“She’s got a little one,” Mandy said, her stomach tightening in distress. If they had to kill the mama cat, what would happen to her cub? The poor little thing would surely starve.
“I see that,” Adam said.
Mandy wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Would he shoot to kill anyway? If need be? Or would he fire a warning shot? Cross Creek hadn’t had an attack in recent years. So perhaps the cats had discovered new hunting grounds in the mountains. The deer population was strong this year, and Mandy had seen plenty of cottontails... Enough to satisfy a mama cat and her young?
“If you don’t have to shoot her...”
“I’ll do what I have to, Mandy.” Such strength. Authority. Showing unbending resolve, though not unkindly.
Mandy bit her lip. He was right. What could she say: Don’t protect your horses? Don’t protect yourself—or me? She couldn’t. People died out here for being too soft. For hesitating to do the necessary things to survive. Her father would have said the same. So would Darby if he were here.
“It’s just—the cub,” she couldn’t help adding. For the first time, Mandy suspected she might be “too soft” to do the necessary things to survive. She was tenderhearted. The sight of this little family—however dangerous a threat the mama cat was—caught her in the chest. A slice of yearning took her by surprise. She wanted to be a mother. She wanted her own “young” to love and protect. And she wanted Adam beside her. She didn’t want to “help him on his ranch.” Not only that, anyway. She wanted to be his wife. His real wife, his partner in every way. She wanted a family. With him.
And somehow, if Adam needed to shoot this cat, it seemed strangely like Mandy’s dream would die too.
Please don’t have to shoot her.
As if he heard her thoughts, Adam spoke, saying, “I won’t if I don’t have to.” There was a note of reassurance in his voice that Mandy appreciated. She also appreciated the way he held himself, his posture tall, his shoulders seemingly broader. He was making himself larger. Someone had trained him well.
As the wagon trundled past on the road, the big cat bellied down in the tall grass, watching. Her eyes bored into them, fully alert, but she didn’t seem ready to pounce. As if oblivious to its mother’s concern, the cub batted at a blade of grass. It rolled onto its back, squirming in apparent ecstasy. Mama cat stayed her ground, continuing to watch the wagon and gently swishing her tail.
“Beautiful,” Mandy breathed aloud, scarcely believing they were passing so close to this powerful wild cat unharmed.
“They can move fast,” Adam warned.
Mandy didn’t respond. She knew that well enough from stories she’d heard growing up. Papa had said that the more men moved into the cats’ territory, the more incidences of attacks there were likely to be, mostly to livestock. Sadly, occasionally a horse. And more rarely, with humans. He said cougars mostly wanted to keep away from people, but they’d protect themselves if they felt threatened, or if their instinct to hunt was stirred up.
She kept the horses moving steadily away, further and further from the threat.
And Adam, he kept watch the entire time, his gun still held at the ready. He didn’t relax his guard until they were a good mile from trouble. Mandy let out a sigh of relief when he finally sat down.
“I don’t think she’ll follow us now,” he said, laying his rifle across his thighs, the muzzle pointed carefully away from Mandy.
“She wouldn’t,” she said, holding the lines firmly in hand. “Not with a cub, I don’t think.”
Now that the danger had passed, she realized how frightened she’d been. Her hands and shoulders were painfully cramped. She stretched as best she could. Adam didn’t stop watching the road behind them until they were nearing the gate to her family’s ranch. At that point, he took the lines from her.
“Where’d you learn to handle a rifle like that?” she asked. Even now she was filled with wonder at the memory of him standing there with the gun, the sure way he handled it. He moved with such confidence. It had been reassuring.
He glanced at her, perhaps hearing the tone of admiration in her voice, but just as quickly his expression cooled. Their conversation from earlier had evidently made its way back to the front of his mind now that the danger was over.
He checked the road behind them, swept his gaze over the tall grasses and the stream... Finally he looked at her again, his gaze dispassionate, remote even. It was as if she were a stranger, no more than a local news reporter gathering details of the event—that was all she meant to him.
“My uncle got me interested in shooting when I was a boy. I kept at it back in Denver, joined a gun club.”
She sensed there was more to it than that, but Adam clammed up and kept his attention focused on the road. Soon they’d be approaching the long driveway that led up to the MacKenna ranch.
Soon he’d be dropping her at home.
And leaving her behind.
Mandy didn’t know what he was thinking, but then his eyes met hers briefly, and he said, “You did well.” There was warmth there and approbation, and Mandy could just begin to hope the discomfort of their earlier conversation might pass them by.
“You did well too,” she said softly.
Already though the quiet unease slipped up between them. Adam nodded once and faced forward, his expression shuttering. Silence descended over them. Mandy felt Adam’s distance from her, growing colder and colder. Icy, though the sun bore down on them still.
She rubbed her arms, chilled. That might have been shock after the incident with the cougar, but she couldn’t help thinking it had more to do with their conversation earlier.
Just how fully had she ruined things between them?
She may have made a mistake. She could have done things differently. Her actions may have been rash... Of course, they’d been rash. But he didn’t need to treat her this way, as if she’d asked him to commit some crime. He was the one who’d been thinking about a mail-order bride in the first place. How different was her proposition from that arrangement? Two strangers marrying. Hardly different at all. One could say it was a better arrangement by far.
And yet each time she thought about what she’d done, and how quickly he’d turned down her offer, waves of shame washed over her.
Chapter 24
Mandy held her tongue as Adam pulled up to the front steps of the ranch house, not realizing, likely, that the MacKenna family only ever went up the back porch and out the same way. He jumped out and came to help her down, assisting her stiffly, in a brisk fashion that told her more than any words could have how upset he was. He was clearly uncomfortable touching her, and pulled away as soon as she was securely on her feet.
She immediately missed the grip of his strong hands at her waist, the brief steadying touch of his hand on her elbow. Even though he was so obviously reluctant to touch her, she couldn’t help the little shiver of awareness that went through her at having him near.
“Adam—” she began. He looked at her, his expression closed-off. She swallowed a lump in her throat. What could she say now? “Mr. Booker, sir. I...”
“Don’t say anything more,” he cautioned. “Please don’t.”
“I—” Mandy closed her mouth and nodded. She didn’t know what to say in any event, and she couldn’t have felt more miserable about the whole situation.
He returned to the driver’s side of the wagon, climbing nimbly onto the bench seat. It took him several attempts to get turned around in their driveway, which ended in a too-small circle, which didn’t much bother anyone enough to change it, because the driveway out back led straight into the carriage barn. It also had a much larger cleared area to turn around. Most regular visitors knew that.
Adam didn’t much seem to appreciate her standing on the front steps, just watching him, but she couldn’t seem to move. Also, she suspected the front door was still jammed shut from the humidity, and she didn’t want to walk all the way around back with him still there.
Th
ey’d stopped using the front door a few years back when a rattlesnake took up residence under the stoop. They hadn’t spotted it recently, and Papa kept telling Mama it was gone, but Mandy pictured it coiled under the steps now, slumbering in the shade. Aware of every move she made. Waking up. Was that a rattling sound she heard beneath the step? She’d never much liked snakes, especially not rattlers. She tried not to move.
She should have told Adam to pull the wagon up back, but his forbidding silence had discouraged conversation. So she hadn’t said anything. She stood there until he got his rig sorted out and lifted her hand in farewell as he drove away, a grim look on his handsome face.
He didn’t wave back.
At least not at first.
Then his good manners must have won out, for he lifted his arm in a perfunctory salute of sorts, but didn’t look back.
Mandy sighed, got off the steps as silently as she could, and trudged listlessly around the side of the house.
She didn’t want to go inside.
She didn’t want to pretend to be interested in whatever Emma or Juliana had been doing all day.
She certainly didn’t want to talk to Mama.
So she went to check on the horses in the stable. She was still there when Darby got back from town. She helped him unhitch the carriage horses and turn them out. For some unknown reason, they seemed full of spice and sauce. They sped around the edge of the paddock, chasing each other and stirring up a few of the other horses.
Darby stood with his hands braced against the top rail of one of the paddock fences and watched the show.
“We saw a cougar.” Mandy joined him at the fence, looking out over the paddock as the horses kicked up dust, running wild like mustangs.
“What? Where?” Darby’s expression shifted from amusement to concern.
“On the way home. Me and Adam.”
“I didn’t see a cougar. I had to have been right behind you.”
Mandy shrugged. “Maybe it was gone by the time you drove by?”
“Maybe...” Darby said, but Mandy barely heard him.
Her vision blurred. She wasn’t seeing the paddock before her or the horses. She saw Adam standing in the wagon, so sure and confident. Obviously aware of the seriousness of the moment, but unafraid. Determined to protect his horses. Determined to protect her. Working with her, alongside her.
Almost like a married couple.
She’d always known she liked him. She’d always respected him, but today...she’d felt a change in herself. There was an even greater respect and a feeling that the two of them would get along quite well together, for many years to come.
If only things hadn’t gone so terribly wrong between them.
Mandy pressed her lips together and looked down at her hands.
“What happened?” Darby demanded.
“He was glorious,” she answered absently.
“The cougar?”
“What? No. Adam. You should have seen him with that gun...”
“Well, did he shoot it? Did he get it?” Darby asked, searching her face with some suspicion, as if she were holding something back. Perhaps concealing how dangerous the encounter had been.
“No, thank goodness,” Mandy said quickly. At his confused glance, she added. “She had a cub.”
He nodded. “At least you’re still in one piece.”
“Still in one piece,” she echoed, with empty cheer. She leaned her elbow on the top rail of the paddock fence and planted her chin in her cupped palm.
“Gus gave me a letter from Russell.” Darby was onto something in her expression, studying her.
“I should have thought of you first.” Mandy shook her head. She’d been twisted up inside since she sent her response to Adam’s ad. Otherwise, she would have thought to ask Darby to answer Russell’s letter to Ask Mack. She simply hadn’t made the connection.
“But I can’t answer Russell,” he protested. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You’ll think of something.”
“You’re awfully...unconcerned.” It obviously wasn’t the right word, because he was still examining her face. Probably trying to determine if Russell’s letter was what had her out of sorts. “You’re really going to let me answer a letter to Ask Mack?”
She shrugged and let the matter drop.
After a while, she let out a sigh.
“What?” Darby asked. His voice had an aha quality, like he was about to discover the source of all her problems. It would be funny if she didn’t feel so flattened.
“He said no,” she said quietly, looking out at the carriage horses. They were still putting on quite a show, kicking up dust.
“Who said no?” he asked.
“Oh, Adam Booker.”
“Ah.” Darby nodded, as if he understood. Then he frowned and looked over at her again, tipping the brim of his Stetson up to see her better. “He said no to what?”
“Well, he was looking for a mail-order bride—”
“A mail-order bride?” Darby blinked. They both backed off the fence, as Chamberlain—the other half of Columbus’s team—charged them. The cantankerous dappled gray bucked at the bottom rail—striking nothing but air, thankfully—then galloped off the other way. They choked on his dust, waving the air until it settled. The smell of dirt was powerful. It was all Mandy could think about for a second. She pinched her nose and squeezed her watering eyes tightly shut to clear out the bits of dust.
“I saw it on the back of one of my Ask Mack letters,” she said, finally. “He writes me, you know?”
“Banks?”
“That’s right. Does everyone know he’s Banks?”
He shrugged. “Probably. Who else could it be?”
Which was why Mandy didn’t have Gus print letters to and from Banks anymore. She’d made the right choice to stop answering Adam’s letters in the paper. So they’d become secret correspondents: he the confessor, and she the listening ear. If he found out... She gave an inward shudder. Things were already bad enough between them.
“Go on,” Darby urged.
“Well, there was an ad for a mail-order bride on the back of one of his letters. It was crossed out, like it was a practice copy. At the time, I thought he might’ve posted another.”
“And...?”
“Well, I didn’t much like the idea of him sending off for some strange woman.”
He grinned at her. “I bet you didn’t.”
“It’s not like that.”
“So you say.”
Mandy’s cheeks grew hot. “Anyway, I felt strongly that he needed a wife who knows ranching.”
“Uh-huh,” Darby said in a very irritating knowing manner.
“So I, rather foolishly, sent him a reply to his mail-order bride ad—”
“What!”
“That night I came down to your room, remember? And I had you post that letter?”
“Lord have mercy, Mandy.”
“It’s all I could think to do at the time,” she said defensively.
He stared at her, sort of dumbstruck-looking.
“Well, he got the letter,” Mandy said.
“Of course he got the letter,” Darby burst out. “You had me post it. I posted it. I even told the postmistress everything you told me to say—” He broke off, understanding dawning across his face. “Ohhh... So that’s why.”
“I needed a way to get his response back without putting down my return address. Or he would have known right off it was me. Or maybe he would have thought it was Emma or Juliana, which would have been worse...”
“You mean you didn’t sign it?”
“I didn’t want him to know it was me,” she explained and, even as she said it, it sounded like the most ridiculous explanation ever.
“But he would’ve found out it was you eventually...” Darby said, clearly befuddled.
“I know. I wasn’t thinking properly, I suppose. It made sense in the middle of the night. And then later I realized. But then it was too late.”
>
Why, why had she replied to that ad?
Of course Adam would’ve found out who she was.
She let out a miserable sounding groan.
“Oh, Mandy. What a mess you’ve made.” At least he said it with a sympathetic air.
“I know.” She folded her arms across her middle, wishing she could take it all back.
“So,” Darby said with a more purposeful tone, obviously trying to help her move forward with her story. “He got the letter and then what? Did he write back?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. He just got it today and went straight to Gus.”
“And you were there?”
“Yes. He came in while Gus and I were discussing Russell’s letter.”
Darby compressed his lips, but let the mention of Russell’s letter pass by without comment.
“I can’t see Booker mentioning any ad for a mail-order bride with you standing right there,” he said.
“He didn’t see me at first. My, was he mad.”
“Mad?” Darby removed his hat and sat it back on his head. That’s what he did when he was thinking.
“What?” she asked, interested in where his thoughts had landed.
“I’d say he never posted that ad.”
“That’s right,” Mandy said. “I felt so awful, Darby. I could see he was upset. And I felt he deserved to know the truth. So I asked him for a ride home—that part you know—and then I told him everything.”
“Whew.” Darby whistled under his breath. “So he knows you’re Ask Mack?”
“No, I couldn’t tell him that. That I—quite possibly—know some of his deepest secrets. He’d see that as a violation.”
Darby nodded, but he was still frowning, puzzling it out.
“I just told him I’d answered the ad.” She closed her eyes at the memory, so she missed whatever expression Darby was now wearing. She heard a strangled noise coming from his direction, so she suspected he’d muffled an exclamation. Either that or he was laughing at her. She chose to think he was reliving her pain right along with her.
“What did he say to that?” he asked, after he regained control of himself.
Only the Heart Knows Page 20
