Never Love a Cowboy (5 page)

He crossed the room and crouched before Jessye. A smile eased across her face. “Isn’t she perfect?”

“It’s a good thing the woman didn’t have to depend on me to help her. I hadn’t a clue as to what I should do. I suppose birthing comes naturally to women.”

Jessye shook her head slightly as she gazed at the child. “Gave birth to one of my own once, so I knew what to do.”

Harrison felt as though someone had just punched him in the midsection. “I never realized you’d been married—”

“I wasn’t.” Her voice carried no shame, no quest for pity. “The fella ran off. The war had just started. Reckon he figured he’d rather face a Yankee bullet than marriage to me.”

“The man was a fool.”

“I was the fool, Harry. I lapped up his smooth talking the way a cat laps up cream.”

“What of the child?”

Closing her eyes, she shook her head. Harrison placed his hand over hers. “Jessye, what happened to the child?”

Tears shimmered in her eyes when she opened them. “I gave her up.”

“Gave her up? You hated her that much?”

Reaching out, she dug her fingers into his forearm,
her eyes pleading for understanding. “No, I loved her that much.”

He jerked free of her touch. “Love does not abandon.”

He stalked to the stove and watched the water, drowning in memories he seemed unable to hold at bay. The softening he’d begun to feel toward Jessye had vanished. He had experienced moments when he’d actually believed her to be warm and loving, moments when he’d thought perhaps she could show him the way to love.

But she had abandoned her child. She was no different from his mother or his mistresses. She was a woman without a heart.

Jessye lay on her side before the hearth, staring at the dancing flames, her back to Harry. She didn’t know why she bothered to care about the man. He had a habit of wounding her with words…and tonight those words had sliced open a wound that she thought had long ago healed.

Jo Beth and Peter Haskell had offered them the floor in their front room because the barn was wet and cold. She heard Harry’s breathing, felt his presence, and was contemplating moving to the barn. She didn’t think she could feel any colder there than she did lying here next to him.

She listened to him shifting his body over the puncheon floor. Would he never settle in to sleep?

She heard the tiny wail of hunger in the next room—the sweet echo of innocence—followed by silence as a mother took her child to her breast. Jessye had only held her daughter and nourished her for three
days…touched her soft hair…breathed in the pure scent of her small baby’s body. A hot tear rolled toward her temple. How could memories that brought such joy hurt so painfully?

The rustle of Harry’s movements intruded on her thoughts. “Will you be still?” she demanded, jerking her head around to glare at him. He sat on his knees, staring at the bedroom door, his hands balled into tight fists on his thighs.

“The baby was crying,” he murmured. “Then she stopped. What do you think they’re doing to her?”

Jessye eased into a sitting position, folding her legs beneath her. “She was hungry. They’re no doubt feeding her.”

“They didn’t come out here to get any food.”

“Her mother…” She felt the heat suffuse her face. “Her mother is probably nursing her.”

Harry’s glance darted to Jessye’s breasts before he shifted his gaze upward to her eyes. He gave a short nod. “Oh, yes. I…I hadn’t thought of that. Did you…” He waved his hand in front of his chest. “Did you feed your baby like that?”

“While I had her. Before I
abandoned
her.” She couldn’t prevent the bitterness from tainting her voice.

He flinched, but his action failed to ease her hurt. “Go to sleep, Harry, and for God’s sake stop twisting and turning.” She started to lie down.

“I was afraid that they might be hurting the baby.”

She stilled, studying his profile as he kept his gaze focused on the door. Little wonder the colonies rebelled. The English were a stupid bunch. “You don’t give birth to a baby and then hurt it.”

“My mother did.”

Her stomach knotted at the surety in his voice. “Not intentionally—”

“When I was four, she led me to the cellar. She demanded that I tell her that I loved her. When I did, she said she hated me, shoved me into the dank storage room, closed and locked the door. In the darkness, I heard the rats squealing, the patter of their paws clicking over the cold stone—”

Jessye’s stomach roiled as the bile burned its way up her throat. Touching his arm, she felt the tenseness in his muscles. “Did she do the same to your brother?”

He released a mirthless laugh. “To the heir apparent? To the boy who would become the man who decided where she lived and what her allowance would be once Father died? Of course not. I, on the other hand, was of no value except for the pleasures she found in torturing me.”

“Did you tell your father?”

“I tried, but I’d made the mistake of crying while I listened to the rats and waited for them to feast upon me. A serving girl discovered me when she went to the cellar to fetch some of his favorite brandy. He overlooked my mother’s transgressions and focused instead upon my red, swollen eyes. After that, he fancied me a popinjay and would have nothing to do with me.”

“But you were only a child—”

“A male—even one as young as I was—does not cry. Ever. An earl’s son is never a child. He is born a man.”

Shuddering, Jessye longed to wrap her arms around him, but she feared his reaction. His voice carried no
emotion. His body was coiled tighter than a snake’s. Little wonder he knew nothing of love.

“Did she ever take you to the cellar again?”

“Ah, yes,” he replied as though no other answer could exist. “Our journey became a weekly ritual. Even when I stopped telling her that I loved her.”

“How could she do that to you?”

He slid his gaze to her. “Haven’t a clue. I rather suspect she might have been insane.”

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she touched her fingers to his cheek, holding his gaze. “She was insane. No mother would have done such a horrid thing to her own child—to any child. A mother’s love—”

He shifted his body so quickly that she nearly fell backward. Facing her directly, his emerald eyes were hard as stone, his face set in rigid lines. “Yes, Jessye, tell me all about a mother’s love. Explain to me how a mother could abandon her child.”

“L
ooks like you had a rough night,” Jo Beth
said. “I know sleepin’ on the floor can be hard on a person. We should have offered you our bed—”

“Don’t be silly,” Jessye said as she held the bundle of joy within her arms. She hadn’t slept after Harry had asked his accusatory question. A bed wouldn’t have made any difference. She’d asked herself the same question a thousand times in the passing years, but the words coming from him had hurt her more than she would have thought possible. “A new mother needs all the comforts she can find.”

“Well, I sure don’t know what I woulda done if you hadn’t happened along,” Jo Beth said as she eased out of bed.

Jessye stroked the child’s soft hair. “You would have managed.”

“Not likely. My Pete’s a good man, but he worries something fierce.”

Jessye smiled at the woman. “Appreciate that he does. Most men don’t.” She handed the child to her mother.

“You oughta think about staying until the weather warms,” Jo Beth said.

Jessye settled her hat into place. “It’ll warm up in a day or so, and we’ll be that much closer to finding the cattle.”

“You watch that fella you’re traveling with. I think he has an eye set on you.”

“He has his eyes set on my money.” With that honest truth nipping at her heels, Jessye strode from the house.

She saw Harry talking with Pete near the saddled horses. Although Jessye had protested, Jo Beth had insisted they take some of the canned goods from her pantry. Jessye slung the saddlebags over the horse’s rump before mounting. “Come on, English, we’re burning daylight.”

Grinning broadly, Pete took a step toward Jessye. “Did Jo Beth tell you we was naming the baby after the two of you? Jessica Harriet.”

Jessye felt the tears sting her eyes. “I’m honored. It’s a right fine name. I hope the world always treats her kindly.”

Harry slanted his gaze toward her. They held no warmth for her. They were as cold as those of the rattler that had curled on his chest. “Pete said he saw unmarked cattle to the south.”

“How many?”

“A dozen or so.”

Jessye nodded. “Fine.”

Harry shook Pete’s hand. “Thanks for the tip.” He pulled himself onto the saddle and urged his horse south.

With disappointment swirling through her, Jessye kicked her horse’s sides and followed Harry’s lead.

With a blanket wrapped around her, Jessye stared at the fire blazing within the hearth of the small vacant shack they’d discovered earlier in the evening. They’d traveled three days without rain, three days without sighting cattle.

Three days without speaking to each other.

Strange how they could work side by side, do what needed doing, and never utter a word. She’d always imagined love worked that way—allowed people to communicate in ways that went beyond speech.

But no love existed between her and Harry. She could see in his eyes exactly what she’d seen in her own for over a year after she’d given up her daughter: disgust, revulsion, disrespect.

When she’d returned to Fortune, she’d removed every mirror from her room. She’d been unable to tolerate the sight of herself.

That Christmas, her father had given her a beautiful mirror, edged in gold. “I don’t know why you left,” he’d said, “but I do know until you face yourself in that mirror, you’ll never really be home.”

The first time had been the hardest. Each time, it grew a little easier…and each time she looked in the mirror, she forgave herself a little more.

But with Harry, she’d find no forgiveness. He was indeed teaching her a lesson in hate, one she would have preferred not to learn.

She heard the thunder rumble. The storm had hit just before they’d spotted the rustic cabin. But even with the fire and the dry clothing she’d changed into,
she still trembled from the winter festering within her heart.

Tomorrow, whether or not the frigid winds stayed, the cold within her would leave. She’d wait until Harry started forward, then she’d turn and go in the opposite direction.

She neither wanted nor needed Harry’s company. She’d find her own cattle and to hell with him and his judgments.

She heard him roving around the shack, scavenging for odds and ends. Their supplies were sorely depleted, but as long as she had bullets for her gun, she’d have food for her belly.

“You should get some sleep,” he said quietly as he dropped beside her.

“You should mind your own business.”

“I’ve been trying to understand how the Haskells determined that they’d named their daughter in my honor when my name isn’t Harriet.”

“Reckon that’s why you’ve been so quiet these past few days—you can’t think and talk at the same time.”

“And what’s your excuse?” he asked.

“I haven’t been in the company of anyone I thought was worth talking to.”

He cleared his throat. “Is Jessye short for Jessica?”

“Nope.”

“Is it short for anything?”

“Nope.”

He sighed deeply. “Jessye, I am striving to mend this rift between us—”

“Some things can’t be mended.”

“We cannot continue going on as we have been—”

She spun around and faced him. “You got that right. Tomorrow, I’m looking at the back end of your horse and heading in the other direction.”

“You bloody well will not. I’m not going to allow you to travel alone—”

“I traveled alone when I was seventeen. Went from Fortune to a mission east of San Antone. That’s a long stretch of miles. I gave birth to my baby alone, with no one to hear my screams, hold my hand, or wipe my brow, and I alone decided what was best for her. So don’t go telling me that I can’t do things alone!”

She grabbed his saddlebag and began rummaging through it.

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

“That dang mirror you use when you shave.” She pulled it out and looked at her reflection.

“Why in God’s name do you want that?”

“Because I need to see someone look at me without hate in their eyes.”

“I don’t hate you.”

She shoved the mirror in front of his face. “Look inside those eyes, Harry, and tell me that’s not hatred lookin’ back.”

He grabbed the mirror from her hand and threw it into the fire. “I asked you to explain how you could abandon a child you claimed to love, and you answered with silence. I learned the hard way that silence mirrors hatred.”

“Go to hell!” She surged to her feet, rushed across the room, flung open the front door, and escaped into the night. The cold winds buffeted her, the harsh rain pelted her unmercifully, tears blinded her as she ran, ran with only one thought: to escape the guilt that
gnawed at her constantly, the doubts that plagued her.

She screamed as strong arms snaked around her. She twisted and pounded her fists against Harry’s shoulders. “Let me go!”

“You foolish woman! You’ll die out here!” he yelled over the howling winds.

“Do you think I give a damn! Don’t you understand? I had nothing of value to give her. Nothing! And, God, it hurt, it hurt so bad…and it still does. Do you know the agony of waking up every morning wondering if she’s happy? Can you imagine the grief of knowing you’ll never tuck her into bed and kiss her goodnight?” She bucked. “Now let me go!” She wrenched free of his hold. She managed to take three steps before he grabbed her and pulled her against his body. His arms closed around her, pinning her against him, chest to chest. She tilted her head back. Through her tears, the rain, and the darkness, he was only a blur. “Let me go and leave me alone.”

“I can’t,” he rasped.

Dipping down, he slipped an arm beneath her knees and lifted her. She cursed her arms that betrayed her and slid around his neck, cursed her shivering body that pressed against his, seeking warmth. She doubted she could have run much farther. And what was the point in escape? Sooner or later, she would have to face him. He held the key to her future security; she held the key to his present needs. Money. Money when she would sell her soul for love.

He kicked open the door, carried her into the shack, and set her in front of the fire. She eased forward, extending her hands toward the heat, waiting for it to work its way through her body. She heard him slam
the front door. From the corner of her eye, she watched him kneel and riffle through her belongings. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to find you some dry clothing.”

“This is all I’ve got.”

He glared at her over his shoulder. “Wonderful.” He reached for the clothing she’d worn when they’d first arrived at the shack, clothing she’d hung near the fire so it could dry. “It’s still damp,” he murmured before reaching for his own bag. “You can wear some of my clothing.” He snatched out a shirt and a pair of britches.

“How many outfits…did you bring?” she asked, her teeth clattering.

“This is it,” he said, turning to face her. He reached for the button on her shirt, and she slapped his hand away.

He sighed deeply. “You have got to get out of those wet clothes before you catch your death.”

She hated the wisdom of his words. “Get outta here, and I’ll change.”

“I am not leaving the warmth of the fire,” he explained as he set his clothes beside her. He lifted his blanket, forming a woolen wall between them.

With shaking fingers, she unfastened the buttons on her shirt. “What are you going to wear?”

“It’s acceptable for a man to be without a shirt—not a lady. Although I’ve never understood the reasoning. A woman’s chest is so much lovelier to gaze upon.”

Jessye fought back her smile as she slipped into his shirt. His words were as deft as his fingers when it came to dealing a winning hand. He’d melt her anger
like butter on a biscuit if she allowed it. His shirt swallowed her, but it was dry, warm, and welcoming. She ran her fingers over his trousers. “Your britches are way too big. You wear them, and I’ll wrap myself in a blanket.”

He lowered the blanket. “I want you out of everything that is wet.”

“You are not my boss.”

“Jessye, for God’s sake, there are moments when stubbornness is not an asset.”

She thrust his britches toward him. “Change outside.”

He rolled his eyes. “Only if you promise to pray that nothing of importance freezes off.”

“I’ll pray just the opposite.”

He gave her a smile that set her heart to fluttering.

“No you won’t. Your words are always tough, but your eyes usually betray your softness.”

She waited until he’d walked out of the shack before she shucked her drenched britches, wrapped the blanket around her waist, and tucked it around her legs. The door swung open, and Harry, barefoot and bare-chested, rushed inside.

“It’s freezing out there,” he snapped as he draped his clothes over the rickety chairs near a rotting table. “I do wish the warmer weather you promised would return.”

He moved her damp clothes to the chairs before snatching up her wet clothes and placing them near the fire. Her clothes would be dry by morning, but he’d no doubt be traveling in damp attire.

Damn the scoundrel for being nice when she wanted to remain angry with him. He crouched before
her saddlebag. Hampered by the blanket, she couldn’t peer far enough around him to see what he was about. “What are you doing now?”

“Looking for your brush. Your hair looks like a rat’s nest.”

“It always looks like that. It’s the way nature made it.”

In triumph, he held up her brush and scooted toward her.

“What do you think you’re going to do?” she asked.

“Remove the tangles from your hair. I’ll be very gentle.”

He reached for her braid, and she grabbed his wrist. “Why are you doing this, Harry? Why are you being so nice?”

He dropped his gaze to the brush, running his thumb up and down the bristles. “Because I’ve hurt you, and apologies are not in my vocabulary.”

“All you gotta say is ‘I’m sorry.’”

He lifted his gaze to hers. “I’d rather brush your hair.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Fine, but I won’t forgive you until you say you’re sorry.”

“You’ve already forgiven me,” he said as he unraveled her braid.

“Have not.”

“Have so.”

She snorted. “We sound like a couple of children.”

“I fear we acted like children as well. What were you thinking to run out into the storm like that?”

She felt his gentle touch as he draped her hair over her shoulder and worked the brush through the snarled ends. Her heart tightened with the knowledge that
he’d done this before, no doubt for countless other women, because only a man of experience would know the best way to work the tangles free. “Obviously, I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to get away from the memories.”

“Because of the guilt?”

She gritted her teeth. “Harry, I don’t want to talk about this.”

He stilled the brush and ran his thumb along her chin until she turned her head to meet his gaze. “Jessye, I’ve pondered your words for three days, and I can’t understand them. You said you abandoned her out of love—”

“I did not abandon her. I gave her up. There’s a difference.”

“Explain it to me.”

“Why do you care? It was almost four years ago. What difference could it possibly make to you?”

He cradled her cheek with infinite tenderness. “The pain reflected in your eyes when I said what I did would have brought me to my knees had I not already been sitting. Kit confided to me once of the love he held for another. As his friend, I accepted his words, but I could not fathom his actions or his feelings. What I know of a mother’s love is tainted because my mother was an expert in revealing the ways of hate. As for my mistresses…they were no better.” He slowly trailed his gaze over her face as though searching for something he’d never known. “I have a feeling you’re an expert in the ways of love.”

“I’m not an expert, Harry. If I was, I wouldn’t have
found my belly swelling with the child of a man who wouldn’t stand beside me.”

“Outside, you said you had nothing of value to offer her. You had yourself,
your
love.”

She gave him a sad smile. “I had no husband, no father for her. Back then I had no money. I work in a saloon. I didn’t want my baby raised around drunks and gamblers. I didn’t want children to taunt her because her ma got caught in a sin.”