Texas Tender (37 page)

“My mother said the last four months were the hardest,” Idalou said. Her mother hadn't wanted any more children after Carl. “Your aunt asked how you were getting along. I think she's sorry she made you move out.”

“I think she really does like me and would probably learn to like the baby,” Junie Mae said, “but she couldn't forgive me for not telling her who the father was.”

“Do some people still think it's Will?” Mara asked.

Idalou hoped her blushes didn't give her away. She'd never truly
believed
Will had fathered Junie Mae's baby, because common sense told her the timing wasn't right. It was just jealousy that had kept her from thinking straight. And fear that if she stopped guarding her heart, she'd get hurt again.

Now she wanted Will to know she had put all of that behind her. No more doubt, no more excuses for not admitting her feelings. No more putting everything else in her life before herself. Will was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and she didn't want to lose him.

“There'll always be speculation as long as Junie Mae refuses to name the father,” Idalou said, “but Will doesn't live here and Junie Mae is leaving, so I expect people will forget about it in a few months.”

She stopped by Will's room, but she wasn't surprised that she got no answer when she knocked on the door. The priviledge of providing the sheriff with supper had expanded until it covered providing him with entertainment for the evening, too. Idalou had heard that Will had had to sit through adolescents singing, playing the piano, and even dancing. She hoped he was being liberally supplied with whiskey. Even Edwina Sullivan, Dunmore's legitimate star performer, was hard to take now that she was years past her prime. With Will's background, he was surely accustomed to the best theater San Antonio and Galveston had to offer.

That thought depressed her even more. She didn't know anything about San Antonio or Galveston. She probably wasn't sophisticated enough even for San Angelo, which was nothing compared to Fort Worth or Dallas, neither of which compared to San Antonio or Galveston. She couldn't imagine why Will would
fall in love with anyone like her. What did he see in her? What could they have in common?

She reached her room. She lit a lamp and settled into a chair by the window. In the dark street below, lights from the saloon penetrated the darkness like long, tawny spears. Sounds of music, laughter, shouts, even subdued conversation drifting up on the soft evening air, contrasting with the heaviness that settled inside her. She'd always been weighed down by worries and troubles, but they had never seemed so terrible until Will showed her what her life could be if she would just let go of everything.

She wanted to,
she already had
, but she was afraid it was too late. She had never let herself want the kind of love he offered. She hadn't believed it existed, hadn't believed that men like Will existed.

A knock at the door caused her to jump.

“Idalou, are you in there?”

Will.
She leaped to her feet, practically ran the short distance to the door, and wrenched it open. The man she saw standing before her caused her heart to swell until she could barely breathe. How could she not have realized she was in love with him days ago, maybe even weeks? Mara had been dazzled by him on first sight. Junie Mae would have married him in a flash. Nearly every female in Dunmore grew warm at the sight of him, yet she was so distrustful that she hadn't been able to see that this man was unlike any she'd ever known.

“I was hoping to talk with you before you went to bed,” she said, opening the door so he could enter the room. “There are some things I need to tell you.”

Will didn't move. “Maybe we ought to talk in the lobby or my office. Or we could take a walk.”

“Are you afraid I'll take advantage of you?” She couldn't believe she'd asked such a question. “Come
in before somebody hears our conversation and takes it all wrong.”

Will hesitated a moment before entering the room and closing the door behind him. “I suppose you want to know if Sonnenberg has heard that Mara has run away to marry Carl?”

“Yes, but that's not what I wanted to talk about.”

“Lloyd told him when he was in the bank this afternoon. He didn't appear to care one way or the other.”

“Frank Sonnenberg is not a man to show what he's thinking. Sometimes I think even Van doesn't know what his father is thinking,” Idalou said.

After what Junie Mae had told her, she was too disgusted with Van to be interested in what he might be doing or thinking. She couldn't believe she'd misjudged his character so badly. She turned away from Will, walked over to the window, then turned back to face him. He was still standing at the door looking uncomfortable. Could he have decided he didn't love her anymore and was waiting for a chance to tell her? Had she rebuffed him so many times he'd given up and just wanted to take his bull and go home? He didn't look like a man in love, only a man who was unhappy to be here.

She tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach, the nausea that filled her throat. He couldn't have stopped loving her. She couldn't have waited too long. She had to have one last chance.

“Now that Carl has found the bull, you aren't in debt anymore,” Will said.

She didn't want to talk about the bull. She didn't care about the ranch as long as Carl wasn't going to lose it. She didn't care whether Jordan spent one night or ten years in jail. And at the moment, she really wasn't interested in what Van or his father might
be planning. She wanted to tell Will that she'd been wrong to hold back so long, that she loved him and hoped he still loved her.

“The debt will be one less thing to stand between us,” Will said.

Will's words were like a barrier being torn down, pressure being released, the breaking of fear's paralyzing grip.

“I didn't mean to make it a barrier between us,” she said before she could lose her nerve. “I don't know why I held back from you. I suppose I was too afraid that what we felt wasn't real and I would be hurt again.”

“Did losing Webb hurt that much?”

She couldn't tell whether he was sad for her or sad because another man had apparently meant more to her than he did, but his hurt drew her away from the window toward him.

“It wasn't losing Webb that hurt so badly,” she said. “It was my belief that I wasn't worthy of being loved. All the other stuff just made it worse.”

Will seemed to relax, move a few inches away from the door. “Is that why you never believed I loved you?”

Loved
you. He hadn't said
love
you. He'd said
loved.
Did that mean he'd fallen out of love with her, that she'd been so standoffish he'd given up and was going home?

“That and a lot of other things,” she said. “But that's not true anymore. I realized I was being very unfair to you. I didn't blame you for the things that had happened to me, but I expected you to act like everybody else. I've never known anybody like you, so I didn't know what to do. I know that's not an adequate excuse, but it's all I have.”

Will came closer, reached for the two hands Idalou
was twisting in front of her. He covered her hands with his before gently prying them apart. He caressed them, treating them as though they were the soft hands of some elegant woman rather than the rough hands of a woman who'd worked all her life. “What are you trying to tell me?” he asked when he looked into her eyes.

For a moment Idalou was afraid the words wouldn't come out. She swallowed to moisten her throat, to release the tension. “I'm trying to say I love you,” she managed in a half whisper. “I think I have for some time. I just was too afraid to admit it.”

She didn't know exactly what response she'd been expecting, but Will's lack of reaction frightened her.

“I wanted to tell you before now,” she said, hoping his love hadn't died completely, “but I couldn't. I don't know why other things bothered me so much, but every time I tried to tell you, something stopped me.”

“You're a proud woman, Idalou Ellsworth,” Will said. “That's a good thing to be, but sometimes pride can get in the way of happiness. I'm just as much at fault as you. I watched my brother close himself off from the world because of fear. I decided I was never going to let anything have that kind of control over me. I went so far in the other direction, people thought I didn't care about anything. I just sat still and watched life go by. It took me a long time to realize I wasn't protecting myself. I was isolating myself from life, from all the things that made being alive worthwhile.”

“You haven't stopped helping people,” Idalou said.

“I didn't help you that first day. I had good reasons for not doing it, but I was angry at myself in spite of my reasons. I knew right then there was something different about you.”

Idalou felt embarrassed. She hadn't started liking
him until a long time after that. “Why would you be attracted to anyone as rude as I was?”

“You were the first woman who didn't care about my looks. I knew right then you weren't going to be impressed by my family's money, either. I was going to have to impress you on my own. That challenged me, but it was also what I wanted. No man wants to think a woman likes him just for his looks and his money.”

Idalou felt guilty that Will was giving her too much credit. “I'm no more immune to your looks than any other woman,” she confessed. “I only acted the way I did because I was upset. I knew you were right, but the threat of losing the ranch had made me so angry at the world, I couldn't be fair. I didn't even want to.”

Will's smile remained in check. She could tell that something was still bothering him.

“What about Junie Mae?” he asked.

Idalou looked away. “I was jealous of all the attention you gave her, the way she felt free to touch you, lean on you, cry on your shoulder. I couldn't convince myself you weren't going to turn to her just like Webb had. When neither of you would tell me who the baby's father was, I was convinced you were hiding some secret. Few things are more maddening than thinking the man you love shares a secret with another woman.”

“Is everything that stood between us out of the way now?” Will asked.

“Yes.”

“Then if I tell you I love you, you won't back away?”

The relief that surged through her was so enormous, she felt weak in the knees. “No. I promise I won't back away.”

“Would you meet me halfway?”

“I think I can do that.” She would have gone all the way on her own if necessary.

They came together, his arms around her waist, her arms around his neck. She could hardly believe how good it felt to be so close to him. He'd held her before, kissed her, but something had always stood between them, kept her from being able to concentrate on just the two of them. Things were different now.
She
was different. She could go to Will with an open and trusting heart.

She wanted love to make everything perfect, cast light into all the dark corners of her world, provide answers for all the mysteries, assure her that the future held nothing but happiness for her and everyone she loved. She was too old and too experienced to believe that could happen, but she was young enough to hope. Love had been able to transform her life, eliminate her fears. If it could do that, then everything else must be possible, too.

“You're thinking again,” Will chided with a smile.

“Am I not allowed to think?”

“Isabelle assures me that a woman truly in love is beyond the reach of reason. She's not sure that a man is capable of reason even before the malady of love has descended upon him.”

Idalou wanted to meet this woman who had had such a powerful influence on Will, the woman she was convinced had made him the man he'd become. “Surely she doesn't believe love is a sickness.”

“She swears it's the only reason she's been able to put up with Jake for these twenty years.”

“What do you think?”

“I think she loves him so much she doesn't see any faults, so she has to create some failings just to make him mortal.”

Idalou wondered if it was possible that Will would
ever love her that much. She didn't think he was without fault, but he did come close to being perfect. She wasn't perfect and never would be. There was nothing remarkable about her, while he was the most remarkable man she'd ever known.

“That must be nice for Jake,” Idalou said.

Will broke out laughing. “The last thing Jake wants is to be thought of as perfect. He'll do something just to make Isabelle argue with him. I used to be afraid that one of them would leave and destroy the only real home I'd ever known. I finally realized that arguing is just one of the ways they show their love.”

No wonder she couldn't understand how Will could love her. She didn't understand how fighting could be a way of showing love. She'd only had her mother's slavish adoration of her father as an example. She knew she'd argue with Will if she thought he was wrong. She already had.

“Is that why you never fell out of love with me?” she asked.

“I never had a reason to fall out of love with you,” Will said and kissed her nose. “You were adorable from the very beginning.”

“Men don't like their wives to argue with them.”

“I won't mind. It'll keep me from taking you for granted.”

It was hard to think with him kissing her ears, but she had to be sure. “What if I don't agree with you?”

“We'll figure something out.”

He kissed her eyes. The temptation to forget everything but Will was nearly overpowering, but she persevered. “What happens if we can't work something out?”

“Then we ask Jake or Isabelle to arbitrate.” He kissed the side of her mouth. “They'll
probably side with you.” He kissed the side of her neck. “They'll probably advise against marrying me, but I hope you won't listen to them.”