Texas Gold

A large, lean hand took the fork from her, ignoring her tightened grip on the handle. “Let me do that,” Max said. “How much do you want below?”

She stepped back, giving him the necessary room, and drew in a deep breath. He was pushing her, and she didn’t like it. Edging ever closer in a game she had no intention of joining. “Enough to fill the far corner of the aisle, next to the last stall,” she said.

“All right.” Obligingly, he tossed hay through the opening and then halted, stepping back to allow her passage to the ladder. “After you,” he said cheerfully.

She climbed down swiftly, pleased that he hadn’t preceded her, aware that her legs were exposed as she held her skirt high enough to keep it from tangling around her feet on the ladder rungs. Gaining the floor, she looked up and reached for the pitchfork.

“Let me,” she said. “I’ll move it out of the aisle.”

“I’ll take care of it.” His voice was gruff, as if he was scolding her for her spark of independence, she decided. “You work too hard, Faith.” He made his way down and then stood beside her. “This isn’t a job for a woman, tending livestock and grubbing in the dirt for a living.”

“And what’s wrong with it?” she asked. “It’s honest work, and I’m not going to apologize for earning my own way. I’m happier here than I ever was in the city, Max. I know you have a hard time believing that, but it’s true.”

He hung the pitchfork on the wall and turned to her, grasping her hands and holding them up to the light. “Look at the calluses,” he muttered. “Your hands should be soft and smooth. Instead, you work at one thing or another from morning till night. I hate it that you’ve been forced to live this way.”

“Aren’t you listening to me?” she asked, snatching her fingers from his. “I love it here. I enjoy what I do, and I’m happy to grub in the dirt. I raise my food, and then I cook it and eat it. Whatever is surplus is set aside for the winter months. It’s called making a living, Max.”

He had the grace to look shamefaced. “I didn’t mean to make it sound…the way I did,” he said quietly. “There’s no shame in working hard. It’s just that I hate to see you so tired. You’ve lost weight, Faith.”

“I was too plump, anyway,” she said quickly. “I’m strong and healthy, and you might as well forget whatever you’re trying to accomplish here. I’m not going back with you, Max. No matter what, I’m staying here.”

“The sheriff would like that, wouldn’t he?”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” She felt a flush climb her cheeks, only too aware of his gibe being more the truth than she would like to admit.

“You know exactly what I’m referring to,” Max shot back. “He’s sweet on you.”

“Well, I’m not sweet on him. I’m not sweet on anybody.” She stalked out the barn door and headed for the house, then turned to face Max, walking backward several paces until she reached the porch steps. “I wish you’d just leave me alone. Go back to Boston and find yourself someone who wants you for a husband. I’ll sign anything you like. You’ll be free as a bird.”

He halted halfway across the yard, and his expression was unreadable. “I told you there were papers for you to sign, Faith. In all the fussing we’ve done, I haven’t told you what they are. I brought them with me in my pouch today, and I think we need to go inside so you can look them over.”

She felt a dull ache begin in her breast. If he had indeed given in on the idea of getting a bill of divorcement, this would perhaps be the final time she was forced to see him. Surely a judge could handle the whole thing, so long as she signed her rights away.

Climbing the porch steps, she opened the kitchen door and waited for Max to enter. He hesitated, his manners dictating that he let her precede him, but she cast him an impatient look and he did as she wished.

In a few minutes she’d washed her hands, smoothed her hair back and settled across the table from him. His pouch open, he sorted through it for the documents he’d mentioned, then placed them on the table before her.

“Your father left you his estate when he died fourteen years ago,” he began. “It was held by the court until you reached the age of twenty-five. I don’t know why he thought you’d be all grown up by then, but for some reason, that was the milestone he chose.”

She looked down at the papers Max had brought to her, and focused on the names and the collection of “therefores” and “whereases” covering the first page. They were a hodgepodge of legality, she decided, and pushed the papers across the table toward him. “Read them for me, and tell me what all these fancy phrases have to do with me,” she told him. “I’m not at all sure what it signifies.”

“You’re a woman of means,” he said simply. “The estate is yours.”

“And being mine automatically makes it yours, if I recall your mother’s tutoring session correctly.”

“Tutoring?” His eyes narrowed as he repeated the word she had chosen to use. “My mother tutored you?”

“Lectured might be a better way to put it,” Faith said bluntly. “Never failing to remind me how fortunate I was to have been chosen by the great Maxwell McDowell.”

His mouth tightened. “I can’t imagine my mother used that term to describe me.”

“Believe what you like,” Faith said. “Suffice to say, I never measured up to what she felt you needed as a wife. I was too young, too boring, too—”

“Stop it,” he ordered, cutting short her list of failures, a catalog of flaws that had come to light during her years as his wife. “My mother means well, but she gets carried away on occasion.”

“Ah…I should have known you were still her champion.”

His jaw tensed, and a profusion of blood colored his cheekbones brick-red as he made an obvious attempt to be silent.

Faith waved a dismissive hand. “Explain what all this means, the paperwork I’m supposed to sign, and the money my father left for my use.”

“By signing your name where the lawyer has designated, you are accepting the money into your care.”

“I can put it in a bank here and use it as I like?” she asked, doubt coating each word with disdain. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”

“The money will go into the bank in Boston, under my supervision,” Max said bluntly. “You have access to it as my wife. Your father felt secure in the knowledge that I would take care of you, supply all your needs.”

“Fine,” she murmured, snatching the sheaf of paperwork and arranging it before her again. “Where’s the pen, and where do I write my name?”

“No more questions?” he asked, drawing a fountain pen from his pocket and removing the cap. He offered it to her, and she accepted, examining its length.

“Is this the one I gave you?” She thought she glimpsed a flash of sorrow in his gaze as he nodded. “It was the only gift I ever bought you with my own money,” she recalled. “From then on, I used the allowance you gave me. I often thought it was like carrying coals to Newcastle, buying you paltry gifts when you were capable of ordering up anything you wanted with the snap of your fingers.”

“You gave me much more than a pen or hemmed handkerchiefs, or even the small watercolor I hung beside my bed, Faith.”

“Oh? Really?”

“I appreciated every gift I received from you, cherished each gesture of affection you offered.” His pause was long, and she felt the breath leave her lungs, knowing what he would speak of next.

“Most of all I treasure the memories of the times I held you in my arms. You gave me the pleasure of loving you.”

“Loving?” she asked. “You’re telling me now that you loved me?”

“You know I loved you,” he said, his jaw taut, his mouth narrowing as if he recognized the doubt in her query.

“On the contrary, Max. You never told me you loved me. You said I was lovely, that I pleased you, that I wore the elegant clothing you bought for me with a degree of grace…but not once did you tell me—”

“You knew,” he muttered, his voice an accusing growl. “Don’t try to pretend otherwise, Faith.”

“Then where were you when I needed you the most?” And as soon as the words were spoken aloud, she rose from the table and turned her back to him. “No, don’t bother answering. Please. I don’t want to hear excuses about your work, or the trips you were forced to take to expand the business. I heard all of that from your mother, and it wasn’t any more palatable coming from her than it would have been from you.”

“You wouldn’t even allow me into your bedroom,” he said, exasperation lacing his accusation. “I wasn’t allowed to touch you.”

“And who told you that?” she asked, bowing her head.

“It was implicit in your behavior.”

She spun to face him, stalked back to the table and snatched up the pen she had cast aside. Her signature was a scrawl as she shuffled through the pages, leaning over the table and scattering documents hither and yon as she searched out the places marked for her name to be signed.