"How would it get out?"
"Your hands, my–"
"Most are just here now and then, and Cal wouldn't say anything."
"Such loyalty. That's rare in a mere employee." His good humor had developed a dent. "But, even if Ruskoff kept his mouth shut, I doubt all my hands would be so noble. Starting with Jack at foreman, and right on down to Bryan, who comes in after high school. Not to mention Pamela Dobson, who cleans the house twice a week. If you don't think she'll be able to tell whether you're living there or not, you sadly underestimate her."
She hadn't considered Pamela. She wasn't a gossip per se, but she treasured her reputation for knowing the best dirt in two counties. And if others got wind that Pamela thought something was strange in this marriage, those with no scruples about gossip and nosiness would dig like starving dogs after a bone.
"If we're going to make this work, appearances are going to count a lot, Matty." Dave sounded every bit the respected lawyer now. "We don't want to give anyone cause to start doubting or they might see things we can't afford to have them see."
We. Such a small word, but so warming. Even in such a business-like tone. For so many years, she and Dave had always been we. When that had ended, there'd been a gap in her heart. There'd been other we's–some of a romantic nature and some not–but it wasn't the same.
"Maybe so," she said reluctantly. "And you've got a point that some nights I should be at the Slash-C. But there's no reason–"
"Every night."
Every night. The clutch at the pit of her stomach forced her to admit to herself that Dave's convenience had not been her only consideration in proposing that she be a commuter rather than a resident at the Slash-C. She had her own efficiency to consider, after all. And if, maybe, there was still a touch, a lingering reminder of what had once been between them...well, some old habits were hard to break, even if they were bad for your morale.
"I'll need to be here at the Flying W every day, and some mornings so early that it would make better sense for me to start off here."
"As you said, it's not a long ride–"
"If I see the need to spend the night at the Flying W, I'm going to do it, Currick. I'm not promising to spend every night at the Slash-C."
"Most nights," he proposed.
He'd made valid points. "Okay, most nights."
"And you'll move into the master bedroom."
"Hey!"
He raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. "Your things, I meant. Remember Pamela."
"Then you have to make room for me."
"Some closet space, sure–"
She narrowed her eyes. Okay, Currick, you mean to dicker? Then I mean to get the best deal possible. "Closet, dresser and bathroom drawers–and if you have that ratty bear rug in your bedroom, you have to get rid of it."
"Ratty? Hey, I bagged that bear when I was eleven years old and–"
"I still think that bear was already dead when you shot it." She held up her hand to stop his protest in that old argument. "But either way, no one would believe I'd moved into that room if that thing was still on the wall."
"All right, all right. I'll put it in the ranch office. Jack likes it."
"Fine. And, another thing, you have to clear out when I'm getting dressed or in the shower and such."
"You're a hard woman, Matty, but all right."
"And I'll sleep in the guest room when I'm there."
"That's up to you."
"I'll sleep in the guest room," she repeated.
"You'll have to make real sure to make the bed like Pamela does or she'll spot it in a split second."
"Fine, so that's it, now–"
"And we should find Juno a stall in the Slash-C stable for when you don't want to leave her out."
She eyed him; the bland look he returned didn't calm her suspicions. "Don't go counting your foals before they're conceived, Currick."
He repeated his hands-up gesture of innocence. "Purely being practical, that's all."
"I get to pick which stall."
"Not Brandeis'."
How did he know she'd considered that disruptive move? "Okay, any stall except Brandeis'. Deal."
She put out her hand but he didn't meet it.
"Isn't binding with a glove on," he said, as if giving a legal opinion. But she suspected it was a dare.
Without a word, she stripped the work glove from her right hand. He wrapped his hand around hers, the warmth and friction both comforting and unsettling as they shook three times. For another few beats she stared down at her hand enclosed in his. With her first move to end the clasp, he released her hand.
"So, is tonight a good night for you to move into my room?" A flicker of his grin appeared. "Your things in, I mean."
"I've got a long day ahead–"
"I've got a pretty full day myself. Got to ride sections with Jack when I get back, then I've got appointments in town till seven. Thought I'd pick up supper at Chicken Little. I could pick up a double order. That way I don't have to cook, you don't have to cook."
"Only Chicken Little has to cook," she filled in from the slogan with a smile.
"Right. So?"
"Okay. Sounds good. See you tonight, then."
He nodded and stood. "See you tonight."
He was about four yards away when she called after him, "Hey, Currick."
He turned part way back toward her. "Yeah?"
"If I'm sacrificing myself to save the old homestead by marrying you, you know what that makes your role in this melodrama?"
"Dudley Do-Right?" he suggested hopefully.
She shook her head. "Dastardly ol' Snidely Whiplash."
A couple times during the rest of that long workday, she caught herself smiling at the memory of his answering laughter.
CHAPTER FIVE
Matty dropped her pencil as she grabbed a fistful of hair over each ear and let loose with a primal scream. The pencil hit the wood surface of the table, bounced on its abused eraser end, flipped and broke off its point, then dribbled off the end of the table to the family room floor.
"That's the sound I always imagined Charlie Brown made when Lucy pulled away the football right before he was going to kick it, and he fell to the turf."
Dave's calm voice from the couch did not soothe her in the least.
And you'd think after two weeks she'd be accustomed to being around him. Not that things hadn't gotten more comfortable between the two of them. It had really gone much smoother than she would have thought. Or than she'd expected after those first two nights.
Oh, he was all cooperation the night she moved her things into his room. That was the problem. It had been unnerving, somehow, to have Dave handling her clothes.
He'd asked if he could help. She couldn't think of a good reason to turn him down. But at least she'd had the sense to make sure he didn't put away her things in the dresser. Sure, there were innocent items like T-shirts and sweaters and shorts. But there were also underwear and nightgowns.
When she'd left Wyoming, she'd been strictly a white cotton girl. But her first roommate at Tulane had introduced her to the wonders of lingerie. Now she had both utilitarian and indulgent. And she didn't want to have to think about Dave's hands the next time she wore either kind. So she'd asked him to put her hanging clothes into the closet in the cleared-out space beside his. She wouldn't be wearing her city clothes much anyhow.
The whole process should have been innocuous.
Somehow it hadn't been. It started when Dave hung the silk suit she'd worn for the wedding as the first item of hers to go in. It was right next to a dark suit of his that looked like the deep charcoal one he'd worn Tuesday. It had shown off the straight, broad line of his shoulders nearly as well as his work shirts did. And it fit him to perfection.
She shook her head to dislodge the vision.
Dave was partway in the closet now, screwing in hooks along the sidewall to hold a rack for her belts and scarves. His backside brushed against the suit, setti
ng it in motion. The skirt swung up against the trousers of his suit, wrapping around them the way it would if a wearer's thigh had wrapped around the powerful male leg inside the trousers. His suit jacket responded to the motion, moving forward, with one sleeve slipping against her jacket, like a man wrapping his arms around his lover, so that her breasts would press against his chest. The pressure a pure pleasure. The way it had been when Dave had held her and kissed her at their wedding.
Dave twisted around just then, reaching toward her suit.
She'd dropped the handful of socks she'd been holding, letting them fall on the dresser top and floor, and dived to reach the suit first. If he'd put his hands on that suit she might have burst into flames.
"I'll take that." She'd snatched it away from him, and watched his brows rise.
"I was going to get it out of the way, so it didn't get messed up. I'll put it right back."
"Don't bother." She was pulling it off the hangar, unhooking the skirt. "It needs to go to the dry cleaners next time I'm in town."
"I can take it in. I'm going to Jefferson tomo—"
"No!" A vision of Dave with the suit on the truck seat next to him had flashed into her brain, and the damned suit was climbing all over him.
"Okay," he'd said slowly, giving her a bemused look.
"But thanks," she'd added.
"You're welcome."
She'd felt him looking at her now and then, but after that she had carefully not looked at what he was doing. By the time they finished he hadn't done a single thing she could call him to account over. He hadn't even argued about the bearskin. He'd simply moved it to his office, which was why she'd taken to doing the books in the family room.
"Charlie Brown had it easy," she told him now. "He should try doing the Flying W's books. Especially trying to figure out what on earth Great-Uncle Henry did with money."
Doing the books wasn't her favorite thing. Trying to untangle Great-Uncle Henry's mish-mash didn't help. And the numbers came out in such a deep red that it seemed she was being punished for her hard work.
The fact that she had ideas that she knew she could make work if she had just a little capital tripled the frustration.
And all the while she'd been conscious of Dave reading behind her–with absolutely no good reason to be conscious of him, which was really irritating. It wasn't as if he'd made any sounds or anything. He sat there quietly reading. Totally calm, totally at peace, while she tried hard not to pull her hair out.
"May I make two suggestions without you jumping down my throat?"
She pivoted in her chair to look at him. "Depends on the suggestions."
He smiled. "That's honest. Okay, here goes nothing. The first one is come over here and have some cashews. They're still chilled."
Grams used to keep cashews in the freezer to keep Matty from eating up her supply. Instead, she'd developed a taste for them cold. She didn't quite smile as she went to the old chest used as a coffee table in front of the couch, but she felt some of the tension easing out of her shoulders.
"Well, that one won't cause any throat-jumping."
He held up the dish to her and she took four cashews. As soon as those were gone, she plunked down on the chest next to the dish and took some more.
Without thinking, she picked up his glass of ginger ale to take a swig. But as soon as her lips touched the rim, she realized what she'd done. From childhood on, they'd shared without asking or thinking—whatever one had the other was welcomed to.
Returning that glass to its coaster seemed like the most complicated procedure she had ever performed.
Only when it was back in place, did she mutter, "Sorry. I wasn't thinking."
"It's okay. Old habits are bound to crop up."
"It won't again," she said stiffly. That easy-sharing habit was from a time long gone. "Okay, that suggestion wasn't so bad. What's the other suggestion?"
"Why not get a computer for your books, Matty. It might not straighten out Henry's records, but it would make it a lot easier to deal with what's going on now."
"Yeah, like I can afford one."
"You could use mine. And after–later, you can get one for the Flying W. It does help a lot."
"I suppose it would."
"I could show you. It's not that hard."
She wasn't quite ready to respond to that offer. "How'd you learn?"
"Read a couple books. Looked at the manual."
"Oh, yeah, everything comes easy for you." She'd noticed before that working on the Flying W's books engendered a dour mood in her.
"Not everything."
"Yeah? Name one thing."
"I could do that."
"Right. School? Family? Friends? You were born knowing where you wanted to be and how to get there. Each step neatly followed the other, with nary a mis-step. While I staggered around from job to job and city to city like the ball in a pin-ball machine."
"Would you say pin-ball machine balls stagger?"
She laughed, totally deflating her attempt at put-upon tragedy. "Oh, shut-up Currick. You know what I mean."
"Actually, I don't. You've never told me anything about your time away from here. Was stagger a fittin' word?"
She chuckled. "A time or two. Oh, not to the point of debauchery or anything–"
"That's good to hear." His tone was beyond dry to dusty.
"But, there were times... God, some of those warm spring nights in New Orleans after I transferred to Tulane–you could get drunk just on the air and the flowers. But we seldom were satisfied with that. And at Mardi Gras, it was really wild. I danced in fountains and had a man pay five hundred dollars for my shoes so he could drink champagne from one." She sighed. "I do love New Orleans."
"But you didn't stay there."
She wasn't sure if it was a statement or question. How much did he know of what she'd done after she'd packed up her broken heart and struck out into the wide world?
"No. A job took me to San Antonio."
"What kind of job?"
"The lucky kind. My last summer in college, I was working at a store that rented party equipment, and I fell into organizing events. One company had its regional branch in San Antonio, and they liked my work, so I went there. I know you can't imagine anyone getting paid for organizing parties, but it takes a lot of work to get a party to come off like it was no work at all."
"So you've been organizing parties since then?"
She examined his face, but saw no sign that he was laughing at her.
"No. After a few months in San Antonio, I started doing public relations for the firm. At first releases and information on the parties, then it branched out. After about a year of that, I shifted to PR full-time."
"But you didn't stay there."
"No. Then I went to Atlanta for a while."
"Why?"
She hesitated before answering. "I followed a man there."
That was absolutely true. If Dave took it to mean it had been a romantic involvement instead of the purely professional relationship that had had her boss in San Antonio taking her along when he got promoted, that was a conclusion he'd be responsible for jumping to, as he was always criticizing her for doing.
"It didn't last?"
"I moved on." When she'd realized the man she'd thought would be her mentor was more interested in his own comfort by keeping her right where she was, making him look good, rather than in helping her up the next rung in the ladder.
"Where to?"
"Chicago. First, I did PR for another corporation, but then I moved to a big university hospital. That was amazing–seeing a little girl smile for the first time in the morning, doing releases on ground-breaking research in the afternoon, and taking a date to a fund-raiser that night. It wasn't just about a company trying to have a better image, it was about letting people know about some terrific work being done–so more money would come in so more terrific work could be done."
"No wonder you didn't want to come back."
"Didn
't want to–?" Meeting his eyes she saw a vulnerability there that she knew she wasn't imagining. It seemed only fair to put some of her own vulnerability chips on the table. "You're wrong, Dave. I wanted to come back. I couldn't. It wasn't all fun and games."
"I don't suppose it was," he said in an impossibly neutral tone. "Those were responsible jobs. Must have had a lot of stress and– Hey, wait a minute." He sounded more like himself now. "How'd you do all those jobs dealing with money, if you don't know how to do books and don't know how to use a computer?"
"Never said I didn't know how. I said it was impossible to figure out Henry's supposed system. As for the computer, I said I couldn't afford one. You assumed I didn't know how to use one."
He spent a lot longer looking at his nearly empty ginger ale glass than it seemed to deserve. "I suppose I did. Sorry."
And she'd let him think it, just to back him into this kind of apology. How come it didn't feel better than this?
"No problem." She brushed the last of the cashew crumbs from her hands and stood. "Well, I better get to bed now, or I won't be worth anything in the morning."
"Yeah, time for bed for me, too."
But after Matty gathered the papers and headed to her room, Dave remained. Not looking at his book, not really looking at anything.
So it didn't matter when the timer turned the lights out and he continued to sit in the dark.
Sounds of her activities reached him. The syncopated beat of boots hitting the floor. A drawer opened, then closed. By now she'd be at the side of the bed, pulling the covers back, wearing...what? Black negligee? He'd seen some of the sexy lingerie she'd hurried into drawers the night she'd unpacked. Had the men she'd mentioned so casually seen her in black lace? Had they loved her? Had she left any of them wondering how they could ever hope to fill the hole in their life? Had leaving any of them caused her pain?
You're wrong, Dave. I wanted to come back. I couldn't.
Why couldn't she? And was the wanting all in the past tense?
The abrupt opening of her bedroom door had him blinking into a slice of light that cut across the hall and family room, the tip finding him still in the leather chair.
"Hey, Currick, you said you could name one thing that didn't come easy to you, let's hear it."
She stood with one hand propped on a hip clad not in black lace, but what looked to be green flannel. He'd bet she felt soft and warm.