“He—” Mandy paused. What had Adam said? Had she even given him a chance to respond? “To tell you the truth I’m not even precisely sure what I said. It’s all a bit of a muddle now. But I think I managed to salvage my dignity. What I did was—which was really rather clever, I think— Well, I proposed a solution to his ranch problems.”
“You did what?”
Mandy bristled at his shocked tone of voice. “I proposed a—a business proposition.” The words felt awkward on her tongue—like she was holding a handful of small creek stones in her mouth, rolling them around and trying to talk at the same time—but she soldiered on. “That I could help him find a new ranch manager, and help out with scheduling, ordering, and such. I’m really rather good at it. Not that I said it that way, precisely. Not in any vain way. Just that I could help him. I grew up on a ranch. I’m good with horses. I know the cattle business. And, of course, I let him know I needed to get married because Mama wants to send me off to Denver...” Mandy’s voice trailed off at the horrified expression on Darby’s face.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she demanded. “As if I’ve grown another head. It was a perfectly reasonable proposition, I assure you.”
If it was so perfectly reasonable, then why did her heart warm in her chest and then burn hot as coal? Why did she simultaneously feel like her fingers had frozen? Everywhere, it felt like she’d stepped through nettles, a prickly, prickly heat. It felt an awful lot like shame.
She pinched her lips together, distressed. Why did she feel ashamed? What had she done that was so wrong? If she looked at it with an unbiased eye, it seemed perfectly reasonable.
Admittedly, there might possibly have been something not “perfectly reasonable” about what she’d offered Adam—or the way in which she’d offered it—but perhaps her mind was frozen too, for she couldn’t think of it.
“I didn’t want him to think me too forward, so I tried to explain it the best way I could. Told him I wanted to stay in Cross Creek, that I want it more than anything. That’s why I let him know about Mama’s threatening to send me off to Denver. I told him all that, but he seemed almost offended...” Her voice trailed off again.
If only he’d said yes.
How lovely that would have been.
“Of course he was offended,” Darby said. He sounded almost angry, the way he did when he thought she was looking at things wrong.
Mandy stared at him, puzzled.
“A man wants to be wanted for himself—not as some—some escape plan.”
“But it’s not that way.”
“Does he know that?”
Mandy opened and closed her mouth. She bit the inside of her bottom lip, absently worrying the tender skin between her teeth.
“Did you at least tell him how you feel about him?” Darby asked.
“What?” she asked in some dismay. How could she possibly? He couldn’t be serious, surely. For a young lady to speak straight out to a man like that and reveal her deepest feelings to him... It simply wasn’t done.
“I’ve seen the way you look at Adam Booker,” Darby said. “I saw you at the dance with him and at the games. I saw you rope him. You roped him, Mandy. Did you at least tell the man that you want to marry him? That you want to marry him?”
“Darby,” Mandy complained, “how could I? How could I say something like that? It simply isn’t done.”
“Says who?”
“Says Mama.” That should have been clear to anyone, but especially to Darby who lived here in the same house with Mama. “Says everyone.”
“And that’s good enough for you? What other people say? What does your heart say, Mandy? What about ‘doing unto others as you’d have them do unto you?’ What about that?”
“That’s not the same thing at all.”
“Oh, isn’t it? Think about it. How would you have felt if Adam had asked you to marry him—if he’d said it the way you said it to him? If he hadn’t told you he wanted to marry you—you, Mandy—only that he, say, knew you stood to inherit money from your papa? What if he’d made it sound as if he was using you to get to your family’s money?”
Adam had intimated something to that effect. That she was using him.
She’d made him feel that way.
A faint icy touch slipped up Mandy’s spine and on up into her hairline. She shivered.
The way Darby said it—forcing her to put herself in Adam’s place—her little plan did sound cold. And insulting.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” she mumbled.
“But that’s how he took it, isn’t it? He said no. That’s what you said. All because of a few words you didn’t say.”
“Oh, Lord Almighty,” Mandy whispered under her breath, a very real little prayer for mercy. “I did offend him.”
“Yes, you did,” Darby agreed. Some of the coiled up tension seemed to release in him. Seeing that the horses had finally settled and were simply standing at a distance, panting from their exertions, he eased himself up on the rail of the paddock fence. He sat there with his long legs dangling.
“You really did want to marry him, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Yes,” Mandy admitted softly. Her awful dream whispered through her like a haunting—seeing that woman with Adam, even if it hadn’t been real. “It would have nearly killed me to see him marry someone else.”
“Because you love him.”
“Please don’t make me say it out loud.”
“You don’t have to, Mack.” Darby smiled gently, as if it were obvious. And it probably was.
She sighed.
“So,” he prompted, “what are you going to do about it?”
“Do about it? Isn’t it a little too late to do anything?”
Mandy looked out over her family’s ranch, over the soothing yellow-green hills of grass. Over the deep patches of blue where the Columbines grew. She saw the ranch house, the outbuildings, the horses... Everyone and everything she loved was here. But...
But she couldn’t help feeling suddenly lost, as if she’d come home to find everyone gone. And yet the ranch—laid out before her like a landscape painting—was bustling with people, familiar faces, family. There was just no Adam.
She curled her fist against her chest. The air was cooler now. The seasons were about to change, that cool gasp of fall coming. Change.
Mama was going to make her leave home soon.
And now Mandy knew the truth, home wasn’t even home anymore without Adam.
“Too late?” Darby echoed as he bent to pluck a long stalk of grass—one of those bright green, waist-high ones growing beside the fence post—and stuck the end between his teeth. He chewed thoughtfully on it and shook his head at her.
Mandy plucked a stalk of grass too and tore it apart in her fingers. She shred strip after strip and threw them to the ground at her feet.
“I’m going to have to apologize, aren’t I?” she asked, coming to the last of her poor stalk of grass and throwing that too to the ground.
“That’s a start.”
“Oh, Darby, I can’t. How can I?” she asked. A band tightened around her chest. It tightened even more, until the pressure drew down to the tiniest pinprick.
He waited.
“I’m going to have to.” Mandy climbed up beside him—a considerable feat in her skirt and corset—and leaned her forehead against Darby’s arm. He patted the top of her head in a comforting manner, like an older brother might, even though he was a year younger than she was. She decided to tolerate it. It was actually rather nice of him.
“You can do it,” he said cheerfully, nudging her with a sideways lean in her direction.
“Simple to say, harder to do,” she grumbled.
But, as she squeezed her eyes shut and felt the comforting support of his shoulder, she could see Adam’s stricken expression in her mind, just as clearly as if he were standing before her right now. She had deeply offended him. And she hadn’t told him everything.
She hadn’t to
ld him how she felt about him. She hadn’t expressed her deep regard for him.
Her regard. That was a laugh. Darby was right. She loved Adam. But had she even hinted at her feelings for him? No.
Mandy moaned silently.
She hadn’t even told the man she loved that she knew him. Or rather, how she knew him so well. How much was she willing to tell him?
Was she willing to tell him everything?
Everything everything?
As in everything about Ask Mack and Banks?
If she wanted Adam Booker—wanted any kind of a chance for a future with him—she had to go to him and talk to him. Face to face. No letters. That would be a coward’s way out.
Wouldn’t it?
But sometimes the coward’s way was better than doing nothing at all...
Right?
Mandy thought back to their encounter with the cougar, how they’d worked so well together. How she felt they would make a good couple. If given the chance.
Before she truly knew what she was doing, she hopped down from the fence and strode away—as fast as she could in her boots with the going-to-town heels on them—intent on reaching her room and her little writing desk, before she could change her mind.
“Hey, where are you going?” Darby called out behind her.
“I’ve got some writing to do.”
“Writing,” he mumbled, still perched on the fence and evidently in no hurry to get back to work.
Chapter 25
Hours after he returned home, Adam stood with his hands clutched around the white porcelain washbasin in the bathroom off his room, the one that had once been his uncle’s. He splashed his face again and again, unable to still his churning thoughts. In his mind, he was back in the newspaper office again, crouched next to Mandy, collecting papers off the floor. Listening to her whisper to him. He was riding home with her in his wagon. He saw the big cat, felt his blood grow cold all over again. He felt the rifle in his hands, felt his need to protect the woman with him at any cost. Felt a sure confidence in her as they’d worked together as a team.
Mostly, he heard her cool proposition playing again and again in his mind, like a skipping phonograph record: I need to get married.
Need to get married.
Need to. Need to. Need to.
All right, so she needed to find a husband in Cross Creek. He could at least try to swallow that. But why answer his ad the way she had? Why make him think she was from back east? It made no sense. She could have simply asked him.
As unappealing as a marriage of convenience sounded.
With Mandy.
It was one thing to think about entering such an arrangement with a stranger—an idea he’d already discarded—but with Mandy? The woman he wanted so much more from? No.
It was fruitless going over it this way. He had to find a way to move past this.
He grabbed the towel hanging from the wooden dowel on the side of the washstand and dried his face, staring at his reflection in the oval glass as he did so. He looked preoccupied. Still.
Mandy had only answered his ad because she wanted to leave home—or rather she didn’t want to leave Cross Creek and move to Denver. She’d sounded desperate, willing to try anything.
Willing to settle for less than whatever her own dreams had been.
Willing to settle on an ad for a mail-order bride. A woman like her. Who could have any man she wished.
Willing to settle for him, Adam Booker, a banker who couldn’t ranch.
Was he willing to settle? Was he willing to settle for a woman who didn’t love him heart and soul? Who didn’t want him for him, but for what he could offer—a way out of an unpleasant situation? Though that stung his pride, it didn’t lessen the way he felt for her. He loved her.
No other girl would do.
He could never send off for some mail-order bride now. He wanted her, Mandy. He remembered their dance, the games they’d played. The three-legged race. The Blind Man’s Bluff. How she roped him. They’d had such fun. They’d gotten along, which was worth a lot. Perhaps in time she could learn to love him too. He’d like to think they were friends.
There was the slight issue that he wanted to kiss and hold her and maybe she didn’t want that. But at least she hadn’t flinched away from him when they’d danced. They’d been so close, and she hadn’t pulled away in the least.
There was also that moment when time had stood still in the newspaper office. She’d dropped her papers, and he’d helped her pick them up. There’d been an instant there when he’d felt a definite spark of attraction flare between them. He had. There had been something. On her side too, not just his. He’d had the impression she felt something for him. Why would she hide it later? A pretty girl like her. Surely, she wasn’t shy. Was she?
Could that be why she always looked away from him?
The tight band around his chest loosened a little. Maybe it was. Had he been blind all this time? There was only one way to find out. He had to go to her. He’d have to ask her flat out: could she love him someday?
Immediately, the band clenched around his heart again, but he ignored it. He’d kept going with his ranch even when things had gotten hard. Even now. It was still hard most days. But it was worth it. He’d felt it at first, and he felt it now. The ranch was worth his best effort. This was what he was meant to do. It felt right, and good. And, well, he couldn’t imagine going back to Denver. He just couldn’t. This was home now.
Mandy was worth his best effort too—wasn’t she?
That was one of those questions in life that answered itself.
In a blink, he was swept back to the moment at the pool when he’d faced the Indian boy. As if he was still standing in the water with his arms held out at his sides. Feeling as if his life was held in the balance. After it was plain there was no immediate threat, something almost spiritual had taken hold of him. A realization that he had only one life to live.
And he wanted to make the most of it.
Was he willing to make the most of it now?
Adam practically fell down the stairs to the first floor, he was so determined to put his plan into action immediately.
“What’s the hurry? Fire?” Cookee asked from the kitchen. Adam could see him silhouetted beyond the kitchen doorway, with the light of the window behind him. The older man didn’t even look up from his soup pot—he kept stirring.
Cookee was unflappable, Adam decided.
There was something affirming about that. Cookee was going to stick by his side it seemed, no matter what. Old Pete or no. Fire or no fire. It didn’t matter. This was his home too.
“Nope, no fire.”
“Good to know,” Cookee said, still not looking up.
“Can I ask you something, Cookee?” Adam hesitated.
“Something wrong?” He glanced over his shoulder.
“Not precisely wrong...” Adam leaned against the kitchen door jam. “It’s about a woman.”
“You don’t need no woman.”
“I don’t?”
“Nope. Your uncle done fine without one.”
“But if I wanted one?”
Cookee stirred, a thoughtful air about him. “Got one in mind?”
“Um-hmmm,” Adam murmured noncommittally.
Cookee looked at him shrewdly, not fooled, evidently, by the casual way Adam was leaning against the doorframe with his hands tucked in his pockets. “Does she return your favor?”
“I’m not sure. That’s the problem.”
“Well, you won’t know till you ask, will you?” He made it sound a little too easy, not at all like Adam had to put his heart out in the open to be squashed.
“Just ask her?”
“It’s worth a try, I suppose. You know, give it your best effort.”
His best effort.
There was that same sentiment again. Was that some sort of sign?
“And what happens if I don’t succeed?” The question felt heavy, the one question that had been weighing
Adam down since he moved to Cross Creek. It encompassed everything: winning Mandy MacKenna’s “favor,” as Cookee put it, and making a success of the ranch.
“What if it all falls apart?” Adam added. “What then?”
The corners of Cookee’s mouth drew down, and he rubbed his stubbly jaw against his sleeve. Adam had the distinct feeling the cook knew the question was about more than a woman. It was about life and everything.
“You take your next breath. And then another.” Cookee turned back to the stove again. “You worry too much.”
“So I shouldn’t worry?” Could worry be turned off like a pump spigot? Adam knew he was supposed to pray. And he did, but even then there was a part of his heart he sort of kept to himself, a single ounce of control he fought to keep over his life.
“Does it help at all—worrying?” Cookee asked.
“No—oo,” Adam admitted slowly.
“Well then.”
Just let it go. Trust God that no matter what happened, it happened for a reason. Something like that. Surrender.
It felt a whole lot like jumping off a cliff.
“Well, go on,” Cookee prodded.
“Now?” Adam asked, his urgency having cooled from just moments ago.
“Any reason to wait?”
“I suppose not.” Adam grimaced. He backed up into the foyer and slowly turned around. What would it be like to bring Mandy here? It was a big house. Too big for just him and Cookee. He didn’t want to live the way his uncle had, with unfulfilled dreams. He looked over at the entrance to the “family” dining room.
Empty.
He didn’t want it empty. It looked wrong that way. There should be a family here—his family. He wanted a wife. And he wanted that wife to be Mandy. Someday, he wanted children too, running through these rooms—breaking things and making messes out of all Cookee’s orderly perfection.
That table with four chairs...it needed at least four people around it.
For now though, he’d settle for two.
More than settle. But it all depended on what Mandy said.
Could she love him too?
Everything hinged on that.
And whether he was willing to jump.
Only the Heart Knows Page 21
