Honorable Rancher

by Barbara White Daille

  Angry now, she followed through the doorway. He was already headed toward the stairs. “Where are you going?”

  “I want to show you something in P.J.’s room.”

  “What does he have to do with this?” she asked.

  But he didn’t answer.

  Upstairs, he went into her son’s room.

  Following close on his heels, she came to a halt just inside the doorway.

  Everything looked the same as usual, from the dinosaur-patterned quilt she had made for P.J.’s bed, to the row of baseball caps hanging from pegs on the closet door, to the plastic jar on one end of his dresser. The jar of washers he’d carried with him almost everywhere since Ben had given it to him.

  Ben had replaced the overhead light fixture a couple of weeks ago, but other than that, she could find nothing different. “What is it I’m supposed to see?”

  “This.” He reached up between the dresser and the doorway and tapped a picture frame hanging on the wall.

  Paul’s photograph.

  She took a half step backward, but he caught her hand and drew her into the room. Then he took her by the shoulders and turned her to face the photo, the original of the small picture P.J. had left on the coffee table downstairs.

  “And this.” He tapped the row of medals on the uniform. “Paul earned every one of these for skill and bravery and honor. For fighting to help people who couldn’t help themselves. For saving lives. And if that’s not enough for you, just think about what else he did. He gave his life for his country.”

  She heard him inhale and exhale slowly. Felt his breath ruffle her hair and his hands lift from her shoulders.

  “That makes him a hero,” he said, his voice hard now. “A hero in anyone’s eyes—but yours.”

  His boot heels struck the wooden floor when he backed away from her, as if he couldn’t stand to be near her. In the dresser mirror, she saw his reflection. His face looked pinched, his eyes sad. “You married that man and had children with him, but even for their sake, you can’t honor him the way he deserves. You loved him, but—”

  “I didn’t love him.”

  “What?”

  She looked at his reflection again and wanted to cry at the look on his face. At the truth of how she felt about him. At the memory of his reaction when he’d realized her feelings. And most of all, at the lies he and everyone else in her life believed about Paul.

  The lies she had fed them.

  She turned to face him. “I didn’t love him,” she said. “I did when I married him, but not...at the end.”

  He shook his head as if stunned. “He loved you.”

  “No, he didn’t. Paul loved—” she flung her arm out and pointed at the photograph on the wall “—that. Being a hero. Being a football star. Being looked up to and admired and—and honored. Paul loved the image of Paul.”

  “You’re wrong. He was my best friend, and I knew him as well as anyone could. Better than you did, obviously.”

  “You didn’t know him at all.” The words had tumbled out before she could stop them. He looked as if she’d slapped him. “He liked you, yes. But for the most part, he liked what you could do for him.”

  “No—”

  “Yes. Think back. Who drilled history and geography into him when he didn’t study for exams in grade school? Who covered for him with the principal when he got in trouble in junior high? Who always picked up the checks when we went to the Double S after the high school football games?” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed hard. “Who drove me home from parties when he couldn’t stand to leave the crowd?”

  “He was my friend. I didn’t mind doing any of those things for him.”

  “You didn’t have a choice. He may never have fumbled a ball in his life, but he’d have dropped you in a minute if you’d stopped providing what he wanted. I’m sorry, Ben, but he used you. The way he used me and anyone else he could.”

  “I don’t buy a word of that. And how can you say those things about him? He was a damned good husband—”

  “He wasn’t.”

  That stopped him, but not for long. “All right, maybe not in your eyes. But he was a good provider and a good daddy—”

  “He wasn’t either of those.”

  “Oh, come on.” He grimaced and shook his head. “Next thing, you’ll be telling me he never existed.”

  “He existed, all right,” she said. “He just hid the real Paul behind the image he let everyone see.”

  “Dammit, I don’t believe this.” He brushed past her. “And I’m not staying around to listen to it.”

  His boots thudded against the stairs.

  She curled her fingers into fists, then winced as the skin pulled taut on her scalded hand. Her eyes blurred with tears. Not from the pain of her blistered fingers but from the irony of their heated words. She’d done such a good job of lying, Ben couldn’t believe her when she told the truth.

  Downstairs, the front door slammed.

  The sound of it echoed through the quiet house, reminding her she would be alone all night.

  Except for the dog.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Halfway home again, Ben made a last-minute decision at a crossroads, swinging the truck onto a side road that would take him even farther out of town. His thoughts had swung twice as fast—several times over—since he’d barreled out of Dana’s house.

  Instead of leaving her at the door, as he probably should have, he’d gone inside. He’d wanted answers to all the things troubling him. Instead, he’d left there a hell of a lot more troubled, with way too many questions—old and new—in his mind.

  Questions he had no plans to share with anyone.

  This time on a Friday evening, he’d have found no one at the ranch to listen to him anyway. His foreman and all his ranch hands would have gone their own ways, maybe into town for the high school varsity game or out on the back highway to one of the bars for a brew. Neither of those choices attracted him tonight. He didn’t want to be on his own—didn’t want to give all those questions in his head free rein. Still, he disliked the idea of facing a crowd. Strange, since he usually liked being out with folks.

  He and Paul both had.

  A few miles later, he pulled up to a ranch house much like his own, knowing he’d have a good chance of finding a family man like Sam Robertson at home. Sure enough, Sam answered the door with his five-year-old peeking out from behind him.

  “Hey, Ben, have a seat. Be right back. Becky and I were just going into the kitchen to see her mama.” He turned to his daughter and signed the words as he said aloud, “Ready for your bedtime snack?”

  Looking at Ben, she grinned and tapped the fingertips of one hand against her other palm.

  “I know that one,” he said, copying her motion. “Cookies, right?” He tried not to think about...the chocolate chips he’d just left behind.

  Sam nodded. “Yep. Want a beer? Coffee? Sweet tea?”

  “Tea sounds good.” He didn’t want to think about the coffee he’d missed out on, either. He took a seat on one of the living room couches and looked at the chime clock on the mantel. Earlier than he’d figured. The conversation he’d planned to have with Dana hadn’t gone nearly as long as he’d expected.

  Sam came back into the room carrying two tall glasses.

  Ben took a swig and looked at Sam, who had settled back on the other couch. The two of them had been friends for a long time—as long as he’d known Paul. If anyone could swap memories with him, Sam could. If anyone would tell him the truth, Sam would.

  And he wanted some truths.

  Not about Dana. Those, he’d have to hear from her own lips, if she’d ever share them.

  He swallowed another mouthful of tea. “I left the post digger out by the barn.”

  “G
ood timing. Caleb wants it for next week.”

  The two of them talked for a while, and eventually, as Ben had known it would, the conversation came around to Paul.

  “Kayla told me about the monument,” Sam said. “A good idea.”

  “Yeah.” Too bad everyone didn’t think so. He frowned, recalling what Dana had said about her life with Paul. What he had no intention of believing. “I’m glad folks came up with the proposal and followed through on presenting it to the council.”

  “Paul would have been, too.”

  “You mean that folks want to honor him?”

  “And to look up to him like we always did.”

  The statement came too close to Dana’s accusations for comfort. “We can’t blame him for that.”

  “Of course not. He was used to having us all hanging around the biggest fish we’d ever had in our little pond. You’d know that more than the rest of us.”

  “Yeah.” Just what did he know? Nothing, according to Dana. “Did you ever think he took all that attention for granted?” That was as close as he would go to asking a question he didn’t really need an answer to. It was crazy for him to wonder about it. To let Dana’s distorted thoughts affect his own.

  But Sam laughed. “Ben, I think he took everything he could get and wanted more. And I’ll tell you another thing. When they set up that monument, they’d better make sure it’s something fancy, something big and hard to miss—just like him. That’s what he’d have wanted, too.”

  Ben’s memories rang true. He had to respect them.

  Much as he hated to admit it, he had to allow Dana the right to her feelings, too.

  But he had memories and feelings of his own, and they were all tied up with what that monument meant to him.

  A physical representation of the honor Paul deserved. An honor he—as Paul’s closest friend—would make every effort to uphold.

  A permanent reminder that he had to do his best for Dana and her young family, though she fought him every step of the way.

  A mocking remembrance that he’d waited too long to tell her the truth about his promise.

  And a deathblow to any chance he might have with her.

  * * *

  DANA PADDED BAREFOOT into the bathroom. Her feet stung from the cold tiles. Her eyes stung, too. As she switched on the light and opened the medicine chest, she avoided looking at her reflection. She’d already caught sight of her face in her bedroom mirror, and it wasn’t pretty. Not surprising, after the night she’d put herself through.

  Or half a night. When she’d rolled out of bed just now, her alarm clock had read 3:37 a.m.

  Her face looked puffy. Her hair sprouted in different directions. Her blistered hand throbbed.

  And she’d left the ointment in the living room.

  Groaning, she went down the hall, headed toward the stairs. Halfway along, she stopped. After a long battle with herself, she went into P.J.’s room and turned on the lamp on his nightstand. Then she sat on the edge of his bed, took a deep breath and brushed her hand across a dinosaur on his quilt.

  She didn’t want to look at the other side of the room.

  In any other photo she’d ever seen of Paul, he’d had his mouth curved in a confident grin and his chin held high, tilting his head into his favorite look-at-me-and-love-me angle.

  And she had loved him. All through school, he was the boy of her dreams, and after graduation she had married him. Yet, a few years later she’d felt only relief when they’d agreed that their marriage was over.

  When it came to being a husband and father, he’d left a lot to be desired. Then he had gone overseas with his platoon, where he’d earned all those medals he wore.

  In everyone’s eyes but hers, he’d gone from strength to strength, from golden boy to brave soldier to war hero. In the meantime, she’d kept up appearances, and when he came home on leave, she’d made that one last-ditch effort to save their marriage. Only days later, he was killed.

  For the folks in Flagman’s Folly, and especially for her children’s sake, she could never do anything to destroy Paul’s image.

  Not when she’d spent so many years helping to preserve it.

  She couldn’t risk getting close to Ben, no matter how much she wanted to. As it was, she’d told him too much tonight.

  At last she looked across the room at the photograph on the wall. Paul stared back at her with the most serious expression she’d ever seen on him in a photo. Or, come to think of it, in real life.

  Sighing, she rose from the bed.

  The doorbell rang. She gasped, then hurried to the stairs, her thoughts flying to her children. To the fear any mother would have when a bell pealed in the middle of the night and her child wasn’t home.

  To the sight of Tess standing on the front porch, waiting to tell her—

  She flung the door wide.

  Not Tess.

  Ben.

  “I thought—” she blurted. “The kids?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “No, nothing about the kids.”

  Exhaling in relief, she sagged against the door.

  Duchess had run into the room and wove in and out between them. Only half aware of doing so, Dana stooped to pat the puppy. Duchess wriggled in excitement, accepted a head-scratching from Ben and then padded back to the kitchen.

  Dana stood and looked at Ben, her eyebrows raised.

  “I...saw your light on,” he said.

  “Oh.” She blinked. “And you thought you’d...drop in.”

  “Well, I never did get my coffee.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. He wanted more than coffee. He wanted to pick up their conversation again. At this hour.

  That was Ben, though. She knew him well.

  He’d never give up on anything. Never break a promise. Never leave a friend hanging. Never want to let the sun go down—or in this case, come up—on an argument. It had both surprised and startled her when he’d slammed out of there last night.

  Now they might as well get this over with.

  Once and for all.

  She stepped back. When he moved past her, she closed the door. “Have you been sitting outside the house all night?”

  “No. I headed home and then...drove around for a while.”

  “Have a seat. I’ll bring the coffee out here. Give me a few minutes.”

  Or a few hours.

  At one point in her presentation, she stopped, realizing she was going through the same motions she had on the night they’d made love. Now, she shivered. Not in excitement or anticipation but in fear. Because she wanted Ben’s arms around her again. No matter what.

  Then she thought of her kids. Of Clarice and the rest of the townsfolk. Of seeing how only a portion of the truth had hurt Ben.

  Compared to all that, what she wanted couldn’t even make the list.

  It wasn’t until she brewed the coffee and returned to the living room and saw the way he looked at her that she realized she’d run downstairs in her sleepwear.

  Oh, well. Serve him right for all the times he’d walked around here shirtless.

  Too bad he’d get less of a thrill than she ever had eyeing him. Lissa had passed the nightshirt on to her, labeling it “babyish.” It covered more of her than the gown she had worn for Tess’s wedding...the gown Ben had unbuttoned later that night.

  In any case, the picture of the smiling teapot on the nightshirt went perfectly with the plate she carried.

  “Here,” she said, holding it out to him. “You never got your chocolate chip cookies, either.”

  * * *

  DANA HAD SAID SHE DIDN’T WANT any of the cookies, so he polished them off. Once in a while, he sipped from his mug. She had taken a seat on the other end of the couch, and they sat there in silence. After
all, he told her he’d come for the coffee. Why would she sit there and chat?

  Why would he start a conversation?

  Because he had to. Just as he’d had to come here again.

  After talking to Sam, after spending hours driving the back roads in his pickup truck, he’d finally admitted he couldn’t stay away. He had to know everything Dana had kept from him.

  From the corner of his eye he took in her bare calf, the curve of her knee and the swell of her breasts beneath the soft nightgown.

  Leaning forward, he set his empty plate onto the table. At the sight of the scrunched-up tube of ointment, he frowned, remembering. She had burned her hand in the kitchen earlier.

  Looking over at the plate, she said, “I assume you want to talk again.”

  He waited until she turned his way. “That, too. But I also want to listen.” Her eyes widened, revealing how much his words had surprised her. He waited, giving her time to get her expression under control again. Then he said, “Tell me about Paul.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  Her shoulders went back, and he knew he’d better take it slowly. Better start with details less upsetting to her. He settled against the couch and rested his coffee mug on his thigh. “Tell me about the scholarship.”

  She frowned. “He didn’t get one.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  She shifted, putting more space between them. Deliberately or not, he didn’t know.

  “He’d pinned his hopes on winning a scholarship somewhere. When he got passed over in the draft by his first choice and then his second choice and finally all his other choices, he decided to go to State.” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “Even there, when he made the team, he couldn’t get his star quarterback status again.”

  She’d lowered her voice, as if trying to soften her words. To ease his disappointment. To help him deal with the truth.

  “Because he wasn’t a star,” she continued. “Here in Flagman’s Folly, yes, where everyone had his back and made him look good. But not at State. There, he wasn’t even a team player. They’d cut him before the third game.”

  He tightened his fingers around the coffee mug. “That’s when he came home?”