Wrangled (15 page)

“I didn’t think you were interested in that
anymore,” I couldn’t help but accuse.

Cody’s eyebrows flew up under his hat brim
and his mouth formed a perfect O. “What give you that idea?” he said.

“Cody, I really need to get in to see Tali.
I don’t have time to talk about it right now.” I brushed past him, heading for
the back door into the kitchen.

In one stride, he caught up with me and
grabbed me by the upper arm, twisting me into his arms and planting a hard kiss
on my closed lips. “We’ll talk about it later, then,” he said, then let me go
and strode off, leaving me astonished and indignant. I touched my bruised lips
with my fingertips. What was that? And what was I going to do about it?

~~~

It was good to be back at the ranch table
for dinner after a month away except for that terrible day when Al got hurt. It
felt like coming home, though of course this was no longer my home. Still, two
of my sisters were here, and the hands all nodded or spoke politely. All except
Cody, who seemed to be brooding over something, and Hank, who was glowering at
Cody then at me. I decided to ignore him; he no longer had the power to hurt
me, since Cody and I were over. Janet bustled around as usual, but I caught her
more than once patting Hank’s shoulder quickly as she passed by. Russ asked me
how Al was doing, and everyone made appropriate noises of sympathy when I
detailed his condition.

Charity said, “Russ, we need to do
something about snakes in the yard. Any of the children could be hurt as they
get old enough to run around on their own, and they might not be as lucky as Al
was to get immediate medical care. Honey, he could have died!”

“I know, sweetheart. Cody and I have
discussed it, and we’re going to hold a rattlesnake rodeo here as soon as we
can organize it.”

“What are you talking about? I never heard
of such a thing,” Charity responded. She didn’t sound too happy about the idea.

“It was Cody’s idea. Invite the other
ranches around here, and there’ll be a prize for the most snakes captured, the
biggest and so on. We’re thinking we could have a snake-meat cook-off, too.”

I put my fork down, suddenly queasy at that
thought. Charity gave a little yelp and glared at Russ, but the damage was
done. The hands, most of them, were whooping and talking excitedly. Russ raised
his eyebrows at Charity as if to say ‘see how excited they are?’ Charity palmed
her head, resting her elbow on the table, and muttered, “What craziness are you
going to think of next?” But it looked like it was a done deal. I was glad I
could escape the ranch for the event, because the very thought of a bunch of
snakes together, even if they were dead, made me sick. Not to mention that they
were planning to
eat
them. Ugh.

I’d lost my appetite, so I excused myself
and went to check on Tali, who had eaten with the other children a little
earlier. She was clingy when she saw me, missing me no doubt. At two and a
half, she could be a handful, but when she was being good, she was a delight.
Just beginning to talk in complete sentences, she carefully pronounced each
word according to her own take on it, hesitating between as if she were giving
me the opportunity to understand her better. It sounded odd, like a series of
one-word sentences. Now she was asking about her brother. “Mommy. Where. Al?
Tali. Want. Al.”

“I know, baby, I want him, too. He’s sick,
though. When he gets better, he’ll come home.”

“Want. Al.
now
, Mommy.” The stubborn
set of her sweet little mouth told me we could be in for a melt-down if I
didn’t distract her.

“Do you want to go see the horses, baby?”

“Horses! Tali. want. to. see. horses.”

“Okay, let’s go see them, then.” Al was
forgotten for the moment and I felt disloyal to him for it, but I couldn’t face
a Terrible Two temper tantrum tonight. Yes, I knew we might see Cody, but the
risk was worth averting the tantrum.

It was late enough that I really should
have been getting Tali ready for bed, around eight. The long rays of the
sinking sun were still slanting across the yard and corral, and the air was
still hot and dry. Though Tali was walking and running everywhere now, I
carried her in my arms when we entered the barn.

“Horses, mommy!”

“Yes, darling, the horses are here. Be
nice.” The warning was probably not needed, after all, Tali’s little hand
probably couldn’t hurt even the sensitive noses of the horses, but more than
once we’d had to extract a struggling kitten from a death grip in her plump
little arms. We were trying to teach her to be gentle with the animals. I
walked up to a stall with a beautiful tabiano mare, and held Tali up to pet her
nose.

We were making our way down the row when
Cody’s deep voice startled me. “Well, look who’s here.”

“Cody! We, uh, I was just letting Tali
visit the horses. She misses A-L-M-A,” I spelled out, “and I needed to distract
her.” I felt as though I’d been caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to be
doing. My voice shook with the nervousness.

“Oh, that’s okay. Here, let me take her,”
he said.

Before I could object, he’d held his hands
out to Tali and she’d leaned into them the way little ones do. I had no choice
but to let him have her, or drop her, her angle overbalancing me so that I
couldn’t recover with her in my arms.

“Cody. Horses,” she observed.

Cody chuckled, and said, “You betcha,
Princess. Here, this one’s my horse. Abo, say hi to Tali.”

Abo snorted when he heard his name, and put
his nose over the gate for a pet. “Did you bring any apples or treats?” Cody
asked.

“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t think about it,” I
said. Why did the question make me feel guilty, as if I had insulted Cody
himself? “Cody, I need to get her back in the house and put down for the night.
Can I have her back?” I held out my arms, but this time she shrank back from
me, clearly preferring the higher perch on Cody’s arm.

“I’ll carry her on up to the house for
you,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Here it was again, and I wasn’t at all sure
I was ready to talk to him. Not now, not ever. He’d chosen, and I didn’t make
the cut. But his voice, his nearness, his scent, all combined to make me weak.
Weak in resolve, and weak in the knees if I were honest with myself. But, I
wasn’t going to let him know how he affected me, no matter what it cost me in
tension. I set my jaw as we strolled toward the house. At the back door, I once
again tried to take Tali, and was once again rebuffed by my opinionated little
girl. Cody laughed and said he’d take her to our room. With sure steps, he
walked to the room that had been ours until just over a month ago, where I was
staying while I visited. Her old crib was there, still large enough for her
though she’d graduated to a toddler bed.

“Does she need a diaper at night?” Cody
asked. I was surprised that he knew enough about toddlers and potty training to
ask that. Wordlessly, I nodded, and he held his hand out to take the overnight
style diaper I retrieved from the dressing table. With growing astonishment, I
watched as this rough cowboy gently stripped Tali out of her clothes and
applied the diaper, then dressed her in a soft little nightgown, laid her in
her crib and patted her little bottom. “Go to sleep, now, Tali, okay?”

“Good night Tali, I love you,” I said
softly.

“Love. You. Mommy. Love. You. Cody.” Her
sleepy voice trailed away as my eyes filled with tears. I wasn’t the only one
who had given my heart too easily. How much would it hurt my children to
realize that Cody was no longer a fixture in their lives? And why did he have
to show up tonight to remind her.

Both of us walked quietly out of the room,
and Cody shut the door gently behind him before he turned to me. “Do you want
to do this here or outside?”

“Neither,” I said. “I have nothing to say
to you.”

Cody’s ice-blue eyes turned flat and hurt
filled them. “Annalee, what’s got into you? I coulda swore you felt somethin’
for me, and then I come back from a coupla weeks rodeo and you run like a
scared rabbit into town. I don’t understand.”

“Outside,” I hissed. This wasn’t a
conversation I wanted to have with so many ears in the house. Tali wouldn’t
wake for hours; I’d be back before that happened. I dreaded this show-down, but
it seemed I couldn’t avoid it. We walked quickly through the house, me driven
by anger and nerves, and him by the need to keep up with me. Outside, I strode
toward the barn, with Cody close on my heels.

Once inside the relative privacy of the
barn, Cody grabbed my arm, the same as he’d done earlier. This time I jerked it
away and backed off a couple of steps, before he could undo me with another of
those kisses. “Stop it! You don’t have the right to manhandle me like that.”

“What the fuck, Annalee?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared
at him until he apologized. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just so
darned confused, baby!”

“Do you seriously not know what got me
upset Cody Wayne?” I demanded.

“I don’t have any idea,” he said.

“Think back to when you came back from
those first rodeos. Do you remember telling me to go in the house, without even
a hug and kiss after you’d been gone two weeks? Do you remember saying you’d be
there in a minute? That was the longest minute in my life, Cody. You never
came. You chose the rodeo over me, and then you chose your uncle. As far as I
could tell, you didn’t want me anymore, and I decided to make a life without
you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think that’s all there is to say.” It was more
than I’d meant to admit, but the words were out there, hanging in the air
between me and Cody with his open mouth. I didn’t want to hear whatever excuse
he had for me. I turned to go and took one step before that big hand had me by
the arm once again, and this time I couldn’t shake it off.

“Oh, no. You ain’t gonna tell me off like
that and then not listen to what I have to say.” Cody swung me into his strong
grip again, wrapping his arms around me so that I couldn’t step away from him,
but I refused to look up at his face just above my head. I didn’t trust myself
not to fall into a kiss if he tried it again. I went rigid, unwilling to listen
but unable to leave, waiting for his excuse.

“I’m sorry, baby. I shoulda sent word to
the house. Right after you went in, Bill came runnin’ out to say there was
somethin’ wrong with Abo. He’d got too hot in that trailer, and it took us all
night to make sure he didn’t go down with colic.” It sounded reasonable, but
then why hadn’t he sought me out in the next couple of days. I wouldn’t ask,
though. I’d sound like I was whining, and I wasn’t a whiner. Furthermore, he’d
take it as a sign of partial forgiveness, and I wasn’t ready for that, either.
But, the month after I left the ranch had afforded plenty of time for him to
come by, or at least give me a call. That I would mention.

“So, when I left the ranch, you just
figured I was gone and not worth coming after?”

“Baby, you know how busy it gets around
here in the summer. And there was a rodeo every weekend. I just didn’t have
time.” It must have sounded lame even to him, because he winced with the last
phrase.

“Well, that lets me know where I stand,
which is just about what I expected. Let me go.”

“I won’t, not ‘til you give me a kiss and
say we’re okay,” the set of his jaw was stubborn.

“Oh, my God, you think we’re okay? We are
so not okay,” I said.

He unwrapped his arms then, but grabbed
both arms above the elbow and bent to look into my face, his expression
stunned. “Baby, what are you sayin’?” Pulling me to him, he wrapped one hand in
my hair, thrusting his fingers through the bun as if it were there for a
handle, then kissed me. His tongue forced my lips apart, and when I kept my
teeth closed against him, he gave my hair a yank that made me involuntarily
open my mouth to protest. Instantly, his tongue was inside, and the arm that
held me tight clutched me even closer to him, bowing me back over it as he
pressed his assault.

My body was on fire, my senses lost in a
whirlwind of conflicting emotions; fierce joy to be in his arms again, anger
that it hadn’t been my choice, sadness that this would be the last time.
Despite the fact that my heart was racing and dampness was gathering between my
legs, I knew that as soon as he let me go, I’d have to walk away. He’d chosen,
and he’d chosen wrong. I couldn’t let him hold my heart hostage any more, nor
could I let him walk back into the lives of my children and hurt them again.

My swirling thoughts became nothing as Cody
kissed me and sank to his knees with me, finally depositing us on the fresh
straw in an empty stall. As his body covered mine, pressing me down, holding me
prisoner, I lost the battle with my desire, and kissed him back. With a groan,
he covered a breast with his hand and pressed his erection into me and I
finally came to my senses.

“Cody, no!” I gasped. As I struggled with
all of my might, it finally sank in on him that I didn’t want what he was
trying to make happen. He stopped abruptly and rolled away from me, raising up
on one elbow to look at me with surprise.

“Baby, we cain’t make love?”