The Kincaid Bride

by Jackie Merritt

  She went directly upstairs to her bedroom, took every stitch of Eli’s clothes from the closet and bureau and put them in the hall. She really didn’t give a damn where he slept from here on in, but it sure wouldn’t be with her! This was it—the end!

  And so began the cold war between the newlyweds. Melanie blamed Eli for discharging the first volley and he blamed her. They spoke to each other only when they had to—during meals, for example—and neither of them ever looked directly into the other’s eyes.

  What really got Melanie’s goat was one of Irma’s little kindnesses. She’d spotted Eli’s clothes on the hallway floor before he did and gone ahead and moved them into the last unused bedroom in the house. Then she’d knocked on Melanie’s door and told her what she’d done. “Every couple has spats, Melanie, so let’s not embarrass anyone by forcing Eli to move back to the bunkhouse.”

  Melanie hadn’t debated the point only because she liked Irma and wanted no disagreements with her, but it galled Melanie that when she went to bed at night, Eli was right down the hall. And she was positive that while she rolled and tossed and punched her pillow, Eli was peacefully sleeping. Unless he happened to have another dumb nightmare, that is. She still couldn’t figure out why he’d been flailing his arms and acting almost demented over a silly dream about swimming. What was frightening about swimming, for Pete’s sake?

  Her eye healed in a matter of days, so the bruise had not gone very deep. But as the discoloration of her skin disappeared, Melanie began noticing a melancholy she had never suffered before. Even the longing for her father that she’d had while growing up couldn’t compare to the emotional pain that seemed to be forever gnawing at her now.

  Lying awake one night, with the house completely silent except for its usual nighttime groans and creaks, a tear leaked from her eye to the pillow, and that was when she knew. It was as clear, in fact, as if the words had been written out in neon on the wall of her dark bedroom: You are in love with your husband! You love Eli!

  Panic seized her. “No,” she whispered. “It’s not true, it isn’t!”

  After panic came self-pity, and she turned her face to the pillow and sobbed quietly. Her whole visit had been a bust. She’d spent precious little time with her grandfather, which was the reason she’d come to the ranch in the first place, and she hadn’t even seen much of Collin. Instead, because they’d both been so busy trying to sort out her father’s mess, they’d turned her over to Eli. This had brought about a marriage neither of them had wanted, and now she was in love with him, the big jerk!

  So when she finally got back to San Diego and met with a lawyer, she would have to say, “I’m in love with my husband, but even though I have no legal grounds for such an action, I want an annulment.” Or would she have to file for divorce?

  It was all terribly depressing, and on top of that, she lied to her mother when Sue Ellen phoned one evening.

  “Goodness, Melanie, you must be having the time of your life. I was sure you’d call again, and here I’ve not heard a word.”

  “Yes, Mom, the time of my life.” Lie number one. “I’ve been meaning to call, but I’ve been so busy training the fillies and…and going riding myself and, uh, running here and there.” That “running here and there” remark sounded pretty lame, so Melanie quickly added, “I went to Elk Springs with Collin last week, and we had a great time.”

  “That’s wonderful. I’m so glad the two of you are spending time together. How about Garrett? Is he spending time with you?”

  “When he can, Mom.” Lie number two, or was that number three? “He’s still going in circles about Dad’s other kids, and I feel very sorry for him. It was so unfair of Dad to leave that mess for Granddad to deal with.”

  “Garrett always was a responsible sort and your father wasn’t, Melanie. Mind you, I’m not judging either of them. What’s past is past and best forgotten, or at least overlooked. My only concern now is for you and Collin. I don’t want either of you getting shortchanged because of your father’s indiscretions.”

  Melanie was sitting at Garrett’s desk in his office. The door was open and she saw Eli look in, then pass on by.

  “Mom, I think the foreman wants to use Granddad’s office for something.”

  “I seem to remember meeting him the day of Larry’s funeral. Isn’t his name Elliot, or something like that?”

  “Eli. His name is Eli Forrester.”

  “Oh, yes. Quite a handsome young man, if I recall correctly. And very nice and well-mannered.”

  “He’s a stuffy, holier-than-thou, mule-headed know-it-all.” And I love him madly, and we’re married, and I could wither up right here on Granddad’s chair because I won’t be in Montana very much longer, and I’ll probably never see Eli again.

  “Really? Maybe I’m thinking of someone else. We met so many people that day.”

  “Yes, we did. I’ve got to hang up, Mom. Eli just looked in again. ‘Bye. See you when I get home.” Melanie put down the phone and said icily, “If you’re pacing a hole in the carpet out there because you want the telephone or something else in here, I’m all through.”

  Eli appeared in the doorway. “I didn’t mean to cut your call short.”

  Melanie walked around the desk. “It was just as well. I was beginning to choke on the lies I was telling my mother anyhow.”

  “She still doesn’t know about us?”

  “Of course she doesn’t!” Unnerved because this was the first time they’d been alone in a room since their altercation over the rafting trip, Melanie swept past him.

  “You can’t keep something as serious as marriage a secret,” Eli said, and caught her arm just as she was about to go through the door, stopping her in midstride.

  Instead of wrestling her arm free from his grasp, she stood her ground and glared at him. “I can do anything I want to do, remember?” she drawled with heavy sarcasm.

  Eli glared right back at her. “Yeah, that’s the reason you let Garrett haul both of us to Missoula like sheep to the slaughter. You sure do talk tough when Garrett isn’t around.”

  “So do you,” she snarled. “At least I have an excuse. He’s my grandfather. What’s yours?”

  Dropping her arm as though it had suddenly seared him, Eli backed away from her. She turned and ran from the office with tears of agony in her eyes and heard him yell, “I’m not a coward, Melanie!”

  Such a thing had never entered her mind, but she couldn’t let him have the last word. “If the shoe fits, wear it!” she yelled back, then rushed up the stairs to her bedroom, threw herself across the bed and cried until her eyes were red.

  Fourteen

  Though the effort proved futile, Melanie kept hoping that Collin and Garrett would come home. Her vacation days were dwindling; she had less than a week to go and she had the rafting trip on Thursday and she still hadn’t visited her Aunt Alice.

  On Wednesday she gave up watching the driveway for her brother and grandfather. Exchanging her jeans and boots for a skirt, blouse and pretty sandals, she fixed her hair and makeup just so and then took Garrett’s car keys from their hook in the mudroom.

  “I’m going to Elk Springs to see my aunt,” she told Irma. “Not that there’s anyone around who would care what I did.”

  Irma sighed sympathetically. “You look just beautiful, Melanie. I’m sure Alice will be very glad to see you.”

  “The only thing I’m sure of in Montana is that you are consistently pleasant, Irma. Thank you for the compliment. I should be back in a few hours.”

  Four hours later, Melanie was on her way back to the ranch and shuddering every time she thought of the “visit from hell.” Aunt Alice was the most bitterly unhappy person Melanie had ever been around. No matter what Melanie tried to talk about, Alice had managed to turn the conversation back to one of four topics: the terrible state of her health, the financial deprivation she had to live with because of her educated idiot of a husband, the disgrace heaped upon her head by her brother’s scandalous rep
utation and, perversely, the inhumane suffering she’d gone through since Larry’s death.

  Melanie hadn’t been in Alice’s house twenty minutes when she realized that her aunt didn’t know about her deceased brother’s six illegitimate sons. She decided that she would very gently tell Alice about the safety-deposit box and its contents, but she would, of course, wait for a propitious moment to bring up such a difficult subject.

  Two hours into her visit, Melanie changed her mind completely. After hearing the endless list of her aunt’s health complaints, Melanie was positive that the news would shrivel Alice down to a tiny lump of burned-up coal. Melanie began making excuses to leave soon after, but it was almost two more torturous hours before she managed to get away.

  Driving out of Elk Springs, Melanie finally felt free again. Alice’s house reeked of oppression, and relative or not, Alice herself was the oppressor! How did her husband and son live with such a self-centered, negative woman? Nothing was right in Alice’s world, which she herself had made very small.

  “Dad was loony in his way and Aunt Alice is loony in hers,” Melanie muttered. “Mom must know that about her. How come she never mentioned it?”

  The car’s engine coughed, and Melanie frowned. But it caught again and everything seemed fine—for another mile or so. This time, when the engine acted strangely, it was more of a sputter than a cough, and then it died completely. The power steering went out, too, of course, but Melanie managed to turn the wheel enough to get the car to coast onto the shoulder.

  Looking around, she saw that not a house or car or anything else was in sight. She tried to estimate the remaining distance to the ranch. She was on a gravel road, but when exactly had she turned onto it? There was about twenty-five miles of gravel road after one turned off the asphalt highway, so it would really have helped her sense of distance if she had paid closer attention to the timing of that turn.

  Upset over the dismal flop of the entire day, Melanie turned the key and willed the engine to start. It was then that she noticed the fuel gauge. Groaning, she put her head on the steering wheel. Why in heaven’s name hadn’t she checked the gauge before leaving the ranch? Like most big ranches and farms, the Kincaid spread had its own fuel supply. There was not a reason in the world for her to have run out of gas.

  Melanie got out of the car and immediately picked up gravel in her sandals. Her lips pursed angrily, and she muttered, “You stupid, stupid woman.” If she was wearing her boots, or any kind of walking shoes, she would simply strike out for the ranch.

  Her gaze fell on the fields enclosed by barbed wire on each side of the road. What were the rules around here? Did those No Trespassing, No Hunting signs mean that a stranded motorist dare not cross those fence lines to avoid hiking on gravel?

  Without any warning, all the starch drained out of her. Stumbling back to the car, Melanie sat in the driver’s seat and stared dully through the windshield. How much more trouble could she get herself into in this desolate place? she wondered.

  “Eli, could I see you in the kitchen for a minute?” Irma asked.

  “Sure.” Eli followed her from the dining room, where all the men had gathered for the evening meal, to the kitchen, then registered the worried look on Irma’s face. “Is something wrong?”

  “I hope not, but Melanie went to town around noon to visit her Aunt Alice. She said she’d only be gone a few hours, and I phoned Alice just now and she said that Melanie had left around four. Eli, she should have gotten home before this.”

  Eli had been constantly on edge over Melanie’s determination to go rafting ever since their big blowup. The fact that she’d kicked him out of her bedroom was a sore point, as well, but mostly the foul mood he’d been living with was due to a lack of sleep.

  It was Melanie’s fault and it wasn’t. Eli could blame her for increasing the frequency of his nightmares with that senseless rafting trip, but the roots of those dreams went back to Carson’s death.

  Still, he’d been living as peacefully as was possible for him before Melanie had come along and mucked up everything, and he resented her for being irresistible and beautiful and so sexy that she haunted his days with at least as much anguish as the nightmares haunted his nights.

  Now Irma expected him to rush to Melanie’s rescue—if rescuing was what she needed, which he doubted—and he was tired and hungry.

  “Irma, she probably just stopped somewhere else,” he said wearily.

  “I think she would have phoned.” Irma’s eyes were admonishing. “Eli, she doesn’t know this country. What if she took a wrong turn and got lost?”

  “She could hardly get lost on the few roads between Elk Springs and this ranch, Irma.” But Irma looked so beseeching and concerned that Eli gave in. “All right, I’ll take a drive toward town.”

  “Thanks, Eli. I’d have gone myself if I didn’t have a dining room full of men to feed.”

  Leaving the mouthwatering smells of Irma’s good cooking behind, Eli slammed on his hat in the mudroom, then continued out the back door to his pickup.

  Melanie had finally realized that impatience was a futile emotion, making her stomach and head ache and feeding upon itself until she wanted to scream. She’d forced herself to calm down. Someone at the ranch would eventually miss her and do something about it, and her sitting as tense as a coiled spring in her grandfather’s car on this lonely road would not hurry the process.

  Nevertheless, she was grateful when she heard the sound of a vehicle on the road. Still only a vague engine noise, but coming closer. She opened the door of the car and swung her feet to the ground. Standing, she listened intently and decided the vehicle was coming from the direction of the ranch.

  Waiting for it to get close enough to see, Melanie acknowledged the beauty all around her—the spring-green fields and distant mountains looked like a picture-postcard. The sun was out of sight behind the Rockies, and the sky appeared to be lit by some special-effects equipment that flung spectacular pink and orange streaks dramatically across a silver-blue background.

  It occurred to Melanie that she had never been in a more tranquil setting. There was a magic about Montana that she’d never felt in California. Of course, she was comparing apples and oranges, for she’d always lived in a city.

  The vehicle was suddenly in sight, coming over a rise in the road and kicking up dust. It was a pickup truck and Melanie didn’t have to see the driver to know who was behind the wheel. “Eli to the rescue,” she whispered, wishing that someone else had noticed her absence and come looking for her.

  But who else was there? Her brother and grandfather were much too busy worrying about six men they’d never met to worry about her! She was darned tired of being put on the back burner because of a bunch of guys who probably had no idea they even had a grandfather!

  Eli was actually stunned to see Garrett’s car up ahead, parked at the side of the road and obviously disabled. He hadn’t once pictured Melanie having car trouble and, in fact, had visualized her fiddling around Elk Springs, maybe doing nothing more than seeing the town on foot, but taking her own sweet time about it and never considering that she might be causing someone at the ranch to wonder if she was all right.

  He stopped his truck directly in front of Garrett’s car, then got out. “What’s wrong?” he asked gruffly.

  Melanie stiffened. He couldn’t even say a civil hello? “The car’s out of gas,” she said coldly.

  Eli’s jaw dropped. “You took the car without checking the fuel gauge? With a two-thousand gallon underground tank of gas at the ranch and a modern, easy-to-use pump, you drove away with a virtually empty tank?”

  “Apparently so,” she said frostily. “And all women aren’t nitwits because I ran out of gas, so wipe that smug, superior, macho expression off your face.”

  “I’ve been here all of twenty seconds and you’re already trying to pick a fight?”

  “You were mad when you got here. What happened? Did someone tell you what to do for a change?” Melanie kn
ew that was an unfair and undeserved accusation, but it hurt that he’d arrived angry instead of concerned.

  “Someone’s always telling me what to do,” Eli snapped.

  The cad was referring to their forced marriage. “Yeah, well, you don’t always have to follow orders like a robot, you know.”

  “Like you did, you mean? Come on, get in the truck. I’ll send a couple of the men back with some gas.”

  Melanie was suddenly battling tears. Why was she letting him make her cry? How did he have the power to make her cry?

  Turning away, she climbed back into the car. “I’m not going with you,” she said through the open window. “I’ll wait here for someone to bring the gasoline.”

  Eli narrowed his eyes on her. “Why?”

  “Because I want to!” she shouted. “Just get out of my face, Eli! I’m sick of your bad humor and better-than-thou personality. You’re not half the man my grandfather is and you never will be! And stop acting as though you never ran out of gas, because in my estimation, old pal, old buddy, you never had any gas to begin with!” She rolled up the window.

  Hopping mad over being the brunt of such an unjust tirade, Eli spun on his heel and returned to his pickup. He swore as he backed up and turned around that he wouldn’t send anyone with the gas until morning. A night in that car will do that little lady a world of good!

  But when he got back to the ranch, he went straight to the bunkhouse and asked two of the men to fill a five-gallon can with gas and take it to Melanie for Garrett’s car, which was parked about fifteen miles away on Farley Road. He could tell they were curious about why he wouldn’t take the gas to his wife himself, but he left before anyone could work up the nerve to mention it.

  Melanie had a good cry, then dried her eyes and stared at the empty road ahead with an ache in her heart. Why did she and Eli constantly ruffle each other’s feathers? They’d agreed to end their ludicrous marriage, so it wasn’t as though they were miles apart on some crucial issue.