Nevada Cowboy Dad. Dorsey Kelley

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      Chapter Three

      “It was Kenneth,” Rusty said in a low voice. “Kenneth did this to you.”

      Still upset, Lucy shook her head, her hair falling into her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about—”

      “He hit you, didn’t he?” Rusty demanded. Though his voice was quiet, she could hear outrage rumbling beneath his words like insurrectionists about to revolt.

      “He—he didn’t hit me. The things he said...they hurt worse than that.”

      He tilted his head, confused. “Your husband said mean things to you? That gave you a bad dream?”

      In an effort to stop crying, she drew ragged breaths. “I know it’s hard to understand. It’s hard to explain.” How she disliked sounding like a too-sensitive baby, spoiled and self-centered. She hadn’t spoken about it with anyone except the therapist, and that had been difficult enough. She wasn’t about to throw open the door to her soul’s deepest secret. Not to Rusty; he wouldn’t understand. No one would. No one could comprehend her reasons for staying with Kenneth during those bleak years of their marriage.

      “Lucy—”

      “Rusty, no, please. I...I can’t.” Moonlight, streaming in her window, carved shadows over the masculine lines of Rusty’s face. In the darkness his brown eyes appeared black, penetrating.

      His shoulders were big, his chest full, his abdomen ribbed. No man had held her for so long. She hadn’t allowed it—or even wanted it—and certainly no half-dressed man. Lucy shut her eyes, overwhelmed.

      With his big hands he stroked her arms from her shoulders to her wrists. As his palms glided over her skin, bared by her sleeveless gown, she could feel his work-hardened calluses, formed by honest labor. He was caressing her, she realized with a new shock. Rusty...caressing her?

      He studied her, and she could almost feel him mentally probing for answers, answers she knew she couldn’t give, didn’t know if she had them to give. With her back to the window she hoped he couldn’t see her well.

      “You’re not gonna talk about this with me, are you? Well, what happened to him, anyway? How did he die?” Before she could reply, his grip on her arms tightened, his voice roughened. “I wouldn’t blame you if you had something to do with it.”

      Lucy gasped. “My God, no. It was his heart. He...he had a congenital defect. Both his brother and father did, too.”

      Rusty shrugged, brutally uncaring. “At least the creep left you well-off.”

      She bowed her head. “I guess I should thank you for coming in. Did...did I make a noise?”

      “If you call an agonizing moan that could wake the next ranch ten miles over a ‘noise,’ then, yeah, you did.”

      “I apologize for waking you. I didn’t mean to.”

      “Didn’t you?” He grimaced at his own sarcasm. “You didn’t mean to have a horrible nightmare and wake up sweating, shaking and sobbing? I’d have never guessed.”

      She could think of nothing to say.

      He stood, and she wondered if it was only in her imagination that he did so reluctantly. “I’ll go now. You’ll be all right.”

      She nodded.

      “But we’re not finished with this. I won’t push now, but soon...” He left the rest unsaid, stared at her meaningfully, strode out the door and shut it with a quiet click.

      Hugging herself, Lucy felt an errant thought begin to bloom, unfurling like the petals of a flower. While she found Rusty gruff and uncompromising, he had rushed to her when she’d cried out, when she’d needed him.

      Rusty had come to comfort her.

      As if the night before had never happened, as if Lucy had never cried out in fear and Rusty had never consoled her with his voice and his touch, the next morning he barely spared her a glance when he entered the kitchen.

      After pouring himself a mug of steaming coffee, he downed it in four gulps and turned to leave. Ribbons of sunlight fought with morning gloom to lance through the nook’s high windows and fall on Rusty’s hair. Streaks of russet Lucy hadn’t seen before appeared in the thick waves.

      At the stove Fritzy mixed thick batter.

      “Good morning,” Lucy said, trying to catch his eye. Before her sat orange juice and toasted waffles sprinkled with powdered sugar.

      Grunting something unintelligible, he collected his hat from a wall hook.

      “Um, what are you going to do today?”

      “Work.” He moved toward the door.

      She wished she knew how СКАЧАТЬ