Now and Forever (13 page)

“I made you fight your own battles, not because I didn't care,” he told her, “but because I did. I wouldn't have done you any favors by putting crutches under you, Tish. The day would have come when you'd have had to fight one on your own, and I wouldn't be standing behind you. You make your own security. You can't depend on anyone else for it.”

“They'll hurt her,” she said, watching the little girl play with her pole.

“Life hurts, honey, didn't you know?”

She drew in a deep breath. “I'm learning.”

“Watch your cork. It's moving again,” he said.

She jerked on the line too quickly again,
and drew out a wet, bare metal hook. She sighed as she reached for the bait can once again.

“I hope I brought enough worms,” Russell said carelessly.

“Oh, shut up,” she grumbled. She fished out another pink, struggling victim and threaded it onto the hook. “I might as well just stick the worms in the water and drown them by hand!”

Russell chuckled down at her. “They're getting even.”

“The fish? What for?” she asked innocently.

“For being talked to death,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed, and she glared at him. “You haven't once told me to shut up.”

“I don't have to
tell
you,” he murmured, and, catching the point of her chin, he brought his mouth down on hers in a brief, hard, bruising kiss. “I can think of other ways,” he added, smiling gently as he saw the shock in her pale eyes.

He let go before she could react physically or verbally, and then it was too late. He pulled his hat low over his eyes and
tugged gently on his line. “Now, this is how you catch a fish,” he began coolly.

They went home with six oversized bream on the mud-stained white fishing line, and Russell had caught all but one of them. The last was Lisa's.

E
xcept for the parade on television and an immense meal prepared by Mattie, Thanksgiving was much like any other day. All too soon, it was over, and Baker and Mindy were on their way back to Florida. Tish wandered around the house with a strange sense of emptiness, of hopelessness. Before many more weeks had passed, she'd be back in college and everything that had happened would be a memory.

A memory,
her mind echoed, and it
reached back to pick up pieces of the past. Russell's dark, quiet face in the doorway of the Tyler beach house; the deep, slow sound of his voice on the porch that first night as he held her so fiercely; the feel of his hard mouth burning against hers as the sun burned against her head in the fields. A long, shuddering sigh left her lungs. The way he'd kissed her in the kitchen that night and stormed out because of what she'd said about Lisa. If only she'd
known!

She paused in the doorway of his den, her eyes on the big oak desk he used for record keeping. Despite that brief kiss on the banks of the pond, he was keeping a discreet distance between them. It was almost as though he was afraid to let her come too close. She frowned thoughtfully. Could it be…?

“Tish!” Lisa called from the front door. “Come quick, Papa's going to let me ride a horse!”

“Now?” Tish murmured. “It's almost dark.”

“If you're going to come, damn it, come on!” Russell growled at her, looming up like a tall shadow behind his daughter, his irri
tation showing plainly. “Why she can't move five feet without you to stand and watch is a puzzle to me!”

She felt flayed, not only by the lash of the words, but there was an angry darkness in his eyes that cut her.

“Tish is my friend, Papa,” Lisa protested gently, looking up at him with melting brown eyes.

Tish lifted her chin proudly. “I'd just as soon not…” she began.

“What's this about going riding?” Eileen called from the stairs. She came down laughing. “Oh boy, I need a little exercise. Can I come, too?”

Russell said a long word under his breath. “Oh, hell, I'll hire a bus and we'll take the field hands, too. Come on!”

Eileen grinned at Tish as they started out the door. “Just one big, happy family,” she said.

“Blow it out your ear,” Tish replied. “I hope his cinch breaks.”

“The way Russell rides,” Eileen reminded her, “it wouldn't matter much.”

Burying a dread of horses she wouldn't
let show, Tish sat quietly in the back of the jeep with Eileen as they bounced roughly over a trail through the fields and along one of the barbed-wire fences that kept the cattle confined to the pasture that seemed to stretch to the horizon.

“Look at the horses!” Lisa breathed, leaning forward to peer through the windshield. “Papa showed them to me before, the Appaloosas!”

Tish smiled at the child's enthusiasm. “Apps,” she said voluntarily, “or Appys. Did you know that they're born snow white? It isn't until they lose their first coat that they begin to show their spots.”

“That's why they're called the Spotted Breed,” Eileen chimed in.

“God save me from back-seat experts who can't even pull a damned cinch strap tight enough to keep the saddle on the horse,” Russell growled, his eyes never leaving the narrow field road.

“Just because I once, only once,” Tish returned, “let a stubborn little pinto blow out her belly…”

“See the way Tish is stretching her neck,
Lisa,” Eileen instructed, “if she were a horse that would be called the look of eagles. A horse with a particularly good conformation, with his head held high so that he looks as if he might fly away any minute, is said to have it.”

“Eileen…” Tish threatened, dramatically lifting her fist.

“Want some oats, Tish?” Eileen grinned.

Lisa burst out laughing. “You're funny,” she giggled.

Tish marveled again at the neat, modern installation that housed Russell's prize Appaloosas and his riding stock. The barns were well insulated and the stalls were roomy and meticulously cleaned. A paddock adjoined each side of the barns and Russell's prized handler lived just a stone's throw away—with the shotgun he kept to discourage midnight visitations.

“This is a big operation,” Tish remarked gently.

“And growing every day,” Russell told her. He moved toward the corral, outside which three horses were saddled and ready to go. Three—one for Russell, Eileen and
Lisa. Tish breathed a sigh of relief. She'd had suspicions…

Lisa made a beeline for the small palomino mare she'd named Windy.

“Lisa Marie,” Russell called sharply, “keep your hands off that horse until I tell you!”

The child froze in her tracks and did an abrupt about-face. “Yes, Papa,” she replied politely. “Tish, are you coming with us?”

“No,” Tish said.

“Yes,” Russell said. “Eileen, go ahead with Lisa. But watch her closely. Tish and I will be along.”

“Sure, Russ. Come on, Lisa,” Eileen called, and quickly marched the little girl to the horses.

“Come back here, you traitor,” Tish called after Eileen.

“Bye!” Eileen waved as she and Lisa galloped slowly away.

Tish glared up at Russell. “I won't get on that horse,” she said tightly, the memory of the accident flooding into her mind. “I won't, Russell!”

“Yes, you will.” That look was in his
eyes. She'd seen it too many times not to recognize it, and it always meant he would get his way. Resistance did nothing but make him more determined.

She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Don't make me,” she whispered anxiously. “Russell, you can't know what it does to me…!”

“There's nothing to be afraid of,” he said quietly. “You've got to get back on now, or you never will.”

“What does it matter?” she asked. “I won't be doing any riding in the city!”

“You'll be home on vacations,” he replied with determination in every line of his face.

“I don't want to!”

He caught her gently by the shoulders. “Tish, have I ever hurt you intentionally?” he asked.

She dropped her eyes to the dusty boots she was wearing. “Yes,” she breathed involuntarily.

His hands tightened. “I don't mean…that way,” he said tightly, and the memory was suddenly there between them of that summer
at the beach house…“I mean have I ever caused you to hurt yourself?” he growled.

She had to shake her head.

“Then trust me. It's for your own good. I won't let anything hurt you, baby. Not ever,” he said at her temple, his voice deep and comforting.

She drew a shaky breath, her heart pounding at his nearness. “I can't help being afraid. It hurt so.”

His big hand smoothed her long, dark hair. “We'll keep to the bridle path, and I'll be right beside you every inch of the way. All right?”

She swallowed down the fear. “All right.”

He tilted her face up to his, and the sudden darkness of his narrow, glittering eyes robbed her of breath. “Don't try to throw the past between us again,” he cautioned softly. “Keep it light, Tish, or I'll have to come down on you hard. I don't want any more friction between now and Christmas if we can avoid it, for Lisa and Eileen's sakes more than our own. All right?”

Flushing, she pulled away from him. “All right.”

He took a deep, harsh breath and turned away from her. “Has Nan called you about that damned party?” he asked suddenly as they walked toward the corral, where one of the stable hands had left a second horse saddled.

“Your birthday party at Jace's?” she asked. “Yes. Eileen and Gus are coming, too.”

“I wish to God you girls would clear things with me before you set up parties like this,” he said curtly. “It's going to cut me out of going to an auction down near Thomasville. I had my eye on some good farm equipment.”

“Do you ever,” Tish asked coldly, “think of anything except this farm? We thought you might appreciate having someone care enough to remember your birthday. I don't know why we bothered.”

“I can remember my age without any help,” he said shortly. “I'll be thirty-five.”

“You sound like it's the end of the world.
Remember that commercial, you're not getting older, you're getting…” she began.

“Leave it!” The words were like bullets, and the impact hurt. She stopped speaking immediately.

They were at the horses now, and she looked up at the restless animals with a sense of bitterness. It had been her fault, even if she had been thinking about Russell at the time. But the slow, whispering creak of saddle leather and the smell of horse brought it back. She closed her eyes, and a shudder went through her as she remembered the pain.

“Remember the first time I ever put you up on a horse?” Russell asked softly. “You almost fell off trying to catch the reins? I had to shorten the stirrups two feet to compensate for your lack of height.”

She smiled at the memory. Those had been good times, happy times. “You weren't always yelling at me then,” she said.

“You grew up, baby,” he said in a strange, solemn voice. “Come on, I'll give you a hand up.”

She let him boost her into the saddle, and she sat stiffly on the roan gelding with her heart threatening to burst out of her chest. Her lips set in a thin line as she remembered the horse screaming.

“I'm ready when you are,” she said quite calmly. Her fingers on the reins were white at the knuckles.

“Relax, honey,” he said gently, riding up beside her. “Just relax. I'm right here. Nothing's going to happen.”

She let the tension slide out of her with a long, deep sigh.

“Bring your elbows in, that's it,” he instructed. “Ride with your knees. He's gentle enough, he won't run away with you. Everything okay?”

Feeling the smooth, easy motion of the horse, the quiet pleasure of Russell's deep voice at her side, the nip in the air, and the wonderful peace of the open country, she smiled. “I'm fine,” she said. And she was.

 

“Russell looks like a thundercloud,” Nan whispered to Tish at his birthday party, which, with all Russell's office-holding
friends in attendance looked more like a political party. “What's the matter, Tish?”

The younger woman shrugged with a sigh. “He's been like this for days,” she murmured. “I think it has something to do with not wanting to be thirty-five. I feel like it's my fault, somehow.”

“That he's thirty-five?” Nan asked, and she studied her friend with a curious intensity. “I wonder why it bothers him?”

“How should I know? I see you invited the Tylers,” she added brightly. “How's it going with you and Frank?”

“He's all right,” Nan said carelessly. “A little too conventional, but nice.” She smiled. “Looks like his sister found something to keep her little hands busy.”

Sure enough, Belle was standing so close to Russell she might have been a thread on the dark evening clothes he was wearing. Blood surged angrily through Tish's veins and, unreasonably, she wanted to wrap Belle's long black beads around her throat until she turned blue.

“Hi, Tish,” Frank said, joining the two
women. “It's good to see you. Feeling better?”

“Oh, much,” Tish said with a brightness she didn't feel. “I'm the picture of good health.”

“You look it too,” he said with uncharacteristic boldness, and Tish wondered at the sudden flash of green in Nan's big eyes.

“Thank you, Frank,” she said.

“Would you like to dance with me?” he persisted with a grin.

“Only because Fred Astaire isn't here,” she replied lightly. “Excuse me, Nan.”

“Sure,” Nan said quietly.

They moved onto the dance floor and Frank held her close, lifting both her hands to his shoulders in an ultramodern style. “Do you mind?” he asked seriously. “We're friends, and I think the world of you. But Nan…” He sighed heavily. “I guess it shows.”

She smiled. “Only to me. Did you have a fight?”

He nodded. “My fault. I always open my mouth and stick my foot in it up to the ankle. She won't listen to an apology.”

“So you're going to try a little jealousy?”

“If I can make her jealous,” he replied, “at least I'll know I've still got a chance. Are you game, Tish?”

She smiled up at him with understanding in her pale eyes. “Nan's my best friend, and she's not happy tonight. I'll help.”

He drew her cheek down to his jacket. “Thanks, friend. Here goes.”

“Take an old cold tater and wait,” Tish murmured.

“Beg pardon?” Frank asked quickly.