Someone Like You (2 page)

Chapter One

Desire, they say, was born amid the folds,

amid the cattle and the unbridled mares.

-Tibullis,
Elegies

Bluebonnet, Texas, 1887

Procreation was all about.

Simply everywhere. In the words Susannah heard, in what she saw—even in her thoughts.

On Sunday the Reverend Pettigrew’s sermon was “Be Fruitful and Multiply”. On Monday the hens started sitting on their eggs. On Tuesday the barn cat became the proud mother of six blind kittens. On Wednesday there were four new calves in the pasture. This morning the neighbor’s stallion kicked down the fence to get at Susannah’s mare.

And, to her dismay, procreation—or the lack of it in her life—even crowded into her thoughts. She sighed. She was satisfied with her life in all seasons, save this one. Spring. The promise of spring. The promise that things might be different.

“Bah!” she said. She was becoming soft in the head and foolish. Spring was frivolous and impractical, like a pair of satin dancing shoes. Poor, silly spring. Like the girls in town, with their preening and promenading, more worried about what they were on the outside than what they were within. All their thoughts were centered on finding a husband. So what did they do? They wasted their time adorning themselves so they could engage in empty-headed chatter and flirtation to catch the eye of some lusty fellow. Spring brought many things, but the most important was the promise of work, and there was plenty of that to be done on this farm. The corn was a foot high now, and the weeds were almost as tall.

She picked up her bonnet and was about to go into the kitchen when the happy chirping of a bird distracted her. She looked out her window to see a mockingbird sitting on the fence, singing his heart out. Spring was like that bird, she thought. Happy and singing, building a nest and filling it with hope and promise, much as she had done in the past. But that was a long time ago and she was twenty-five years old now, wiser. She knew there were never any birds in last year’s nest.

Out in the field Susannah chopped weeds as if they were the images that had plagued her all morning, consoling herself with thoughts of summer. Once summer came, her thoughts would turn to more productive things than procreation.

A dull ache in her back reminded her to rest a moment. She removed her bonnet, retied the ribbons, and looped them at the crook of her arm. Leaning against the hoe handle, she stared out across the prairie. In the distance, a dust devil dropped out of the sky. She watched it come toward her, snaking its way across the cornfield, rattling the green stalks. Then it was upon her, loosening the braid that hung down her back and blowing grit into her face.

Susannah blinked to clear her eyes. What she saw made her freeze. The dust devil had passed—and left something behind.

A man.

Surely her eyes deceived her. She blinked again. No deception. A man—the likes of which never before had ridden down this road—was sitting atop the biggest red roan Susannah had ever seen.

What a handsome picture he made with the sun sloping down on the right and throwing his thin, spectral shadow, tall as a poplar tree, far out across the dusty road. His easy command of his mount, the self-confident tilt of his head, and the beauty of his face and form quite convinced Susannah that he was ready to ride down the primrose path of dalliance. If she knew anything at all, it was men. Men, with their sugared baits and subtle snares, their thoughts on one thing and one thing only: lust.

How fortunate for her that she knew lust for what it was—an iron poker to stir a creeping fire to flame.

As if he could hear what she was thinking, he paused a few yards from her on the other side of the fence. There he sat, right smack in the middle of the road like he owned it. He did not say anything, but he sure did stare.

She stared right back.

His clothes were covered with a layer of fine, powered dust, but that did not detract from him, nor did it hide the fact that his kind did not hail from these parts. Susannah had only to glance at him to be reminded of the finer things of life—of silver-backed brushes, of diamond stickpins and patent-leather shoes—for nothing other than instinct could enable a man to wear clothes so carelessly, to fold such height into a saddle with such lounging grace. His saddle might be worn, but it was hand tooled and finely made. The roan he rode and the dapple-gray packmare he led were finer than any horses in the whole of West Texas. She could not have been more surprised if he had been riding over a red velvet carpet wearing evening clothes and a black silk hat. She had never seen a man like him pass through this part of Texas. He must have made a wrong turn somewhere, she thought, repressing a grin. Stuck out like a dog with two tails, he did. Not wanting any part of him to touch her, she stepped out of his shadow and into the warmth of full sunlight. If she had been a brazen sort, she might have stared a bit longer. But she had stared overlong as it was. He was handsome as the devil, she would hand him that.

Not one to waste time, she put her bonnet on and returned to her hoeing. That kind of treatment would be enough to send an ordinary man on his way, but as she had surmised, this was no ordinary man.

She chopped furiously for a few moments, acutely aware that he had not moved. She kept on chopping, until she could feel the heat of a blister rising next to the callus on her palm. How many blisters would it take, she wondered, before he lost interest and went on his way?

She dared not look at him, but she knew the exact moment he urged his horse forward and rode through the open gate onto her property. She paused and gave him a hard, unwelcoming stare.

When that didn’t seem to affect him, she returned to her work. A second later, he drew rein and pulled to a stop right in front of her. Heaven help her, but she had to look.

He smiled, tipped his hat, ever so politely, and said, “Good morning.”

She gave him her back.

“Good morning,” he said more loudly.

“Morning,” she said, giving him a quick glance.

He seemed ready to sit there until he turned to stone. Unable to send him on his way, she had no choice but to leave herself. She turned and began to make her way between the cornstalks.

The moment she did, she heard the horse’s heavy breathing coming close behind her. Just as she made the decision to run, the horse and rider cut in front of her, blocking her path.

“A moment of your time,” he said in tones that were as articulate as they were unfamiliar.

She stood there blinking against the sun’s brightness and taking in the sight of him, as if by doing so she might learn something about him or why he was here. He had a black, flat-brimmed hat on his head and wore a collarless shirt that fit tight at his throat. Now that he was close enough, she could see his black coat was made of fine broadcloth. His pants, of the same color, hugged his legs with nary a wrinkle.

She squinted and looked straight at him. Heaven was reflected in that face, but she was not tempted. He was just a man, and there were plenty of them in town. But as the thought formed, her heart pounded steadily, as if contradictory words might spill out:
but none like you, love. None like you.

Her face was hot and sweating. The dust devil had left her hair hanging wild and unbraided down her back. A gnat ball buzzed about her head. The dress she wore was old and shapeless. Not that she cared, for Susannah might be young and her body innocent, but she knew men. No matter who they were or where they were, men were all the same. That was something neither distance nor time could change.

“You are trespassing,” she said. He crossed his arms over the saddle horn and leaned toward her.

He took a deep breath as if he were inhaling the freshness of the cornfield. “‘Her presence fills with perfume all the field,’” he said, a teasing smile playing about his mouth.

That went over like a prickly pear, she thought. He was wasting his time and hers and she was determined to let him know it. “Don’t tell me you rode all the way over here just to spout a line of poetry.” Her voice was flat.

“You don’t like poetry?”

“I don’t have much time for poetry, and I have even less time for people with nothing better to do than to waste mine.”

A breeze stirred. It blew a long strand of her hair across her face. She propped the hoe against her hip, then gathered her hair into a large skein and pulled it over her shoulder. Hurriedly she began to braid it. “‘Amarantha sweet and fair, ah, braid no more that shining hair.’”

Just the sound of his voice made her heart vibrate like a plucked banjo string, and that angered her. She wanted to remain impersonal and uninterested. She did not want to feel anything. Not for this man. Not for any man. It took nothing more than his presence to bring back the memories of too many things, things she wanted to forget—a warm, sultry evening; the aroma of an opium pipe; the soft, throaty laughter of a woman; the guttural grunt of an impassioned man; real silk stockings and feather boas; the fragrant smells of Creole cooking; and the shame of too much knowledge.

Ride away and give me peace.

As she had learned to do long ago, she banished the unwelcome thoughts and quickly finished braiding her hair. “What are you, a traveling poet?” she asked, and tossed the fat braid over her shoulder.

He chuckled. “Hardly that.”

In spite of his smile, she remained impassive. “What do you want?”

He removed his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Like his clothes, his hair was black, but his eyes were as gray as goose down. “As I said, a moment of your time. Nothing more.”

“You’ve taken up more than a moment of my time already.”

He didn’t know it, of course, but Susannah wasn’t a woman to be swayed by poetry any more than she was swayed by jet-black hair and goose-gray eyes—no matter how soft those eyes were. Without a thread of kindness running through her voice, she said, “I’ve work to do, so state your business and be on your way.”

He nodded, putting his hat back on. “Short and sweet and to the point. All right. How far is it to town?”

“You just passed a sign that told you.”

He raised his brows. “Then I must have missed it. What’s the matter? Don’t
you
know how far it is either?”

She pursed her lips. “Five miles.” When he made no move to leave, she added, “Straight down that road.” She pointed the way so there was no doubt.

He glanced innocently in the direction she had indicated, but remained where he was. “I’m looking for work.”

“Then maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for in town.”

“I was hoping to work on a farm.”

“Ask the sheriff. He usually knows who’s hiring in these parts.”

“I was hoping to work on
this
farm.”

Her heart pounded. Her palms grew moist. She put both hands around the hoe handle—just in case—and then she stared him in the eye. “And why
this
farm?”

He smiled as if he knew every little thought that was going through her mind. “I noticed your fences could use some work, your pastures, too. Seems as though you could use an extra hand. I’m sure a woman living alone might find it helpful to have a man around.”

Her heartbeat escalated. She tightened her hands around the hoe. A woman could not be too careful. “What makes you think I live alone?”

“You don’t wear a wedding ring.”

“Lots of people can’t afford a ring.”

“A man who married a woman who looks like you do would manage to come up with a ring.”

She chose to ignore that, but she did loosen her grip on the hoe handle. “We don’t need any help, and if we did, it wouldn’t be you. We don’t hire drifters,” she said. For pure spite she added, “And we don’t hire troubadours, actors, or poets.”

He smiled in a slow, relaxed way and said, “Well now, if you gave me a job, I wouldn’t be a drifter, would I?”

“No, maybe not, but you’d still be a troubadour, and I’ve developed a sudden aversion to those. Now, why don’t you go try your charm on someone else, someone who might be interested or flattered?”

He tilted his head to one side and looked at her oddly. “I wonder,” he drawled, “if it’s poetry you hold in such contempt, or is it men?”

He got her with that one, but she wouldn’t let him know it. Without a word, she turned and walked off. Let him come after her. She didn’t care if he ran her down this time.

She did not hear him coming behind her, so after a few minutes she slowed her gait, but she did not stop. She would walk to the back of the cornfield. By the time she reached it, he would be gone.

Reed Garrett watched her stomp off, unable to understand her hostility, yet in spite of it, there was something about her that he admired. Perhaps it was her open honesty. She did not care for him and she didn’t mind showing it.

He gathered the reins in his hand. Well, there was always next time.

He guided his horse into a turn, then suddenly glanced back at the woman and shrugged.
Why not?
he asked himself, and without understanding what prompted him to do so, he rode across the field to where she had begun again to chop weeds.