Heart of Texas Volume One (39 page)

“I…I didn't mean it to sound like that. Damn it, Ellie, you're putting words in my mouth.”

“I don't need any favors, Glen.”

He looked at her, afraid she was about to cry, but he was mistaken. Her face was strong and confident. She could give him all the excuses in the book, but he knew what was going on here and wasn't shy about saying it, either.

“It's Richard, isn't it? You're in love with him.”

“That's it!” she cried.

“I thought as much.” He shoved the ring back into his pocket. He'd tell his brother to bury it—the diamond must be hexed.

“The thing is, Glen, you're too late.”

“Too late?” He didn't know what the hell she meant by that, but he wasn't sticking around to find out.

Ellie, however, insisted he hear her out. “Richard came by earlier and he proposed. Sorry, Glen, he beat you to the punch.”

N
OT FOR A SINGLE MOMENT WOULD
Cal describe himself as a romantic. Despite that, he felt good about encouraging his little brother to go and propose to Ellie Frasier. He'd even given him the ring!

Good enough to tell his neighbor. It wasn't often that Cal had reason to shoot the bull over a telephone; usually a beer at Billy D's served the same purpose, but even better. However, this news was too good to keep to himself.

Grady answered on the second ring.

“It's Cal,” he announced.

“Something wrong?” Grady asked right off.

They'd been best friends since first grade, and Grady knew him about as well as anyone ever would. Over the years they'd been through a lot together. As kids, they'd explored Bitter End. Later Grady had talked to him about his parents' deaths, his problems with Richard, his concerns about Laredo. And it was Grady Cal had gone to when Jennifer canceled their wedding, Grady who'd gotten him home safely when he'd fallen down drunk. Grady who'd talked some sense into him when he badly needed to hear it.

“Glen's driving into town to ask Ellie to marry him,” Cal said without preamble. He wasn't a man who wasted words.

“You're kidding!” Grady sounded shocked.

“No. He's been acting like a wounded bear for damn near two weeks and then I found him mumbling to himself in the barn, about as miserable as I've ever seen him. Tried to talk to him, but he damn near bit my head off. I'd had enough. I figured he should either fix what was wrong or forget Ellie.”

“And Glen listened?”

“No, I didn't get the chance to give him my advice. He decided to marry her all on his own.”

“That's great.” Cal heard the relief in Grady's voice and knew his neighbor harbored his own set of fears when it came to Ellie Frasier. “At least she won't be marrying Richard, then.”

“Not if Glen has anything to say about it.” Cal knew Grady didn't trust his younger brother, and with damn good reason.

“I was thinking of celebrating,” Cal continued. “You're welcome to join me if you want. There's cold beer in the fridge, plus a bottle of the hard stuff if you're interested.” An invitation from Cal was about as rare as a phone call.

“I might just do that.”

A couple of minutes later Cal hung up the receiver, feeling more like his old self than at any time since his broken engagement. Grinning from ear to ear, he reached for a beer and walked outside, where he leaned comfortably against the porch railing. In years past he'd spent many an evening in this very spot, looking out over the land, knowing that cattle grazed peacefully in the distance. In certain moods, wistful moods, he liked to imagine a wife standing at his side and the sound of their children's laughter echoing in the house.

Glen married.

Cal had known it would probably happen one day, and he'd always wondered how'd he react, seeing that, despite his imaginings, he'd likely remain a bachelor himself. In fact, he felt surprisingly good about having played a small role in his brother's romance. He'd known Glen was in love with Ellie months before it even occurred to Glen.

Glen's feelings for her had been apparent for a long time. He'd drive into town and return a couple of hours later and talk of little else. Ellie amused him, challenged him, comforted him. She fired his senses. And all that time Glen had insisted it was “just” friendship.

Right! Cal nearly laughed out loud. It was friendship and a whole lot more.

The sound of an engine broke into Cal's musings, and he looked toward the driveway as Grady's truck pulled into view. Good, his neighbor was going to take him up on his offer.

Grady leaped down from the pickup and raised a bottle of whiskey high above his head. “Glen getting married. Hot damn, this calls for a party,” he shouted.

Cal lifted his beer in salute and let out a cheer.

“So Glen's really doing it,” Grady said, taking the porch steps two at a time. “He's marrying Ellie.”

“Unless the woman's a fool and turns him down.”

“Ellie Frasier's no fool,” Grady said with confidence.

“He took the diamond I bought Jennifer,” Cal explained as he headed into the house for a couple of tumblers and some ice.

“Glen asked Ellie to marry him with Jennifer's ring?” Grady followed him, sounding worried.

“It's just a loan. I figure Ellie'll want to choose her own diamond later.” He dumped the ice cubes into two mismatched glasses.

“You think that was wise?”

“Well, yeah. This way Glen wasn't proposing to her empty-handed.”

The two men returned to the porch and Cal poured two generous measures of the honey-colored liquor over the ice, but he noted that his friend's worried frown didn't go away. “What harm could it do?” he asked.

“Probably none.” Grady sat down with Cal in the white wicker chairs and relaxed. Leaning back, he stretched out his long legs and crossed his ankles, then with a deep contented sigh, raised the tumbler to his lips.

Cal tasted his own drink. His eyes watered as the whiskey burned it way down his throat.

“I have to tell you,” Grady admitted, “it does my heart good to know Richard's out of the picture with Ellie.”

“Mine, too.” Cal wasn't fond of the youngest Weston. Richard was a difficult person to understand. Witty, amiable, a natural leader—and yet he'd squandered his talents, in Cal's opinion, anyway. Richard had taken a wrong turn and he'd never gotten steered back on course. It was unfortunate, too, because he could have been a success at just about anything he chose.

“I told Savannah,” Grady mentioned casually, “and she's delighted for Glen.” Then, looking as though he might have done something wrong, he glanced at Cal. “You don't mind, do you?”

“She won't tell anyone else, will she?” Not that it mattered; word would be out soon enough.

“I doubt it.” Grady didn't seem to know for sure.

Cal wasn't really worried, though. Savannah—sensitive and kind, the complete opposite of Richard—would never say anything to ruin another person's happiness. She'd never cheat Ellie out of the pleasure of spreading the news herself.

“Which one of us is going to be next?” Cal asked, although he already had his suspicions. Grady. He'd seen the way his friend's eyes followed Caroline Daniels at the Cattlemen's Dance. Later, when she'd asked him to dance during the ladies' choice, Grady had been so thrilled he'd nearly stumbled all over himself. Not that he'd let on, but Cal knew. Yup, it'd be Grady for sure.

First Glen and then Grady. Soon all his friends would be married, and he'd be living on the ranch alone. The picture that formed in his mind was a desolate one but preferable to the thought of letting another Jennifer Healy into his life.

The sound of a vehicle barreling up the driveway caught Cal's attention.

“Glen?” Grady asked.

“I didn't expect him back so soon.” Cal set his tumbler aside.

“You think everything went all right, don't you?”

“Don't know why it wouldn't.” But Cal was beginning to feel some doubts, considering the speed at which Glen had been driving.

The slam of the truck door echoed through the quiet evening.

“I don't like the look of this,” Grady said in a low voice.

Cal didn't, either. He dashed down the porch when he saw Glen moving toward the barn. “I wonder what happened,” he said. “I'd better find out. Be back in a couple of minutes.”

Cal didn't want to think about what might have gone wrong, but clearly something had. He opened the barn door and searched the dim interior. It took his eyes a moment to adjust, and when he did finally see Glen, his uneasiness intensified. His brother was pitching hay like a man possessed.

“I take it things didn't go so well between you and Ellie,” Cal said, hoping he sounded casual.

“You could say that.” Glen's shoulders heaved with exertion. “What's Grady doing here?”

“We're…” He almost slipped and said they were celebrating Glen's engagement. “We're just shootin' the breeze.”

Silence.

“You
did
talk to Ellie?”

Glen stopped midmotion, the pitchfork full of hay. “We talked.”

Cal wondered how to proceed. “Did she like the ring?” he asked and realized immediately it was probably a tactless question.

“She didn't say.”

“I see.”

“I doubt it.” Glen stabbed the fork into the ground, breathing hard, his face red from exertion.

“Do you want to tell me about it or would you rather work this out on your own?”

Glen took a couple of moments to think it over. “I…I don't know,” he mumbled.

Another silence. Cal knew it was up to Glen to talk or not.

“I owe you an apology,” Glen surprised him by saying next.

“Me? What for?”

Glen looked him full in the eye. “When Jennifer walked out on you, I was secretly glad. As far as I was concerned, you got a lucky break. I thought she wasn't the right woman for you. I didn't stop to consider how you must have felt, how damn hard her leaving was on you.”

Cal didn't quite understand how all this talk about Jennifer applied to the current situation, but he didn't want to interrupt Glen.

“Hurt like hell, didn't it?”

Cal wasn't going to deny it. “At the time it did. I don't think about it much anymore.”

Glen reached into his pocket for the diamond that had once belonged to Cal's ex-fiancée. He stared at it for several seconds. “I wonder how long it'll take me to forget Ellie,” he said, sounding as if he was speaking to himself. He raised his head as he handed Cal back the ring, and the look in his eyes spoke of blinding pain.

“Ellie's decided to marry Richard Weston.”

 

N
OT ONCE HAD
E
LLIE SAID SHE
'
D
accepted
Richard Weston's proposal, but that was what Glen had immediately assumed. It hurt that he'd actually believe she would marry anyone else when it should be clear as creek water that she was in love with him!

She let herself into her house and slumped down on the sofa, discouraged and depressed. She'd always known that Glen wasn't much of a romantic, but she'd hoped he could at least propose marriage without making it sound like an insult. He'd said all the wrong things. He'd talked about an obligation to “take care” of her; well, no thanks, she could take care of herself. He'd said it was “time” he got married—so what did that have to do with her? He'd referred to her “excellent qualities” as though he was interviewing her for a job! Perhaps worst of all, he'd half admitted that his sudden desire to propose had been prompted by his effort to outdo Richard Weston.

The one thing he'd never said was that he loved her.

Crossing her arms, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. It was at time like this that she missed her father most. He always seemed to know what to do, and Ellie feared that in her anger she'd badly bungled her relationship with Glen. She feared that nothing would ever be the same again.

She knew about the lottery at Billy D's and all the Texas two-step jokes. She hated the idea of being in the middle of some stupid male rivalry, and everything Glen said only reinforced that. It bothered her, too, that he'd come to her with a used engagement ring, a leftover from his brother's failed romance. She'd drawn the only sensible conclusion, which was that he'd been in such a rush to get to her before Richard proposed, he hadn't taken the time to buy his own ring.

Now she didn't know what to do. She loved Glen and wanted more than anything to be his wife, but at the same time she needed to feel that she was more to him than a trophy, a way of triumphing over Richard. Deciding to marry someone wasn't like switching dance partners—even in the Texas two-step!

She needed Glen to acknowledge that he loved her, and she needed to understand that his feelings for her had nothing to do with Richard. She wanted Glen to look into his heart.

But she worried he wouldn't be able to see beyond his own disappointments.

 

G
LEN SAT AT THE BREAKFAST
table and stared glumly at the kitchen wall, sipping his coffee. It was barely five and he was already on his third cup.

Cal ambled down the stairs, yawning loudly. “You're up early,” he muttered as he headed for the coffeepot.

Glen didn't tell his brother that he hadn't been to sleep yet. He'd gone to bed and closed his eyes, but it'd done no good. He'd finally gotten up at three-thirty and sat waiting for the tightness in his chest to go away so he could breathe without this pain.

“You feeling all right?” Cal asked.