Texas Pride: Night Riders (11 page)

What was wrong with him? Thinking of such a thing was madness. He shook his head to dislodge the thoughts. He was becoming too involved with this family. Carla was more than capable of taking care of the ranch and herself. She had at least two men ready to marry her who appeared capable of providing her with a life of comfort. Danny was young, but this trouble was causing him to take a more serious look at his life. In a year or two, he’d probably be as mature as his sister. Age would also alter his looks, making him look more like a handsome young man than a beautiful boy. Once that happened, there wouldn’t be a girl in all of Texas with the desire to tease him.

***

“What are you doing?” Carla asked Ivan when she returned to the kitchen.

“Frying ham.”

“I can see that.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“Cooking supper is my job. Besides, you can’t eat just ham.”

“I have some sweet potatoes in the oven. Pilar taught me how to cook them.”

“Who’s Pilar?”

“Cade Wheeler’s wife. He was my commander during the war. When it was over, he invited me to Texas to work on his ranch. That’s where I learned all I know about ranching.”

Carla moved to a cabinet and took out two plates. “Is that where you learned to cook?”

“We had to do all our own cooking during the war.”

“We can’t have just ham and sweet potatoes. I’ll fix some—”

“I made a pan of cornbread.”

Carla stared at him. “Is there anything you
can’t
do?”

“I cannot make coffee like you. We did not drink it in Poland.”

Carla moved to the can where she kept the freshly ground coffee. “What did you drink?”

“The women drank cocoa for breakfast and fruit-flavored drinks or tea until dinner. The men drank beer or mead made from honey. After wine at dinner, we might have brandy or a heavy wine, but most of the time we had vodka.”

“Didn’t you ever drink water?”

“It is not safe.” Odd that Poland had lots of water nobody drank while Texas had very little water that everybody drank. He finished cooking the ham and transferred it to a plate. He took the sweet potatoes out of the oven where they’d been staying warm. He took both to the table.

“The coffee isn’t ready,” Carla said.

He grinned. “Then we will drink some of your Texas water.”

Carla’s grin was weak, but it felt like a reward.

He cut a piece of ham and placed it on Carla’s plate. He did the same with the sweet potatoes and cornbread, but she just sat there looking at her food.

“Do you not like it?” He took a bite of ham and chewed. “It is good.”

“I’m sure it is,” Carla said. “It’s just that this is the first meal I’ve eaten in this house since my mother got sick that I didn’t cook myself. It will probably be the
only
meal I’ll ever eat that was cooked by a man.”

“In Poland all the best chefs are men.”

Carla’s smile was slow to grow, but it finally bloomed. “No matter how many meals a Texas man might cook for himself, once he gets married, he’ll never set foot in the kitchen except to eat. What you have just done would destroy his manhood.”

“I do not always understand Americans. It’s even harder to understand Texans. You do not act like everyone else.”

“Neither do you.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

Carla concentrated on the sweet potato until she had removed its skin. Finally she raised her gaze to his. “I don’t know.”

They ate the rest of the meal in silence.

***

Carla dried the last dish and put it away. Ivan had offered to help her, but she insisted on doing it herself. She needed something to keep her occupied so her thoughts wouldn’t drive her crazy. She didn’t know what got into her earlier. She never ran from a room feeling like she was about to burst out crying. She wasn’t completely sure why she had been on the verge of tears. She was attracted to Ivan, but that was no reason to feel teary-eyed. She liked Kesney Hardin and Maxwell Dodge, yet she’d never come close to shedding a tear over either of them.

It probably wasn’t Ivan at all. Or if it was, it was Ivan combined with all the other things that had happened recently. Having Danny go off with Riley was just one thing too many. She heard that women often cried when they were worried or were under terrible strain, but she’d never felt like that. Problems were more likely to annoy her than upset her. What good did crying do? You’d waste time, embarrass yourself, and still have the problem. No, it was better to go about finding a solution.

Only she didn’t have a solution this time. She had no idea what she would do if the judge decided diViere had won the card game fairly. She had no idea what she would do if something happened to Danny. She had no idea where she would find the money to buy back the other half of their ranch a year from now. She had no idea why she couldn’t work up any enthusiasm about marrying Maxwell or Kesney. Most of all, she had no idea how to put an end to her attraction to Ivan.

She foolishly let herself be overly impressed by his gallantry. Considering how most men in Texas thought of women, that was understandable. Even Kesney Hardin, the most gallant and gentlemanly man in Overlin, couldn’t compare to Ivan. Maybe it was something a man could acquire only by growing up in Poland. Maybe it was characteristic of aristocrats whose families had been rich and influential for five hundred years, something that was bred so deeply into them they didn’t realize they had it.

Maybe, but she didn’t think so. Whatever it was, she believed it came from inside Ivan rather than from the world into which he had been born. There was goodness in him that couldn’t be taught. And she had to admit his size was comforting. It was easy to believe nothing could happen to her when he was around. It was stupid, but she couldn’t put it out of her mind. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so hard on Danny. He wasn’t the only one acting like the Texas sun had fried his brain.

She closed the cabinet and poured herself a cup of fresh coffee. Despite the heat, it always seemed to help her think. She moved to the front porch to take advantage of the breeze. It would be nice to be able to sit outside for a spell.

The wind was cooler and stronger than she expected. It had the smell of rain in it. They could certainly use it. Her cows were doing well, but Kesney had been complaining that the grass on his range was drying up.

The wind was picking up. The trees along the creek that passed less than a hundred feet from the house swayed in the wind. A limb broke off a cottonwood, twisting end over end as it was flung about twenty yards away. A young ash bent so far in the wind she was certain it would break. A soapberry thicket rustled like two steers were inside fighting to get out. A shiver ran through her body.

A gust blew across the porch that caused Carla’s skirt to wrap around her legs nearly throwing her off balance. Dismayed at the thought of Ivan finding her lying flat on her back, she chose a chair out of the wind. She didn’t know why Ivan should be the first person to come to mind, but a lot of things she didn’t understand had been happening since that man showed up.

She wondered what he was doing. Was he getting ready for bed? Was he already asleep? How could a man who’d spent his adult life as a soldier and cowhand, both jobs that required a great deal of strength and stamina as well as necessitated considerable physical discomfort, adjust to the life of an indolent aristocrat? Despite his proved proficiency as a dancer, she couldn’t see him spending his days eating and drinking and his nights dancing with women who spent their days trying to make themselves as beautiful as possible. She didn’t know much about Ivan, but she did know he wasn’t idle of mind or body.

A particularly strong gust of wind whipped the supple limbs of the cottonwood about so fiercely that its leaves were ripped off and sent rocketing into the darkening sky like battered and tattered green butterflies. Two big drops of rain, driven by the fierce wind, landed on her skirt. Deciding it was time to go in, she was about to rise to her feet when Ivan burst from inside the house.

“A tornado’s coming. We must hide.”

Carla remembered her father talking about a tornado that struck their farm when he was a boy, but she’d never seen one. “How do you know?”

Instead of answering her, Ivan pulled her up from her chair so abruptly her coffee cup went flying. It hit the wall before falling to the porch floor. Scooping her up in his arms, he catapulted down the steps and headed around the house at a run.

“Put me down!” she shouted, but the wind must have swallowed her words because he didn’t slow down. “Where are you taking me?”

Ivan rounded the corner of the house and headed for an open area to the north of the bunkhouse.

“I want to go back to the house.”

He didn’t respond. She was about to hit him with her fist to force him to listen when she saw a huge funnel sweeping toward them, twisting and squirming like it had something indigestible inside. It reminded her of a great, brown worm barreling across the plain. At times the bottom would withdraw into the upper portion, and it would skim above the ground before touching down again.

Ivan headed for a spot where a dry wash passed about fifty yards away between a small rise and the bunkhouse. Without pausing to put her down, he leapt into the wash, virtually threw her flat on the ground, and dropped on top of her. She was too shocked to utter any of the protests that crowded her mind. She couldn’t have in any case. His weight had knocked the breath out of her.

Despite her shock at Ivan’s behavior, her attention was riveted by a roar unlike anything she’d ever heard, unlike anything she’d ever imagined. It was so big, so enormous, the earth seemed to tremble. What could a thing this big and terrible do? Would they survive? She’d never seen Ivan even mildly upset. Tonight she’d seen fear in his eyes. He’d always treated her with utmost care and respect. Tonight he’d handled her with less care than he would a sack of grain.

Most astonishing of all, he’d covered her body with his.

Despite the shock, the fear, her racing thoughts, Carla was acutely aware of his body pressing against her. She could feel his groin jammed against hers thigh and felt heat suffuse her face. But her attention was torn from their physical closeness by the roar that grew so loud it threatened to burst her eardrums. They were being pelted with debris flung at them from all directions. Dirt. Leaves. Bits of wood. Branches. She heard Ivan grunt, but he didn’t move. Then, nearly as quickly as it came, the roar faded away.

In its aftermath, a cold, pelting, heavy rain seemed hardly more than a whisper.

She expected Ivan to move. Instead, he remained motionless. “Get off. You’re squeezing the breath out of me.”

The danger had passed. She couldn’t understand why he didn’t get up. She pushed against him, but he was too heavy to lift.
Maybe
he
didn’t move because he couldn’t.
The rain made it impossible to tell if he was still breathing. Fueled by fear that he might be seriously hurt, she summoned the strength to wiggle out from under him. Even in the dark, she could tell his hair was soaked with blood.

Was he dead? Had he sacrificed his life to protect her? He groaned, and her relief was so great she felt weak.

“Don’t move,” she said. “You’ve been hit on the head.”

“We
must
move,” he muttered as he rolled over. “This wash will soon fill with water.” He sat up and put his hand to the back of his head. It came away bloody.

“You have a gash in your head. You need to see a doctor.”

Ivan got to his feet. “I was hurt worse in the war. I hope the tornado didn’t hit your house. You need to get out of this rain.”

So much had happened so quickly, Carla hadn’t thought of what damage the tornado might have done to her home, the bunkhouse, or any other part of the ranch. Ivan lifted her out of the wash then climbed out himself.

At first glance, it appeared nothing had changed. The buildings and corrals were undamaged, but the trees along the creek looked like they’d been attacked by a huge animal with razor-sharp claws that ravaged their branches and stripped them of their leaves. The ground was cluttered with pieces of limbs, torn branches, and shredded leaves which had begun to float away as the rainwater puddled and ran in rivulets toward the stream.

“Go inside,” Ivan said. “I will see if there is any damage.”

“Let me do something about that cut in your head first.”

“You must put on dry clothes. Open the back door when you are ready for me.”

Carla wanted to protest that his head was more important than her wet clothes, but she was certain he would put her modesty before his welfare. She wondered if his eagerness to get away from her stemmed from embarrassment at their being thrown so closely together. Just thinking about it caused her to flush with warmth.

“I’ll hurry,” she said as she turned toward the house.

***

Ivan checked out every building on the ranch, but his mind wasn’t on what he was seeing. He couldn’t forget what it had felt like to lie atop Carla, their bodies pushed against each other. He’d done what he had to do, but he should have tried harder to find an alternative. He had never seen a tornado, but Nate Dolan’s description of them had been so vivid, his tales of the terrible damage they could do so graphic, that Ivan hadn’t hesitated to do what Nate had said was the only way to survive. If you don’t have an underground cellar, lie flat in the bottom of the deepest ditch you can find.

Fortunately, the tornado hadn’t touched down here. There was a lot of wind damage, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed. Including his head. A glance in the direction of the house told him the back door was open. He headed toward the light.

“You’ve got to get out of those clothes,” Carla said the moment he stepped inside. “You’re dripping wet.”

He showed her a bundle wrapped in his rain slick. “I got dry clothes from the bunkhouse.” He put the bundle on the table. “I could find no damage, but I can see better in the morning.”

“Forget about that for now. You have to change.”

His teeth chattered involuntarily.

“You’re cold.”

“Not much.”

“I’ll light a fire.”

“No.”

“Don’t argue because I won’t listen. As soon as I get the fire going, I’ll leave so you can change. Don’t dawdle. I need to look at that cut in your head.”

His puzzled look told her she’d stumbled into another hole in his English vocabulary.

“Dawdle means be slow, take your time, drag your feet.” She wasn’t sure whether she’d cleared up his confusion or made it worse, but it would have to do for now. She lit the fire quickly, poured some water into a basin on the stove, and left the kitchen.

During the war and at Cade’s ranch, Ivan had been in almost exclusively male company. He felt awkward undressing, knowing Carla was on the other side of the door. He hurriedly peeled off his wet clothes. He wasn’t sure of the meaning of all Carla’s words, but he was sure she meant she wouldn’t be gone long. He wanted to be fully dressed before she came back. He pulled on dry pants and wrapped his wet clothes in his rain slick.

“Are you dressed?” Carla asked from the other side of the closed door.

“Almost.” He grabbed a shirt, slipped his arms in, and quickly buttoned it.

“I’m coming in.”

Ivan barely managed to stuff his shirttails into his pants before Carla entered the room with an armload of enough stuff to perform a major operation.

“Now let me look at your head.”

“It is not bad.”

“You don’t know because you can’t see it. Pull a chair next to the stove.” She put everything down on the table then reached for the basin of water. She drew up a chair in front of Ivan and sat the basin on it. “Lower your head. I need to wash the cut first.”

Soaking a cloth, Carla squeezed it out over Ivan’s head. The water in the basin turned red.

“With so much blood, I thought the cut would be bigger,” Carla said.

“Head wounds bleed a lot.” Ivan had had plenty of chance to observe that during the war. Ivan raised his hand to feel the cut. It was hardly half an inch long. “It is not bad. I will be okay.”

Carla moved so she could look him in the eye. “You shielded me with your body. The least I can do is bandage it until the cut heals.”

Ivan didn’t need a bandage, but he didn’t object because he enjoyed having all of Carla’s attention, especially since she wasn’t trying to drive him off or blame him for ruining her life. A bandage would be a small price to pay for this change.

“Okay. You can make a bandage for me.”

The results weren’t what he expected. The wound was on the top of his head. In order to secure the bandage, Carla had to tie it under his chin. He couldn’t see himself, but he imagined he looked like he was suffering from a toothache. Carla’s grin, when she stood back to study the results, confirmed his suspicions.

“I know it isn’t very comfortable, but don’t take it off until morning.”

“How can I sleep like this? I can hardly talk.”

She turned businesslike. “Danny is gone so you don’t have any reason to talk.” She gave him a stern look. “I’ll know if you take it off when you reach the bunkhouse then put it on again in the morning.”

Ivan was certain she would. Women seemed to know the one thing men didn’t want them to know. Her bearing changed abruptly from stern to embarrassed, even upset.

“Thank you for protecting me.” Her gaze didn’t leave his face for an instant, didn’t waver or flicker. “I haven’t been very nice to you, and you still risked your life for me. I promise I will stop blaming you for what Laveau diViere did.”

“I would rather you be angry at me than at Danny.”

Carla sighed. “I’ll love Danny no matter what, but gambling away his half of the ranch was stupid. What kind of future does he have now?”

Ivan couldn’t answer that. Since the shock wore off, his head hurt so badly he could hardly hold onto a thought. All he was able to focus on was that Carla was no longer angry at him.

“Leave your clothes,” Carla said. “I’ll wash them when I wash Danny’s.”

Ivan reached for the bundle. “I can wash them.”

Carla got to them first. “Don’t be ridiculous. It will take twice the wood to heat two fires. Now go to bed. I’m sure your head feels like it’s fit to burst.”

Ivan was coming to the conclusion he should have spoken less French with Pilar and her grandmother, and more English with Cade and the others. Texans spoke a form of English all their own. But his head hurt too much to worry about that now. He’d think about it tomorrow. Or the day after that. Right now all he wanted to do was sink into his bed and dream of Carla’s promise to treat him differently.

***

“Wake up.”

Ivan’s dream shattered like so much glass. He fought against the voice trying to force its way into his consciousness, against the shove that caused his head to throb.

“Wake up.”

Ivan forced his eyes open to see Danny leaning over him.

“Man, you look stupid,” the boy said. “What happened to you?”

“I got hit by a piece of wood,” Ivan mumbled. “What are you doing here?”

“We got back before dawn. The bandits didn’t get far. I can’t believe they didn’t head for the border as fast as they could. Anyway, when we took the cows back, we saw the tornado had hit part of Overlin. You should see it. One building’s the same as always, and the one next to it smashed flat.”

Ivan sat up too quickly. It felt like a spike had been driven into his head. He waited a moment for the pain to subside.

“Are you all right?” Danny asked.

“I am fine.”

“Carla said you were hurt pretty bad, that you protected her.” Danny grinned. “I’d sure like to have seen that. Kesney will be mad as a roped steer if he finds out he didn’t get to be the hero.”

“You will not tell anyone,” Ivan managed to say. “It is not good to hurt your sister’s reputation.”

“Hell, nobody would care. They’ll consider you a hero.”

“In Poland, a hero does not disgrace a woman.”

“Well, you’re in Texas now, and protecting a woman is not a disgrace.” Danny’s brow creased. “I don’t know why you’re so fired up to go back to Poland. It sounds like a damned uncomfortable place.”

“It is my home.”

“It hasn’t been for ten years. If I was you, I’d give some thought to staying here. I sure would like it if you did.”

“Why? I would have your half of the ranch.”

“Better you than somebody I wouldn’t like.” Danny’s eyes suddenly grew wide, and he started to laugh. “You could marry Carla and keep it in the family.” Apparently Danny found the idea very amusing because he couldn’t stop laughing.

“You think I would be such a bad husband that you laugh?” Ivan demanded.

“I think you’d make a great husband,” Danny said between outbursts. “But I think Carla would make a terrible wife.” He dropped down on his bunk. “She’d be arguing and telling you what to do until you’d go off chasing cows to get some peace and quiet.”

“You do not want a wife like that?”

“Hell no! I want a sweet young beauty who will think I know everything.”

“Then
you
should go to Poland. There, beautiful women are brought up to obey their husbands in everything.”

Danny’s mood changed quickly. “No beautiful woman is going to marry a man who doesn’t have any money. No woman, beautiful or not, is going to obey a man who was stupid enough to lose everything he had in a card game.”

The pain in Ivan’s head had receded enough for him to get dressed. He reached for his pants. “Why did you wake me?”

“Carla said she wants to go into Overlin to see if she can help clean up after the storm. She has breakfast ready.”

Ivan stepped into his pants and reached for his shirt. “I will go, too.”

“Why?”

“To help. What about you?”

Danny yawned. “I’m going to bed. I was in the saddle all night.”

Ivan’s head hurt so badly he’d forgotten about the bandits. “Did you have much trouble? Did anyone get hurt?”

“Naw.” Danny sounded disgusted. “They took a few shots at us then turned tail and ran. Can’t imagine how they found the guts to steal the cows in the first place. They didn’t even have enough sense to hide the herd. They were bedded down in the open.”