Anne McAllister: Blood Brothers

“Whatever do you mean by that?”

“Let’s say I’ve rediscovered my roots, and not a moment before time. All that society life you like so much, shopping till you drop, dressing to kill, spending hours mouthing polite nothings to people I never want to see again-it’s not for me. From now on I’m spending my days squelching through mud, breeding calves, smelling like a barnyard and loving every minute of it.”

“You sound exactly like that creature who answered the phone,” she said in disgust.

“Yes, I do, don’t I?” he said happily.

“Well, I don’t know what’s come over you since you’ve been there.”

“I’ll tell you what’s come over me, Honoria. I’ve become a cowboy. And you know what else? I enjoy being a cowboy. And I’m going to stay a cowboy when I get back to England.”

“I don’t like the sound of that at all,” she said in a tight voice.

“I didn’t think you would. ’Bye, Honoria. It’s lucky we found out in time.”

When Honoria had slammed the phone down, Randall promptly telephoned Gabe. Instinct made him pick the dower house number.

“You old son of a gun!” he greeted him. “So you got roped and branded at last.”

“How do you know?” Gabe yelled. “I was going to enjoy telling you myself.”

“Honoria’s just been on. She wants me to forbid the banns.”

Gabe roared with laughter. But abruptly he became serious again. “Does Claire know?”

“I don’t-” Randall remembered Claire’s distraught face as she handed him the phone and escaped. “I think so.”

“She used to have a kind of crush on me,” Gabe said awkwardly. “She’s probably forgotten about it now.”

“Yes,” Randall agreed, wishing he could be so sure.

“Can you make sure she’s all right?”

“Sure,” Randall said with more confidence than he felt.

He met North in the yard. “Did you see Claire?”

“She rode off.”

“How did she look?”

“Like she wanted to cry and couldn’t.”

Randall got the directions from North and rode out after Claire. He found her after awhile, still sitting on the tree stump, with a mulish look on her face. His heart ached for her, but he knew better than to offend her with outright sympathy.

“What the devil was that accent for?” he demanded, sitting beside her.

“She thought I was a hick,” Claire said grumpily. “So I gave her hick.” She remembered that Honoria was Randall’s as-good-as fiancée. “Was she offended?”

“No, she’s just mad at Gabe, and at me for not stopping him. As though anyone could stop Gabe doing what he wants.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. Claire let him draw her close until her head rested on his shoulder, and he ventured to drop a soft kiss on her bright hair.

Gabe was a fool, he reckoned, not to have snapped Claire up when he had the chance. Randall liked Freddie, but how dull she seemed beside Claire, who was fierce, thorny, sexy-and utterly adorable.

“That’s right,” she said with a sigh. “Nobody ever stopped Gabe doing anything. Nobody ever made him do anything, either.”

“Otherwise you’d have made him marry you ages ago,” he said. When she looked at him quickly he said, “I know, Claire. I’ve always known how you felt for Gabe.”

“Made a fool of myself, you mean,” she said gruffly.

“Will you stop putting yourself down? You’re a wonderful woman, and I think he’s crazy not to be in love with you.”

She shrugged. “Freddie Crossman’s got something I haven’t. What’s she like, Randall?”

He tried to remember. “Pretty, gentle…”

“Sweet and feminine?” Claire challenged.

“Well-yes-”

“Charming?”

“I suppose so.”

“I’m not any of those things. I tried to be what Gabe wanted. I can rope and ride almost as well as he can. But he just saw me as his sister-or his brother.”

“Does it matter so much that he loves someone else?” Randall asked sadly. “What about us, last night? Was I just a substitute for Gabe?”

“Of course not,” she said a little too quickly. “But you don’t love me either.”

“Don’t tell me how I feel. Claire, listen.” He took hold of her shoulders and shook her a little. “You’ve got this fixation that you’re unlovable just because you didn’t get the man you always wanted. But did you ever lift your head and notice any other man? Did you give the rest of us a chance? This ranch isn’t the whole world, and Gabe McBride isn’t the only man in the universe. He just thinks he is.”

She gave a watery, unconvinced smile. Touched, Randall caressed her face with his fingertips. “You were in such a rush to tell me that I don’t love you. Did you ever think you might have that wrong?”

She shook her head. “Don’t, Randall. You should have told me about Honoria at the start-before we-”

“Before we made love?”

“Whatever it was that we did.”

“It was love that we made. You know that, don’t you?”

She looked at him defiantly. “Does your fiancée know it?”

“My what?”

“The Horrible Honoria. She as good as told me you were engaged.”

“Oh, did she! And you believed her?”

“She’d hardly have said you were engaged if you weren’t.”

“She’s been saying it for years. It makes her mad that I won’t say it, too. But I’m not in love with her, any more than she is with me. It’s only the title she wants.”

“I don’t understand that,” Claire said simply.

And she really didn’t, he realized. Her directness and honesty were like fresh air after the society hothouse where he’d been trapped most of his life.

“Can you understand this?” he asked urgently. “I love you, and I want to marry you.”

Something leapt in her, but the next moment something else held back.

“Randall, you don’t have to wed me because you bed me,” she said awkwardly.

“Is that all you think I- Claire, sometimes I could wring your neck.”

“Great! And you want to marry me.”

“Yes, I do, you impossible woman. I love you, and I want you to tell me that you love me. Me, not Gabe. I want you to say it was me in your bed last night.” His jealousy rose up suddenly. “Go on, say it!” he shouted. “Say it was my face you saw, not his.”

“How do I know when they’re both the same?” The terrible words flashed out before she could stop them.

She could have bitten her tongue out. Yet it had to be said. Nothing in life had come easy to Claire. She’d never before needed to analyze her own feelings, and the effort confused her now.

“I’m sorry,” she said, anguished at the sight of the pain on his face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t know-yes, I do-I love you, Randall, I do, it’s just-”

“It’s just that you still love Gabe,” he said bitterly.

“I don’t know,” she cried. “I’ve always loved him. When I heard that he was going to be married, I wanted to die. But when I thought you were going to be married, I wanted to die, too.

“I can’t marry you. How can I be a proper wife, feeling like this. I don’t know if I’m coming or going.”

“And you never will know if you stay here,” he said angrily. “Claire, don’t you realize, Gabe is bringing his wife home? How can you stay at the ranch, watching them together day after day, torturing yourself-?”

“I won’t. Don’t worry about me. I’m not going to hang around like some damned poor relation. I’m good at what I do. I’ll never be out of a job.”

“Fine,” he said angrily. “Spend the rest of your life drifting all over Montana with nothing and no one to call your own. It’s obviously better than a life with me.”