The Reluctant Bride (38 page)

Russ paused outside the door, wondering what he could do. He didn’t want to go to one of the saloons, but that was the only alternative to a solitary walk. Yet even though he didn’t want company, he didn’t want to be alone. As he walked the length of the hall, he told himself he was turning into a pathetic case. The outcast, the ex-con, the barely literate bastard son of a rich man’s mistress thinking a respectable woman could love him, would want to marry him and bear his children.

“Can’t sleep?” Archie said when Russ reached the lobby.

“Too much on my mind.”

“I heard about the meeting. Do you think they’ll come out to your ranch?”

“It won’t matter. They won’t find anything.”

Archie looked around like he thought somebody might be listening. “I wouldn’t be too sure if I was you. Who’s to say some stray cows won’t get over those mountains like those killers did?”

Russ’s attention was riveted. “Have you heard something?”

Archie acted even more like a furtive, cornered creature, hunching down and lowering his voice still more. “Nothing definite, but there’s something afoot. Could be somebody doesn’t want you to get off the hook.”

“Thanks, Archie. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I’ll tell you if I hear anything else.”

“Don’t get yourself in trouble.”

Russ stepped outside the hotel, but he just stood there. Archie’s warning faded away, to be replaced by the look in Tanzy’s eyes when she kissed him, the caressing sound of her voice, the softness of her body as she pressed against him. He felt himself becoming aroused just thinking about it.

He tried without success to think of something else. He had memorized nearly every word she’d said to him during the last several days. He let them run through his head, examining each for hidden meaning, some sign of her feelings for him, some hint that she might be in love with him, but objective examination didn’t show anything that couldn’t be said with equal accuracy to a friend. Russ knew he couldn’t settle for friendship. Only love would do.

He started toward the light coming from a nearby saloon but turned around before he’d taken a dozen steps. That-wasn’t where he wanted to go, and it wouldn’t give him the answer to the question burning in his mind. He had to know. He couldn’t stand this suspense any longer. He reentered the hotel and didn’t stop until he’d knocked on Tanzy’s door. It was a few moments before she opened it.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“No. I just have to ask you a question.”

“What?”

“Ethel said you loved me. Is that true?”

Chapter Twenty-four

Tanzy was unprepared to have that question flung at her so unexpectedly. Being half dressed made it even more difficult.

“You’d better come in,” she said as she pulled her robe more tightly around her.

“I don’t have to.”

“You do if you want an answer.”

Her hotel room was basic without being bare. She had a bed covered with a flowered spread, a table with a pitcher and a basin, a ladder-back chair next to the window, and a badly scratched and gouged bureau. A thin carpet covered the wide-board floor. Cream-colored wallpaper with scenes of some European city covered the walls. A single oil lamp provided the only illumination.

“What prompted you to ask that question now?” she asked.

“What Ethel said.”

“Sit down. This is not a short answer.”

“It would be for me.”

She started to say that men were less complicated than women but decided that wasn’t true. She wanted a husband and a family, she wanted to be respected, and she wanted nothing to do with killing. Nothing complicated about that. She still hadn’t unraveled Russ. She waited for him to be seated on the chair. She tied her robe securely and settled on the bed.

“I’ve been going over our situation for the last several days, trying to decide whether I could marry you. I believe you respect me and trust in my honesty.”

“I always have.”

“I believe you’re not feuding with Stocker, that you want to put the past behind you and forget what can’t be changed, but Stocker can’t. I’m not sure I can face the specter of my husband or sons being killed.”

“We could move away.”

“I’d never ask you to do that. Besides, I’m not sure but I think I’d be ashamed of myself for running away. I’m not a coward.”

“If I’d ever doubted that, I wouldn’t have after today.”

“People shouldn’t be forced to run from bullies, but I’m not sure I can live with senseless killing. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“Do you agree?”

“In principle, but that valley is mine and I’ll fight to keep it.”

“I always knew you would.”

They sat silently staring at each other for a moment.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Russ said.

“I haven’t because I wanted you to understand why my answer might not lead to the results you want.”

“Does that mean…”

“I love you. There are times I think I’ve loved you from the very first.”

Russ came out of the chair as though shot from a cannon. Before Tanzy had time to protest or open her arms in welcome, she was buried in a crushing embrace as he kissed her face in wild abandon. It was futile to attempt to remind Russ that she hadn’t made up her mind about marrying him. Any word that escaped her mouth would have been swallowed by his. He had captured her mouth as though he intended never to let go. His kisses were hard, filled with the desperation of a man who’d waited a lifetime to hear those words, a man who believed he’d never hear them and had schooled himself to live without them, a man who saw her love as his only hope of redemption and meant to cling to it with every ounce of strength he could muster.

Knowing she hadn’t yet committed herself to him, Tanzy tried to restrain her response. She failed. It was time she accepted that she loved Russ, that she wanted to marry him, that she wanted to be his wife and bear his children. Their problems would have to be faced some time in the future, but for the moment the future could be put aside. It
should
be put aside. They were in love. They should celebrate that love.

Tanzy had never guessed how wonderful it would feel to be in the arms of the man she loved, the man who loved her with such intensity. It was like being wrapped in a warmth that reached beyond the physical to embrace the spiritual, to heal her soul. Wrapped in love’s embrace, all things were possible. Without it, much of life lost its meaning.

“I was afraid you’d never say those words,” Russ said:

“Do you love me?” Tanzy asked.

“You know I do.”

“Why haven’t you told me?”

“I was afraid to do anything that might scare you away.”

“A woman is never scared away by a man’s saying he loves her.”

“I didn’t know what to do. Loving has never been good for me or my family.”

“Not for me, either. And I’m not sure—”

“Don’t talk. Let’s just think about now. For once, let tomorrow wait until tomorrow.”

He held her close, his arms meeting behind her back, her breasts pressed hard against his chest, his cheek resting on the top of her head. It seemed he was content just to stand there, to drink in the feeling of her in his arms, to let her nearness to his heart drench his parched soul with life-giving love.

“I’ve never held a woman like this,” he murmured. “I never thought I’d want to.” After a few moments he said, “I don’t think I ever want to stop.”

The power she had to make this man’s life happy or to crush his soul terrified her. She wanted with all her heart to marry him, to make him as happy as possible, but she feared she might not be able to do that. Could she accept his love now, knowing she might have to reject it in the future?

Could she ignore
her
love? Could she ignore her happiness? Should she deny them both the comfort of accepting their love even if it could only be for a short while? Could she accept his plea to think only of tonight, to let tomorrow wait until tomorrow?

Yes. Life didn’t offer many perfect moments. This might be the only one she’d get. Resolving to immerse herself in the here and now, she slipped her arms around Russ. Her fingers splayed across his strong back. She wasn’t used to feeling small or weak, but his size and strength dwarfed her own. She felt engulfed in his embrace, surrounded by his strength, warmed by his heat.

“You can’t leave me,” Russ said, “not when it’s taken me so long to find you.”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“Say you love me.”

“I love you.”

“Say it again.”

“Is it so important?”

“It is when you’ve never heard it from the lips of someone you love.”

“I love you,” Tanzy said, letting her heart form the sounds and give emphasis to the words. “No matter what happens, I always will.”

His arms tightened around her. His kissed her hair over and over again. She heard a sob of relief. It was faint and it was singular, but it was the sound of a dam giving way, the dam that had held back Russ’s emotions for most of his life, the dam behind which he hid until drawn out against his will.

“Many people love you,” Tanzy said. “Many more will in years to come. You’ll never have to depend on the love of one person.”

“I’d trade them all, now and forever, for you.”

He lowered his mouth to hers. His kisses had turned gentle, caressing, soothing. The fear that she would somehow disappear, that he would lose what he wanted so desperately, seemed to have left him. She could almost hear him sigh with relief, feel the relaxation of the muscles that had held his body rigid and fearful.

She raised her hands to his face, relishing the roughness of his weathered skin, the strength of his jaw, the angular bones that formed the planes and curves of his face. She wanted her hands to memorize him, to absorb him, to know him as intimately as her eyes. She wanted to know all of him, bone and sinew, heart and soul. She wanted to claim him, possess him, chain him to her heart forever.

But most of all she wanted to free him from the prison he’d created for himself. She wanted him to believe he
was
loved, would always be loved, that he couldn’t do anything that would stop her from loving him.

After the years he’d spent convincing himself otherwise, it wouldn’t be easy.

“I should go,” he said.

“Do you want to?”

“No.”

“Then hold me. I need to know you love me as much as you want to know I love you.”

After her mother’s death, she’d felt as unloved and alone as he did. No one hated her or tried to drive her away, but no one understood the pain of her loss or cared what she felt. While people in St. Louis were kinder in some ways than those in Kentucky, they were more condemning. No one looked at her just as a person. She was always a woman whose employment had called her morals and character into question.

Love was almost as new to her as it was to him.

She loved the feel of his hands on her back, her shoulders, her arms. Their size filled her with a sense of his strength, his rough-hewn character, which didn’t twist or break, which had weathered the storms of misfortune without losing the innate goodness so few people seemed able to see. She wondered what it was about the people of Boulder Gap that caused them to allow themselves to be driven to align themselves against a man whose nature and character caused the desperate and disenfranchised to bind themselves to him.

Maybe it was fear of his goodness as much as it was fear of Stocker’s wickedness. Regardless of the reason, she made up her mind to protect him in the future. If she became his wife—and she couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t marry him—she would make the townspeople see what fools they’d been.

The feel of his lips on her bare shoulders sent shudders of pure pleasure arcing through Tanzy’s body. His lips were warm, soft, and moist, and burned her skin with the heat that was radiating from his body. She felt herself lean closer to him, press herself more firmly against him. She couldn’t touch him enough, get enough contact with his body. She wanted to touch him all over at once.

She untied the belt to her robe and allowed it to fall to the floor. She wanted to be closer to him. She rubbed her hands over his chest, gradually loosening the buttons on his shirt. His hand closed over hers.

“Are you sure?”

She answered by loosening the next button with her other hand.

“I love you,” Russ said.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to do anything that would hurt you.”

“I feel the same way.”

He kissed her deeply, his tongue delving into her mouth, his hands cradling her throat. She slipped her hands inside his shirt to feel the soft hair that covered his chest. Her searching fingers encountered his nipple. She was surprised to find it hard and raised. She was even more surprised at his reaction to her touch. He started so abruptly, he broke their kiss. Delighted and curious at her discovery, she rubbed her fingers gently over his nipples, each passage drawing soft moans and tremors that shook his whole body. He took her hand in his grasp.