But I didn’t know what to offer Kane in the way of help. Maybe I could gather his family together and bawl them out. Maybe I could take his boys for a year or so and let him go away and grieve. Somehow, though, I didn’t think he’d let me have them. Maybe I could say, “Kane, I can tell you and your brother apart. Therefore I must be more suitable for you than your perfect wife was.”
Yeah, right. A big good-looking cowboy whose idea of a good time was scraping horses’ hooves, and a smart-mouthed city girl. Was I supposed to marry him, move onto a ranch, and show sheep at the state fair? Or maybe Kane would move to New York, become Mr. Cale Anderson, and fetch me cold drinks at autograph parties.
On the other hand, if we got down to hard, cold truth, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to live with me. Not to make a melodrama out of it, but if your own parents don’t like you, you never actually believe that anyone likes you.
Chapter Ten
To say that it was awkward between Kane and me after the sex and the talk is this century’s understatement. I don’t know how long we would have stayed there, safe, holding each other, if Sandy hadn’t arrived with the boys. The moment we heard voices, the spell was broken, and we suddenly looked at each other in horror, then in embarrassment. As quickly as possible I pulled on my clothes, wincing because my knees were raw. When I tried to put my boots on, I found the laces had been slashed. So that was how he got them off, I thought, then had to clump down the loft ladder in loose boots.
Sandy, standing behind the boys, took one look at the two of us and I knew he knew what had happened. I couldn’t meet his eyes or Kane’s, so I concentrated on the boys.
Sandy had brought horses, so I got to ride back, which was good considering the state of my boots. When we were back at camp, I didn’t look at Kane, and when he held out a ball of heavy cotton twine and said he was going to tie my boots for me, I snatched the ball away from him and said I’d do it myself. I knew he stood there for a moment looking at me, but I wouldn’t look at him.
The night before, I’d slept outside, near the men and boys, while the other women slept inside the old house, but that night I went inside with the women. What had happened between me and the dumb cowboy was an accident, and I didn’t plan to add to the mistake. Tomorrow I’d start back to Chandler if I had to walk.
Thinking of accidents made me wonder if I had just gotten myself pregnant. I didn’t seem to remember any form of birth control being used.
“I can get an abortion,” I said into the darkness.
Like hell I would kill my own child. I hadn’t thought much about children in my life, but right now I could imagine myself sitting in a rocking chair at three A.M., a black-haired baby at my breast, writing notes for my next book. I could imagine bandaging a three-year-old’s knee and kissing away baby tears. I could imagine a maid washing dirty diapers and cleaning strained carrots off the kitchen wall. (Hey, I’m a r
ealist!)
I didn’t get to sleep for hours, and when I awoke, no one else was in the room.
Chapter Eleven
The next day I didn’t see Kane much. In fact I saw him practically not at all, which suited me, since I wasn’t sure how I felt about him. He went off with Ruth into the woods and left me to take care of his darling boys. Actually he left them with Sandy, but I sort of took them and we had a great time looking into each and every old house in Eternity and making up stories about who had lived there and how they’d died. In the afternoon they put their heads in my lap, one on either side, and I told them stories until they fell asleep.
It was about three when we went back to camp, but only Sandy was there, napping in the shade. The boys immediately jumped on him, and I could tell that he wanted to see them, so I reluctantly gave them up and went down the road leading out of town where I saw a pickup truck and knew without a doubt that it was the truck that was to take me back to Chandler. I braced myself, but then I saw that Mike was standing by the side of the pickup, and again I marveled at how much he didn’t look like Kane. Mike had short, stubby eyelashes, lips that bordered on thin, and a body that was about to run to fat. Also, the pitch of his voice was higher than Kane’s deep bass rumble.
“Hi, Mike,” I said. “How’re the new babies?”
When Mike turned to look at me, I knew something was wrong, and it didn’t take the use of many brain cells to figure out what it was. Too late, I saw the pair of booted feet upside down in the truck.
Why is it that men love to hang head-down from car seats and look at the wires under the dashboard? Is that what they do after their mothers have finally made them realize that it is socially unacceptable to lie on the floor and look up girls’ skirts?
“You want this wrench?” Mike asked his brother, and for a moment both of us held our breath. Maybe Kane hadn’t heard me. Maybe Kane had his ears full of car wires and didn’t realize that I had just let him know of my betrayal.
I have never been a lucky person.
Kane made no pretense of not being angry. He was furious. Without looking at me or his brother, he twirled around in the seat and got out of the truck and started climbing the mountain nearest him. Straight up through brush and over rocks, eating ground with all the energy that fury gave him.
I followed him because I thought he deserved an explanation.
“What now?” he asked as soon as Cale reached him. “Should I propose marriage?”
She ignored his sarcasm and didn’t pretend that she didn’t know what he was talking about. “Surely there are other people who can tell you from your brother.”
“My mother, sometimes my father, my youngest sister…” His voice lowered. “And my brother’s wife.”
“That’s it?” Her disbelief was evident in her tone.
When he turned to look at her, he was no longer the sweet-faced cowboy she’d had a tumble with. He had one eyebrow raised and his nostrils flared. “No doubt to you we don’t look at all alike. Something to do with eyelashes and which of us is fatter, right?”
She wasn’t going to answer that because he was too close to home. “You know, of course, that this invalidates the legend?”
He continued to look at her, his expression unchanged. “How do you figure that?”