Duncan's Bride Page 4

  She felt a little breathless, and not just from climbing the stairs. The thought of having his children weakened her.

  He opened a door directly across from the top of the stairs and ushered her into a large, pleasant bedroom with white curtains at the windows and a white bedspread on the four-poster bed. She made a soft sound of pleasure. An old rocking chair sat before one of the windows, and what was surely a handmade rug covered the smooth, hardwood plank flooring. The flooring itself was worth a small fortune. For all the charm of the room, there was a sense of bareness to it, no soft touches to personalize it in any way. But he lived here alone, she reminded herself; the personal touches would be in the rooms he used, not in the empty bedrooms waiting for his children to fill them.

  He stepped past her and put her bag on the bed. “I can’t take the whole day off,” he said. “The chores have to be done, so I’ll have to leave you to entertain yourself for a while. You can rest or do whatever you want. The bathroom is right down the hall if you want to freshen up. My bedroom has a private bath, so you don’t have to worry about running into me.”

  In the space of a heartbeat she knew she didn’t want to be left alone to twirl her fingers for the rest of the day. “Can’t I go with you?”

  “You’ll be bored, and it’s dirty work.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve been dirty before.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, his face unsmiling and expressionless. “All right,” he finally said, wondering if she’d feel the same when her designer shoes were caked with the makings of compost.

  Her smile crinkled her eyes. “I’ll be changed in three minutes flat.”

  He doubted it. “I’ll be in the barn. Come on out when you’re ready.”

  As soon as he had closed the door behind him, Madelyn stripped out of her clothes, slithered into a pair of jeans and shoved her feet into her oldest pair of loafers, which she had brought along for this very purpose. After all, she couldn’t very well explore a ranch in high heels. She pulled a white cotton camisole on over her head and sauntered out the door just as he was starting downstairs after changing shirts himself. He gave her a startled look; then his eyes took on a heavy-lidded expression as his gaze swept her throat and shoulders, left bare by the sleeveless camisole. Madelyn almost faltered as that very male look settled on her breasts, and her body felt suddenly warm and weighed down. She had seen men cast quick furtive glances at her breasts before, but Reese was making no effort to hide his speculation. She felt her nipples tingle and harden, rasping against the cotton covering them.

  “I didn’t think you’d make it,” he said.

  “I don’t fuss about clothes.”

  She didn’t have to, he thought. The body she put inside them was enough; anything else was superfluous. He was all but salivating just thinking of her breasts and those long, slender legs. The jeans covered them, but now he knew exactly how long and shapely they were, and, as she turned to close the bedroom door, how curved her buttocks were, like an inverted heart. He felt a lot hotter than the weather warranted.

  She walked beside him out to the barn, her head swiveling from side to side as she took in all the aspects of the ranch. A three-door garage in the same style as the house stood behind it. She pointed to it. “How many other cars do you have?”

  “None,” he said curtly.

  Three other buildings stood empty, their windows blank. “What are those?”

  “Bunkhouses.”

  There was a well-built chicken coop, with fat white chickens pecking industriously around the yard. She said, “I see you grow your own eggs.”

  From the corner of her eye she saw his lips twitch as if he’d almost smiled. “I grow my own milk, too.”

  “Very efficient. I’m impressed. I haven’t had fresh milk since I was about six.”

  “I didn’t think that accent was New York City. Where are you from originally?”

  “Virginia. We moved to New York when my mother remarried, but I went back to Virginia for college.”

  “Your parents were divorced?”

  “No. My father died. Mom remarried three years later.”

  He opened the barn door. “My parents died within a year of each other. I don’t think they could exist apart.”

  The rich, earthy smell of an occupied barn enveloped her, and she took a deep breath. The odors of animals, leather, manure, hay and feed all mixed into that one unmistakable scent. She found it much more pleasant than the smell of exhaust.

  The barn was huge. She had noticed a stable beside it, also empty, as well as a machinery shed and a hay shed. Everything about the ranch shouted that this had once been a very prosperous holding, but Reese had evidently fallen on hard times. How that must grate on a man with his obvious pride. She wanted to put her hand in his and tell him that it didn’t matter, but she had the feeling he would reject the gesture. The pride that kept him working this huge place alone wouldn’t allow him to accept anything he could interpret as pity.

  She didn’t know what chores needed doing or how to do them, so she tried to stay out of his way and simply watch, noting the meticulous attention he paid to everything he did. He cleaned out stalls and put down fresh hay, his powerful arms and back flowing with muscles. He put feed in the troughs, checked and repaired tack, brought in fresh water. Three horses were in a corral between the barn and stable; he checked and cleaned their hooves, brought them in to feed and water them, then put them in their stalls for the night. He called a ridiculously docile cow to him and put her in a stall, where she munched contentedly while he milked her. With a bucket half full of hot, foaming milk, he went back to the house, and two cats appeared to meow imperiously at him as they scented the milk. “Scat,” he said. “Go catch a mouse.”

  Madelyn knew what to do now. She got the sterilized jugs she had noticed on her first trip through the kitchen and found a straining cloth. He gave her a strange look as she held the straining cloth over the mouth of the jug for him to pour the milk through. “Grandma Lily used to do this,” she said in a blissful tone. “I was never strong enough to hold the bucket and pour, but I knew I’d be an adult the day she let me pour out the milk.”

  “Did you ever get to pour it?”

  “No. She sold the cow the summer before I started school. She just had the one cow, for fresh milk, but the area was already building up and becoming less rural, so she got rid of it.”

  He set the bucket down and took the straining cloth. “Then here’s your chance for adulthood. Pour.”

  A whimsical smile touched her lips as she lifted the bucket and carefully poured the creamy white liquid through the cloth into the jug. The warm, sweet scent filled the kitchen. When the bucket was empty she set it aside and said, “Thank you. As a rite of passage, that beats the socks off of getting my driver’s license.”

  This time it happened. Reese’s eyes crinkled, and his lips moved in a little half grin. Madelyn felt more of that inner shifting and settling, and knew that she was lost.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “THERE ISN’T MUCH nightlife around, but there is a beer joint and café about twenty miles from here if you’d like to go dancing.”

  Madelyn hesitated. “Would you mind very much if we just stayed here? You must be tired, and I know I am. I’d rather put my feet up and relax.”

  Reese was silent. He hadn’t expected her to refuse, and though he was tired, he’d been looking forward to holding her while they danced. Not only that, having people around them would dilute his focus on her, ease the strain of being alone with her. She wasn’t right for him, damn it.

  On the other hand, he’d been up since four that morning, and relaxing at home sounded like heaven. The hard part would be relaxing with her anywhere around.

  “We could play Monopoly. I saw a game in the bookcase,” she said. “Or cards. I know how to play poker, blackjack, spades, hearts, rummy, Shanghai, Spite and Malice, Old Maid and Go Fish.”

  He gave her a sharp glance at that improbable l
ist. She looked as innocent as an angel. “I lost my Old Maid cards, but we can play rummy.”

  “Jokers, two-eyed jacks, threes, fives, sevens and Rachel are wild,” she said promptly.

  “On the other hand, there’s a baseball game on television tonight. What the hell is a rachel?”

  “It’s the queen of diamonds. They have names, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know. Are you making that up?”

  “Nope. Rachel is the queen of diamonds, Palas is the queen of spades, Judith is the queen of hearts, and Argine is the queen of clubs.”

  “Do the kings and jacks have names?”

  “I don’t know. That little bit of information has never come my way.”

  He eyed her again, then leaned back on the couch and propped his boots on the coffee table. She saw a hint of green gleam in his eyes as he said, “The little plastic doohickey on the end of your shoelaces is called an aglet.”

  She mimicked his position, her lips quirking with suppressed laughter. “The dimple in the bottom of a champagne bottle is called a punt.”

  “The empty space between the bottle top and the liquid is called ullage.”

  “A newly formed embryo is called a zygote.”

  “Bird’s nest soup is made from the nests of swiftlets, which make the nests by secreting a glutinous substance from under their tongues.”

  Madelyn’s eyes rounded with fascination, but she rose to the challenge. “Pink flamingos are pink because they eat so many shrimp.”

  “It takes light from the sun eight minutes and twenty seconds to reach earth.”

  “The common housefly flies at the speed of five miles an hour.”

  “An ant can lift fifty times its own weight.”

  She paused and eyed him consideringly. “Were you lying about the bird nests?”

  He shook his head. “Are you giving up?”

  “Never use all your ammunition in the opening salvo.”

  There wouldn’t be much opportunity for follow-up salvos, he thought. In about eighteen hours he’d be putting her on a plane back to New York and they would never meet again.

  The silence that fell between them was a little awkward. Madelyn got up and smiled at him. “I’ll leave you to your baseball game, if you don’t mind. I want to sit on the porch swing and listen to the frogs and crickets.”

  Reese watched her as she left the room, her hips rolling in a lazy sway. After a minute he heard the squeak of the chains as she sat down in the swing; then the creaking as she began pushing it back and forth. He turned on the television and actually watched a little of the ball game, but his mind was on the rhythmic creaking. He turned the television off.

  Madelyn had been swinging and dreaming, her eyes closed, but she opened them when she heard the screen door open and close, then his boots on the wooden porch. He stopped a few feet away and leaned his shoulder against one of the posts.

  His lighter flared; then the end of the cigarette glowed as it began to burn. Madelyn stared at his dim figure, wishing she had the right to get up and go to him, to slide her arms around his waist and rest her head on his shoulder. When he didn’t speak, she closed her eyes again and began drifting in the peaceful darkness. The late spring night was comfortable, and the night creatures were going about their business as usual. This was the type of life she wanted, a life close to the earth, where serenity could be drawn from nature.

  “Why did you answer the ad?”

  His rough-textured voice was quiet, not disturbing the night. A few seconds passed before Madelyn opened her eyes and answered.

  “For much the same reason you placed it, I suppose. Partly out of curiosity, I admit, but I also want to get married and have a family.”

  “You don’t have to come all the way out here to do that.”

  She said, “Maybe I do,” and was completely serious.

  “You don’t have any boyfriends in New York?”

  “I have friends, yes, but no one I’m serious about, no one I’d want to marry. And I don’t think I want to live in New York. This place is wonderful.”

  “You’ve only seen it at its best. Winter is frozen hell. Every place has its drawbacks.”

  “And its advantages. If you didn’t think the positives outweighed the negatives, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “I grew up here. This is my home. The Eskimos are attached to their homes, too, but I wouldn’t live there.”

  Madelyn turned her head and looked out into the night, sensing what was coming and wishing, praying, that he wouldn’t say it. She could tell from the way he’d been throwing up those subtle obstacles and objections what he was going to say.

  “Madelyn. You don’t fit in out here.”

  Her right foot kept up the slow, steady rhythm of the swing. “So the visit has been a failure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even though you’re attracted to me?” In the darkness she could be bolder than she would have been otherwise. If faint heart ne’er won fair lady, she was sure that the fair lady ne’er won with a faint heart, either.

  “The spark goes both ways.” He stubbed out the cigarette on his boot heel and flipped it out into the yard.

  “Yes. So why am I unsuitable for your purposes?”

  “You’re real suitable for the purposes of bed,” he said grimly. “I’d like to take you there right now. But out of bed—no. You won’t do at all.”

  “Please explain. I like to understand my rejections.”

  Suddenly he moved away from the post and sat next to her on the swing, setting it to dipping and swaying with his weight. One firmly planted boot took control of the motion and began the gentle rocking movement again.

  “I was married before, for two years. You’re like my first wife in a lot of ways. She was a city person. She liked the entertainment and variety of a big city. She’d never been on a ranch before, and thought it was romantic, just like a movie—until she realized that most of a rancher’s time is spent working, instead of having a good time. She was already restless before winter came, and that just put the frosting on the cake. Our second year was pure hell.”

  “Don’t judge me by someone else, Reese Duncan. Just because one woman didn’t like it, doesn’t mean another won’t.”

  “A man who doesn’t learn from his mistakes is a damn fool. When I marry again, it’ll be to a woman who knows what ranch life is like, who’ll be able to work with me. I won’t risk the ranch again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This ranch was once one of the biggest and best. You can tell by looking around you that it used to be a lot more than what it is now. I had the two best breeding bulls in four states, a good insemination program going, over four thousand head of beef, and fifty people working for me. Then I got divorced.” He lifted his arm and rested it along the back of the swing. She could see only his profile, but even in the darkness she could make out the bitter line of his mouth, hear his bitterness in his voice. “April’s family had a lot of influence with the judge. He agreed that two years as my wife entitled her to half of my assets, but she sweetly decided that a lump sum settlement would do just fine, thank you. I nearly went bankrupt. I had to liquidate almost everything to buy her off. I sold land that had been in my family for over a hundred years. That was seven years ago. I’ve been working my ass off since then just trying to keep this place going, and this year it looks like I’ll finally make a profit again. I want kids, someone to leave the ranch to, but this time I’ll make a better choice of woman.”

  She was appalled at the cause of his circumstances, but still said tartly, “What about love? How does that fit into your plans?”

  “It doesn’t,” he replied in a flat tone.

  “What if your wife wants more?”

  “I don’t plan to spin her a pretty story. She’ll know where I stand from the first. But I’ll be a good husband. I don’t stray, or mistreat women. All I ask from a wife is loyalty and competence and the same values I have.”

  “A
nd to be ready to stand as a broodmare.”

  “That, too,” he agreed.

  Disappointment so sharp that it felt like a knife stabbed into her midsection. He was going to marry someone else. She looked away from him and reached deep for the control she needed. “Then I wish you luck. I hope you have a happy marriage this time. Do you have any more applicants?”

  “Two more. If either of them is interested in ranch life, I’ll probably ask her to marry me.”

  He had it as cut-and-dried as any business deal, which was all it was to him, even though he would be sleeping with his business partner. Madelyn could have cried at such a waste of passion, but she held on to her control. All she could do now was cut her losses and try to forget him, so she wouldn’t measure every man she met against him for the rest of her life.

  The darkness hid the desolation in her eyes as she said, “A jackrabbit can run as fast as a racehorse—for a short distance, of course.”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “A group of bears is called a sloth.”

  “The Pacific Ocean covers almost sixty-four-million square miles.”

  “The safety pin was invented in 1849.”

  “No! That long ago? Zippers were invented in 1893, and it’s a good thing, because wouldn’t you hate to get caught in a safety pin?”

  SHE WAS QUIET on the drive back to Billings the next morning. The evening had ended well, with the hilarity of their mutual store of odd facts, but the strain had told on her in the form of a sleepless night. She couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him again, but that was the way it was, and she was determined to keep her pain to herself. Nothing would be gained by weeping all over him, which was exactly what she felt like doing.

  He looked tired, too, and it was no wonder when she considered how early he’d had to get up for the past two days, and how much driving he’d done. She said, “I’m sorry you’re having to go to so much trouble to take me back.”

  He shot her a glance before returning his attention to the road. “You had a wasted trip, too.”