Feeling his thoughtful stare on her back as she walked away, she found Dal and Grady and repeated her suspicions about Jack’s latest ploy.
Grady threw his hat on the ground. “This ain’t right! Did you tell Luther?”
“He can’t do anything without proof,” she said, speaking to Grady but watching Dal.
She loved the bronzed hard look of him, the ice in his eyes when he swung to look toward the observers’ camp. She loved his rough brown hands and graceful wiry body. Loved the way his pants hung low on his hips, loved the purposeful way he moved. She loved his determination and the way he expected the best from the people around him. She loved everything about him.
“When you look at me like that, I can’t think,” he said gruffly, after Grady stomped away.
“You have changed my life,” she whispered, staring up at him, marveling at the truth of it.
He had taken three pampered, self-absorbed butterflies and molded them into efficient, competent women. He had demanded they be the best they could be and refused to accept anything less. He’d shown them their abilities and courage, had stripped them to basic values that none of them had examined before this drive. Win or lose, when they rode into Abilene, she and her sisters would be stronger, more confident, and better equipped for life than they would have been without Dal Frisco.
“I love you,” she said softly, drowning in his eyes.
She had never dreamed that she would say those words standing beside two dozen smelly horses, sweating in the hot prairie sun. And she had imagined the man would say them first.
He stared at her, his hands opening and closing at his sides, “Damn it, Frederick, you just wrecked my life.”
“By telling you that I love you?” Stung, she blinked hard. “I’m not asking anything in return, if that’s what you’re worrying about. No promises, remember?” Embarrassed and angry, she started to back away, wishing to hell that she’d kept her impulsive mouth shut.
“No promises? The hell there aren’t. Loving never comes without promises.” Gripping her arms, he leaned forward. “If you hadn’t said what you just said, I could have ridden away and told myself that you and me weren’t meant to be. Maybe I would have believed it someday. Now I’ve got to figure out how to mesh two incompatible dreams in a way that won’t make one or both of us miserable for the rest of our lives. And frankly, I’m not convinced that’s possible.”
She returned his scowl. “You don’t have to figure out anything. Pardon me for wrecking your life and creating a problem. Just forget I said a word. Stupid me. I thought it might make you happy to know that I love you!”
“You come sashaying over here and tell me the damned Indians are going to strip away our margin one beeve at a time, then right out of the blue you say, by the way I love you.” He glared into her blazing eyes. “Now that’s a hell of a thing. You couldn’t do this at a more appropriate time, could you? When I’m not worried half to damned death about the Indians and crossing the Washita, or when we could talk about this without the whole outfit watching.”
Jerking away from his grip, she tossed her head and lifted her chin. “There’s nothing to talk about! I changed my mind. I’d have to be an idiot to love someone like you.”
Blinking rapidly, she headed to the river and the willows strewn with her clothing, intending to cry in private. By the time she reached the swollen banks of the Washita, she’d reviewed every word of their conversation and reached a startling conclusion.
Dal loved her, too.
She gazed at the sparkling water foaming past the tips of her boots, then lifted her face to a hot sky as blue as his eyes. He hadn’t said it as clearly as she had, but he’d said it.
But the way he had said it checked the joy that suddenly warmed her body.
Sitting down on the red bank, she drew up her knees and watched the tossing water. Dal was right. A theater in San Francisco didn’t mesh with a ranch in Montana and never would. One of them would have to surrender his or her dream. If that happened… how long would it be before resentment began to chip away at love? Before regret and misery set in? A year? Two years?
A tear dropped on her knee. The misery was already starting.
As the days slipped past, Alex believed that John would begin to understand and accept that she would never wear the wooden leg. Each morning she awoke with her heart in her throat, wondering if today was the day she would discover he had slipped away during the night and was gone. When she found him after a frantic scan of the camp, she closed her eyes and thanked God for one more day with him.
Sometimes discovering that he hadn’t left her filled her heart with so much emotion that she ached with pain. And sometimes she threw out her hands and laughed at the frustrating discovery that John was as stubborn as she was.