Chapter Four #4
“I expect,” Gray commented, as he began to unbutton his shirt, “that’s because your young lady didn’t turn out to be what you figured.
Too bad. I knew you had your eye on the little brown-haired one in the chorus, but I swear, her friends said she was a bible thumper.
The world’s sure changing,” he said, shaking his head and smiling, “and so are actresses. Must be taking on airs because of Madame Bernhardt. I don’t expect them to look at a local boy, but now two out of three don’t even look at a fine gent backstage anymore.
They’re getting so respectable, soon they’ll have their pictures on bible tracts as well as cigarette cards.
Guess your little lady gave you her thanks for dinner, and that’s all.
Well, at least you’re richer tonight, if a lot edgier. Sorry, about that.”
“Don’t be. I’m poorer, all right,” Royal said, and said no more on the subject, because neither he nor Gray were the sort of men to talk much more about what they’d done with the two women they’d met tonight.
“It’s not her fault,” he said, easily. “It’s just that I’m looking for something else now, I guess.
Something that means more, you know?” He looked at Gray, and this time saw him wince.
But this time it wasn’t just because of his words, it was because he was trying to ease off his shirt. Royal rolled to his feet.
“Hot damn,” he said, coming to Gray’s side and looking at the long, raw scrape that ran in a jagged line over the ribs that Gray was slowly peeling his shirt away from.
“How in hell did you do that? Oh yeah, the mine you were looking at today. You sent me off to check feed prices, and you went crawling down mine shafts again? Where’s your head? ”
“Still on my shoulders,” Gray managed to hiss through his teeth as he separated the wound from his shirt, “believe it or not. The mine was no good, and I won’t put a penny in it, though I left some hide there.
I had to see it though. Seemed too good an opportunity to miss.
Josh needed to know about it.” He glanced at Royal’s grim face, “No, I didn’t tell you where I was going.
I don’t know a better man with a horse or a steer.
Royal, but let’s face it, a mine’s just a hole in the ground to you.
Aw, hell, don’t look at me that way, this is your vacation anyway, not mine.
My life’s a damn vacation,” he said more cheerfully, looking down at the scrape, and seeing that it had stopped bleeding.
“Sure,” Royal said, sitting on his bed again. “Some vacation. Get a whole lot of scars having fun, don’t you? Down mines, up mountains, on horses no sane man would spit at—when are you going to find out what play is. Gray?”
“Maybe work’s my play,” Gray said lightly. “Lord knows I don’t have to work, do I?”
“Maybe not,” Royal admitted. “But I never saw a man work harder. Maybe you feel you have to, and maybe I even understand that; you don’t want to feel someone else is doing for you, not even if that someone’s your big brother.
But Josh wants you in New York with him real bad.
You’d work there, too, but you’d save yourself some pain. ”
“Uh-huh,” Gray said, his clear blue eyes lit with laughter, “but maybe not. Them paper cuts hurt something fierce,” he drawled, “and I hear a man can do some real damage to himself with a pencil—never know which ones have splinters on them. No thanks. I’ll stay where I am. But not just now. I need a bath.”
He whistled as he walked into the luxurious bathroom that separated their adjoining rooms, but once he’d got the water running, he stopped.
And stared so long, not moving, as the water filled the massive marble tub, that it almost overran it before he became aware that his trousers were getting damp where it began to slop over the bathtub brim he was perched on.
Then he sighed, shucked off his trousers, and stepped into the tub, immersing himself in the pleasure of the hot water, which was so profound, he scarcely shuddered as it covered over his scraped side.
It was a long, muscular body that lay at ease in the huge tub.
The down of golden hair that decorated it was neither dark nor heavy enough to hide all the scars it bore.
It would have to be a furry pelt to do that.
The woman he’d bought tonight hadn’t noticed, of course, because like many women with pretensions to gentility—and those were the ones he was most attracted to—she’d insisted on leaving on a few provocative scraps of clothing, and hadn’t commented on his nudity at all.
It was unsatisfactory, he thought, as usual, and not just because of the hurried, pointless coupling it had been.
He wasn’t sure any woman would find his naked body particularly attractive, and never believed those that had said they did.
It was, after all, he conceded ruefully, a pretty badly battered object.
But unlike the women who’d seen him whole, he was in no position to judge the random cruelties that had left their mark on the otherwise sculpturally perfect male body.
There were ancient statues of warriors that were no less maimed and no more beautiful.
Only his left leg might be considered truly unsightly.
It bore a crosshatched design of thick and thin scars from an old accident, as well as from the surgery that had tried to correct it.
But it was as strong and well shaped as the other leg despite its surface, the defect lay too deep to show except when it was stressed.
And maybe. Gray thought, closing his eyes, it was the same with the man it belonged to.
Because he felt damned stupid tonight.
Sure, he thought bitterly, he’d convinced himself it was necessary to track down a couple of women to bed so as to cheer up Royal.
He always had some excuse for his needs, after all.
But Royal didn’t need cheering. He needed a woman of his own, one he could build a life of his own with, just as he’d said.
Gray could sympathize with that, he only wondered now why he hadn’t even tried to.
Because that was, after all, what he’d been trying to make for himself for years now.
Only on his own. And although he’d come damn near to killing himself trying, he admitted, he still didn’t feel he’d made it.
Maybe, he thought, his eyes widening to their most brilliant blue as he gazed blankly into the steamy room.
Royal had the right of it, and that was what he needed; a wife.
Maybe it was his single state that kept him feeling perennially a boy, eternally in his brother’s shadow and debt.
It was, he thought wonderingly, as he absently soaped his aching body, a possibility.
Only he was in no better position to find a decent woman than Royal was.
Their similarities were that they both had enough looks, intelligence, and money to set them apart from other men.
But women were scarce, and they both lived on a remote ranch.
The difference was that Royal was less experienced with the world outside the West. Gray traveled the country often, had gone to college in the East, visited New York frequently, been to Europe, and had more money than most men in the country—or any other, for that matter.
If Royal hadn’t met enough ranchers’ daughters, Gray had.
If Gray hadn’t frequented as many whores as Royal had, he’d bought as many women who’d different names for their trade.
But they both needed women, and thought about them even more often than they’d had them.
Which was. Gray thought on a semi-sad grin, considerable.
By the time Gray rose from the water at last, he’d decided that maybe it was time for them both to settle down.
He didn’t think of love, because having never experienced the kind he’d read about or seen his brother share with his wife, he didn’t know if it was something he’d ever know.
He’d sure liked a lot of women, he thought on a chuckle.
But marriage? Maybe if he found one he liked well enough…
there might be, in that settling down, the chance for the content that had escaped him all his life.
It was worth a try; he’d tried most everything else.
He was a man who made up his mind quickly, the more so when the facts were all in, and they were.
So much so that he’d an inkling that the idea was not as new to him as he’d believed it to be.
It must have been flirting around the edges of his consciousness for some time now, showing up most in the new disappointment he’d found with all his old easy pleasures.
The only question that remained in his mind as he stood drying himself, was where to search for the right woman.
He decided he needed a woman handsome enough to make love to frequently, and either passionate or generous enough to let him: someone smart enough to share his thoughts with, and wise enough to help him find his dream.
It would be nice if he could like her as much as desire her, it would be nicer if he could like her as much as a friend.
He decided, with a sudden sense of wonder that turned to a glow of pleasure, that he’d like her to give him children, too.
In turn, he’d give her fidelity, financial security, and as much love as he was capable of.
It should do. He was very good at business, and it seemed a fair deal to him.
But eastern girls, friends of his sister-in-law or sisters of his college friends, shivered at the thought of living in the barbaric West. And he meant to stay in the West. Western girls, at least those he’d met, didn’t have the elegance he admired in eastern girls.
The other women he met were professionals of one kind or another, and while he’d no objection to an experienced wife, he did object to the idea of marrying an experienced whore.
But he’d learned not to be a dreamer, and doubted he could find what he’d always needed just because he’d suddenly decided to go look for it.
He’d settle for the best he could get. The problem was where to find that.
Still, all problems had a solution. And he didn’t mind working hard to find one. Even if that meant playing hard—especially, he thought on a grin, if that meant playing hard.
“Royal,” he announced as he strode into Royal’s room, waking his foreman and friend from the first stages of sleep. “Guess what? Vacation’s over. We’re through playing. We’re going to find you a wife. And then see if she’s got a friend.”