by Janet Dailey
Alan tipped the straw cowboy hat to the back of his head and sighed, “The alternator wore out on the tractor.”
Diana could see the lines of stress etched in his face that came from large responsibilities and small income.
“Oh, no,” Peggy moaned in commiseration and handed him a can of beer.
“Oh, yes,” he grimaced and pulled off the pop-top. He gulped down a swallow of beer and frowned at the can. “This isn’t very cold.”
“Nothing is. I think there’s either something wrong with the thermostat or the cooling unit in the refrigerator,” Peggy answered.
“That’s all we need,” he grumbled. Little Sara crawled onto his lap and tried to steal a sip of beer. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking a nap, Sara? Why isn’t she in bed?” The second question he directed at Peggy.
“I was going to put her there right after I gave Brian his bottle,” she explained, but in an apologetic tone that irritated Diana. “Come on, Sara. You and Brian are going to bed now.”
The little girl started to whine and was dragged by the hand out of the kitchen. Diana waited until Peggy returned to make her excuses to leave. Alan’s thoughtless attitude toward his wife had brought a constraint to the conversation.
“You can stay a little longer,” Peggy said, attempting to coax her to remain.
“No, really, I can’t. I was just going to slip over for a few minutes while the Major was resting,” Diana insisted. “I’ll be back.”
“Maybe it will be quieter next time.”
They both walked onto the porch with Diana and waved as she drove out of the yard. All the way home Diana tried to understand how Peggy could be so bright and cheerful. She had neither a nice home nor nice clothes, and not much hope for either in the future. She did have three children who were working her to the point of exhaustion. To top it all off, Alan didn’t seem to appreciate her.
But Diana did. Those moments of private conversation had eased a great many of her guilt feelings about the failure of her marriage.
Chapter V
It was becoming Diana’s habit to help Sophie with the meals, especially at lunchtime. It gave her an excuse not to become involved in pre-dinner or after-dinner discussions where Holt was included.
She was setting the table when Guy walked in. “Hi. Holt won’t be here for lunch, so there’s no need in setting a place for him,” he informed her.
“He won’t be here?” Diana repeated. “Where is he?”
“Nashira, the mare, hasn’t come back yet. He and Rube rode out to see if they could find her. He said if he wasn’t back by eleven-thirty not to fix him any lunch.”
“Well, lunch is already fixed.”
“That’s all right. I’m hungry enough to eat his share.” Guy ignored her ill-tempered answer. He was accustomed to her attitude toward Holt.
Guy hadn’t just been making idle conversation when he had declared he was hungry. He didn’t lean back in his chair until he had emptied his place three times.
“What have you been doing to acquire such an appetite?” The Major regarded him with amusement.
“Working,” was the smiling answer. Guy darted a twinkling glance at Diana before he explained to the older man. “I should be done with everything Holt gave me to do by mid-afternoon. Since he isn’t around to give me more work, I thought I might ask Diana if she’d like to go riding with me this afternoon.”
“It seems I’ve heard that before,” the Major remarked. “When the two of you were younger, you were always asking if Diana would go riding with you.”
“Hounding me into going riding with him,” she corrected with a teasing smile.
“That’s because Holt wouldn’t let me go riding alone until I was twelve,” Guy defended himself good-naturedly. “If the Major is willing to turn a blind eye to the fact I’m taking half the afternoon off, will you go riding with me, Diana?”
“I don’t want to get you into trouble with Holt.” Such a consideration would never have occurred to her in the past.
“I don’t see why it should,” her father reasoned. “If Guy can do a day’s work in less than a day, I don’t see how Holt could have a complaint.”
“That settles it,” Diana declared. “With the Major on your side, Holt wouldn’t dare say a word to you. What time shall we go?”
“Around three.”
“I’ll have the horses saddled and waiting at the stable,” she promised.
Diana had gone riding almost every morning since her return, but she was looking forward to the outing with Guy. He did so much to bolster her sagging self-esteem with his friendliness and little attentions.
A few minutes past three, he appeared at the stable looking tanned and fresh. Diana caught the scent of a spicy after-shave cologne as she handed him the reins to his mount. She realized he had showered and shaved before meeting her. It was a pleasing discovery to know he had taken extra time with his appearance.
“You don’t look as if you’ve been working hard,” Diana observed.
“Thanks to a shower and a clean set of clothes,” he said, admitting what she had already guessed. He agilely swung his tall frame into the saddle. “It’s the first time we’ve ridden together in four years. I thought the occasion demanded a little extra effort.”
“You look nice.” And she meant it. “Where shall we ride?”
“Wherever you like. Lead the way.”
It did seem like old times as Diana urged her horse forward and Guy followed. Avoiding the green of the hay fields, they cantered through desert sage until the ranch yard was far behind them. The only sounds they heard were those they created, the squeaking of saddle leather and the thud of the horses’ hooves pounding on the sandy soil. When Diana slowed her horse to a walk, Guy brought his alongside.
Without the breeze the cantering had generated, the sun felt sticky to her perspiring skin. “It’s hotter than I realized.”
“Summer is coming.”
“What are you going to do, Guy?” She changed the subject, suddenly curious about him.
“When?” he grinned, finding her question too ambiguous to answer.
“You’ve been out of high school a year now. Do you have any plans? Are you thinking about college? Or the service?”
“Holt wanted me to go to college, but . . .” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m tired of school and studying. Naturally, the Major suggested that I might try one of the armed services.”
“Is there anything you’d like to do?”
“What I’m doing. No, seriously,” he insisted when Diana smiled, “I like working here. I enjoy working with horses. Holt says I’m good with them.”
“You always have been, once you finally got over being afraid of them.”
“I wasn’t afraid of them,” he protested. Then he conceded, “Well, maybe a little in the beginning. Anyway, working with horses is what I want to do. It’s always been at the back of my mind that someday Holt might save enough money to buy a place of his own.”
“Do you think he will?” Diana had often pictured him leaving the ranch, but she had never thought of Holt owning a ranch of his own.
“I don’t know. He’s only thirty-five; he’s young enough to do it. But I don’t think he’ll leave the Major, especially now that he’s been sick.”
Why? Diana wondered, her mouth suddenly tasting sour. Was Holt staying out of a sense of loyalty? Or did he hope when the Major died there would be something in the will for his years of faithful service?
“What about you?” Guy countered. “What are you going to do?”
“Stay here. Take care of the Major. Beyond that, I’m not planning.” Her answer was abrupt, shutting him out with its curtness.
“He hurt you, didn’t he?” he said quietly.
With her thoughts centered on Holt, it took her a second to realize Guy was referring to her ex-husband. “Only people you care about can hurt you. Rand and I stopped caring about each other a long time ago. If anything, I am a shade disil
lusioned by the supposedly blissful state of marriage. Let’s change the subject, shall we?”
Guy complied with her request, steering the conversation to more general topics. Diana noticed how much more self-assured he had become, like his father, only Guy was gentle where Holt was hard. Guy was serious and sensitive, yet good fun, definitely not the pest he had once been.
As they talked and laughed, mostly over old times, their horses ambled along with little guidance. They were headed back for the ranch before either Guy or Diana noticed their direction had changed. The earthen dam of the irrigation pond rose on their right, the green of water willows peering over the top of the dam’s wall.
Diana reined her horse in. “Guy, let’s go swimming,” she suggested.
He hesitated, something flickering in his expression. Then he agreed. “Okay.”
Riding their horses around to the opposite side of the pond, they dismounted, leaving the horses in a grassy area near the water’s edge to graze. Gravel bit into the bare soles of Diana’s feet as she tugged off her boots and socks and rose to peel off her clothes.
She didn’t think twice about stripping to the skin. All her life she had swum nude, alone or with Guy. She folded her clothes into a neat pile and laid them beside her boots, aware that off to the side, Guy was doing the same. It never occurred to her to look. She had no curiosity or interest. A man’s anatomy was not new to her, certainly not Guy’s.
Tiptoeing over the rough ground, Diana wasn’t in the least self-conscious about her naked body. Warmed by the sun, the water was pleasantly cool as she waded in. When it was past her knees, she dived forward, not hearing the splash that followed hers.
Treading water near the center of the pond, she turned and called out, “The water is beautiful, Guy. Come on in.” The last word was punctuated by a strangled cry as she was pulled under by a pair of hands around her ankles.
Freed, Diana kicked upward toward the light, surfacing with a sputtering gasp to find a laughing Guy only a few feet away. Her hand sent a spray of water at his face before she turned and swam away. But she was no longer the superior swimmer of the pair. He caught up with her easily, a hand reaching over to dunk her head.
After a quarter of an hour of horseplay, Diana pleaded for a truce, unable to best him as she once had. Their swim became a more leisurely exercise, alternately swimming and floating, enjoying the water that cooled the heat of the sun from their skin.
Wading from the pond, Diana picked her way over the gravel to a patch of fine sand. She paused to squeeze the water from her dripping hair. A contented smile was on her lips as Guy walked gingerly over the rough ground to join her.
“Do you want to dry off with my shirt?” he offered.
“No.” She sank to the sand, sitting with her legs stretched in front of her and arms propped behind her, her face uplifted to the sun. “The sun will dry me off in no time.”
“That’s true.” He sat down beside her, Indian-style, leaning forward to rest his arms on his thighs.
“That was fun,” Diana sighed. “We used to go skinny-dipping here all the time, remember? In the summers when it was hot, I used to think I’d melt before we got here.”
“I remember.” Guy nodded and raked a hand through his hair to force it into some kind of order.
“Remember that time Holt caught us?” she recalled with a laugh. “He didn’t even know you could swim.”
“Yeah, and he whaled the daylights out of me back at the house.” He picked up a flat rock and skipped it across the surface of the pond.
The laughter faded from her expression as she gave him a sidelong look. His wet blond hair was darkened by the water to a rustic gold shade. Lean muscles bunched in his shoulders and arms. He wasn’t a boy anymore.
But his statement had brought back memories of the boy he had been and of that time Holt had descended on them in a cold fury. At sixteen, Diana hadn’t been frightened then. It had happened before she had felt the flat of Holt’s hand on her backside the night of her seventeenth birthday. He had ordered Guy out of the water, but Diana had stayed, swimming alone after Guy had dressed and ridden off with his father.
Diana hadn’t learned what happened until the next time she and Guy had gone swimming, and he had worn his undershorts into the pond. When she learned that Holt had forbidden him to swim in the nude, she had teased Guy unmercifully. How many times had she dived under the water and tried to strip his shorts from him? She couldn’t recall, but it was countless times. On a rare number of them, she had succeeded and twice had sent his shorts to the bottom, weighted down by a rock. Diana wondered how Guy had explained the missing underclothes.
At the time, it had just been a funny prank. Only now did it occur to her that it had been cruel. She realized that she never had been very kind to him, regarding him as a pest and a nuisance, taunting him and teasing him about everything from the cowlicks in his hair to his difficulty in reaching the stirrups of his saddle when he was younger. She was sickened by the way she had behaved.
“What must you think of me?” Diana murmured aloud, her blue eyes clouded with shameful regret.
Guy turned his head to look at her. His gaze touched her wet hair, which caught the sunlight to gleam blue-black, and roamed over the fine details of her face. There was something suddenly very intense in his expression.
“I think you are the most beautiful woman in the world, Diana,” he answered in a low, deeply emotional voice. “I’ve always thought so.”
A breath of a sob lodged in her throat. That he could think that after the way she had treated him years ago tore at her heart. She stared at him, searching for some word to say.
“Guy.” Diana issued his name in a choking whisper for forgiveness.
With a groan, Guy turned to her, rising to his knees to clasp the soft flesh of her upper arms and draw her forward. The years hadn’t changed the way he had worshipped her as a boy, she realized. It had simply added another element.
His head moved down, his mouth tentative against her lips. Diana knew she could push him away, but she had pushed him away so many times in the past. She couldn’t bring herself to reject him again. When she failed to object to his kiss, it deepened possessively. Diana responded, hearing the pounding of his heart.
She could feel him trembling with virginal passion. His hands were hesitant in their caresses, avoiding the intimate area of her breasts that might bring an end to the embrace, but the adoring fervor of his kiss made up for his lack of experience.
Guy began raining eager, feather kisses over her face, whispering her name over and over again. Diana was overwhelmed by his gentleness and vulnerability. His touching plea for her to return his affection was so like the silent requests of the past. Always before, she had ignored them. This time she couldn’t.
“Yes, Guy, yes,” Diana whispered against a smooth cheek.
Her hands slid to his neck, fingers intertwining behind it to pull him down with her to the sandy soil. A moan of raw desire came from Guy’s throat, cut short by the driving kiss he ground onto her lips. The need to make up to Guy for the way she had treated him blocked all other considerations from her mind. Opening her legs to let his slide between, Diana guided and directed his movements, initiating him into the art of making love.
The experience was short-lived, ending when he shuddered with completion. His crushing weight remained on top of her for several more seconds before Guy rolled weakly off to lie beside her, an expression of satisfied exhaustion on his youthful face.
Neither spoke immediately: Guy, lost to the wonder of what had happened; and Diana, questioning the wisdom of her kindness. But the quiet happiness shining in his eyes when he turned to gaze at her seemed to be the only answer she needed for the time being.
He reached out to hold her hand, as if needing to touch her to be sure it was all real and not a dream. Shifting to prop an elbow beneath him, he gazed at her hand, carrying it almost reverently to his lips.
“Are you sorry?”
Guy questioned, his look suddenly vulnerable as he lifted his gaze to her face.
No matter what doubts she might be experiencing, how could she say anything but, “No, I’m not sorry”? Diana touched his cheek with her fingertips in a caress meant to soothe and reassure. She felt so much older than Guy, almost maternal.
“I’m glad.” His voice trembled with emotion. “It was more wonderful than I dreamed it would be.” Diana pressed her fingers to his lips in an effort to silence him, not wanting Guy to talk about something they both might regret, but he wasn’t so easily deterred. He merely kissed her fingers and held her hand away. “I always wanted you to be the first. The guys were always trying to get me to go with them when they . . .” A faint blush tinted his face as he left that sentence unfinished. “But I kept waiting, hoping. Somehow I just knew you would come back.”
“Oh, Guy,” she murmured, helpless to stop the outpouring from his soul.
“I love you, Diana,” he declared. “I’ve always loved you. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t.”
“Don’t say that,” Diana protested.
“Why not? It’s true. I love you. I know you’re older than me,” Guy admitted, as if he believed that was the reason for her protest. “But now we’re both grown up, and five years doesn’t mean anything.”
“Please.” She wanted to cry from frustration.
He frowned. “I know you care about me, or else—”
“I do care about you,” Diana assured him, trying to explain. “It’s just . . .” What could she say that wouldn’t hurt him?
His forehead cleared as he guessed: “You’re thinking about your divorce, aren’t you?”
She seized on his suggestion. “It’s too soon, Guy. I’m not ready to become seriously involved with anyone yet.”
“I understand, and I can wait until you’re ready to love me as much as I love you. All I want to do is take care of you. I’ll never hurt you, Diana, I swear,” he vowed.
“I know you wouldn’t, Guy.” When he moved to kiss her, Diana eluded him, gliding to her feet. “It’s late. We’d better be getting back,” she offered as an excuse for her rejection. “The Major will think we’ve gotten lost.”
