For the Roses

  Mary Rose’s knees had gone weak. She moved closer to Cole and leaned against him.

  “You can touch him now, if you want to,” Harrison told Douglas. He walked over to stand next to the stallion. “I told you he wouldn’t hurt you. He just likes to put on a show. Are you all right?”

  He added the question when he noticed how pale Douglas’s complexion was. Mary Rose’s brother had to swallow before he could answer. “You forgot to mention he was going to scare the hell out of me.”

  He reached out to pat the stallion. MacHugh promptly shoved him back a good foot. Douglas let out a hoot of laughter. Then he tried again. “Up close, I can see how fine he really is. You just have to get past the scars first. He’s one of the soundest animals I’ve come across in a good long while.” There was grudging admiration in his voice when he added, “You chose well.”

  Harrison couldn’t take the credit. “I didn’t choose. He did.”

  He didn’t elaborate, and Douglas didn’t ask. He seemed to understand.

  “He’s almost seventeen hands, isn’t he?—and surprisingly gentle for a stallion,” Douglas remarked.

  “We’ve got bigger in Scotland,” Harrison replied.

  “Is that where you’re from?”

  Harrison nodded. “I understand you’re Irish,” he said, hoping to get Mary Rose’s brother to talk about his background.

  Douglas looked surprised. “Who told you that?”

  “Your sister.”

  The brother smiled. “Then I guess I am ... sometimes.”

  What the hell was that supposed to mean? Harrison wanted to ask, but he wisely chose to turn the topic back to the stallion, for he could see the brother was already closing up on him. The flash of a smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. He looked wary now.

  “Don’t let MacHugh fool you. He’s only gentle when he wants to be. He can be deadly, especially when he’s feeling cornered.”

  Douglas filed the information away. “A lot of men feel the same way.”

  He introduced himself then and told Harrison he didn’t mind having him come home for supper. A tenuous bond formed between the two men. Douglas’s love for all animals and Harrison’s obvious affection for MacHugh had given them something in common.

  Cole had stood idle for as long as he was going to. He wasn’t about to let his brother one-up him. If Douglas could get near the hellish animal, then he could too.

  A few minutes later he had suffered through the same godawful ordeal that Douglas had gone through. It took Cole a little longer to get his color back.

  Mary Rose wanted to be next. Both brothers ordered her to stay outside the corral.

  “MacHugh is partial to women.”

  Harrison’s casually mentioned remark didn’t sway Cole or Douglas. They were both diligently shaking their heads when their sister came marching inside.

  “She never listens to us,” Cole muttered.

  Douglas thought he should defend her. “She’s got a mind of her own,” he told Harrison.

  “I can see she does.”

  Mary Rose stopped right inside the gate and tried not to look afraid. She wanted to close her eyes, but she didn’t dare. Her brothers would laugh then, and she’d be mortified because Harrison was watching.

  The stallion ignored her. She waited several minutes before she finally moved closer.

  MacHugh finally trotted over to her. She patted him and cooed to him and treated him very like a baby, and he responded in kind. It was obvious he liked her scent, and he seemed greedy for her affection.

  “You’re going to like Rosehill,” she whispered. “You might even want to stay with your friend, Harrison, for a long, long time.”

  She knew she was daydreaming about impossible things. She’d only known the man for twenty or thirty minutes, and one of the first things he’d told her was that he was only thinking about settling down in the area. He could decide the life was too harsh here and pack up and leave before winter set in.

  She peeked around the stallion to look at Harrison. Then she became a little breathless again. She couldn’t imagine what was the matter with her.

  She didn’t believe her bizarre reaction to the man was due to the fact that he was handsome. Granted, she did find him attractive, but that wasn’t what made her breath catch in her throat.

  It was because he was such a nice man. It hadn’t taken her any time at all to come to that conclusion. He was extremely kindhearted as well. MacHugh was living proof of that fact.

  She couldn’t stop staring at him. Could an infatuation strike this quickly? All the girls at boarding school insisted that it did, but she hadn’t believed their foolishness.

  Now she wasn’t so certain. Her brothers had insisted that eventually she would get married, and in her heart, she knew they were probably right. Yet until today, the mere possibility of being saddled with the same man day in and day out for the rest of her life had always made her feel nauseated. She wasn’t feeling at all sick to her stomach now, however. Everything was suddenly different. No man had ever made her feel breathless. She thought the condition might very well be a requirement one had to suffer through when one was caught up in an infatuation.

  The way she would feel if and when he ever kissed her was another requirement, she supposed. She had been kissed only a couple of times. The experiences had been as pleasant as being kissed by jellyfish. She had been completely repulsed.

  Mary Rose decided she would have to find out how Harrison kissed. She let out another little sigh just thinking about it. She knew she was being shameless. She didn’t care.

  She gave MacHugh one last pat and then turned around and walked out of the corral. The stallion meekly followed.

  Both brothers had noticed their sister gawking at Harrison. He had noticed too and was now trying to understand what had come over her.

  Then they all heard her singing.

  “What the hell’s the matter with her?” Cole asked his brother.

  “She’s daydreaming,” Douglas speculated.

  Harrison didn’t say anything. He continued to stand in the middle of the corral and watch Mary Rose. She was acting peculiar all right. When she was staring at him, she had a bemused expression on her face. What had she been thinking about? It bothered the hell out of him that he didn’t know.

  She was beginning to show signs of being unpredictable. Harrison didn’t like seeing that trait in anyone.

  Knowing what others were thinking was essential in his line of work. Granted, he wasn’t a mind reader, but he was a good judge of character and could usually predict reactions.

  “Give it up, MacDonald,” Cole said before heading for the stables. He had waited long enough for old man Simpson to get off his rump and saddle his horse. He would take care of the chore himself.

  “Give what up?” Harrison asked Cole.

  Douglas was walking toward his wagon. “Trying to understand her,” he called over his shoulder. “You’re never going to figure Mary Rose out.”

  Cole turned around when he reached the back door of the stable. “Harrison, don’t you think you’d better catch up with your horse? He’s trying to follow my sister home.”

  Harrison let out an expletive and started running. What in thunder was the matter with him? He hadn’t even noticed MacHugh had left.

  From the surprised look on Harrison’s face, Cole knew he hadn’t noticed. He had a good laugh at Crying-Shame MacDonald’s expense, and he didn’t particularly mind at all that he was being downright rude.

  Cole certainly hadn’t been surprised by MacHugh’s turnabout in loyalty. The stallion wasn’t acting any different from most of the other creatures who roamed the area. They knew a good thing when they spotted it.

  Man or beast, it didn’t seem to matter. They all followed Mary Rose home.

  She lived in the center of paradise. Harrison stopped when he reached the rise above the Clayborne property. He stared down in fascination and wonder at the valley below. Lush spring gr
ass covered the floor of the valley and swept upward into the mountains beyond. The green was so brilliant and intense, it was almost more than the eye could take in, and he found himself instinctively squinting against it. It looked as if the sun had fallen to the earth and turned itself into emeralds. Everywhere he looked, the grass sparkled with leftover dew. Splattered against the glorious carpet were pink and yellow, red and orange, and purple and blue wildflowers, so plentiful in number it wasn’t possible for anyone to count them. All the flowers were ablaze with their own rich hues. Their sweet perfume mingled with the clean fresh air of the valley.

  Mountains as old as time stood regal and proud on the north and west sides of the valley, and a wide, clear blue stream meandered down the eastern slope.

  The land was breathtakingly beautiful and so much like his glen back in the Highlands, he was suddenly melancholy for Scotland and the home he’d been forced to leave.

  How could one piece of heaven remind him so much of another? He wouldn’t have believed it was possible, yet there it was, spread out before him like one of God’s exquisite robes.

  The melancholy vanished as quickly as it had come, and he was suddenly feeling tremendous peace and contentment.

  Tranquility wrapped around him like a warm, heated blanket. He was comforted and soothed and replenished. His hunger for home abated with each breath he drew.

  He could stay here forever.

  The realization jarred him. He immediately forced himself to block the traitorous thought. His heart belonged to Scotland, and one day soon, when he was wealthy enough and powerful enough, he would go back and take what belonged to him.

  He finally turned his attention to the Clayborne ranch. He had imagined they would live in a log cabin, similar in style to all the others he’d seen on his travels, but the Claybornes lived in a two-story, white clapboard house. It was quite modest in both proportion and design, yet he still found it quite regal.

  A veranda, supported by white posts, circled the house on three sides. Everything appeared to have been freshly painted.

  There were two large barns behind the house, though still some distance away. The buildings stood about fifty or sixty yards apart and were surrounded by corrals. He counted five in all.

  “How many horses do you have?”

  “It seems like hundreds at times,” she answered. “Our income depends on our horses. We raise them and sell them. We really never have more than sixty or seventy. I suppose, and sometimes as few as thirty. Cole brings in wild mustangs every now and then. We also have cattle, of course, but not nearly the number Travis thinks we should have.”

  “And Travis is the youngest brother?”

  She thought it was terribly sweet of him to try to keep everyone straight in his mind.

  “Yes, he’s the youngest brother.”

  “How old was he when you were born?”

  She gave him a curious look. “He was nine, going on ten. Why do you ask?”

  He shrugged. “I just wondered,” he replied. “Does Travis look like Douglas, or does he resemble you and Cole?”

  “He looks like . . . Travis. You ask a lot of questions, Harrison.”

  “I do?” he replied for lack of anything better to say.

  She nodded. “What do you think of my home?”

  He turned to look at the landscape once again before answering her. Simply telling her that her valley was beautiful wouldn’t adequately describe the feeling the wondrous area gave him. He didn’t understand why it was so important for him to find the right words, but it was important somehow, and he was determined to be as exact as possible. Paradise deserved more than a moment’s reflection. It demanded recognition.

  And so he ended up speaking from his heart. “Your land reminds me of Scotland, and that, Mary Rose, is the highest praise a Highlander can give.”

  She smiled with pleasure. The look in Harrison’s eyes indicated his sincerity. She suddenly felt like sighing again. Dear heavens, how she liked this gentle man.

  She leaned to the side of her saddle so she could get a little closer to him. “Do you know what I think?” she whispered.

  He leaned toward her. “No,” he whispered back. “What do you think?”

  “You and I are very much alike.”

  He was instantly appalled. She was out of her mind if she believed they were anything alike. Why, they were complete opposites in his estimation. He’d already figured out she was all emotion. He sure as hell wasn’t. He rarely let anyone know what he was thinking or feeling. He was also extremely methodical in everything he undertook. He hated surprises; in his line of work they could be deadly, and so he carefully thought out every plan of action before he made any decisions. He demanded order in his life, and from what he’d heard about Mary Rose, he could only conclude that she thrived on chaos. She was also sweet-tempered, terribly naive, and openly hospitable to strangers. And trust—good God Almighty, the woman seemed to trust everyone she met. It hadn’t taken her more than five minutes to make the decision to take him home with her. For all she knew, he could have been a cold-blooded killer.

  Oh, no, they weren’t anything alike. He didn’t trust anyone. He was a cynic by nature and by profession.

  She couldn’t possibly understand how she’d misjudged him, however, because she didn’t know anything about him. She had innocently accepted what he had told her, and as long as he continued to pretend to be an unsophisticated city boy who wore a gun only because he thought he was supposed to, then she was going to continue to believe they really were soul mates.

  “Don’t you wonder why I think we’re alike?” she asked.

  He braced himself. “Why?”

  “You look at things the same way I do,” she answered. “Do quit frowning, Harrison. I haven’t insulted you.”

  The hell she hadn’t. “No, of course not,” he agreed. “Exactly how do we look at things?”

  “You see with your heart.”

  “I learned a long time ago to put logic and reason above emotion,” he began. “My philosophy of life is really very simple.”

  “And what might your philosophy be?”

  “First with the mind, then with the heart.”

  She wasn’t impressed. “So you never allow yourself to just . . . feel? You have to think about it first?”

  “Of course,” he agreed. He was pleased she understood. She would do well to follow his rule, he thought.

  “How exact you are, Harrison.”

  He smiled. “Thank you.”

  “And rigid.”

  “Yes.”

  She rolled her eyes heavenward. “Adam’s going to like you,” she predicted.

  “Why is that?”

  “My brother shares your philosophy. I believe I drive him crazy sometimes. I’m sorry he worries so, but I can’t help the way I am. When I look at my valley . . .”

  She suddenly stopped. And then she started to blush.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “I won’t.”

  She took a breath. “You may laugh if you want, but sometimes I feel a bond with the land, and if I’m real quiet and just let myself listen and feel, I can almost hear her heart beating with life all around me.”

  She watched him closely. He didn’t smile, but she thought he looked as if he wanted to. She felt the need to defend herself.

  “I thought you felt it too, Harrison. I’m still not so certain you . . .”

  “Mary Rose, will you get moving? Honest to God, I’ve wasted the entire day waiting on you.”

  Cole bellowed the order from behind. Mary Rose immediately nudged her mount forward.

  “My brother doesn’t have much patience for dillydallying. He’s really very easygoing. He just likes to hide it.”

  That had to be the contradiction of the year. Harrison didn’t think Cole had any patience at all. He found himself wondering why someone hadn’t killed the man by now. Her brother wasn’t just hot-tempered; he was
also the most abrasive individual Harrison had ever come across.

  And that seemed to be his better quality.

  The youngest brother met them outside of the main barn but had to wait for an introduction. Harrison had already dismounted and was busy trying to talk MacHugh into going inside the stable. The stallion wasn’t in the mood to cooperate. He reared up several times and then started snorting and stomping and slamming his head into Harrison’s shoulder.

  Harrison ordered MacHugh to behave. The animal must not have liked his tone of voice. MacHugh pushed him again, but put more muscle into it. Harrison landed on his backside in a cloud of dust.

  His lack of control over the animal was damned humiliating. Mary Rose was sympathetic. She kept pleading with her brothers to do something to help. They were smart enough to stay away from the beast. Douglas was smiling. He was polite enough not to laugh, even when Harrison landed on his backside a second time.

  Cole wasn’t as reserved. He laughed until tears came into his eyes. Harrison really wanted to kill him. He couldn’t, of course, at least not if he wanted to stay for supper and find out who the hell these people really were. He had already figured out the redheaded brother standing behind Mary Rose was either Adam or Travis.

  Cole’s laughter caught his attention again. Perhaps Harrison could just put his fist through the obnoxious brother’s face and, hopefully, break a few bones. What was the harm in that? It took all Harrison had not to give in to the urge. Reason prevailed. Mary Rose would probably get upset if he beat the hell out of her brother. She’d also realize he could take care of himself.

  God, he hated that deception, and right this minute, he hated Cole Clayborne just as passionately.

  Harrison had had enough of MacHugh’s temper tantrum. He let the stallion win. He let go of the reins and walked over to the corral. MacHugh let out another loud snort, stomped around a bit, and then followed him.

  The horse trotted into the center of the ring and stood as still as a stone while Harrison stripped him of his gear.

  “If you jump the fence, MacHugh, you’re on your own. You got that?”

  “Harrison, come and meet Travis,” Mary Rose called out.