For a moment, he wasn’t sure of anything. He could barely form a coherent thought. Visions of impossibilities bloomed with the profusion of bluebonnets in the spring. He looked into her eyes and saw the possibility of happiness. What had seemed impossible for so long, now seemed to be within his grasp. All he needed to do was reach out and take it.
So he kissed her.
It was impossible to tell whether it lasted a second or a minute. Everything around them—the horse blowing through its nostrils, the breeze that teased her hair, moths that danced in the light from the window—faded into nothingness. Nothing existed but the two of them.
Her lips were unbelievably soft and sweet. He had imagined they would be, but reality outstripped his imagination. Everything felt so different, he might as well never have kissed a woman before. Was this how it was supposed to be when everything was right, when a man found the one woman meant for him? If this was a dream, he didn’t want to wake up. If it was his imagination, he didn’t want to face reality. If this was his only chance, he wanted to stay here forever. Nothing else mattered. Only this. It was perfect. It was sublime. It was magic.
Until Amanda jumped back with an expression on her face that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
He tried to speak, but his words came out in a strangled whisper. She opened her mouth to speak, then changed her mind. She turned and ran inside without looking back.
It took a moment for the importance of what had happened to sink in. When it did, Broc felt the strength go out of him in a rush. He stumbled as he turned and walked back to the buggy. He leaned against it, took deep, controled breaths to slow his racing heart. Gradually the pounding in his head began to ease. Slowly, inevitably, he returned to reality and the grim realization of what he’d done.
He might as well saddle up and leave tonight. She would probably fire him first thing in the morning. She certainly wouldn’t want him to play for her in the saloon. Once she told Corby what he’d done, Corby wouldn’t want him, either.
He took an exceptionally deep breath and forced himself to stand erect. There was no point in feeling sorry for himself. He’d done what he knew he shouldn’t have done. Now he’d have to abide by the consequences.
“Come on,” he said to the horse. “It’s time for both of us to get some sleep.”
The horse didn’t seem particularly interested in Broc’s need for rest, but it was eager to get out of the harness, so it followed readily. Broc’s steps were heavy and slow, which caused the horse to nudge him along.
“Impatient, are you? I was, too, so let that be a lesson to you.”
But as he walked, his steps grew lighter, his spirits started to rise. Finally a smile played across his lips.
“At least I got one kiss.”
“You’re home early,” her mother said when Amanda walked into the house.
Amanda’s mind was in such turmoil, she couldn’t concentrate. She didn’t want to talk to her mother, but she knew it would be worse if she went straight to her room. Her mother would know something was wrong, and Amanda couldn’t explain to her mother what she couldn’t explain to herself.
“I told Corby I had to leave early because I need to get up early now that Gary has left.”
Her mother’s expression grew animated. “Did you talk to him? When is he coming home?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t talk to him.”
“Why not? I told you just before you left you had to talk to him. I even told you what to say.”
“Broc convinced me that would only make Gary angrier, more reluctant to come home.”
“You listened to that man instead of your mother?”
“He has lots of brothers. He understands how boys think.”
“I’m Gary’s mother. I know how he thinks.”
Amanda’s control broke. “If you knew how he thinks, if you cared what he thinks, he’d be here now.”
“Amanda Elizabeth Liscomb,” her mother intoned in that awful voice mothers have when they’re about to pronounce that you’re an unnatural child and they don’t know what they did to deserve you, “I never thought I’d live to see the day you’d speak to me like that.”
“Neither did I,” Amanda said, too emotionally exhausted to mince words, “but I never thought I’d be in a position of having to support the family, trying to hold it together, when you were doing all you could to tear it apart.”
“I have never, I would never, do anything to hurt my children. Their happiness has been my only desire in life.”
“No, Mother. Your primary desire in life has been your happiness. If it had been otherwise, you’d have more interest in this ranch you badgered Papa to buy than in all the furniture and other stuff you forced him to drag from Mississippi. He was happy running the saloon and the diner, and we had enough money to live comfortably, but that wasn’t good enough for you. He had to have a respectable job so you could be a social force in Cactus Bend.” She drew a shuddering breath and went on before her mother could interrupt her. “Well, you have your ranch, which none of us knows how to run, but Papa is dead, Gary has left home, and I’m forced to work in the saloon you hated, being gaped at, pawed at, and slavered over by strangers, so you can stay here and dust furniture. Yet you want me to turn away the one person who’s volunteered to help me.”
“His face is horrible.”
“No, it’s not. It has more character than any man’s in Cactus Bend.”
“And he’s a crook. A thief.”
“He’s not that, either.”
“Then how do you explain his trying to force us to give him money?”
“He didn’t.” Her head was throbbing so she could barely think. She had to go to her room before she said something truly awful. “I have a terrible headache, and I’m too tired to think. We can talk about this tomorrow.”
“Don’t walk away when I’m talking to you.”
Amanda looked her mother square in the eye. “When you spend the whole day in the saddle, then work all evening in the saloon, I’ll listen to anything you have to say. Until then, I’m tired, and I’m going to bed.”
Amanda practically ran to her room, closed the door, staggered over to the bed, and collapsed on it. It didn’t matter that she’d forgotten a lamp, that the only light in the room filtered through the lace curtains at the window. She welcomed the darkness because it closed out the world around her, a world that was growing increasingly beyond her ability to control or understand.
She didn’t know what had caused her to speak to her mother like that. She ought to apologize now, but it would have to wait until the morning. She had more important things to think about, like why had Broc kissed her, and why had she kissed him back?
Because she wanted to.
The truth was frightening in its simplicity. Why had she wanted it? How did she expect or hope Broc would respond? Worse yet, what was she going to do when they came face-to-face in the morning? What would he expect of her now?
She was overwhelmed with questions she’d never asked about Broc or any other man. She didn’t have answers to them because she’d never thought of them before. But she’d allowed him to kiss her, she had kissed him back, so some part of her mind must have been thinking about it.
She rolled over and sat up. She heaved herself off the bed and walked over to the window. If she looked sharply to the right, she could see the black hulk of the bunkhouse silhouetted against the velvet sky. What was Broc doing? What was he thinking? Was he wrestling with the same questions, or did he chalk it up as just a kiss, roll over in his bunk, and sink into a sound sleep? She wondered if he had planned the kiss, or if it had been spontaneous, something he wanted to do but wouldn’t have done if he’d had time to think about it.
She turned away from the window and began to undress. The simple, familiar, oft-repeated motions served to soothe her spirits and calm her tumultuous thoughts. By the time she crawled between the sheets she was able to think more clearly.
She�
�d been attracted to Broc from the beginning. There was something about him that made him stand out from other men. His scars made him different. They told her he was a man who had made his peace with what could have been a life-changing tragedy and didn’t intend to let it determine the course of the rest of his life. They told her he was a man who had the courage to face the world knowing a large part of it would be repelled by him.
But his disfigurement was only part of what made him a man who captured her attention. There was the other side of his face that spoke of the man who had honor, integrity, dignity, generosity, kindness, and a willingness to help whenever he could, to share his knowledge without expecting payment in return. Even before tonight, he’d been a man who had exceeded her expectations in every way.
Tonight she’d realized her admiration for Broc had turned into something much warmer and more serious. She didn’t just admire him. She liked him. She liked him a great deal. She liked him so much she wondered what she would do if he never came back.
Amanda came awake slowly. With her eyes still closed, she stretched lazily, enjoying the warmth of the bed and a sense of peace and well-being. That vanished as soon as she remembered the events of the night before. Eyes open now, she could tell from the amount of light coming in her window that she had overslept. She scrambled out of bed and practically threw herself into her clothes. It took several minutes to brush her hair and pin it atop her head so it would fit under her hat. Next she put away her nightclothes and made up her bed. Looking around to make sure her mother would find nothing to complain of, she left her bedroom and hurried to the kitchen.
“Mama said to let you sleep all day if you wanted,” Eddie announced the moment she entered the kitchen.
Her mother didn’t look up from where she was scrambling eggs. Food warming in pots on the stove and bowls covered with towels revealed that her mother had everything ready to serve the minute the men arrived. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Her mother didn’t turn around. “You can pour the milk instead of Eddie. He has to call the men. If they don’t arrive soon, the eggs will be cold and the biscuits will burn.”
Eddie happily abandoned his task and bounded through the door before his mother could change her mind. The fact that her mother had made biscuits signaled to Amanda that her mother was still angry with her and had responded to her criticism by preparing an enormous breakfast.
“I didn’t mean to lose my temper last night,” Amanda said to her mother’s back. “I was tired and upset.”
Her mother looked at her over her shoulder. “I thought you were too mature to let being tired and upset cause you to say things you don’t mean.”
Amanda took a deep breath to steady her hand as she poured milk into a glass. “I apologized for losing my temper, not for what I said.”
Any thawing in her mother’s expression stopped immediately. “I see.” She turned back to the eggs.
“I’m not sure you do.”
“I’m not stupid, Amanda.” She scraped the eggs onto a serving plate. “I can understand things that are said to me.”
“All I was trying to say was that we need to work together to make this ranch a success and to find a way to get Gary to come home.”
Her mother placed the eggs next to one of the bowls and opened the oven to check on the biscuits. “I had thought that in my declining years I wouldn’t have to slave the way I did when your father and I first got married, but I see that is not going to be the case. I will never be a burden to my children.”
Amanda didn’t know where to start with that statement. Her mother had never had to do any real work until the war broke out. Even then, Amanda, who had just turned eleven, was drafted to help her mother. By the time they moved to Texas, Amanda was doing most of the cooking while her mother concentrated her efforts on caring for all the fine things her parents had left her.
“Things haven’t worked out as planned,” Amanda said. “Papa’s dying was just the first upset.”
“I never thought he would leave me,” her mother said with a sob.
“He didn’t want to.” Amanda felt like an idiot stating the obvious. “He loved you very much.”
Her mother smiled wistfully, and it was easy to see the beauty that must have enthralled her father twenty years ago. “He called me his gardenia. He said its fragrance made him dizzy the way holding me in his arms did.”
Amanda couldn’t imagine her practical father saying such a thing, but he had been deeply in love with her mother. That was the kind of love Amanda was looking for. It was one reason she continued to turn down Corby’s offer of marriage. She had no desire to—
The back door opened and Eddie bounded in, followed by Leo and Andy. “Broc says he’s going into town for breakfast. Can I have his biscuits?”
Chapter Twelve
Broc stuffed his last shirt into his saddlebags. The only decision left to make was whether to stay in Cactus Bend or go back to Crystal Springs and start his jail sentence early. Either prospect was depressing, but he might as well get it over with. He wasn’t doing any good here. Amanda didn’t need any more trouble to deal with. He tossed his saddlebags over his shoulder and turned to leave the bunkhouse. He’d already tied his bedroll to the saddle. He stepped through the doorway and almost ran into Amanda.
He didn’t know how it was possible, but each time he saw her affected him more powerfully than the last. He should have left before breakfast. Now he was going to have to do the one thing he wanted to avoid: explain his behavior last night.
The explanation was simple enough. He had fallen in love with her.
Amanda backed up a couple of steps and held out a folded piece of paper. “This says you’re quitting. Why?”
“After last night, I thought it was the best thing to do.”
“You think leaving me to try to figure out how to run this ranch on my own is the best thing to do?” She gestured vaguely in the direction of town. “You figure leaving me to keep struggling with Oscar’s piano playing is the best thing to do?”
“You can hire someone to teach you, and Corby can hire someone to play for you.”
“The men reacted to your playing and singing, not someone Corby might hire. There’s no one else with that kind of talent in the area. And you were going to stay here long enough to teach me about running the ranch.”
“Anybody can do that.”
“Carruthers wanted to hang you for working for me. Do you think anybody else is going to risk that for the few dollars I can pay?”
“But I kissed you last night.”
“It was just a kiss.”
For a moment he couldn’t catch this breath. What did she mean it was just a kiss? Did she mean it was so unimportant she’d already forgotten it? Did she mean she remembered it but didn’t expect it to happen again? “A cowhand can’t go around kissing his boss.”
Her gaze intensified. “Do you want to kiss me again?”
Was she laying a trap for him? He’d already quit. There was nothing else she could do except get the sheriff to chase him out of town.
“I think about you—about kissing you—all the time.” There. Now she knew how he felt.
Her gaze fell to the ground. “So you do want to kiss me again?”
He was sure he couldn’t be hearing her correctly. Was she trying to lead him deeper into a trap, or was it possible she hadn’t disliked being kissed? “It would depend on whether you wanted me to.”
“Kissing the foreman wouldn’t be a proper way for a boss to act, would it?”
“I don’t know that I would say it was improper, but it’s not usual.” He wanted her to look up so he could see what was in her eyes, but she kept her gaze averted. He dropped his saddlebags, stepped over to her, put his hand under her chin, and lifted her head slowly. “Are you saying you want me to kiss you?”
“I didn’t dislike it.”
“That’s not what I asked. Do you want me to kiss you?”
“If you
want to.”
The warmth in her eyes should have been a sufficient answer, but Broc needed words, something concrete he could point to when he was shaken by doubt. “Look at me. Are you sure you want a man with this face to kiss you?”
“There’s nothing wrong with your face.”
He didn’t know whether she was trying to be kind or simply didn’t have the courage to say what was in her mind, but he couldn’t let her stop there. He knew what he looked like. He saw his face every time he looked in a mirror, passed a store window, saw his reflection in still water. “Look at me. How can you say there’s nothing wrong with my face? Half of it is destroyed.”
“But the other half is beautiful.”
“I don’t come in separate halves. You can’t take one side and ignore the other.”
“It was just a kiss, Broc. That doesn’t require a pledge of lifetime commitment.”
He knew it was unreasonable, but that was what he wanted. “You’ve never given me a reason to think you’d welcome a kiss. And with this face…” He let the sentence trail off.
Much to his surprise, Amanda stepped closer and placed her hand on the left side of his face. He had to fight the impulse to pull away. No woman had ever touched his scars.
“To me this is a testament to your bravery. It took courage to fight in the war, but it took even more to make peace with the terrible thing that happened to you.”
She gave him too much credit. For a long time he had been bitter. In the days after he was shot, he prayed he would die. It was the fierce love and unyielding support of his friends that had enabled him to come to terms with what had happened to him, but he still wasn’t beyond bitterness or anger. Every time someone turned away from him or flinched at seeing him, he was angry all over again that for the rest of his life he would be judged by one side of his face rather than the rest of him.
It was the reason he’d never gone back to Tennessee.
“Last night was more than just a kiss. I was attracted to you the first time I saw you. The more I’m around you, the more I like you. I’ve wanted to touch you, to kiss you, to tell you I enjoy being with you.”
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