Texas Pride: Night Riders (17 page)

Then Ivan Nikolai had entered her life, and she started doing things she’d never dreamed she would do. From being furious at him and trying to drive him away, it was only a few days before she’d progressed to wanting him to take her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be all right.

Too restless and irritable to stay seated, she got to her feet intending to go to the kitchen for a glass of water. As she turned, she glanced out the front window and caught a glimpse of a rider approaching at a fast gallop. Her curiosity aroused, she opened the front door and stepped out on the porch.

“I think it’s Beth Hardin,” Ivan said.

Startled, Carla turned to see Ivan seated in a chair on the far corner of the porch. “I thought you were working on your plan to pipe water into the house.”

“I’ve done all I can without going inside. I didn’t want to bother you.”

It touched her to know he’d respected her wish to be alone yet had remained close. “I can’t stay in hiding forever.” She looked toward the rapidly approaching rider who she now could see was indeed Beth Hardin. “I wish I didn’t have to face Beth just yet. I have no idea what to tell her.”

“Do you want me to talk to her?”

She wondered what it was about this man that caused him to be willing, even eager, to help anyone he could. He was like some large, benevolent presence ready to fix whatever was wrong, but this was something she had to do. Danny was her brother.

“I’ll talk to her.”

Ivan nodded, but she was relieved when he didn’t leave. Beth was close enough for Carla to see she had been crying. Her tears had left wet trails down her cheeks that glistened in the sun. Carla hoped she wasn’t hysterical. She’d never had to deal with a woman in that state and wouldn’t know what to do. She wasn’t given much time to consider the problem. Beth brought her horse to a stop at the base of the steps. Nearly blinded by her tears, she stumbled up the steps and threw herself into Carla’s arms. It was several minutes before Beth was calm enough to speak.

“Where is Danny? I’ve got to see him.”

“Let’s go inside,” Carla suggested. “It’s hot out here.”

Beth’s dark brown eyes were filled with desperation. “I don’t care how hot it is. I don’t care about
anything
. I just want Danny.”

“Have you talked to your father?”

“I no longer have a father. He turned into a monster determined to ruin my life.”

Despite her protests, Beth allowed Carla to lead her to the kitchen where she washed Beth’s tear-stained cheeks. After she drank some water, Carla led her to the table. When they were all seated, Carla said, “Now tell me what happened.”

Beth’s story was accompanied by fresh bouts of tears. When she told her father about her feelings for Danny, her thoughts crowded with visions of a blissful future, she had expected him to be glad for her. She had never believed he would say she was too young to start courting, refuse to consider marriage in anything but the distant future. She had been so upset, she’d fled to her room, determined to stay there until he could see reason. She would never have done that if she’d realized he meant to find Danny and tell him to stay away from her. She nearly fainted when he told her what he’d done.

“I guess I went crazy. I started screaming. I don’t remember half the things I said, but I’m sure it was terrible. I know I said I hated him.”

“I’m sure he knows you don’t,” Carla said.

“I hit him and threw things at him. He finally locked me in my room and said I couldn’t come out until I got hold of myself.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

“No. I crawled out my window. I knew if I didn’t see Danny I’d truly go crazy. Where is he?”

“He’s not here.”

“Has he gone to see Papa? If Papa is cruel to him, I’ll never forgive him.”

“I don’t know where he’s gone, but I do know he didn’t go to see your father.”

Some of the wildness left Beth’s eyes to be replaced by a fear that made her look older than her sixteen years. “Has he run away?”

Carla supposed that was the easiest explanation. “He was very upset when your father said he wouldn’t allow Danny to see you.”

“He can’t stop me,” Beth declared, the wildness back in her eyes. “I’ll find Danny, and we’ll run away together.”

“Danny would never do that.”

“Of course he will. He loves me.” She stopped, the fear back. “He does love me, doesn’t he?”

“Danny feels about you the way you feel about him, but he is too honorable to talk you into running away.”

“I’ll go willingly.”

“Danny loves you too much to ruin your life,” Carla said.

“Not being with him is ruining my life,” Beth declared.

“Danny has no job, no money, no way to support a wife. That is not the kind of life he would want for you.”

“I don’t care. I’ll live in a tent.”

“No, you won’t because Danny won’t let you,” Carla said.

“He will. I know he will. Where is he? I know you know. Did Papa tell you to keep him from me?”

Carla didn’t see any reason to keep Beth in the dark. “He’s headed to Mexico with Riley. I don’t know when they’ll get back.”

“Why did he go? Because Papa said he told him to stay away from me,” she said, answering her own question. Then she covered her face with her hands and broke into tears.

“You and Danny only met last night,” Carla said. “Your father thinks you need time to get to know each other.”

Beth dropped her hands. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “You agree with him, don’t you?”

“I think both you and Danny are too young to be thinking about marriage.”

“In Kentucky lots of girls were married by my age.”

“I’m not ready to be married yet, and I’m older than you.”

“I don’t want to be an old maid.”

“I don’t want to be an old maid, either.”

“Then why have you turned down everybody who’s asked you?”

Carla was so shocked she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Where did you hear that?”

“Everybody says you want to run this ranch more than you want a husband.”

Carla wasn’t sure how this conversation had suddenly become about her, but she wasn’t willing to discuss her personal life with a hysterical girl who could be trusted to repeat everything she heard.

“Someone is coming.” Ivan rose and went to the front room.

Beth stopped crying with a hiccup. “It’s my father.” She looked like a scared rabbit. “I’ve got to hide.”

“You’ll do no such thing. If it is your father, it wouldn’t do any good to hide with your horse out front.”

Ivan came back into the kitchen. “It is Kesney. I will wait for him.”

“Pull yourself together,” Carla said to Beth as Ivan left. “Your father loves you. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

“Yes, he would. He won’t let me see Danny.”

Carla didn’t answer. Having no one to argue with, Beth’s hysterics quickly ran out of steam. She leaned on the table, a dejected figure whose crying had dwindled into an occasional sniff. She didn’t look up when her father entered the kitchen.

“Why did you run away?” Kesney asked his daughter.

“She came looking for Danny,” Carla explained when Beth didn’t answer. She gestured to Beth who was looking more like a child than a rapidly maturing teenager. “She’s calmer now, so maybe she’ll listen to what you have to say. Take as long as you need.”

Carla left the kitchen. Rather than look for Ivan or wait in the front room for Kesney to finish his conversation with his daughter, she headed out the back door. Beth’s words had shaken her down to her foundation. Why did everyone think she was determined to be an old maid, or that she wanted to run her ranch more than she wanted a husband?

It was still morning, but the sun was so hot, she immediately sought shade in the grove of trees her father had planted. The shade was sparse because the trees were young, and there was nothing to sit on but a chair with a broken back, but anything was better than staying in the house.

She didn’t consider herself old, and she did want to have a family so why did everyone think she wanted to run the ranch more than have a husband? Why didn’t they think it was possible to do both?

She had turned down some proposals, but she hadn’t turned down Kesney or Dodge because they hadn’t proposed. Surely people would realize that if she’d refused them, they wouldn’t still be courting her. She’d made it very clear when they first expressed interest in her that she enjoyed their company but wasn’t ready to get married. They had accepted her limitations so readily that at times she’d wondered if either man was
really
interested in more than pleasant company for an occasional dinner.

She expected to feel insulted, at least annoyed, thus she was unprepared to realize she didn’t care what either man thought about her. There was, however, one man whose opinion was important to her.

Ivan.

How could she be so stupid as to allow herself to become emotionally involved with a man who announced when he arrived that he was leaving in a year? He was constantly in her thoughts. It was as though she’d been waiting for him for her life to start.

That thought so disgusted Carla she got to her feet. She was
not
a weak, mindless female who had to lean on some man before she could think. In fact, Ivan had the opposite effect on her. She’d noticed a tendency not to think at all when she was with him. Ignoring the sun bearing down on her bare head, she turned toward an old, lightning-scarred cottonwood that grew alongside the dry wash a short distance from the house. Ever since her family moved to this ranch, it had been where she would go when she wanted to be alone. Maybe it was the isolation, or maybe it was the size. Or it could be the tree having survived one crisis after another that gave her comfort?

Today had confronted her with more questions than answers. Ivan didn’t love her. He was going back to Poland. What was she going to do when she found herself separated from the man she loved by four thousand miles, five hundred years of history, and an impossible language? Would she go with him to Poland if he asked?

That question so startled her she was beginning to think the heat had affected her brain despite the shade of the venerable tree. Its leaves hung in the dead air, motionless and dust-covered. In one sense she felt the same, her life motionless, hemmed in by problems not of her making, unable to find solutions even as the difficulties seemed to grow and multiply around her.

On the other hand, she simmered with compressed energy. She wanted to go, to do, to be, but where to go, what to do, who to be? Somewhere in this Gordian knot that was her life there had to be a thread that, when pulled, would make sense of everything, but she had no idea what that thread might be.

She became aware of the sound of approaching footsteps on the rough, rocky soil. Using her hands to shade her eyes against the glare of the sun, she looked into the face of the man who’d somehow captured her heart.

Ivan had been troubled when Carla didn’t come in search of him after she left Kesney and his daughter. She hadn’t been behaving like herself recently. She didn’t grind her teeth when she saw him. She didn’t scowl and turn her back when he entered the house. She didn’t treat him like he was Laveau diViere in a different skin. She was acting as though she actually
liked
him. She listened to him, occasionally even sought his advice. They’d shared the conversation with Beth like they were equally involved. Either she was too devastated by Danny’s leaving to think properly, or she was coming down with something.

When he saw she’d taken refuge under the cottonwood, he didn’t know whether to join her or leave her to adjust to the fact that Danny had reached the point in his life where he was starting to make his own decisions. The devastated look on her face when she looked up and saw him ended his hesitation.

“I wondered where you went,” he said when he reached her.

For a moment, she looked at him as though he was a stranger. He couldn’t decide what he saw in her eyes. This was so unlike Carla he was starting to grow worried. She almost flinched when he reached out to her. He couldn’t understand what had happened to bring about such a drastic change in her. She’d never been afraid of him. Was she that angry at him for not stopping Danny? Should he have said something different to Beth or her father? He couldn’t think of anything to say except, “You should not be outside in this heat.”

His words seemed to bring her back to an awareness of herself and her surroundings. The baffled look disappeared, but it didn’t appear to bring any relief from whatever had made her look at him so strangely.

“I wanted to give Kesney and Beth plenty of privacy.”

Something else was bothering her, and he didn’t believe he was Danny. “You are troubled?”

“Of course I’m
troubled
,” she said. “With all the things that have happened recently, who wouldn’t be?”

He was relieved to have back the Carla he knew, even if it meant she was angry at him again. “Something new seems to worry you.”

She turned away from him. “There’s nothing new. Why do you ask?”

“You do not look at me. Have I done something to hurt you?”

“How could you when Myrtle has declared you’re the most nearly perfect man in Texas?”

He wasn’t very good at understanding women, but he understood enough to recognize sarcasm. Carla sounded jealous. Upset. Angry. He wondered why it should be that the only woman he’d been seriously attracted to in America should dislike him so. “I am not nearly perfect.”

“I know, but why am I the only one who can see it? And even then, I can’t bring myself to dislike you as I should.”

Seeing Carla caught in the toils of misery, he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her. He wanted more than that. He wanted to kiss her. This wasn’t the hot flame of passion he’d experienced twelve years ago. Rather it was steadily growing warmth that embraced him instead of throwing him off balance with its suddenness and ferocity. It might have been its gradualness that had caused him to underestimate its strength. But now, it could no longer be denied.

Yet even as his body leaned in her direction, he reminded himself he was going back to Poland. He couldn’t imagine never seeing his home again, yet it could never be Carla’s home. Poland wouldn’t be any more comfortable with her than she would be with it. So why did he find it hard to think of his life without Carla in it?

“I am glad that you cannot dislike me because I like you,” Ivan said.

The news didn’t appear to make Carla any happier. “Wonderful. We can be friends. That will make Myrtle happy.”

“I do not like you to make Myrtle happy. I like you because it makes
me
happy.”

Carla’s gaze narrowed. “What are you trying to say?”

“That I like you.”

Carla relaxed, or did she deflate? “You like Danny, Beth, Myrtle, and Sadie. You like practically everybody.”

“Not in the same way I like you.” He moved his hand to her waist. “I like you in the way a man likes a woman.” He shouldn’t have said that. He shouldn’t have touched her. He shouldn’t have started this whole conversation, but he couldn’t stop himself. It was important to know she didn’t hate him. But rather than lend a sense of relief, he was suddenly filled with nearly unbearable tension. This wasn’t enough. He had to know more. Feelings he had worked hard to suppress burst their bonds. He was losing control, and he couldn’t do anything about it. Without warning, he leaned forward and kissed Carla on the lips.

Carla jumped back, eyes wide with surprise and bright with accusation. “Why did you do that?” It was a cry of protest rather than a question. “You’re going back to Poland. I’m staying in Texas. What good is starting something we know can never last?”

He shouldn’t have done it. It went against his personal code of behavior, but he couldn’t control the impulse. It was something he had to do, even if he could only do it once. “I just want to be with you. It makes me happy. I would like to make you happy.”

“Why? So you could have more memories of a tragic love affair to take back to Poland?”

Until now Ivan hadn’t allowed himself to think too much about a future for him and Carla. She’d been so clear in her disdain for him, it hadn’t seemed possible. But he couldn’t spend the next eleven months seeing her every day and say nothing. “If we have feelings for each other, they will come out.”

“They don’t have to.” He reached for her when she turned away, but she took a step back.

“Could you face the next eleven months knowing you loved me but were unable to say anything?” Ivan asked.

“It would be easier than falling in love despite knowing you were going to leave.”

“Can you control whether you love somebody?”

“Can’t you?”

“No. And I do not want to. Being in love is the most wonderful feeling in the world.”

“Is that the way you felt when that girl’s father told you you could never see her again?”

“I thought there was no reason to go on living.”

“So why would it be different this time?”

“I am not eighteen. I am not burning up with the fever of love.”

For the first time Carla didn’t seem to be trying to get away from him. “What are you feeling?”

Did he know? Was it clear enough in his mind to put it into words she could understand? He’d never tried to explain something like this because he’d never felt like this. “It is a lot of little things. I like being with you. I like making you smile. I like thinking of you when we are apart. I like doing things for you when you let me.”

“You sound like a Good Samaritan rather than a star-crossed lover.”

Another confusing expression, but his mother had made sure he knew lots of Bible stories. “Rather than leave you in the care of the innkeeper, I would stay by your side until you were well.”

“But you aren’t going to stay by my side. You’re going to leave.”

“Not for a long time yet.”

Carla’s gaze locked on him and didn’t waver. He didn’t have to wonder what thoughts were going through her mind. She was trying to talk herself out of saying anything. Inbred chivalry said he ought to step back and give her time to make up her own mind, but he had already broken through that restraint. Even if she never spoke of it again, he had to know if she felt about him the way he felt about her. He stepped forward and took her hands in his. She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t release her.

“Let me go.”

“Not until you answer my question.”

“You won’t like my answer.”

“I want it nonetheless.”

She refused to meet his gaze. “I don’t love you. I don’t want to marry you. I wish you’d never come here.”

“Look at me. Look at me!” he repeated when she didn’t heed him. When she did look at him, he had his answer, but it was necessary for her to say the words. “Now tell me that you wish I had never come here.”

“I wish you had never come here.” The words were monotone with no emotion behind them whatsoever. No venom. No spark. “Then I’d never have been so foolish to fall for a man who was going to sell half my ranch and leave me in the bargain.”

She tried to pull away, but when Ivan managed to get his arms around her, her resistance collapsed, and she fell into his embrace. No sooner had she done that then she burst into tears. Ivan had always thought himself a stalwart man, steady in battle, dependable in all things, but he had no idea what to do when it came to a woman in tears
.
How could he tell her how happy it made him when it made her so miserable?

He couldn’t, so he wrapped both arms around her and pulled her close. Inexplicably, that made her cry harder. He kissed the top of her head, but Carla pounded on his chest and kept on crying. Yielding to what he’d wanted to do all along, he put his hand under her chin, raised her face to his, and kissed her. This wasn’t a soft brushing of lips or a quick kiss before stepping back. It was the kind of kiss that claimed her as his own, the kind that asked her to let go of all her doubts and listen to her heart. It was the kind of kiss he’d always dreamed of sharing with the woman he loved. Deep… searing… demanding… an outward expression of his inner capacity and desire to love and be loved.

Carla gulped, hiccupped, stopped crying, and kissed him back.

It had been so long since Ivan had kissed a woman and had a woman kiss him back, he’d forgotten its emotional force. He felt neither stalwart nor steadfast. His knees didn’t buckle, but they felt like they might. His heart hammered so wildly he felt breathless. His strength seemed to drain away at the same time a wave of energy coursed through his body. His brain was spinning so fast it was all he could do to hold on to one complete thought.
Kissing
Carla
was
more
incredible
than
any
kiss
he
experienced
twelve
years
ago.
When Carla broke their kiss and turned away, it was like having all his underpinnings yanked away.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” she said softly.

“How can a man in love be satisfied with a single kiss? Can a starving man be nourished with scarcely more than a crumb? Can a man know joy if his heart beats only once? I want you!
All
of
you.
All the time.” Falling in love with Carla had awakened a longing that made him disregard everything he’d been taught about how a gentleman should treat a woman, especially the woman he loved. He wanted to crush her in his embrace, make scorching love to her, and claim her as his forever. He couldn’t back away now. He could only go forward. He pulled Carla back into his arms.

“Both of us have tried to deny our feelings,” Ivan said. “It is time to bring them out in the open and discover their true nature.”

“Let me go.” Carla didn’t struggle, just asked to be released.

Ivan was reluctant. It felt good to have his arms around her. In the aftermath of the devastation of his first love, he’d devoted himself to his studies and avoided any emotional relationship. When he came to America, he’d been too busy fighting a war, which gave him virtually no opportunity to meet the same woman twice. After he moved to Texas, Cade’s ranch was too far from San Antonio for anything except occasional visits. Coming to Overlin was the first chance in ten years he’d had to get to know a woman who wasn’t married or a grandmother.

Despite the nearly overwhelming need to follow his own desires rather than Carla’s wishes, he could feel his training beginning to reassert its hold on him. He could indulge his own needs when he was sure that’s what Carla really wanted. When it wasn’t, he had to step back.

When he dropped his arms to his side, Carla moved away from him, straightening her clothes, which didn’t need straightening, and patting her hair, which wasn’t disarranged. Once she was satisfied that all traces of her momentary indulgence had been erased, she turned to Ivan.

“We don’t need to
bring
things
out
in
the
open
. We need to forget this ever happened.”

“How can I forget what it felt like to hold you in my arms, to kiss you, to feel your heart beating against mine?”

“The same way I’m going to forget it. By putting it out of my mind.”

Ivan took Carla’s hands. He didn’t let go until she looked at him. “That will not work. I will think of this moment, feel it… yearn for it, whenever I see you. I will dream of it every night. You will do the same.”

Carla reclaimed her hands and moved a step back, but she didn’t look away. “I won’t let myself do any of that,” she declared. “To do so would be foolishly indulgent as well as ignoring common sense.”

“You would not think like that if you were Polish. You would embrace love with all you possess. You would take it in your two hands and hold it fast for fear you would miss a single moment. You would nurture it for fear it would grow weak from neglect. You would think of it, talk of it, sing of it.”

“And Danny would have me locked away in a home for the insane.”

“You are not being serious.”

“You’re the one who’s not being serious. The way you’re talking, I could think you were younger than Beth. At least she didn’t talk about
singing
about love.”

“Do most Americans have no hearts, or does something happen to them when they get older?”

“Stop talking nonsense. We have hearts like everybody else, even like people in Poland.”

“If that were true, you would not be afraid of love.”

Carla acted like he’d insulted her. “I’m not afraid of love, you, or anything.”

“If that were true, you would kiss me again.”

“Why would I do anything as stupid as that?”

“Because you want it, but you are afraid you will like it too much.”

“Of all the conceited, egotistical comments I’ve ever heard, that takes the cake.”

Ignoring another phrase that made no sense, Ivan said, “I only say what I feel to be true.”