The Rancher's Wife. Lynda Trent

she knew what he was about to do, she felt Brice’s hands on her waist The next minute she was in the air and sitting astride the mule. He handed her the rifle and stepped away. There was an expression in his eyes that she didn’t fully understand. The feeling of his strong hands on her waist, even for so short a time, was indelibly impressed on her memory, and her blood raced faster because of it. No, it wouldn’t do for her to come for a visit. “Thank you,” she said, noticing her voice sounded breathless, In a steadier voice she added, “You’ve been more than generous.”

      “Think nothing of it, ma’am. On the frontier we look after one another.”

      She told herself she was being foolish. He was only being friendly. How could he be as bad a person as Celia had said and have such a warm smile? She gave him a shaky smile and kicked the mule into motion. She could feel his eyes on her as she rode away and her body responded in a way she couldn’t explain, given all she knew about him and the fact that she was a married woman. It took an effort not to look back.

      When she reached the hut she lugged the bags off the mule’s back, surprised that they were so heavy. Brice had lifted them so easily she had thought they weighed much less. She took the mule to the pen beside the barn and turned him loose. As she went back to the hut, she dusted mule hair from her skirt. What an impression she must have made in that immaculate parlor. She only hoped she hadn’t left mule hair on the garnet cushion of Celia’s chair.

      Elizabeth took the bags into the hut and put them on the table. Opening them was almost as exciting as opening gifts on Christmas morning. Brice hadn’t been stingy. There was a good-sized bag of flour and another of cornmeal, a string of peach leather and two of apple leather, a cone of sugar, several strips of venison and beef jerky and enough lamp oil to last much longer than he had indicated.

      Elizabeth carefully put the provisions away. Even though she had enough basic supplies to rest easy now, she wasn’t going to be so foolish as to waste any of it. Especially the lamp oil. The nights were too long and black when a lamp couldn’t be lit. She felt almost tearful with gratitude.

      For a forbidden moment she remembered how provocative his gaze was when his eyes had met hers and how his teeth were white and straight when he smiled. If she didn’t know better, she would say he smiled often—but smiles were at odds with a mean nature. She put her hands on her waist where he had touched her. He was strong yet he had seemed so gentle. She would have to be careful when she visited Celia and not let herself begin to trust Brice. He seemed to be the opposite of all Celia had confided.

      She felt guilty for wondering if Celia had been truthful. Surely no woman would say her husband was abusive unless he really was. She had every reason to believe her yet all she could think of was how different he seemed to be from Robert. And how she still seemed to feel the way his hands had touched her when he put her on the mule and how her pulse had raced when their eyes met.

      It was only natural, she told herself hastily. Robert had been gone for weeks, and even when he was home, making love with him was no longer pleasurable. Looking back on it, she wasn’t sure it ever had been. Not when he was usually finished before she began to warm toward him. She had tried to convince herself that it was always like that between a man and woman. Men were supposed to enjoy sex but ladies were not. She, like most women, had received that message obliquely all her life.

      Elizabeth didn’t believe it.

      She was a lady born and bred, but there had been times she had enjoyed having Robert touch her. Sometimes she had liked it a lot. If he were willing to go slower and wait for her to reach his fever pitch, wouldn’t she enjoy lovemaking as much as he did?

      Her mind drifted back to Brice. Would it be different with a man like him, strong and gentle?

      She resolutely put her mind on the mundane chores of her daily living. Thoughts along that line would only lead her to trouble.

      Chapter Two

      

      

      After telling Elizabeth how miserable she was, Celia was more determined than ever to hurry the birth of the baby and leave Brice. He dearly wanted this child and she smiled to think how it would hurt him to see her leave with it. It was no more than he deserved for bringing her here.

      She bullied Consuela until the woman produced a concoction of mandrake, bitter apple, cotton root and squaw vine. It tasted foul and left a bitter residue in her mouth, but within an hour she felt the first contraction.

      Consuela put her to bed and sent word to Brice in the pasture that the baby was coming. He arrived sooner than Celia thought possible. Between contractions she berated him for putting her in this condition. As the contractions grew stronger and she began to hemorrhage, her reproaches grew shrill with her panic. She hadn’t expected so much pain. She could tell by Consuela’s face that something was wrong. The baby should be small and easy to birth since it was a month from full term. Why was she having such pain?

      When Brice had first come into the room, Celia saw Consuela hide the empty bottle in the bottom drawer of the wardrobe that blocked the doorway that connected this room with Brice’s. If something went wrong and she lost the baby, Celia intended to show the bottle to Brice and blame it all on Consuela.

      But why wasn’t the baby coming?

      Brice ached to see Celia’s pain. He had known she didn’t want children but he had believed she would change her mind once she had one. Besides, there was no effective means to prevent pregnancy except for abstinence. Celia hadn’t wanted him in her bed and that made her pain and misery all his fault. Since she moved to this room, he had allowed himself one lapse in respecting her wishes and this was the result of it.

      Brice was a kind man and he hated knowing Celia was suffering because of him. “Do you want me to send a man after Elizabeth Parkins?” he suggested to cheer her.

      “No!” Celia snapped. “You know she lives in Old Zeb’s mud hut. I don’t want white trash around me. Certainly not at a time like this. I want my mother and my aunts!”

      “Elizabeth struck me as a good woman. She certainly isn’t white trash. And she’s a lot nearer than your mother and aunts.”

      “Go away, Brice! Get out of my sight! I wish you were dead!” She screamed at him so hysterically a bead of spittle ran down her chin. She didn’t notice.

      Brice left without a word.

      Cal, his closest friend, had come in from the bunk house and was waiting downstairs in the back parlor. He was called Wandering Cal because of a cast in his right eye. Brice didn’t know his last name or where he came from, but they had been friends for years and Cal was his right-hand man on the ranch.

      

      “She doing all right?” Cal asked. He was a man of few words.

      “I don’t know. It’s too damned early for the baby to come. It’s too early!” He paced to the hearth, then to the window. “What if I lose them, Cal?”

      “Probably won’t.” Cal sat by the fire and picked up a piece of kindling to whittle. He looked entirely out of place in Celia’s back parlor, even if it wasn’t as grand as the formal front one. Cal was more suited for the barn.

      “I should have sent her back home when I saw she didn’t like it here. I kept thinking she would change her mind after a while. I was wrong.”

      “Wives belong with their husbands.” Cal didn’t like Celia and never had. He had only come into the house to keep Brice company. Celia never allowed him, or any of the other hired hands, nearer than the back porch.

      An agonized scream made Brice cross to the door, hesitate and go back to the window.

      “Go to the barn,” Cal suggested. “I’ll come tell you when it’s over.”

      “No, I have to stay here. If Celia can live through it, I can stand to listen.” But the next scream drained the blood from his face.

      Cal