhile continuing the conversation.” And she touched the gray into a canter.

* * * *

Caroline ceremoniously handed Jay the ring before dinner that evening. He took it, stared at it with chilly blue eyes, and then said, “Thank you.” He put the ring into his pocket and appeared prepared to forget it.

“Jay!” came Ellen’s voice from the kitchen. “Get this dog out of my way!”

“Regent,” Jay called in a voice Caroline had never heard from him before. “Come here, boy. Come on.”

There was the sound of padding paws and then a large brown dog came trotting into the room. He went immediately to Jay, who scratched his ears.

“What kind of dog is he?” Caroline asked.

“A little of this and a little of that,” came the reply. “But he’s the best damn cow dog this side of the Rockies, aren’t you, fella?” The dog’s tail was waving frantically, and he looked up into Jay’s face with obvious adoration.

Joe Hamilton came into the living room. Like his son, he still wore jeans and a flannel shirt, although both men had changed out of the clothes they had worked in all day. Caroline was wearing pale-lemon slacks and a matching shirt, and she felt overdressed. Jeans, she thought ruefully, were obviously the order of the day and the evening on the Double Diamond.

“Come and get it!” Ellen called, and they all moved into the kitchen. The house had no dining room, as Caroline had noticed earlier, but the kitchen was enormous. The table was laid for four, and after Ellen had served them roast chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and carrots she sat down herself, and Joe, who had carved the chicken, put some white meat on her plate. The dog had followed them and lay now at Jay’s feet, comfortably curled up, eyes half shut.

Joe took a sip of his beer and said genially, “Well now, Caroline, tell us what you’ve been doing with yourself since I saw you last.”

Her straight nose crinkled in amusement. “You last saw me when I was thirteen years old, Joe.”

“That’s right. All long legs and braces, I recall.”

“Ugh.” Caroline laughed. “Don’t remind me.”

“You were pretty even then,” Joe said reassuringly. “You were worried about going away to school, if I remember rightly.”

Caroline ate her roast chicken, which was delicious, and thought back. “Yes, I guess that was the summer before I first went to St. Luke’s. I was homesick in advance. Once I got there I quite liked it.”

“You went to boarding school, Caroline?” Ellen asked.

“Of course she did,” Jay said smoothly. “All the East Coast aristocracy go first to prep school and then to college—didn’t you know that, Ellen?” His dark eyes were a brilliant blue, and he smiled at Caroline with deceptive friendliness. She felt her heart give that disturbing thump again, and then slowly, deliberately, she smiled back. She gave him the works, a brilliant sparkle of huge green eyes and very white, very straight (thanks to those braces) teeth. “True,” she said with great sweetness, “I was educated as befitted my class. But on Sundays we always took baskets of food to the poor.”

Her eyes locked with Jay’s for a brief moment, and then she looked away as she heard Joe chuckle. “That’s the girl, don’t let him get away with patronizing you.” Joe looked at his son, and his grin faded. “You boarded in Sheridan when you were in high school, I might remind you. I should have sent you to a proper prep school. It might have shaped you up.”

Jay shrugged and buttered a roll. “Did you go to college?” Caroline asked. If she remembered correctly, it was something to do with college that had caused Joe to come and see Nancy all those years ago.

Jay finished his roll and looked at his father. There was a faint look of amusement on his face. Caroline thought suddenly that he had an extraordinarily beautiful mouth. “Yeah,” he said. “Sort of.”

“Hmmm,” said Joe and glared at his grown-up son. “If you call four years of playing football, chasing girls, and drinking beer college, then I guess you could say you went to college.”

Jay looked back at his father, and then his face broke into a beautiful smile, a real smile, not the phony one he had given Caroline. “I had fun,” he said.

“I know.” Joe’s testiness melted before that luminous smile. “But I still wish you’d gone to Cornell.”

“I learned all I needed to know at Laramie. The best agricultural school is the ranch itself,” Jay said patiently. “Christ, look at that moron college boy Jim Wilkes hired on as ranch manager. He may know a lot about juggling account books, but he doesn’t know a damn about cattle. Dan Barsett, the foreman, runs that ranch.
He
knows cows. All the moron does is sit in his pickup truck and talk on the two-way radio.”

Joe stared at his son for a moment longer before he turned again to Caroline. “What did you study in college, Caroline?”

“Political science,” she replied politely.

“Of course. With your background that’d be a natural,” Jay said affably.

She took a sip of milk. She hadn’t had milk with dinner for years, but she hadn’t wanted beer and she had thought it would be fruitless to ask for wine. It didn’t seem to be the sort of household that had a wine rack. “Yes,” she said now and met those dark-blue eyes. “You might say I had a hereditary interest.”

“You work in Washington, Caroline?” asked Ellen.

“Yes. I work for Senator Williamson.”

Joe looked suddenly alert. “Hey, isn’t he the guy who wants to put missiles over the entire West?”

“Er,” said Caroline gingerly, “not the
whole
West, Joe.”

The big rancher snorted. “Let me tell you what I think of those fancy Eastern senators,” he said vigorously, and for the rest of the meal he proceeded to unburden himself of a while variety of deeply felt convictions about the sacredness of the land and the unholiness of the earth’s despoilers.

Jay didn’t say anything but continued to eat, and Caroline, who had at one time or another thought all the things Joe was now saying, simply nodded and made soothing replies.

After dinner Ellen served apple pie and coffee. When the men went to move into the living room Caroline said to Ellen, “May I help you with the dishes?”

The old woman shook her head vigorously. “It don’t take me no time at all to get these cleared away, Caroline. And I’ve got a dishwasher. You go along inside and relax.”

“Well, if you’re sure ...”

“Ellen doesn’t let anybody interfere in her kitchen,” Joe said good-humoredly. “You come along and keep us company, Caroline.”

She followed the big rancher into the living room and subsided gracefully on a comfortable sofa. The living room was very large as well, with a huge stone fireplace and well-worn, comfortable-looking furniture. It was the sort of room that invited you to take your shoes off, Caroline thought. Joe was speaking, and she looked at him attentively. His face was very grave. “I want you to tell me how Nancy came to die of pneumonia,” he said to her heavily. “I didn’t like to ask your dad too much on the phone.”

She turned large, sympathetic eyes on his face and began to talk. After a few minutes Jay’s immobility drew her attention, and she glanced at the chair in which he was sitting. His posture was relaxed, but Caroline sensed the tension in him. He was looking at his father, and his suntanned face was very bleak.

Caroline finished talking. “It was evidently a very rare bacterium. No one knows where she picked it up. She could have got it just walking down the street, the doctor said. She’d had a nagging cold, so her resistance was probably down.”

“She was only fifty-three,” said Joe.

“I know.” Caroline’s husky voice, with its soft Virginia accent, was very gentle.

Jay still had not moved, and now his silence seemed to attract his father’s attention. “Has Caroline given you the ring?” Joe asked.

“Yes.”

Joe met his son’s eyes. “Let me see it.”

Jay stood up, reached into his back pocket, and brought the ring out. He walked slowly across the floor, followed by his dog, and put it into his father’s outstretched hand. Then he went to stand by the fireplace. His face, when Caroline looked at him, was completely shuttered, the eyes veiled by long thick lashes. Caroline wished, fleetingly, that she were not so aware of him, and then she turned back to Joe.

Nancy’s first husband was regarding the ring soberly. It was a large diamond in an old-fashioned setting, and Caroline had always loved it. “I remember this very well,” Joe said softly. “It was her grandmother’s.” He looked over to his son. Jay lifted his lashes and looked back. Caroline held her breath, aware of the tension in the room. Then Joe held the ring out again. “Put it away,” he said flatly. “Don’t just leave it in your pocket.”

Jay took the ring back, walking in front of Caroline to get it. “Okay,” he said. He held the ring in his hand for a minute. “I’m going to turn in,” he said then. “See you in the morning.” His blue eyes just touched Caroline’s face, and then he was walking up the stairs, moving with the strength and grace of the athlete he was. The dog stayed by the hearth. Caroline looked at Joe.

There was a very long silence. “Do you see what I mean?” the rancher asked finally.

“Yes.”

“I’m glad Nancy left him the ring.”

Caroline regarded him solemnly. He was not at all the kind of man she was accustomed to. “And what did she leave you, Joe?” she asked softly.

He smiled wryly. “She left me a son. And a lot of memories.”

There was another long silence as the man seemed to retreat into himself. Caroline rose to her feet. “Goodnight,” she said and then, impulsively, kissed him on the cheek before she went upstairs.

* * * *

Caroline awoke at six o’clock the following morning. She was not accustomed to going to bed at ten at night, she thought with rueful amusement as she got out of bed and stretched. She was wide awake. The morning air was cool, and she shivered in her thin cotton nightgown. She put on her white terry-cloth robe, thrust her slim feet into matching slippers, and went down the hall to the bathroom. Jay was just coming out, and she stopped abruptly at the sight of him. He wore jeans but no shirt, and she caught herself staring at his chest and shoulders. He was so slim that the strong muscles were a surprise, and he was deeply tanned. She looked up into his face and was immediately conscious of her own long tangled hair and long bare legs. “Are you finished?” she said. There was a small dab of shaving cream along his jaw.

“Yes. The bathroom’s all yours.” He stepped into the hall, very close to her, and she was acutely conscious of his bare brown torso only inches away from her.

“Thanks,” she managed to say. “See you at breakfast.” And she slipped into the bathroom and closed the door firmly behind her.

“What’s in the cards for today?” Joe asked his son at breakfast.

“Frank said there were reports of hunters up near section sixteen. I thought I’d better go check to see if the gates are all closed.”

“Why don’t you take Caroline with you?” Joe said. “Take the horses. Ellen will pack you a lunch.”

Jay looked at Caroline. He didn’t want her along, she thought. “Would you like to come?” he asked with obvious politeness.

“Sure,” she said. “It sounds like fun.”

“Good,” said Joe heartily. “It’ll give you two a chance to get better acquainted.”

From the look on her stepbrother’s face, Caroline deduced that one of the last things in the world he wanted was the chance of becoming better acquainted with her. Well, she thought, like it or not, you’re stuck with me, chum. She gave him one of her sweetest smiles.

It was a beautiful day, and Caroline enjoyed the mountain ride enormously. Being outdoors on a horse was the thing she loved best in the world; she was able to ignore her stepbrother and simply take pleasure in the horse and the spectacular landscape.

“Are you getting tired?” Jay asked after they had been climbing for two hours. It was almost the first thing he had said to her.

She looked surprised. “Why, no. I’m fine, thanks.”

“You surprise me,” he said. “You look as if a strong wind would blow you over.”

She laughed. “I’ve sometimes spent six or seven hours on the hunting field. Now
that
is work.”

“You like to hunt?” he asked noncommittally.

“I adore it.” He didn’t say anything, and she glanced at him quickly. “Yes, I know it’s the pastime of the decadent rich,” she said. “The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible, and all that. But the fact remains that there’s nothing else like it in the world.”

Quite suddenly he grinned. “Who said that— ‘the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible’?”

“Oscar Wilde. Hunting wasn’t at all his thing.”

Jay looked sardonic. “No, I don’t suppose it was.”

So he knew who Oscar Wilde was. She patted the gray gelding’s neck. “I shouldn’t be surprised if Dusty wouldn’t make a good hunter. He’s strong and he moves well.”