Iris had let her temper betray her into saying something she didn't mean. Now Monty was angry. Very angry.
"All I want you do to is help Carlos learn about cows," Iris said as they halted in the shade of the oak. "It might not take much work."
"It will."
"Well I'll make a trade with you," Iris snapped, her temper glowing just as hot as Monty's. "I'll take care of Mrs. Crane. You can use the extra time to teach Carlos."
Monty's gaze narrowed. "Is this about Carlos or about Betty?"
"Carlos. But you wouldn't have to worry about Mrs. Crane anyway. Just about every man on the crew is falling over himself to take care of her."
"You're jealous," Monty said, the light of unholy glee in his eyes. "You've got more wealth and beauty than that poor woman will ever have, yet you're jealous of her."
Iris dismounted and looked at Monty across the saddle. "I gave a great deal more than wealth and beauty, but it certainly doesn't seem to have much of an impact."
"What do you mean by that?" Monty demanded. He dismounted between the two horses.
Iris hadn't meant to say anything, but her hurt and anger had been festering for days. She tried to hold it back, but she couldn't.
"I mean that ever since that night in the Comanche camp, you have done just about everything you could outside of abandoning the herd and going back to Texas to avoid spending so much as five minutes with me. If I'd known it was going to upset you so much, I'd have asked to sleep in the chief's tepee."
"I should have slept outside."
"Well you didn't."
"No."
"And?"
"And what?"
"That's what I was going to ask you."
"I warned you I couldn't stay in that tent and calmly go to sleep, not with you only a few feet away."
"But you can walk into camp with me only a few feet away and not even notice I'm there."
"I told you I couldn't make any promises."
"I'm not asking you to make promises." She had prayed he would, but she was realistic enough to know it wasn't likely now. "I just want us to be like we were before. I enjoyed eating dinner with you, talking to you about the day's work. I like you, Monty. I enjoyed being with you."
That was such a perversion of the truth as to make it practically a lie, but it was as close as she could come without telling him she loved him. She couldn't admit that just yet, not when he seemed to have no feeling for her beyond an uncontrollable physical appetite.
"That night was a mistake," Monty said, his voice tight, his glaze sliding past hers.
Iris didn't think anybody had ever said anything that hurt her so much. After giving Monty a part of herself she could never give anyone else, he was rejecting her. Iris felt a terrible constriction in her chest, like her heart was being crushed and she couldn't breathe.
Nothing had ever affected her like this. A year ago she might have been surprised and hurt at his rejection, but she would have been far too angry to feel the pain. She would have been determined to show him how utterly indifferent she was to him. Rather than sit about thinking of ways to get him back, she would have worked out at least a dozen schemes to make him regret what he'd done.
Instead she'd spent hours, days, thinking of what she had done wrong, wondering how she might have done things differently, wondering if she could find a way to rekindle his interest in her.
Well she wouldn't beg. Her pride and self-respect were in tatters, but she had some small portion left. Still she couldn't prevent the tears from welling in her eyes, nor the teardrops from running down her face.
She looked away. "I didn't realize my presence had become objectionable. I didn't mean . . . but it's too late now. What's done is done. I'll move back to my camp. But I would appreciate it if you'd let Carlos--"
Monty dropped the reins and came around her horse. He took Iris by the shoulders and spun her around to face him. Iris didn't possess the strength to stop him, but she lowered her face so he wouldn't see her tears.
"It was a mistake to think I could spend a night in your arms and not want to do it again and again," Monty said. "I was a fool to think the memory wouldn't torture me every hour of the day."
Iris couldn't find the will to resist when Monty kissed her. She knew she should. She was only torturing herself by giving in to the need to be in his arms once more, to feel the heat of his desire warm her all the way to her soul. She told herself there was no comfort in his arms, that his strength was an illusion. But her perfidious heart overruled her mind, and she melted into his embrace.
Being in Monty's arms seemed to recreate the magic of the evening in the tepee. Once again Iris experienced the bliss of knowing Monty desired her, of sensing his longing for her in every fiber of her being. Once again she recalled the happiness she felt when she believed his love was for more than a night. Once again she remembered in vivid detail what it meant to be loved by a man like Monty.
Iris felt her willpower eroding quickly. If she didn't back away now, she never would. She would lose all power to think for herself.
Marshaling her dwindling resources, she pulled out of Monty's embrace. "You don't seem tortured to me," she said, turning her face to one side. "You haven't laughed as much in the last two months as you have this week."
Monty tried to take her in his arms once more, but she moved away.
"You are jealous of Betty," he said.
"No," Iris said, turning her head away to keep from having to look at him. "I'm just hurt that you seem to enjoy her company so much more than mine."
She couldn't tell him it hurt to see him treat her with a kind of deference, kindness, and thoughtfulness he had never shown to her. With Betty's situation being so much worse than her own, it sounded selfish and petty.
"I told you I couldn't make any promises."
"And I told you I'm not asking for any."
"Then what are you asking for?"
For him to love her as much as she loved him. For him to want to spend every minute of every day with her, for him to think her the most precious human being in the history of the world. But he had already told her that was impossible. So what was left? Her dignity. It was a poor substitute, but it was all she had left. Iris forced herself to look Monty in the eye.
"I want you to treat me like you do Betty."
"I don't understand."
"Every day I get up at dawn, eat my breakfast squatting on the ground, then spend the day in a saddle riding herd, chasing runaways, helping the herd ford one river or stream after another. Every night I drag into camp too tired to care whether I eat anything at all. I even take an occasional turn on night watch, but I still feel like a burden. Betty walks into camp and in five minutes there's not a man on two legs what wouldn't break his back to look after her. Why?"
Monty looked uncomfortable. "You're different."
"I know. I'm rich and beautiful, remember, and she's poor and alone. But everybody treats me like it's the other way around."
"Men don't know what to do with a woman like you. Not ordinary men," Monty said, looking like he didn't know quite what to say. "You've got too much of everything. It scares them off. They understand Betty. She's one of them."
Iris didn't know if she was crazy or if Monty was. She'd never heard such a silly excuse in her life. "Don't you mean us?"
"No, I don't. I stayed away from you because I needed to think, and I can't do it when I'm around you. I never could. Not even when you were a freckled-faced sprite who dogged my heels like some mongrels pup."
"I never did," Iris said, suddenly feeling a warm flush all over
"You were the talk of the county." He smiled. Not his wide, flashing grins, just a lopsided, reluctant, half-hearted, almost shy grin. Iris found it totally endearing.
"Did you figure anything out?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"What?"
"We're no good for each other."
A cold chill flushed away the warmth of his smile.
"Do you mind explaining that?"
"We don't want the same things."
"How do you know what I want? You never asked."
"I heard you tell Carlos you wanted houses and clothes and servants."
She wanted to tell him she was mistaken, that she hadn't meant it, but she doubted he'd believe her. "You shouldn't believe everything you hear."
"You want that night in the tepee to mean something, too."
"Didn't it?"
"You're a beautiful woman, Iris. A man can't help wanting to make love to you, but that doesn't mean . . . " Monty seemed to grope for words.
"That it means any more to you than a roll in the hay."
"That's not what I was going to say."
"But it's what you meant. You have no plans to turn your back on all the other females in the world, get married, settle down, and raise a family."
The look of horror on Monty's face was more eloquent than words.
Iris drew herself up. Her pride wouldn't let Monty see he had broken her heart. "Well I want someone who's willing to do more than come looking for me when he's in the mood. You just teach Carlos how to manage a ranch, and I promise I won't expect anything of you ever again."
Iris jumped on her horse and galloped away.
Monty started after her but stopped. If he followed, it would be the same as saying he wanted her to share his future. He didn't want to give her up, but he wasn't prepared to keep her on those terms.
His heart ached for the pain she must be suffering, but it would be better if she believed he cared less than he did. He would not give her false hope. He wouldn't lie to her.
But wasn't he lying to himself?
* * * * *
Betty was cooking prairie chicken and dumplings when Iris stumbled into camp. Iris stared, unable to believe her eyes.
"Monty kept complaining he never had anything normal to eat," Betty explained. "Tyler is a wonderful cook, but Monty likes plain food best."
"She had me crawling through those trees on my hands and knees," Zac complained indignantly. "You ever try to catch a prairie chicken by throwing a rain slicker over it?" He rolled up his sleeves to show Iris the scratches he had gotten in the brush. "I hope he chokes."
"You can have some, too," Betty said. "There's plenty."
"You ain't never seen Monty eat when he likes what he's eating," Zac said. "He'll take the pot and eat until it's empty. There won't be no seconds."
Iris hated the horde of uncharitable feelings that thronged her heart, but at that moment she would have given half her herd to have Betty Crane back on the prairie walking toward some other trail crew.
Would she ever be as good as this woman?
Betty was always thinking of others, always helping somebody, doing something special, little things that only a woman would think of. A woman who had been trained to be a wife and housekeeper, not a woman who had been trained to be a social ornament.
Betty didn't know how to be an ornament. Iris hadn't known how to be anything else.
But she was learning. She'd show Monty Randolph she was more than a spoiled, rich woman concerned only with beauty, wealth, adoration. She'd been taught to live that way, but she didn't want to. She hadn't for a long time. But she'd never fully understood the difference until Betty arrived.
She should be thankful she had learned the lesson so soon. Instead she found it hard to accept that Betty Crane had to be the instrument of her leaning.
* * * * *
Iris had ridden the entire length of the herd looking for Carlos. She pulled up when she found Joe working drag.
"Have you seen Carlos?" she asked, nearly choking on the dust. "I can't find him anywhere." Joe didn't seem to mind the dirt and the stench of riding with the tail of the herd. Iris hated it.
"He rode out with Monty midmorning. Monty said if he was going to be your foreman, he needed to know how to scout a trail."
Iris's knew her mouth fell open. She couldn't understand what caused Monty to work with Carlos after he had told her he wouldn't. It was just as well she had learned he wasn't capable of telling the truth, or of genuine feeling. Carlos had tried to tell her he was dangerous. He just didn't know how dangerous.
"You look surprised," Joe said. "Monty said it was your idea. You wanted Carlos to learn how to manage a herd."
Iris had overheard quite a few pithy curses during the drive. She tried out a couple and found them rather satisfying. She aired out every curse she could remember and a few she made up.
Joe laughed at her. "I thought you liked Monty. I thought he was the closest thing on earth to your savior."
"Don't be sacrilegious," Iris snapped. "I used to think Monty was a gentleman, but I know better now."
"Good. I hated to see you looking at him with cow eyes."
"I never looked at him with cow eyes," Iris said, furious. "As a matter of fact, I can't stand him. And if it comes to that, I can't stand cows and ranches and dust and this continual bawling and stench." Why should she try? It wouldn't make Monty love her. He had taken her honor, and now he wanted to move on.
"Wait until you try to survive a Wyoming winter."
"I'm not at all sure I'm going to," Iris said.
"What do you mean?" Joe asked, the sneer wiped off his face, his expression suddenly intent.
Iris was too busy trying to think of what she could do to irritate Monty the most to take much notice of the change in him.
"I have a good mind to leave the drive at Dodge, let Carlos take the herd to Wyoming. He could even run the ranch while I went back to St. Louis. Or Chicago. Maybe even New York."
"What for?"
"To find the richest, most handsome, most ferocious husband in the world. Then come back here and show Monty Randolph he's not nearly half the man he thinks he is."
Iris smiled with satisfaction. The more she thought about the idea, the more it pleased her to think of Monty being beaten at his own game.
"I don't think that's such a good idea," Joe said.
"I think it's a wonderful idea," Iris contradicted.
"All those fancy, rich eastern men want a woman who's just as fancy."
"I may not be rich," Iris admitted, "but I'm just as respectable as any of them."
"It wouldn't make any difference if you was rich as John Jacob Astor. Ain't one of those snooty men going to marry a bastard."
"What are you talking about?" Iris asked. Joe's remark made so little sense she wondered if she had heard him correctly.
"You're a bastard," Joe said, too clearly for Iris to doubt her hearing. "Your ma ran off with a two-bit clerk in a dry goods store. He threw her out after a month. Robert Richmond married her just to keep her decent."
Iris's entire body went numb, as though she had ceased being able to feel anything.
"That's not true," Iris managed to say.
"Sure it is. Ask Monty if you don't believe me."
"Monty knows!"
"Sure. All the Randolphs know."
Chapter Twenty-one
Iris wanted to die.
She thought of some of the things she had done, some of the things she had said, and hoped she would never have to meet anyone she knew ever again. Most especially she hoped she would never have to come face to face with Monty.
"I don't understand. Surely my f-father . . . " she couldn't help stumbling over the word, "wouldn't have told anybody."
"Your old man showed up trying to put the squeeze on Richmond. Said he'd tell everybody in Austin and San Antonio if Richmond didn't pay him twenty thousand dollars. Helena nearly had a fit, but Monty got rid of him for her. Nobody could understand why though, not when she'd been making a play for George."
"I don't believe you," Iris cried. Each disclosure felt like a physical blow, one coming right after the other until she reeled from the impact. "You're lying to me. Why? What do you want?"
None of these things could be true. They were too horrible.
"You ever hear about that fight Monty had
in Mexico, the one where he killed the fella?"
Jesus God! Monty had killed her father to keep him from telling the world she was his bastard daughter! And she had spent the past two months accusing him of every petty misdeed she could think of. And after he had risked his life to protect her reputation.
Iris felt sick with shame.
What must Monty think of her? She couldn't look like anything except a spoiled, shallow female willing to do just about anything to get what she wanted. She had told him she wanted a husband so besotted he would do anything she asked. He had overheard her tell Carlos she wanted houses, clothes, and parties, all the things a stupid, foolish woman would prize over honesty, dependability, and courage. She had convicted herself with her own words.
And that night in the tepee! She had wanted Monty to make love to her. She had virtually asked him to. She cringed at the memory. Looking at the situation as Monty must see it, she could see how he might think she would do anything, no matter how disgraceful, to get whatever she wanted. Her mother and father had. Why should anybody expect anything different from her?
With a groan, Iris turned and galloped away. She didn't stop until she reached the scattered cottonwoods and brush that grew along the creek. Flinging herself from her horse, she staggered blindly among the trees. She leaned against a small cottonwood and was violently sick.
Her whole life seemed to come crashing down before her eyes. She was a shame, a fake, as common as any drunk or vagrant she had ever looked down on. She wasn't as good as the illiterate Mexican servants her mother had despised. Not only was she a bastard child, she was the daughter of a blackmailer.
And Monty had known all along.
Another wave of nausea shook her body. In the depths of such misery as she had never known, Iris didn't know how she would ever be able to face him again.
When at last the convulsions no longer wrenched her body, Iris stood up. Her horse had disappeared. She headed toward camp, but the sight of Betty and Tyler moving about making preparations for dinner filled her with horror. She couldn't go back there. If people had avoided her before, they would shun her now. Stumbling as she ran, Iris hurried to the remuda. Blindly she caught up a horse and started to saddle him.
Iris Page 26
