Country Brides Read online

  Rorie kept her face averted. She didn’t need Mary to tell her Kate was a good person; she’d seen the evidence of it herself.

  “What most folks don’t know is that Kate’s seen plenty of pain in her own life. She watched her mother die a slow death from cancer. Took care of her most of the time herself, nursing Nora when she should’ve been off at college having fun like other nineteen-year-olds. Her family needed her and she was there. Kate gave old man Logan a reason to go on living when Nora passed away. She still lives with him, and it’s long past time for her to be a carefree adult on her own. Kate’s a good person clean through.” Mary hesitated, then drew in a solemn breath. “Now, you may think I’m nothing but a meddling old fool. But I’m saying it’s a good thing you’re leaving Elk Run before you break that girl’s heart. She’s got a chance now for some happiness, and God knows she deserves it. If she loses Clay, I can tell you it’d break her heart. She’s too good to have that happen to her over some fancy city girl who’s only passing through.”

  Rorie winced at the way Mary described her.

  “I’m a plain talker,” Mary said on the end of an abrupt laugh. “Always have been, always will be. Knowing Clay—and I do, as well as his mother did, God rest her soul—he’ll pine for you awhile, but eventually everything will fall back into place. The way it was before you arrived.”

  Tears stung Rorie’s eyes. She felt miserable as it was, and Mary wasn’t helping. She’d already assured the housekeeper she was leaving, but Mary apparently wanted to be damn sure she didn’t change her mind. The woman didn’t understand…but then again, maybe she did.

  “Have you ever been in love, Mary?”

  “Once,” came the curt reply. “Hurt so much the first time I never chanced it again.”

  “Are you sorry you lived your life alone now?” That was what Rorie saw for herself. Oh, she knew she was being melodramatic and over-emotional, but she couldn’t imagine loving any man as much as she did Clay.

  Mary lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Some days I have plenty of regrets, but then on others it ain’t so bad. I’d like to have had a child, but God saw to it that I was around when Clay and Skip needed someone…. That made up for what I missed.”

  “They consider you family.”

  “Yeah, I suppose they do.” Mary pushed out her chair and stood up. “Well, I better get back to work. Those men expect a decent lunch. I imagine they’re near starved after the dinner you fed them last night.”

  Despite her heartache, Rorie smiled and finished her coffee. “And I’d better get upstairs and pack the rest of my things. The mechanic said my car would be ready around noon.”

  On her way to the bedroom, Rorie paused at the framed photograph of Clay’s parents that sat on the piano. She’d passed it a number of times and had given it little more than a fleeting glance. Now it suddenly demanded her attention, and she stopped in front of it.

  A tremor went through her hand as she lightly ran her finger along the brass frame. Clay’s mother smiled serenely into the camera, her gray eyes so like her son’s that Rorie felt a knot in her stomach. Those same eyes seemed to reach across eternity and call out to Rorie, plead with her. Rorie’s own eyes narrowed, certain her imagination was playing havoc with her troubled mind. She focused her attention on the woman’s hair. That, too, was the same dark shade as Clay’s, brushed away from her face in a carefully styled chignon. Clay had never mentioned his parents to her, not once, but studying the photograph Rorie knew intuitively that he’d shared a close relationship with his mother. Blue wandered out from the kitchen and stood at Rorie’s side as though offering consolation. Grateful, she bent down to pet him.

  Looking back at the photograph, Rorie noted that Skip resembled his father, with the same dancing blue eyes that revealed more than a hint of devilry.

  Rorie continued to study both parents, but it was Clay’s mother who captured her attention over and over again.

  The phone ringing in the distance startled her, and her wrist was shaking when she set the picture back on the piano.

  “Phone’s for you,” Mary shouted from the kitchen.

  Rorie assumed it was George at the repair shop in Riversdale; she’d been waiting all morning to hear from him.

  “Hello,” she said, her fingers closing tightly around the receiver. Her biggest fear was that something had happened to delay her departure a second time.

  “Miss Campbell,” said the mechanic, “everything’s fine. I got that part in and working for you without a hitch.”

  “Thank God,” she murmured. Her hold on the telephone receiver relaxed, a little.

  “I’ve got a man I could spare if you’d like to have your car delivered to Elk Run. But you’ve got to understand fifty miles is a fair distance and I’m afraid I’ll have to charge you extra for it.”

  “That’s fine,” Rorie said eagerly, not even bothering to ask the amount. “How soon can he be here?”

  Twelve

  “So you’re really going,” Skip said as he picked up Rorie’s bags. “Somehow I figured I might’ve talked you into staying on for the county fair.”

  “You seem intent on bringing me to ruin, Skip Franklin. I’m afraid I’d bet all my hard-earned cash on those pig races you were telling me about,” Rorie teased. Standing in the middle of the master bedroom, she surveyed it to be sure she hadn’t forgotten anything.

  A pang of wistfulness settled over her as she slowly looked around. Not for the first time, Rorie felt the love and warmth emanating from these brightly papered walls. Lazily, almost lovingly, she ran her fingertips along the top of the dresser, letting her hand linger there a moment, unwilling to pull herself away. This bedroom represented so much of what she was leaving behind. It was difficult to walk away.

  Skip stood in the doorway impatiently waiting for her. “Kate phoned and said she’s coming over. She wants to say goodbye.”

  “I’ll be happy to see her one last time.” Rorie wished Skip would leave so she could delay her parting with this room a little longer. Until now, Rorie hadn’t realized how much sleeping in Clay’s parents’ room had meant to her. Her appreciation had come too late.

  “Mary’s packing a lunch for you,” Skip announced with a wry chuckle, “and knowing Mary, it’ll be enough to last you a week.”

  Rorie smiled and reluctantly followed him down the stairs. As Skip had claimed, the housekeeper had prepared two large bags, which sat waiting on the kitchen table.

  “Might as well take those with you, too,” Mary muttered gruffly. “I hate the thought of you eating restaurant food. This, at least, will stick to your ribs.”

  “Goodbye, Mary,” Rorie said softly, touched by the housekeeper’s thoughtfulness. On impulse she hugged the older woman. “Thank you for everything—including our talk this morning.” The impromptu embrace surprised Rorie as much as it obviously did Mary.

  “You drive careful now, you hear?” the housekeeper responded, squeezing Rorie tightly and patting her back several times.

  “I will, I promise.”

  “A letter now and again wouldn’t be amiss.”

  “All right,” Rorie agreed, and used her sleeve to blot tears from the corners of her eyes. These people had touched her in so many ways. Leaving them was even more difficult than she’d imagined.

  The housekeeper rubbed the heel of her hand over her right eye. “Time for you to get on the road. What are you doing standing in the kitchen chitchatting with me?” she asked brusquely.

  “I’m going, I’m going.” Mary’s gruff voice didn’t fool Rorie. The housekeeper’s exterior might be a little crusty, and her tongue a bit surly, but she didn’t succeed in disguising a generous, loving heart.

  “I don’t know where Clay is,” Skip complained after he’d loaded the luggage into the MG’s trunk. “I thought he’d want to see you before you left. I wonder where he got off to.”

  “I’m…sure he’s got better things to do than say goodbye to me.”

  “No way,
” Skip said, frowning. “I ’m going to see if I can find him.”

  Rorie’s first reaction was to stop Skip, then she quickly decided against it. If she made too much of a fuss, Skip might suspect something. She understood what had prompted Clay to stay away from the house all morning, and in truth she was grateful. Leaving Elk Run was hard enough without prolonging the agony in lengthy farewells.

  Skip hesitated, kicking at the dirt with the pointed toe of his cowboy boot. “You two didn’t have a fight or anything, did you?”

  “No. What makes you ask?”

  Skip shrugged. “Well…It’s just that every time I walked into a room with the two of you, I could feel something. If it wasn’t for Kate, I’d think my big brother was interested in you.”

  “I’m sure you’re imagining things.”

  “I suppose so,” Skip said with a nod, dismissing the notion. “Ever since you got here, though, Clay’s been acting weird.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Sort of cranky.”

  “My unexpected arrival added to his problems, don’t you think?” In so many ways it was the truth, and she felt guilty about that. The responsibilities for the farm and for raising Skip were sobering enough; he didn’t need her there to wreak havoc with his personal life.

  “You weren’t any problem,” Skip answered sharply. “In fact, having you around was fun. The only trouble is you didn’t stay long enough.”

  “Thank you, Skip.” Once again she felt her throat clog with tears. She was touched by his sweet, simple hospitality and reminded of how much she’d miss him.

  “I still kinda wish you were going to stay for the fair,” he mumbled. “You ’d have a good time, I guarantee it. We may not have all the fancy entertainment you do in San Francisco, but when we do a county fair, we do it big.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be great fun.”

  Skip braced his foot against the bumper of the faded blue pickup, apparently forgetting his earlier decision to seek out Clay, which was just as well.

  “You don’t like the country much, do you, Rorie?”

  “Oh, but I do,” she said. “It ’s a different way of life, though. Here on Elk Run, I feel like a duck in a pond full of swans.”

  Skip laughed. “I suppose folks there in the big city don’t think much of the country.”

  “No one has time to think,” Rorie said with a small laugh.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Everyone’s got thoughts.”

  Rorie nodded, not knowing how to explain something so complex. When Skip had spent some time in the city, he’d figure out what she meant.

  “The one thing I’ve noticed more than anything is how quiet it is here,” she said pensively, looking around, burning into her memory each detail of the farmhouse and the yard.

  “I like the quiet. Some places, the noise is so bad I worry about ear damage,” Skip said.

  “I imagine if I lived here, I’d grow accustomed to the silence, too. But to be honest, I hadn’t realized how much I enjoy the sounds of the city. There’s something invigorating about the clang of the trolley cars or the foghorn on the Bay early in the morning.”

  Skip frowned and shook his head. “You honestly like all that racket?”

  Rorie nodded. “It ’s more than that. The city’s exciting. I hadn’t really known how much living there meant to me before coming to Elk Run.” Rorie wasn’t sure how to describe the aroma of freshly baked sourdough bread, or the perfumed scent of budding rosebushes in Golden Gate Park, to someone who’d never experienced them. Country life had its appeal, she couldn’t deny that, but she belonged to the city. At least, that was what she told herself over and over again.

  “Ah,” Skip said, and his foot dropped from the bumper with a thud, “here’s Clay now.”

  Rorie tensed, clasping her hands in front of her. Clay’s lengthy strides quickly diminished the distance between the barn and the yard. Each stride was filled with purpose, as though he longed to get this polite farewell over with.

  Rorie straightened and walked toward him. “I ’ll be leaving in a couple of minutes,” she said softly.

  “Kate’s coming to say goodbye,” Skip added.

  Rorie noted how Clay’s eyes didn’t quite meet her own. He seemed to focus instead on the car behind her. They’d already said everything there was to say and this final parting only compounded the pain.

  “Saying thank you seems so inadequate,” Rorie told him in a voice that wasn’t entirely steady. “I’ve appreciated your hospitality more than you’ll ever know.” Hesitantly she held out her hand to him.

  Clay’s hard fingers curled around her own, his touch light and impersonal. Rorie swallowed hard, unable to hold back the emotion churning so violently inside her.

  His expression was completely impassive, but she sensed that he held on to his self-control with the thinnest of threads. In that moment, Rorie felt the longing in him and knew that he recognized it in her, too.

  “Oh, Clay…” she whispered, her eyes brimming with tears. The impulse to move into his arms was like a huge wave, threatening to sweep over her, and she didn’t know how much longer she’d have the strength to resist.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Clay muttered grimly.

  “I…can’t help it.” But he belonged to Kate and nothing was likely to change that.

  He took a step toward her and stopped himself, suddenly remembering they weren’t alone.

  “Skip, go hold Thunder for Don. Don’s trying to paste-worm him, and he’s getting dragged all over the stall.” Clay’s words were low-pitched, sharp, full of demand.

  “But, Clay, Rorie’s about to—”

  “Do it.”

  Mumbling something unintelligible, Skip trudged off to the barn.

  The minute his brother was out of sight, Clay caught Rorie’s shoulders, his fingers rough and urgent through the thin cotton of her blouse. The next instant, she was locked against him. The kiss was inevitable, Rorie knew, but when his mouth settled over hers she wanted to weep for the joy she found in his arms. He kissed her temple, her cheek, her mouth, until she clung to him with hungry abandon. They were standing in the middle of the yard in full view of farmhands, but Clay didn’t seem to care and Rorie wasn’t about to object.

  “I told myself I wouldn’t do this,” he whispered huskily.

  Rorie’s heart constricted.

  At the sound of a car in the distance, Clay abruptly dropped his arms, freeing her. His fingers tangled in her hair as if he had to touch her one last time.

  “I was a fool to think I could politely shake your hand and let you leave. We’re more than casual friends and I can’t pretend otherwise—to hell with the consequences.”

  Tears flooded Rorie’s eyes as she stared up at Clay. Then, from behind him, she saw the cloud of dust that announced Kate’s arrival. She inhaled a deep breath in an effort to compose herself and, wiping her damp cheeks with the back of one hand, forced a smile.

  Clay released a ragged sigh as he trailed a callused hand down the side of her face. “Goodbye, Rorie,” he whispered. With that, he turned and walked away.

  Thick fog swirled around Rorie as she paused to catch her breath on the path in Golden Gate Park. She bent forward and planted her hands on her knees, driving the oxygen into her heaving lungs. Not once in the two weeks she’d been on vacation had she followed her jogging routine, and now she was paying the penalty. The muscles in her calves and thighs protested the strenuous exercise and her heart seemed about to explode. Her biggest problem was trying to keep up with Dan, who’d run ahead, unwilling to slow his pace to match hers.

  “Rorie?”

  “Over here.” Her voice was barely more than a choked whisper. She meant to raise her hand and signal to him, but even that required more effort than she could manage. Seeing a bench in the distance, she stumbled over and collapsed into it. Leaning back, she stretched out her legs.

  “You are out of shape,” Dan teased, handing her a small towel.r />
  Rorie wiped the perspiration from her face and smiled her appreciation. “I can’t believe two weeks would make such a difference.” She’d been back in San Francisco only a couple of days. Other than dropping off the MG at Dan’s place, this was the first time they’d had a chance to get together.

  Dan stood next to her, hardly out of breath—even after a three-mile workout.

  “Two weeks is a long time,” he said with the hint of a smile. “I suppose you didn’t keep up with your vitamin program, either,” he chastised gently. “Well, Rorie, it’s obvious how much you need me.”

  She chose to ignore that comment. “I used to consider myself in top physical condition. Not anymore. Good grief, I thought my heart was going to give out two miles back.”

  Dan, blond and debonair, was appealingly handsome in a clean-cut boyish way. He draped the towel around his neck and grasped the ends. Rorie’s eyes were drawn to his hands, with their finely manicured nails and long tapered fingers. Stockbroker fingers. Nice hands. Friendly hands.

  Still, Rorie couldn’t help comparing them with another pair of male hands, darkly tanned from hours in the sun and roughly callused. Gentle hands. Working hands.

  “I meant what I said about you needing me,” Dan murmured, watching her closely. “It ’s time we got serious, Rorie. Time we made some important decisions about our future.”

  When she least expected it, he slid closer on the bench beside her. With his so smooth fingers, he cupped her face, his thumbs stroking her flushed cheeks. “I did a lot of thinking while you were away.”