Read Liz Ireland Online

Authors: A Cowboy's Heart

Liz Ireland (7 page)

“He thinks we’re in love,” Paulie clarified bluntly.

Trip, who had been leaning towards her as she blurted out her news, appeared as if he would fall right over if she didn’t do something to stop him. The man was in a state of shock.

“How could you have told him that?”

“I didn’t,” she said, reaching out to brace his chest with a hand. “He just sort of guessed.”

“Guessed?” Trip recoiled. “But it’s not true!” he exclaimed, swaying back the other way.

“I know!” she said, reaching out to grab his hand so he wouldn’t topple right off Feather. “But Will didn’t seem to realize that…and for some stupid reason I didn’t correct the misunderstanding.”

“But everybody knows I’m in love with Tessie Hale!”
Trip cried, growing more alarmed. “What if Tessie should hear about this?”

“She won’t,” Paulie promised. “Just as soon as we find Mary Ann, I swear I’ll tell Will the truth.”

“Mary Ann? What she got to do with it?”

Paulie couldn’t bring herself to admit her feelings for Will, or her jealousy of Mary Ann, which seemed incredibly petty now that she thought of confessing it in the cold light of day. She simply insisted, “I swear, Trip, Tessie will never know.”

The man looked like he was going to have heart palpitations. “But you and me?” he asked. “That’s just plain silly! Will ought to know that!”

Paulie tried not to be offended—to no avail.
Why
did everyone seem to think that her being in love with anyone was “just plain silly”? She abruptly let go of Trip’s hand, and felt herself reel backward, off balance.

“Oh!” she exclaimed.

In an attempt to save her as she had saved him, Trip automatically reached forward, and for a moment the two of them, atop horses that were growing increasingly agitated, danced a strange, off-balance gavotte. And then Feather reared, breaking their hold, and as Paulie darted to the side to once again grab hold of Trip’s arm, she grasped nothing but air. To her shock, she slipped and found herself toppling as she had feared Trip would, shoulder-first to the ground.

Chapter Five

“H
ow a body can fall off a horse while it’s standing stock-still sure beats the hell out of me,” Will said, unable to keep the wonder out of his voice. If this had happened to Trip, he wouldn’t have been quite so surprised. But Paulie?

“It happens,” Paulie muttered through gritted teeth. Her face was set in a permanent wince.

“Are you hurt, Paulie?” Trip asked her, concern written all over him. “It looked like Partner kicked you.”

She stared up at him, her complexion pale and clammy, and attempted a smile. “Nah, I’m okay,” she boasted. “Just a little banged up, that’s all.” Even as the words came out, she clutched her side.

Will had seen cowboys “banged up” from falls before, and the damage could be pretty bad. “Did the horse kick you?”

She ducked her head. “Nicked me, maybe. It’s nothing to worry about.”

Even a glancing blow from a sharp shoed hoof could break a rib. “You better let us take a look,” Will said.

“I told you, I’m fine!” He poked her ribs gently, and she let out a howl.

“Is that why you sounded off like a sick coyote?”

Resigned, Paulie reached for her shirt. “Oh, all right,” she said. “I’ll show you wh—” Her words stopped the moment her movements did, so that her elbows were hitched up just as she was pulling her shirttails out from her jeans. Suddenly, her face reddened. “Don’t look.”

Will tossed up his hands. “Good grief, Paulie! You want Trip to take a look at you?”

That thought seemed to horrify her even more. “Heck, no!”

Trip didn’t look too comfortable at the prospect, either. Some pair of lovers they would make, Will thought disgustedly.

Deciding that they couldn’t spend all evening simply deciding whether Paulie could ride or not, he took matters into his own hands. As fast as he could, he reached out and pulled Paulie’s shirt up, stopping when he saw an angry red slash across her side. She wasn’t bleeding, but the bruise was already beginning to turn blue.

Paulie had screeched out a short protest that died the minute she saw the damage Partner had done. “My word!” she cried out, even as Oat let out a long low whistle.

“Bruised rib,” the old-timer said curtly. “I’ll betcha.”

Will strode back to his horse, pulled out an extra shirt and began ripping it into thick strips. He tried to blot out the memory of the horrible roil that had occurred in his stomach when he’d first seen that bruise slashing across Paulie’s white skin. He’d seen worse. But he’d never seen a bruise like that on anyone so delicate. Paulie always seemed so brash and tough, he had been unprepared for the sight of her soft, feminine skin, or the outline of her ribs being visible. She had no defenses at all…at least not from a sharp kick to her side. That she wasn’t rolling on the ground moaning was a tribute to her strength, or her will.

“Make a fire, Trip,” he said. “We’ll stop here till tomorrow morning.”

As Trip went about his business, Paulie glanced frantically toward the river. “But Will, we’ve got to keep going.”

“Not with you in this shape, we don’t.”

“Just give me a minute, I can ride.”

“Pull your shirt up again,” he said.

Her eyes became round as saucers. “Why?”

“I’m going to wrap these rags around you, in case you busted something.”

“Oh,” she said. To his surprise, she turned her back to him and dutifully obeyed. “Do you think I’d be able to ride then, once you’re finished?”

Will suddenly felt awkward doing the wrapping, though it wasn’t the first time he’d performed the task. The memory of how small she’d seemed in his arms the night before came back to him. Delicate. She was delicate. Paulie Johnson—who’d have thought it!

“We’ll see.”

The way she shook her head told him she was agitated. “You can’t stop here, Will. You need to go after Night Bird.”

“I can’t go without you,” he said, tying off the last strip. “Not now that you’ve come this far.”

“Shoot, I hate to be the cause of problems.” She ducked her head. “I especially don’t want to make trouble for you, Will.”

He smiled, feeling that odd hitch in his throat again. Of course he didn’t want to leave her, he thought. Friends didn’t desert each other, no matter what the circumstances. Trip wouldn’t have been the only one distracted if he’d decided to push on across the border without Paulie.
“You’re no trouble, Sprout.” He grinned. “Long as you keep your mouth closed.”

She blinked, then in her anger picked up a handful of sand and tossed it at him.

Will laughed. “That’s a fine thanks I get for saving your life.”

“My life!” she hollered. “My life wasn’t in danger till you decided to drag us all across Texas.”

“I warned you not to come,” he answered, feeling much more comfortable now that they were bantering again.

“And as for
saving
me,” she said, managing to put her hands on her hips with a wince,
“squeezing
me to death is more like it. I can barely breathe after your kindly ministrations, thank you very much.”

“You’re just spoiled.” He tilted his head. “If you dressed like you’re supposed to and wore a corset every now and then, you wouldn’t be making such a fuss.”

“A corset!” She hooted at the very idea. “If I’d been wearing one of those durned things, a whole herd of horses could have stampeded over me and I probably wouldn’t have suffered so much as a bruise. But I don’t recall you exactly handing out compliments the last time I tried to deck myself out all female-like.”

Will turned his mind back to that moment two days ago when he’d seen her prancing around in her mother’s wedding dress. Considering all that had happened since, it seemed a long time ago, but the humor of the sight was still fresh in his mind. “It wasn’t the clothes so much as the way you wore them.”

His smirk was not appreciated. Paulie pursed her lips. “Well, I haven’t had much practice.”

Her dander rose so predictably that teasing her was hard to resist. “I would keep working on the hair.” Even now,
a day after the debacle, she still had locks askew from her unfortunate efforts.

She patted her head self-consciously. “I don’t see what the point is anyway. It’s not like there’s any man wandering loose around Possum Trot who I want to impress!”

Will flinched, surprised by her words. “Oh no? What about Trip?” he asked, cutting off whatever insult she had planned for him.

Her mouth dropped open, and he could have sworn a blush crept up her face. “Oh…well, naturally.” She bridled for a few moments, then looked up at him through narrowed eyes. “But Trip accepts me as I am. I don’t have to turn myself inside out for his benefit.”

Will crossed his arms. “Then why did you?”

“Because I
wanted
to. Haven’t you ever just wanted to try to change for somebody, Will?”

He considered her question for a moment. Now that he thought about it, he never had considered altering himself to suit someone else’s taste. All those years when he’d been assuming he would marry Mary Ann, he’d been waiting for
her
to change. Her youthful shallowness, her seemingly bottomless interest in life’s trivialities—these were things he kept waiting for
her
to grow out of. As if he would ride over to the Breens’ one day and discover that she’d become a serious, mature woman overnight.

Naturally, that had never happened.

Strange to think how opposite Mary Ann and Paulie were. While he had been waiting for Mary Ann to place less emphasis on trivialities and appearances, Paulie had been trying to place more on her own appearance. But she did say that she and Mary Ann had become friends. Maybe her stab at duding herself up was a result of Mary Ann’s influence.

“Who are you thinking about?” Paulie asked.

“Mary Ann, mostly.”

She looked down, her expression unreadable. “Oh.”

He reached out and lifted her chin. “I know you two are friends, but I wouldn’t let her change you, Paulie.”

She gulped and shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that. Mary Ann’s pretty and all, but…”

“Mary Ann’s beautiful,” Will corrected. Beauty was about all there was to her. But as he looked down into Paulie’s eyes, the memory of Mary Ann’s beauty wandered into some dusty recess of his mind. That woman’s eyes were never so expressive as Paulie’s, nor had her lips seemed half so inviting…

Will captured his wayward thoughts before they got completely out of hand. What the hell was he thinking about Paulie’s lips for? He dropped his hand and stepped back, looking away from her confused, blinking eyes. “Tell Trip I’ll be back in a little while.”

He quickly put as much distance between himself and Paulie as he could.

Paulie sat in practically the same place she had fallen, watching a brooding Will disappear on another of his walks. It didn’t take a genius to know who he thought of while he was ambling around the countryside, either.

“Mary Ann’s beautiful…”
Well, that fact was undeniable. Naturally losing a woman like that would prey on a man’s mind.

And yet…Paulie couldn’t help but balk at the unfairness of life. How beautiful was it to turn your back on a man like Will Brockett to marry a man like Oat? Not that there was anything wrong with Oat, all by himself. In the past two days, she’d discovered that he was a good travelling companion, amiable and knowledgeable. She even began to feel a little sorry for him for being saddled with such a
wife. She still couldn’t imagine why he’d married her. It had probably been less Oat’s doing than Mary Ann’s.

Mary Ann wasn’t above using people. Hadn’t she led Will Brockett on all those years and then just dumped him without so much as a word of explanation? She’d left the poor man brokenhearted, and Paulie bet Mary Ann didn’t feel a smidgeon of guilt.
Beautiful!

“Good Lord, Paulie, are you feeling all right?” Trip asked.

She straightened, ignoring the pain that shot up her side when she moved. “I’m fine. Everybody needs to stop worrying about me.”

“I wasn’t worried so much as wondering why you had that thunderous look on your face.”

“Oh. I was just thinking about Mary Ann,” she explained, not even bothering to hide her feelings from Trip.

Trip let out a sour chuckle. “I never will understand why you’re going to so much trouble to rescue a woman you’ve barely spoken two words to in your lifetime.”

She frowned. “It’s a matter of principle.”

“How’s that?”

“Can’t just let people go around kidnapping Possum Trot women, can we?”

He scratched his head. “Guess not. But if you ask me, your bein’ here has got a lot more to do with Will than Mary Ann.”

For the first time, someone had a glimmer of a notion of her feelings for Will Brockett, and Paulie wasn’t comfortable with the discovery. She felt a flush creep up her neck, and was very glad it was already dark so that perhaps Trip couldn’t see how close he’d come to the truth. “I couldn’t let him just ride off alone,” she argued, “especially with only Oat for backup. Especially running after an Injun who’s killed—”

He nodded and lifted a hand to interrupt her. “The preacher doesn’t have to convert me, Paulie. I’m a mite more fond of Will than Mary Ann myself, you know.”

“I’d be torn up if anything happened to you, either, Trip.”

He shrugged. “I’m sturdier than I look. The only thing that’s bothered me so far is what you said about Will thinking that you and me…I mean, that we was…”

Unable to find the correct words, he let his stammer trail off into the growing dark.

“That we’re sweethearts?”

“I can’t imagine what would have led you to tell him such a thing!” Trip exclaimed, amazed anew at the very idea.

“I told you, I didn’t tell him. He guessed…and I just let him keep guessing, is all.” She ducked her head, suddenly embarrassed at her unexplainable lie by omission.

“Gol-darn it, Paulie, we gotta do something. I can’t have it gettin’ back to Possum Trot that you and me is…”

“Well we aren’t, so it won’t.”

“But with Will thinkin’ it…”

“Will’s no gossip. Besides, goodness knows when we’ll be back in Possum Trot.”

“But if Tessie should ever find out…”

Paulie remained silent. She could see how the widow Hale would be sorely disappointed that the man who had
not
been able to propose to her for twenty years would be
not
proposing to somebody new. But somehow, she figured Tessie Hale was a little more mentally agile than Will Brockett when it came to detecting a fish story. She and Trip being suddenly in love didn’t exactly have a ring of authenticity to it.

“Besides, I don’t like Will thinkin’ such a thing, me bein’ so much older and all. How does that look?”

“Don’t worry, Trip. After Oat and Mary Ann, people aren’t scandalized by anything.”

Despite her assurances, Trip looked glum. “I’d feel awful if Will thought worse of me ‘cause of something that ain’t true.”

Put that way, Paulie wasn’t quite so complacent about misleading Will. Maybe she should have thought a little more about Trip’s feelings…but how could she have? Will had been standing there looking so darn handsome, and she was just plain old Paulie, like she’d always been forever. Suddenly she’d wanted him to think she was somebody who other men might desire even if he didn’t.

“I’m sorry, Trip. I guess I wasn’t thinking of the thing from your end.”

He shrugged. “Nothin’ to get too wound up about, I guess.”

Somehow, his being so agreeable now made her feel all that much worse. But she couldn’t let him know that, or he would feel worse, too, and then there would be no end to the guilt going around.

She shifted on the hard ground, attempting to push herself up. The effort caused enough pain to make her think twice about going to find Will right away. But now that she had her mind made up to set things straight, she wanted to get it over with. The sooner she faced up to the humiliation of telling him the truth, the sooner she could start living it down.

“Where you going?” Trip asked. “You ain’t goin’ to see Will now, are you? I’ll go with you to talk to him if you want,” he offered.

She couldn’t imagine anything worse than having to admit her untruthfulness with two men instead of just one. “No, please—I’m not going to talk to him right this minute. I’m not even sure where he rode off to.”

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