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“He was a saint.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic. I was there when you were growing up. I know the mistakes the man made. How frustrated he got when you weren’t the son he wanted, but, in the end, he did right.”
By banishing her from everything she loved? By taking away her heart and soul and condemning her to four horrible years of monotonous lessons in frivolous deportment? He might as well have sent her to jail.
“And that makes up for everything?” she asked.
“It makes up for one hell of a lot.”
Not in her book. Never in her book. She jerked on her arm. “Let me go.”
He did reluctantly. “As soon as you calm down, Elizabeth,” Aaron assured her, “you’re going to see the sense in what I’m saying, so listen up.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.”
She sighed. Whether she agreed with him or not, Aaron truly believed he was protecting her. “Then go ahead, just know I’m not changing my mind.”
“Being the person he is, I’m sure MacIntyre will take a cash offering not to contest the divorce. It’ll take a few months to push through, but Jed can come over here and keep things running until you’re free to marry.”
His plan had more holes than a moth-eaten sweater. “Let me get this straight,” she said, untwisting her shirt sleeve as she clarified. “All I’ve got to do to make life perfect is to come up with enough cash from a bankrupt ranch to bribe a judge and a gunslinger, keep the bank from foreclosing while I sort out my personal life, and learn not to anger my next husband?”
“Not perfect,” he countered, “but workable. As I mentioned before, if you hadn’t been so impulsive and consulted me before taking it into your head to marry, things wouldn’t be so complicated now.”
“The only reason things seem complicated is because you refuse to acknowledge my plan is a perfectly good one.”
“Dammit, Elly! I would have married you myself if Patricia hadn’t trapped me into marriage already.”
She couldn’t resist the taunt. “Must be a failure in your superior planning abilities that made it possible for her to trap you.”
“She wanted it!”
“Apparently, so did you. Enough to risk getting her in the family way.”
“I did the right thing!”
“You met your responsibilities beautifully, but my point is that your plan was to have a little fun. You worked for months to get it. You got your fun, but, in all your planning, you never once glimpsed the lifelong commitment attached to the back end.”
“What exactly are you getting at?” His blue eyes narrowed as he stared at her, daring her to say what she felt.
Without a qualm, she did just that. “I feel, in light of past circumstances, that your plans lack long-term considerations.”
“I was young and a man!”
“As that was only two years ago, you’re still young and it goes without saying that you’re still a man.”
His hands raked through his hair, springing free the curls he hated, proving she’d made her point even as he denied it. “I fail to see that my marriage to Patricia has anything to do with you.”
“Exactly. As your marriage to Patricia is none of my concern, my marriage to Asa is none of yours.”
“But you don’t have to stay married to him.”
“No, I don’t, and I thank you for pointing that out, but I want to stay married to Asa MacIntyre. From all accounting, he’s an honorable man. He doesn’t lean to excessive drink and he has more than enough knowledge and experience to get the Rocking C back on its feet, so, while I appreciate your concern, I have no need of it.”
He looked ready to argue. If there was one good thing about being a lady, it was the ability to end unseemly conversations. She patted Aaron’s hand, and took over the conversation. “Quite honestly, I’m content with my choice of husbands.” She squashed his argument with a friendly smile. “Now, would you like some blackberry cobbler before you head back to your place?”
Aaron stood. He slapped his hand against his blue denims. “You’re going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?”
“I made a sound decision. There’s nothing stubborn about it.”
He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I care about you, runt. Don’t let your pride get in the way if you need help.”
“I won’t.”
“In that case, I’ll have some of that cobbler.”
As she led the way to the kitchen, Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief that her father’s plans for her to marry Aaron had never come to fruition. They were good friends, but they would never have suited as husband and wife.
Chapter Seven
If he were a man who took killing lightly, this might be the moment for it, Asa decided as he watched Elizabeth through the kitchen window. As sure as God made little green apples, there was a man sitting at his kitchen table, chatting with his wife, eating the last of his blackberry cobbler. As the man was neither old nor wearing a collar, he figured he’d get off lightly if the law ever caught up to him.
