Practically Married Read online

  He knew. And he had married her anyway.

  Because he thought they could make a good life together, whatever she felt in her foolish heart.

  He had married her anyway.

  Because, as he’d made so clear from the first, he didn’t need or want her love.

  With a small moan, she turned on her left side, then tossed to her right. But sleep didn’t come for her.

  She kept reliving that moment when he had told her that he knew.

  And she wondered why she hadn’t answered, Yes, Zach. It’s true. I did think I loved Cash. For years, I thought I loved him. But now, Lord help me, I think that I love you....

  Tess sat up in bed. And then she flopped back down.

  Of course, she hadn’t said such a thing. And she was glad that she hadn’t. Because he never would have believed it. Hearing it in her mind, she didn’t even believe it. It sounded so silly and impossible. It sounded like a desperate and pitiful lie, the kind of thing some low woman with no dignity would say to try to get a man to trust her.

  Tess rolled to her stomach. She closed her eyes and wondered how she would face him, how she would live with him, day to day, knowing that he knew.

  Should she leave? Just pack up Jobeth and their few things and go? She had about a thousand dollars in her old checking account, money she had earned working for Carmen Amestoy. She could manage on that, somehow, until she found a job—as long as she found a job fast.

  She thought of Jobeth, of how she had changed since they’d moved here. Jobeth had pride now, in her new life and in her place within it. Jobeth adored Zach. If she took Jobeth away from here, it would break her heart.

  Oh, Lord. She didn’t want to do that to Jobeth. Not if she could help it.

  Time, Zach had said on their wedding night, when he had already known her secret, but hadn’t told her so. Give it time.

  Yes. That was good advice, now as well as then. She was too full of shame and confusion to make any big decisions now, anyway. For a week or two at least, she wouldn’t do anything at all. Except get by. Go through the motions. Do what needed to be done, day by day.

  Zach had made it clear he still wanted her to care for his house, to put the meals on the table for the hands. And she loved it here. She did. She loved this life just as much as her daughter did.

  Yes. She would give it time. She would face Zach in the morning with a smile. And she would get through the days, one hour at a time.

  Tess turned on her back again. She stared at the ceiling.

  She longed for morning, when she could rise and work hard and try to forget what had happened tonight.

  In the morning, when she washed her face, Tess saw the red mark on her neck where Zach had kissed her. She blushed all over, remembering. And the blush deepened as she realized that everyone would see it and guess how she’d acquired it.

  Under the circumstances, she could almost laugh. That little red love bite lied. Oh, how it lied.

  She put makeup on the mark and buttoned her collar all the way to the top. But the mark would still be visible to anyone who looked hard enough.

  At breakfast, Zach treated her kindly. He complimented her biscuits and took seconds on bacon. Once or twice, she caught him looking at her neck.

  Well, fine. Let him look. He had put that love bite there himself, after all.

  He finished his meal a little faster than usual and then he went out with Tim to check the mineral tubs in a pasture not far from the house, reminding her before he left to be ready for church on time.

  Edna stared after him, beaming from ear to ear. “I am just so glad you and Zach found each other.” She picked up her plate and began helping Tess load the dishwasher.

  Tess rinsed glassware at the sink and tried to look glad, too.

  “You were just...meant for each other.”

  Tess set the glasses in the top rack of the dishwasher. “Yes. We have the same interests.”

  “Oh, it’s much more than that. Any fool can see, by the way he looks at you, that he loves you deeply. And of course, I know you feel the same way for him.”

  “Yes. I do. I...love him very much.” Strange. When she said it, it sounded right. It sounded true.

  “It’s amazing, I never believed he’d find happiness again.” Edna lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “After Leila, you know.”

  “Yes. Yes, I know.”

  “But it’s worked out perfectly, between you, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, Edna. Perfectly.”

  Zach came in right on time, cleaned up and took them to church. He sat beside Tess in the pew, a model husband, sharing a hymnal with her, his deep voice steady and sure when they sang. Once or twice, his arm brushed hers, when they rose and when they sat down again. He was so close. And yet he might as well have been a thousand miles away.

  Tess noticed, as one day faded into the next, that Zach found a lot of work to do far away from the house. He avoided coming in for the substantial midday meal she always served. She saw him at breakfast and dinner, when he treated her gently, if somewhat distantly.

  He never came near her when his day’s work was through.

  For the first couple of nights, that was just fine with her. At first, every time she looked at him, all she thought of was her secret. Her secret that he knew. But as the days passed, and she got used to the idea that he knew, she found that she missed him. Missed their evenings together, missed the sound of his voice as he talked about his day, missed his wry smiles and his occasional, unpracticed laughter. Heaven help her, she even missed the agony of wondering if, maybe, this was the night he would truly make her his.

  She began to understand the real reason she hadn’t packed up her belongings and taken her daughter away. She began to see that she wasn’t through with Zach Bravo yet. Not by a long shot. And, whether he was willing to admit it or not, he wasn’t through with her.

  He could say that all he wanted was a housekeeper and a cook. But he’d signed on for a wife. And by golly, in the end, she would do all in her power to see that he got one.

  She began watching him, covertly, every chance she got. And she saw the way he looked at her when he thought she didn’t see, saw it much more clearly than she had before, when she’d been confused about her own feelings, and so jealously guarding her secret.

  He did want her.

  If she had any doubt about that, all she had to do was think of the way he had kissed her the other night, the way he had pulled her so hard against him—so she would know exactly how he felt. The mark on her neck had faded quickly, but not the memory of the way he had put it there.

  As a claim. A brand.

  There was a lot of passion behind Zach Bravo’s impassive facade—if a woman just had the patience and stamina to pry him open and let it loose.

  Shamelessly she pumped Edna for information. In the late mornings, after the breakfast things were cleared and she’d put in an hour on the house and an hour or two in her garden, she’d just wander on over to the foreman’s cottage, where she knew Edna would have the coffee on.

  They’d share a cup. And Tess would ask Edna things about Zach, about what he’d been like as a boy.

  “A lot like he is now,” Edna said. “Serious. Cautious. Honest. Upright. He used to drive Cash and Nate crazy. They both had the devil in them. And he was such a good boy. Yet they both wanted his respect. When either one of them would act up, all Zach would have to do was look at them with that direct, uncompromising stare of his. You know what I mean.”

  “Oh, I do. I do.”

  “Zach would give them a look. And they’d straighten up—or at least they’d feel good and guilty about whatever trouble they were up to. And that would mean that, soon enough, they’d stop.”

  Tess asked about Leila. “Tell me. What was she like?”

  Edna frowned, thinking about Zach’s first wife, and then she sighed. “Leila Wickerston had black hair and big blue eyes.” Edna laughed. “What am I saying? I’m sure Leila st
ill has black hair and blue eyes. It isn’t as if she’s passed on or anything. She’s down there in San Diego with that rich second husband of hers and that little hellion, Starr.”

  “But what was she like, Edna? When she and Zach were together?”

  “Beautiful. Spoiled, I suppose. All the boys were after her. But she only wanted Zach. And Zach, well, you know how he is.”

  “Of course, but tell me anyway.”

  “He tried to fight it at first. Even as a boy, he gave his heart...carefully. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes. Yes, it does.”

  “We all used to laugh, about the way Leila was always finding ways to put herself where he was. He was active in 4-H. And all of a sudden, Leila was raising chickens. The Wickerstons lived in town, so they had no room for big animals. But Leila got those chickens. Skinniest birds you ever saw. She didn’t pay much attention to them, you see. They were only a means to an end.”

  “The end being Zach.”

  “Precisely. Of course, Zach saw how she treated those birds and he said he wouldn’t have anything to do with her. She’d never make a ranch wife. But Leila had other tricks.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, you know how Zach is. Church every Sunday. Not like Cash and Nate, both of whom I used to have to drag there. Zach’s not terribly religious, but he believes in showing respect to the Lord on a regular basis. The Wickerstons were strictly Christmas and Easter churchgoers. But once Leila decided she wanted Zach, all of a sudden, that girl got religion. She always showed up in the same pew we sat in, waving and smiling and looking so sweet. She joined the Methodist Youth Fellowship and she bullied Zach until he joined, too. And then, naturally, he had to stop by her house to pick her up for the meetings. It took her about a year of constantly being everywhere Zach was.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, and then he surrendered.”

  Tess wrinkled her nose at that. “He surrendered?”

  “I don’t know what else to call it. He just...gave in and decided to love her. And when he did, he was so...devoted. It was lovely, really. And on her behalf, I’d have to admit that she seemed to be equally devoted to him—at first. They married right out of high school. And the trouble didn’t start until then, until she came out here to the ranch to live.”

  “She hated it.’”

  “That’s too mild a word. After the first...romantic flush wore off between her and Zach, all she wanted was out of here. She sulked and whined. And she had no pride or sense of privacy. She would start in on him right in the great room, where everyone could hear, or at the dinner table. She would get tears in those big blue eyes and beg him to get her away from here. He would sit there while she complained and pleaded, his face blank, looking like a turtle pulled into its shell, never fighting back more than to cautiously remind her that she had said she wanted what he wanted from life. And, really, it didn’t matter what he said. She’d just keep crying and saying she wanted out and she wanted him to go with her.”

  “But he wouldn’t go.”

  “That’s right. And when he wouldn’t, she got mean. She threw tantrums. She sulked more than ever. And when she wasn’t screaming or sulking or whining, she was criticizing anything and everything. Poor Zach. He didn’t know what to do. He still loved her, but she was killing him. His grandfather Ross took him aside and advised that maybe a baby would settle her down. So when she got pregnant, we all had hopes that might make a difference with her. But it didn’t. She just got meaner. And in the end, she left and took their baby with her.”

  Tess got up and refilled their cups.

  Edna said, “I honestly thought, for years, that Zach would never take a chance on love again. But then you came along.” She reached across the table and patted Tess’s hand.

  Tess said, “I want to make him happy.”

  “Oh, you do. I know you do.”

  As each day went by, Tess felt she understood Zach a little better. Still the emotional chasm between them lay as deep and dangerous as the Grand Canyon.

  Tess made no attempt to bridge it. She didn’t really know how, though she sensed that complete honesty would be a start.

  Complete honesty. Which meant she would have to tell him of those scary feelings she had for him—feelings that each day she became more and more certain added up to love.

  And when she told him, how in the world could she expect him to actually believe her? Worse than that, how could she even expect him to care? He’d made it so painfully clear how he felt about love. He wanted nothing to do with it.

  Still, he might let her get a little closer to him, if she could convince him that the specter of Cash no longer stood between them.

  Or he might not.

  Really, she had no way to know how he would react. And she just wasn’t ready to take a chance on finding out.

  Not yet, anyway.

  On June 16, four weeks and three days after Jobeth broke her arm, the doctor in Buffalo took off the cast.

  “I can ride, now. Right?” Jobeth demanded.

  “You’ll have to be cautious,” the doctor warned. “That arm will be weak for a while.”

  “But can I ride?”

  “Yes. You may ride.”

  Jobeth turned to Tess, her eyes as bright as stars. “Mom, I can ride.”

  “Yes. I heard.”

  “Let’s get home. Right now.”

  But Edna had ridden with them and both she and Tess had shopping to do. Jobeth managed to contain her impatience until the groceries had been bought.

  They arrived back at the ranch at a little before three—and found a dusty but very expensive-looking sports car parked in the turnaround in front of the main house.

  “Whose car is that?” Tess asked, thinking Edna might know.

  Edna only shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea. But it appears they’ve gone on inside, whoever they are. Tim’s around here somewhere. He must have let them in.”

  Tess pulled up in front of the foreman’s cottage first. Jobeth leapt from the back seat and headed for the barn almost before Tess got the Suburban to a full stop. Tess considered calling her back and demanding a little help with the groceries, but then she decided to let her go. After all, Jobeth had waited weeks for this moment.

  Tess did call out her window, “Don’t get on that horse unless Zach or Tim is there to supervise!”

  Jobeth turned, grinning widely, running backward in her eagerness. “I won’t! I promise!”

  “That child,” Edna murmured fondly. “Such a dear...”

  Tess smiled across the seat at her friend. “Come on. Let’s take your things in, then we’ll see who our company is.”

  Tess had gone around to the back of the Suburban and scooped Edna’s two shopping bags into her arms when the front door of the main house opened.

  A young girl came out—a girl with short, raggedly cut raven black hair. The girl wore a very tight black scrap of a skirt and a black T-shirt cut low enough to show a lot of cleavage and tight enough to reveal every curve of her fully mature torso. She wore no bra under the T-shirt. Stunned at the sight of the girl’s lush, unbound breasts beneath the thin layer of cloth, Tess looked down to keep from gawking. The girl wore boots as black as the rest of her outfit—clunky, lace-up boots, with thick soles and round, heavy heels.

  Tess straightened, holding a bag in each arm. The girl, looking bored to death, sauntered down the steps and across the yard toward the Suburban. When she got closer, Tess saw that she’d pierced her nose. A diamond caught the sun, winking from the side of her left nostril.

  Tess just couldn’t help herself. She stared. Even with the bad attitude and the crudely provocative clothes, the girl was drop-dead beautiful. A real traffic-stopper. She had eyes like Elizabeth Taylor’s—so blue they appeared violet. Each feature of her face was perfection. And beneath a heavy layer of pale makeup, her skin looked flawless.

  The girt came within three feet of Tess before she stopped and braced a hand on he
r hip. The violet eyes gave Tess a long, thorough once-over.

  “You must be the new wife,” the girl said. “I’m Starr. And I’m here to see my dad,”

  Chapter Eleven

  Tess and Edna exchanged dazed glances. And then Zach rolled into the yard in one of the pickups, with Lolly in the passenger seat and Beau squatting in the truckbed behind the cab. Zach pulled in behind the Suburban.

  Hips swaying, Starr strolled to the pickup. As she approached, Beau rose slowly to his feet. He took off his hat and laid it over his heart.

  Zach leaned out the window. “Get your tongue back in your mouth, Tisdale.”

  “Yessir.” Beau stuck his hat back on his head and jumped from the pickup bed. “Hi,” he said softly to Starr.

  Her violet gaze flicked over him dismissingly. Her eyes were only for Zach. She stopped right by his door. Cautiously he opened it and climbed down.

  Starr smiled at Zach, a smile that taunted—and yet seemed, at the same time, to beg for approval. The diamond in her nose caught the sunlight, glaring. “Hi, Daddy,” she said. “I’ve had it with Mom. I’ve decided to come and live with you.”

  Zach went straight into the house, washed up quickly in the back porch sink and then headed for his office, where he called Leila.

  “God, we’ve been frantic. Frantic.” Leila spoke breathlessly. “When did she get there? Is she all right?”

  “She just arrived. And she’s fine.”

  “Oh. Of course. She’s fine. It’s the rest of us who are going out of our minds. You would not believe the things she said to me. And to Derek.” Derek, Leila’s second husband, was rich as Croesus and well into his sixties.

  “You had a fight with her?”

  “To put it mildly.”

  “What was the fight about?”

  “Everything. You’ve seen her. The way she dresses. That thing in her nose. How she stays out all night with God knows who and then never bothers to show up at school. And her report card...”

  “Bad?”

  “Three D’s and two F’s.”