Part 26 (1/2)

”I don't even dream.”

”Sometimes, if my father caught me reading when I was supposed to be riding or cleaning leathers, he would lock me in the stable feed room. There weren't any windows. The mice made tiny squeaking noises as they looked for kernels of dropped grain to eat. If I was locked up for very long, they would run across my legs.”

”What's the object of this story?”

”To a.s.sure you we all have nightmares. It helps to share them. I still hate small rooms, but I haven't had that nightmare in years.”

He thought of the many hours he had spent talking to Freddy. Fern had never had anyone to talk to.

”Is it so bad you can't tell me?”

She didn't answer.

”Maybe you don't trust me not to repeat it.”

He really couldn't expect her to trust him with a secret she had refused to share with her own father. But in the last few weeks he'd developed a very strong interest in her well-being, and it hurt that she might not trust him.

”That's not it,” Fern hastened to a.s.sure him. Her expression showed that she realized she had virtually admitted there was something to hide.

”Does it have something to do with the reason you wear men's clothes?”

”Why are you so persistent? You know I don't want to tell you. It should be obvious, even to someone from Boston.”

For a change he wanted to help someone else. Ever since he had come to Abilene, since he had met Fern, he hadn't been running from anything. He wasn't asking for help. He wanted to give it.

”You've been alone too long. You've buried everything inside you, denied it existed, until it has become a part of the way you think, the way you act, the way you face the world.” ”There's nothing wrong with that.”

”There is when it keeps you from doing what you want to do and being what you want to be.”

Just as his own fears had made him hide from his family for eight years. He had lost too much by that. Fern had lost, too. Now it was time for both of them to stop.

”How do you know I'm not doing what I want?”

”Because I see the difference between you and Rose. Rose is doing what she wants, being what she wants. I've never seen a more contented, happy, outgoing, honest, giving, sharing person in my life.”

”So now I'm selfish and mean.”

”No, but you hide from people. You're not shy about attacking me when you think I'm wrong, but let me ask you about yourself and you run for cover.”

”I'm none of your business.”

”You weren't when I stepped off that train, but you are now.”

Their lives would be entwined forever. He could no more forget her than he could forget his family.

”I don't want to be.”

”Then why have you stayed?”

Silence.

”Fern, I'm not prying out of idle curiosity. I know something has hurt you, and I'd like to help.”

”It's over and done with,” Fern said. ”Nothing can be changed.”

”But your feelings about it can be.”

He could see her stiffen, as if she were closing her ears, blocking out his voice. He could almost see the walls going up between them, high and topped with broken gla.s.s. Then, without warning, her resistance collapsed.

”Eight years ago a man tried to rape me,” she shouted, emptying her bottled-up anger and pain over him. ”Can you change that?” With a sob, she kicked her horse into a gallop.

Madison spurred his horse to catch up with Fern.

He had been prepared for many things but not this. What could he possibly say or do that would make any difference?

He couldn't begin to imagine the horrible memories she must have lived with all these years, the feeling of being defiled, the fear that another man might do the same. He thought of the years she had spent hiding behind her clothes, laboring to become something she wasn't, slowly squeezing the life out of the girl she should have become.

The thought kindled in him a murderous rage at her unknown a.s.sailant. If he could have met the man at that moment, he wouldn't have hesitated. He would have killed him.

The sight of Fern's tear-stained face as he drew alongside only made him angrier. Madison pulled both their horses to a halt. He vaulted from the saddle, and Fern slid into his waiting arms.

And they stood there in the middle of the empty Kansas prairie, under a clear summer sky, while Fern cried out the hurt and grief and anger that had been buried inside her for eight long years. She clung to him with all the tenacity of a woman who has finally shared her most closely held secrets with the man she loves.

Madison almost smiled at himself. He had always prided himself on his rigidly correct conduct, yet here he stood wrapped in the arms of a weeping female with no chaperon but their two horses. He had no idea what his friends would say, but he didn't care. He intended to stay here as long as Fern needed him.

You want to stay because you're in love with her. The realization so stunned Madison that for a moment he felt that Fern was holding him up rather than the other way around. He must be mistaken. He couldn't be in love with Fern. Not that he didn't like her a great deal. He did. He had come to have a great deal of admiration for her courage and her integrity, but that had nothing to do with love. He didn't even like her kind of woman.

Wouldn't Freddy laugh. Madison had spent years avoiding the clutches of some of Boston's and New York's most practiced and enticing femmes fatales only to be snared by a farmer's daughter in pants.

Fern's sobs had stopped. Giving a determined sniff, she slipped her arms from around Madison and pulled out of his embrace.

”I didn't mean to start blubbering,” she said. ”That's what you get for trying to make me act like a woman.”

”I'll risk it,” Madison said, still feeling shaky but rallying. ”I like it better than your trying to run me out of town.”

”I'm sorry for that. Troy saved me that night. I owed it to him to see his killer hang. We'd better get going,” she said, and remounted her horse. She pulled out a handkerchief and atternoted to remove all traces of her tears. ”Reed and Pike will be waiting. I don't want them starting another fight.”

Her moment of weakness past, she slipped back into her sh.e.l.l. She didn't even wait for him to climb back into the saddle before she clucked to her horse and rode away. But Madison wasn't willing to let her close the door on him now, or ever again. He meant to share her burdens. Now and always.

Fern couldn't go it alone. The damage had gone so deep, had been so profound, it had changed her whole life. This, combined with her father's coldness, had distorted her view of everything. She thought no one loved her, that men could only l.u.s.t after her. He must help her learn to believe in herself, to believe that a man could love her for herself, not for the work she could do or the pleasure she could give to his body.

At the same time, it was crucial that he control his own growing desire for her. If she even guessed how much he wanted to make love to her, she might never let him come near her again. He would certainly lose her confidence.

And at the moment, that was the most important thing in the world to him.

”Tell me about it,” he asked as he came alongside.

”Why?” she demanded, whipping around to face him. ”So you can relish the gory details?”

”Do you believe that?”