To Love and to Cherish (23 page)

But if he were to marry her, Norman wouldn't give him the loan and he'd never have the money he needed for Steve and the men.

His fruitless mental agonies came to a halt when he drew his horse to a stop in front of the bank just as Martha Simpson was emerging from it. She smiled when she noticed him.

“We don't see you in town very often,” she said to him as he dismounted. “Are you afraid our weak, female hearts can't withstand the strain of having such a handsome man in our presence?”

“That's never been a problem. Actually, no one seems to have noticed my absence.”

“Well, I have. As I said before, there can never be too many attractive single men in town.”

Jared pretended to be scandalized. “I am
shocked
to hear such a statement from you, but you said you were a bit forward.”

Martha threw him a provocative glance. “How unkind of you to remember my faults rather than my virtues. I do have some, you know.”

Jared relaxed his frown and laughed. “I'm sure you have many. Maybe we could have dinner sometime and discuss them.” He didn't know where that came from. He hadn't thought of Martha in a romantic way. But after Norman's demand, he had to start thinking of somebody that way. From her apparent interest in him, Martha appeared to be a good choice.

“Is that how you court a girl out West—invite her to dinner to discuss her virtues?”

“I don't know. I haven't been here much longer than you.”

“No one else has shown much interest in my virtues.” She appeared to be disappointed.

“I'm sure it's just an oversight.” He looked up at the front of the bank and thought of his meeting with Norman. All desire to flirt evaporated. “I have to go in there, but I'd rather have dinner with you.”

She leaned in to whisper, “I understand Mr. Spencer can be a difficult man.”

“I've heard the same thing.”

“At least he's not afraid to speak his mind.” She scowled. “I'd better be going before my father begins to wonder what mischief I'm up to.”

“Do you get into mischief often?”

“Not often enough. Bye.”

Her salutation contained so much challenge it put a smile on Jared's lips. If he had to marry to get his loan, maybe he should think seriously about Martha. She was the first woman other than Laurie to make him smile. The smile disappeared soon enough when he entered the bank. Not even Cassie's cheerful welcome succeeded in restoring it. By the time he entered Norman's office, he'd forgotten it altogether.

“I noticed you talking to Miss Simpson before you came in,” Norman said the moment Jared was seated.

“I arrived as she was coming out of the bank.”

“She's a lovely young woman. Have you asked her to marry you yet?”

It was all Jared could do not to gape at Norman. The man must have lost his mind. “I've only met her a few times in the street.”

“Have you met her parents? They're a solid, dependable pair, even if her father is a preacher.”

“I've met very few people in town. I've been too busy at the ranch.”

Norman leaned forward, a scowl on his face. “I heard you were dragging Laurie all over dangerous parts of your ranch on horseback. That was bad enough to expose an inexperienced rider to such danger, but what possessed you to let her stay where they were castrating a bull? That's nothing a woman like my sister-in-law should know anything about, much less be forced to witness.”

How did Norman manage to know everything that happened at the ranch? Did he have spies? “Laurie wanted to see the ranch. She'd been asking me for days. I warned her about the castration, but she insisted on staying.”

“You should have forced her to leave.”

“Laurie has been
forced
too often in her life. She's a grown woman capable of making up her own mind.”

“No woman is capable of making up her mind. That's why she has a husband.”

Jared could see no future in trying to change Norman's mind about Laurie or anything else. “I'm not her husband so you can't expect me to tell her what to do.”

“Of course you can. You're a man.”

This was a dead-end conversation. “If you feel this strongly about it, I suggest you talk to Laurie.”

“I have talked to her, as you well know, and she ignores me.”

“If she can ignore you, her former brother-in-law and the executor of her late husband's estate, you can't expect her to listen to me. I have no hold over her.”

“You can fire her. Then she'd have no reason to go near your ranch.”

“We've already been over this. I need someone to cook and clean for us, and Laurie is the only woman who's been willing to take the job.”

“Once you're married, you won't need anyone else to cook and clean.”

“That may be, but I'm not married.”

Norman leaned back in his chair, giving Jared an exasperated look. “Are you stupid, or don't you understand what I'm saying?”

“I'm not stupid, but I'm not sure.”

“If you want this loan, you have to be married. Personally, I don't care whether you're married or not, but Laurie has to stop working for you. The only way I can be sure of that is if you're married.”

Jared could hardly believe his ears. He'd thought getting Laurie to leave the ranch was the reason behind Norman's offer to reconsider his loan, but he hadn't expected Norman to turn it into a bald-faced command. “Do you seriously expect me to invite Miss Simpson to dinner and ask her to marry me before we've had dessert?”

“I don't care how you do it, but until I see your engagement announced in the newspaper, I won't give you the loan.”

“I gather your meeting didn't go well,” Cassie said when Jared emerged from Norman's office.

“Do meetings ever go well with him?”

“Not recently. Will you be meeting with him again?”

“I don't know.” There didn't seem to be any reason until he could see if he could bring himself to ask Martha Simpson to become his wife.

***

“Did you know Jared was seen having supper with Martha Simpson?”

Naomi was waiting for Laurie when she got home. She barely allowed her cousin time to take off her coat and hat, fix some coffee, and settle into a chair before coming to the reason for her visit.

“No, I didn't.” Between being tired from the day's work and the afterglow of making love, Laurie wanted little more than to relax for an hour or two before going to bed. She also needed time to think. Jared had been reluctant to make love the last time. She'd practically had to seduce him. She hadn't wanted their relationship to become too serious, but she didn't want it to cease altogether. There was no reason Jared couldn't have dinner with anyone he wanted. She had no hold on him, but she was upset and a little jealous. Martha was young and beautiful. Marrying her might be the one thing to convince Norman to give Jared his loan. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you ought to know.”

“Why?”

Naomi looked her straight in the eye. “Because you're in love with him.”

Laurie set her coffee down before her trembling hand caused her to spill it. “What makes you think that?” she asked without meeting Naomi's gaze.

“By the way you talk about him. Your eyes light up. You smile like I've never seen you smile. You're animated, almost eager to talk about him.”

Laurie knew her feelings for Jared had become too serious, but she had no idea anyone had guessed. “I like Jared,” she confessed, “but it would be hard not to like him after being married to Noah.”

“You just gave yourself away.”

“How?”

“If you'd been talking about anyone else, you'd never have compared him to Noah. He's your boss, not the man you want to marry. Nor is he your lover.”

Laurie prayed she didn't blush, but maybe it didn't matter. Naomi seemed able to see inside her head. Something must have given her away. Naomi's gaze suddenly intensified.

“He isn't your lover, is he?”

Determined to brazen it out, Laurie asked, “Why would you think that?”

“Because you look the way Peter does when he's in trouble. There's guilt written all over your face.”

Still hoping to avoid confessing, Laurie said, “Okay, so I'm fond of Jared, but it doesn't mean anything. I'm not going to marry again.”

“Does he know that?”

“Everybody at the ranch does. Steve has been trying to convince me to change my mind ever since I told them.”

“Why would you tell everybody something like that?”

“We were talking during dinner. I don't remember how the subject came up, but Steve asked me, and I told him I would never marry again. Why would I? My father sold me into a marriage I didn't want, my husband became my jailer, and Norman is trying to turn me into a living monument to his brother's memory. The last thing I want to do is subject myself to another man's control.”

“That won't happen if you find a man who loves you as much as Colby loves me.”

“I figure there's only one Colby, and you got him.”

“What if Jared is Colby's brother?”

“Being brothers wouldn't make them alike.”

“What if Jared marries Martha or somebody else? Would you still have a job at the ranch? I don't know if Norman has anything to do with Jared having dinner with Martha, but I'm sure he won't give Jared his loan as long as you're working at the ranch. That would put you back where you were at the beginning, dependent upon Norman for every penny.”

Laurie had already thought of that outcome. The only reason Jared had accepted her proposal for a partnership had been because he didn't have the money to buy the Herefords he wanted. Initially, he figured if the previous owner couldn't make a go of it with longhorns, he wouldn't, either. But since reaching his agreement with Laurie, he'd had time to study the former owner's records, and he had learned that the man had made some mistakes he could have corrected if his wife hadn't insisted on going back East.

Now Laurie wasn't sure he absolutely had to have Herefords to make a go of the ranch. She hadn't wasted her time over the years listening to Noah and Norman talk business. She understood finances enough to know he'd end up with more money by getting a loan from Norman than by giving her half the ranch's income.

Frustrated with Laurie's silence, Naomi asked, “Don't you care what's happening?”

“Of course I do.”

“What are you going to do to stop it?”

“How can I stop it? More important, why should I try? I thought you hated my working for Jared.”

“I did at first, but you've been happier than you've been in years. You smile all the time now. You and Steve laugh. You're Esther's favorite person after Colby and me. I like Jared and I believe you love him. I think you ought to marry him.”

Laurie gaped at Naomi, unable to believe what her cousin had said. She hadn't thought of marrying Jared. It was hard to believe Naomi had.

“Don't look at me like I've suddenly grown two heads,” Naomi said. “You love Jared, and he's obviously very fond of you. If you married him, you'd have a husband to protect you, and you'd be beyond Norman's control.”

Memories from the past flared into existence. “I don't want anybody to
protect
me. That was my father's excuse for marrying me to Noah and Norman's excuse for trying to control everything about me down to the food I eat. I'm not going to let anyone tell me what I must do or make me feel I have to apologize for the way I look.”

“Does Jared do that?”

“No.”

“Do you like him enough to marry him?”

“I haven't thought about it. But if I do marry again, it will only be because I feel I can't live without him.”

“Do you think he's in love with you?”

“He can't be if he's paying court to Martha Simpson.”

“Maybe he wouldn't be doing that if he thought you weren't set against marriage.”

“If he were in love with me, he'd be doing everything he could to convince me to change my mind instead of wasting his time on Martha.”

“He's done nothing to indicate he was in love with you?”

“Nothing.”

“I thought he had. That quite changes my opinion of him.”

“Why?”

“No gentleman would convince a woman to work at his ranch against the advice of all who hold her dear unless he was interested in her for a proper reason.”

“He didn't convince me. I convinced him.”

“That's not what you told me in the beginning.”

Laurie was tired of carrying on half conversations. “There's something I have to tell you, but you must never tell anyone, not even Colby.”

“You can't expect me to believe you've done anything that awful.”

Laurie told her about the money. “I convinced Jared to take me on as a full partner. He only did so because Norman wouldn't give him a loan. Now that Norman has changed his mind, Jared would be worse off taking money from me.”

At first Naomi was shocked, then worried. Finally she smiled. “I can't believe you had so much money all these years and no one knew about it. It's a wonderful joke on Noah. Where did you hide it?”

“In the drawer with my undergarments. I knew he would never go there.”

Naomi laughed. “And Norman has no idea that you have this money or that you're planning to give it to Jared?”

“No. Investing with Jared was a perfect cover. No one would know it wasn't his money.”

“They'd figure something was wrong when you started living like a queen off your ranch income and everybody knew Norman wasn't giving you enough to keep a squirrel alive. The only way to disguise it completely would be to marry Jared.”

“Well, I don't love him, and we've established that he doesn't love me.”

“We haven't established any such thing. I don't think you're honest about your feelings for Jared, and we don't know what he'd do if he thought you weren't opposed to marriage.”

“You're forgetting that Norman won't give him the loan if I'm still working for him.”

“If that's all that's bothering him, Jared could ask you to stay away long enough to get the loan, then marry you. Norman wouldn't know anything about the money if you could talk Jared into changing his accounts to Papa's bank. Your money would just disappear into Jared's account.”

Laurie shook her head. This was getting too complicated. “I love you for being so worried about me, but you don't have to. Whatever Jared decides to do, I'll be just fine. I'm just never going to be under a man's control ever again. Not even love is worth that.”

But as Laurie walked home, she began to wonder how far she'd wandered from the truth, which led her to wonder if she
knew
the truth. Did she really understand Jared's position, or was she merely saying that to keep from having to deal with her feelings about it? What were her feelings? Did she feel betrayed, abandoned, forgotten, used when needed and cast aside when no longer useful? Did she have the right to feel any of that when Jared had every right to put his interests and those of his men ahead of her? He hadn't promised her anything beyond a business arrangement, which was exactly what she'd insisted on. She had promised him the money, but she hadn't given it to him. Could he have started to wonder if she actually had it?

He believed in her, or he would have said something before now. The business had gotten sidelined by their physical relationship. Each was so attracted to the other that they hadn't talked about anything else. They'd been trying so hard to pretend, for the sake of her reputation, that nothing was going on that they'd failed to talk about their feelings. Or had they failed because they didn't
want
to have to deal with their feelings? What were their feelings for each other? Did she know? Did he? Did it matter since he seemed to be interested in Martha Simpson?

She reached her house and went inside. “Steve, are you here?” She wasn't surprised when she received no answer. Steve liked spending time with Ben Kessling, which was good for both boys, but she could have used some distraction from her thoughts. Making coffee and thinking about what to fix for supper wasn't enough.

What did Jared feel for her? She'd never been courted in the traditional fashion, but when they were alone he treated her the way she thought a man would treat a woman he liked very much. But would he have tried to keep his feelings secret from others if he loved her? There were lots of reasons why a boss would do that, but none why a lover would. She guessed that answered her question. As she suspected, he wasn't in love with her, which was okay. She hadn't wanted love, only proof that she was desirable. The hours in his arms had proved that. She wouldn't marry, but she no longer had to feel ashamed of herself. She would never be able to thank him enough for that.