Wyoming Wildfire (51 page)

Walking didn’t help; it wasn’t wise, either, even with Brutus. He was far from civilization, but not far from Indians still angry at the seizure of their land or grizzly bears drawn by the smell of fresh meat. He had no hankering for his bones to remain undiscovered for the next ten or twenty years. He had a future cut out for himself, one he now realized was irrevocably intertwined with Sibyl. It was surprising how quickly she had become a part of his thinking. It was hard to remember what it was like before she arrived, but it was impossible to think of the future without her.

“You don’t know how lucky you are, you heedless devil,” he said to his slumbering companion as he stirred the coals. “You love and leave ’em in an hour’s time. One game is as good as the next as far as you’re concerned. But this is the only hand I get. If I don’t play it right, I’m out of the game forever.”

Chapter 34

Feeling useless and acutely miserable, Sibyl sat watching her aunt measure the twins for matching dresses. She had been at the Three Bars for nearly a week, but it had taken her less than an hour to see that Lasso and Augusta were cloaked in the aura of happiness she had hoped to find with Burch. It was evident in every word they spoke to each other, the sound of their voices, the softening of the eye, the awareness of the other’s presence. In a dozen ways each day they showed that the other was never out of their thoughts.

“Don’t you ever do anything for yourself?” she asked peevishly when Augusta returned from taking Lasso his coffee at the corral.

“Far too often,” Augusta replied, settling down with her own cup. “Hardly an hour goes by that they aren’t thinking of me, looking for ways to give me pleasure, to make me happy. I think they feel guilty for taking me away from you.”

Sibyl had to bite her tongue. Of all the unnatural, ungrateful, and selfish nieces, she had to be the worst; but seeing Lasso and Augusta enjoying all the love and happiness she had thrown away was sheer torture. To put a smile on her face and pretend to be happy for her aunt was almost the hardest thing she had ever done. Aunt Louisa should be here; she wouldn’t believe half of what she saw with her own eyes, but she would never again ask Sibyl if Augusta were happy. Besotted, Sibyl thought, mindlessly, deliriously, utterly besotted.

“You shouldn’t have left Burch without some kind of explanation,” Augusta said, choosing her words carefully. “He was naturally quite worried, and I think a little hurt.”

“I know, but I had to get away.”

“I know you were deeply hurt, too, but it would have been better if you had talked to Burch before going all the way to Virginia.”

“I couldn’t, not about
her.”

“I’ve often admired your pride and strength of purpose, dear. It’s something I don’t have and, goodness me, it’s enabled you to do dozens of things I would never dream of attempting, but it seems to me that there are times when a little honest humility would serve you better.”

“That’s why I came back,” Sibyl replied, subdued. “You can’t know how hard it was for me to admit I was wrong.”

“No, but I can tell it’s important to you. Having gone this far, why not go the rest of the way?”

“What do you mean?”

“You still have a chip on your shoulder, something to prove. I have the terrible feeling that if you had any suspicion that Burch so much as looked at another woman since you left, you would turn around and go right back to Virginia.”

“And you think I shouldn’t?” Sibyl asked, the tension garnering in her body.

“I think you’ve done enough running away. It’s time you stood your ground and faced yourself.”

“I didn’t run away,” Sibyl said, firing up.

“First you ran away from Virginia, and then you ran away from Burch. And now, unless I’m mistaken, you’re running away from Virginia again as much as returning to Burch.”

“No, but almost,” Sibyl admitted, struck.

“What are you going to do if things don’t work out this time? Do you plan to go back to Louisa?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Where then? You realize, of course, that you can’t run away from yourself.”

“I do know that, and I don’t know what I’ll do if Burch won’t have me. I haven’t let myself think of that.”

“I’m glad to know that for once you admit you don’t have all the answers. Maybe you’ll believe that someone else can know as much as you.”

“Did I always act like that?”

“Yes, and you said as much, too. I was so hoping that you would not let it cause you to do anything you regretted.”

“I don’t know that I do regret it. If I hadn’t left Virginia, I would never have met Burch, and if I hadn’t fought with him, he would never have admitted that a woman is more than a helpless, pretty ornament.”

“Burch never thought that, no matter what he said. He was just not ready for your kind of help.”

“I know, but I’m not like his aunt or even like you. I have a terrible temper and I behaved like a shrew. I could never be the kind of wife he was looking for.”

“And your jealousy?”

“I’m not proud of that, either, but I have come back. That’s as much as saying I was wrong.”

“I’m sure that was not easy for you.” Augusta looked at her niece, vibrant with life and a passion for involvement, and prayed that she hadn’t waited too long. Men had been known to fall out of love just as easily as they fell in love. “Why did you come to see me?”

Sibyl grinned mirthlessly. “It seems to be my fate to be surrounded by besotted lovers while I wait anxiously to see if I’m going to be as fortunate. I ran away from the Elkhorn to escape Ned and Rachel acting like lovebirds; only I get here to find that you and Lasso are even worse.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, don’t you? Every time you open your mouth, it’s to wonder if you can do something for him or the girls. Is he sure he had enough to eat? Would he like anything special for dinner? And he’s as bad as you are. It’s disgusting.”

Augusta blushed lightly. “Maybe it does seem like that to you, but Lasso has given me so much I worry I can’t give him enough in return.”

“Don’t!” Sibyl protested vehemently with a catch in her throat. “Can’t you see it’s nothing but stupid jealousy? I’d give my soul to be doing exactly what you’re doing, to sit at home, happy and secure in the knowledge that Burch would soon be there, and his love for me would be as deep and unchanging as ever.”

Augusta’s hand involuntarily went out to Sibyl, but she drew it back quickly.

“That’s why I came back.
Because I couldn’t do anything else!”
Sibyl struggled to bring her emotions under control while Augusta, unsure of what to say, said nothing.

“I knew I’d been unfair to him. I knew I’d been stubborn and blind and cruel as well. I’ll never be able to bear the thought of him with another woman, but the agony of not having him at all was even worse.”

“You’re not making much sense, dear.”

Sibyl pulled herself up with a jerk. “I must be a desperate case. I’ve never been hysterical in my life, yet here I am as close to having a full-blown fit as anyone can be. You must think me completely stupid.”

“Only in love.”

“Aunt Louisa thinks I’m crazy.”

“Louisa would never understand our men.”

“I think she understands our men but not us. According to her we’re entirely lacking in discretion and common sense.”

“Louisa is admirably suited to the life she leads, but I’m afraid she will never understand us, or we her, so we might as well dismiss her. Do you think you’re calm enough to explain yourself now?”

“I hope so. What kind of wife will I make if I go to pieces whenever something goes wrong?”

Augusta let that pass.

“I never doubted Burch’s love until I saw him spending so much time with Emma and so little with me. Then I became hopelessly jealous. I never told you this, but I saw them in the bedroom, with Burch’s shirt off and her arms around his neck. I didn’t know there was so much pain in the whole world; that must be what it feels like to die. After that, every moment of every day was torture; having to speak to Emma, to smile at her was almost more than I could manage. And Burch went on just like nothing ever happened.”

“Why didn’t you speak to him?”

“Would you?”

“No,” Augusta reluctantly admitted. “I would have gone to my grave rather than let a single word pass my lips.”

“I chose to go back to Virginia, to run away as you so rightly put it. I don’t know what I thought I would find there, but anything was better than being around Burch and thinking that he loved Emma.”

“When he came after me, I didn’t want to see him but I had no choice. I tried to keep from telling him what I saw, but he kept after me until I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore. He couldn’t believe I’d be jealous of Emma; he said she tried to force herself on him, but he told her he was going to marry me.”

“Did you believe him?”

“I wanted to, but I was too afraid and I sent him away.” She got up and walked over to the window. “I can’t tell you how miserable I was. I paced up and down my room, unable to sleep. Then I found Grandmother Gershom’s diary.”

“I never knew she kept one.”

“Neither did Aunt Louisa, but it was about her courtship with Grandfather. It was so much like my own situation that I couldn’t help but think I was meant to find it, that it had been lying at the bottom of that trunk for thirty years just waiting for me.

“It made everything fit into place. I couldn’t wait to tell Burch, so I went to his hotel as soon as it was light, but he had already left. I followed him, full of confidence and hardly able to wait until I got to the Elkhorn. But now that I’m here all my old doubts are back.”

“About Emma?” Augusta asked in dismay.

“No, about whether he’ll still want me. And after all I’ve done, I couldn’t blame him if he didn’t.” She turned quickly. “I don’t think I could endure it if he no longer loved me.” She was near to breaking down.

“A man doesn’t take his gun and go off hunting in the middle of winter if he plans to forget a woman,” Augusta pointed out, hoping to restore Sibyl’s shaky balance. “There’s not much chance of meeting a female with anything less than four feet.”

“And you think that with that kind of competition I might win out?” grinned Sibyl, valiantly controlling her unsteady emotions.

“I don’t mean any such tiling.”

“I’d take him in any case.”

“Then you ought to be at the Elkhorn when he gets back.”

“But no one knows when that will be.”

“Then wait. There are enough things there to keep you busy for a little while.”

“More like several weeks, or months, as soon as the weather begins to warm up.”

“It doesn’t matter. The important thing is for you to be there when he returns. If you are, he will probably forget all about this foolishness, and in a short while he may not even remember it. But the longer he waits the more questions he’ll have, and the harder it will be to forget the suffering he has endured.

“I don’t mean to criticize you, dear, but I think you have forgotten to consider Burch’s feelings. You were so taken up with your own unhappiness you had no time to give any thought to what he might be feeling.”

“I didn’t at first, but I had plenty of time to think about it on the train. That’s when I began to worry he might not want me back. I had never looked at my actions from anyone else’s point of view. I never thought that anybody else could be feeling the same things I felt.”

“You seemed to have learned a lot very quickly. It must have been very painful.”

“It was, but it was long overdue,” Sibyl said, planting a kiss on Augusta’s cheek. “It was nothing more than what you’ve been trying to teach me all those years when I was too stubborn to listen.”

“It’s never too late to learn.”

“Let’s hope not, and now if I’m to take your advice and be waiting at the door like a faithful little woman, I have to get out of here.”

“You know you can’t leave today, so sit back down. Lasso will see about sending someone with you tomorrow. You would never make it at night in all that snow and ice.”

“I don’t need anyone to go with me. I came by myself, and I can get back the same way.”

“You shouldn’t be wandering over these plains alone, not even in the daytime.”

“You sound exactly like Aunt Louisa.”

“And with a good deal more reason. All you would have to worry about in Virginia would be a broken axle or a hole in the road. That’s not to be compared with lawless men and hidden canyons.”

“Don’t tell Aunt Louisa, or she’ll never come to visit us.”

“Louisa said she’d come out here!” exclaimed Augusta, gaping at her niece. “Are you sure you heard her right?”

“You know Aunt Louisa
never
says anything she doesn’t mean.”

“Dear me, what could have possessed her? She disapproves of me so strongly she has not even answered my letter.”

“She vows she still loves us both. She just doesn’t understand why we must travel to the remote corners of the civilized world to find husbands.”