Denim and Lace

by Rice, Patricia

  "You're so exhausted you're not even hearing what we're saying," he said, holding out his hand to help her up. "You don't have to stay up to be polite."

  Sam glanced uncertainly at the two people sitting by the fire. They were trying very hard to conceal their interest. They seemed more sympathetic than nosy, and Sam made her excuses to avoid their eyes. Maybe once she left the parlor, Sloan would explain. She didn't want to have to spend another night alone in that bedroom, not when her husband was so close by.

  She heard the rumbling of Sloan's voice as she drifted down the hallway. She remembered how he'd climbed in her window just that morning, and she smiled to herself. She could count on Sloan to do the unexpected. She fully expected their marriage would be one noisy argument after another, but it would never be boring. And they would always have the bedroom for reconciliations.

  It was a little worrisome knowing Sloan didn't want children. He might have all the experience in the world, but children sometimes happened. They had time enough in the future to worry about that. They were safe for a few more days. If Sloan used his precautions the rest of the time, then they could probably hold off quite a while before the question of children came up. Maybe by that time he'd welcome the idea.

  Sam heard Matthew's voice rise angrily as she entered the bedroom she'd used the night before. The bed in here was small. Maybe Sloan had meant for her to go to his bed, but she didn't have enough nerve to do that until he'd told his family that they were married. Maybe if she just washed and waited, he'd come get her and take her to his room.

  As she waited, she heard Sloan shouting at his brother and Jeanne's voice attempting to placate the two. A moment later, even Jeanne's voice sounded sharp and unhappy. Sam twisted her hands together and looked at her new wedding band. She hadn't thought Sloan's family had disliked her that much.

  She knew she wasn't pretty. She certainly didn't behave like a proper lady. But she wasn't ignorant or stupid. She would make a good wife for Sloan. Even if she knew more about hunting than cooking, she could still take care of him—as much as he would let her. She didn't think that would be very much, but they would work it out eventually. There was no call for this kind of screaming argument over her.

  The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. They were in there fighting over her as if she was too young and tin-headed to stand up for herself.

  Shoving her hair back off her face, Sam stalked back down the hallway to the parlor. Sloan would have to learn that she fought her own fights. He must have sent her away knowing his announcement would instigate a family argument. He should have confided in her. She could have told him she would stand by his side.

  "Dammit, Sloan, I've stood behind you and supported your decisions every minute of the way, but I can't condone this! God only knows, I understand what you've gone through, but you have no right—"

  "You have no right, Matt! This is my life; I'll live it as I want. I'm not asking for your approval. We'll go back up the mountain and not come down again, if that's what you want. I just wanted you to know that I've found a woman I mean to live with. I'd hoped you would accept her since she's the innocent party, but if you can't—"

  Sam started to step out of the shadows to lend her support to Sloan, but Jeanne's next words pinned her to the floor.

  "You are already married, Sloan! Even knowing she is innocent, you would ruin her with this charade?"

  Frozen, Sam swung her gaze to Sloan. Surely she had misunderstood. He would explain away this accusation. This was what she got for eavesdropping. She ought to just walk out there right now and make herself known so they could tell her what the argument was really about. But instead of moving, she fastened her gaze on Sloan.

  He had his back to the fire, and his features fell in shadow, but she could tell by the tension in his stance that he was furious. He'd have no expression except that icy look she knew so well. Her heart pounded as she waited for his declaration of innocence.

  "Melinda is not my wife!" he finally spat out. "She has my name, my fortune, and everything I ever was. She stole my life. I came out here to start a new one, and I've succeeded. I thought you would be happy that I've found someone to share it with. I can see I was wrong."

  "You want us to be happy that you've started your new life as a bigamist?" Matt asked incredulously.

  "Rodriguez was defrocked years ago," Sloan answered wearily. "The marriage isn't legal. That's the whole point, isn't it? I'm not going to live through that hell again."

  Samantha felt as if every ounce of blood in her body had drained to her feet. The shock had numbed her beyond that, but a twinge of pain formed in her belly as the words gradually sank in.

  She didn't want to believe what she was hearing. She wanted to believe she misunderstood everything. She knew very little about Sloan Talbott. She knew him as a difficult, irascible man who hid himself from the world. She knew he alone was responsible for saving dozens of lives during the smallpox epidemic. She knew he'd risked his life to save Jack during the fire. She knew he would never admit responsibility for either of those acts. And she didn't know why, not any more than she knew why he stood there saying these things now. She had to be dreaming this, or misunderstanding something.

  Matthew gulped the dregs of his brandy glass and stood up to face his brother. "I don't believe for a minute that little girl in there is another Melinda, not any more than I believe that you killed your own son. You're a block- headed idiot, Sloan, and I'm not going to let you ruin that girl's life as you're so intent on ruining your own."

  When Sloan's fist lashed out to catch his brother on the jaw, sending him crashing into the furniture, Sam couldn't stay where she was any longer. She stepped out into the flickering light of the fire just as Matthew hit the floor.

  Standing furiously over his prostrate brother, Sloan saw her at once. Without a word he casually returned to the mantel and refilled his brandy glass. Lifting it in salute, he threw back the contents in a single swallow.

  Chapter Thirty

  Matt picked himself up off the floor, rubbing his jaw.

  He glanced from the slender woman in delicate silk to the stone-faced man at the fire. The woman wasn't weeping hysterically or screaming epithets. The firelight played on a cascade of red hair and flickered across her porcelain features, making her cheeks paler than usual, but her expression was as inscrutable as Sloan's. For a moment Matt had an image of her holding a rifle and aiming it at his brother's heart, but he shook his head and the vision went away. The woman standing here was young and vulnerable and in need of sympathy and understanding.

  Jeanne tried to offer it to her, but Samantha shook her off and stepped away. Her gaze remained fixed on Sloan. Catching his wife's arm, Matthew tried to see what Samantha saw in his brother's face. Sloan was so tense that it seemed he would shatter if touched, but he maintained his insouciant pose, leaning one elbow against the mantel and dangling the glass from his fingers.

  "I'd appreciate an explanation." Samantha finally broke the silence. Her voice sounded quiet and reasonable, but Matthew could see her fingers trembling where she clenched them in the gathers of her skirt.

  "There isn't any," Sloan replied, reaching for the brandy again.

  The two of them acted as if they were alone in the room. Glancing at Jeanne, Matt met her eyes and nodded agreement with her unspoken words. This wasn't their argument. Silently, they slipped away.

  Sloan scarcely noticed. He refilled his glass, but didn't drink. When he'd been younger, he'd used drinking as a crutch to get through this kind of emotional hurricane. He knew the tragic results. He'd hoped this time around he would be able to avoid hysterical scenes. There shouldn't be any emotions involved, just sex. He should have known women were anathema to him. They couldn't leave well enough alone. They had to play out every drama to its bitter end. Well, this time, he wasn't cooperating.

  He watched as Sam paled a little more at his reply. She bit her bottom lip, turning it as pale as her cheeks. H
e remembered kissing that wide mouth of hers. He remembered the lush responsiveness of her kisses. He regretted losing the opportunity to kiss her again, but he didn't regret what he had done.

  "Don't lie to me, Talbott, if that's really your name. You may be the meanest man this side of the Sierras, but I don't think you've ever deliberately lied to me. Let's keep it that way. Tell me you don't want to explain, but don't tell me there isn't any explanation. I'm not a total fool. Obviously, I'm not as smart as I thought was, but I'm not an idiot either."

  "No, you're not an idiot." He swung the glass in his hands, watching her face for expression. She wasn't even crying. She hadn't lifted her voice once. Maybe he'd been right after all. Maybe it was just sex between them. He'd liked the way she'd looked at him as if he really were a man she admired, but maybe that had just been one of her woman's ploys. "I don't know how much you heard. What part needs explaining? It seemed rather clear to me."

  This time she looked as if she would like to drive a timber piling through his middle, but she kept her fists clenched at her sides. "You told me from the first that you didn't want to be married. We had an agreement, and I was willing to abide by it. So why did you make a fool of me at that church? Do you despise me that much?"

  That was an interesting approach. She didn't mind that they weren't really married. She just didn't like being made a fool of. He could understand that. But he couldn't answer it. He wasn't exactly certain of the answer himself.

  Sloan set the glass aside and ran his hand over the back of his neck, trying to work out the tension. "I don't despise you, Sam. I didn't lie to you about that. For some insane reason I like you better than anyone else I know. I guess I was trying to make things easier for you." He shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned his shoulders against the mantel. He tried to follow her expression, but she had stepped back into the shadows again. He felt like an idiot trying to explain himself, but maybe he'd feel less like a cad if he tried.

  "Your effort is not appreciated." Sarcasm laced her reply. "Why on earth would you think a fake priest and a fake marriage would make things easier for me? It sounds like they make things easier for you."

  She was definitely not stupid. Sloan grimaced. "It made things easier for both of us. When you got tired of me, you could pack up and leave without any of the ties that bind, and I could let you go, knowing you weren't walking away with anything that belonged to me. But that wasn't the real reason I did it. I did it because I wanted to take you back to town and keep you by my side. I knew you would never go to bed with me unless your family accepted it as respectable. And I knew it would be impossible for the two of us to live in the same town without ending up in the same bed. So I took the easiest path."

  He waited for the screams, but they didn't come. He couldn't tell how much he'd hurt her. She just stood there like a stone statue, watching him with a kind of silent wariness, making him feel as if he were a mallet poised to smash her to splinters.

  "When did you mean to tell me that you were already married?"

  So, she'd heard it all. Sloan sighed and wished for the brandy glass again. He kept his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "It isn't something that normally comes up in conversation." He could tell her that woman back there was no longer his wife, but it wouldn't change things. No one knew, not even Matthew. Allowing her to keep his name and social standing had given him his freedom, and he meant to abide by that agreement. He saw no reason to break it now. He'd have done the same whether he was free or not. He had no intention of ever marrying again.

  "Well, that's honest." She turned as if to go, then looked back over her shoulder. "Is your name really Talbott?"

  "I left the name Montgomery with her. Talbott was the name of the town when I bought it."

  She nodded and walked out, back to the bedroom she had slept in last night, the one with the single bed. Sloan watched her go with a twinge of unhappiness.

  He hadn't wanted it this way, but he'd known the time would come sooner or later. Maybe it was better that it had come now, before she really knew what a bastard he was.

  At least, she hadn't asked him how he'd killed his son.

  ***

  "Harriet, I really don't think it's wise to encourage Mr. . .. er ... Riding Eagle." Alice Neely shook out the wet linen and pinned one corner neatly to the line the men had strung across the back lot.

  'T'm not encouraging him, Mama," Harriet said calmly, pinning the other end of the sheet. "He wishes to learn to read, and I am teaching him. He's a quick student."

  Alice sighed and tried to think of the words to explain. She wished Samantha were here. Her eldest daughter had a way of driving right to the point without being overly crude. "You might think you're teaching him to read, but he's likely having other ideas," she said cautiously. "And the other men are definitely having other ideas, especially since you started throwing them out when they hung around the store without buying anything."

  "They were rude and insulting. If Samantha was here, she would have done the same." Indignation began to replace Harriet's earlier serenity. "Mr. Eagle grasps the letters of the alphabet much easier when he can associate them with words he knows. He knows what a bag of feed and a can of hominy are. It's not the same as teaching a child. A picture book won't suffice."

  Alice removed the clothespin from her mouth and jabbed it over the linen pillowcase. "Then I suggest you ask Chief Coyote or that Miss Whitaker to attend while you are teaching him. It ought to be Miss Whitaker's place to teach him anyway. She's the teacher in this town, not you. And he's the chief's grandson. I can't chaperone you all day, but someone ought to."

  "Miss Whitaker thinks Indians smell. And I don't believe she's much of a teacher. She tried to tell Jack that Nebraska is still a territory, and she didn't know Ulysses Grant has been elected president. She's more interested in flirting with Mr. Bradshaw than teaching anybody."

  Lord only knew, but Harriet was right. Clara Whitaker was a disappointment as a teacher. Jack would grow up as wild as Riding Eagle if someone didn't take him in hand soon. Alice glared at the clothesline. "Well then, Chief Coyote will have to sit with you. He doesn't seem to have much else to do around here anyway."

  Harriet looked dubious. "I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll properly understand. Indians don't seem to know much about chaperoning." She brightened. "Maybe I could get Bernadette to sit with me."

  "You know I need her in the kitchen, and she would be worse than Chief Coyote, in any account. She'd no doubt start hanging curtains on the window and get distracted by a butterfly outside and forget you were even there. I have to keep an eye on that girl every minute."

  Harriet smiled at this accurate description of her twin's vagaries. They might look identical, but they had certainly never been identical in character. Harriet was practical. Bernadette was . . . well, Bernadette was just Bernadette. There was no explaining her.

  "I'll talk to Chief Coyote. I wish Dr. Ramsey would come back. He used to sit in on our sessions and come up with some helpful suggestions. Isn't it odd that he got called out of town just when Mr. Talbott and Sam left?"

  Odd wasn't precisely the word for it. Alice alternated between grateful and worried at the doctor's behavior. He seemed a reasonable man when he wasn't drinking, and he'd done his best to welcome them to this town—unlike Sloan Talbott. Sometimes she thought Ramsey meant to court one of them but hadn't decided which. He was certainly old enough to be the twins' father, but Alice had made it very clear that she was married and wouldn't believe herself otherwise unless they found Emmanuel's body. And knowing Emmanuel as she did, she didn't expect his body to be found in anything less than a walking state.

  "Dr. Ramsey's business isn't ours," she reprimanded her daughter gently. "I'm sure Samantha will be back directly, and perhaps she can come up with some other ideas about Mr. Eagle. In the meantime, I don't want you alone with him again."

  Harriet looked the tiniest bit sulky. "You let Sam go off with Mr. Talbott alone. I don't und
erstand the difference."

  Alice didn't think she could explain the difference. She couldn't tell her younger daughter that Sam would do whatever she thought best regardless of what her mother thought. Harriet was rebellious enough. She didn't think she could explain that Sam thought like a man and could take care of herself like a man, and if Sloan Talbott tried anything untoward, he would likely wake up a eunuch. Alice wasn't entirely certain that was true, but the notion made it easier to accept what she'd allowed Sam to do.

  It wasn't any more palatable to explain that Sam was getting too old to go unmarried, and she hoped this trip would wake those two up to what they felt for each other. Harriet would never understand that in a million years. Everyone still thought Sloan and Sam hated each other. Alice had seen too much of human nature to believe that. Those two were like iron and lodestone. Keeping them apart would be impossible.

  So Alice merely shrugged and replied, "Finding your father is a shade more important than teaching Mr. Eagle to read."

  Harriet wisely accepted that reply.

  Jack raced around the corner, his boot heels skidding in the dirt and throwing dust up on the newly washed clothes as he came to a halt.

  "They're coming! I saw them coming! Can I ride down and meet them?"

  Shaking out the now dust-coated wet sheet with exasperation, Alice Neely frowned down at her nephew. "Who's coming?"

  Jack beamed and cleaned off his spectacles on his shirt.

  "Everybody who went down to Ariposa, I reckon. I can't tell until I get there."

  Sam. And Talbott. Alice sent Harriet a look of relief. They were home. She looked back to Jack, making certain he had his good boots on and his shirt tucked in. "You be careful now. If they tell me you galloped that pony down the hill, you won't be allowed to ride it again for a month."

  Jack whooped and took off running for the stable.

  The noise brought a few onlookers into the street. A few more got the word and wandered out to join them.