A COWBOY'S GIFT Read online

  He turned to follow Becky out of the room, then stopped and looked down at her. "I'll be back."

  * * *

  Mary was here! In Elmer, of all places!

  Teaching school just miles from where he was living. For the past two months, she'd been just down the road! Gus couldn't believe it. He practically drove right past the tiny café he was so busy thinking and grinning like a polecat in a chicken coop.

  "Gus?" Becky's voice, impatient and irritable, broke into the whirl of thoughts in his head. "Gus! Stop!"

  He jammed on the brakes. "Sorry. Thinkin' about something."

  Thinking about how damn fine Mary looked. A dozen years had made her more beautiful than ever. Her hair, still long and blonde, was pulled back and anchored neatly at the nape of her neck the way it had always been. And Gus couldn't help remembering how he'd loved loosening it, running his fingers through it, tousling it. He'd loved kissing those lips, too—those wonderful lips that had scowled at him today. He wondered how long it would take him to make her smile, to make that dimple at the corner of her mouth appear, to make—

  "The café's right here."

  "Huh?"

  "I thought we were going to get a Coke," Becky reminded him.

  "Oh. Right. Yeah, sure." Gus parked the truck outside the café. He hopped out, slapped his hand on the fender and then, still grinning, followed Becky in.

  They took a table by the window, and Gus could see the school from where he sat. If he craned his neck he could see Mary's classroom. He craned his neck.

  "—really think it was okay?"

  He jerked his attention back to Becky. "What?"

  "What's the matter with you this afternoon? You haven't heard a word I've said. I said, did you really think my speech was okay?"

  "It was great. Is your teacher new this year?"

  "Miz McLean? Uh-huh. She's from Arizona. Do you know her?"

  "Uh, yeah," he said absently. He was still stuck on Mary being Miz McLean. Like she was a grown-up. Hell, he guessed she was. She was Miz McLean. Did that make him Mr. Holt? It was a disconcerting thought.

  He scratched his ear. "We go back a long way," he said after they'd ordered their drinks. "I knew her when I was a kid. Your age."

  "I'm not a kid!" Becky looked offended.

  "Right. Sorry. You're not," Gus backpedaled quickly. "Anyway, I reckon we were younger than you. In seventh grade."

  God, yes. Seventh grade.

  It had been years ago now. Nearly twenty. It felt like yesterday.

  Becky dismissed seventh grade. It was beneath her. She talked about her speech and about Domino, about training him, about how maybe Gus could help. Gus didn't hear a word she said.

  He was thinking about seventh grade. Thinking about the first day of junior high when he and Sloan Gallagher, his best friend, had been tossing Lydia Cochrane's book bag in a game of keep-away after school because it infuriated her—and Gus had always liked making Lydia mad.

  He remembered how he'd grabbed the book bag when Sloan tossed it to him. He'd taken off running. "Can't catch me!" he'd yelled, and darted around the corner of the school building, smacking straight into the prettiest girl he'd ever seen.

  He'd knocked her flat.

  In her own way—even as he'd stammered and apologized and turned beet-red as he'd helped her to her feet and had picked up her backpack and pens and notebooks—she'd knocked him flat, too.

  She'd smiled at him—a little warily, true enough—but still she'd smiled. Even as she'd rubbed her scraped elbows, she'd said, "It's okay. Don't worry. I'm fine."

  "You sure? You're kinda dusty." He'd started to swat the dirt and dust off the back of her jeans. But the moment his hand had come into contact with the soft, denim-covered curve of her body, he'd realized what he was doing and his face had flamed.

  The rest of his body hadn't been exactly cool, either.

  He'd been almost thirteen. Awkward. Unsure. Gangly, all of a sudden. And his body, which he'd understood and controlled really well for the first twelve years of his life, suddenly seemed to have developed interests of its own.

  It had sure as heck been interested in the girl he'd just knocked into the dirt!

  Sloan had come running up then, a furious Lydia on his heels.

  "Hey!" Sloan yelled. "Let's get—oh!" And he'd stopped dead, too, at the sight of this beautiful blond girl covered with dirt.

  "Oh, wow," he'd said after a minute. Then he'd just gaped. That was how pretty she'd been…

  It wasn't all that unusual for Gus to be at a loss for words, but Sloan had never been tongue-tied in his life. Lydia, fortunately, wasn't.

  "Are you okay?" She had taken the girl's backpack and was efficiently putting everything back in it again. "Don't mind them," she'd said dismissively. "They're idiots. I'm Lydia Cochrane."

  The blond girl smiled. "Mary McLean," she'd said. "I'm new. We just moved here from Abilene."

  "McLean? Your dad is the new principal?" Lydia had been delighted.

  Gus had been appalled.

  He'd just decked the principal's daughter? The principal's daughter made his heart pound and his palms sweat and his body do things it had no business doing!

  Oh, God.

  He remembered lowering Lydia's book bag and holding it strategically just below his belt, all the while hoping to heck Lydia and Mary McLean didn't notice the way his body was reacting.

  The very thought of a girl being aware that she had that sort of effect on him made him want to sink right into the ground.

  Funny how things changed.

  A few years later he'd gloried in letting Mary see the kind of effect she'd had on him. He'd reveled in it.

  He was a little surprised to find she'd had the same effect this afternoon.

  "She didn't look real happy to see you," Becky said now through the straw of her Coke.

  "She was probably surprised. She been teaching here long?"

  Becky shook her head. "She's new this year. She got Miz Rasmussen's job when she retired. Thank heavens." Becky breathed a sigh of relief. "Miz Rasmussen taught my dad! Miz McLean's much better. Kinda strict, though. She doesn't put up with any nonsense."

  "No?" Gus smiled. She'd put up with him.

  He had been full of nonsense in those days. Once he'd got over his shock of being attracted to the principal's daughter, he'd been laughing and teasing and doing his best to get her goat whenever he could.

  It was how a guy flirted when he was in junior high.

  And Mary, who had always been lots more serious and sensible than he had, had been charmed.

  People used to wonder what they saw in each other.

  "Opposites attract," Mary had said breezily.

  God knew Gus had been attracted to her.

  He was always amazed that Mary had been attracted to him. But she must have been. She went to Murray's one picture show with him. She came out to his place and went riding with him. She sat with him on her porch swing and let him kiss her when no one was looking.

  She became "Gus's girl."

  And eventually pretty, steady, sensible Mary who never went off on wild-goose chases or chased rainbows, had done the wildest, most reckless thing of any girl he knew.

  She'd got engaged to him!

  It had shocked him when she'd said yes.

  If Mary had been a strong, dependable anchor, Gus had been a kite, blowing in the wind, flying wild and free.

  When they'd been together—from seventh grade on—it had always been fun. Dizzy, delightful fun. And when Gus had proposed, he'd thought he was proposing more fun—the only difference being that after they were married, they could have fun going down the road together.

  It took him a while—because he hadn't got home very often—to figure out that Mary wasn't thinking like that at all.

  She was thinking home and family. She was thinking cozy little ranch house and pink and blue baby blankets.

  She was thinking about her dreams.

  And they had not
hing in common with his.

  He couldn't be what she wanted him to be. And he knew it.

  He'd fail her. He knew that, too.

  He just hadn't known how to tell her. So he hadn't told her.

  Mary was way smarter than he was. He reckoned she'd figure it out for herself.

  He'd gone along with whatever she said, nodding and smiling every time he'd come home, and hitting the road again as fast as he could. He didn't want to hurt her, so he'd figured that if he didn't show much enthusiasm, she'd get the idea something was wrong and she'd have some second thoughts herself.

  He'd wanted her to be the one to break it off. Wanted her to tell him he was too immature, too unsettled, too restless to be married. He'd wanted her to see what a mistake it was and then to cut him loose, to set him free.

  But she'd never seen—except what she'd wanted to see.

  And by the time Gus realized that she didn't know how really, really wrong it was, the wedding was only a week away—and he'd had to break it off himself.

  He'd handled it badly. He'd never been great with words. And a long-distance phone call and a stack of quarters hadn't been the best way to tell her he couldn't go through with marrying her.

  He supposed that accounted for her less-than-enthusiastic reception this afternoon.

  He supposed he didn't blame her.

  He couldn't imagine holding a grudge for a dozen years—hell, he barely remembered what happened yesterday—but, Mary … well, Mary was different.

  Mary was thoughtful and kind and gentle and loving.

  Mary had always taken everything to heart.

  It was why he'd loved her.

  This afternoon, when his heart kicked over and his stomach lurched at the mere sight of her, he had an intriguing thought—maybe he still did.

  * * *

  Well, it was over.

  She'd seen Gus Holt—and had survived to tell the tale.

  It hadn't been bad at all. Mary should have made a point to do it years ago, instead of putting it off, being afraid to see him again.

  Piece of cake, that's what it had been.

  It was just her clumsiness that had made her drop things this evening every time she heard a car in the street or every time there had been a knock on the door.

  She'd been foolish expecting it to be Gus when first it had been Alice Benn, the retired schoolteacher who often came by in the evenings to chat, and then Mr. Eberhardt, bringing her a week's worth of Chronicles.

  Knowing Gus, he was probably already a hundred miles away.

  That had been what he'd wanted, after all—his freedom. The open road. No ties. No wife. No family.

  Mary still wondered how she could have been so wrong about him.

  She didn't want to start thinking all over again about that. She'd thought that subject to death.

  She'd attacked it from every angle, examined it every way and had finally come to terms with it. She'd even decided Gus was right—they shouldn't have gotten married. If he felt smothered, strangled, dead, they definitely shouldn't have gotten married!

  But she'd loved him so much.

  And even after all these years, it hurt.

  This time when the knock came she only had a moment's qualm.

  There was no way it was going to be Gus now. Even though it was late, chances were it was Cloris, the other retired schoolteacher in town. Cloris, close to eighty, lived alone and sometimes forgot what time it was when she had something she wanted to say.

  Mary had answered the door to Cloris at five in the evening and five in the morning. Cloris had turned up at midnight once with a plate of homemade gingerbread, needing to share and just visit for a while.

  Mary was brushing her teeth, ready for bed, but she wrapped her robe around her and opened the door.

  Gus was standing there.

  His hands were tucked in his pockets, and he was smiling at her with that same lopsided smile that had always made her insides turn to mush. He said, "Hey."

  Mary swallowed and straightened. She bunched the robe firmly around her burgeoning belly and folded her arms across it. "Hey, yourself. It's after ten o'clock."

  "It took me that long to get up the guts to come."

  "You shouldn't have bothered," she said frostily, resisting his attempt to disarm her.

  "You used to say you never cared what time I came." Ah, damn it, why did he have to remember that. When she and Gus had been engaged and he'd been all over the map, she'd told him that anytime he was close, she'd want to see him, that it wouldn't matter what time it was.

  "It's never too late, Gus," she'd told him, fool that she'd been.

  "That was then," she said brusquely now, and tried to shut the door. It bumped hard against his boot, which was already planted on the threshold.

  "Don't shut me out, Mary."

  "Gus, I don't want—"

  "Please," he said softly. "Don't."

  And before she realized what he was about to do—before she could begin to stop him!—he stepped through the doorway, took her by the shoulders and planted his lips firmly and hungrily on hers.

  Oh, God! Oh, help! Oh, no!

  That was all Mary could think. She'd done her best to forget Gus—to forget his teasing, his laughter, his charm. But mostly she'd done her best to forget what it had been like to kiss Gus.

  She'd refused to let herself dwell on memories of the hard warmth of his mouth, on the eager stroke of his tongue, on the way he had always been able to melt her right where she stood.

  And that was why, earlier today, she'd believed she'd survived.

  Because then he'd only grinned, he'd only talked. He hadn't touched. Or kissed.

  Oh, hell! she thought. Oh, damn. Oh … oh … oh, Gus, please go away!

  But Gus didn't go. He stayed. And kissed her. Hungrily. Eagerly. Passionately.

  The way he'd kissed her twelve years ago. The way he'd kissed her when she'd said yes, she'd marry him.

  She jerked back away from him. "Damn it, Gus!"

  He looked at her and grinned triumphantly. "There. See. Nothing's changed."

  "Nothing's changed?" She gaped at him.

  "Nope. Nothin' that matters."

  Her jaw dropped. She stared at him, astonished. Then she drew herself up to her full height. "I've changed."

  He blinked. "You? No, you haven't. Well, you're a little older and prettier than ever. But you really haven't changed."

  "Oh, yes I have, Gus."

  He started to shake his head in denial when she unfolded her arms and let her robe fall open.

  His gaze traveled south. He stared at her belly. The color drained from his face. He stumbled backward out onto the porch. "Mary? You're pregnant?"

  She smiled beatifically and shut the door in his face.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  Pregnant?

  Mary was pregnant?

  Gus stood stock still on her doorstep, his mind the only thing moving. It reeled. He raised his hand to pound on the door again, then dropped it.

  If he knocked and she opened it again, what could he possibly say?

  There were no words.

  She couldn't be pregnant! Not Mary! Not his Mary!

  It meant she had another man.

  He felt like he'd been kicked in the gut.

  You expected maybe she was waiting for you? he asked himself savagely.

  Well, now that you mentioned it… He was ashamed to admit that, yes, somehow he had expected that.

  After all, she'd loved him! He'd loved her!

  You left her, he reminded himself.

  But … but … but…

  He fumed. He scowled. He glared.

  Finally he stomped off, jumped back into his truck and spun out, kicking up gravel as he roared away.

  He needed to think. He tried. But thinking had never been high on Gus's list of accomplishments. It wasn't that he was stupid—at least he didn't think so most of the time—it was that he usually
just went with his instincts. They'd served him well, for the most part.

  But his instinct right now was to go bust open Mary's door and punch the lights out of whoever was the father of her child.

  Fortunately he thought better of it.

  As he drove, his mind grappled with the notion of Mary being someone else's woman. The old instincts were right on hand ready to reject it. But it wasn't easy—there was, after all, the memory of her very obviously pregnant belly.

  It blew his mind.

  It was the last thing he expected.

  Just this afternoon his worst nightmare had been Mary having been pregnant with his child!

  Now he had a worse one—Mary being pregnant now with someone else's!

  Whose?

  His fingers strangled the steering wheel. He glared into the oncoming headlights. A semi rumbled past. Gus felt as if it had just run him down.

  He tried again to think. Becky had called her Miz McLean. So she wasn't married! He had half a second's relief before he remembered that a lot of women kept their maiden names these days. She could be married and be Miz McLean.

  Had she been wearing a ring?

  He hadn't been looking at her hands.

  It didn't matter anyway. He knew Mary. She wouldn't be pregnant if she wasn't married. It was unthinkable. Impossible.

  But Mary had scruples. She had values. She'd refused to make love with him until she was convinced they really loved each other, until she was sure they were going to be married and together forever.

  It made him uncomfortable even now to remember that.

  But it wasn't as if he'd duped her, he reminded himself. When they'd made love, he'd intended to marry her. He'd thought he was going to. He hadn't been feeling strangled in those days. That had come later.

  Who was it?

  Maybe Taggart knew. Or Felicity.

  He'd ask as soon as he got back. Hell, maybe he knew the guy himself. An awful thought.

  He tried to think of any guy he knew who might be worthy of Mary. He couldn't come up with one.

  He got back to the ranch just in time to see the lights wink off at Taggart's house. Hell! Now he'd have to wait until morning.

  * * *