Tynan had rigged himself a piece of canvas supported by two poles in the front. It left the sides and the front open and, as long as the wind didn’t blow the rain about, the occupant could stay dry. Ty was stretched out, his head on his saddle, a book in his hand when Chris arrived.
“I brought you some soup,” she said above the rain.
Sitting up, he reached out and took the pot from her as she withdrew biscuits from under her slicker. “May I sit down?”
“I don’t think that…yes, of course,” he said at last, looking at her hard. No one could miss the fact that she’d been crying for many hours.
“I’ve been awake all night and I’ve been thinking about what you told me and I’ve come to some decisions.” She took a deep breath. There was no use stalling. “First, I’d like to say that I thank you for telling me what you did. I’m sure it’s not something that you tell everyone.”
She lowered her head and didn’t look at him as he stared in open-mouthed astonishment. “I think the best way to say this is just to get it out. I don’t know very much about love, never having experienced it before, at least not love between a man and a woman, but I think I have sense enough to recognize it when I see it. I don’t know how or why, but I’ve fallen in love with you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I know your secret now and, after much thought—I don’t want you to think that I say this lightly—I know it doesn’t matter. I’ve never made love to a man before so I’ll never have any idea what it is that I’m missing and, as for children, I have some contacts in New York and if it’s all right with you, we can take in an orphan or two.”
Chris stopped and looked up at a sound from Tynan. For a moment, she was astonished because he seemed to be having a sort of fit. Was epilepsy what was wrong with him?
“Tynan,” she said, moving toward him.
He had his hands on his stomach, his legs drawn up, his mouth open and he didn’t seem to be breathing.
She was ready to call for help when she suddenly realized that he was laughing.
She sat back on her heels, watching him as he finally caught his breath and began to laugh as she’d never seen anyone laugh before.
“An orphan or two!” he gasped. “I don’t know what I’m missing. I’ll take you anyway.” With each word, he doubled over harder and laughed more deeply—and Chris’s backbone grew more rigid.
“I am certainly glad that I am a source of amusement for you, Mr. Tynan. May we pretend that this conversation never took place?” With that she moved out of his shelter and started back to her own tent.
Ty caught her skirt hem. He was still laughing and weak from the effort. “Don’t be mad, Chris, it’s just that I—” He broke off and went into fresh peals of laughter at a new memory and Chris wondered how she could ever have thought she loved this idiot of a man. At the moment she wished the earth would open and swallow him.
“Come in out of the rain,” he said, making a valiant effort to control himself, but his lips were twitching and his eyes watery.
“No thank you. Please release my skirt so I can get back to my own tent. I don’t think we have anything to say to one another.”
He began to sober somewhat, although he seemed too weak to stand as he reached up, took her by the waist and pulled her into the shelter. It was like trying to manipulate a stone statue.
“Chris,” he began and, again, he gave a little laugh.
Chris tried to get away but he pulled her into his lap and held her there, her hands held firmly against her sides.
He took a full minute trying to calm himself. “Chris,” he said at last. “As long as I live I will remember this…ah, proposition of yours. I have certainly never been offered anything like it nor have I even heard of something like this being offered to anyone else. It is kind and generous of you.”
“May I go now?” she asked, making a move to get off his lap.
“Not until you let me explain. When I said that I couldn’t make love to you, I didn’t mean that I—” He stopped for a moment and worked to control his smirking lips. Chris stiffened even more in his lap. “I didn’t mean that physically I couldn’t, I meant that there were other reasons as to why I can’t touch you.”
“You seem to have been doing enough of that,” she said through tight lips.
“Sometimes I can’t help myself. By ‘touch’ you I mean to make love to you. That I can’t do.”
“It’s me, isn’t it? If I were like Mr. Lanier’s maid with her big bosom and hips you wouldn’t have any problem at all, would you?”
“Damn it! It isn’t physical! It’s—”
Her nose was almost touching his. “I thought that if the woman was willing then the man always was. That’s what my mother told me. I’ve been fighting off men all my adult life and now I offer myself to one and he can’t. If it’s not me and it’s not you and it’s not fat ladies, what is it”
Tynan ran his hands up her arms. “Oh Chris, you are killing me. I had it easy in prison compared with this. Why did you pick me and not Prescott?”
Chris started to get off his lap but he pulled her back down. “I won’t bother you again, I assure you.”
He moved so that his face was near her neck and she could feel his soft, warm breath on her skin. “You’ll always bother me. Every time you take a breath, you bother me. And I can’t stand to see you with Prescott. Chris, I’ve never wanted anything so badly in my life as I’ve wanted you since that first night I held you. I have nearly gone insane in the last few days. I think about you all the time. I can’t even stay in the camp when you’re there because I’m afraid that I’ll do something like throw you on my horse and take you away with me.”
“But I offer myself to you and you laugh at me. You’ve done nothing but yell at me to get away from you since I first met you. I don’t understand! Can you make love? You’re not physically impaired?”
“If you weren’t so innocent, you’d know the answer to that right now from where you’re sitting on my lap.” He began to bite her earlobe and Chris just about melted into him. “If I make love to you,” he said, moving down her neck, “I…”
“Yes,” she whispered, her head back so she could enjoy his touch more.
“If I make love to you, your father will send me back to prison.”
“Oh,” Chris murmured, not really hearing him. Then she sat up and looked at him. “My father will what?”
“He’ll send me back to jail. Look, Chris, I didn’t want to tell you this and I really tried to get around it, but the truth is, you have been declared off limits to me.”
She drew back from him, moving off his lap. “I want to hear the whole story.”
With a sigh, Ty leaned back on his arm and looked at her. “I was in jail on a life sentence but your father got me out to rescue his daughter. When you said that he had enough money and power to get what he wanted, you were right. He got me out but he holds the papers and he’s made the rules: I touch you and I go back to prison.”
“Well, we shall see about that,” Chris said. “My father has been giving me orders all my life and I’ve only obeyed half of them—if that. We’ll just go back to him and tell him that he can’t do that to us.”
Ty took her hands in his. “Chris, he’s right. He doesn’t want his only child to marry somebody like me. I don’t even know how to treat a good girl like you. I don’t know how to live in a house like that big one of your father’s or even how to stay in one place for very long at a time. I’m not husband material and your father knew it. He didn’t want me doing anything to his daughter short of marriage and we both knew I wasn’t the marrying kind. Do you understand?”
“No,” she said softly, looking into his eyes. “I love you and—”
“No you don’t. You’ve just been too busy with your newspaper over the years to notice men and now you’re worried that you’re getting old and you think you’re in love with the first man you see.”
“Then why aren’t I in love with Mr
. Prescott?”
He leaned back, winked and grinned at her. “I’m better looking. There’s no competition.”
“I think you’re right,” she said, moving out of the shelter. “I believe I have made an error.”
He caught her shoulder and pulled her back inside. “Don’t get angry, Chris. Under other circumstances, I’d love to climb into bed with you, but I don’t want to go back to that hellhole and I don’t want to be unfair to you. You deserve a man who’s husband material. I’m not. I hope you can understand.”
“I think I understand better than you think,” she said coolly. “I want to apologize for my forwardness, for following you, as you’ve asked me not to do, and for imposing myself on you. I will try to do better in the future and not give you cause to fear that you will have to return to prison because I have put you in an impossible situation. Is that what you wanted to hear? May I go now?”
“I think you’re angry with me. I didn’t mean—”
“I am angry with myself,” she interrupted. “And deeply embarrassed. I’ve never thrown myself at a man before and I can assure you that I will never do it again. You won’t have any more problems from me, Mr. Tynan. Now, I’d like to go back to my tent and take a nap, if that’s all right with you.”
He frowned. “Yes, of course. Chris, I really do appreciate the offer, I mean when you thought that physically I couldn’t—”
“We shall never know, will we?” she said as she left the shelter.
Chapter Seven
By the time they entered the little town at the edge of the rain forest, Chris had cried all the tears she could cry. She had done a marvelous job of staying away from Tynan. No matter what he said to entice her to stop and talk, she’d ignored him.
Nor did she spend much time with Asher. She did what work was required to keep the camp running and nothing else.
Tynan, after a day of attempting to talk to her, began to stay away from the camp more and more often until, at the last, he was the shadowy figure he had been at the beginning of the trip.
“This has not become the joyous trip I’d hoped for,” Asher said with sadness and confusion in his voice. Chris didn’t say anything. All she wanted was to get away from the place where she’d made such a fool of herself.
It was still morning when they pulled into the little town at the foot of the rain forest. The place was busy with shoppers, wagons being loaded, cowboys strolling about, and a few women stopping and talking to each other. Most people halted when they saw the strangers come into town.
At least that’s what Chris first thought was the cause of their staring. For the first time in days she came out of her dejection and began to take an interest in her surroundings.
As she watched the people, she became aware that they were actually stopping to stare at Tynan.
He was in front of her, his back held as straight as a piece of steel, eyes ahead, looking at no one. As they passed the sheriff’s office, a man ran inside and the sheriff came out within seconds.
“I don’t want no trouble,” the sheriff called, directing his plea in Tynan’s direction.
Tynan didn’t acknowledge the man’s presence but kept riding in a slow, steady pace.
As they passed a saloon, a garishly dressed woman came out, did a double take when she saw Tynan, then began running through the dirty streets. As they neared a place called the Pink Garter, the double doors swung open and out stepped a tall, older woman with hair an extraordinary shade of red—not natural-looking at all, Chris thought.
“Tynan!” the woman shouted.
Ty put his hand up for them to halt while he went to the woman.
Chris had never strained her ears so hard in her life as she did to hear what the woman had to say.
“You shouldn’t have come back here,” the red-haired woman said. “You’re askin’ for trouble.”
Chris couldn’t hear Ty’s answer. With his low voice he could make the sound disappear when he wanted to.
After a moment of listening to the woman, he reined his horse away and motioned to the others to follow him as he led them to a hotel.
“You’ll stay here tonight and tomorrow we’ll ride out early.”
“And where will you be staying?” They were the first words Chris had spoken directly to him in days.
He looked at her a long moment. “I have friends here. Go inside and ask them for a bath,” he said before turning on his heel and leaving them.
“What do you think that was all about?” Chris asked Asher.
“The bath? I agree, Miss Mathison, that it’s been so long since I had one that I’m close to forgetting what they are too, but you’ll remember as soon as you see the hot water.”
Chris ignored his attempt at humor. “No, I mean out there in the street,” she said, following Asher into the hotel. “Why were all the people staring at Tynan? And why did that woman warn him?”
“I have no interest in anything except a hot bath, a hot meal and a cool, soft bed. I am not interested in any mysteries and as far as I can tell, our guide is one long mystery. Chris, will you please sign the register so we can get a room?”
At the moment, Chris couldn’t have told anyone why she had been depressed for the last few days. All she could think of now was that there was a good story at her fingertips. Why was this entire town glaring at one man? Of course it had to do with Tynan’s having been in jail but what had he done that made the whole town watch him?
“Miss,” the desk clerk said, “would you like to register?”
“Yes,” she said absently. She started to write Christiana, but suddenly changed her mind and wrote Nola Dallas.
The clerk, bored, turned the big book around and then his eyes bugged. “The Nola Dallas? The one that went to Mexico?”
“Yes.” Chris smiled as sweetly as she could manage.
“But I thought you were really a man.”
“Many people do.” She kept smiling at the man. Once, she’d persuaded a guard to open a cell for her with just that smile.
Asher looked annoyed. “We’re just here for a little rest,” he told the clerk. “Please don’t tell anyone she’s here.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” the clerk said, his eyes wide. “I wouldn’t tell a soul.”
Still frowning, Asher took Chris’s arm and led her up the stairs as Chris kept looking over her shoulder and smiling at the desk clerk. “I wish you hadn’t done that,” Asher said when they were at the door of her room. “Your father was worried about some trouble from Lanier. Of course you didn’t actually publish anything about him, but just the same…”
Chris smiled at him. “I just wondered if people this far west had heard of me, that’s all.”
“Oh well, I guess that’s all right. You’d better rest now, Chris. I’ll have a bath sent up.”
Once inside the room, she looked in the mirror. Not bad, she thought, a wash and a comb should make her presentable.
“If you tell people who you are,” she said aloud to the mirror, “and they feel that they know you, there’s a good chance they’ll be willing to tell you what you want to know.”
It was an hour later that Chris was washed and she hoped the desk clerk had had time to tell the people who’d just arrived. When she walked into the lobby, people stopped and looked at her and she could hear them whispering, “Is that her?”
Smiling to herself, Chris went out into the bright sunlight. She seemed to remember a ladies’ dress shop on the main street. If there was anywhere to hear gossip, that would be the place.
• • •
“May I help you?” the clerk asked, but before Chris could answer, the shop door opened and in walked three ladies. The door hadn’t closed before two more walked in followed by four more. The little shop was packed with people as Chris made her way to a corner to try on a hat or two.
“You’ll never believe who came into town,” one of the women said loudly, directing her voice toward Chris. “Of course I couldn’t beli
eve it when Jimmy told me, but he said that Nola Dallas was in town.”
“You know, the lady who got herself put into an insane asylum to report on what it was like.”
“And she wrote that it wasn’t safe for decent women to walk the streets alone at night.”
“And she almost got herself killed in Mexico for what she wrote about the government,” said a third woman.
“How very, very much I’d like to meet her,” sighed another woman.
There followed a long, expectant pause and Chris knew they were waiting for her to make the next move. As if she weren’t aware of what they’d been saying, she tried on another hat, then removed it and started for the door. She had her hand on the knob before she looked back at the women who were unabashedly staring at her. “I am Nola Dallas,” she said softly.
The flood gates burst after that. Chris was bodily hauled back into the store and asked thousands of questions.
“Did you really write that series on divorce?”
“Did you really spend three days in jail?”
“Weren’t you frightened when you got that lobbyist and all those politicians arrested?”
Chris tried to answer all of them at once. All the while she was waiting to hear what she’d come to find out.
“I’m sure that it’s none of our business but we think you should look more carefully to your traveling companions,” said one woman with her nose in the air.
There was a hush on the crowd. “Oh?” Chris said with all the innocence she could muster. “They seem like such nice men.”
“Perhaps one of them is but that Tynan…” The women looked at each other and were silent.
Chris modestly studied her hands. “I really know so little about him.”
The women began to fall all over themselves in their rush to tell her all that they knew about the man—which, unfortunately, wasn’t much. Tynan had been arrested for murder, tried the same afternoon and sentenced to hang that night.
“That seems awfully quick,” Chris said.
“It was an open and shut case. He was guilty, everyone could see that.”