Sooner or Later (13 page)

“No.”

“But you bought that piece of property.”

Again it was a long time before he answered. “Those thousand acres belonged to my grandfather several years back,” he murmured, almost as if he were uncertain he should tell her that much.

“Mr. Whitehead?”

He shook his head. “Long before Whitehead. My grandfather lost the farm during the Depression, sometime in the early thirties. I wanted to buy it back for him, which I imagine is fairly illogical since he’s been dead now far more years than I can remember.”

“It isn’t unreasonable in the least. I, for one, am grateful to your grandfather, otherwise I’d never have found you. Once we get Luke safely out of Zarcero, he’ll be grateful, too.”

“Don’t jump the gun, we haven’t found him yet.”

“But we will,” she said with absolute confidence.

“Your top button’s unfastened,” Murphy said, gesturing toward her dress.

“It is?” She looked down and noted the small V created by the opening. She’d purposely left it unbuttoned, allowing the breeze to cool her.

“When I first met you, you’d have had that thing fastened all the way to your nose.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

He didn’t answer, but she knew he spoke the truth. She’d lowered her guard with him. With herself.

“It’s too hot to keep it buttoned,” she said, hoping the explanation would satisfy him. She should have known better.

“No hotter than Boothill in August.”

She pinched her lips together, and to her surprise he laughed outright.

“What, might I ask, is so funny?”

“You. Damn it, woman, we’ve been lovers. Loosen up a bit, will you?”

She blinked rapidly, furious with him for announcing such a thing in front of the children, even if they were sleeping. “I’d like to remind you,” she said, seething with indignation, “that our one and only night together was the fee I paid for your services and nothing more.”

Murphy picked a blade of grass and chewed on it casually. She could tell that her reaction to his gibe had amused him. Frankly, she didn’t take kindly to being the brunt of his jokes.

“You could be a hell of a woman if you gave yourself half a chance.”

“You mean if I lifted my skirts to you or any other randy man who took a liking to me?” she tossed out angrily.

“No,” he snapped back. “One man. What the hell’s wrong with you, anyway? I saw you cuddling that baby. You’re a natural. You should have been mar
ried long before now, raising a houseful of your Own kids.”

“I don’t care to discuss with you the manner in which I choose to live my life.”

“With anyone, I’d imagine.” He spoke casually, chewing on the grass as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

Murphy had ruined everything. She’d been enjoying this moment of tranquillity, this peaceful interlude, and he’d purposely set out to rattle her. And succeeded. She wanted to stand up and slap him, but that was what he expected of her. Quite possibly, it was what he wanted. Out of pure stubbornness, she stayed exactly where she was.

“How was it?” His voice dropped to a seductive level, warm and yet strangely weary. “The lovemaking between us?”

Letty could feel the heat rising up her neck, like floodwaters racing toward a levee. “Let me assure you, Mr. Murphy, what we experienced wasn’t love-making, it was sex.”

“Fine, how was the sex?”

Apparently he had no interest in arguing semantics. Hardly aware of what she was doing, Letty started uprooting the grass at her sides by the handful. Her breathing grew deep and slightly labored.

Murphy chuckled softly. “That good, was it?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Look at you. You’re getting all hot and bothered just thinking about it.” He appeared to be highly entertained by her discomfort.

“Do you mind if we change the subject?” she said primly.

“Why? I’m perfectly content with the way our discussion is going. You enjoyed yourself. Hell, sweetheart, there isn’t anything wrong with that. For the record, so did I.”

Her eyes met his. “You did?”

“What I remember of it.” He scratched the side of his head and frowned. “I usually don’t have a memory problem. Either you were the finest piece of ass I’ve had in years or it was so incredibly bad, I’ve blocked it from my mind.”

Letty had had all she could take. She roared to her feet and balled her hands into tight fists at her sides. “You’re the most disgusting, vulgar man I’ve ever known. Every time I start to believe you’re capable of being noble and good, you go out of your way to prove otherwise.”

His smile faded. “It’d serve you well to remember that.”

“Don’t worry, I will.”

Marcie, dressed in white cotton
pants and a blue sailor top, watched outside her living room window for Clifford’s truck. He was picking her up on his way to the baseball game that evening and was due any minute.

When he’d phoned earlier, she’d heard the hesitation in his voice, as if he expected her to tell him something he didn’t want to hear. She promised to be ready on time. And she was. Physically. But mentally was an entirely different story. This was the first time since she’d started dating Clifford that she wasn’t pleased to see him.

Marcie needed time to sort through what had happened with Johnny and her feelings for him. She’d expected him to be angry, cutting him off the way she had. Naturally he hadn’t been overly pleased, but he hadn’t yelled at her, either. Instead they’d sat at her
kitchen table and talked everything out. She told him about Clifford, and he’d listened and understood.

Then, before he’d left, he’d kissed her gently. The kiss itself had been almost brotherly, but not quite. It had lasted too long to be considered a show of affection between friends. With the kiss had come the hint of a promise. That was what had kept her awake most of the night: the promise. And when Johnny made a promise, verbal or otherwise, he delivered.

Consequently her day had been one disaster after another. For some unexplainable reason, Mrs. Hampton s auburn dye had become a Lucille Ball red. Mrs. Hampton, a longtime customer, was furious. So were the three clients Marcie kept waiting while she worked frantically to tone down Mrs. Hamptons hair color.

The problem, Marcie realized, all stemmed from what was happening between her and Johnny. She’d thought she was strong enough to resist him. She wasn’t. She’d assumed that a dinner date under the pretense of “for old times’ sake” was innocuous enough. It wasn’t.

The measure of her desire for him could be calculated in the length of time it had taken him to convince her to go to bed with him. It distressed Marcie to admit they’d barely ordered their meal when she realized exactly what was going to happen. And damn near had. She may have called an end to their love-making, but it was the hardest thing she’d ever done. She wanted him. Loved him. Slipping back into that old mode of pleasuring a man had come effortlessly with Johnny.

Clifford s large Ford pickup rounded the corner and pulled to a stop in front of Marcie’s apartment. She reached for her purse and headed out the door.

Clifford was strolling up the pathway when he saw her. He stopped, and his eyes widened the way they always did when he saw her. Widened with warmth and appreciation.

“You look pretty,” he said, and leaned forward to kiss her, his movement slightly awkward. His lips grazed the edge of her mouth and part of her cheek.

He was a big man, tall and stocky, but not fat. He wore his baseball uniform, complete with cleats.
Kansas City Plumbing
was embroidered across the back of the blue-striped jersey in bold red letters.

A crop of thick, unruly hair stuck out from beneath his cap. It was time for her to give him a trim again, she noted. That was how they’d first met. Clifford had come into her shop late one Friday afternoon, looking to make an appointment. His barber had recently retired, and he hadn’t gotten around to finding another. Although it was close to quitting time, Marcie had taken the appointment.

He’d seemed uneasy sitting on a chair in a beauty salon, so she’d chatted away, hoping he’d relax. She’d been surprised when he’d asked her to dinner. In retrospect she wondered if he’d surprised himself. The invitation had come in the form of a negative, tentative question. “I don’t suppose you’d consider having dinner with me, would you?” He’d seemed shocked and pleased when she’d agreed.

Soon they were seeing each other on a regular basis. Clifford wasn’t like other men she’d dated. He
wasn’t suave or sophisticated. Her experience with a blue-collar guy was limited. Clifford was a regular Joe, a nice guy without an agenda.

“How’d your dinner go with your friend?” he asked casually, sounding almost indifferent.

Marcie wasn’t fooled. Clifford was worried about her date with Johnny. “Good,” she said, wanting to play it down and avoid his questions. It wasn’t as if she could tell him she’d been so hot for Johnny that she’d practically torn her clothes off in a rush to make love to him.

“Where’d you go?”

Marcie had hoped he wouldn’t ask and sighed inwardly. The Cattleman’s was one of the most expensive restaurants in town. She toyed with the idea of lying to him or claiming she didn’t remember. The temptation was strong, but she’d made a promise to herself early on in their relationship that she wouldn’t lie to him, nor would she stretch the truth.

The truth had an amazing elasticity. There’d been a time when she could have stretched it to the moon and back and not batted an eyelash. No more.

“The Cattleman’s Place.”

Clifford let out a low whistle. “This must be a rich friend.”

“I assume he must be.”

“How was the food?”

Marcie had foreseen Cliffords curiosity, that would be natural, but she hadn’t anticipated his prosecuting-attorney list of questions.

She must have hesitated a moment too long, because he asked again. “I asked about the food. How was it?”

The truth be known, she’d barely tasted a bite. “Wonderful.”

“That’s what I’ve heard. Someone told me you can’t get a cup of coffee there for under five bucks.” He opened the passenger door for her, and because it was something of a hike upward, he offered his arm.

Once she was inside the cab, Clifford jogged around the front and joined her. He started the engine, his gaze trained straight ahead. Then, out of the blue, he announced, “I’m never going to be a rich man, Marcie.”

“Johnny’s just a friend,” she murmured, and immediately felt guilty because she’d been far more than pals with Johnny. She’d said it because she didn’t want to hurt Clifford, but she knew that she already had.

“Have you known him long?” he asked at the first red light.

“A couple of years. I told Johnny I was dating you now, and he said you sounded like a good person and he was pleased for me.”

Clifford didn’t change his expression, but she noted the way his hands tightened around the steering wheel. “Will you be seeing him again?”

That was what it all boiled down to, she realized. Would she be seeing Johnny again? Honesty was the best policy, Marcie reminded herself. “I don’t know.”

Clifford glanced at her, and it seemed that his eyes bored holes straight through her. “I guess what I’m really asking is if you
want
to see him again.”

If she thought the first question was difficult, the second was impossible. She glanced out the side win
dow in an effort to be truthful not only with Clifford, but with herself.

What she realized almost made her sick. She did want to see Johnny again. He was like dessert, scintillating, enticing, but ultimately unhealthy and bad for her.

Johnny whistled in and out of her life on a lark. He was always generous with her, but he wasn’t the type of man who was interested in a permanent relationship, nor had he ever expressed a desire for a family. Marcie made no apologies for wanting to be a wife and mother.

“Marcie?” Clifford pressed anxiously.

“I don’t know,” she admitted miserably. “I just don’t know.”

Clifford grew quiet after that. Marcie wanted to reassure him, wanted him to know she considered him her future. But she couldn’t very well tell him that when she was half crazy for Johnny, even when she knew it was a dead-end relationship.

Clifford parked the truck at the baseball field. Several other team members had already arrived and were on the grass doing stretching exercises.

He turned off the engine and kept his hand on the key. “I can’t say that I’m happy knowing you want to see this other guy.”

Marcie didn’t imagine he would be. She wasn’t particularly pleased herself.

“Would you like for me to step out of the picture completely?” he asked.

“No,” she said automatically, forcefully. She didn’t want to lose Clifford. On the other hand, she wanted
to be fair to him, too. Although she hadn’t made any specific plans to see Johnny again, he’d be back. They both knew it.

Clifford’s dark eyes held hers.

“Perhaps I should leave that up to you,” Marcie offered, appalled at her own lack of grit. She couldn’t promise him she wouldn’t see Johnny again. How he responded to that would determine the course of their relationship.

Naturally she could lie, lead him on, tell him what he wanted to hear. She could always feed him a line, one she’d swallowed a hundred times herself. But she refused to do that to the one decent, kind-hearted man she’d ever dated.

Clifford inhaled a deep breath and held it inside his chest a long time. “I’m sure all those self-help people would advise me to make a stand,” he said finally. “It’s either him or me, that kind of thing. But I’m afraid if I did that, you’d choose him.” He paused and released his breath forcefully. “I’m probably not going to be able to afford to take you to dinner at the Cattleman’s Place for another ten years or so, if then. I’ve got a business I’m building, a future, and that doesn’t leave a lot of money for discretionary spending.”

“Clifford, it isn’t the fact he’s rich.”

“I know,” he threw out crisply, “he’s probably a hell of a lot better looking than I am, too.” Not waiting for her to respond, he opened the truck door and hopped out.

Even though he was hurt and angry, he came around to Marcie’s side and offered her his hand.
Clifford was right. Johnny was by far the better looking of the two. But there were other ways of measuring the worth of a man than his sex appeal. Now if she could only make herself do it.