Rose (16 page)

Rose thrust back her chair, jumped to her feet, and fled from the room. She couldn’t stand to hear another word, see another face twisted by anger, feel another hot wave of rage. Especially not when it was her fault.

The dogs, disturbed in their slumber, jumped up barking. But Rose was too familiar to be worth more than two or three listless howls. They sank back to the floor, their heads dropped on their paws, before she had disappeared into the dusk.

She couldn’t stop the tears running down her face any more than she could stop her feet running aimlessly into the night. She had to get as far away from the anger and the bitterness as possible. It seemed her whole life had been filled with it. No matter where she went, it followed her.

She caused it. She carried the seeds with her.

No, she wouldn’t accept that. She had been happy until the war brought an end to everything kind and gentle. The anger, hate, and bitterness had come with the defeat and the Reconstruction that followed. And regardless of how unfair it might be, she was inexorably bound up with these powerful feelings, feelings so strongly imbued with their own energy that no one,
individual or government, could control them. They ripped through towns and families, destroying lives as wantonly as the guns had destroyed people and property.

It was time she stopped trying to fight it. It was time she stopped being foolish enough to think she could win.

The pain in her chest forced her to stop running, to sag against the corral fence. Her chest heaved as her breath came in short gasps. The bull, chewing its cud in the moonlight, turned his head to stare at her out of vacant eyes.

Over the sound of her ragged breath, she heard footsteps. George. She should have known he would follow. She desperately wanted him to. He was the only one who could heal the wounds in her soul. And her heart. Only his arms would make her feel safe and secure.

God, when would she ever learn? She was such a fool!

George’s family came first. That was the reason he had remained silent all week. That was the reason he hadn’t told Jeff to curb his behavior or leave.

That’s the reason he hadn’t given in to his desire to hold her in his arms or kiss her. That was also the reason he agreed to take her to Austin even though he knew she wasn’t planning to come back.

Why had he followed her now? There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t cause her more pain.

“Are you all right?”

She didn’t turn around. She didn’t need to. Even as a disembodied sound coming out of the night, his voice was comforting. How could anything that deep and solid not be an unfailing support?

“I’m fine. I just didn’t want to sit through any more fights.”

“Monty always—”

She whirled to face him. “It’s not Monty or Hen, and you know it.”

“I don’t know what to do about Jeff.”

“There’s nothing you can do. He has to do it himself. And don’t you even think of mentioning his arm.”

She was too angry to choose her words, think about his feelings, or remember not to criticize. She had held her silence too long.

“Jeff has used that arm like a whip ever since he got back. I know you don’t want me to say this, but I can’t help it. He’s used it to keep you defending him, to keep you from being as close to the twins as you want. You said your father was selfish. So is Jeff. Don’t interrupt,” she said when he started to speak. “I’ve listened until I can’t listen any more. Coddling isn’t going to make him feel differently. You’ve got to cut him loose. Let him sink or swim by himself. If you don’t, he’ll pull you down with him. And your family as well.”

“I know that.”

“Then why haven’t you told him?”

“Because he’s my brother. I can’t turn my back on him.”

“So you’ll turn your back on yourself, your other brothers, your career, and me. You’ll let him make everybody miserable.”

“You’re not coming back from Austin, are you?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.”

“Why? And don’t you say a word about cooking and cleaning. Peaches McCloud would do it better than I can.”

“Peaches can’t do anything half as well as you.”

Why couldn’t he talk like that all the time? Why did he have to wait until she was leaving to say something nice?

“It would be pointless to come back. Nothing will have changed. I’ll still be a Yankee. Jeff will still have lost his arm. You’ll still be waiting for your chance to go off and join the army.”

“We need you, and not just for your cooking. You’ve helped us start to feel like a family.”

“Until Jeff found out I was a Yankee.”

“Zac needs you. I never realized how important it was to a little boy to have a woman around, someone who wouldn’t expect him to be anything but a little boy.”

There were times when she wanted to hit him, to shake
him until his back teeth rattled. Didn’t he ever think of her? Or of himself? She wasn’t sure he
could
think of himself without thinking of his brothers as well.

“I’m very fond of Zac,” Rose said, her voice unsteady. “I think he’s adorable, but I can’t come back just to be his mother. One of you will have to get married if you want that.”

“There’s no chance of that.”

“I know. The twins are too young, Jeff is too bitter, and you hate women. I’m sorry, George, but I can’t prop up your family. I tried, but I can’t anymore.”

“I don’t hate women.”

“You’re dead set against marriage, so it comes to the same thing.”

“I’m very fond of you. If it wasn’t that…If things were different…”

“Well, they aren’t. You’re saddled with your family and some terrible fear which gives you cold chills whenever you think of marriage.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not stupid, George. You’re a perfectly normal man. You’ve got perfectly normal urges and desires. And don’t tell me you don’t want a wife and family. You’ll never be happy without one. You’ve talked yourself into thinking you aren’t fit for marriage, that you hate responsibility, but it’s all a lie. And don’t tell me again you wouldn’t have come home if it hadn’t been for Jeff. You haven’t listened to Jeff since I’ve been here.”

She had done it again, spoken out when she should have kept quiet. Only she had nothing to lose this time. It wouldn’t make any difference if George got mad enough to throw her out. She was leaving.

“You came to take care of your family because you wanted to. You stayed here because you liked it. You even took me under your wing. Now you’ve got Salty and you’re about to add more ex-Confederates. You’re a man who can’t live without dependents. They make you stronger.”

“You’re mistaken. I don’t know what gave you the idea that—”

“Tell yourself all those lies if you must, but I don’t want to hear them.”

“Well, this isn’t a lie. I don’t want you to leave. I came out here to ask you to reconsider.”

Rose felt as if the ground had given way under her feet. She had gotten her wrath stoked, her anger going full throttle, and then he tripped her up.

“Why do
you
want me to stay? Not because of Zac. Not anybody else. Just you.”

Rose almost wished she hadn’t asked. Maybe his only reason for coming had been his brothers. She didn’t think she could stand that.

“I like you,” George admitted reluctantly. “I think I always have. I admire your courage and energy—”

“I’ve had enough of admiration. Can’t you feel just one purely spontaneous emotion?”

“My admiration has deepened my liking for you,” George said, insisting upon his own words. “I’ve had too many lessons in the importance of courage to overlook it again.”

“Okay, you like my courage and my energy. Isn’t there anything you like about
me?
”

“But they are you. You wouldn’t be you without them.”

“Maybe I was wrong,” Rose said, frustrated. “Maybe you are completely unsuited to be a husband.”

“You want me to say I think you’re beautiful, that I think of you all the time, that I find myself reaching out just to touch you?”

“Yes!” The word was a sigh all the way from her soul, the fulfillment of a long-held wish, the period to the open-ended sentence of her love. “That’s what any woman wants to hear from the man she…”

“She what?” George asked.

“Finish what you were going to say,” Rose said. She couldn’t tell him she loved him.
She wouldn’t.

“I’ve never done anything as difficult as keeping my distance from you. You can’t imagine the number of times I’ve wanted to touch you, wanted to…”

“Tell me,” Rose pleaded. “I never thought you had the least trouble staying away.”

George came a step closer. “You’re a beautiful woman, Rose. I don’t think I could live long enough to tell you everything that has passed through my mind since you’ve been here.”

“You haven’t told me
anything.
”

“I started to, but you told me it could never come to anything.”

“Forget what I said.”

George came closer still.

“I hardly know how to put my feelings into words. I’ve never met a woman like you. You don’t want me to speak of my admiration, but how can I begin to make you understand if I don’t? You don’t want me to speak of your courage or your energy, but they are just as much a part of you as your eyes or your lips.”

He reached out and touched her, barely brushed her cheek, but Rose could hardly concentrate well enough to answer.

“I know, but somehow your talking about my lips doesn’t make me feel like a beast of burden.”

“I’ve seen many beautiful women. It seemed the world was full of them only a short time ago. But for them, beauty was an end in itself. They were the eyebrows and lips and skin and hair and nose you so want to hear praised. But that’s all they were. A collection of beautiful parts.”

His hand trailed down the side of her arm. The feeling was so intense it was almost painful.

“You don’t think I’m nice to look at?”

“Yes. Even Monty thinks you’re pretty. And if you can stop him from thinking about cows for as much as five minutes, you must be stunning.”

Rose laughed in spite of her hypersensitive arm. “I never
thought I’d be pleased to have a compliment phrased exactly that way, but a lot of things have happened I never expected.”

“I’m not doing this very well, am I?”

“No. As a matter of fact, you’re making a pretty wonderful mess of it.”

George let his hand slide all the way down her arm until he took her hand in his.

“What I’m trying to say is you’re beautiful. But your beauty means so much more because of the person you are inside, what you’re willing to give of yourself, what you’re willing to share without demanding something in return.”

She could feel the pressure of his thumb as it traced circles on her skin. Even in the face of such a small attention as this, it was hard to think of leaving.

“You’re doing a little better now.”

“The more I got to know you, the more I found myself drawn to you. I thought of your lips. They seemed to haunt me almost as much as your eyes. But they haunted me because they were
your
lips, not just because they were so beautiful I couldn’t stop thinking about them.”

“You’re doing much better,” Rose murmured, her eyes closed, her starved soul rejoicing in the nourishment of his words.

“I wanted to hold you in my arms and kiss you, and not just because it felt so wonderful. I wanted to hold
you
because of the little things you did to please me, the times you stopped what you were doing to pay attention to Zac, because of the times you were too tired to go on but you did because you were doing something for us.”

“Go on.”

Pulling gently, he drew her close to him.

“I found after a while I didn’t feel quite as content, quite as comfortable, if you weren’t around. Out on the range I would find myself wondering what you might be doing now. When I’m at the house, I find myself looking up to see where you are. When I have a decision to make, I wonder what you might
think about it. You have invaded my mind and thoughts so thoroughly I can’t imagine your not always being here.”

He pulled her closer. They didn’t touch, but Rose could feel his body heat.

“I got angry, then jealous, when Monty started flirting with you. It was a shock to think somebody else liked you. It was even worse to think you might like him. I knew then I wanted you to like only me.

“I told myself it wasn’t fair to say anything when I had nothing to offer. But that day at the creek, I guess I forgot about being fair. I wanted only to kiss you, to know you liked me a little.”

Through the material of her dress, Rose could feel their bodies brush. Her breasts became more excruciatingly tender than her arm.

“You’ve always known that,” she said.

“It wasn’t enough when neither of us could speak of it.”

“You told me from the first you never wanted a wife or a family. Why should I talk about something I could never have?”

George put both his hands on her shoulders. Instinctively Rose leaned toward him.

“For the same reason I wanted to hold you in my arms and kiss you. Because I couldn’t help myself. What did you mean just a minute ago when you said
That’s what any woman wants to hear from the man she…?
”

Rose tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t release her.

“It’s not fair…”

“Nothing’s fair. You wanted the truth from me. Now I want the truth from you.”

Rose was tempted to tell him a lie. Why should she bare her soul to a man who seemed to have none? Sure, he admitted to liking her, being attracted to her, drawn by the quality of her character, but that wasn’t a warm emotion, one capable of igniting a passion which would last a lifetime. It wasn’t strong enough to build her life on. It wasn’t tough enough to shield her from Jeff’s abuse.

But there was something there. Something which had sustained her feeling for him all these weeks. Something which had caused the feeling to deepen into love. Did she know what it was? Could she tell him if she did?

She leaned against him once more. It would be easier to tell him if she didn’t have to look him in the eye.

“I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget the morning you walked into the restaurant. You made me feel like a real person, not just someone who took orders and served food.”