Lisa Kleypas - Give Me Tonight

It was difficult to know how she felt about the Warners. She liked them, she felt a casual sort of affection for them all, but she certainly didn't have the kind of love for May and Russell that a daughter should have for her parents. Cade and Caroline were both likable, but she felt no strong attachment to either of them. She didn't know them.

"As soon as I have the baby, Peter and I are going to move our little family to North Carolina," Caroline said. "And I can hardly wait."

"Do you have to?" Addie protested. "North Carolina's so far away."

"Mama's people already have a job lined up for him, and we'll get a real nice welcome from them. And I know Leah will love it there."

She won't. She'll come back to Texas someday. "Couldn't Peter do something in Dallas, or someplace closer? I know he doesn't like ranching, but there are other things in Texas he could-"

"It's Texas we want to move away from, Adeline. Oh, you look like Daddy did when I told him that! I'm just not a Texan at heart. I don't see the same things in it that the rest of y' all do, and neither does Peter. This land looks barren to me. It's desolate… lonely… and sometimes it's so boring I could die for want of something to do. Don't you think of it as a mournful place?"

Addie looked out over the endless plains of summer grass and tried to see it that way. But the sky was brilliant with sunshine, and her eye kept moving from red-orange clusters of Indian paintbrush to cottonwood and mesquite trees. Further out were fields of yellow-eyed bluebonnets, rippling like a violet ocean when the wind blew. The men were working hard on the land, tending the cattle. This land, this life, held an irresistible attraction for them. Addie hadn't understood it before, but she was beginning to.

Any other place in the world would have been too crowded. Here the men had a huge expanse of range to ride, where they worked until they were bone-weary, and when their day was over they came back to the mess-house and the appetizing smells of sourdough bread and meat smoked over mesquite wood. If the night was warm, they brought their bedrolls and mattresses outside and slept under the open sky. The cowboys didn't find this life unbearably lonely. It was as civilized as they could stand. And for the family there were weddings, picnics, barbecues, quiltings, dances, and shooting tournaments, almost no end of excuses to see people and call on neighbors if you got lonely for company.

"No, I never think of it as a mournful place," she said thoughtfully. "Or boring. There's always something to do and something happening. I'd rather be in Texas than anywhere. "

"Even after you went to school for two years in Virginia? I don't understand you, Adeline. How could you choose this dusty old ranch over a civilized place to live in, with lots of people around and modem conveniences…"

Addie stopped listening as Caroline continued to talk about the wonders of city living. She could picture Sunrise as it would be fifty years from now, replete with modem conveniences Caroline couldn't even imagine. Had that Sunrise she had known been preferable to this? Maybe not. You could be just as lonely with lots of people around. Being happy was more than that, more than having stores and automobiles and movie theaters close by. Being happy was something that had always eluded her, and would continue to, until she found the answers to questions she had only begun to ask herself. I think I'd be happy if I had someone to share things with. Someone who needed me. And then maybe she wouldn't care where or when she was living.

"… there's no future for Peter here," Caroline was saying. "He's not the kind of man who'll be happy on a ranch. He needs a nice job in an office somewhere, where he can earn a living with his mind, not his hands. He's not interested in a bunch of mangy old cows, and there's no point in him trying to be. The only man capable of filling Daddy's shoes is Ben, and everyone knows it."

Confusion again. Always that first clutching sensation of confusion when she thought of Ben and Russell. Why was she cursed with the knowledge of their destinies? She wished she didn't know. Knowing was a terrible responsibility, the responsibility of preserving Russell's life and maintaining her guard against Ben at all times. But how, how could Ben have done it? There must be two men living in his skin.

"Look over there," Caroline said, and Addie saw a rider approaching them at an easy canter. Even before she saw his face, she knew it was Ben by the familiar tilt of his low-crowned felt hat. The front of the brim was angled low over his forehead in a way that meant business. Only a tenderfoot or a dandy wore his hat on the back of his head.

Ben rode his horse parallel to the buggy and slowed to a walk, touching the brim of his hat in a respectful gesture as he nodded to Addie and Caroline. "Well, if it isn't the two prettiest women in Texas."

"Hello," Caroline said, smiling sunnily, while Addie pretended interest in the scenery on the other side of the buggy. "What are you up and about this mornin', Ben?"

"Work as usual." He smiled raffishly. "But if I had the time, I'd take you to town myself and buy you the tallest glasses of lemonade you've ever seen. "

A full-blown simper appeared on Caroline's face in less than five seconds. "Oh, you slick-tongued rascal. Isn't he a honey, Adeline?"

Addie turned her head to regard Ben impassively. He looked impossibly virile, clad in the standard uniform of Levi's, boots, and a worn shirt. The sunlight glowed in his eyes and along the edges of his cheekbones. He was one of the few men on the ranch who shaved every day, but his beard was so dark there was always a shadow of bristle on the lower half of his face. She wondered how his jaw would feel against her fingertips-smooth in one direction, sandpapery in the other. It was part of what made him so dangerous, his vibrant attractiveness. Why couldn't he have been ugly?

"Aren't you supposed to be working?" she asked curtly.

"Adeline, how rude," Caroline said in protest.

"Well, around this time he's usually roping, dehorning, or debogging something. Are you taking a rest today, Mr. Hunter?"

Ben smiled and reached in his shirt pocket to pull out a white slip of paper. He handed it to the cowboy at the front of the buggy. "Watts, this is a list of supplies for you to pick up in town. Just charge them to the General Store account."

" Alrighty." Watts pocketed the list.

"Mrs. Ward," Ben said to Caroline, "it's going to be a hot day. Are you sure you're up to it?" Which was a tactful way of referring to her pregnancy. As he addressed Caroline, his manner was so friendly and concerned that Addie was surprised and perhaps even a little resentful. He never behaves that way with me. He was always mocking her. Just once I'd like him to ask me something in that tone of voice!

"I'm just fine, thank you," Caroline replied, daintily twirling the silk-wrapped handle of her sage-green parasol. "Just eager for a change of scenery. Don't worry 'bout me."

"In that case, I'll be getting back to work. But I have to leave you with a warning, Mrs. Ward."

"Oh?"

"Keep a close eye on your sister. She's mighty hard to keep track of in town. She'll disappear before you can blink twice."

"Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't," Addie said. "It depends on the people I'm with."

Ben smiled sardonically while his eyes made a thorough study of her. He noticed the hat perched on top of her piled-up hair, a frilly little hat decorated with artificial strawberries and pale pink netting. Slowly his gaze wandered from the little white collar of her dusty rose princess dress to the rows of tiny folds that demurely emphasized the fullness of her breasts.

There was a spark of challenge in her eyes and disdain in her expression. Did she know when she looked at a man like that, it made him want to tame her? If the two of them had been alone together that very minute, he might have shown her a remedy for her haughtiness.