Wild At Heart (19 page)

Mariah slung a spare dress into the satchel, caring little if it would wrinkle. All she knew was that she had to get to her grandmother before she died. She had to kiss her good-bye and thank her for all she had done.

Anna sashayed into the room, and her eyes widened. “You’re leaving? Why?”

“My grandmother’s been injured in a fall and isn’t expected to live.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Anna rushed to her side and enveloped her in a bear hug. “Let me help so you can get on your way. You’ll need to get to town before dark.”

Mariah wiped her tears and nodded. In a matter of minutes her satchel was packed and her other items secured in her trunk. She picked up a copy of one of her dime novels and handed it to Anna. “Will you give this to Adam for me?”

Anna’s brows crinkled as if she thought it an odd good-bye gift, but she nodded. “You go on. I’ll have somebody take your trunk into town tomorrow. We send it on the next train.”

“Not Adam. Please don’t ask him to do that.”

Anna stared at her, concern etching her pretty features. “Did something happen between you two?”

Mariah sighed and looked away. She picked up her straw hat and tied it on. “I have to go. I’m sure he’ll tell you what happened.”

She pulled Anna into another hug. “I’ve always wanted a sister. You’re the closest I’ve ever had.” Tears blurred her vision, and she dashed out of the room.

“You’re coming back, aren’t you?” Anna’s hopeful words echoed behind Mariah.

She shook her head. “I don’t think Adam would want that.”

The pungent scent of Leyna’s sauerkraut filled the air. Mariah glanced toward the kitchen on her way past the parlor. She wished she had time to say good-bye to the kind cook and to eat another of her delicious meals.

She swiped away more tears, knowing she’d never step foot in this home again. The rustic log house with its Western-style furniture had become familiar and homey. It was here that she first learned that God could be her friend. That He was a loving Father who wanted a relationship with His children, and not just a scary icon bent only on vengeance. She may be leaving the Rocking M, but at least she was taking God with her.

Mariah’s heart broke with each step she took. She longed to talk to Adam, but there was no time. She and Silas
had
to get to town before dark or they risked getting lost in the barren wilderness.

As she exited the house, she saw that Quinn had prepared a buggy and tied Silas’s horse to the back. Hank, scowling down at her, sat atop his horse.

“Hank will guide you into town and then bring the buggy back tomorrow. So you don’t need to worry about it.” Quinn glared down at her. She wanted to explain. Wanted him to believe she’d never hurt Adam on purpose, but she climbed in the buggy, her throat too clogged for words.

The buggy tilted slightly as Silas crawled in beside her. He clicked the horse forward, and they started walking out of the yard.

Impatient and frustrated with all that had happened, she yanked the reins from his pale, effeminate hands. She was sure he’d never had a callus. “He-yah!”

The buggy jerked as the surprised horse lunged forward into a run. Silas fell back against the seat, mouth open and staring at her like she was crazy.

She looked back as they left the ranch yard. Adam was nowhere to be seen.

Her heart broke, and she saw the future she’d hoped for dissolve before her eyes.

Adam stared at the blank pad of paper lying on his bed, unable to stir up his creativity in light of all that had happened. The lamp cast eerie flickers of light and shadows. The only picture he could think of to draw was of Mariah.

He flipped back to one he’d done of her standing at the corral, watching Anna working with her yearling. Her interest was obvious in the way she stood on the bottom rung of the railing and leaned her head between the bars, in spite of the fact the she’d almost been bitten by doing that before.

A claw gripped his chest. He missed her—longed to have five more minutes with her.

Five minutes to hear what she had to say.

Five minutes to hold her close.

He tossed the pencil down before he cracked it in two. Shoving up from the chair, he went and stood in front of the small window. The sun had set and the moon wasn’t out yet. Leaning his head against the cool pane, he prayed for God to heal his hurting heart. He prayed Mariah and her greenhorn companion made the morning train, so she could get home to her grandmother.

His stomach curdled at the thought of Mariah with another man. Why hadn’t he kept his distance from her like he’d wanted originally?

“Are you all right?” Anna stood at the door, leaning against the jamb. “Quinn told me what happened. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” He straightened and sat on the edge of the bed. “Did you want something?”

Anna nibbled her lower lip, a sure sign she was contemplating something. “I really believe Mariah loves you.”

Adam snorted a laugh. “She has an odd way of showing it, don’tcha think?”

“She told me she came here to get away from a troubling relationship. I feel certain that she broke off her engagement before she left Chicago.”

“Well… that Silas fellow sure didn’t seem to think that.” He rubbed at the pinch in the back of his neck.

Anna pulled the ladder-back chair away from the desk and spun it around on one leg. She sat down, and Adam noticed she had something rolled up under her arm.

“I know when Mariah first came here something was bothering her. I don’t think her fiancé was very kind to her.”

Adam sat up at the news, concerned for Mariah’s welfare.

“Why do you say that? Did she say something?”

Anna shrugged. “It’s just a feeling I got. She rarely talked about her home, except for mentioning her grandmother.”

Adam pursed his lips. “I knew she was hiding something, but I never considered it could be a fiancé.”

His sister stood and hugged him. “Hopefully she will write and explain everything. She did ask me to give you this, odd as it seems.”

Adam’s gaze latched on to the dime novel a second before his hand did. This was a different one from those she’d given him before, but the author was Drew Dixon. He narrowed his eyes. Just how did she know the author? And why hadn’t he ever heard back from the man after receiving a telegram saying he was soon to arrive?

“I probably should go help Leyna put supper on the table. I’m here for you if you need me, little brother.” She sent him a sympathetic smile as she left the room.

He’d never liked her referring to him as her little brother, but he ignored it, knowing, this time, she meant the words as an endearment and not a jibe. Adam turned the colorful paperback book over in his hands. He wasn’t in the mood to read, but then perhaps an interesting story would take his mind off his own confusing troubles. Flipping open the front cover, he noticed a folded sheet of paper, and his heart bucked.

With shaking hands, he unfolded the page.

Adam fingered the paper, his hopes soaring. Mariah wasn’t engaged. Silas had been acting the part of a loving suitor. Or perhaps he wasn’t acting but really was in love with Mariah.

He folded down the bottom flap of the paper to read Mariah’s signature, and the breath whooshed out of him.

Mariah was Drew Dixon?

He hurriedly looked at the inside cover page and saw that this novel also held the author’s signature, only this time it was signed to him—by Mariah.

The signatures on the note and inscription were the same. He crumpled the sheet of paper.

Mariah had lassoed his heart and then dragged it through an emotional pile of stinging nettles. Now all the questions made sense. She was doing research for her books.

Hadn’t he told her in the letter he wrote that her ranching facts were sometimes inaccurate?

Why hadn’t she simply told him the truth?

He shot off the bed and marched through the parlor. Quinn glanced up from the desk in the corner where he often looked over the bookwork that Anna diligently recorded. Silverware clinked at the table where Anna was setting it for dinner. Ignoring their questioning gazes, he stormed out the door into the cool night air.

The darkness called to him. It was a place where he could hide from everything except the battle going on within him.

The woman he loved had used and betrayed him. Had her kisses merely been research, too? Just so she’d know what it was like to kiss a cowboy—so she could describe it accurately in her paperbacks?

He’d wanted to marry her and give her his name. He was even willing to give up his dream for her, but she’d deceived him.

Just how was a man supposed to forget about something like that?

Mariah sat on the sofa in her parlor with her two best friends, staring into her lukewarm tea. Grandma was gone. Mariah had been through too much to refuse Silas’s offer to escort her to the funeral, but it was Adam’s comforting arms she longed for. Arms that would never again surround her.

“Are you ever going to tell us about your journey west?” Angela Carter asked as she reached for another cookie.

Sarah Beth Jennings glared at Angela. “She doesn’t want to talk about that on the day she buried her grandmother.”

“I was just trying to get her mind off… well, you know.” Angela cast Mariah a repentant gaze.

They were her closest friends, women she’d gone to college with, but both were shallow and insensitive at times. She knew they were trying their best to cheer her up now that the others had left the gathering that was held at her home after the funeral.

Mariah longed to go upstairs, shed the stiff black dress, and go to sleep. The last week as her grandma had slowly gotten worse had been dreadful. And after two months of pining for Adam, he’d not answered a single one of her letters.

Anna had written and told her to give him time. But Mariah was sure he’d never forgive her for what she’d done to him. She could barely forgive herself.

Over and over she rationalized things in her mind, trying to figure out where she went wrong. She should have just told Adam who she was the first time he mentioned Drew Dixon. But that was hindsight.

Even if she didn’t have Adam to comfort her, her heavenly Father had been with her each step of the way.

Angela stood, looking apologetic. “I suppose we should be going. The sun will be setting soon, and Papa will be furious if I’m not home before then.”

Mariah called to her housekeeper. “Thelma, please have Miss Carter’s carriage brought around front.”

Thelma nodded and glided out of the room, her eyes still red. The woman had worked for Mariah’s grandmother longer than Mariah had lived in the house and missed her dearly. Heleen Vanderveer’s death had been hard on all who knew her.

A short while later, the women left, and Mariah retired to her room. She breathed a sigh to be out of the ugly black dress. She pulled the pins from her hair and brushed out the tangles then braided it. A long nap would do her good—if she could actually sleep.

Looking at the reflection in the mirror, she studied the walls decorated in light blue floral wallpaper. White eyelet curtains and a matching bedspread gave the room a soft, gentle atmosphere. Still, given her choice, she’d leave this big home with all its beautiful furniture and decorations for that tiny, whitewashed room in North Dakota.

Tears blurred her eyes. Her grandma may be gone, but Mariah’s love for her would endure forever.

But Adam was a different story. How did she
stop
loving a man who no longer wanted her?

She’d pleaded with God to soothe her breaking heart and to take away the pain, but two months had passed, and she felt no different. Dabbing her nose with a lace handkerchief, she stood and crossed the room to her chest of drawers. On top lay her most recent novel. The story of a woman who goes west to tend her sister’s three children after her sister’s death. The city woman had quite an adjustment to ranch life, including learning to ride astride and shooting a gun. The main difference in the heroine’s life and Mariah’s was that the heroine got her man. She eventually fell in love with her sister’s husband—a man she’d despised for years for stealing her sister and taking her far out west.

Sometimes Mariah envied her fictional characters. She could give them problems, but in the end, the hero always got the woman. Too bad real life wasn’t the same.

She caressed the cover. A picture of a man and woman riding double while herding cattle.

Adam’s picture.

He’d told her she could have one, and that’s the one she picked, mainly because the man resembled Adam and the woman looked quite a bit like her.

Had he received the check and copies of the book that she’d sent to him? Would he be upset to see one of his pictures on the cover of a dime novel?

She’d probably never know.

With a sigh, she crawled under the covers of the bed, her body instantly chilling to the cold sheets. Tears dampened her pillowcase. She held back a sob and prayed for God to help her through yet another night. One of these days she needed to look to the future, but right now, all she could manage was to get through the next hour.