But he didn’t see any way out of it. This had been his idea, after all. And he did have a point to prove.
With a sigh of resignation, Daniel cupped Linsey’s foot in his hands and gave her a boost. Once she found her seat in the saddle, he mounted up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.
She squirmed a bit, then held herself stiffly. Her hands gripped the horn so tightly her knuckles turned white.
“You have to relax,” Daniel told her.
“If I do, I’ll fall off.”
“If you don’t, he’ll sense your fear and toss you off.”
“But . . .”
“I won’t let anything happen to you, Linsey.”
As if his words had the power to calm her, he watched her muscles gradually loosen. “That’s it,” he encouraged. “Now find your center.”
“My center what?”
“In the saddle.”
She scooted backward an inch or so. Daniel tensed as her bottom pushed into the cradle of his thighs; the horse sidestepped. With a gentle pat to his withers and a calm tone, he soothed the animal. If only someone could soothe him as easily.
He tried to ignore the heat pulsing in his loins, the dizzying sensation of all this soft female flesh between his thighs and against his chest. “Touch—” Daniel cleared his throat. “Touch your heels to his belly.”
The black obeyed her command. The motion tossed Linsey back against his chest, then bounding forward again.
Daniel closed his eyes and moaned. How the hell did he get himself into these situations?
He rode with her around the corral, instructing her, until his control reached the point of snapping. Then he gave a gentle pull on the reins. “That’s enough. I think you’re ready to go it alone.”
“Alone?” she croaked, regarding him with panicked eyes. An instinct to protect her, to keep her safe and sheltered, rose up inside Daniel. But more, he wanted her to feel the same sense of immortality he’d felt when she’d trusted him to deliver her friend’s baby. “You can do it, Linsey. You can do anything you put your mind to.”
Her smile was slow to unfurl. It blossomed like a summer rose, innocent and fragile, and then, reaching full bloom, so glorious that it stole Daniel’s breath. The scent of her, the sight of her lips, ripe and moist, beckoned him closer, tempting, tormenting.
In two seconds flat he’d slid out of the saddle and was striding to the corral fence where Addie sat up top with her heels hooked over a board. He leaned against the fence and crossed his arms. If he’d thought watching Linsey ride would be easier on his system than actually being in the saddle with her, he realized his mistake the instant she put her heels to the horse and set it in motion.
Damn, she was beautiful. Glossy curls bouncing against her back, breasts rising and falling in a tormenting rhythm. . . .
“She’s doing it, Daniel!”
Addie’s voice tore him from the fantasy beginning to unfold. And as he forced himself to see Linsey the way Addie saw her, he couldn’t help but smile; couldn’t curb the glow of satisfaction. He’d helped her. He’d suffered for it, but he’d helped her, and it was worth it to watch her hair flow in the wind, her smile shone brighter than a noonday sun. She’d caught on quickly, as she did everything, and from the brilliance of that smile, she loved the sense of power over a beast bigger than herself. The horse. The fear.
Daniel knew that feeling of satisfaction. He felt it every time he mastered an illness or performed a difficult surgery.
Still, he envied both her ease of the taming and the taming itself. The ride, the rock of her body on the beast’s back. The thought of her rocking against him, riding him with the same abandon as she rode the horse, had his smile ebbing and his pulses throbbing. He could teach her that as well. Finding her center. Settling into a rhythm. Pelvis slapping against groin, wild hair brushing fevered skin.
He closed his eyes and cursed.
He glanced self-consciously at Addie, hoping she hadn’t notice the bulge in his trousers. Thankfully, she appeared more interested in something over her shoulder.
Or maybe he should say someone, Daniel amended, following the direction of her gaze.
So that was the way of it. It sure explained a lot: the change in Addie, Oren’s accusations in the saloon the other night. “Does he know?” Daniel asked of Addie.
She wrenched around to face him. “Does who know what?”
“Oren. Does he know you’re in love with him?”
Guilty color flooded her cheeks. “No. I’ve never told him.”
Well, hell, that made a whole lot of sense. Their whole misunderstanding might be cleared up if Addie was just honest with the fellow. If Daniel thought it would do any good, he would have been tempted to tell Oren himself. But the two of them exchanged no more than stiff nods lately—and besides, he made it a practice not to stick his nose into another man’s love affairs.
After a moment, she asked, “Do you remember when I broke my leg?”
“Dimly.” It had been a long time ago—before he’d even gone off to Tulane.
“You came with your father and helped set it.”
Daniel remembered that part. He’d done everything wrong, according to Doc Sr., from grabbing the wrong splints to forgetting the bandages to nearly giving the patient glycerine instead of laudanum.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in such pain, but you got me through it.”
She’d been a patient. It was his job. Back then, it had been his dream.
“I . . . developed feelings for you, but only recently have I realized that those were the feelings of a young girl, not of a grown woman.”
Daniel shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry I never returned your feelings.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. I never would have found Oren if you had. Even though nothing can come of it, I now know what it feels like to love. Having that for a moment is better than never having it at all.”
“You should tell him how you feel, Addie.”
“What difference would it make? I’d still have to choose between him and my sister, and that isn’t a choice I can make. Not yet.” She squinted across the corral, where Linsey rode like poetry in motion. “What if this doesn’t work, Daniel?”
He squeezed her arm. “Then we keep trying. There’s too much to be lost if we quit.” He let his hand fall away from her and stepped away from the fence. “I’d best get back to the apothecary. My dad will have my hide if I don’t get those bottles labeled.”
“You’re leaving?”
“There’s really no reason to stay. She rode a horse after a black cat dashed across her path, and nothing untoward happened. I think we proved our point.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth, than a scream cut through the air.
“Nothing is broken; you just have a bruised shoulder. Keep your arm in the sling and in a few days you’ll be right as rain.”
Linsey glared at Daniel, then at Addie. “I wouldn’t be hurt at all if the two of you hadn’t bullied me into riding that beast.” The only reason she’d gotten on the horse was because she had trusted Daniel not to let anything happen to her, the same way he’d kept her safe when the balloon had taken off. “I told you that cat would bring me bad luck, but neither of you believed me.”
The two shared a look that stung her. Linsey hated the way it made her feel excluded. It was the same look her father had shared with her mother, the same one he now shared with Addie’s mother. And it was silly feeling jealous of that look between her sister and the man Addie would marry, since she’d wanted them to develop a relationship—if not out of love, then out of fondness.
“Addie just wanted to help you complete your list,” Daniel said as if that could excuse his part in her injury.
Linsey quirked a brow. “And you?” She dared him to tell her the truth. If he thought she’d buy his claim, then she had a gold mine next to the Red River that she would sell him.
He sighed, sounding defeated. “All right—I w
ant you to see the folly of putting so much faith in folklore.”
“Is that so? Then how do you explain my fall?”
“Inexperience.”
“On the heels of seeing a black cat race across my path?”
“Coincidence.”
“Why can’t you just accept that there are powers beyond your realm of control?”
Her stomach fluttered at the dimpled grin breaking out across his face. “Obstinance.”
Linsey pursed her lips. She did not find him amusing. Too irresistible for his own good, but not amusing. There was nothing humorous about the way he made her heart leap and pulse race. Nothing remotely comical about the longing she felt anytime he came around her, or the envy she felt when she saw him and Addie together.
It made no sense. It was completely unreasonable. Everything was going as she planned: Daniel and Addie were getting on well, and from the possessive hand she’d seen Daniel put on her sister’s arm when they were at the corral, they would soon be feeling attracted to each other.
So if everything was going as planned, why did it make her so miserable?
Too many questions, too much confusion began to play havoc with her emotions. Linsey knew if she didn’t get away, she’d suffer the ultimate humiliation and burst into tears in front of both of them.
She hopped off the examination table, wincing when the action jarred her arm. But the pain couldn’t compare to the one she carried inside.
“Linsey, don’t be this way,” Addie implored.
“What way? Angry? Of course, I’m angry.” Angry at her sister. Angry at Daniel. But most of all, angry at herself. Because despite every reason why she shouldn’t, every reason why she couldn’t, she’d gone and fallen in love with a man she shouldn’t have.
Chapter 18
The rose is a symbol of enduring love.
Linsey settled on the wooden bench beneath the awning of the train depot, her lame arm cradled in her lap. Even with a fox-fur pelisse around her shoulders, the November chill cut to the bone. Linsey numbed herself to it, just as she’d been numbing herself to most everything lately.
Heavy bootsteps sounded slow and lazy against the platform. She shut her eyes. Please don’t be Daniel. Since the discovery of her feelings for him, she could hardly think his name without weeping, much less see him.
However, the harsh scent of coal and horse-hide alerted her to Oren Potter’s presence even before he paused by the bench.
“Miss Linsey, are you out here again?”
“Hello, Mr. Potter,” she greeted with a feeble smile.
He lowered his powerful bulk beside her and tapped his hands together. “It’s awful cold to be sitting outside.”
It was awful cold no matter where she went lately. “I’m waiting for my father.”
“You’ve been waiting for three days straight,” he remarked softly, as if she needed the reminder.
“He’ll be here.”
“Did he say when?”
“Not exactly. But my nose has been itching all week, so I’m sure he’ll show up any day.”
“Then I’m sure he will.”
She mentally thanked him for not jeering at her. He was probably the only one left—with the exception of Aunt Louisa—who didn’t mock her anymore. Even Addie—sweet, gentle-natured Addie, who had never found fault with Linsey—doubted that she would see her father soon, despite signs to the contrary.
In truth, a distance between her and her sister seemed to grow every day. They rarely spoke anymore. There was this heavy, silent . . . thing between them. Linsey couldn’t be sure if it was something she fostered, or Addie did, but it hurt.
“They seem to be stepping out a lot together lately,” the smithy said, drawing Linsey’s gaze down the road.
Her heart gave a lurch at the sight of Daniel and her sister standing together under the overhang of the apothecary. It was getting harder and harder watching them together. Daniel had never pushed for a retraction in the Herald. In fact, for all intents and purposes, he and Addie gave the appearance of a courting couple. And each day that drew them closer seemed to cast Linsey further away. She had never expected this sense of abandonment. This . . . insignificance. She wanted to hate them for it, for this feeling of being on the outside looking in, and that made her feel small and petty. For despite the canyon developing between them, Addie’s happiness meant everything to it. It always had. It always would.
She looked away and swallowed. “It’s what betrothed couples should do, I expect.”
“I expect so.”
The note of forlorn loneliness in his voice compelled Linsey to ask, “Have you ever considered remarrying, Mr. Potter?”
“Are you proposing?”
“We hardly know each other, sir.”
Their cheeky attempt to lighten the gloominess around them failed miserably.
After a long lull, he said, “I did consider it once.”
“What happened?”
There was a soul-deep sadness in his eyes when he looked at her. “She’d promised herself to someone else.”
The train pulled up a few minutes later, wheels clacking against iron rails, the whistle screeching through the crisp air.
Linsey straightened. Mr. Potter rose from the bench and assisted her to her feet. As the steam engine chugged into the depot, hope flourished in Linsey’s breast as she sought a glimpse of a burly, mustached man among the passengers disembarking. The letter had gone out weeks ago, and her hand had been itching like mad. Maybe today would be the day.
One passenger alighted, a tall, paunchy man in a pin-striped business suit; then came an elderly lady with florid cheeks and a hat bearing a real bird’s nest. Several more visitors made their way out of the cars, yet none wore the dashing uniform of the United States Calvary.
“Are there no others bound for Horseshoe?” she asked the conductor.
At the negative shake of his head, her heart sank to the pit of her stomach.
“Maybe he’ll be on next week’s train,” Mr. Potter said consolingly.
Dejected, Linsey nodded, then turned away from the depot toward home. Against her will, her gaze was drawn to where Addie and Daniel still stood, watching her. She felt their pity reach out with cloying fingers. What if they were right? she wondered. What if I am crazy? The thought added to her despair, for if believing in the signs all these years had been for nothing, why should she believe in anything?
Her heart heavy, she trudged up the hill, the walk to Briar House longer than she ever remembered it being. She stepped inside and removed her pelisse. Just as she started for the stairwell, a letter waiting on the entryway table caught her eye. It was addressed to her and Addie, postmarked Oklahoma Territory.
From their parents.
Linsey tore open the envelope. An object fell from the folds. Without scanning the note, Linsey reached for it.
Tears sprang to her eyes at the photographs her father had included in his note, of him and Evelyn.
Linsey smiled. She’d gotten to see him today, after all.
The signs hadn’t been false.
Sitting in his office, Daniel leaned forward in his desk chair and rubbed his brow with weary resignation. Combat one belief with a more powerful belief. Louisa’s words rang in his head like a cavernous echo as he studied Linsey’s last-wish list.
Playing the black cat against a horse ride hadn’t worked, and putting a salve on her nose to make it itch against a visitor coming to call hadn’t turned out as expected, any more than any of the other little tricks he and Addie had tried over the last week. Everything they tried kept backfiring, and frankly, Daniel was beginning to feel like a fool. He was running around town making an ass of himself, to make the very woman who had cost him his future believe she’d have one of her own.
And why? Why go through all this trouble? He had no intention of being a part of that future.
He crumpled her list and fell against the back of his chair. Behind closed lids, he saw her grinning int
o the wind, dancing on air. Counting a baby’s toes, wishing on a star, clutching a four-leaf clover to her heart, curtseying to a horse . . .
He heard her, too—the longing in her voice when she spoke of love and children; whispering to him “this is the best day you’ve had in your life. . . .”
So many things people took for granted.
So many things he took for granted.
“Daniel?”
His eyes snapped open. Addie stood in the doorway of his office.
“I knocked, but you must not have heard me.”
“No, I’m afraid I didn’t.” He straightened. “But I’m glad you’re here. We need to come up with our next plan of action.”
She took a seat on the edge of the chair across from his desk. “I think it’s time we surrender.”
Daniel stared at her in amazement.
“I can’t bear to see her so disillusioned,” she explained, her voice hitching with emotion. “Let’s just go along with her beliefs—what could it hurt?”
“You want to feed this fodder?”
“What else can we do? Nothing is working, Daniel. She believes as strongly as ever.”
He pulled himself out of his stupor. “I’m not giving up.”
“Why?” Addie cried. “Why not let her have her beliefs? Who is she hurting?”
“Herself. She’s wrong. And if we start encouraging these foolish notions of hers, we could wind up losing her. Is that what you want?”
“Of course not. But what if she isn’t wrong? What if four-leaf clovers really do bring good luck, and looking into mirrors really are a foreshadowing of death?”
He refused to believe it. They were the ridiculous concoctions of people like Linsey who wanted to control the uncontrollable.
“Daniel, you might be willing to take that chance, but I’m not.”
“What are you saying? That you’re giving up? I thought we agreed this is the best thing we can do for her.”
“My sister has never asked me for anything in her life, Daniel. She has taken care of me selflessly and without hesitation since I was dumped on her doorstep fifteen years ago, and now is my chance to do something in return. What would it hurt if we pretended to fall in love? What if we did go along with the ruse of getting married?”
Loving Linsey Page 23
