Colton's Folly (Native American contemporary romance) (5 page)

Martha nodded. “Cat.”

Abby responded with a nod of her own, then looked around the room again. An old leather sofa sat opposite the fireplace, and two battered armchairs provided additional seating. Her own trunks and packing boxes were stacked neatly against another wall.

Beyond the living room was a small kitchen with a table and two chairs in one corner. Down a short hallway there was a bathroom, complete with a claw-foot tub. The bedroom next door was of a comfortable size and furnished as nondescriptly as the other room, but it, too, contained a fireplace. More luggage and boxes filled every available inch of space.

“There ain’t much here, as you can see. But it’s clean, and you got time to work on it.”

“The house is charming, Martha. I’ll enjoy bringing it to life.”

“Good!” Martha slapped the doorframe for emphasis. “That’s settled. Now let’s go home and eat. I’m starved.”

Cat joined them that evening for a supper they ate picnic-style before the fireplace in Martha’s front room. Later, appetites sated, Abby and Cat lazed before the fire, content to watch the dying flames as Martha cleared away the dishes. Though she was loath to break the peaceful silence, Abby asked softly, “How can I get a horse?”

She heard Cat’s quiet laugh. “What are you going to do with a horse, city girl?”

Too relaxed to take offense, she smiled and stretched lazily, a movement of pure grace that Cat noted with a pleasure greatly at odds with the resentment he bore her.

“Same thing you do, country boy.”

“Where’d you learn to ride?”

Abby heard the skepticism in his voice. “Get me a horse that’s the equal of yours and I’ll match myself against you any day.”

Cat rose up on one elbow and eyed her. “No way, lady. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Abby returned his stare and said quietly, “Try me.”

This time he sat upright, silently considering her challenge. She certainly did seem confident. This could be interesting.

“All right,” he agreed. “Tomorrow I’ll take you out to a ranch over the border. We’ll get you a good mount and give you a few days to get used to each other. Then, one week from tomorrow, you and I are gonna go out on the prairie and see who’s right.”

Abby smiled. “Any stakes?”

He gave her a sly, heavy-lidded look. “We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”

Abby awoke to the sound of persistent tapping. She stumbled out of bed and opened the door, leaning against the frame for support and murmuring a drowsy, “Uh- huh?”

“Just wanted to let you know the bathroom’s free,” Cat said softly. “But you don’t look awake enough to care.”

“I care,” she countered in a voice husky with sleep. She tilted her head to look at Cat and saw a lazy smile that sent a small shiver through her. Suddenly she was wide awake and answering with a smile of her own. “A cold shower will chase away the fog.”

“Good,” he said mischievously, “since there’s no hot water left.” He started down the hall to his room, then paused and turned back to her. “And if you don’t snap to, I might not leave you any breakfast, either.”

As he entered his own room Abby grabbed her towels and the clothes she’d laid out the night before and headed in the opposite direction. While standing under a barely lukewarm shower she wondered about his playful mood, until it occurred to her that he was probably so confident of beating her in the upcoming race that he thought he could afford to be pleasant.

“I wonder how nice he’ll be next week,” she muttered past the water streaming down on her face, “after I’ve taken him down a peg or two.”

Fifteen minutes later she was seated opposite him, watching him polish off a mound of scrambled eggs, a ham steak and a stack of wheat cakes generous enough to feed two men.

Abby and Martha shared a cheese omelet and toast made with the bread left from the previous evening’s meal. Abby was spooning on some preserves when Martha spoke.

“You ever see anything like it? Eats for two men--does that every day. If I didn’t raise my own hogs and chickens we’d starve. And I don’t know where he puts it. Never did.” Cat leaned back with a boyish grin and reached for his coffee cup. “It’s all muscle. You know that.”

Martha laughed. “You been sayin’ that since you were fifteen. By now I expect it must be so.”

Abby reached for her own cup, watching him over the rim and remembering the younger Cat in the painting. At fifteen he would have been long and lean, just beginning to broaden and fill out, with a shy smile and dark serious eyes that drove the girls crazy. She took some eggs and found it difficult to suppress a grin as she added silently, Still does, I’ll bet.

She pushed her plate away and once more sipped the strong black coffee, remembering how it had felt to be young and totally enamored of some equally young, but devastatingly handsome “hunk,” worshiping from afar along with her friends and, like them, perfectly content with the fantasy. Had she known something then that she ought to pay attention to now
--that most fantasies were better left unrealized?

From across the table Cat watched Abby, free to speculate as she sat absorbed in thought. Her dark hair was still damp and clung to her head like a cap, curling about her ears and falling over her forehead in disarray.

Her eyes picked up the deep green of her turtleneck sweater and the plaid shirt that she’d wisely added for extra warmth. Her skin glowed with healthy color; she wore no makeup except for something glossy on her lips that he suspected was more for protection than to satisfy her vanity.

Suddenly she grimaced, arousing his curiosity. Until that moment she’d seemed open and filled with humor. Now he realized that she gave away little of what lay deep inside her, and he wondered about the painful memory that had just passed through her mind.

When she looked up her odd blue-green eyes were unseeing, as if focused within, and they glistened with tears. Cat looked at his mother with an unspoken question, but she merely shook her head. They watched as Abby rose and absentmindedly began gathering the dishes and taking them to the sink. She opened the door to an under-the-sink cabinet, searched for a moment, then came up with a container of dishwashing liquid.

As she silently and almost automatically proceeded to fill the sink with sudsy water and wash the dishes, Martha and Cat cleared the table, adding the remaining dishes to the stack that was already soaking. Abby never spoke, but worked as if in a trance. Finally she seemed to throw off whatever had disturbed her. Her shoulders lifted and relaxed as she gave a deep sigh. She rubbed a sleeve across her eyes and, as if the previous three or four minutes had not taken place, turned and asked, “Do all the houses have indoor plumbing?”

“Most do,” Cat answered, relieved that the moment had passed and that he did not have to examine the unwelcome inner stirring aroused by her obvious unhappiness.

“I’m surprised.”

“My father’s doing. When he was carrying out geological surveys for the government he discovered water deep beneath the surface. The last thing he did before he left his job to come and live here was to get a unit of the Corps of Engineers to sink a series of wells, tapping the aquifer and bringing up water for us. Then he and the men laid in a system of pipes and sewage lines and connected them up for anyone who wanted them. As we rebuild the houses we hook each one into the existing system. By the time the construction is completed, everyone will have running water and outhouses will be obsolete.”

“That’s quite an accomplishment.”

Cat laughed bitterly. “One of the few really positive things we ever got from the white man!”

“Hssst!” Martha glared at her son. “Enough!”

Cat ran his fingers through his hair, looking at Abby and then at his mother. He took down a jacket from its peg and opened the door. “I’ll bring the jeep around. Come out when you’re ready.”

After he’d gone, Abby turned to Martha. “I’m sorry.”

The older woman shrugged and took the dish towel from her hand. “Go on, now. You have a long drive ahead of you.”

Abby slipped into her own wool-lined jacket and kissed Martha on the cheek, saying, “See you tonight.”

Once in the jeep, they were silent for a long time. Cat kept his eyes on the road, and Abby watched what she could see of the passing countryside as light gradually filtered up from the horizon. She picked out landmarks for later reference: a rock formation just ahead; a gully to the east; a range of hills to the west.

She tried to avoid thinking about the painful scene she’d just witnessed. She didn’t know Cat well enough to make
judgments, she decided silently. His attitude was hurting his mother, and she didn’t like that. But it wasn’t her place to interfere, a strong inner voice warned.

“You’re just aching to say something, aren’t you? I can feel it.”

She looked at Cat’s profile. “About what?”

He snorted derisively. “About what happened back there with my mother.”

“It isn’t my place to judge, Cat.”

“Maybe not, but that won’t keep you from thinking... what you’re thinking.”

She chuckled. “That’s true.”

“So spit it out.”

“Okay. You have the right to feel any way you wish about us. Whites, I mean. Without even trying I could come up with a dozen obvious reasons for your hatred and resentment, and I’m sure you have three dozen more that haven’t occurred to me.

“But I’ve heard that your father was a pretty remarkable person. And if you took the trouble to get to know me, you might find that I’m not so bad, either. So I resent your dumping people like us in the same sack with the rotten apples. That’s no more fair than calling all Indians drunkards and thieves because of the behavior of some. And I think that’s what makes your mother angry and gives her so much pain. She knows that your father was a fine man
--something you refuse to acknowledge.”

Cat seemed to be waiting for Abby to continue, but when she remained silent he asked, “Is that it?”

“For now.”

He shook his head. “You surprise me. I expected you to really jump on me.”

Abby shifted in her seat in order to see him more clearly. “Let’s just say I owed you one.”

“For what?”

“For going easy on me at the school board meeting.”

He smiled. “Well, I guess that makes us even.”

“I’d rather think it makes us friends.”

His smile faded. “I don’t have any white friends.”

“I see.” Abby sighed. “Then how about being friendly enemies?”

He thought for a moment, decided that the concession was too minor to constitute a threat and smiled. “Okay. Friendly enemies
--I can live with that.”

The sun was up and the sky bright as they drove through the front gate of the H-M-R, a small cattle ranch just across the border in North Dakota. The jeep ground to a halt in front of a low rambling wood house, which seemed more like a series of separate but interconnected buildings than a single structure.

As Abby stood looking, Cat came and stood beside her. “It started as a one-room cabin back around the turn of the century. They kept adding rooms as the family grew. Now it’s mostly empty, with everyone dead or gone except Hank and his kid, Penny.” He climbed the first step. “C’mon, I want you to meet them.”

He opened the door, stuck his head in and called out, “Anyone home?”

A voice sounded from off to the left.
“Si. Un momento.”

A smile of pleasure lit Cat’s face as he turned to Abby. “You’re about to meet the best cook who ever came north from Mexico.”

She teased, “That appetite of yours makes you the perfect judge.”

Just then a dark-haired, dark-skinned woman with patrician features entered the room. Her face mirrored Cat’s pleasure when she saw him there, and Abby noticed a brief flicker of curiosity in her eyes.

Cat caught the woman in his arms and lifted her off her feet in a warm embrace. “Ah,
mamacita,
I’ve missed you.”

“Then why do you stay away, Cristoforo?”

Cat looked embarrassed as he lowered her gently to the ground. “Oh, Cinta, you know how it is.”

She shook her head sadly. “I know all too well, and you are a foolish boy.” She turned to look at Abby. “But if you tell me that this lovely girl is
su amor,
then I will know there is hope for you at last.”

“I have no sweetheart but you,
mi vida
.”

She touched his cheek. “You only love my cooking. Now introduce me.”

“Jacinta Menendez, light of my life, meet our new schoolteacher, Abby Colton.”

“Bueno.
You have picked a smart one this time.”

“I didn’t pick her. The school board did.”

“Then why are you here, if not to show me you are finally getting some brains yourself?”

“Abby needs a horse. Hank’s got the best.”

Jacinta turned to Abby. “You know anything about horses?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Do not let these boys play any tenderfoot jokes on you.”

Abby smiled. “I’ll try to stay alert.”