Rexanne Becnel (13 page)

And indeed Abby felt as if he read her very mind. In an agony of confusion she averted her eyes from his.

“Don’t
ever
kiss a man like that, Abby. Not unless you mean it.”

Startled at both his odd words and his hoarse tone, she reluctantly lifted her gaze to meet his once more. “Unless I mean it? What do you—oh!” She drew a sharp breath, forgetting to be embarrassed. “Do you think I
didn’t
mean it? That I kiss just
any
man that way?”

She tried to jerk out of his grasp, for she was both hurt and angered by his unfair assumption about her. But Tanner’s fingers tightened on her, an iron hold she could not shake off.

“I know you haven’t,” he replied, not rising at all to her anger. He sounded patient even, the same way she often did with an errant student.

Then the meaning of his words sank in, and she was even more acutely chagrined. He knew she had never kissed anyone that way before because … because she had done it so ineptly. Hot and painful, her cheeks again burned scarlet.

“I … I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’ll do better next time—” Then her eyes widened when she realized the implication of what she had said. What if he didn’t
want
there to be a next time?

He closed his eyes for a moment, as if drawing strength to let her down as easily as possible. To her surprise, however, a faint grin curved one side of his mouth. “If you do much better, Abigail Morgan, you’ll probably kill me.” He released her and expelled a great gust of a sigh, while she only gaped at him, completely baffled.

“Don’t kiss anyone else like you just kissed me, all right?” He swept his hat off his head and raked one hand through his long, disheveled hair. “And think twice about kissing me again, because I don’t know if I’ll have the willpower to stop at just one kiss.” He stared at her—
glared
would be a better word, she realized through her shock, for his grin had faded and he looked almost pained by what he said.

“I’ve got no time for a woman like you, Abby. Not now, anyway. Maybe we’d better stay away from each other.”

“Why?” Abby asked, bewildered by the vast array of emotions that tore through her. He’d come to her aid, then he’d kissed her until she was practically a helpless puddle at his feet. Now he told her that he didn’t have time for a woman like her. “Why?” she repeated in a strangled tone.

He looked away into the wind so that it blew his hair back from his broad, furrowed brow. She saw the fan of creases at the corner of his eye. The strong profile. The movement of his throat when he swallowed.

“You’re the kind of woman a man marries.” He swung around abruptly to face her. He slapped his hat against his thigh once, and a cloud of dust lifted from it, then dispersed into the wind. “But I’m not looking for a wife.”

There was no way for Abby to misunderstand his meaning this time. He was the sort of man her father had warned her about, even he knew that. And he was giving her the chance to get away before she did something she would regret for the rest of her life.

But at the moment it was impossible for her to be grateful.

She swallowed hard, trying to still the quivering in her voice. “I see.” She knotted her fingers together, pressing her clutched hands to her stomach as she sought some words that might salvage the shreds of her pride. “Well, as it happens, I’m not looking for a husband.”

He raised one brow in mocking acknowledgment of her bravado. “Don’t say that too loud, Abby. A lot of horny men might take it the wrong way.”

Horny? She didn’t know precisely what that meant, but given their intense interchange, she could harbor a guess. His restored equanimity when she was still so shattered by his rejection stung even more.

“I am quite able to handle myself with any man who has the wrong idea about me.”
Except for you,
she realized with painful clarity.

But he seemed to read her thoughts. “I don’t have the wrong idea about you. That’s why I broke off our kiss. I know exactly what kind of woman you are. If you think about what kind of man I am, you’ll know I’m right.”

Maybe he was right, but pain lent a recklessness to Abby’s words. “What if I don’t care what kind of man you are?”

Tanner’s jaw clenched and his lips thinned angrily. He jammed his hat on his head. “Then I’d say you’re a damned fool.”

She had no response to that. Indeed it was all she could do to keep her chin high and meet his stinging gaze. She
was
a fool, she admitted as she finally pivoted away from him. She was a complete and utter fool who should be thankful that he was gentleman enough to save her from the sure scandal she’d been headed for. Yet as she marched as resolutely as was possible through the knee-high grasses that pulled and tugged at her plain calico skirt, she could not muster even an ounce of gratitude toward him. Why
wasn’t
he looking for a wife? Why wasn’t he as enamored of her as she had become of him?

Why couldn’t he be even a little bit in love with her?

Tanner watched Abby’s retreat with a mixture of relief and dejection. Damn, but he was a fool. She’d been so ready, so prime for the taking in a way he never would have expected. Prim and proper like the churchgoer she was. But beneath that dutiful exterior lay an untapped fountain of passion. He’d tasted it in just that one kiss, and the very intensity of his response had shaken him. Even now his hard arousal was a painful reminder of how much he wanted her.

But she was going on to Oregon, and he had a job to do, one that precluded any involvement with a woman that lasted more than a night. Besides, he rationalized, there was no privacy to be had on the trail anyway. Between the flat open land and her father’s watchful protection, there could have been no more between them than an occasional stolen kiss—and a lot of long, lonely, and restless nights for him.

He heard the rolling call to resume the trek, and with weary resignation he made his way back to Tulip and mounted. A hard afternoon still lay ahead of him, but that was good. He’d ride until every muscle ached and he was blind with fatigue. That way he’d be too exhausted to do anything but sleep. No tossing and turning for a shapely young body that he couldn’t have beneath him. No keeping one eye open, watching for another attack like the one at Fort Kearney. He’d sleep. And with any luck he wouldn’t dream about how good it would feel to wake up every day beside the same woman.

With only the lightest touch Tulip responded and swung into an easy canter alongside the rumbling wagon train. Like a dormant cloud, the dust stirred to life beneath a hundred wheels and a thousand hooves, rising up in dry, hazy waves. Tanner didn’t notice the several pairs of eyes that watched him angle away from the company.

Abby watched him with eyes that burned and a heart that ached.

Martha McCurdle waved a handkerchief at him, then when he did not notice, shot the unaware Abby a jealous glare.

Cracker O’Hara rubbed his stubbly chin, then spat a fat brown stream into the tall grasses and smirked. McKnight was having as bad a time of it as he was, panting after women on the trail when he was supposed to be tracking one of them down. But he wouldn’t get anywhere with that one. She was too stiff-necked to respond to anything but brute force. Then she’d be willing.

But McKnight, for all his dangerous reputation, wasn’t tough enough for that. O’Hara laughed out loud, then kicked his weary bay into a gallop. That would be McKnight’s undoing: the man was smart but he had a soft middle. All O’Hara had to do was let the other man find the right girl. Then he would move in with Bud and have the pleasure of killing them both.

“… T
ILLIE KNEW THAT REX
the prairie dog would never be reliable. He was basically good, but he was a wild creature and she, in her heart, was a domestic mouse. A house mouse,” Abby explained for the youngest of her ragtag followers.

“Doesn’t she like Rex anymore?” young Carl asked.

“Well, yes. Of course she likes him,” Abby replied. “She just … she just knows they can only be friends.”

“A mouse can’t marry a prairie dog anyway,” Estelle reasoned. “They’re too different.”

“Yes. Too different,” Abby echoed, though her thoughts were not of Tillie and Rex.

Noticing her preoccupation, Sarah clapped her hands. “All right, children. Enough storytelling for now. Fan out alongside us and search for buffalo chips. If you want a good supper, your mothers will need fuel. So let’s see who can find the most, shall we?”

The several children scattered with many good-natured boasts about who would find the most, but Sarah kept her gaze on Abby, much to Abby’s discomfort. Sarah was a dear, but she was sometimes far too observant.

“Is your long face over your father, or is it over Tanner McKnight?” she began with her usual bluntness.

“My father is more depressed than ever,” Abby answered, hoping to appease her with that subject.

“I guessed as much when I saw Reverend Harrison driving your wagon. But I also heard that you and Tanner …” She hesitated as if selecting her words carefully.

Abby’s heart sped up. “That we what?”

Sarah searched Abby’s face. “So it’s true.”

Abby frowned and looked away. Someone had seen Tanner kiss her. How the gossips would love that bit of juicy news. “Don’t beat around the bush, Sarah Lewis. Just ask me your question and let’s get it over with.”

They walked in silence a few moments, sidestepping prairie-dog holes and a dust wallow. “Martha McCurdle is a spiteful person, Abby. She’s telling everyone that you threw yourself at Tanner earlier and that …” Again she hesitated.

Abby forced herself to face her friend. Why was she so unlucky? Why, of all people, had Martha been the one to witness her humiliation? “That what?” she softly prompted Sarah to finish.

Sarah sighed. “That you threw yourself at him and he would have nothing to do with you.”

Abby laughed, though there was no trace of humor in the sound. She wasn’t certain which was worse, the truth or Martha’s skewed version of it.

“I suppose that’s how it must have looked.” Her throat constricted with emotion and she had to pause in her explanation. Sarah wisely kept her silence, so for a few minutes only the relentless wind and the quiet calls of the children surrounded them. The wagons were downwind, so even their creaking was muted.

Abby squinted beneath the shelter of her everyday straw hat, staring at the ground before her but seeing nothing. “I asked him to fetch Reverend Harrison for my father. And he did. Then he talked to me a little while and, well, I told him about my mother dying. And his mother had died too. Then … then I started crying and he … well, he kissed me.”

Abby didn’t look at Sarah, but she knew nonetheless the exact expression on her friend’s face. “Why that’s so very sweet,” Sarah breathed, confirming Abby’s speculation. “So very, very sweet.”

“Yes, it was.” Abby sighed and refocused her eyes. “The trouble is, he’s not looking for a wife.”

“Not looking for a wife? Why, that’s nothing to concern yourself with. Men always say—Oh, no! He isn’t already married, is he?”

A lump formed in Abby’s chest. She wondered herself about that possibility. “Oh, Sarah, I don’t know. I don’t think so. He said … he said that he didn’t have time for a woman like me.” She heaved a great sigh. “And that he was the wrong kind of man for me.”

More silence. Then Sarah caught Abby’s hand in her own and squeezed. “Did he seem to like the kiss? Did you?”

Abby tightened her hand around Sarah’s, holding on as if for dear life. “I—Yes. I liked it.” At that understatement she finally met Sarah’s concerned gaze. “I liked it so much that I practically melted into a puddle right at his feet.”

Sarah chuckled knowingly. “It’s the loveliest of feelings, isn’t it?”

“While it’s happening, yes. But afterward …”

“Did
he
like the kiss?”

That was harder to answer, and more embarrassing. “He told me not to kiss any other man that way. I thought he meant, you know, that I hadn’t done it quite right. But then he said if I did it any better, it would probably kill him.”

This time Sarah’s laughter was full and unrestrained. “My dear girl. You’ve got nothing at all to worry about if he said that!” She released Abby’s hand, then snatched up a handful of bunchgrass and began to fling the spiky leaves at Abby. “He’s hooked if he said that.”

Abby frowned at Sarah’s antics. “He said we shouldn’t see each other anymore.”

“He’s just a big old fish, Abby, a fish that’s already taken the bait but now is fighting the line. I mean, think about it. He wants to kiss you, then he says you’re killing him. Next he pushes you away and says he’s the wrong kind of man for you. Only the right kind of man cares enough about a woman’s reputation to push her away—especially when she’s melting at his feet.”

The way Sarah explained it made Abby almost believe it could be true. Almost. “He could be a decent sort of man and still know that I’m not right for him.”

Sarah shook her head, laughing again. “Trust me, Abby. I know all about how difficult and evasive men can be.”

“How could you? You said you loved Victor from the first—”

“So I did. But he was no easy case. Besides, I have four older sisters, all married before me, and two of them wed to the wildest pair of brothers in the whole county. But you should see them now. Good husbands. Good fathers.” She rolled her merry eyes. “Mark my words. You just go on being sweet to him—cooking him dinner, sneaking peeks at him when you know he’ll catch you doing it. But at the same time be sweet to every other nice fellow who comes around. Why, between wanting you and wanting nobody else to want you, he’ll be crazy as an old bull on locoweed.”

More than anything, Abby wanted to believe it was so, for every time she thought of not seeing Tanner, an emptiness seemed to well up in her, black and bottomless. Though her rational side told her that the feeling would ease in time, another side feared she would never be whole again. He’d taken a piece of her heart and she’d never have it back again.

Was this how her father still felt, empty and hollow? For the first time she thought she understood his endless mourning. It was worse for him, though, for he’d had her mother with him for over twenty years, while she’d only known Tanner a very short time. She resolved to be more patient with her father. More compassionate.