Heartstrings (15 page)

“Don’t you mean two rooms?”

He slid his hat on. For the life of him, he couldn’t stop smiling. “No, I mean
one.
As your bodyguard, my job is to stick to you like your own shadow. And that, Miss Worth, means we will be sleeping in the same room night… after… night… after… night.”

“And create a
scandal?
We aren’t married, Mr. Montana.”

He gaped at her. “It didn’t bother you to advertise for a lover. You even offered to pay him. And now my staying in your room is scandalous?”

She began to gather her belongings. “I should not have to explain my objections to you. If you would deliberate upon them, you would realize the vast difference between my ad and your staying in my room.”

To be fair, he did what she suggested and took exactly one and a half seconds to think. “Sorry, I can’t seem to realize those vast differences. Guess you’ll have to explain them to me.”

She slipped her gloves into her bag and closed it. “I do not plan to
enjoy
the physical attentions I must receive from the man I choose to father the child. However, I already enjoy the attention I receive from you. That, of course, makes our staying together scandalous.”

He could find no sense at all in her explanation, and for that reason he realized it made perfect sense to her. “We still need to stay in a room together. And I think you know I’m right.”

She did know. Indeed, after what happened this afternoon, she was afraid to stay alone. “But you will sleep on a pallet on the floor. And you must promise me, Mr. Montana, that you will do nothing to arouse me.”

Laughter rumbled in his chest. “And if I give you my word, how do you know I’ll keep it?”

She looked directly into his sparkling blue eyes. “Because I trust you. If you say you will do something, you will do it. If you say you won’t, you won t.

Her answer silenced him.

“Mr. Montana? Do you give me your word?”

He realized he had to give her some sort of reply. But since she trusted him, he wouldn’t swear not to touch her. He had every intention of touching her.

Only after a long moment did he think of what his promise would be. “I give you my word, Miss Worth, that I won’t throw my hat on your pillow ever again.”

With that, he vanished down the hall.

T
en miles out of Wild
Winds, Roman stopped beside a grove of majestic live oaks that, because of the long, thick Spanish moss that draped from their branches, resembled wizened men dressed in gray robes. Beneath the rustling trees, winecups, sleepy daisies, and patches of bluebells created a dazzling rainbow of burgundy, yellow, and blue.

“Oh, Mr. Montana, thank you ever so much!” Theodosia exclaimed as she stopped her wagon.

“For what?”

“How sensitive of you to reflect upon my fondness for wild flowers and choose this particular spot for our picnic.”

He stared at the flowers so intently that they became a blur of color before his eyes.
Had
he picked this spot for her? Was it some sort of deep-down consideration toward her that had caused him to stop here?

Well, hell, he could like flowers too, couldn’t he? Just because he’d never sought them out on purpose before didn’t mean he didn’t like being near them.

“Those are
Callirhoe digitata, Eustoma grandiflorum,
and
Xanthisma texanum,”
Theodosia announced as she climbed out of the buckboard and gazed at the thick mass of flowers. “I do believe I shall collect a few specimens to study when I have a bit of spare time.”

Her scientific jargon aggravated him further. “You aren’t the only person in the world who likes flowers, you know,” he told her, determined to set her straight and himself as well. “And that’s what they are.
Flowers.
Ordinary, everyday red, yellow, and blue
flowers.
And any fat, shiny, black bugs you see crawling around here are
beetles.
And those clouds up there are just puffy white
clouds.
And before you analyze my mood, let me tell you that it is not
roinous,
got that? It’s sour. It’s just a plain old sour, rotten, bad mood.”

She watched him dismount. After a moment of contemplation, she thought of a few possible reasons for his sudden irritation. Instantly, she tried to think of a way to lead him into telling her himself. And as she thought, excitement slid through her.

There was very little she enjoyed more them delving into the heart of an enigma, which Roman Montana certainly was.

And yet an enigma did not wholly describe what he was to her. Beyond her intellectual interest in him lay something else.

Something emotional.

“What are you thinking about?” Roman demanded.

Calmly, she peered up at the sky. “The clouds. You’re right. They are not cirrostratus. They are cumulus and often appear around midday on a sunny day. They are much lower than cirrus clouds, but should they become bigger and rise higher, they could turn into storm clouds. I won’t worry about a possible storm, though, because you will undoubtedly hear and smell one before the clouds give notice.”

She removed John the Baptist from his cage. After slipping the glittery bird collar around the parrot’s neck and attaching the leash to it, she faced Roman. “And as for your mood, I wouldn’t describe it as roinous at all. It is definitely jaculiferous.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You may look for the definition in a dictionary.”

“I’m not in the habit of carrying a dictionary around in my saddlebag, Miss Worth.”

“More’s the pity, Mr. Montana.”

He stormed through the sea of wild flowers and stopped before her. “I don’t need your pity.”

“How fortunate, for I pity you not at all.” She removed a large basket from the back of the wagon and walked John the Baptist through the flowers.
“Jaculiferous
describes something that possesses spines,” she said, and set the basket beside the trunk of an oak. “Like a porcupine.”

“I’m in a porcupine mood?”

She laughed softly. “I only meant that your mood is spiny. Prickly.”

“Means the same thing,” he muttered. “Sour, rotten, and bad.” He grabbed a blanket out of the wagon and joined her by the tree.

She helped him spread the blanket over the bed of flowers. “You’ve torn your shirt.”

He noticed a large rip in his sleeve and shrugged.

“I’ve never loved a man.”

Her out-of-the-blue statement set his mind spinning.

“And since I have never loved a man, I have no idea what it’s like to want to marry. Tell me what it’s like.”

“Tell you? How the hell would I know?”

She kept her features blank, giving no indication that his response had provided her with the exact information she needed. “I cannot help the fact that I am a woman, Mr. Montana.”

“What?”

She knelt and began to lay out the food for the picnic. “I cannot change my sex, but if you like, we could discuss your untoward feelings for women. Perhaps we would then be able to determine the most appropriate way for you to overcome them. Surely you do not desire to spend your life disliking the entire female race.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

She began slicing the bread, cheese, and apples. “You were in a fine mood this morning. But when I mentioned the consideration you showed by picking this spot for me, you exhibited sudden defensiveness and attacked me verbally. I believe your outburst stems from the fact that you did indeed choose this spot for me. You obviously realized that, and your own thoughtfulness toward me angered you. Such a reaction might have stemmed from the loss of a beloved sweetheart and your consequent refusal to be vulnerable to an amorous form of love again. However, when I asked you to tell me about romantic love, you demonstrated genuine ignorance of the subject. Therefore, I feel it safe to presume that you have not loved and lost a sweetheart. Sit down and eat your lunch.”

“You’re doing that psychology stuff again,” he bit out as he sat down beside her. “Well, I can tell you right now that—”

“Furthermore, you lied to me.” She handed him a piece of bread.

“Lied? But—”

“From what I understand, there is little you cannot do. Had you stayed in Oates’ Junction rather than following me, you would have found other work. However, you tried to make me believe that you followed me because of the money Dr. Wallaby would pay you. That was a lie. You came after me because you knew those gold thieves were planning to rob me and that they might very well have harmed me. Your worry over me more than likely bothered you immensely.”

“I needed the money, and that’s the end of it!”

She smiled sweetly into the dangerous glitter in his eyes. “You suffered a negative experience with a woman sometime in your past, and as we have just discussed, the woman was not your sweetheart. Said experience must have been truly painful because it has caused you to dislike
all
women. You allow yourself to indulge in sexual activities with them, but beyond that you want nothing to do with them. That is why your consideration toward me annoys you. Open your mouth.”

So startled was he by what she told him, he didn’t think twice before opening his mouth and accepting the slice of apple she put into it. “How do you—”

“Know? Why, you hinted at it the first night we spent together.”

He didn’t remember hinting at anything of the sort. “I did not—”

“Yes, Mr. Montana, you did.” She ate a bit of bread and cheese and shared some apple with John the Baptist. “You said you did not want a family.”

“What’s that got to do with—”

“Your animosity toward women? Really, Mr. Montana, it’s quite elementary.”

“Nothing is ever elementary to you, Miss Worth! You don’t know what
simple
is! Everything you do, say, and think has to be connected to some sort of academic junk that normal people don’t know a damned thing about!”

Calmly, she waited for him to finish raving. “To have a family, you must have a wife. You are not fond of women, so you do not want a wife. Therefore, you do not plan to raise a family on your horse ranch. That is what you told me the night we spent in the woods. Would you care for some cheese?”

“What? No, I don’t want any blasted cheese! I want you to stop—”

“My goodness, what a temper,” she remarked, casually examining an apple seed. “From whom did you inherit that volatile constitution? Your father or your mother?”

“I wouldn’t know, and that’s the last question you’re going to ask me!”

She laid her hand on his knee. “I’m sorry.”

“You damned sure should be. Digging into a person’s mind is—”

“No, Mr. Montana. You misunderstand. I am expressing sympathy over the deaths of your parents. They must have died when you were very young, or else you would have remembered if one of them had the same temper you do. Or perhaps you never knew them at all. Whatever the case, someone else raised you. And I don’t think I am wrong in believing that that someone was a woman. Whoever she was, she was uncaring toward you.”

Stunned into silence, Roman stared into her eyes, wishing he could see the astonishing brain behind them. He’d told her so little, and yet she’d discovered the truth.

But not all of it. There hadn’t been
an
uncaring woman; there had been
three.
He didn’t like remembering them. And what he liked even less was being
forced
to remember them.

The memories made him recall his own stupidity.

Theodosia watched him squeeze his piece of bread into a dough ball. “It wasn’t my intention to make you angry,” she said softly. “I only wanted to know more about—”

“Angry?” He pitched the bread ball into the woods. “Are you kidding? I’m having the time of my life! Doesn’t everyone enjoy having their past guessed at, carved open, and discussed by people who don’t care that it’s none of their business? I know you’re afraid of lightning, but have I tried to find out why? No, because it’s none of my business. Personally, I think being afraid of lightning is stupid. I can see being nervous about it, but you fall completely apart! Still, it’s none of my business, and besides that, Miss Worth, I don’t really give a damn!”

She watched the fire of fury come into his eyes. But behind the flames there glowed another emotion.

Sorrow glimmered through his wrath. His buried grief unsettled her far more than she thought reasonable. How was it possible for her to feel such profound concern for a man like Roman Montana? Besides the fact that she’d known him for only days, he wasn’t at all the sort of man she ever imagined herself caring for. Not that she’d planned on involving herself with any man at all, she amended. The Brazilian research was all that mattered to her. But if she
had
considered love and romance, surely she would have sought a man whose academic background equaled hers.