Chapter Nine #2
“In fact,” he went on, “my fine eastern college took four years trying to teach me that a man’s only as good as he thinks he is.
But I’d already learned that, or should have.
And faster, too. See this charming scar?
” he said, touching the long, wavering line that creased his cheek and called attention to its leanness.
“It took a horse too big for a boy stepping on my hard head to sink that fact into it. He was so high, I had to climb up on top of the corral fence to get on him,” he reminisced, “and he stayed still as death, watching me out of eyes that were pure burning coals as I did. He had more teeth, all bared, than I had, because I’d just lost a few to Mother Nature and was waiting for them to grow back.
He was wild as the wind. But m’ brother had stayed on his back for a full minute, and I’d be darned if I wouldn’t. ”
“But you could have been killed, weren’t you at all afraid?” she asked, so carried away by his words and his expression, she could almost see that vanished boy and the wild horse.
“Lord, the state I was in that day, I think I was more afraid I wouldn’t be,” he said on a chuckle.
“But once I was on, he did his best. I stayed on because I was even more scared of letting go. But I was wrong, and it wasn’t just this scar and a few others that proved it to me.
See, I’d been so careful about sneaking out to do it, nobody ever saw it but the horse, and he wasn’t talking,” he laughed.
“All everyone else saw was me later, bleeding, flat out on the ground. It seemed all I’d been after was the glory, all right, because just knowing that I’d done it didn’t ease my pain at all.
It should have. And would have, if that had been all I was after.
But it wasn’t, and that proved it. No, there’s no sense in living up to someone else instead of for yourself.
Let me spare you the pain of discovery, it’s true. ”
“I know that,” she said quietly, “I do. But knowing it isn’t the same as feeling it. Can you understand that?” she asked. Then, after a pause, she asked more shyly, “Is that how you hurt your leg?”
Startled, he glanced down at his legs, wondering if he’d see some injury there, before he realized that she was talking about his limp. It was so much a part of him now that he usually forgot it, unless the wind was blowing cold and damp.
“That? Yeah,” he said dismissively. “And to get the record straight, this pretty one on my chin’s from years later, a different challenge on a different day. That was a mine shaft I had no business prying into. Care to see some others?” he asked on a wicked grin, to change the subject.
But she refused to be diverted. “Oh,” she said with a sad, sympathetic smile, “I see. So you understand very well what I meant about the difference between knowing a thing and feeling it.”
Too true, too close, and much too deep. Gray thought.
It had gotten far too dark and deep. It was a beautiful day, they were alone, she was standing only a foot from him, meltingly lovely in a tightly fitted lace and cream concoction of a taffeta gown that looked as though it would be almost as good to touch as skin, and they were talking about the kind of personal things that would make a rock cry.
It was all very well to desire the woman, and there were few rules in this ancient game he’d begun with her, but he’d no intention of getting in too deep—mentally, at least, he thought on an interior grin.
If he didn’t keep it light, he’d be on one knee soon, like Royal.
And looking at her, where she stood in the sunlight, he realized it was far more than his knee he wanted to be on right now.
She had the most uncanny way of turning him around, but now it was definitely time for him to turn the subject and the mood, if he ever wanted more than philosophy from her. And God and the devil knew he did.
“Yeah. Speaking of feelings…” he said, abandoning his post by the tree and walking the few steps to her.
He touched a billowing swell of the heavy dark hair she’d pinned up high on her head, and saw how she sprang back to life beneath his gaze, sparkling with indignation, and if he was not mistaken, desire.
And then he lowered his head, and kissed her again.
Lightly, at first, even when she started to struggle away from the hands that closed over her shoulders and drew her closer, and then more deeply, even as his hands lightened their grip and drifted lingeringly across her back when he no longer needed them to hold her close.
He didn’t want to break the kiss, but knew he must, if only because dimly, in the distance, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps on gravel and brush.
When he stepped away, her eyes opened, and he saw a helpless, hopeless look in them before they flared again.
“Now, hold on,” he cautioned her, smiling affectionately, adding, before she could speak, “because another thing that fine eastern college taught me was a rule of chemistry. You can’t really steal a kiss, you know—just the makings of one.”
It was that indisputable truth that caused Hannah’s silence as Peggy and Royal came back, hand in hand, looking as smug as they were dazzled. And the equally undeniable shame and fear of it that kept her quiet all the way back to Leadville.
“Now why do you suppose they asked us to meet them here, instead of at the theater?” Gray asked exactly one week later, as he twirled the silver pickle castor on the table around until it blurred.
“Wasn’t Peggy’s idea,” Royal said. “Peggy says Kyle’s giving Hannah a hard time about meeting us.”
“You mean meeting ‘me’,” Gray said with the tracery of a smile as he sat back, crossed his legs, and idly surveyed the other elegantly dressed guests in the dining room of Leadville’s finest hotel.
“No, both of us. Only Peggy don’t care what he says anymore,” Royal said with a note of pride.
“My, my,” Gray said with interest, “only the third meeting, and she don’t care?”
“Only the third time we’re going out somewhere together,” Royal corrected him.
“I see her every night backstage for a while before she has to go to bed. She can’t stay up late when she gets up so early.
Not everybody can afford to take vacations like we have.
I’m done with it, Gray,” he said suddenly.
Gray sat up straighter. “Done with what?” he asked, fixing a steady blue gaze on his friend.
They’d remained in Leadville for the past week, but each had followed his own bent during the days: Gray going out to inspect mines, renew old acquaintances, and talk with investors; and Royal riding out to see horses and look at stock.
In the evenings. Gray had gone out to dinner with men he knew, or to their homes to meet their daughters, or else he’d gone to the theater.
But never to the one where Kyle Harper’s troupe was playing.
It was hard for him, but he kept reminding himself that deals in business or love were best played with a cool head and hand, and that he was waiting for absence to make a certain heart grow much, much fonder.
Lord knows, he thought ruefully, it had worked in his case.
He could hardly wait to see her tonight.
He was so eager, it was embarrassing, so he told himself it was more than that: his loneliness was increased by the fact that he’d seen his friend Royal only briefly, in passing, at their hotel.
But when he’d talked with Royal at all, they’d talked about everything but Peggy, and knowing his friend. Gray had let the matter rest until he was ready. Now, it seemed he was.
“I guess I’m giving notice,” Royal said, as he toyed with his knife and avoided Gray’s eyes. “But way in advance,” he assured him, as he dragged his gaze from the tablecloth to meet Gray’s stare. “Well, I got to get my stuff in order, my place and all.”
The continued silence and Gray’s unblinking stare made Royal’s neck, above its high, starched collar, grow ruddy, and he added with difficulty, “Well, you know I was thinking of buying the Pritchard place. You even said it was a good deal. Well, I’m gonna do it.
But it’s got nothing on it ‘cept a few head and a few old boys to watch over things. Now I got to get it stocked, but that ain’t nothing,” he said.
His voice grew lower and his face redder as he went on, “I got to get the place mucked out and get some furniture in it and all. And a ring. It ain’t no place for a woman the way it stands now. ”
Gray’s mouth twitched, but he dabbed it with his napkin and said, “Didn’t know you’d need a ring to fix a place up.”
“Damn it,” Royal exclaimed. Then he lowered his voice and said gruffly, “You know damn well what I mean, you’re just being scaly ‘cause I’m leaving. And you know why. I got what I come for.”
“She said yes?” Gray asked, with an odd feeling of loss with betrayal to color it, because though he’d known Royal’s mind, he was surprisingly hurt that his friend hadn’t shared his moment of success with him.
“God, no!” Royal exclaimed. “I ain’t asked.
Well,” he said in answer to Gray’s raised eyebrow, “a man can’t ask till he gets everything in line.
When a girl says yes, she wants a ring, don’t she?
And a place to call home. Not just a lot of sweet talk and promises.
See,” Royal said eagerly, dragging his chair closer, “I got it all planned out. They’re going to Aspen for the hoorah for the opening of the Jerome.
Peggy says they’re all up ‘cause they’re finally going to play at a good house there: the Wheeler. ”
He paused, and Gray had a moment to reflect on the novelty of hearing show business cant slipping so easily from the lips of Royal Atkins, before Royal went on, “Then they head on home to New York. So I figured that would be the time to make my move. I mean, slip it in with the hoopla and champagne and all, so as to make it stay with her more, you see.”