Straight from the bedroom to the altar.
And suddenly to his great surprise that didn’t seem like such a bad idea. He hadn’t seen very many mar- riages that were made in heaven. His own wasn’t much of a yardstick; his own father had disavowed the insti- tution completely. Not so long ago Judson had thought that it would be enough to have a relationship without any permanency or bonds. Now he wasn’t so sure. Hav- ing finally found the only woman he wanted in his life, he wasn’t willing to accept her on a part-time-only ba- sis. He peeked twenty years into the future and saw them holding hands together on the front porch with grandchildren clustered at their feet.
Judson smiled at the thought. Whatever it took to convince Carrie to marry him, how ever long it took to break down her fears, he was going to win her over to his way of thinking.
Feeling the impact of his hard body pressed against her, Carrie did not resist as Judson’s mouth closed upon hers. She responded with her entire being to the power of his kiss. Never before had she felt anything so wild, so strong. Quivering, she twined her fingers in the silky,
thick darkness of his hair. The muscles on the arms that held her were ropes of sinew, his chest a broad, smooth wall of strength. Running her hands across that bare chest, she felt the quickening thud of his heart against her open palm. It matched hers beat for beat.
It felt so very right, and their shared need was so very urgent. Passion leapt between them like a flame threatening to blaze out of control. Enveloped in the loving embrace of Judson’s arms, Carrie allowed herself to envision her life with a man who was strong enough to lean on and gentle enough to trust.
The echo of the front door slamming shut reverber- ated throughout the house. Reason slowly returned to eyes that were dazed and heavy-lidded.
“Brandy!” they mouthed simultaneously.
Given the girl’s volatile nature, both worried that, in a desperate ploy for attention, she just might do some- thing dramatic. Something dangerous.
Clearly before things went any further between the two of them, matters had to be settled with that live grenade presently masquerading as a twelve-year-old girl.
Considering that Carrie didn’t have the faintest notion of what to do next, she was surprised at how calm and resolute her voice sounded as she announced to Judson, “You get some rest. I’ll go after her.”
Stepping from the security of Judson’s bedroom into a battleground, Carrie noticed that the door to Cowboy’s room was wide open. He was sitting on the edge of his bed wearing a very worried expression.
Not wanting to invade his personal space, she queried from the door, “Are you okay?”
He met her question with one of his own. “Is Dad going to be all right?”
How patiently he had been waiting for word on his father. Carrie could no more refuse those pleading blue eyes than she could stop her heart from beating. Bran- dy’s tantrum could wait just a minute more. This was equally important.
Realizing how scared he must be, Carrie assured him as she crossed the room, “He’s going to be just fine, sweetheart.”
From the rapt expression that lit up his face when she came to sit beside him on the bed, it was apparent that at least one of Judson’s children did not perceive her as the enemy. His crush on her was as obvious as the sun that warmed the mountain hollows, and just as sustain- ing.
Grateful for the warm reception, Carrie ruffled the boy’s hair affectionately. With a smile so like his fa- ther’s, he tugged firmly on her heart.
The walls of Cowboy’s private domain were covered with posters of horses and his own original artwork, the floor littered with video games, sports cards and
West- ern Horseman
magazines. A worn guitar was propped against the windowsill, and a live spider imprisoned in a jelly jar resided beside an artfully displayed arrange- ment of native arrowheads.
Never had Carrie felt so immediately at home as amid the eclectic clutter of this room. She felt like visiting royalty as a boy with shining eyes the same astounding shade of blue as his father’s shyly mumbled, “I’m glad you’re here.”
Wrapping his arms around his teacher’s waist, he em- phasized his sincerity by squeezing as hard as he could.
“Me, too,” Carrie replied, fighting back the tears that came unbidden to her eyes.
“Do you know where Brandy went?” she asked, forcing herself to focus on the crisis at hand.
“Out to the barn to saddle up Dolly. I told her it was too late to go riding, but she never listens to me.”
It was getting dark outside. If Brandy got it into her head to take off, it would be almost impossible to track her down. There had to be a million places on a ranch this size for a cagey twelve-year-old to hide.
“I’ve got to catch her,” she told Cowboy, hurrying from the room.
“You’ll be back?” he asked. “Won’t you?”
Carrie stopped in midstride. “I promise.”
Her heart swelled with affection for the child whose wide eyes reflected the fear that she might vanish with- out a trace—just like the mother he never knew. For a long time Carrie had known that what she felt for Jud- son’s children was more than just teacherly concern. Since that fateful first day of school, she had felt con- nected to the twins on some deeper level. Brandy, with her hot temper, and Cowboy, with his spontaneous friendliness, had somehow instantly gotten under her skin—just like their father.
Other than complete abandonment to loving the whole darn family, Carrie could think of no other cure for this extraordinary malady.
Brandy was putting her foot in the stirrup when Car- rie walked into the barn. It was apparent from her red- rimmed eyes and puffy face that she had been crying.
“Whadda you want?” Brandy muttered, pulling her- self into the saddle.
“Just to talk to you.”
“Why don’t you save it for my dad? Maybe that conk on the head made him forget about what happened the last time he trusted one of your kind. It’s already made him forget about his family.”
Her angry tone was underscored by the quivering of her lower lip. Carrie felt her heart constrict in empathy. To any twelve-year-old the possibility of losing her fa- ther to an accident—or another woman—would be overwhelming. To one already abandoned by her mother, it would be tantamount to the end of the world. After a lifetime of having her father to herself, it was inevitable that Brandy would feel betrayed about him becoming romantically involved.
“You know that isn’t true,” Carrie gently responded. “I’ve never met anyone who cared more for his family than your father.”
“Then why don’t you just leave us alone?” Brandy reined her horse sharply toward the open doors and shouted, “Can’t you see we don’t need you?”
Carrie felt the force of the girl’s words like a fist to her gut. She grabbed the reins to halt the horse, strug- gling to respond in a tone that belied her pain.
Adjusting the medical terminology to a sixth-grade level, she relayed the doctor’s diagnosis.
“So you see your father needs someone to look after him for a couple days—just until we’re sure he’s over his concussion. I’m just here to help out temporarily.”
“I told you we don’t need your help. I can take care of Daddy by myself.”
“Are you prepared to take care of your father for the rest of his life then? Because if you intend to keep your daddy from ever falling in love again with anyone else but you, that’s exactly what you’re setting yourself up
for. Do you understand how unfair that is to him and to you?”
Misgiving glistened in the girl’s dark eyes as she studied the teacher. Lashing out in fear, Brandy replied sullenly, “You’re so sure you know what’s best for all of us, don’t you? Well, you don’t. You don’t know anything about what it’s like to grow up part Indian in a white man’s world. You don’t know what it’s like being dumped by your white mother or what it’s like being teased because your half-breed father inherited his seat on the school board. You don’t know anything about me at all!”
“I know you’re scared, Brandy, and that you’re hid- ing behind a worn-out excuse to justify your anger. This doesn’t have anything whatsoever to do with me being white. It has to do with you wanting to keep everything in your life the way it is right now.”
Carrie’s voice rose with the passion of her statement. “There are a lot of things in life you can’t control and trying to keep your father hobbled is just selfish.”
Brandy reacted with the disdain only a budding teen- ager can truly master with the complete assurance that everyone else in the world is mistaken. “You’re the selfish one, not me. You’ve stolen all our land and now you’re out to steal my daddy!”
Carrie sighed. Was there any way of opening such a closed mind?
“
I
didn’t steal your land.
I
didn’t whip your father. And just like you didn’t have anything to do with your mother’s leaving,
I
didn’t have anything to do with the subjugation of the Indian by the white man. That’s all history, Brandy, and you’re far too smart to use it as a convenient excuse to hold on to your pain, to never have to make something of yourself.”
Brandy didn’t want to listen. She reacted like a cat arching its back and hissing at its enemy. “If you’re staying here, then I’m leaving!”
Carrie realized that she was getting nowhere fast. She loved Judson, and she loved his children. But it was hopeless to think she would ever be accepted into the circle of this family’s love. She was an unwelcome in- truder standing at the window, looking in from the out- side and aching for the familial bonds so obviously lacking in her own solitary life.
A heavy sigh bespoke her utter weariness. “You win, Brandy. I’ll leave so you can have your daddy all to yourself. But before I do, there’s something you need to understand. I love your father, and I love you and Cowboy, too.
Nothing
you can say or do will ever change that fact. I never wanted to steal anything from you, just to share your love as a family. Your father’s a good man, and he deserves to be loved—just like you do.”
Addressing the girl as an equal, Carrie spoke with complete honesty. “Don’t you understand there is more than one way to whip a man?”
A stricken look crossed Brandy’s features.
“When you wake your father in an hour, please let him know that I’m gone,” Carrie said as she turned and slowly walked out of their lives.
“D
addy, wake up!”
Brandy was on the verge of hysteria.
Several hours had passed since Ms. Raben had driven down the road. Afraid to explain to her father how she had been the cause of Carrie’s leaving, Brandy had de- liberately ignored the directive to awaken him every hour. But as the clock struck midnight, she had finally come to admit that she would be unable to get any sleep without first checking on her father. With a martyr’s sigh, Brandy had tossed back the covers and tiptoed down the hallway.
Suddenly the consequences of her father’s wrath faded into insignificance. Judson lay inert, impervious to all attempts to wake him.
Shaking him by the shoulders, she begged him to come to. “Please. Please. Oh please, Daddy, wake up!”
Gulping air like a drowning man, Judson at last came to in a confused stupor. He shook his head to chase away the fog. Bad mistake. He hurt all over.
Had he been caught looking the wrong way in an avalanche? Run over by a Brahma bull? Leveled by a pair of bewitching emerald eyes?
Tears spattered his face. Judson opened his eyes to see his daughter, pale-faced and distraught, looking down at him as if she were viewing him in a coffin.
“What’s the matter?” he groaned, squinting against the overhead light.
Brandy’s only response was a heartfelt sob of relief as she wrapped her arms around his neck and proceeded to choke him half to death.
Slowly Judson’s head began to clear. Bits of memory floated through his mind like debris upon an inky sea. A she bear and her cub. Washakie rearing. The hospital. Carrie’s sudden, sweet espousal of love. Her promise to be there for him when he woke up….
“Where’s Carrie?” he mumbled.
Again Brandy’s response was tearful silence.
Pulling himself to a sitting position, Judson grabbed a pain pill from the bed stand and swallowed it without benefit of water. Doubting whether the problem was with his daughter’s hearing, he repeated, “I asked you, where’s Carrie?”
Brandy dared not make him ask again. “Gone.” Ut- tered with a teary hiccup, the word stretched into more than one syllable.
Instantly Judson was wide-awake and alert. “What happened?” he demanded, his eyes as clear and pierc- ing as scalpels.
“It’s all my fault. I drove her away…” she began with a sniffle.
By the time Brandy had finished the telling, Judson was on his feet, scrambling for his pants and the keys to his vehicle. Somewhere in between the part where
his daughter admitted her insecurities about losing him and the part where she threw her arms around him beg- ging for forgiveness, Judson and Brandy reached a joy- ful discovery: what they both really wanted was one another’s happiness.
Judson assured her that his affection for Carrie did not diminish his love for her. And then Brandy warmed to the idea of having a woman around to help her with those “girl problems” that puberty thrusts upon even the most unwilling tomboys and makes single fathers long for medieval solutions like chastity belts. Brandy confessed that she, in fact, liked Carrie very much, not only as a teacher but as a friend who had been honest enough to make her face herself in the mirror.
A friend who would probably make one terrific mother—if only given half a chance.
When Jud, full of determination, headed for the door, Brandy called after him. “I’d like to go with you—if it isn’t too late.”
If it isn’t too late…
What had his stiff-necked pride cost him? The pros- pect of waking up every day for the rest of his life in a house devoid of Carrie’s loving presence filled Jud- son’s heart with a rush of cold, chilling wind. The lone- liness that had consumed so much of his life was re- placed by a hunger to join his life with another.
If it isn’t too late…
What if the door slammed in his face and the bolt slid shut? Worse, what if Carrie had finally come to her senses and was packing her things right now?
The answer was obvious. He would just have to beat the door down and prepare to grovel like never before in his entire life.
He wasn’t about to let bad timing hold him back for an instant.
“Go get your brother,” he commanded. “And hurry.”
Carrie wondered if it were possible to perish of lone- liness in the span of a single, endless night. She stared at her bedroom ceiling and thought about Judson. All alone in that big house, with a concussion and two kids: both as needy as their father. Would either of them en- sure that their father took his medicine on time? Could Cowboy possibly understand that she had been forced to break her promise not to leave? Given the ultimatum to leave or make ready for Brandy to run away and desert her family, had there been a choice? When Jud- son came to, would he simply assume that, like his ex- wife, she had taken a powder when things got rough?
Repeatedly Carrie threw Judson and his children out of her mind, but like a contrary old hound, they would sneak right back in.
How dare they make her fall in love with each and every one of them and then lock her out when she got too close? Carrie tried to milk that sense of outrage for all it was worth. After all, anger had held her afloat when Scott had shown his true colors. It had helped her hold her chin high despite the ringing taunts of those venomous teenagers. Anger had been the impetus for moving out West and starting her life anew. Rage could be turned into something positive.
But try as she might, Carrie couldn’t remain angry. Not with Judson. Or with his children. Brandy was, after all, only a child. A child abandoned by her mother for nothing more than the fraction of Indian blood that ran in her veins. It was not unreasonable that she would see
Carrie as another white intruder out to undermine the only point of stability in her life—her father.
Nor could she blame Judson himself for failing to meet her sudden avowal of love with an equally im- petuous, romantic overture. A man as deeply scarred by love as Judson had been could hardly be expected to embrace such a confounding concept ever again.
What Carrie
was
feeling was a deep, abiding sense of loss, a pain so intense it left her blissfully numb. Inside her was a hurt big enough to qualify as a black hole. She was having a hard time accepting the fact that love alone was simply not enough to heal the wounds or chase away the fears that shaped the man and his family. She had done her very best to try to make Brandy see reason, and she had failed. The girl had made her feelings perfectly clear. And Judson himself had been equally candid about the way he felt about marriage. Not that she could blame him given his past history with the institution.
Carrie knew there was no chance of ever being ac- cepted into the tightly knit tapestry of the Horn family. The helplessness of it was infuriating. The sooner she accepted that fact, the sooner she could get on with her life.
Though she told herself that she still had her career, Carrie knew no job could ever compare to loving a good man. No matter how important, how meaningful, teach- ing was, it couldn’t fulfill her needs as a woman. She had never felt lonelier in her life. How different would her life be at the center of a family that shared their laughter and their tears, and fought like bears to protect one another? The thought of being a mother to Brandy and Cowboy was as appealing to her as the thought of cuddling up with their father and making passionate
love to him before drifting off to sleep each night for the rest of her life. How she longed to fill that big, rambling ranch with a brood of little brothers and sisters for Cowboy and Brandy. Just thinking about sharing Judson’s bed and his life in every way made her shiver.
Carrie pulled the covers up to her chin and studied the same black spot on the ceiling that held her so en- tranced.
Enough was enough, she told herself for what she promised was truly the last time. What was the use in fantasizing about things that were never to be? The bot- tom line was that she could not force her love on a family that wouldn’t accept it.
Lying in the dark, Carrie wrestled with a course of action. Should she simply run home to Mom and Dad and admit they were right? Turn in her resignation at the end of the term, go back to school and start an entirely different career—one in which she wouldn’t have to offer her heart up on a platter every day to those students who demanded nothing less from her? Could she possibly continue in her present position and pre- tend there was absolutely nothing but a professional re- lationship between Judson and her?
She couldn’t imagine treating Judson with nothing but polite courtesy at all those school functions he was guaranteed to attend. She was not an actress. And Jud- son was not just another school district patron.
He was the man she loved.
Hopelessly. Passionately. Madly.
How long she lay in the dark listening to the chronic ills of her trailer, she didn’t know. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to block the stirring images that replayed in her mind. Images of haunted blue eyes and a scarred back too wide to encircle in the span of her open arms.
Carrie punched a pillow wet from her tears.
A loud pounding on her front door brought her to her feet. Telling herself it was simply the beating of her heart against the wind’s relentless serenade, Carrie stumbled from the bed and made her way to the front door. She put an eye up to the peephole and peered into the night.
The wounded wind clawed at the figure leaning on her porch. Carrie blinked hard. Twice.
It couldn’t be Judson. He was in bed, resting.
Disgruntled at being awakened at such an ungodly hour, Mother waddled out of her pen on the porch. Finding her nemesis to be the cause of all the commotion, she proceeded to attack his pant leg with a vi- ciousness that underscored her opinion of the cad who had made her mistress cry.
Hopping from foot to foot, Judson refrained from kicking the silly old goose over the moon.
“Carrie, let me in!” he begged.
She tore the door open, expecting him to fall weakly into her arms. But Judson did no such thing. He shook Mother off his leg, stepped inside and quickly closed the door behind him. His presence filled her tiny living room as he did her heart—completely.
“What are you doing up?” she cried in genuine con- cern for his health.
There was a dangerous glitter in his eye as he took her in. Wearing nothing but an old football jersey, Car- rie made his blood simmer with desire. Pale and shaky, she was the most beautiful, desirable creature he had ever seen. It wasn’t easy for him to hold himself back. He wanted to ravage her, but knowing that her inno- cence was as precious a gift as a woman could ever
give a man, Judson would not accept it without giving her total commitment in return.
“I came for you,” he said simply.
His voice was hoarse and hard. He looked at Carrie as if he could never get enough of her. He was the luckiest man in the world to find a soul mate so intel- ligent, so beguiling, so funny, so pure. And if he let her get away, he would surely be the dumbest on the face of the earth.
“How can we—”
“We’ll make it work,” Judson interrupted with the conviction of a man who knew his mind and his heart.
On the trip over, he and his children had come to an understanding. They wanted Carrie as part of their fam- ily. They needed her.
From the minute Brandy had told him what she had said to drive Carrie away, Judson worried that he had lost her for good. If only he could hold her in his arms once again, he vowed to never let her go until he told her what was in his heart.
“What about the children?” Carrie asked in a stran- gled whisper.
“What about them? The thought of a ready-made family too overwhelming for you?”
The question brought tears to her eyes. Her love for his children was as natural as sunshine and just as ob- vious to anyone watching them together. Judson could have as easily asked her to stop breathing as to question her feelings toward the two urchins who had taken her heart captive.
“The problem isn’t with the way I feel about your children. It’s how Brandy feels about me. There’s a dark curtain covering her eyes, and I’m afraid I’ll never be able to tear it down.”
Touched by the poetry of her words, Judson won- dered if there wasn’t a trace of Indian in her blood. Carrie was a healer of hearts, a medicine woman with vast powers of which she seemed totally unaware. Whatever she’d said to Brandy had had a profound ef- fect upon her. He could sense it in the way she had talked with him and her brother on the way over here. It was as if she had taken a giant step toward maturity while he lay sleeping. Truly, Carrie was a shaman.
As amazing as it seemed, this remarkable woman loved him. And his family. He had heard Carrie say so himself. And he longed to hear her say it again. Every day for the rest of his life.
Stepping to the door, he gestured broadly in the di- rection of his still-running pickup. Moments later both Cowboy and Brandy were inside, filling her small living room to maximum capacity.
“We’re here to propose,” Cowboy said with a grin wide enough to split his face in two. “We’re a package deal, you know.”
Carrie’s heart tripped over enough beats to alarm a cardiologist. The boy was a perfect gem. Sweet, open, unaffected and so incredibly easy to love. But surely he had spoken out of turn. Marriage might be an appealing option to Cowboy, but Carrie was certain neither his sister nor his father saw it that way.
Short of hog-tying him, I don’t think there’s any way to ever get him to make that trip to the altar again
—
and definitely not with another white gal,
Estelle had warned.
Can’t you see we don’t need you?
Brandy had shouted.
“A package deal?” Carrie repeated. “Complete with a matched set of angels?”
Her smile was strained as she tried to make light of the sweetest words she had ever heard. “Any extras included in that deal?”
“All the horses you could want!” came Cowboy’s instant rejoinder.
Thinking he’d clearly cinched the deal by himself, the boy hugged Carrie so tightly he threatened to cut off her oxygen supply. As she placed a kiss squarely on the top of his thick, black hair, Judson cleared his throat behind them.