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For a brief moment, Will had even considered the possibility that Oat was the object of Paulie’s affection. She saw him often—or had when he’d been her whiskey man. From that angle, he could see a certain logic to her becoming dependent on Oat. And perhaps that’s why she had developed a closeness to Mary Ann, because she wanted to see more of Oat...
But just one look at the old fellow, slumped against a tree, with his mouth hanging open and snoring loudly, made Will dismiss this notion. One woman falling for Oat’s questionable charms was amazing in itself; two would be entirely incomprehensible.
Trouble was, there were so few people Paulie saw on a regular basis, every possibility he winnowed out left the field exponentially smaller. He’d never heard her mention any of the other men who lived around the area. Furthermore, when he’d arrived at her saloon that morning, it seemed she had been expecting someone.
For a brief, crazy instant, he wondered if it could even be himself. But what were the chances that she’d known he would be coming home in time to gussy herself up for him? After all, she said she had been practicing doing her hair. And she hadn’t exactly welcomed him with open arms; not after the first moment, at least. She’d seemed almost angry with him at times. Not at all flirtatious, like all the other women who had even the slightest interest in him had behaved. Besides, he and Paulie were just old friends. Very good, old friends. That was how he was most comfortable thinking of her.
So who was it?
He glanced again at her, cracking wise with Trip by the fire, and the obvious hit him with the force of an avalanche. Trip Peabody!
Of course. It made perfect sense! Trip had been one of her father’s cronies, and since her father’s illness had lived in the room behind the saloon. Paulie was financially independent, but she had probably turned to Trip for advice innumerable times. Trip wasn’t even too bad-looking...
But he was about twenty years older, and practically everybody south of the Red River knew Trip was in love with Tessie Hale.
Wasn’t he?
Will frowned, thinking about that very morning, finding both Paulie and Trip dressed up in stiff, unfamiliar clothes. A stiff dark suit...a wedding dress. Trip had been drunk. That was odd in itself. Then there was the eternal question of why Trip hadn’t ever actually asked Tessie to marry him.
Maybe Trip’s affections were more divided than he let on.
Will felt a twinge of sadness for them all if this was the case. But especially for Paulie. She deserved better than to be stuck in some unhappy love triangle, running around in her mother’s old dresses trying desperately to be something she wasn’t. He wondered whether Trip might even have taken advantage of her youth and innocence...
A flash of anger so sharp welled in him that he sucked in his breath. He pushed himself to standing and walked away from the group.
Paulie was in love with Trip. For some unfathomable reason, he didn’t want it to be true, but the idea made too much sense to ignore. The two of them enjoyed talking, laughing, and playing games—like they’d been doing this afternoon. They were always together, and they shared some of the same rough ways in dress and manner. Will had to concede that there was no better man on earth than Trip Peabody, and yet...
Paulie deserved better.
Damn. Maybe he was just unhappy with all the men women picked to pin their affections on these days. He had no call to care one way or the other who Paulie chose to fall in love with. He’d never even given the possibility a thought before now that she might even be of an age to fall in love. She’d always seemed like a tomboy to him. A figure of fun, good for a laugh or someone to talk to.
But the fact was, he did care who she fell in love with. Couldn’t imagine himself not caring.
“What are you doing out here?”
At the sound of a voice, Will nearly jumped out of his skin. He pivoted, tense, only to come face-to-face with Paulie herself, who stood blinking up at him.
“Did you hear something, Will?”
He swallowed, noticing for the first time how fetching her green eyes really were. He could well understand how Trip might fall for. Paulie. “No, why?”
She lifted her narrow shoulders in a shrug. “I saw you over here, pacing, then I came over, only to find you nervous as a cat. Is something wrong?”
Nothing except that he felt a fierce new protectiveness for the young woman standing in front of him. “Actually, I was thinking about you.”
Her eyes grew as round as saucers. “Me?”
He nodded, trying to look at her closely in the darkness. Would she try to hide the truth about Trip from him? Or, more important, would she let him know if Trip was pressing his attentions on her unwanted? A young woman in her situation might feel indebted to the older man, might even allow herself to be coerced into something she wasn’t ready for. He hated even suspecting such a thing of Trip, but he felt he owed it to Paulie to find out the truth.
“At least you weren’t wasting your time,” she joked approvingly. “What, exactly, were you thinking about me?”
“Well...” He wasn’t sure how to start. “I guess I owe you an apology for what I said this afternoon, for assuming that you’ve never been in love.”
She looked down at her feet and dug her toe into the dirt. “Oh, that.”
“I guess I forget sometimes that you’re all grown up.”
Her head snapped up, and though it was dark he could have sworn that two bright red stains appeared in her cheeks. “Oh, shoot!” she cried, shaking her head. “About what I said this afternoon, Will—about being in love. I didn’t mean it, really.” She stopped, flustered. “Well, no, I did mean it, but, I mean...”
He kept his gaze locked with hers as her words sputtered out like a dying fire. His heart went out to her, trying so hard to cover up now that the cat was out of the bag. “I know you have a secret, Sprout.”
Her cheeks grew redder. “You do?”
He nodded. “You don’t have to keep it from me anymore. In fact, you can tell me all about it, if it would help.”
She hesitated, looking extremely doubtful. “Will, I’m not sure you’re ready to hear what I have to say.”
“Why not?” he asked. “It’s only fair. I told you all my woes with Mary Ann and you helped me, you really did. I’d like to do you the same favor, if you’d care to tell me.”
She shook her head. “I’m not certain where I could even begin...”
He tried to help her out by giving her a starting point. “Are you sure it’s love and not something else?” he asked, trying to keep his tone big-brotherly.
She blinked. “What else could it be?”
He bit his lip. Despite her rough exterior, she was so innocent, so sheltered in her own way. He hated to think of some man taking advantage of that innocence. “This man you said you cared about... Maybe you feel an obligation, because this person is an old friend.”
Her lips parted and she gasped in a breath, indicating his words had hit close to the truth. “I don’t think it’s an obligation, Will.”
That, at least, was a good sign. “Then, you feel as if you would go to him of your own free will, without any thought of what you might owe him, or how long you’ve known him?”
“Of course...I mean, I don’t know.” Paulie looked confused. “What do you mean by ‘go to him?”’
Will wasn’t quite sure how to explain. “Well, have you kissed this man?”
“Oh, sure!” she said, then her brows knit together. “Well, you know, he gives me a peck on the cheek every once in a while. That what you mean?”
“No.”
She blinked. “Well...how many kinds of kisses are there?”
He smiled. “A couple.”
“Oh.” She thought about this for a moment. “Well, what kind in particular are you trying to find out about?”
Will hesitated. She looked so anxious, so sweet. The poor thing had grown up without a mother, and since she was fifteen, had been deprived of a father as well. The least he could do was show her what kind of kisses to watch out for.
Of course, it didn’t escape his notice that Paulie had very kissable lips, now that he put his mind to studying them. Or that she looked willowy and almost fragile beneath her bulky clothes. Why, he could probably encircle her waist just with his two hands.
He stepped forward slowly and tilted her chin upwards with his knuckle. Her eyes were two liquid green pools as they looked up at him. “Do you really want to know?”
She nodded her head eagerly.
He smiled, then bent to press his lips against hers. At first contact, she let out a gasp of surprise, but soon she relaxed and slowly began to experiment, pushing against him with more pressure. Then, when he moved his hands around her waist and pulled her a fraction closer, she threw her arms exuberantly around his neck and attached herself to him like a snail on a cistern.
But she sure didn’t feel like a snail. Paulie might look like a stick figure, but her body felt rounded and warm, womanly. He ran a hand down her back, feeling each gentle swell of her vertebrae beneath the soft flesh underneath her cotton shirt. In response she nestled herself even more tightly against him.
Will groaned at the desire she was so unknowingly stirring up in him. He hadn’t expected that, but there was no mistaking the tingling sensation below his belt she had so guilelessly created.
He pulled away and looked down, smiling stiffly. Her own eyes, once they fluttered open, were wide and luminous as she stared dreamily at him. There was no mistaking that this must have been her first kiss.
“Well,” he said, relieved. “I guess Trip isn’t the wolf I worried he was.”
Paulie’s dreamy gaze turned to a gawk. “What?”
He grinned. Poor thing. She was still too embarrassed to admit the truth. “You don’t have to be timid about it. I know your secret, Sprout.”
“What in tarnation are you talking about, Will?”
“About you...and Trip.”
Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes grew buggy. “Trip!” she said in a voice that would have been a shout if her throat hadn’t been so strangled. She looked anxiously over at the sleeping man to make sure she hadn’t awakened him by yelling his name. “How on earth... What made you guess...?” She didn’t deny it, though.
So it was true.
He shrugged. “I suppose it would be obvious to anyone who has eyes.”
She looked horrified, and he guessed he could understand. She was probably afraid people would say mean things about her falling for such an older man. Like all the talk he’d heard about Mary Ann and Oat. And in Paulie’s case, people probably would say she had snatched Trip away from Tessie Hale.
Her hand flew to her lips, and she continued to stare at him, stunned for a few moments.
“I won’t tell,” he promised her.
“No!” she cried insistently. “You can’t! I mean, please don’t!”
“But I want you to know, if you need to talk, you can come right to me.”
“Oh...thank you,” she murmured. Her cheeks looked so dark, they were probably ablaze. “I’d better...better get back to the fire.”
He sent her a sideways grin. “You sure it’s the fire you want to get back to...and not Trip?”
Her face crunched into a mortified expression, and she twirled on her heel and scampered off toward their makeshift camp.
Will chuckled softly as she retreated. He was sorry she was so embarrassed; still, he was glad they’d had the conversation. He wouldn’t want to think that he had abandoned Paulie in a time of need. The only trouble was, his little kissing demonstration was lingering in his mind—and in his senses—longer than would seem proper for such an innocent little lesson.
He went back to his own bedroll apart from the others and sighed, leaning back and looking up at the stars for a while. He supposed it was just all this business with Mary Ann that was making him feel so restless. And yet, when he closed his eyes, it wasn’t Mary Ann’s face that he saw. It was Paulie’s, her green eyes round and moist. Such pretty eyes—it didn’t seem he’d ever really noticed them before. He remembered holding her body against his. He’d expected her to be all pointy bones and awkwardness, but instead all the awkwardness had been his as he’d found himself holding a woman with soft feminine curves in his arms.
Suddenly, Will shot up to sitting, his heart beating like thunder. He took a deep breath, and shook his head as if to clear it. What a crazy day this had been! And now, he was beginning to think that he was crazy. It was almost as if he...as if he found Paulie desira—
He swallowed, not even completing the outlandish thought.
That couldn’t be so. It just couldn’t.
Could it?
Chapter Four
“Got any more coffee, Paulie?”
Paulie yanked the little pot off the fire and handed it to Trip. “I’d like to know who elected me cook,” she sniped good-naturedly.
Trip laughed. “You’re the only one ’sides Will who’s got provisions.”
She threw up her hands in mock exasperation. “And where is Will?”
Trip looked at her keenly. “That’s the fifth time you asked that this mornin’. I told you, he woke me up early and said he was gonna do a little scoutin’ before we head out.”
Paulie ducked her head. “I only meant that I wondered why he’d been gone so long.” She sighed regretfully. “I should have woken up earlier. Then I could have gone with him.”
But darn it, whose fault was it that she’d slept till practically sunup? All night long, the memory of Will’s lips pressed up against hers kept playing through her mind, making her feel hot and shivery all over again. There was no way to get any shut-eye when a body was so keyed up. She’d tossed and turned on the hard ground half the night, unable to sleep, unable to think about anything besides that kiss. Unable to find relief from the letdown after he let her go and so arrogantly pronounced her to be in love with somebody else!
How could Will possibly think she was in love with Trip Peabody! Not that Trip wasn’t perfectly nice—but have a romance with him? That idea sidled right up to the outrageous. Besides, the whole world south of the Red River knew Trip was in love with Tessie Hale. Will hadn’t been gone to Kansas so long that he should have forgotten that longstanding state of affairs.
And did Will think she went around kissing just anybody? To her, it seemed that all the feelings she’d had stored up for Will all these long years had come rushing out during that kiss, almost as bold a declaration of her love as if she’d just told him so flat out. She could have held on to him forever. But Will hadn’t sensed her feelings for him. He hadn’t sensed anything at all, apparently.
Trip sat back on his heels and took a long drink from his tin cup. “He didn’t look like he wanted company, Paulie.”
She threw a glance to the tree under which Oat sat, snoozing. “Probably Will wanted some time to daydream about Mary Ann,” she said, trying not to let her sore feelings seep into her tone.
“Probably,” Trip agreed. “Love requires a heap of brooding, I’ve found.”
She had firsthand knowledge of that fact, too. “Only when it goes wrong, Trip. I dare say there are some romances out there that go off without a hitch.” Oh, how she wished she and Will could have one of those! Unfortunately, things had already turned so odd between them, she doubted they would ever have a normal relationship.
Or any relationship. Not when he could kiss her without feeling anything more than he would if he were kissing a rock. And not while he was so obsessed by Mary Ann that he had to go tearing out at the strike of dawn by himself.
“Well,” Trip said philosophically, “I guess it’s like my old daddy said. Anything worth havin’ is worth fightin’ for.”
Paulie dropped the pot back on the fire and crossed her arms. “Your daddy said that when he was marching off to war in sixty-one, Trip. Brooding about Tessie Hale all day isn’t exactly the equivalent of a pitched battle.”
“Maybe not, but it sure wears me out sometimes.”
After her sleepless night, she could vouch personally for the exhaustion brought on by unrequited love. She poured herself another cup of coffee and drank down half a cup in one swig.
“Ain’t you goin’ to eat anything, Paulie?”
“I can’t eat,” she said, staring at the biscuit she’d been holding in her hand since she’d made the batch and feeling almost queasy at the thought of actually swallowing it. Lovesickness seemed to have caused her heart to swell overnight, forming a physical barrier between her mouth and her stomach.
Trip shook his head, misinterpreting her digestive woe. “Whether you eat or not won’t make much difference whether we run into Night Bird.”
