Lord of the High Lonesome

by Janet Dailey

  She caught at the door to keep him from closing it. Reese finally looked at her, one foot resting inside the car, his face closed, revealing nothing.

  “Without even saying goodbye?”

  “I thought we’d said our goodbyes,” he answered coldly.

  “I —” What could she say? He was so aloof, so cool. Kit shuddered and looked away.

  “How does it feel, Kit?” he taunted.

  “What?” Her voice was small, no more than a thread of a sound. There were tears at the back of her eyes, stinging and smarting.

  “You won. I’m leaving and you’re staying,” Reese elaborated. “How does it feel to get what you want?”

  “I — don’t know.” She stared at him, searching those impenetrable male features.

  “It is what you wanted, isn’t it?” A brow arched, arrogant and mocking.

  “Yes,” Kit breathed in agreement, but the past tense was the operative thing. It was what she had wanted. Only now … She had never believed he would leave.

  His mouth curved in an unfriendly smile. “I hope you enjoy your victory celebration.” He started again to climb into the car, tossing an idly cutting, “Have a drink for me.”

  “Why?” Kit forestalled him again.

  “Why what?” That bland yet piercing gaze was on her again.

  “Why are you leaving?”

  “Because of you.” There was a cynical, almost bitter twist of his mouth. “To borrow a cliché from an old Western movie — this place isn’t big enough for both of us.”

  “And you’re leaving,” Kit repeated what she found so difficult to accept.

  “It has to be me,” Reese informed her. “You couldn’t survive anywhere else. There wouldn’t be any place you could hide.”

  Kit flinched at his words, as he had meant her to. “You don’t have to go.”

  “Don’t I?” He laughed. “It doesn’t matter. I want to go.”

  “You do?” That hurt more than anything he could have said. If she had felt she had driven him away it would have been easier somehow. But to have him want to leave … Kit found that painful.

  “I’ve discovered that I prefer women who wear dresses once in a while instead of running around all the time in men’s clothes. When I hold another woman in my arms, her skin will smell of perfume instead of horse sweat, manure and hay. Her hair will be styled in the latest fashion and not jammed under some dirty hat. She won’t have a chip on her shoulder, running around daring everyone to knock it off, and she won’t swear like a cowboy.”

  Each sentence sliced across her like the biting lash of it bullwhip, cutting to the bone. Kit felt driven to the ground. She was surprised to discover she was still standing upright without a mark on her.

  Reese wasn’t finished. “She won’t be afraid to be a woman. She won’t be afraid to be human.”

  Kit let go of the door and stepped away. Every centimeter of her body felt pain, so intense that it numbed her. Her face felt frozen as she looked at him.

  “Goodbye.”

  He gripped the door for a taut second, then slipped behind the wheel and slammed it shut. The motor roared to life and the tires spun once before acquiring traction. Kit watched him drive out of the yard until the dust settled.

  | Go to Table of Contents |

  Chapter Nine

  DAZED BY AN EVENT she was not prepared for, Kit walked blindly to her house. As if a robot programmed to perform a certain routine, she walked into the kitchen, strained the milk from the pail into a pitcher and set it in the refrigerator. She rinsed out the pail and set it on the porch. When she turned, her grandfather was standing in the living room archway, staring at her stricken expression.

  “Reese has gone,” she said.

  “I know,” he nodded quietly.

  “He isn’t coming back,” Kit added.

  “I know.”

  “How? When?” The numbness was beginning to wear off and a million needle-sharp pains began stabbing her. It wasn’t right that Nate had known and not told her,

  “He came over this morning and told me,” Nate explained.

  “He wasn’t going to tell me,” Kit murmured with a faint sob in her voice. “He was just going to leave. If I hadn’t seen him —” The lump in her throat choked off the rest of the sentence.

  “It took me by surprise, too, Kitty.” He seemed to be attempting to console her.

  “Did he —” Kit hardly dared to hope “— did he ask you to tell me anything?” Perhaps he hadn’t planned to leave without giving her a message of some sort. Although why she thought so after his barrage of barbed insults, Kit didn’t know.

  “He —” Nate hesitated, then shook his head sadly. “He didn’t mention you at all.”

  “Oh.” The world was beginning to shatter. If Reese could see her now he wouldn’t find any chip on her shoulder.

  “You didn’t want him to go, did you, child?” he asked gently.

  “No.” Huge and round, her eyes were brimming with tears, large brown pools of misery. “He was right about me, Nate. He said I was afraid to care. He said I kept running from people, shutting them out because I was afraid to have them close in case they hurt me. And it’s true, Nate” she sobbed and tried to smile. “I’m afraid of being a woman. I’m afraid of having feelings that any normal human being has.”

  “Oh, Kit, Kit.” His sad voice seemed to take on some of her pain, He moved toward her and she crossed the space to wrap her arms around him and bury her face in his shirt, the tears spilling over her lashes.

  “Do you know —” Kit laughed bitterly through her tears “— I don’t think I’ve ever told you that I love you, grandpa.”

  “You didn’t have to,” he assured her. “I’ve always known it.”

  “I should have said it.”

  “There, there, child.” He patted her head and rocked her gently in his arms.

  “I love him, grandpa.” She told him what in her heart she had longed to tell him. Now that Reese had unlocked her shell and thrown away the key, all her troubled thoughts and feelings came pouring out.

  “I’ve known that, too,” Nate murmured.

  “What Reese told you is true, grandpa.” Unconsciously she wasn’t even using his given name any longer. “Nothing happened. He kissed me, but he never made love to me.”

  “I believe you.”

  “He wanted to, but I kept running away. I wish I hadn’t now.” She tipped her tear-drenched face back to look up at his lined features. “Isn’t the awful? I wish he had made love to me. I wish I was going to have his baby. Then I would have something of him to love now that he’s gone. I want it so much it hurts.”

  A sharp pain flashed across his face and he trembled. “You sound just like your mother, Kitty. That’s almost exactly what Sara said to me.”

  “She … she wanted to have me?” Kit wiped the dampness from her cheek with the back of her hand, sniffling a bit as she tried to find control.

  “Oh, gracious, yes, child.” Nate smiled. This time there was a shimmer of tears in his eyes. “Whatever made you think that she didn’t?”

  “I … don’t know. I thought maybe she resented me because I was there to remind her of what had happened,” Kit explained hesitantly. “She certainly couldn’t forget it with me around.”

  “Sara loved you. She loved you even before you were born. And afterwards —” his smile broadened “— she wouldn’t let you out of her sight. Always holding you and talking to you and watching you sleep. She spent practically every minute with you just as if —” his voice faded slightly “— just as if she knew she wouldn’t have much time with you.”

  “What happened? You and grandma told me that she died of pneumonia, but I always wondered … Was that it?” she asked, then saw how sad he looked and added, “Do you mind talking about it?”

  “No.” He stroked her hair, brushing it away where it tried to cling to her damp cheek. “We probably should have done it before. But Martha and me, we told you when you were
a child what we felt you should know then. We thought when you grew up, if you had any more questions, you would ask. When you didn’t, we thought it best to leave it alone.”

  “I’d like to know about — momma.”

  “She did die of pneumonia. That was true,” he began. “Sara never did recover like she should have after having you. When she got sick, well, she just never had the strength to fight it off.”

  “And I thought that she didn’t want to live,” Kit murmured to herself, “that she was too ashamed.”

  “No, she wanted to see you grow into a beautiful woman. She wanted to live, all right, but it just wasn’t to be. I know she didn’t want to leave you.”

  “If she saw me now I have the feeling she would be disappointed,” Kit sighed.

  “I don’t think so. You’ve had more of a burden to carry than most. I think she’d understand if you took the wrong path for a while. She wasn’t perfect, either.”

  “My father — the baron — did she hate him after the way he had treated her? Or did she still love him?” she questioned.

  “Sara loved him. She fell in love with him the first minute she laid eyes on him. She found out almost at the beginning that he was married, but she never told Martha and me. That didn’t stop her. She knew she could never marry him. The baron’s wife was an invalid, I guess, and divorce was unheard of in his family anyway.” He paused. “Later Sara told us that she decided if she couldn’t have the baron, she’d have his child. She wanted something of him she could love when he was gone.” Nate pressed a kiss to Kit’s forehead. “Do you see what I meant earlier? You said almost exactly the same thing.”

  But Kit was thinking how right Reese had been about her mother. There had been nothing naive or stupid or weak about what she had done. Her eyes had been open, perhaps with just a touch of romantic haze, though.

  “And the baron? Did he love my mother?” She had learned so much that she couldn’t help wondering if there was more.

  “He told Sara he loved her, but I can’t say whether he actually meant it or whether he said it just to have his way with her. Although sometimes I’ve wondered whether your mother would have cared or not if he did.”

  Kit rested her head against his shoulder. “Maybe he did,” she murmured. “Maybe he cared a little.” For the first time in her life she was willing to give the baron the benefit of the doubt.

  “Maybe.”

  Liquid pain shot through her veins. “What am I going to do, grandpa? Reese said he wasn’t coming back.”

  “I know, child. I know,” Nate comforted.

  “Did he mean it? Won’t I ever see him again?” Kit whispered, terrified by the thought and all its wretched implications.

  “I don’t know.” She felt the shake of his head, then heard his sigh. “I’m sorry, Kitty, but he doesn’t strike me as the type to say something he doesn’t mean.”

  And Reese had said he was leaving for good. Kit began crying for her blindness, her stupidity, her cowardice, for the loss of something she hadn’t known she’d found until it was gone. The years behind that shell had dammed up a lake of tears. They were all released in one giant emotional purging.

  Her grandfather held her closely in his arms with loving unconcern for the drenching of his shirt. Eventually there were no tears left and Kit’s sobs were reduced to dry, hiccuping sounds.

  “Dry your eyes, child,” Nate insisted, pressing his handkerchief into her hand. “I know you want to go on crying forever, but you can’t.” He loosened his hold and let an arm curve around her shoulders. “Come over here and sit down. I’ll pour you a cup of coffee. How’s that sound?”

  Kit nodded an acceptance, blowing her nose and wiping the briny taste from her lips while he guided her to a kitchen chair, but she really didn’t care about the coffee. She didn’t care about anything.

  Nate Bonner, in his wisdom, sensed that. He set the coffee before her and took another chair from the table, drawing it alongside of Kit. “You think life isn’t worth going on without him, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she sniffed, winding her shaking hands around the hot coffee.

  “You’ll find a reason,” he promised. “At first, you might only get up in the mornings to milk the cow. Later it might be to see the fall roundup through. In time there’ll be a reason.”

  Kit shook her head, not believing, it was possible to be true, not the way she felt, despite the conviction in his voice. “I don’t —” she started to deny it, then it hit her. “You know, don’t you? You must have felt worse than this when grandma died.” He’d had all those years of loving his wife and Kit had known love only such a short time.

  “When Martha left, all my reason for going on went with her,” Nate admitted. “At least that’s what I thought. But I was wrong. You needed me yet. Nothing happens without a purpose, Kitty. I believe that.”

  But where was hers? “I hope you’re right, grandpa,” she murmured, staring into the black liquid in the mug and wishing she could drown in it.

  “Drink up, child,” he urged, and Kit obediently lifted the mug to her mouth.

  IN THE BEGINNING it was as her grandfather had predicted. Life didn’t seem worth living without Reese. When Kit would wake in the mornings the ponderous weight of her heartache would come crushing down on her. Her only desire was to roll over and curl into a tight ball of misery, but she would hear the milk cow bellowing up by the barn and drag herself out of bed.

  There was no bitterness, only pain that racked her body and her heart. Minute by minute Kit got through each day. Half the time she didn’t know what she was doing. She went through the motions of living, initially for her grandfather’s sake and later because it was the thing to do.

  The worst times were when she sent in the monthly reports and accounts to the office of the attorney whose address Reese had given them after his inheritance, before she had ever met him. Kit wondered if Reese ever saw them. What checks that came were from the ranch account with some stranger’s signature affixed to them.

  July rolled into August. August became September and Kit’s spirit began to heal. Subconsciously a purpose entered her life. Reese’s parting words sparked a series of concessions by Kit to her sex. The hardness, the toughness, he had taken with him when he left. There was no mask on her features to hide her feelings.

  The men’s shirts were abandoned. Those that were still in good condition Kit gave to charity. The rest were thrown in the rag bag. New blouses were purchased, darted and tailored to accent the roundness of her breasts and the slender curve of her waist. Worn and patched men’s Levi’s suffered the same fate as the men’s shirts. A streak of practicality kept Kit from throwing all of them out, but she supplemented her supply of denims with ones that snuggly fitted her rounded figure instead of bagging at the seat.

  Her stained, brown Stetson hat was burned and a new one was bought. It was a cream white straw cowboy hat with a shallower crown. There was no room inside it to pile her long hair. When she rode now, her chestnut gold hair either swung about her shoulders or was caught by a barrette at the nape of her neck.

  There were two new dresses hanging, in her closet, the old, outdated ones from her school days taking the charity route. There was a bottle of perfume on her dresser, and eye shadow, mascara and lipstick.

  Always there was the silent strength flowing from her grandfather to Kit. Eventually she wanted to show her appreciation for his unwavering support and understanding. Kit began to take more interest in the housework.

  Her grandmother had been meticulous about her home, always wanting it to look its best. Previously Kit’s version had been a lick and a promise and she thought her grandfather might be missing the pride his wife had taken. Kit discovered that cooking and cleaning weren’t quite the drudgery she had thought. There was a challenging aspect to it that she needed, although she still enjoyed actual ranch work more.

  Along with everything else, Kit began going into town more often. Without that cold, hardened reserve o
f aloofness, more people greeted her on the street. Kit even began to speak first to familiar faces of neighbors and acquaintances. They remarked among themselves about her new friendliness, commented on how attractive she seemed and speculated about the haunting sadness that lurked in her eyes. Those who knew about Reese and his sudden departure and had heard the rumors about the possible affair between them drew their own conclusions.

  Kit no longer bristled when she received sympathetic looks. She was amazed by the fact that others might care how she felt. She accepted their sympathy without comment, but kept the privacy of her loss to herself.

  She never stopped missing Reese, or regretting, or wanting him. Every hour of every day, Kit ached for him. At times it was just a dull ache. Others, it was a sharp, searing pain that stabbed at her heart like a hot knife. She didn’t expect it would change for a very long time, if ever, but Kit accepted that. As much as anyone can be, Kit was reconciled to her life.

  Bacon sizzled in the skillet, brown and crisp. Kit scooped it out and spread it across a plate covered with a paper towel to drain. She turned as her grandfather entered the kitchen, and smiled.

  “Good morning.”

  “Morning.” He looked tired and his thatch of white hair was still touseled from sleep. “It’s a bit nippy out this morning.”

  “Downright chilly.” Kit broke two eggs in the skillet of hot bacon fat.

  Outside there was a honking sound and Nate Bonner peered out a slightly steamed-over window to see the V-formation of a flock of migrating geese winging their way south.

  “Winter’s coming for sure,” he sighed. “I guess I’d better get the Big House shuttered and all checked out for winter while the decent weather is still holding.”

  There was a sharp stab in her midsection and Kit said, “Yes, you’d probably better.” She flipped the eggs over with a spatula.

  “Are you going out with the boys this morning?” Nate inquired, tactfully changing the subject.

  “Yes. We should get the last of the cows up to the winter pasture today.” Kit slid his fried eggs onto a plate, setting it and the platter of bacon on the table in front of him. She turned back to the stove to crack an egg in the skillet for herself.