Morning Light

by Catherine Anderson

  Clint nodded. “Agreed. Normally we have a good scrub every day. In fact, these mountains are peppered with hot springs, so sometimes you can do it in style. It’s just that we’re racing to make time on this trip.”

  “I know.” She drew up her knees, fussing with the sleeping bag to keep her lower body shielded from the night air. “It’s more the everyday aspects of life that I feel might be a problem. You’re a rancher. I’m from the city. I’m inclined to be very neat. Meticulous might be a better word. I love to decorate my house, too, and you might hate all the frills and folderol. I also love a little culture in my life, things unavailable in a town like Crystal Falls and especially on a ranch.” She gave him a sad look. “You like country-western music, and I’m into classical. I also love to see plays and an occasional ballet. Someday, when I can afford it, I’d like to travel a little, too. I want to tour Europe, and I absolutely must see Scotland someday. My family comes from there. My idea of a happy, contented life is far different from yours.”

  A contented glow warmed Clint’s chest. “So I’m not alone in thinking there could be—or maybe already is—something really special happening between us?”

  She gnawed on her lower lip. “No, you’re not alone. At first I just liked you.” She turned a troubled gaze on him. “Now I…” She shook her head. “We barely know each other. Thinking this way is crazy.”

  “If we were any other two people in the world, maybe so.” He reached to smooth a dark tendril of hair from her cheek. “But I’m your dream cowboy, remember? I think we were destined to meet. That’s why I’ve never found anyone else I want to be with. God wanted me to wait for you.”

  “Really?” A shimmer of tears made her eyes sparkle in the firelight. “You’ve never wanted to be with anyone else?”

  “Never. Not for the long haul, anyway. As for culture, I buy season tickets to the Portland Broadway plays and drive up there every few months. You ever see Hairspray?”

  Her expression brightened. “You’ve seen it?”

  “And loved it. Took in Peter Pan last summer, too. Samantha used to go with me. We always had a blast together, doing the big-city thing. Of course, Portland isn’t quite as large as Seattle, but you can still go to museums, enjoy fine dining, and have a little culture in your life. It’s only about three hours away.”

  “You actually drive to Portland to see plays?”

  “Yes, and now my traveling buddy just went and got married. You want to apply for the position?” He studied her sweet face, and in that moment he knew he was a goner. If he looked for a hundred years, he’d never again find anyone quite like Loni. “On the way up we can take turns listening to our music of choice. I’m not much for classical, but I don’t reckon my ears will rot and fall off from listening to it, just so long as John Michael Montgomery and George Strait get equal time with Leonardo da Vinci.”

  Her eyes rounded with horror. “Leonardo da Vinci was the famous Renaissance artist, not a composer.”

  Clint strove to keep his expression carefully blank. “He was?”

  She puffed air at her wildly curly bangs. “You are impossible. I thought for a moment—”

  “I am college educated, you know. I was just trying to make you laugh. You’re way too serious about all this. You haven’t mentioned anything yet that two mature adults who care about each other can’t work out.”

  “What about the ballet?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve never gone to a ballet, but I don’t guess watching a pretty lady prance around in a tutu would be so bad.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs. He grabbed his stomach. “What the hell was that for?”

  “My husband will not drool over ballerinas in tutus. So if you’d like to apply for the position, Mr. Harrigan, get that idea straight out of your head.”

  “I was only joking. I don’t really have a thing for tutus. French bikinis, maybe.”

  She nailed him in the ribs again, which made him laugh. “Maybe instead of watching the ballerinas, I’ll just tip my hat down over my eyes and take a nap. It might be safer that way.”

  She grinned and snuggled back on the saddle. “What about my love of decor? I constantly change things—repainting, buying new stuff, decorating for the seasons, moving the furniture. I’m afraid that would drive you nuts.”

  “Moving the furniture might pose a problem when I come home drunk, but I only do that every week or so.”

  This time she didn’t take the bait. “Would you please be serious?”

  “The truth?” Clint gave her a sidelong look. “I never really notice how rooms look. It might bother me if you painted every wall in the house bright purple, I guess. But mostly I don’t pay much attention. My idea of decorating is to hang up a new calendar the first of January.”

  “My point exactly. My idea of how a home should look may make you feel emasculated.”

  “It’d take a hell of a lot more than gewgaws and lace curtains to make me feel feminine, darlin’. Just so long as you leave my recliner and remote control alone, I won’t give a damn.”

  “And how about those boot pullers?”

  “Those have to stay.”

  “Are they ugly?”

  “Probably, but horseshit on the area rug is uglier. If we can negotiate a deal, here’s what I’ll do. There’s an ironsmith in town who’s handy with fine work. You pick out whatever you want to be on my bootjacks, and I’ll have him fancy them up for you. You can even have bows and roses on the damned things. I don’t care, just so long as they’re functional.”

  She giggled. “You romantic devil, you.”

  Clint had to struggle not to laugh with her. “What’re you wantin’ from me, diamonds?”

  “Well, not that we’ll ever get that far, mind you, but if we did, I would want an engagement ring, and since I’ve waited so long to get one, I’d want something phenomenal.”

  He pretended to consider the request. “I guess I could spring for a ring. That shouldn’t make too big a dent in the four million that I’ve got invested for retirement. I’m kind of worried about all the traveling, though, and keeping you in classical CDs. Might be I’ll have to put you on a budget.”

  She lay very still for a long moment. “Did you say four million?”

  “Did I stutter or something? My daddy is loaded. Maybe I forgot to mention that.”

  “You most assuredly did. Not that I care one way or another. I used to make a very nice income of my own and hope to again. But after telling you practically everything about myself, I would think you might have at least mentioned the fact that you’re rich.”

  “I’m not rich. I have a lot of expenses—the animals, the ranch buildings, payroll, maintaining the land. Nowadays four million barely earns enough interest for a generous monthly income after retirement. Not that I’ll ever totally retire. Ranching isn’t just a job to me; it’s a way of life, and I won’t be giving it up just because I get old. Can you handle that?”

  “Just so long as you can handle my still working as an interior decorator. That’s more than just a job to me, too.” She sent him another serious look. “Are we crazy to be talking like this?”

  “I don’t think we’re crazy. Seems to me we’re being smart. Checking out the lay of the land before we venture across it, so to speak. It’s good to know what you’re getting into before you take the leap.”

  She frowned slightly. “I don’t know that I’ll ever have the courage to take that leap, but it’s fun to think about.”

  “It doesn’t take courage to leap, darlin’. You just close your eyes, let go, and jump. It’s landing that can be a bitch. That’s why we’re being smart to talk about it before we reach the edge of the cliff.”

  She smiled. “That’s true, I suppose. If you never plan to retire, how will I ever visit Scotland?”

  “I’ve got a ranch crew. There’ll be nothing to stop me from taking vacations whenever I want. That’s one reason I’ve worked so hard to squirrel retirement money away. I’d like to travel,
too, only I’m hankering to visit Ireland, where all my people hail from.”

  “Aha! No wonder I suspected a few times that you’d been kissing the Blarney Stone.”

  “Innocent of the charge. I’ve never visited my grandparents’ homeland. I’m just gifted with Irish charm.”

  “And Irish stubbornness.”

  “Takes a Celt to know a Celt, I reckon. You’re a little stubborn yourself.” He grinned at her. “Not that I’m finding fault. I just have one question. I didn’t think the Roman Catholic Church had much of a foothold in Scotland.”

  “Yes, well, you think Leonardo da Vinci was a composer, so what can I expect?”

  “Seriously. How’d you come to be Catholic?”

  “I don’t actually know. Both sides of my family have been for generations. You’re actually correct in thinking that Catholics are a minority in Scotland. I think they comprised only about sixteen percent of the general population when the last census was taken.”

  “But wasn’t Catholicism outlawed there at some point in history?”

  “Yes,” she said with a twinkling grin. “That occurred after the Scottish Reformation, I think. But we Scots are stubborn. Some of us remained Catholic and worshiped in secret, and over the centuries, the political situation evolved to accept Catholicism again.”

  “I’m glad. I gave up on ever marrying a Catholic a long time ago. All I cared about was finding someone with a deep faith in God. But finding someone who shares my religion is a really nice plus.”

  “I agree. I won’t have to explain why I can’t eat meat on Friday during Lent and why I fast sometimes.”

  Clint nodded. Then, after taking a deep breath for courage, he said, “Speaking of which, there’s something I need to talk with you about.”

  “Well, I’m not planning to sleep tonight, so shoot.”

  “It’s not that big a thing, really. Just another small wrinkle to iron out.”

  “We’ve done pretty well ironing them out so far. What is it?”

  Clint got that weird, tight feeling in his chest again. But sooner or later she was going to start wondering why he hadn’t kissed her a second time, so he had no choice but to tell her.

  “I can’t have sex.”

  Chapter Ten

  Loni was certain she hadn’t heard Clint right. She’d felt his arousal last night when he kissed her, and she’d seen evidence of the same yesterday morning when they first awakened. How could he possibly be impotent?

  “I’m sorry?” She turned a questioning gaze on him. “Could you repeat that, please?”

  His normally burnished face had taken on a ruddier hue. “I can’t have sex,” he informed her huskily. “I gave it up.”

  She searched his dark eyes, which were usually alight with mischief. Not now. He appeared to be dead serious. “Lent ended on Easter.”

  “No, no, not for Lent. I mean I gave it up permanently.”

  “Permanently?” Loni had been waiting all her adult life to finally experience the joys of womanhood, and now the man of her dreams was telling her he’d given up sex? This couldn’t be happening. “Why on earth would you do that?”

  “Not permanently. Bad choice of words. Outside of wedlock, I mean. I promised myself I’d never again have sex unless I was married.”

  “Oh, I see.” Only she didn’t see at all. If he had indulged in sex previously, what had possessed him to turn over a new leaf right before he met her? She was thirty-one years old. She’d followed the rules her entire life. Was it so wrong for her to wish she could do something really, really bad for once? Something deliciously bad, of course—like making love under the stars with the man of her dreams. Literally, the man of her dreams. “What led you to reach that decision?”

  He rubbed a hand over his face and then blinked as if to bring the world back into proper focus. “I know it doesn’t sound very macho, but I reached a point where I didn’t like myself anymore, and I realized I had to straighten up my act. There were a lot of women over the years. Not dozens or anything.” He flashed her a meaningful look. “I don’t want you to think I was one of those guys who picked up a different woman every Friday night. But over the years, starting when I was a freshman in college, I’d occasionally meet someone I liked well enough to date for a while. I never set out to have sex with anyone. It always sort of…Well, you know how it goes. You’re only friends, and you don’t expect the relationship to go there, but somehow it does, and then you feel bad about it.”

  Loni didn’t know how that went, and she found the situation very frustrating, despite all of her moral convictions.

  “Anyway, that was the pattern. I’d meet someone, screw up, go to confession, and have every intention of never doing it again. Only I eventually would. Six months later, maybe a year. I wasn’t a monk, after all. I wasn’t married. Like any young person, I needed to go out and have fun, and when you hang out at honkytonks, people tend to pair off toward the end of the evening, even if they don’t arrive there with a date.”

  “What’s a honky-tonk?”

  “A bar with a dance floor, most times with a live country-western band. Anyway, a little over a year ago I met this gal. She was fun, and I enjoyed her company. Following my usual pattern I dated her for a while, content to have someone to go out with and not expecting anything more. She was divorced, had two teenage kids. She seemed okay with just being friends. She didn’t dress seductively or press me for anything more than a quick kiss good night. I honestly thought…Well, looking back on it, I should have known it would happen sooner or later. I’m a man. I have needs. Sometimes certain parts of my anatomy take over, and my common sense flies out the window.”

  “So you had sex with her.”

  “Yeah. She’d never seen a foal born, and I had two mares that were ready to drop. I invited her out to the ranch for supper, and then we went to the arena to attend a birth. I rarely bring women home, as in almost never, because my dad lives close, but with the foal coming, I made an exception.”

  “You can actually predict the time of a birth that closely?”

  “Not to the hour, no. But we can tell when a mare’s in labor. Anyway, it was a great evening. We had fun. And when we went back to the house to get her things so I could drive her home, she was suddenly all over me. Before I knew quite how it happened, it was over. She apologized; I apologized.” He raked a hand through his hair. “It’s a nasty feeling when you do something like that with someone and both of you regret it afterward. The sex was good. I mean—” He broke off and waved a hand. “When a man goes as long as I do between times, it’s always fairly good.”

  Loni drew her sleeping bag up around her chin. She really, really didn’t want to hear about his sexual exploits. It had been good? How was that supposed to make her feel? Jealous was how it made her feel. She wanted to poke him with her elbow again, only this time not in fun.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “I really thought we’d both agreed that a serious relationship wasn’t for us, that we’d return to the way things had been, just being friends. Only I soon realized that wasn’t her plan at all. All of a sudden she started buying me gifts. Expensive stuff. One time a belt buckle trimmed in real gold with my initials engraved on it, and then a money clip that must have cost the earth. I knew she couldn’t afford that kind of money with two kids to support. I also realized she was getting serious. I started getting nervous, really nervous, so I took her out to dinner one evening and told her we needed to end it, that I liked her a lot as a friend, but that I didn’t love her and would never love her.”

  “Oh, Clint.”

  “She seemed okay. I took her home. About three o’clock in the morning I got a call from her sixteen-year-old son. His mother had just been rushed to the hospital. She’d OD’d on sleeping pills.”

  “Oh, dear God.”

  “She didn’t die. What shook me to the core was that my callous treatment of another human being had made her want to take her own life. She had kids, for God’s sake. They neede
d her. I almost destroyed their world.”

  “She can’t have been emotionally stable, Clint.”

  “No. Come to find out she had a history of emotional problems—” Clint broke off and met Loni’s gaze. “But there I go again, making excuses. The bottom line is, you can never look into someone’s heart and know, really know, what she’s all about. In her mind she’d created a fantasy romance between us, and to her that was the reality, not my saying I counted her only as a friend. I should never have had sex with her. She was okay until then. It was only after that she started with the romantic cards and presents, only after that she developed the big emotional attachment.

  “They put her in the psych ward. She received the counseling she needed. And I went to Father Mike for the counseling I needed. You can’t live your life the way I was living mine. Looking back, how many other women have I hurt? Maybe they didn’t take sleeping pills, but they may have suffered in other ways. We have the Ten Commandments for a reason, and they are rules even an atheist should follow. If we don’t, we hurt people. There’s no way to get around it. Sexual intercourse is the most intimate act two people can engage in. Bonds are formed. You can lie to yourself and pretend differently because you feel okay, but you’re not around the next morning to see how she feels. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Loni did understand. “Is she okay now?”

  “She called once to tell me she was sorry. She was sorry. Damn, I felt like such a jerk. Come to find out her dad walked out when she was a teenager. She felt rejected and looked for affirmation with boys. Later with men. Her marriage was a repeat performance of her childhood. Her husband came home one evening and told her he didn’t love her anymore. She had been hurt over and over again, and my decision to stop seeing her pushed her over the edge. When she called, she assured me she was feeling better, still in counseling, and back on the right track. Asked if I’d like to do lunch. I could tell she still wasn’t over me, that she hoped there might still be a chance for us.”