Tyler, page 9
“I’d like to have someone come with me on the trail ride while that man from back East is here,” she confessed with a faint smile. “His wife is rather cold-eyed, and she seems to have some insane idea that I’m chasing him.”
Tyler’s eyes went narrow. “Yes, I saw how he tried to come on to you at the square dance. They leave Thursday, don’t they?” He saw her nod. “I’ll go on the next two trail rides with you. Chappy can keep things in order for Bella while we’re out.”
“Thanks.”
“Unless you’d rather I let McAnders go with you?” he added with a mocking smile.
She wanted to protest, but that would be a little too revealing. She swallowed. “Whatever suits you,” she said. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
Which wasn’t the answer he wanted. He put out his cigarette with faint violence. “McAnders can go with you, then,” he said. “I’ve got enough work to do without playing nursemaid.”
The words were meant to sting, and they did. She got up, avoiding his eyes as she went to the door. “Thanks for all you’re doing,” she said over her shoulder.
“My pleasure. Good night.”
“Good night.”
She didn’t see him alone after that. There was always some reason to have other people present or to put off discussions until she could arrange for reinforcements. But that didn’t stop Tyler from cutting at her verbally at every opportunity.
What hurt the most was that Darren McAnders didn’t mind accompanying her on trail rides, and seemed even to enjoy her taciturn company. He began to smile again, as if being with her brightened his life. She didn’t understand why, and she understood even less Tyler’s new antagonism.
But the fire hit the fan on the weekend, when Margie and the boys arrived by taxi.
Nell had just come back from the trail ride, with Darren McAnders at her side. Marguerite, immaculate in a white linen suit, stepped out of the cab she’d recklessly hired in Tucson, with her long reddish-gold hair wafting in the breeze, and looked straight up into Darren McAnders’s stunned face.
“Darren!” she exclaimed, missing her step.
She went down on her knees in the dust, and Darren vaulted out of the saddle to pick her up, his hands strong and sure on her upper arms, his eyes intent on her flushed face.
“Margie,” he said softly. “You haven’t aged. You’re as beautiful as ever.”
“What are you doing here?” Margie gasped. She glanced at Nell, even more shocked to find Nell apparently voluntarily in Darren’s company.
“He’s our newest hand,” Nell told her. “Tyler hired him.”
“Doesn’t he know?” Margie asked, and then flushed when she saw Darren’s rueful smile. “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just that…”
“The past is only a problem if we let it be,” Nell said stubbornly. “Darren and I are getting along very well. Aren’t we, Darren?” she asked.
He smiled ruefully. “As well as could be expected. Nell’s been very generous. It was this job or welfare, and I couldn’t have blamed her if she’d thrown me off the place. It’s as much as I deserved.”
Margie searched his face slowly and then glanced up at Nell, sitting still on her horse. “It took a lot of courage for you to come back here, Darren,” she remarked, even though she was looking at Nell, waiting, questioning.
“I found out that running away doesn’t solve much,” he said enigmatically. He glanced past Margie. “Are these your boys?” He asked the question softly, and his eyes echoed that softness as he looked at them. “Curt and Jess, aren’t you? Your Aunt Nell’s said a lot about you.”
They piled out of the car like marauding pirates and stared at him enthusiastically. “Did she, really?” Curt asked. “Did she say nice stuff? Me and Jess are lots of help around the ranch—Tyler says so. We help him find snakes and lizards and stuff and keep them from eating up Aunt Nell’s cattle!”
Aunt Nell’s eyes widened with amusement. “Did Tyler tell you that?”
“Well, not really,” Jess murmured. “But it sounds good, don’t it?”
“Doesn’t it,” Margie corrected absently. She was just beginning to get her self-confidence back after the shock of seeing Darren. “Boys, we’d better get inside.” She paid the driver, and Nell got off her horse to help with the luggage, but Darren was one step ahead of her.
“I’ll take care of this if you can manage the horses, Nell,” he said with a hopeful glance in her direction.
She knew he’d never gotten over Margie. It didn’t surprise her that he was anxious to renew that acquaintance. What Margie felt was less easy to perceive. But it certainly wasn’t like the older woman to lose her step and pitch headfirst into desert sand.
“Sure,” Nell agreed easily. “I’ll take them to the barn. Margie, I’ll see you and the boys in a few minutes.”
“That’s fine,” Margie said absently, but she was looking at Darren as if she’d been poleaxed.
Nell was faintly relieved. With Darren around, maybe Margie wouldn’t bat her eyelashes so luxuriously at Tyler. Not that it mattered anymore. Tyler had certainly made it clear that he wasn’t interested in Nell. He avoided her like the very plague.
She led the horses to the barn, where Chappy took the reins with a curious glance at her rigid features.
“You okay?” he asked.
She smiled. “I’m fine.” She glanced around. “Where’s Caleb?”
Caleb was the big black gelding that Tyler always rode. Asking for the horse’s whereabouts was a little less obvious than inquiring about Tyler’s.
Chappy saw right through her. “He’s out riding the boundary fence we put up around the holding pens.”
She blinked. “He hates riding fence.”
“He overheard two of the boys talking about the way McAnders hangs around you since he’s been here,” the wrinkled cowboy said with a twinkle in his pale blue eyes. “He set them to cleaning out the stables, and he went off to ride fence. I don’t reckon anybody will mention such things around him again, once word gets through the outfit.”
She bit her lower lip. “Why should he care?”
Chappy started to lead the horses toward the stable, where two sweating, swearing cowboys were mucking out the stalls and pitching fresh hay. “You need glasses,” he said dryly.
Nell drifted back to the house slowly, her eyes everywhere on the horizon, looking for a glimpse of Tyler. Things had been strained between them. That, and McAnders’s presence, were making her life miserable. Not that she minded Darren being around. He’d changed so much from the shallow, careless man she’d known. She felt no remnant of the old crush she’d had on him, nor any sense of bitterness. He was like a friendly stranger whom she began to like, but nothing more.
If only she could go to Tyler and tell him that. But despite his odd behavior this afternoon, he hadn’t said anything that would lead Nell to believe he had any lasting affection for her. In fact, he’d said more than once that there wasn’t any place for a woman in his life right now. And the thought of throwing herself at another man, after the misery her encounter with Darren had brought her, was unwelcome. Tyler might be kind about it, but she knew he wouldn’t appreciate having her “hang on his boots,” as he’d mentioned to Bella.
She sighed. She knew so little about men. If only she could talk to Margie, perhaps she could find a way out of the corner she’d painted herself into.
She went into the house to help Bella get supper on the table before the guests were called onto the elegant patio to eat. The wooden tables each had umbrellas and sat beside an Olympic-size swimming pool, which did a lot of business during the day. All meals were taken here, with Bella and Nell setting a buffet table from which guests could choose their portions. All around were palo verde trees, along with every conceivable form of cactus known to the desert Southwest. It was amusing to watch the guests from back East ask about the flower garden mentioned in the brochure and then see it for real. The native plants were surrounded by rock borders, and their arrangement was both mysterious and compelling. In bloom, the cacti were beautiful, like the feathery palo verde with its fragrant yellow blossoms.
“You aren’t eating?” Nell asked when Margie sat down a good distance away from the guests while, as a special treat, the boys had their meal in the bunkhouse with the cowboys.
Margie shook her head. She’d changed into designer jeans and a red tank top, and she looked elegant and moody. “I’m not hungry. How long has he been here?”
“A few days,” Nell said. “Tyler hired him.”
“And you let him stay?”
“Not voluntarily,” Nell said after a minute. “I tried to bulldoze Tyler into letting him go, but he wouldn’t. He wanted to know why.” She lowered her eyes. “I couldn’t tell him.”
“Yes. I understand.” She sat up suddenly, leaning her forearms on the table. “Nell, it isn’t terribly bad, is it? Having him around?”
The intensity of the question was interesting. Nell smiled faintly. “No, it isn’t terribly bad,” she said gently. She studied the pale, beautiful features. “You still care about him, don’t you?”
Margie stiffened. She actually flustered. “I…well, no, of course not. I didn’t really care about him!”
“Ted has been dead for a long time,” Nell said quietly. “And I’m sure he never meant for you to live without love forever. If you’re asking me how I feel about Darren, he’s very much like a nice stranger.” She smiled gently. “I guess you and Bella were right about what happened. I blew it all out of proportion because I didn’t have any experience to measure it against. I didn’t exactly invite what happened, but I’d led him to believe that I wanted him without realizing it.”
“It was my fault, too,” Margie admitted. “But I never meant you to be hurt.” She looked at the table instead of at Nell. “I cared about him. Not in the way I loved Ted, but in a different way. But I was married, and despite the way I teased him, I never would have had an affair with him.”
“I know that,” Nell said.
Margie smiled at her sadly. “I’ve spent a lot of years trying to make you over in my image, haven’t I? Being bossy, taking you for granted. But I meant it in the nicest way. I wanted to help. I just didn’t know how.”
“I don’t need help,” Nell told her dryly. “And I’m not going to try to recapture the past with Darren McAnders.”
“And Tyler?” Margie fished. “Where does he fit in?”
That question threw her again. Was Margie infatuated with Tyler? Was her interest in Darren only pretended so that she could find out how Nell felt about Tyler? Nell started drawing into herself again, defensively. “Tyler is my foreman, nothing more. He doesn’t give a hang about me in any way,” Nell said tautly. She got up from the table. “I’m not hungry, Margie. I think I’ll go watch TV.”
“Okay. I’ve got to go get the boys.”
“They’re already on the way,” Nell remarked with a bitter smile, and gestured to where Tyler was coming with both boys by the hand. They were laughing and so was he. Margie was gazing at the group with such naked hunger that Nell turned away. “See you later,” she said, but Margie wasn’t really listening. Her whole attention was focused on Tyler. Actually, it was focused on Darren, who was right behind Tyler, but Nell didn’t see the second man. She was sure now that Margie was using Darren as an excuse to mask her feelings for Tyler.
Nell went inside and threw herself into housecleaning until she was nearly exhausted, getting rooms ready for the boys and Margie. When she came back downstairs, she was surprised to find Tyler in the living room, already watching the news.
He looked tired. Dead tired. He’d showered and changed, but he had an oblivious kind of expression on his face that brightened a little when he saw Nell come into the room.
“Can I get you a lemonade?” he asked, hoisting his.
“Not a brandy?” she mused.
“I don’t drink. I never have.”
She sat down in the armchair across from him, feeling her way. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t like either the taste or the effect, I guess.” His green eyes went over her like hands, and she flushed, because memories were glittering there. It was shocking to remember exactly how intimate he’d been with her, for all the distance that had been between them since then.
“I don’t drink, either,” she said absently. “I’m frightfully old-fashioned.”
“Yes, I know,” he said softly, and the memories were there again, warm and overwhelming. His eyes caught hers and held them relentlessly. “How do you feel about McAnders?”
She sat up straight. She had to hide her real feelings from him, so she said, “I’m not sure.”
“Aren’t you? You seem to spend enough time with him lately,” he accused quietly.
“You spend plenty around Margie,” she shot back.
He smiled mockingly. “Yes, I do, don’t I? But you don’t seem to spend much time considering why.”
“It’s obviously because she attracts you,” she said haughtily. “I’m not blind.”
“Oh, but you are,” he said quietly. “More blind than you know.”
“I can spend time with anyone I please,” she continued coldly.
“Have you been intimate with McAnders?” he asked suddenly.
She gasped. Her face went bloodred as she remembered what had happened that night, what Darren had tried to do to her.
Tyler saw the expression, but he took it for guilt, and something inside him exploded. No wonder Nell had eyes for McAnders. He’d been her first love, and now he was back and he wanted her, and she’d let him touch her in all the ways Tyler had. Maybe even more. His eyes glittered at her furiously.
“How could you do that?” he asked bitterly.
She blinked. “Do what?”
He threw up his hands and paced angrily. “And all the time I thought—” He stopped short, turning. “Well, if it’s McAnders you want, consider him yours. I’ll run the business end of the ranch and take care of the livestock. But don’t make the mistake of running after me if McAnders dumps you,” he added venomously. “I don’t want another man’s castoff.”
Nell gasped with outrage. “You lily-white purist!” she threw at him. “How many women have you cast off, if we’re going to get personal?”
“That’s none of your business,” he said shortly.
“Well, Darren is none of yours.” She clenched her hands, hating his arrogance.
He wanted to throw things. He hadn’t realized until then just how deeply Nell was under his skin. He had to face the possibility that a man from her past was about to carry her off, and he didn’t know what to do to stop it. She’d got the wrong end of the stick about Margie. He liked Margie, yet he saw right through her antics. But Nell was so insecure that she couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Considering that insecurity it was a miracle that she could even contemplate a relationship with Darren McAnders. But she might love him….
He sighed heavily. “Fair enough,” he said finally and with a long, quiet stare. “Do what you please, Nell. I won’t interfere. As you say, your life is your own.”
He turned to go and she felt sick all over at the way things were working out. She didn’t care about Darren. She wanted to call him back and tell him the truth, but something stopped her. She couldn’t tell him, she couldn’t face his contempt when he knew that she’d invited Darren’s advances, that she’d chased him all those years ago and brought it on herself. So she let him go, watching with sad eyes as he left the room only to run into Margie in the hall.
Nell heard him laughing and caught a glimpse of Margie’s rapt expression. She couldn’t bear it. She was going to lose him to Margie, and she couldn’t bear it. She went back into the living room, forcing herself not to cry.
She’d let Tyler think she’d been deliberately intimate with Darren, and that was a lie. She sat down on the sofa, remembering what had happened all those years ago. She’d been mistaken about McAnders’s feelings back then, and she’d become obsessed with him after he’d paid her a little attention. She recalled how she’d teased him until one night she went a little too far. Margie had given a party and that evening Nell had flirted with McAnders, who’d been rejected by Margie and had had too much to drink. McAnders had come to Nell’s room and found her asleep in her scanty gown, and since she hadn’t locked her door, he’d thought she was waiting for him. He’d climbed into bed with her and, despite her protests, he’d been about to seduce her when Bella had come to her rescue.
But that had been years ago, long before she knew Tyler. He hadn’t been talking about the past, though. He’d asked her if she’d been intimate with Darren, and he was talking about the present.
The impact of the realization hit her between the eyes like a hammer. Now she’d done it! She’d inadvertantly let him think that what she’d shared with him she’d also shared with Darren. She’d stung his pride by letting him think that she could go straight from his arms into Darren’s and without a twinge of conscience.
She got up, shaking with reaction, and wondered if she could go after him, explain.
But before she got to the door, Curt and Jess came careering down the hall, and she looked past them to where Tyler was holding Margie’s arm, escorting her laughingly out the front door.
It was too late now to smooth things over, she knew. She’d left it just a few seconds too long. She’d lost him.
Chapter Seven
“Hi, Aunt Nell,” they chorused. “Can we watch that new science fiction movie on the VCR?”
“Sure. Go ahead,” she said with forced tolerance, but her heart was breaking. “Where’d your mother go?”
“Uncle Tyler’s taking her into town,” Curt volunteered disinterestedly as he searched for the right videocassette. “I sure like Uncle Tyler.”
“Yeah, me too,” Jess agreed.
So it was “uncle” already, Nell thought, groaning inwardly. She made some brief excuse and left the room before the boys could see the tears forming in her eyes.
After that day Nell started avoiding him again. Not that it was necessary. Tyler cut her dead every time he saw her, his eyes hard and accusing, as if she’d betrayed him somehow. Nell began to wilt emotionally.
