Heartstrings

by Rebecca Paisley

“My goodness, Mr. Montana, I voiced no complaint. What reason do you have to become so defensive?”

  Reason? he repeated silently. He had thirteen years worth of reasons, and every time he thought of them he cursed himself for a fool.

  Never—not for as long as he lived—would he be stupid enough to bow to a woman’s bidding again.

  “Mr. Montana?”

  “What?”

  Theodosia shrank back. He’d growled the word. Indeed, if he had had fangs, she felt sure he would have bitten her. He was quite the most fascinating study of hostility she had ever encountered.

  “Are you going to stand there staring at me all night, Miss Worth?”

  She sat upon her sleeping pallet, hugged her bent knees to her chest, and watched the dying flames of the campfire. Overhead, branches of post oak and blackjack rustled in harmony with the warm and gentle night breeze. She was going to enjoy her first night under the stars. It would prepare her for the nights in Brazil, where she would most likely sleep in the jungle. “What was it that changed your decision not to accompany me to Templeton, Mr. Montana?”

  “The money,” Roman lied from his spot on the other side of the fire. He tossed his empty plate aside. Taking a long swallow of water from his canteen, he appeared relaxed.

  But every fiber in his body tensed with readiness. No sound escaped his attention. He’d checked the campsite thoroughly and had discovered no sign of the outlaws. It occurred to him that he might have been wrong in thinking they were after Theodosia’s gold. Maybe they’d given up the hunt.

  Ha! The sooner he got Theodosia to Templeton, the safer she and her dizzying amount of gold would be. “We’ll be traveling hard tomorrow. Get some sleep.”

  John the Baptist spoke before Theodosia could. “Przjez caly dzien wczoraj wozil buraki z pola.”

  Theodosia laughed.

  Roman had the distinct impression that woman and bird were making fun of him. “What are the two of you talking about?”

  “Przez caly dzien wczoraj wozil buraki z pola is Polish and means, ‘All day yesterday he was carting beetroot from the field.’”

  “Beetroot? Why the hell is he talking about beetroot?”

  “He doesn’t know what he’s saying, Mr. Montana. He’s merely repeating what he has heard. Several months ago, Upton entertained a Polish doctor, and the beetroot statement was one the man told us we could practice in order to get a better feel for the language. John the Baptist remembered it.”

  “John the Baptist,” Roman mused aloud, shaking his head. “Why’d you name him that?”

  The parrot stretched out his neck. “Any simpleton could figure that out!”

  Theodosia smiled. “For as long as I’ve had him, he’s had the terribly rude habit of throwing water at people. After the first few times I saw him do it, I decided to name him John the Baptist. He’s an extraordinary pet. He can mimic not only human speech, but animal sounds and other common noises, such as the rattle of carriage wheels upon streets. It doesn’t matter what sort of sound he hears, he can imitate it. But he often speaks when he should not, and he possesses the annoying aptitude for saying things at the most inappropriate times.”

  John the Baptist nibbled at a piece of the apple Theodosia had given him, then spread his wings and opened his beak.

  The sound of gunfire rent the air.

  Both pistols drawn, Roman bolted to his feet, ready to shoot at the first thing that moved.

  Theodosia smiled inwardly. “Mr. Montana?”

  “Quiet,” he whispered, staring into the dark shadows of the woods.

  “But Mr. Montana, it was only John the Baptist. He was mimicking the sound of gunfire. You see, he and I were near the saloon this afternoon when someone shot a gun from within the establishment. John the Baptist is merely repeating the sound he heard. I’m sorry he disturbed you. I just don’t know what to do with him.”

  “Wring his neck!”

  John the Baptist turned his black eyes to Roman. “State zitto.”

  “Italian,” Theodosia explained calmly. “State zitto means to hold your tongue. A polite way of saying ‘shut up.’ Of course, as I said earlier, he doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  Roman pitched the bird a glare. Replacing his Colts in his belt, he crossed to where his saddle lay.

  Theodosia watched him retrieve his bedroll and return to the fire. Though she saw him walking, she heard no evidence of his footsteps. He moved with the sleek grace of a cat. A black panther, she decided, watching his long ebony hair slide across his broad chest and thick arms.

  Unable to resist, she studied him more intently. His face, bronzed by endless days in the sun or perhaps by Latin lineage, appeared sculpted. Ruggedly so, for he had high sharp cheekbones with deep hollows beneath them and an exceedingly square jaw that tapered slyly into a strong clefted chin.

  His eyes blazed. Not with fireshine, nor with anger. With something deeper, something she’d never sensed in any man she knew in Boston.

  Something primitive, untamed.

  Silently, it sought, found, and beckoned to some unknown part inside her.

  “Something wrong, Miss Worth?” Giving her his back while he spread out his bedroll, Roman smiled. She might as well have reached for him with her hands; he felt the caress of her eyes as though they touched him with delicate fingers.

  “I don’t believe anything is wrong, but I am unaccustomed to the odd feelings that come to me when I watch you. It happened this afternoon when I first met you and again while you loaded my belongings into the wagon. It is happening a third time now. My breath quickens. Warmth flashes through me. I realize this is nonsensical, but if there were such a thing as a heated tickle, that would describe the feeling.”

  Bent over his bed, Roman straightened slowly. His first reaction was shock. He’d never met a woman who talked so freely about desire.

  But as he pondered what she’d said, he realized she didn’t know she was talking about desire. All she knew was that a hot tickle flashed through her.

  Well, well, well, he mused. He’d finally discovered a subject the little genius knew absolutely nothing about. One he knew as well as he knew his own hand.

  He wondered if she’d like a little schooling. He certainly didn’t have to be overly fond of her to tutor her. Stifling a rakish grin, he decided to play with her for a while. “Does this uh—hot tickle hurt, Miss Worth?”

  She wrapped a long lock of hair around her thumb, contemplating her emotions. “It isn’t painful. It—well, perhaps it is painful in a certain sense. It’s much like a pang of want or need. Like hunger.”

  “Sounds serious.” His lips twitched with restrained mirth as he stretched out on his bedroll and propped himself up on his elbow. “I might be able to help you figure out what it is, but to do that I have to ask you a personal question. Can I?”

  “May I,” she corrected him. “Yes, you may.”

  He ignored her grammar lesson. “How many men do you know in Boston?”

  She didn’t see anything at all personal about his question. “Fifteen or twenty, perhaps. Why do you ask?”

  “What sort of relationships do you have with them?” He picked up a twig and began drawing swirls in the dirt while wondering just how bold Bostonian men were.

  “I study with them.”

  “Study? That’s all? Don’t they ever take you anywhere? To a party? Out for a walk?” Have any of them ever stolen a kiss on some moonlit balcony?

  “Mr. Montana, the men I know in Boston have little time for socializing. I have never acquired a passion for it, either. And what’s more, I fail to see what my relationships with my male acquaintances have to do with—”

  “I’m getting to that.” He held back yet another grin as he imagined the men she knew in Boston. Scholars, all of them, just like her. If indeed they ever got the itch to kiss her, it would probably be a half-second peck on the tip of her nose. Then, after that highly erotic interlude, they’d get back to their books. “These feelings, Miss
Worth—you said they’re sort of like hunger pangs. What is it you think you’re hungry for?”

  Theodosia lay down upon her own bedroll and watched the stars glimmer between the swaying branches of the trees. “If I knew what it was I wanted, I would find the means with which to obtain it, Mr. Montana.”

  He could no longer keep himself from smiling. God, the woman was too innocent to believe!

  He decided to put her out of her misery. “You want me, Miss Worth.”

  When she turned her head to look at him, she saw him smiling. His grin was lopsided—only the left side of his mouth turned upwards. It reminded her of the way a little boy smiled when he was up to mischief.

  Only Roman Montana wasn’t a boy. He was a full-grown man with a smile so charming that it caused those warm flutters to race through her again. “I want you?”

  Roman tossed the twig into the nearby shadows. “Me. You have ever since first laying eyes on me. After I caught your bird this afternoon, didn’t you compliment me on the size of my vast meatus? Now, if you weren’t interested, why would you study the size of my—”

  “Vastus medialis, vastus intermedius, vastus lateralis, and sartorius. Those are the names of various muscles in the human thigh.”

  Her explanation surprised him into a long moment of silence. Thigh muscles? “I knew that.”

  “What are you trying to tell me, Mr. Montana?”

  Renewed smugness replaced his chagrin. “You want me the way a woman wants a man, Miss Worth.” At her look of puzzlement, he elaborated. “The hot tickle you’re talking about is desire.”

  “Representative toward what specific thing?”

  “What?”

  “What sort of desire are you saying I have?”

  “How many kinds of desire are there?”

  “Desire is an impulse toward something that will gain enjoyment and or satisfaction. One desires water when one is thirsty. Upon drinking the water, one’s thirst is satisfied. Therefore, desire, in itself, does not indicate one specific—”

  “All right, dammit! What you feel is sexual desire. Got that? Sexual desire, Miss Worth!”

  Theodosia deliberated. “And just how is it that you are so certain of that? You are a man and cannot know about the feelings a woman—”

  “I know.”

  The authority in his deep voice convinced her that he did indeed know. “And do you feel the same desire toward me, Mr. Montana?”

  Her boldness intrigued him. He raked his gaze over her, aggravated again that her flannel nightgown prevented him from seeing anything. Still, he remembered her lush breasts, tiny waist, and rounded hips. A man didn’t forget a body like the one she had. “Yes.”

  His affirmation stunned her. Could it really be possible that Roman desired her in a sexual way? Unfamiliar with the prospect, it took her a moment to grasp her surging emotions and tuck them away. “If what you say is true, we must endeavor to maintain firm control over our feelings. A sexual union between us might very well lead to conception, and you are not at all the sort of man who could be considered a candidate to father the child.”

  “Candidate? What—”

  “Speaking of the child…” She turned to her side to face him. “What can you tell me about Dr. Wallaby? I know of him through his letters and reputation, but I am extraordinarily interested in the aspect of his basic character. Is he given to laughter? What does he talk about when not discussing his research?”

  Roman watched her lips move but paid little attention to what she was saying. What was this child and candidate stuff the woman was talking about?

  “Mr. Montana?”

  “What? Oh, Dr. Wallaby.” He struggled to remember the questions she’d asked. “I’ve never seen him laugh. Never even seen him smile. He hardly talks. He’s either got his nose in a book or his eye stuck to his microscope.”

  “How did you come to meet him, and what exactly is it you do for him?”

  Roman watched a few moths flutter around the crackling fire flames. “I had business in Templeton and saw an ad in the newspaper about a house that needed repairs. I took the job, and at about the time I’d finished. Dr. Wallaby arrived and rented the house from the man who owns it. He asked me to stay on and chop his firewood, make sure he had fresh meat on his table, and build a few bookcases for him. Now, what is this about a candidate to father a—”

  “You sound as though you’re leaving Dr. Wallaby. Are you?”

  Apparently she wasn’t going to tell him anything more about the child and possible father, he realized. “The salary he paid was steady, but it wasn’t a lot. It’s time for me to move on to better jobs, better money.”

  “What sort of work do you do?”

  Accustomed to keeping to himself from a very early age, he felt ill at ease with her rapid-fire queries. “Why all the questions, Miss Worth?”

  She arched her brow at him. “Why the hesitation to answer them?”

  “Are you doing that psychology thing on me again?”

  She laughed.

  Her laughter danced through the woods, Roman thought. As if someone were playing it on a musical instrument.

  He relented. “I’ve built homes and barns and even a church up near Yost Creek. I’ve cleared forest for farmland, then plowed and planted. I’ve dug wells and driven cattle. And there’s nothing I can’t do with a horse. I work with my hands, Miss Worth,” he explained, his gaze penetrating hers. “With muscle and sweat, and sometimes, if the situation is a dangerous one, with blood.”

  His description of the work he did conjured up vivid images in her mind. She pictured him chopping down a large tree. Plowing fields. Building, and training horses. He labored beneath the hot sun and wore nothing but his pants and boots. Sweat glistened on his well-muscled back, shoulders, and chest, and his long black hair swayed sensuously with each of his movements.

  She imagined him with his guns, too, those heavy revolvers he wore as casually as he wore his hat. His long dark fingers were wrapped around the butts. He held them steady; they looked so right in his hands.

  He’d said blood was sometimes a part of his work, which meant he knew how to use those lethal weapons. She envisioned him facing danger, but it didn’t bother him because he was more dangerous than the peril he confronted.

  No other man she knew had ever created and held fast the fascination she felt now. Only a man like Roman could. A man who worked with his hands, sweat, muscle, and guns.

  Her heart beat so forcefully, she could hear it hammering in her ears. “It’s happening again, Mr. Montana.”

  One look at her flushed cheeks told him what she meant. He grinned. “The hot tickle strikes again, huh? Do you think we should do something about it?”

  His question deepened her desire. “Ignore it,” she whispered.

  His grin broadened. “It might not go away.”

  “It will if I think of something else,” she decided aloud. “What are your plans for the future?” She watched as her query turned his amused expression into one of deep contemplation. “Mr. Montana?”

  He never talked about his dreams. His stepmother had been only the first person to scoff. He’d learned long ago that the only person in the world who had faith in him was himself.

  Theodosia saw his hesitation. “Is there something wrong with your plans for the future?”

  He slid his gaze over her face. “There’s nothing wrong with them.”

  “I see. Well, I’m sorry you aren’t happy about them. That you aren’t proud of them.”

  How dare she think that! he fumed. “I’m pretty damned thrilled with them, woman! You would be too if you’d worked for them as hard and long as I have!”

  She feigned a hurt look. “Mr. Montana, are you saying I don’t understand how it feels to work for something I desire to have?”

  He sat up, brought his knees to his chest, and laid his arms across them. “What have you ever had to work for? Some good grades on your schoolwork, maybe? How would you like to work for twenty-
five thousand acres of prime grassland? Do you even know the price of that much land? It’s costing me over two thousand dollars, Miss Worth, and I’m only five hundred dollars away from owning it. I’ve been working for ten years to earn that much money, and if I have to, I’ll work ten more to get the rest!”

  “Is it your intention to grow corn?” She knew full well he would not be growing corn. He was too impatient to tend to plants, but she suspected her question would lead him to reveal more of what she knew he was trying to conceal. “You could grow quite a lot of corn on twenty-five thousand acres.”

  “Corn?” he shouted. “The only use for corn I’ll have is for feed! I don’t plan on being some squatting farmer, for God’s sake! I’m going to raise horses!”

  Theodosia’s eyes widened with pleasure. “Horses! Why, my father happened to—”

  “Yes, horses, Miss Worth. Got that? Horses. On the finest prairie you’ve ever set eyes on. The grass grows waist-high there. When the wind blows across it, it looks like a green sea. And the spring-fed streams and creeks flow with the clearest, sweetest water you’ve ever tasted.”

  She watched his horse paw the ground nearby. Moonlight coated the stallion’s gray coat with shining silver, and Theodosia thought him a beautiful sight to behold. “You’ve a magnificent mount, Mr. Montana. How do you call him?”

  “His name’s Secret.”

  “He is your pride and your joy, isn’t he?”

  So she wouldn’t realize just how precious Secret was to him, Roman gave his horse a disinterested glance. “He’s just a horse.”

  Theodosia disagreed. The stallion was not just a horse. There was something unusual about him, something very special, but she couldn’t understand what it was.

  She looked at Roman again. “Why must you buy the land, Mr. Montana? I’ve heard that many men simply work land that is vacant. They make quite a good living without having to purchase the land.”

  He sneered. “And what’s going to happen to those men if the owners decide to use the land. Miss Worth? They’ll be run off, that’s what. I’ve made sure every blade of grass on the land I want will really belong to me. It took me a while, but I found Senor Alvaro Madrigal, the man who holds the original Spanish land grant. He lives in Templeton, and when I asked him about the land, he was more than willing to sell it. He has no family to leave it to, and no plans to return to it. Every so often, when I have a fair amount of money, I go give it to him. That’s what I was doing in Templeton when I met Dr. Wallaby. Once Senor Madrigal signs the warranty over to me, no one is ever going to take the land away from me.”