His hand stilled. “Your father told me that you changed your mind that day.”
“I didn’t change my mind.” She could clearly remember sitting at her bedroom window, ready for him to come calling, wearing the new dress she’d worked so hard to afford and had sewn during the late hours when her daily work was finally done. Fidgeting with anticipation, nervous, checking the mirror at least a dozen times to make sure her hair was all right because of the wind through the window.
Her first beau. Her young heart had sung with happiness. Other girls in school had boyfriends to take them driving on Sunday afternoons. She’d listened to their tales with such yearning. Now it was happening to her! Trembling, she leaned far out the open window, straining to see as far as she could around the bend in the road.
Was he late? Had he forgotten? He’d asked her in school that Friday; a whole day had passed and he could have forgotten…. No, wait. That was a small dust cloud rising on the rolling prairie, then suddenly a horse-drawn surrey appeared around the corner, the matched pintos trotting handsomely.
He’d come! The most handsome boy in school had come for her. She’d flown from the window, checked the mirror one last time to tuck an unruly gold curl beneath her poke bonnet and torn down the stairs.
Just in time to watch her father send Nick away. Dust flew in his wake, a big brown cloud obscuring him. When it faded, the dust settling back to the ground, he was gone.
He hadn’t wanted her then. Nor had any man wanted to court her since. She refused to be sad about it. She was a grown woman, she didn’t need anyone. Really.
“I have regrets,” she admitted quietly. Wishing with all her heart that she could go back in time and change the parts of her that had brought her so much unhappiness. Wishing she could have been different. More loving. More…something. She didn’t even know what it was. She just wanted to be loved. Was that too much to ask?
“I regret how I treated you. I was young. I made mistakes. I still wind up making a few now and then.”
“Just a few?”
His chuckle rolled through her, starting in him and lashing through her like a wave against the shore, moving her when she didn’t want to be moved.
This hurt too much, being in his arms. To think of the past. The one that had brought her here, alone, dancing not because she was wanted but because Nick Gray felt obligated to. It hurt that she wasn’t like those other women, so soft and pretty and young. The best part of her life felt over, and she hadn’t lived it.
Despair made her feet heavy, as heavy as her broken dreams. There would be no family for her, no children running to clutch her skirts calling “Ma, look!” Because there was nothing about her that anyone—especially a man as fine as Nick Gray—could love.
She broke away from his embrace. She had her pride left, and she refused to lose that, too. It took all her courage to meet his gaze, so he wouldn’t know how she felt. “Thank you for the dance. Consider your debt paid in full. I’ve got to go—”
“No.” Nick’s hand caught her wrist, stopping her. So tall he stood, his face set. “The dance isn’t over.”
“It is for me.”
“You’re not in charge here, Mariah.”
“There you go, thinking because you’re a man that you’re in charge and I—”
“But you gave your word.” He took her other hand and settled it on his wide shoulder, his touch firm. “I don’t think you want half the town to witness that the formidable Spinster Scott breaks promises right and left.”
“Oh, I’m sure everyone will understand my reluctance to dance with a man like you.”
“Hmm? That so?” His hand settled into place at her waist. “I’m disreputable?”
“Of the worst kind. You overheard the widows talking about you.”
“Seems to me that your reputation could stand some tarnishing, so come here.”
She gasped, startled when he hauled her tight against him, into the snug shelter of his arms, where she could press her forehead to the hollow of his throat. She couldn’t stop herself. Not one thing in her life had ever felt this good. This safe. This…right.
His hand curled around her nape, cradling her to him. A steady rhythm began to beat quietly in her blood, then picked up speed. I’m in big trouble. Any more of this and he will know how I really feel about him. Everyone in this room would know. Because they would see it on her face. See the love she hid deep in her heart for this strong man she’d never stopped wanting. Even if he’d broken her heart by marrying another.
The fiddle sang the last tender note of the waltz and the dancers fell away from one another, applause rising in the night. The stars twinkled, laughter and chatter rose, and Nick Gray’s hand at her waist remained, a steady pressure that did not fade.
His heart raced beneath her hand, beating faster and faster. She gazed up into his eyes, so dark, so full of stormy emotions she couldn’t begin to name, but still she felt the loneliness inside him that went all the way to his soul. Amazing, that she could feel that in him. Maybe because loneliness beat so strong within her. She didn’t know, but it hurt like a broken bone, healed and mended and throbbing in the winter.
Why did she have to feel this for him? Hands trembling, she broke away from him as the next song started, a lively schottische that had partners scurrying. Dancers were bumping against her skirts, because she was standing stock-still in the center of the dance area.
She wasn’t doing anything but stepping out of the arms of the man she’d always yearned for. Away from the man who could still turn her inside out with only a look.
More than anything she wanted Nick’s love. His real love. The kind her friends whispered about in those chaotic moments before the club meeting was called to order, with secret smiles of understanding about what went on between a wife and her man.
But the crowd of young women, all of marriageable ages and as pretty as could be, were waiting patiently for Nick to finish his obligatory dance with the town spinster. She couldn’t compete, she knew it. So she tucked away her hopes right along with her disappointment and walked away.
“Hey, wait. Mariah—” His voice rang low, easily drowned out by the music and stomping feet of the dancers, so it was easy to pretend she couldn’t hear him.
She walked past the pretty young women with hope sparkling in their eyes, pushed past the refreshment table where the widows stared at her in tight-lipped disapproval and out into the quiet of the schoolyard, dark and silent and empty.
Only then did she let the tears burn her eyes. Despair settled around her. She was alone. She had to face it. Just like her father had told her. No man was going to come courting her. Not now. Not ever.
She hated that the mean old cuss was still right, after all these years. Instead of heading back to the dance, to see which of the young women Nick had chosen to dance with, she headed toward the schoolhouse. Surely there was still some work there needing to be done.
Glad to be alone, Nick shook out the match, dropped it into the dirt at the side of the road and covered it with his boot.
The sweet, rich cigar smoke calmed him, and he dragged deep. He couldn’t get Mariah out of his mind. The independent-minded, aggravating spinster who looked as prickly as a roll of barbed wire had melted against him like warm butter, fitting against him the way a woman was meant to. All curves and softness and heat.
This is a marriage of convenience, you want. Remember that, man. How Mariah felt in his arms didn’t matter. That wasn’t the issue.
His children were.
He dragged deep, blew out a long ribbon of smoke. The air was thick with the fresh, earthy scent of new grass growing and heavy with the sound of night insects and the birds that