Heartstrings

by Rebecca Paisley

  His command snapped Theodosia out of her deep state of contemplation. Quickly, she slid John the Baptist out of the man’s hands. “Your irritation toward my parrot is totally unjustified. He can in no way be held accountable for the fall you took. Apparently, you don’t ride well. Riding requires superb equilibrium, something you obviously do not possess. Moreover, I refuse to believe you are injured. Your little tumble was cushioned by that mass of—”

  “My little tumble never would have happened if that feathered maniac hadn’t scared the hell out of my—”

  “Feathered maniac?” Theodosia clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Sir, that is a very poor choice of words. You may not refer to a bird as a maniac.”

  He gaped at her. “I may not?”

  “No. The word maniac is used for humans only. And I will have you know that my bird is an African gray, a species of parrot that is very much admired throughout the civilized world.”

  “Oh, of all the—I don’t care if that feathered maniac’s a Japanese purple, my word choices are none of your blasted business! And you’ve got some damned nerve telling me I can’t ride, lady.” He swiped his hat from the stone-peppered road. “I can’t remember a single day of my life when I haven’t mounted a horse!”

  “My goodness, sir, you are becoming crazed.”

  “I’m crazy? All I was doing was riding into town! You’re the one who was running all over the place chasing a pampered parrot and correcting people’s word choices!”

  Theodosia walked into the shade beneath a towering oak.

  Through narrowed eyes the man watched her. Her gently rounded hips swayed, and her dark blue traveling suit hugged her tiny waist and rustled around what he guessed were long, slender legs.

  He could see nothing of her breasts; her damned bird snuggled against her chest. And since he’d been too angry to notice her bosom before, he couldn’t remember if it was small, or the big and full kind he liked.

  Liked? He didn’t like this woman at all. Even if she did have big full breasts, he wasn’t going to like her.

  Still, he mused, he didn’t have to like her to appreciate her looks. Indeed, in his opinion big full breasts had a lot to do with the one and only thing women were good for.

  “Your quick temper is interesting, sir,” Theodosia announced abruptly, her skirts brushing across thick patches of bluebonnets and orange-red Indian paintbrush. “Oh, I realize that falling into a hill of reeking fertilizer is far from a pleasant experience, but you became instantly livid. So much so that I wondered if some form of cicuration would be necessary.”

  So intently was he watching her, he barely heard her. But after a moment of thought, he realized what she’d said. His eyes widened to such an extent, his eyelids ached. “Good God, do all northern women go around threatening men with castration?”

  She cocked her head slightly. “Whatever are you talking about, sir? I said nothing at all about castration.”

  “You said—”

  “Cicuration. To cicurate is to calm. To tame. Your ferocity made me wonder if I would have to somehow coax you out of your frenzied state.”

  He frowned, no more able to comprehend what she had said than he could understand why he was still here listening to her. “Lady, I get the feeling you must be some sort of genius, but I’ll be damned if you aren’t a lunatic, too.”

  He stalked over to his horse.

  “My brother-in-law, Upton, and I studied the emotion of anger at great length a few years ago,” Theodosia elaborated, watching him mount and settle his large frame into the saddle. “We became interested in psychology, and it was most fascinating. Our research taught us that many people who possess quick tempers underwent various and extended forms of strain and or grief during their childhoods. But of course, there are also people who possess violent characters because they were extremely spoiled as children. Which is it in your case, sir?”

  Surprise, like an unseen fist, hit him hard.

  Strain and grief.

  How had this woman guessed?

  He slid his hat on. Without another word to her, he urged his stallion into an easy canter toward town.

  Once he arrived at the train station, Roman Montana dismounted, tied his horse to a post, and dug into his saddlebag for the sign he was to use to find the woman Dr. Wallaby had sent him to meet. Upon withdrawing the sign, he looked at the name on it.

  Theodosia Worth.

  “Theodosia,” he muttered. Peculiar name. He wondered if she was as odd as her name. Maybe.

  But no one could be as strange as the woman he’d just left outside town.

  Thank God for that.

  “Nice horse,” a deep voice said from behind him. “Nimble, yet rugged. Unusual combination. Is he fast?”

  Accustomed to such curiosity, Roman turned and waited for the man’s next words. He knew full well what they would be. Almost every man who saw his stallion, Secret, wanted to buy him.

  The man examined the stallion again. “I’ve got a ranch about seventy-five miles west of here. Wouldn’t be willing to sell him, would you? I’d pay good money for him.”

  Roman smiled. The man was mistaken if he thought to use Secret as a stud horse, for the stallion was but the result of some unusual and mischievous crossbreeding that Roman had indulged in ten years ago. He’d never told a soul about his youthful transgression or the particulars of its unexpected yet extraordinary outcome, nor would he. His future depended on his keeping the secret.

  “Sorry,” he said. “He’s not for sale.”

  “Damned shame. Well, good luck to you.”

  “Thanks.” Roman swiped at his soiled clothing again and entered the station. Holding the sign above his head, he walked through the milling crowd. Many people hastened to step out of his way. He understood why they gave him a wide berth. He certainly didn’t smell of sandalwood soap or rosewater. He smelled of…

  What had that demented woman called it? Reeking fertilizer. Shaking his head, he made another journey around the stuffy room. By the time he’d completed his third trip, he saw her.

  That crazy genius. She stood by the side door of the station; her feathered maniac sat perched on her shoulder, pecking at a bit of ribbon on her bonnet.

  He started to turn away from her, but before he could give her his back, he saw her move toward him.

  In only a moment he found himself staring into the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen. Almost perfect circles, they were the color of fine whiskey and every bit as intoxicating.

  He lowered his gaze and saw that one long lock of her bright gold hair lay over her breasts, which were, indeed, the big and full kind.

  Not that he gave a solitary damn.

  He spun on his heel and strode away from her.

  “Roman Montana?”

  At the sound of his name, Roman stopped in his tracks. Oh, God. She knew who he was.

  That could only mean one thing. Dread coiling through him, he felt as though he’d swallowed a poisonous snake.

  “Roman Montana?” Theodosia said to the back of his head. “I didn’t recognize you while we conversed outside of town.” She tapped him on the upper back; the tips of her fingers touched his long hair.

  She drew her hand away immediately, unnerved by the strange emotion that the feel of his hair evoked.

  It was sun-warmed. The same color as the two shiny black guns he wore at his hips, it spilled over his broad shoulders and down his back in thick waves.

  She’d never seen such hair on a man and knew an almost uncontrollable urge to touch it again.

  Baffled by her odd reaction to it, she took a step away and forced herself to concentrate on the situation at hand. “I am Theodosia Worth, the woman you are to escort to Templeton,” she said, still speaking to his back. “You have a sign with my name on it, and you are exactly one hour, twenty-two minutes, and forty-nine seconds late.”

  He clenched his fists around the sign. The woman actually counted seconds!

  When he still didn
’t answer her or turn around to face her, Theodosia contemplated the remote possibility that she’d made a mistake. “My goodness, sir, you are Roman Montana, are you not?”

  John the Baptist squawked shrilly. “It is imperative that I conceive a child,” he called out. “My goodness, sir, you are Roman Montana, are you not?”

  His dread deepening, Roman wished to God his name were anything but Roman Montana.

  Chapter Two

  Soused. Liquored up. Under the sauce. Stewed to the gills.

  Drunk.

  Roman could think of no other state of being that would enable him to get through the three-day journey to Templeton with Theodosia Worth. “For all I care,” he mumbled to the bartender, “she can fly to Templeton on her parrot’s back.”

  “Whatever y’say,” the bartender answered, refilling his customer’s glass.

  Wrapping his hand around the glass, Roman looked into the mirror on the wall behind the bar. Its reflection showed him a cloud of blue-gray smoke, with weak rays of sunshine filtering through it. Beneath the haze a half dozen men sat at tables, playing cards and stealing a feel or two from the voluptuous barmaids. Others stood at the bar, nursing their drinks in solitude. Most were drifters like himself, he knew. They wandered here and there, earning money when they needed it and handling their days the way a child builds with blocks—one by one, with no specific scheme in mind.

  That was where the similarities ended, Roman thought. He had a definite plan, and it wasn’t some sort of castle in the air, as his stepmother had so coldly put it.

  It was a dream so big that only twenty-five thousand acres of the richest grassland that the Rio Grande Plains had to offer could support it. He’d raise a remarkable breed of horses on that beautiful land and then make a fortune off the cattle ranchers who would undoubtedly pay any price he named to buy his stock.

  To make that fortune, however, he had to spend a fortune. True, he was only five hundred dollars short of being able to purchase the land. And the herd of sturdy Spanish mares wouldn’t be expensive.

  But the English Thoroughbred stallions would not come cheap. The best in the country, bred and raised on various farms in the east, cost nearly their weight in gold. He would get them somehow, though, for he wanted the finest money could buy.

  Nothing—no one in the entire world was going to keep him from realizing his dream. As he had done for ten long years, he would accept any and every job that came his way until he possessed the funds he needed.

  He would just have to find the patience to put up With Theodosia Worth during the trip to Templeton. He couldn’t afford to pass up the money Dr. Wallaby would pay him for completing the job.

  “Reward money, that’s what it is,” he muttered, raking his fingers through his hair. “Like the kind a man gets for bringing in some sort of menace to society.”

  “A real menace,” the barkeep agreed automatically. “Hey, don’t I know you? Ain’t I seed you… Yeah, you’re the same feller who come through a few months ago. Roman Montana, that’s who ya are. Folks ain’t quit talkin’ about that horse o’ yours. Still ain’t sellin’?”

  Roman shook his head and sipped his whiskey.

  “Y’know, Will Simpson said his horses ain’t never been shod they way y’shod ’em when ya was here last. Said your blacksmithin’ weren’t nothin’ short of amazin’ and that he’d like to know how y’got them shoes to stick s’good.”

  “Tell him to drive the nails home with one blow. More than one strike gives the nail a chance to loosen before it’s even in.”

  “Really? Hmm. Didn’t never know that. Well, what about ole Herman Gooch? Jest the other day he said he was hopin’ you’d come back and bigger his wife’s parlor. She really liked how you biggered her kitchen. Y’on’t me to fetch him over here?”

  Roman drained his glass. “Another time, maybe. I’ve got another job to do right now. A real headache of a job by the name of Theodosia Worth. And her damned parrot’s every bit as much of a pain in the—”

  “Parrot? A big gray bird with red tail feathers? Oh, I seed that woman. She stopped in front o’ the saloon fer a second. Purty little thing. Skin so white, it looked like it come from a milk bottle. Whatcha gotta do fer her?”

  Roman sloshed more whiskey into his glass. “Take her to Templeton. She’s over at Claff’s livery now, trying to pick out a horse and wagon. I had a mind to stay and help her, but when she asked Claff about a certain Equus caballus, I couldn’t leave fast enough.”

  “Equus caballus?” The barkeep scratched his head. “What the hell’s that?”

  Roman swallowed his fifth shot of liquor and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Best as I can figure, that’s genius talk for horse.”

  “Mr. Montana!”

  Roman swiveled on the stool and saw Claff’s son standing between the saloon doors.

  “Paw asked me to come git ya! Said fer ya to hurry up. That Miz Worth woman y’brung to the livery ain’t speakin’ no kind o’ English we ever heared, and Paw’s beside hissef tryin’ to make out what she wants.”

  Roman folded his arms across his chest. “Claff s upset? Don’t tell me—that Miss Worth woman is now trying to cicurate him.”

  “Cicurate?” The boy shook his head. “Naw, she ain’t hurtin’ him none, but she’s sure got him riled. Will y’come?”

  With a fair amount of whiskey flowing through his veins, Roman felt more inclined to deal with the obnoxious Miss Worth. He paid for the liquor and headed out of the saloon.

  As he stepped into the street, he spotted her in front of the livery. Her hands clasped behind her ,back, she was slowly circling a bay Thoroughbred.

  Severed buildings away, in front of the feed store, three burly, well-armed men stood watching her. Even from where he stood, Roman could tell they were up to no good. And whatever evil thing was on their minds, it involved Theodosia.

  His steps long and purposeful, he strode across the street, careful to keep his instincts trained on the three outlaws.

  “Oh, hello, Mr. Montana.” Theodosia greeted him with a smile.

  The sparkling prettiness of her smile captured his attention. He was halfway tempted to smile back.

  But only halfway. He frowned instead. “You aren’t buying that horse. Miss Worth.”

  She ran her hand down the horse’s sleek flank. “Yes, I do believe I shall, Mr. Montana. This gelding is a Thoroughbred. He is not the finest I have seen, but I find his spirit highly desirable. I’m quite familiar with this breed because my father—”

  “That horse is too fine,” Roman flared. “Claff, show her a few sturdier—”

  “I have already seen the others,” Theodosia announced, smoothing the back of her hand across her moist forehead. “I cared for none of them. And I would sincerely appreciate it if you did not become roinous over the matter, Mr. Montana.”

  The warm, whiskey-induced mellowness that Roman had hoped would see him through a few hours in Theodosia’s company quickly turned into cold anger. “I’ll be as roinous as I damned well want!” He had no inkling what the word meant but wasn’t about to cow before the might of her vocabulary. “Now, pick another horse, because you are not taking the Thoroughbred.”

  John the Baptist screeched from within his cage, which Theodosia had placed on top of several bales of hay. “I’ll be as roinous as I damned well want,” he called out.

  Theodosia bristled. “Now look what you have done, Mr. Montana. My bird has never—not once—spoken a profanity. Five minutes in your company, and he—”

  “The word damned ain’t s’bad, Miz Worth,” Claff ventured. “There’s a helluva lot worser words he might could learn to say. Why, I know some that near ’bout turn my mouth inside out when I say ’em.”

  “Please don’t tell me what they are,” she entreated, then turned back to Roman. “I am anxious to get to Templeton, Mr. Montana. That is why I was not inclined to accept your suggestion that we stay here tonight and begin our journey in the morning. It is also
why I prefer this Thoroughbred. Thoroughbreds are well known for their speed. I happen to know a great deal about them because my father—”

  “Yeah, I’m beginning to realize that you know a lot about a lot, but you don’t know much about much. Take that Thoroughbred, and by tomorrow night I’ll be forced to shoot him to put him out of his misery. Templeton is almost a three-day ride away and over rough terrain. The Thoroughbred is famous for its speed but not for its ruggedness.”

  “That chestnut over there’s a strong ’un,” Claff offered. He ambled forward, a long piece of straw hanging from his mouth. “Trained to pull a wagon too.”

  Playing with the fragile gold chains that dangled from the bottom of her ruby brooch, Theodosia glanced at the small scraggly animal Claff had indicated. “That is a mere pony. And a sick one at that.”

  “It’s a healthy mustang,” Roman corrected her. “No horse in the world has as much stamina. It might not be pretty, but that horse’ll get you wherever you want to go.” He nodded at Claff, then turned his attention to the group of vehicles. “And she’ll take that buckboard.”

  “That rickety wagon?” Theodosia exclaimed.

  “It’s small and lightweight, and the wheels are made of seasoned orangewood.”

  “And what, may I ask, is so special about orangewood, Mr. Montana?”

  “Seasoned orangewood won’t shrink much, Miss Worth.”

  “Really?” She looked at the wheels. “How interesting. But be that as it may, I have already chosen my conveyance.” She pointed to a dainty buggy whose black lacquered body gleamed in the late afternoon sunshine.

  Roman flicked a bothersome fly off his arm. “May as well sail through a hurricane in a paper boat. The bolts on the running gear aren’t riveted. They’ll come off, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to stop every ten miles to—”

  “But—”

  “Get the wagon, or walk. The choice is yours. How’s that for being roinous?”