Chapter 2
Rose Marie pressed her fingertips to the edge of the small dresser and peered into the mirror above it, wondering why the growing fear within her had yet to show on the outside. Since arriving at Harper ranch a month ago, Montana and its inhabitants had amused itself with her and then laid blame at her feet for being who she was.
"You about ready in there, Rosie?" Mary called easily from the small cabin's front room.
Rose Marie swayed, feeling sick at heart. If only she could have had a simple visit alone with her grandmother out in the sticks—instead of getting tangled up with men and their abominable attraction to her—she might have enjoyed this Montana trip. But from the moment she arrived, she had pin balled off Johnnie and straight into Clint, Roy's chiseled foreman, like some weak-willed school girl who hadn't been taught hard life lessons already. Now she had slunk down the mountain, back to Harper Ranch with Mary, a fever-ravaged Clint, and a whole heap of trouble in her wake. No more main house bedroom for her, either. She and Mary had been moved to one of the cabins by the stream, secreted away from the main hub of Harper ranch. At least, that's how it felt. No one wanted Rose Marie around—no one except the men who wanted to flirt and throw lewd comments her direction.
She was happy to be getting away from the place where men reigned supreme and women like Rose Marie were considered a menace to the rest of her gender.
Mary's smiling face peeked around the door casing and took in Rose Marie's appearance. The smile fell free. "Rose Marie! You're not ready."
Grandma was right, she wasn't ready. Not for anything more from this place. It was hard to believe, but she missed her ridiculously dangerous, white-knuckled—albeit lonely—life amongst the steep hills of San Francisco.
She reached to the bedspread for her frilly dress and slipped it on over the layers of underskirts.
"Why do you wear such things, Rosie? They can't be comfortable," Mary said.
Rose Marie shook her head, but kept dressing, reminding herself again why she wore these cumbersome things. Grandma wouldn't understand that she had to. It was necessary.
Mary heaved a sigh. "Honey, I know you don't want to go looking for Jessica, but we must. She's been gone for two days now, and—"
"And it's my fault," Rose Marie continued for her. "I messed things up and now I must apologize. I know. I get it." She didn't know why she'd made poor Jessica think she'd coupled up with Clint—the man Jessica had clearly fallen for. It wasn't like that. The first time in Clint's bed was a mistake. Or more precisely, a misunderstanding. But, the second incident. Well, she—Why was this happening to her? She was a professional, for crying out loud, a civilized woman. She hadn't acted like an adolescent since—
In truth, she'd never acted like an adolescent. Not in her entire life, yet now she found herself having to make amends to people she hardly knew, for something she only appeared to have done.
So, she would go on this woman-hunt. It was the last thing she wanted to do, but guilt was choking Rose Marie's heart. In order to find some relief she would go and help find Jessica. She owed her that much.
As she kinked her right arm to maneuver her side zipper up, she thought back to her introduction to Clint Wilkins. Mary had once told her about him in endless detail. As if a match between Rose Marie and Clint was a given. Sure, Clint had been every bit as handsome as Johnnie. But now that she truly thought of it, there had been no sparks. No heat. No physical reaction at all, other than an extended perusal of one another's . . . strengths, so to speak. Sort of like seeing a captivating person in a magazine. You want to look your fill, study their features, figure out what makes them so attractive. That was really all Clint and she had done with each other. Beyond that he'd been kind and charming, and not the least bit arrogant.
And definitely not rude, as Johnnie had made a practice of being since the moment she'd met him.
"Well, it's not like you aren't guilty," Mary said. "You know you gave Jessica the wrong impression. It is your responsibility to correct that."
Rose Marie stared into her grandmother's kind eyes. Eyes that saw everything, understood everything. Mary was everything she was not: kind, good, godly. Rose Marie fell so short of all that Mary was, it was no wonder God wanted nothing to do with her. "I know, Grandma. I'll make it right."
"Rosie . . ." Mary said on a sigh.
That sigh sounded as if Rose Marie didn't understand. Well, maybe she didn't. She didn't know why people judged her by her looks alone. Every. Single. Time.
"Honey, just finish getting dressed. Johnnie will be here to pick us up in the buckboard any minute now." With that, Mary strode out of the room, swinging the door partway closed as she left.
Rose Marie plunked down on the edge of her bed and hauled up her many skirts to pull on her socks. Once that was done she stood and stuffed each foot into her new boots, stamping them into place, wanting to stamp heads instead. One blue-eyed cowboy's in particular.
Little did Grandma know that this hunt for Jessica was scaring the daylights out of her. It wasn't the inevitable confrontation with Jessica that scared her. It was Johnnie. Here was a man who's very presence rattled her insides—made her body hum to life while her mind fought against his ability to unseat her. And now she faced a half day's ride of sitting next to him? Rose Marie swallowed hard. Because when it came down to it, it wasn't his rudeness that turned her thoughts into razor blades. It was his aloofness. She'd never had a man behave like that around her, and she didn't know how to react, how to set up a defense against him and his dreadful handsomeness.
She jumped to her feet and nearly tripped herself in her new boots. To test walking in them, she cautiously took the few steps to the bureau. Her gaze met her own in the little mirror, and shame filled her. Closing her eyes for a few seconds to collect herself, she pushed the memories of her inexcusable behavior with Clint aside and began arranging her curly blonde hair into a bun at the base of her head. No matter how she worked at confining it, the shorter hairs pulled loose and sprang into ringlets around her face.
Done with trying to contain the errant hairs, she ripped the bun out and let her hair spring free—rebellious and wild, just like the way she lived her life.
She flattened her palms to the bureau top and watched her face flush pink at the memory of what happened with Clint. It was his cries of torture—a devastating nightmare—that first brought her to the foot of his cot. She had gone to him, out to his cot in the kitchen at Mary's little cabin in the woods. She'd stood for a long time, staring over him as he moaned and thrashed, until her heart couldn't take it anymore.
Listless and sleepy, Clint had seemed safe enough for her to coax him back to her bed. The plan had been to help rid him of the demons that were giving him nightmares by talking, soothing, maybe even touching the skin of his shoulder or arm or chest. Then she'd planned to leave him to sleep in a more comfortable bed while she returned to sleep in his cot. She knew of demons, and could no more have left him to them than she could have left a child to the boogie-man.
But once she'd gotten Clint to her bed, something deep and needy and curious had taken over. He'd been so weak, her usual fear of men had been pushed aside. When her own emptiness met with his passivity, a desire she had never before acknowledged overcame her. She'd never been touched by a man in a wondrous way before. In fact, she hadn't allowed human touch at all except for brief welcoming hugs, and then it was only from people like her grandma or her dad. Her aversion to men was deep-seated. Had been for over a decade.
She'd caressed his shoulder, given him a chaste kiss on the mouth, and then she had done the unconscionable; she had fallen asleep in his shielding arms, pretending she was cared for, and nurtured, and protected.
She'd slept better that night than she had since the day her innocent life had been cruelly altered at the vulnerable age of sixteen.