Montana Mavericks Weddings (4 page)

He tried to picture Abby going from his arms to another man's and failed miserably. She couldn't even let her fiancé touch her. His eyes closed. Dear God, when he thought of her in that wedding gown, he felt sick. Troy would probably complain about the expense of the dress and the fact that Chayce had bought it for her. He wouldn't care how glorious she looked in it, because he didn't really think much of the way she dressed. He'd keep her in garments suited to elderly ladies and lose his temper if she tried to wear anything that showed her exquisite figure.

She was coming out of the boutique, walking slowly back toward the truck, her face hardly that of a woman expecting to be a bride within a month. She looked more like a condemned prisoner going to the gallows.

Without even thinking, he got out and went around to open the door for her. It was an act of old-world courtesy that was as much a part of him as his black hair with the silver sprinkled around his temples.

She smiled with pleasant surprise, because Troy
didn't open doors for her, ever, despite his old-fashioned ideas in other ways. But to Abby, it was another indication of Chayce's affection for her that he did, the protectiveness that denoted his personality. She looked at him and thought how he'd be with a child, gentle and nurturing, and ferocious if it were threatened.

The thought brought tears to her eyes. She lowered them quickly as she went to climb into the truck. He caught her waist, gently holding her back, bending from his great height to look into her misty eyes.

“What's wrong?” he asked softly, wiping the tears away with his forefinger.

She bit her lip, hard. “Nothing…”

His hand lingered on her soft cheek. “Tell me, sweetheart.”

She looked up, anguished. “I was thinking how you'd be with a child…” She averted her eyes from his shocked face and took a steadying breath. “Don't mind me. I'm crazy from the sun, I guess. We'd better go.”

She sidestepped him and climbed up into the cab. She didn't look at him as he closed the door or when he got in beside her and started the truck.

He couldn't talk to her. His mind was spinning, too, and not from the sun. He'd refused to think about having a child. But when Abby had mentioned it, his whole body had gone rigid. It was all too easy to see her with a baby in her arms, and toddlers clinging to
her skirts. He could picture her in the kitchen with Becky, making cookies and cakes, or outside in the yard catching baseballs or flying kites. Abby had that sort of personality, and she loved children so much.

He pressed down on the accelerator, only anxious to get home and get away from her. Perhaps he could find something to do out of town. God knew, he'd managed that very well over the long four years since she went away to school and only came home for brief visits.

She watched the fields go past the window and never really saw them. Her future seemed so uncertain, so frightening. She clasped her hands tight in her lap and tried to imagine driving around with Troy and a child or two. He was a teacher—but his pupils were of high school age. She'd only seen him with one of his cousin's young sons. He hadn't liked the boy and it showed. He didn't get along with young children. Chayce, on the other hand, seemed to forever have the cowhands' children on his heels when he was around the ranch. He attracted them the way honey brings flies.

“You're very quiet,” he remarked when they were almost home.

She stared at her hands. “There's not much to say, is there?” she replied. “Except…thank you for the wedding gown.”

He didn't answer her. He slowed for the turnoff
that led to the ranch, easily controlling the big truck, and left a dust trail behind him.

When he pulled up in the yard, it was still deserted. He came around to open the door. Abby stepped out, right into the path of a bumblebee. It hit her cheek and she yelped.

“What is it?”
Chayce asked, turning on his heel when he heard her cry out.

“A bee!”

He moved close, tilting her face up to his. “Did it sting you? Where?”

“I…I don't know!” She had a terror of flying insects, a holdover from childhood. She pushed at her hair, afraid that it might be caught there.

Chayce drew her hands down. “Let me look, sweetheart,” he coaxed, tilting her face up. He studied it, looking for any sign of a sting, but she seemed to be all right, beyond having had a fright. Tears were in her eyes. Her face was flushed. He winced at the lingering traces of fear. “Here, now,” he said softly, brushing away the tears that spilled over her eyelids. “It's all right. I'm not going to let anything hurt you, not anything at all.” As if he couldn't help himself, he bent and put his mouth against her wet eyelids, absorbing the tears.

Abby was so stunned, so overwhelmed, by the tenderness, that she almost stopped breathing. Her face lifted to his mouth like a flower to the sun. She could barely get her breath at all.

He drew her into his arms and held her against him while his mouth gently touched her eyes, her wet cheeks, and finally, finally, her parted lips.

She stood in his embrace without a hint of struggle, loving his mouth against hers, loving the breathless sweetness of his touch.

“Couldn't you pretend to struggle?” he whispered against her warm, eager mouth.

“I don't know how,” she whispered back. Her eyes were closed. She stood on tiptoe to tempt him into lowering his head again.

His big, lean hands slid into her hair and tilted her head at just the right angle. She didn't look, but she could feel his eyes on her before he bent again. This time the kiss wasn't tender. It was hard and rough and deep.

She gasped as his arms tightened, riveting her to his lean body there in the deserted yard. She lifted her arms around him and held on for dear life, so enthralled that she couldn't think past the moment. He tasted of coffee and his mouth was every dream she'd ever had.

He bit her lower lip and lifted his head, violence in his black eyes as they stared, unblinking, into her yielded gray ones. “Why did you have to start talking about children?” he asked half angrily.

Her gaze fell to his hard mouth. “Is that…why?”

“Does he like children?” he asked.

Her gaze fell once more to his broad chest. “Not much.”

“And you do,” he said huskily. “You love them.”

She leaned her forehead against him with a miserable sigh. “Don't make it worse than it already is,” she pleaded quietly. “You've already said that you don't want me in any conventional way.”

His hands tightened on her waist. “He won't like the wedding gown, Abby,” he said grittily. “He won't like the idea that I bought it for you, either.”

“I don't care. It's the most beautiful dress I've ever seen.”

“Only because you'll be wearing it,” he said quietly.

She lifted her eyes. His were sad and quiet and intent. “Will you marry Delina?” she asked softly.

His face was like stone. He searched her face slowly, with a kind of deep-buried anguish. “I don't love her.”

“Is love really necessary?” she asked on a hollow laugh. “Most people make do with what they can get. That's what I'm going to do.”

“Don't talk like that!” he muttered. “He's a good man, Abby. He's young and steady.”

“He could be perfection on a white horse and it wouldn't matter,” she replied. Her eyes met his accusingly. “And you know why, Chayce.”

He let her go, inch by inch, as if it hurt him to let her go. He stood back. “This is all my fault,” he
said. “I should never have come home.” He drew in a long breath. “I've got some things to see about. I might as well do them before the wedding. But I'll be back in time to give you away,” he added firmly.

He was closing doors. He couldn't have made it plainer. He was going away, to remove temptation from their paths. She'd lose him all over again. But did it matter? She was hurting so badly inside that she thought she might bleed to death in front of him. And she couldn't say so, or show it. Because he didn't want her love, or even her. Not for keeps.

She turned away. “As you wish,” she said in a subdued, careless tone.

He watched her walk toward the house with impotent fury in his black eyes. She didn't want to marry Troy. She was going to do it only because she knew she couldn't have Chayce, and they both knew it.

For the first time in four years, he wondered if he was doing the right thing by turning his back on the love Abby wanted to give him. If only there were some way that he could be sure of her feelings for him!

But all he could do was step back and let her decide for herself what she wanted to do with her life. His part in all this was something he didn't dare think about. He should never have touched her in the first place. He'd had no right! If he'd left her alone, none of this would have happened.

With a rough sigh, he followed her toward the
house. He was going to pack a suitcase and do what was best for everyone. He wouldn't permit himself to think of the consequences.

I
t didn't surprise Abby one bit to find Chayce gone when she came back downstairs an hour later. It only surprised her that he'd waited three days to go. He wasn't going to give her a chance to change his mind about things. He wanted her to marry Troy and he'd gone away to make sure she didn't back out.

But after the way he'd been in the boutique that morning, she could no longer bear the thought of spending her life with Troy. It might be the best thing, but she hadn't the nerve for it. To cold-bloodedly marry a man she didn't love seemed the worst sort of betrayal of everything those vows meant.

Becky glanced up from the magazine she was reading out in the kitchen when Abby came in.

“I'm baking some cookies,” she said with a smile. “Want some iced tea?”

Abby shook her head. “How's your sister?” she asked.

“She sprained her ankle. She's at home propped up in bed with five new romance novels and a box of chocolates,” she said with a chuckle. “I'm thinking about spraining my own ankle…”

“You wicked thing!” Abby teased. She went to the coffeepot and poured herself a cup.

“You don't like coffee,” Becky said.

“I wish it was arsenic,” Abby replied miserably, sitting down at the kitchen table with the older woman.

“Don't tell me Chayce is gone again.”

“How did you know?”

“Saw the Mercedes backing out of the garage about an hour ago,” she replied. “He left a fire trail behind him. You two have a fight?”

“No, we didn't. That's why he left.”

“I don't understand.”

“He got funny after he saw the wedding gown,” she replied sadly. “He said I had to have it, despite how expensive it was, and then he started talking about how good Troy was going to be for me. That was just after he'd said that Troy was trying to make me into Eve Payne and I shouldn't let him change me.”

“Whew,” Becky whistled. “Sounds like a midlife crisis for sure.”

Abby glowered at her. “He isn't middle-aged!”

Becky's eyebrows lifted. She grinned.

Abby sighed and sipped her coffee. “I want to run away, too. You can come with me.”

“You could turn another bull loose.”

Abby glowered at her. “That's not a lot of help.”

Becky crossed her arms on the table and stared at Abby with affection and worry. “Do you love Troy?”

“No.”

“Do you really want to marry him?”

“No.”

“Then why do it?”

Abby ran a hand through her short hair. “Because Chayce says he's too old for me and I have to marry somebody younger. Troy's the only person who wants to marry me.”

“That's a shameful reason to put on an engagement ring.”

Abby actually blushed. “It didn't seem like a bad reason at the time. I hadn't seen Chayce for four years and he'd already made it clear that he…that he…” She hesitated.

Becky smiled. “I may be old, but I'm not blind,” she murmured dryly. “I know how you feel about Chayce, Abby. I've always known.”

Abby shrugged. “It doesn't matter how I feel, though,” she said miserably. “He says he's too old for me and he's determined that he isn't going to get married at all.”

“You know why he's that way.”

“She was a fool, and she never loved him,” Abby said shortly. “I do. I'd never play around with other men.”

“He knows.”

She lowered her eyes and picked at a fingernail. “Anyway, he said I should marry Troy.” She looked up belligerently. “He said he'd give me away. He can't wait, in fact. That is, if he can force himself to stay here long enough for the ceremony!”

She burst into tears unexpectedly as the reality of her situation crashed down on her. Becky got up and comforted her, smoothing her hair while she cried.

“Oh, Becky, I can't marry Troy! I can't! Not when I feel this way about Chayce. It would cheat Troy and me both!”

“I know that, baby,” she said gently. “I know.”

“What am I going to do?”

“Give Troy back the ring.”

She sniffed. “Chayce will go through the roof when he finds out.”

Becky had a faraway, amused look in her eyes that Abby didn't see. “Think so? I wonder.”

“He didn't say where he was going, did he?”

“No.”

“He's probably on his way to see Delina,” she muttered, wiping her eyes with the tissue Becky brought her. “She doesn't want to get married.”

“I'll bet she does,” came the dry reply. “No woman in her right mind could look at Chayce Der
ringer without seeing him at the end of a wedding aisle.”

Abby leaned forward, red-eyed and fatigued. “She may be hoping for a wedding, at that,” Abby said. “She doesn't sleep with him.”

The older woman's eyes widened. “And how do you know that?”

“He told me,” Abby said absently. “He said he hadn't slept with anyone in four years.”

There was a shocked silence from the other side of the table. When she looked up, Becky was still all eyes.

“Maybe he was lying,” Abby said, hoping to erase the shock.

Becky shook her head. “We both know he doesn't lie.” She let out a breath. “Well, well,” she said, and even sounded amused. “And he's gone away, has he?”

“So I'll marry Troy and leave his house. Then he can come home again, and he won't have to leave every time I cross the property line,” Abby grumbled. She pushed up from the chair. “Maybe I'll go away myself. I've got a degree and it's a big state. I can arrange that he'll never have to see me again, ever, and I won't have to marry Troy to do it!”

“Don't do anything rash,” Becky cautioned.

“It won't be rash,” she promised. “But I'm going to go see Troy right now.”

Becky didn't say a word. But she'd have loved to be a fly on the wall.

 

“You what?”
Troy exploded when Abby told him what she'd run him to ground at the corral to say.

She caught his hand and put the engagement ring into it firmly. “I said I don't want to be made over into Eve Payne,” she repeated quietly.

Troy's expression was indescribable. “Abby, I swear, I never…!”

“Listen,” she interrupted wearily, “you don't like the way I am. That's basic, and I'm not going to change. You can't turn me into someone I'm not.”

“But I'm not trying to change you,” he protested weakly.

“What would you call it? Troy, you don't like the way I dress, the way I behave, or the way I look.”

He drew in an angry breath. His freckles stood out even more. “I can get used to it.”

“You can't,” she said.

“What brought this on?” he asked suspiciously. “Are you still mooning over Chayce?”

Her heart skipped, but she only smiled. “Chayce has Delina,” she said with forced indifference. “He'll marry her one day, and I'll be very happy for him. But one thing he said was right on the money. I'm not ready to get married and settle down just yet.”

“You want us to be engaged for a few months longer?”

“I don't want us to be engaged at all,” she said
flatly. “I'm sorry. I don't love you. Without love, marriage is a piece of paper.”

He clenched the ring in his hand. “You need to think about this, Abby. Give it a little time. You've had a lot of turmoil lately—graduation, our engagement and Chayce coming back after four years of avoiding you. It's too much for you, that's all. You take a week or two and just think about it. We've got a lot in common. You may not love me right now, but you like me. Love will come later.”

It wouldn't, but she could see that she might as well talk to the fence as to Troy in that mood.

“I won't change my mind. I'm sorry.”

He made a rough sound. “Well, what am I going to tell my folks?” he exclaimed, voicing his real objection to canceling the wedding. “What am I going to tell all the people who know we're engaged? For God's sake…!”

“Tell them I ran away to join the circus,” she replied. “Or that I got kidnapped by aliens and brainwashed. Tell them whatever you please, I don't care.”

“You can't jilt me at the altar!”

She didn't dare laugh. It wasn't funny. “We're nowhere near an altar. And I'm not jilting you, Troy. You're jilting me.”

“I am?” He waited, brightening. “Okay, I am.” He frowned. “But why am I?”

She thought for a minute and then smiled. “Because Chayce bought me a very expensive wed
ding gown and you realized that you'd be taking on Chayce as well as me if we got married and he'd run both our lives.” She nodded. “How's that?”

He pursed his lips. “Not bad,” he murmured lightly.

“Fine. You have my permission to use it.”

“Did he?”

“Did he what?”

“Buy you an expensive wedding gown?”

“Yes,” she replied. “But I won't need it now, you understand.”

He stared at her quietly. “Are you really sure you want it this way?”

She nodded. “I'm sorry. I can't marry you.” She turned toward her little foreign car and paused to glance over her shoulder. “Why don't you tell Eve we're not engaged anymore?” she asked, and went to her car before he could reply.

 

The broken engagement was a gossip-fest for two weeks in and around Whitehorn, but it didn't really raise eyebrows all that much. Most people who knew Troy and Abby had wondered from the beginning why two such different souls would want to get married. Especially when Troy went all red-faced around Eve Payne.

That wasn't all, either. Ever since Chayce had taken Abby to Madame Lili's and he'd bought that glorious wedding gown for her, gossip had run ram
pant about the two of them. Madame Lili had told people that it seemed very odd for Mr. Derringer to be buying a gown for Abby to wear for some other man, when he looked at her as if he would die to have her wear it for him.

Whitehorn held its breath and waited for new developments. Meanwhile, Abby discarded her Troy-inspired image and went back to body-hugging clothes that flattered her lovely figure. She let her hair grow, too, and allowed it to wave and curl outrageously, as it naturally did. Last of all, she canceled the beautiful wedding gown. It broke her heart, but she had no need for it. She told Madame Lili that she hoped some other lucky girl would get to wear it, when she heard the sadness in the little old woman's voice even over the telephone.

The Fourth of July came and went without a word from Chayce. Becky and Abby went to the town celebration and watched the fireworks. Troy was there, and so was Eve Payne. They hadn't come together, but they sat together. He was friendly to Abby and she was friendly to him, and the gossips just shrugged and walked off without remarking on the broken engagement.

A week later, Abby gave up hope that Chayce might come back, and she started checking through the want ads of the Butte and Billings daily newspapers to look for work. She found several promising jobs for someone with her business education and
started sending off résumés. It was the only thing to do, she decided, since Chayce quite obviously wasn't coming home until she left one way or another.

“You aren't really serious about this, are you?” Becky asked worriedly a few weeks later. “I mean, you won't know anybody in these places.”

“It isn't as if I'll be going to L.A. or New York City,” Abby murmured. “Butte and Billings aren't that big, really.”

“You'll be alone,” came the morose reply.

“I'll be alone here,” Abby said heavily.

“He phoned last night.”

Abby's heart leapt. “You didn't say anything.”

“Not much to say. He asked were you all right, I said yes, he asked if you had everything set for the wedding.”

“And?” Abby prompted, all eyes.

Becky shrugged. “I didn't know what to tell him,” she said worriedly. “I said you hadn't picked a date. Well, that was true enough. He said it was already July, and why hadn't you? I said I didn't know. Before I could say anything else, he hung up.”

“He didn't say where he was?”

Becky hesitated. “Yes.”

“Where?”

Becky grimaced. “He was at Delina's house.”

Abby turned away, her gray eyes full of dead dreams. “I'll carry that cake you made for the boys
out to the bunkhouse for you, if it's ready,” she said in a deceptively cheerful tone.

“It's ready. I'm sorry, baby.”

Abby smiled lifelessly. “I'm going to be all right,” she said. “I'm just about to find my own two feet. Don't you worry. I'll be fine.”

“I know that.”

Abby picked up the cake in its neat carrier and wandered down to the bunkhouse to give it to Billy Cates, who did the cooking for Chayce's outfit.

Billy grinned toothlessly from ear to ear. “Bless me, that was sweet of our Becky! The boys love her apple cake. So do I.”

“You've all worked extra hard lately,” she said. “We both thought you deserved a treat.” She glanced around at the empty living room, where the boys usually sprawled in front of the satellite-fed television when they weren't working. “Where is everybody?”

“Out rounding up stray calves,” Billy told her. “Mr. Conroy was afraid we might lose some in this drought if we didn't get them all in. Weather's been frightful. Sure wish we had some rain.”

“We're not likely to get much this time of year, but we can hope.”

“Plenty of thunder and lightning,” Billy remarked. “But no rain to go with it.”

“Par for the course.”

He relayed his thanks to Becky again and Abby wandered back toward the house, her mind far away.

She wasn't watching for a car, which was why she didn't see the black Mercedes coming pell-mell up the driveway until she was at the back door.