“Dusty? You all right?” he asked.
“Stop it, Feller,” she stated. “Just stop it.”
Dusty watched as Feller’s brow wrinkled with a deep, perplexed frown. “Stop what? I ain’t doin’ nothin’ but cleanin’ my saddle.”
“Exactly,” Dusty confirmed. “You ain’t doin’ nothin’.”
“Now, hang on there, girl,” Feller began defensively.
“You haven’t said anything to her, have ya?”
“What are you goin’ on about, Dusty? I—”
“Have you, Feller? You haven’t said anything to Becca. Not one thing. You haven’t given her any kind of hope that ya care for her…haven’t—”
“I ain’t goin’ down this road with you again, Dusty,” Feller growled. “It’s plain as day somethin’s stuck in your craw, but don’t you go tellin’ me—”
“Don’t do it, Feller,” Dusty interrupted. “Don’t fritter away one single moment longer you could be with her. Don’t take the chance somethin’ will come along and take her from you…or you from her…leavin’ ya with nothin’ but a life of loneliness and regret.”
“What’s the matter, Dusty?” he began. It was obvious he now sensed the seriousness of her mood. “Come on now. You gotta tell me.”
“She’s in the kitchen right now. I think she’s upset about some things. She needs you. She’s miserable without you.” Dusty swallowed hard and looked away for a moment. Then, looking back to him, she continued, “You’ve known, haven’t ya? All these years you’ve known it was because of Ryder that I…became what I did. All this time you knew, didn’t ya, Feller?” He didn’t say anything, and his silence was all the confession she needed. “Well, then I suspect ya know how completely you’re breaking Becca’s heart by bein’ such a coward and not—”
“That’s enough, girl!” Feller nearly shouted. “Don’t you be talkin’ back to me like that! I—”
“You should be my brother-in-law by now! Don’t you talk to me like I’m still ten years old! And crawl outta your hidey-hole, and quit tellin’ yourself Becca’s still ten—because she’s not! You’re breaking her heart! If you fiddle around any longer, somebody’s gonna show up on the front porch one day and tear your world apart!” He seemed stunned by Dusty’s outburst.
Suddenly panic set in; Dusty experienced pure panic. This man had to confess his feelings to her sister. He had to! “Please, Feller,” she begged him then, not in anger but in deepest sincerity. “Please. Go in the house…right now. Don’t waste another minute. Please.”
His expression turned from anger to something like having been beaten. “Dusty…I’m thirty years old. I—”
“You’re only five years older than Ryder, and you don’t think he’s too old to do it. Do ya? You don’t think my own daddy’s too old!” He was silent. “I know you, Feller. You’ve been tellin’ my daddy to reach out and take Miss Raynetta, and you’ve been tellin’ Ryder ever since he got here that he shouldn’t waste his time in waitin’ for me to come around. I know you. Well, practice what you preach for once, Reverend Feller Lance!”
Feller let his head droop for a moment. When he looked back to Dusty, he whispered, “She’s so…so perfect! But, Dusty…I used to take her swimmin’ in her bloomers, for pity’s sake! I taught her how to ride a horse. I showed her how to play marbles!”
“And now you’re gonna show her how wonderful it is to have the man you’ve loved for so many years finally belong to you.” Dusty paused. She could see the fear in him. She could see his struggle with his feelings. “She’s no little girl anymore, Feller. And you’re not just some new cowboy with a fancy for the boss’s daughter.” Dusty looked away. “I’m…I’m goin’ for a walk.” She looked back at him. “And when I get back, I don’t want to find Becca in the kitchen cryin’ over you again.” She turned around and walked away from him.
Whatever it was, it was bad. Feller knew that for sure. Dusty looked like she’d met death face-to-face and lost. His mind’s first inclination was to go after her, take hold of her arm, and force her to tell him what had happened. Yet his heart caused him to look toward the house. Whatever had happened to upset Dusty had no doubt upset Becca as well. And after all, Dusty was right. How many people had he watched waste their lives away because of pride or fear? Inhaling deeply and summoning all the courage in him, Feller ran to the house. He didn’t even knock—just leapt onto the porch in one clean move, burst through the back door and into the kitchen.
“Becca?” he hollered. He didn’t see her at first. Then he heard a whimper. He looked down to see her sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall—tears streaming down her face as she dabbed at them furiously with her apron. “What is it, honey?” he asked, going to her immediately, pulling her to her feet and gathering her into his arms.
“It’s fallin’ apart, Feller,” Becca sobbed, wrapping her arms tightly around him. “Everything I dreamed for her! It’s gonna die and…”
“No,” Feller mumbled into the softness of her hair. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the purely feminine scent of it.
“He has to leave,” Becca cried, looking up into his face.
“He won’t leave her,” Feller told her.
“He has to! He’s in trouble! If he doesn’t leave…a woman came to the ranch and told us…and Dusty’ll let him go. She doesn’t have a choice!”
Feller took Becca’s sweet, beautiful face between his rough, strong hands. He brushed the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “It’s not her choice to make, Becca. And Ryder won’t leave. I know it,” he assured her lovingly.
He watched as the fear apparent on her face deepened. “You’ll never leave, will you, Feller?”
“I may leave your daddy’s ranch someday,” he whispered, “but not without you.” There, he’d said it. He’d set his foot firmly on the path, and he’d follow it now—wherever it led. “If ever I leave here…I’ll be takin’ you with me.”
He watched as Becca struggled to believe she’d heard him say what he had. Her tears slowed, and her pain-filled eyes searched his for confirmation somehow. “Wh-what do you mean?” she managed.
“I mean exactly what you’re standin’ here hopin’ I mean.” Feller smiled down into her beautiful face.
“Wh-what do you think I’m hopin’ you mean?” She was so adorable. He couldn’t help but chuckle.
“I think you’re hopin’ that I’m gettin’ ready to say somethin’ to you I shoulda said long before now.” He could see the excitement light up her eyes like the fireworks all those weeks ago had lit up the night skies out at old man Leroy’s.
“All right,” she whispered. “What is it I’m hopin’ you’ll say to me?”
“I love you,” Feller said without pause. He watched as her tears began again—in profusion. “I’m sorry it took me so long to tell ya.”
Becca collapsed against him, her head resting on the power, strength, and security of his chest as she cried. He returned her tight embrace for a moment before taking her face in his hands again.
“Really?” she asked him. “Do you really?”
He chuckled as he let his thumb brush her tender lips. “Yes.”
“As much as I love you?” she asked. A moment of fear passed over her expression.
“More,” he confirmed.
“You couldn’t possibly,” she told him, smiling through her tears.
“Do ya trust me?” he asked her then.
Her brow puckered in a puzzled scowl. “I’ve never trusted anyone like I’ve trusted you,” she told him.
“Then trust me now. Ryder won’t leave Dusty. I promise you. He won’t leave her again. And he won’t die either.”
Becca nodded, trying to believe him. “Okay,” she whimpered.
“And now that you know he won’t, that it’ll be all right…somehow…let me just warn ya that I ain’t too awful good at courtin’ and all. I’ve gotten kinda rusty in waitin’ around for you to grow up.”
“Don’t lie,” she s
aid, smiling. “I remember the girls in town. I know how they still—”
“There’s girls in town?” he teased. “I hadn’t noticed for ’bout…oh, least two years now.”
“Really?” Becca sighed delightedly.
Feller chuckled. He adored the way she melted against him, the way her eyes twinkled as he teased her. She was an angel, his Becca—a beautiful, wonderful, fully grown-up angel he held in his arms. “Yes, really.”
“I love you. You’ll never know how much or how long I’ve been lovin’ you,” she whispered.
“How long?” he mumbled as he looked at her lips again. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her tiny, soft, pink mouth.
“As long as I can remember. And I can prove it.”
“Can ya now?” he chuckled, his head descending toward hers.
“Yes,” she breathed as his lips touched hers for the first time.
Feller Lance realized how important restraint was. He wanted to fairly attack his Becca with a demanding passion—a passion he’d spent so long secreting. Still, he taught her how to kiss him—taught her very carefully, very tenderly. This wasn’t marbles, after all. Yet when she let her arms go around his neck, pressing her body firmly against his, he could resist her no longer and gave into his love for her—his desire to hold her and own her. She tasted like heaven! Felt like heaven! Becca Hunter was heaven! And he knew by her kiss, by the sigh of blissful relief escaping her, Dusty had been right: all along Becca had belonged to him.
Shortly after their confessions of love to one another, Becca told Feller of Rose Montgomery’s visit to the ranch—of the devastating news she bore. If Ryder’s life were in danger, Feller would not let his Becca find cause to grieve over her sister’s world falling apart. It wouldn’t. He wouldn’t let it happen to Dusty. He wouldn’t let it happen to Ryder. And he certainly wouldn’t let it happen to Becca!
Feller hated to leave Becca—for more reasons than he had time to list off in his head. Yet he’d set out immediately to fetch Hank home. He’d ride to Miss Raynetta’s and somehow find Hank—tell him what was happening. But first, he pulled his horse to a halt beneath the big old willow growing on the creek bed—the one he’d watched Becca and Dusty play tea party under in their bloomers so many times so long ago. Dismounting, he looked around on the ground until he did indeed spy a rock looking like a “pile of dried-up cow manure,” as Becca had described it. He chuckled at the fact two little girls so many years ago should dub the stone “the cow pie rock.”
Hunkering down, he dug the dirt out from around its base until he was able to pry one edge up. Lifting the rock, he brushed dirt and potato bugs from the top of a rusty and ancient-looking old candy tin and pulled it from its hiding place. Quickly he removed the lid and looked inside.
The contents he found were exactly as Becca had described—an old bootstrap she’d torn from his boot when she was ten. He remembered then waking up one morning a long time ago to find the strap on the inside of his right boot was missing. He reached in and withdrew a rusty old straight razor and chuckled. Hadn’t it been the same morning, as he was bellyaching around about his missing bootstrap, that a young Ryder Maddox had misplaced his razor?
Then, reaching in the tin again, he pulled out two small strips of paper. Both were curled up tightly and tied with pink ribbon. He carefully unrolled the first.
“When I grow up,” he read aloud, “I’m going to make Feller Lance fall in love with me. He’ll marry me and we’ll have 5 children and be happy forever. Signed this day that I turned 10, Rebecca Hunter.”
He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried to keep the moisture there from escaping as his heart ached with joy—beat with severe melancholy for a moment. Although it poured more joy into his body than he thought he could consciously endure, there was a twinge of heartache for the little girl who had to wait so long to grow up. Carefully, he unrolled the other small paper.
“All I want in my whole life,” he read, though his voice still broke from the emotion the first revelation had caused, “is Ryder Maddox. Someday he’ll love me and we’ll get married and have the sweetest babies and most beautiful life that anyone could ever dream of. Signed this day that Becca turned 10 and I am still 12, Angelina Hunter.”
Wiping at a tear on his cheek with the back of his glove, Feller awkwardly retied the ribbons and returned the tin and its contents to their secret hiding place. There was another man who would want to be sent to find it. Another man, in trouble now—a man Feller Lance was determined would live to find the buried treasure of the Hunter girls!
With pure tenacity to make happy the family and heart of the woman he loved, Feller rode off to find Hank Hunter—to tell him—to tell him of the devastating threat to his family.
Chapter Fifteen
The cascading water of the falls helped cool the hot sting of her tears. Dusty plunged her head forward into it again. How can I go on without him? she thought. Over and over she thought it. How could she wake up each morning knowing he wouldn’t be in her day? How could she go to sleep at night not being held in his arms? How would she make herself do what she had to do to survive, knowing he was gone?
“I can’t bear this,” she sobbed.
How could she truly enjoy watching other children grow up—especially those of Feller and Becca? Even of her father and Raynetta? How could she love life without the one thing making life worth loving? She’d tried it before—and failed. What would she do? She’d thought of everything. I’ll go with him, she thought again. They’d be together then! Until she slowed him down somehow, she reminded herself—caused his guard to unwind—thereby leading him into tragedy. She’d kill the other men first! Certainly they wouldn’t expect a young woman to be an assassin out for vengeance. Yet that wasn’t realistic either. First of all, she knew they’d kill her long before she had a chance to even react—and finding her body bloody and skinned somewhere out in the pastures would do nothing to improve Ryder’s life.
It had been nearly an hour since she’d left the house, and still her mind fought to accept losing him. It was impossible!
“Fancy findin’ you here.”
Ryder’s voice startled her. She wiped the water from her face and eyes quickly. When she turned to find him stepping through the waterfall, wearing only his pants, she felt as if someone had plunged a knife into the center of her heart. He was so wonderful—so perfect for her soul! His smile was so handsome—so unknowing. Still, it didn’t take him long to realize she’d been crying.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, a frown owning his brow.
There was no lying to him. He wouldn’t believe her if she said nothing. She may as well face him now as later.
“I planned to tell you somethin’ today,” she told him quietly.
“Yeah?” he prodded. Obviously, he hadn’t been back to the house or seen anyone else before coming to the waterfall. He was purely innocent to Dusty’s recently acquired knowledge.
“Last night,” she began. Unable to look at him, she stared at his feet instead. “After you left…I found me.” He was quiet, probably not wanting to interrupt—knowing how much she needed to say it. “I found the me I started losin’ when you left years ago.” She looked up at him. She fancied her heart began to tear in two—for the pain in it was unbearable. The look of residual guilt on his face did not deter her. “The me I wanted to give…to you,” she confessed. “I found her last night.”
“So give her to me,” he mumbled in the low, provocative tone that melted her bones. Though she knew he was flirting, the expression on his face revealed he was waiting for the slap she was about to deliver—for the stinging pain accompanying it.
“I did…forever ago…and since you’ve come back,” she whispered. “She’s always been yours. But…but you can’t have her, can you?”
“What are ya talkin’ about, Dusty?” he growled.
“It’s why you haven’t given yourself to me completely. Isn’t it?”
&nbs
p; “What?” he questioned. Yet by the look on his face, she knew he knew what.
“Rose Montgomery came to the ranch house today,” she stated flatly.
He swallowed hard and shook his head. “I’m not leavin’ you again, Dusty…if that’s what you’re worried about. No matter what you would’ve answered me last night in bed…I’m not leavin’ you.” Her skin erupted into a field of goose bumps at the memory of his lying next to her in her bed.
“Did ya love that girl, Ryder? Even though she was engaged? Did ya love her?” Dusty couldn’t help but ask. She had to know the depth of what had brought Ryder to a life of running. “Or—or did ya love Rose?”
“No. Neither one. Not one bit,” he answered flatly. “In fact, I couldn’t stand Lilly. That makes the guilt I feel all the worse.” He was furious then—furious. In a rage! “I told Rose to let it lie! I told her that I wouldn’t leave. Yes, Dusty! I met with a woman in town yesterday!” he shouted. “I know ya heard about it from one source or another. Yes, it was Rose. She came here to tell me Wesley and his hounds are closin’ in on me again. Yes…again! But I ain’t runnin’ no more. I’m finally back where I want to be after all these years. It’s worth too much to lose!”
“But ya have to go!” Dusty cried. “There’s no other choice! I won’t have them find you!”
Ryder leaned back against the rock wall—sank to a sitting position. “When I left here five years ago, I cowboyed around for two and a half long years…waitin’…bidin’ my time. Do ya know why?” Dusty shook her head and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I was waitin’…just skimmin’ through life until you were older.” She could only stare at him in expectant disbelief.
“Do you think I left here feelin’ like I did with no plans of ever comin’ back and seein’ what would happen between us when you’d grown up some? You can’t really think that little of me.” He shook his head and continued, “I did a winter in Montana, then Wyomin’. When you woulda been turnin’ about sixteen, I started home…back here. But there was a bad storm ’tween here and there, and I stopped over down in Texas. Had me a bad case in my lungs, and it was warmer there. I figured I’d just winter it out. Stopped over and hired on to a man named Montgomery. So…I was impatient…but I wintered it out, figurin’ you’d be almost seventeen by the time I got here and still young enough that maybe no slimy banker’s son had snatched ya up yet.” He looked up at her for a moment. She looked away.
Dusty Britches Page 32
