Adam (12 page)

Once they were back in the car, she said, “You were wonderful, you know. I don't think anybody's ever beaten my brother Garth in a fight.”

“I had more at stake than he did,” Adam mumbled through his split lips.

Tate's spirits soared at this further evidence that Adam's attitude toward both her and the baby had somehow changed.

It was a long ride back home to the Lazy S, broken frequently by stops to allow Tate to use rest room facilities.

“It's the baby,” she explained.

“I know about these things,” Adam replied with an understanding smile. “I'm a doctor, remember?”

It was dark by the time they arrived back at the Lazy S. Maria greeted them both at the door with a big hug.

“It is so good to see you back where you belong,
señora!
”

In Spanish she said to Adam, “I see you have put the smile back on her face. You will tell her now you love her, yes?”

“When the time is right,” Adam said.

Maria frowned. “The time, she is
right now.
”

Adam refused to be pressed. He excused himself and ushered Tate to his bedroom. He lifted her into his arms and carried her across the threshold.

“Our marriage begins now,” he said, looking into her eyes. “The past is past.”

Tate could hardly believe this was happening. “I love you, Adam.”

She waited for the words she knew he would say back to her. But they didn't come.

There was nothing very difficult about saying those three little words, but Adam felt too vulnerable at the moment to admit the depth of his feelings for Tate. He hadn't really given her a choice about coming back with him. It seemed more appropriate to
show
her that he loved her, rather than to tell her so in words.

He made love to her as though she were the most precious being in the world. He kissed her gently, indifferent to his split lip, tasting her as though he had never done so before, teasing her with his teeth and tongue. Her soft whimper of pleasure rolled through him, tightening his body with need.

His hand slid down to her rounded belly. “My child,” he whispered in her ear. “Our child.”

“Yes. Yes, our child,” Tate agreed, glad that he was ready to accept the baby as his own.

“I mean, I know it's mine,” Adam said.

Tate was jerked abruptly from her euphoria. “What?” She turned to face him, her eyes still wide and dilated with pleasure. “What did you say?”

Adam's thumb caressed her belly as his eyes met hers. “I went back to that doctor in San Antonio. The one who did the fertility tests on Anne and me. I'm not sterile, Tate. Anne lied to me.”

Tate's eyes widened in horror as she realized what this meant. No wonder Adam hadn't said he loved her. He hadn't come to Hawk's Way for her at all. He hadn't fought Garth for the purpose of getting her back. He had fought to get back his child!

T
ATE PLEADED FATIGUE FROM
her pregnancy as an excuse not to make love to Adam, and the damned man fell all over himself being understanding. Naturally he wanted to make sure she took good care of herself so
his child
would be born healthy!

But the next morning, when Adam stood blocking her way into the office—because she shouldn't have to work in her delicate condition—Tate let him have it with both barrels.

“I'm just as capable of working with
your
child growing inside me as I was when it was just
my
child!” she snapped.

“But—”

“No buts! I'll eat right, get enough rest and come through this pregnancy with flying colors. Even if it is partly
your
child growing inside me and not just
mine.
”

Adam wasn't sure what he had done wrong, but Tate obviously had a bee in her bonnet about something. “What's all this
your
child and
my
child business? What happened to
our
child?”

“That was before you found out you can father as many children as you want. Well, you can go father some other fool woman's kids. This baby's
mine!
”

With that, she shoved him out of the office and slammed the door in his face.

Adam could hear her crying on the other side of the door. He tried the handle and found it was locked. He pounded on the door. “Tate, let me in!”

“I don't want to talk to you. Go away!”

He pounded on the door again. “If you don't open this door, I'm going to break it down,” he threatened.

He had just turned his shoulder toward the door when it opened, and he nearly fell inside. “That's better,” he said, walking in and shutting the door behind him. “I think maybe we better talk about this…difference of opinion. What's important—”

“I'm not a baby that needs coddling. I'm fully capable of taking care of myself. You have to trust me to—oh, what's the use?” she said, throwing up her hands in disgust. “Trust was never a part of our relationship in the past. I don't suppose that just because you've found out I didn't lie to you about the baby, it's going to change anything between us.”

“What does trust have to do with this?”

“Everything!”
Tate was quivering she was so upset. “Buck and Velma—”

“Whoa there! What do Buck and Velma have to do with this?” Adam was getting more confused by the minute.

“It doesn't matter,” Tate said.

Adam grabbed her by the shoulders. “It obviously
does
matter. Now I want an explanation and I want it now!”

“You sure about that? Food for thought gives some folks indigestion!”

Adam shoved Tate down in the swivel chair and settled his
hip on the desk in front of her. “Settle down now. This kind of agitation isn't good for the baby. I—”

Tate leaped out of the chair and poked a finger at Adam's chest.
“The baby! The baby!”
she mimicked back at him. “That's all you really care about, isn't it? I'm nothing more than a vessel for your seed. I could be a test tube for all the difference it would make to you! Well, I've got news for you,
buster!
I want more than a father for my child, I want a husband to love me and hold me and—” Tate choked back a sob.

“Tate, I do love—”

“Don't say it! If you really loved me, you've had plenty of opportunities to say so. If you say it now I'll know you're just doing it to calm me down for the sake of the baby.”

“I'm telling the truth!”

“So was I! When I told you months ago that this baby was yours and mine—
ours!
But you didn't trust me then. And I don't believe you now! Just like Buck and Velma—”

“Are we back to them again?”

“Yes-s-s!” she hissed. “Because Buck and Velma are a perfect example of what happens when there's no trust in a relationship. You hurt each other, and you're miserable and unhappy together.

“If you love somebody you have to be willing to trust them enough to be honest with them. To lay yourself open to the pain of rejection by admitting how you really feel about them. And you have to trust in their love enough to know that they would never do anything purposely to hurt you. Like lying to you. Or sleeping with another man.

“Without trust, love will just wither and die.” Tate swallowed another sob and said, “Like it did with Buck and Velma.”

“Are you finished?” Adam asked.

Tate sniffled and wiped her nose with the hem of her T-shirt. “I'm finished.”

“First of all, I think you should know that Buck and Velma got remarried on Sunday.”

Tate's eyes went wide. “They did?”

“Second of all, whether you believe me or not, I do love you. I've loved you for a long time. I never said anything because…”

“Because you didn't trust me,” Tate finished in a small voice.

He couldn't deny it, because it was true. “I guess it's my turn to point to Buck and Velma,” Adam said ruefully.

“Why?”

“Aren't they proof that people can change? That mistakes aren't irrevocable?”

Tate's brow furrowed. “I suppose.”

“Then will you give me a chance to prove how I feel? To prove that I do love you enough to trust you with my heart?”

Tate felt her throat swelling closed with emotion. “I suppose.”

“Come here.” Adam opened his arms and Tate walked into them. He tipped her chin up and looked deep into her eyes. “We start from here. Our baby, our marriage—”

“Our trust in each other,” Tate finished.

They shared a tender kiss to seal the bargain. But it turned into something much more. Or would have, if Maria hadn't interrupted them.

“Señor Adam, there is a man here with the new rodeo bull he says you must sign for.”

“I'm coming, Maria.”

Adam gave Tate another quick, hard kiss. “Until tonight.”

“Until tonight.” Tate managed a smile as he turned and left her. He had given her an awful lot to think about. But it was
better to confront these issues now, before the baby came, than later. Garth had always said, “If you have a hill to climb, waiting won't make it smaller.”

As Adam began to realize over the next several weeks, it was one thing to believe yourself trustworthy; it was quite another thing to earn someone's trust.

He made love to Tate each night, revering her with words and gestures. But he never told her that he loved her. It was plain from the cautious way she watched him when she thought he wasn't looking, that she wasn't yet ready to hear the words—and believe them.

Maria got thoroughly disgusted watching Señor Adam and Señora Tate tiptoe around each other. She nagged at him in Spanish to tell Señora Tate he loved her and be done with it. “If you say it often enough, she will believe it,” Maria advised.

“Do you think so?” Adam asked. “Even if she thinks I'm lying through my teeth?”

“But you would not be lying!” Maria protested. “She will see what is in your eyes. And she will believe.”

Adam truly wished it were that simple. He was beginning to despair of ever convincing Tate that he loved her enough to want her both as his wife and the mother of his child.

The situation might have gone on unresolved, with both Adam and Tate less than happy, if Maria hadn't decided to take matters into her own hands.

As far as Maria was concerned, it was as plain as white socks on a sorrel horse that Señor Adam loved the little
señora
, and that she loved him. The problem was getting the two of them to recognize what was right in front of their noses.

So right after lunch one day she sent Señor Adam off to
the store to buy some spices she needed for dinner. She waited a half hour, then raced into the office where the
señora
was working.

“Señora Tate, come quick! There's been an accident! Señor Adam—”

By the time Adam's name was out of Maria's mouth, Tate had already left her chair. She grabbed hold of Maria's sleeve and demanded, “How badly is he hurt? What happened? Where is he?”

“It was the new Brahma bull, the one he has penned in the far pasture,” Maria said. “He was not watching closely enough and—”

“The bull stomped him? My God! How did you find this out? I never even heard the phone ring! Has somebody called an ambulance? We have to get Adam to a doctor!”

“Señor Buck has already called the doctor. He is with Señor Adam now.” Maria smiled inwardly. She hadn't even had to invent an injury for Señor Adam. The
señora
had done that herself. She said, “Señor Buck—”

“Thank God, Buck's with him!” Tate headed for the kitchen to get the keys to her pickup from the peg where she usually left them. But they weren't there.

“Where are my keys? Maria, have you seen my keys?”

Maria closed her hands around the set of keys in her pocket. “No,
señora
. But your horse, she is saddled already for the ride you wished to take this afternoon.”

“That'll probably be faster anyway. I can go cross-country. Thanks, Maria. You're a lifesaver!”

Tate had barely been gone ten minutes when Maria heard Señor Adam's pickup pull up in back of the house. She sniffed the onion she had ready and waiting and went running out to
the truck, tears streaming, waving her hands frantically to attract his attention.

“Señor Adam! The
señora!
Hurry!” Maria hid her face in her apron and pretended to cry.

“What's wrong, Maria? What happened to Tate? Is she all right?” He didn't wait for an answer, but bounded up the back steps toward the house.

“She is not there!” Maria cried.

Adam's face bleached white. “She's gone? She left me?”

Maria saw she had made a serious mistake and said, “Oh, no! But she went riding toward the pasture where you are keeping that big-humped bull. Her horse must have been frightened. Señor Buck found her there on the ground.”

“She's hurt? Has she been taken to the doctor?”

“She is still there. Señor Buck is with her—”

Adam didn't wait to hear more. He jumped back into his pickup and gunned the motor, heading down the gravel road, hell-bent-for-leather toward the opposite end of the Lazy S.

Maria dabbed with her apron at the corners of her eyes where the onion had done its work. Well, she would soon see the results of her meddling. If she was right, there would be more smiles and laughter around this house in the future. When
el bebé
arrived, Tía Maria would tell the story of the day Papa rescued Mama from the big bad bull and brought her home to live here happily ever after.

* * *

T
ATE MANAGED TO GET
through the gate that led to the new bull's pasture without dismounting, but she still begrudged the time it took the mare to respond to her commands as she opened the metal gate and closed it behind her.

Once she was inside the pasture she kept a sharp lookout for the huge Brahma. She wasn't sure what Buck had done to secure it after it had stomped Adam. The chance that it might still be roaming free in the pasture made her shudder in fear.

Tate hadn't gone far when she heard the sound of a truck spinning gravel somewhere beyond the pasture gate. There was no siren, but she thought it might be the ambulance. Maybe they would know exactly where to find Adam. Tate turned the mare back toward the gate and headed there at a gallop.

She was almost to the gate when she realized the huge Brahma bull, with its thick horns and humped back, was standing there, apparently drawn by the sound of the truck, which usually brought hay and feed.

When the bull heard the horse behind him, he whirled to confront the interloper on his territory. Tate found herself trapped, with no way out. She yanked the mare to a halt, holding her perfectly still, knowing that any movement would make the Brahma charge.

Adam swore loudly and fluently when he realized Tate's predicament. He slammed on the brakes, grabbed a rope from the bed of the truck, and hit the ground running.

“Don't move!” he yelled. “I'm coming.”

“Wait!” Tate yelled back. “Don't come in here! It's too dangerous!”

Adam didn't bother with opening the gate, just went over the top and down inside. The rattle of the fence had the bull turning back, certain dinner was about to be served. He stopped, confused when he saw the man on foot inside the fence. He nodded his lowered head from Tate to Adam and back again, uncertain which way he wanted to go.