Fool for Love (Montana Romance) (26 page)

He rolled his eyes at Amelia behind Curtis’s back as if it were all a joke, then disappeared into the house.

Amelia sat straighter, willing herself not to cradle her stomach, and smiled at Curtis.  It was now or never.  She opened her mouth.

“I bet you want to know all of the naughty things Eric did as a boy, don’t you,” Curtis rode over her.

“Well, I….”

“I’ve got some doozies when it comes to stories.  You wouldn’t believe the messes Eric could cause.  Why, when we were but ten years old….”

Amelia pressed her lips together and sat back against the settee.  She had a terrible feeling that she wouldn’t be allowed to speak again until she and Eric were miles away from the ranch.

Eric breathed a sigh and snapped the reins over the horses’ backs.  The sun was setting in brilliant colors over the horizon, a cool breeze was blowing down from the mountains, and Amelia had smiled at him at least a dozen times throughout the day at the ranch.  She sagged against him now as they drove back into town, too tired to hold herself away like she had been doing.  Everything had turned out just like he’d hoped it would.  So why the hell was his back itching harder than ever?

“You’re sure you had a good time?” he asked, adjusting so that he could put an arm around Amelia’s back and drive with one hand.

“I had a lovely time,” she answered.  She straightened and smoothed her hair, rubbing her stomach for a moment.

Eric waited for her to say more.  He waited in vain.

“It still needs some attention,” he went on.  “I never should have left and let things fall to that point.”

“You had to leave to seek out business opportunities,” she reminded him.

“And you.”

He smiled at her.  She turned her head to meet that smile.  The rich colors of the sunset brushed her skin the way he wanted to with his lips.  She took in a breath, as relaxed as he’d seen her all day.  The tiny moments between them worked.

“All the ranch needs is some effort and it’ll be back to where it was,” he said, keeping to the positive side of things.  “And pretty soon, if it’s lucky, it’ll have the one thing that it’s been missing since I moved in.”

“Oh?  What would that be?”

His chest squeezed tight at the thought, as if it wasn’t safe to speak it aloud yet.  That didn’t mean he wasn’t fool enough to say it.  “Why, that would be the rough and tumble of a parcel of kids running around the place, Mrs. Quinlan.”

Her smile faded slowly, but it still faded.  His itching back flared to painful tension as she lowered her head to watch her hands on her stomach.

“Eric, you know I-”

“I know.”  He cut her off.  “I know you were meant to be with kids, and so was my ranch.  That’s all I need to know.”

Amelia remained silent, eyes downcast.

Hellfire.  Here he thought he’d come so far only to find out he was right back where he’d started.  Maybe Curtis was right, maybe he should forget about the ranch for the time being and concentrate on wooing Amelia.

“Why was Curtis so short and suspicious toward us?” Amelia asked.

Eric’s eyebrows flew up.  “He wasn’t short and suspicious … was he?”

“I thought he was.”

Eric squirmed in his seat.  “He’s just high-spirited like that.  Always has been.  Drove Pop and Mama crazy.  Mama never had any more children after me, though the way she and Pop used to look at each other I don’t know why.  So when Curtis’s parents died, they were more than happy to take him in.  We always tried to make him feel like another member of the family.  Mama wanted a big family.  But….”  He shrugged.

He felt Amelia’s disapproving frown but didn’t dare turn to actually see it.

“He cuts you off when you try to talk about things he doesn’t want to talk about,” she said.

“Yep,” Eric nodded, “and he always has.”

“He avoided your questions about goings on at the ranch, what that smoke on the other side of the hill could be.”

“I’m sure it was Jed or the Twitchel kids, like Curtis said.”

“Are you?”

The itching down his back was beyond unbearable.  No.  He wasn’t.

He pulled his arm away from Amelia’s back and held the reins with both hands.  “Curtis has his ways.  He’s focused on the things he wants to see.  He’s probably just embarrassed that he let the ranch get into the state it’s in.”

“Eric!”  Amelia huffed out a breath.  He snuck a peek at her furrowed brow and tight lips before snapping his attention straight ahead.  “He’s hiding something from you!  How can you just sit by and not ask what it could be?”

“He’s not hiding anything from me, he’s just-”

“He is hiding something.”

“He wouldn’t-”

“He would!”

“He’s the only family I’ve got, Amelia!” he barked.  “Unless you’re saying you’ve decided to take me up on my offer to be mine for real.”

Regret over his outburst swept in as soon as he shut up.  His heart ached in the silence that followed.  He hadn’t felt so miserable in years.  He shouldn’t have tipped his cards to Amelia.  It would only hurt more when she left.

“I knew your parents were gone,” Amelia said at length, low and quiet.  “I didn’t know you had no other family.”

“Well I don’t, all right?  Curtis is it.  And yeah, I know he’s squirrely.  But we grew up together and we’ve spent every Christmas together for the past ten years, just the two of us, and he never forgets my birthday, and … and he’s all I’ve got.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

Hell.  She didn’t know.  He hadn’t said anything to her.  He hadn’t said anything to anyone.  He always figured he wouldn’t have to, that he’d find some pretty girl who actually wanted to be with him and raise a family instead of one who he loved with everything who didn’t know how to give in return.  Even though he was dead certain she wanted to.

He took a breath and forced his back to relax.  Life hadn’t been kind to Amelia.  She was like a spooked calf who needed bringing along to fit in with the herd.

“Sorry I raised my voice,” he mumbled.

“You didn’t raise your voice,” she replied.  “Not really.”

“Besides, you and Curtis looked like you were getting along just fine.”

“I….”  She hesitated.  He looked sideways at her.  Her cheeks were flushed pink.  “I was hoping to get to know him better.”

“Did you?”

She met his covert glance.  “He wa
s ‘squirrely’, as you put it.”

She grinned.

Just like that, his tension evaporated.  “Yeah, that’s Curtis for you.”

He put his arm around the back of the wagon again and hugged her.

“You really shouldn’t let him override you like he does, family or not.”

“I know, I know.”

“Why, if I let my family walk all over me….”

Her words fell off.  Her face had fallen with them.  She tried to wriggle away from him.  He wouldn’t let her . 

“Didn’t look to me like they were walking on you.”  He gave her a squeeze.  “Seems to me like you walked away from all that in style.”

“Does it?” she murmured, so low he wasn’t sure he heard it.

His tension may have been gone, but the ache in his heart was there as big as ever.  The wall between them was so thin it was maddening.  If he could only make her see reason.

He cleared his throat and said, “It seems to me that when a person gets dealt a weak hand in the family game, the best they can do is make a new family for themselves.”

He waited.  His heart thumped against his chest.  His throat closed up as the silence grew longer.  He wanted her so badly it flattened him.

When he thought he couldn’t stand it anymore, when he was ready to burst out with something stupid just to say something, Amelia took a breath.

“I suppose so.”

Her whisper glittered in the rays of the setting sun, hanging in the hints of starlight poking through the sky.  It gave him hope, and that was all he needed.

Chapter Fifteen

By the evening of the ice cream social Amelia was nothing but a swirling bundle of nerves and contradictions.  Eric’s confessions about Curtis and his family hung heavily on her heart as she spread tablecloths over folding tables in the yard beside the church.  If ever a man deserved a family it was Eric.  He was meant to have his army of wild children.  It was foolish of him to have set his s
ights on her, but since he had….

She smacked her hand on the corner of the table as the temptation tickled her.

“Hellfire!” she muttered, sucking on her bruised knuckles.

The pain flared ten times worse as she realized what she’d said.  She scolded herself with a growl and bent to smooth the tablecloth.  Her heart’s waffling would be the death of her.  If she was going to stay, she needed to make up her mind to stay.  But if she was going to
do the right thing and leave….

“Why hello, Mrs. Quinlan,” Mabel Twitchel greeted her as she arrived to help set up.  She wore a smile twice as big as her bonnet, which was saying something.

“Hello, Mrs. Twitchel,” Amelia responded with as friendly an air as she could summon in her current frame of mind.

“Oh, Mabel, please.  It’s such a pleasure to have a new member in the Ladies Auxiliary.”

“I’d hardly say I was a member yet.”  Amelia moved to fetch a heavy vat of ice cream from the wagon at the side of the yard where Delilah stood directing workers.

“Honey, leave that be.”  Delilah swatted her away.  “A woman in your condition shouldn’t be lifting heavy things.  Eric wouldn’t like it.”

Amelia blushed deep scarlet at the wink that followed the statement.

“Why don’t you help me set out the napkins,” Mabel said.

Amelia managed a weak smile as she crossed to the other side of the table with Mabel. They took a stack of neatly pressed linens from the basket Mabel had brought with her.

“I surely do love these events,” Mabel began, glancing off across the church yard toward the town, “but every time we get overrun by hussies.”

Heat flooded Amelia’s face and neck as she followed Mabel’s glance.  A large group of saloon girls were heading toward the church, barely dressed in what they probably thought was their finest.

“Every time,” Mabel sighed.  “As if women like that have a right to associate with decent folks.”

Amelia’s heart sank to her toes.  “Sarah seems nice,” she mumbled, lowering her head to focus on the napkins.

“Well you can’t blame Sarah for her fate.  She’s simple, that one.”

Amelia swallowed.  Was that what people would say about her?

“I saw you and Eric at the ranch the other day,” Mabel changed the subject.  “When do you think you and him will
be moving out there for good?”

Amelia dropped a napkin.  “I’m not sure,” she said as she bent to pick it up, hiding the blush on her cheeks.

“Well I hope it’s soon.  Millie Frye and I were just saying the other day that it’ll be nice to have another woman in the area.”

“There aren’t many women on the farms and ranches outside of town?” she managed to ask with reasonable grace.

“There used to be,” Mabel said.  “I came to be good friends with Hattie Price these last few years.  I can’t tell you how I miss her!”

Amelia’s heart beat faster.  “Her husband worked for Eric, didn’t he?”

“He did.”

This was her chance.  Whatever tomorrow may hold, she could h
elp Eric now.

“Eric has mentioned Mr. Price.  He was very fond of him, of all of the men who worked for him.  Do you know what possessed them to leave?”

“You know, I’ve wondered over that long and hard myself.”  Mabel’s tone was conversational but she frowned as she lined up ice cream bowls.

Amelia caught half a glimpse of Delilah’s approving grin and went on.  “Perhaps Eric was difficult to work for?”

“Oh no!” Mabel laughed.  “Hattie always used to say that Eric was a treat.”

“Did she say the same thing about Curtis?”

The question felt clumsy and obvious to Amelia, but Mabel didn’t bat an eyelash as she answered, “That I don’t know.”

“Oh?”

“Well Curtis doesn’t do much bossing on the ranch, does he,” she replied.  “At least he didn’t until Eric went on his trip.”

“Eric left Curtis in charge,” Amelia said.  “I suppose that means he trusted him to handle things in his absence.”

“I suppose so.”  Mabel paused in her work to look out into space.  “I suppose there must have been some kind of disagreement between Garret Price and Curtis Quinlan and the rest of those men who left.  It was the dead of winter and a snowy one at that.  Neighbors weren’t visiting much at that time of year.  Which explains why Hattie didn’t stop in to say goodbye before she left.  Such a shame.”

“What about the farmer from Idaho?” Amelia dug deeper.

“What farmer from Idaho?”

“I was told a farmer from Idaho may have lured the ranch hands away.”