Seven Brides - Fern Part 15

"I used to feel that way about Monty," Rose said, "but he grew on me. I expect it's the same with Madison."

"The only way that man will grow on me is if you tie me down and set him on top of me," Fern said. "I wouldn't be surprised if they move Boston while he's away. If this is the way he acts all the time, they can't want him to find it again."

"You going to let that man take you home?" Mrs. Abbott asked, reentering the bedroom as soon as she had made certain that Madison was safely outside her house.

"I don't seem to have much choice," Fern said. "It would take an army to stop him."

She glanced at her saddlebags and decided to leave them on the floor. If Madison insisted upon driving her home, he could carry them.

And he would. He was such a strange combination of brusque bully and protective male.

Much to Fern's surprise, she was glad he was taking her home. She was a fool, an idiot, but she didn't care. Being with Madison made her feel completely unlike herself. None of her usual worries mattered. His opinionated, high-handed ways made her furious, but for the first time in her life somebody was showing an interest in her.

She was certain she'd live to regret going with him, but she was equally certain she'd regret it if she didn't. It was like being drunk. She knew she'd awake with a terrible headache, but she wanted to enjoy every moment of the intoxication.

"Well, if I was you, I wouldn't let him take me home," Mrs. Abbott said. "You'll be miles away if he starts to get ideas."

"He won't bother me, at least not that way," Fern said, carefully adjusting her hat over her hair. She wanted to comb her hair again, but just putting on her hat caused pain.

"You can never be sure."

"Yes, I can," Fern said. She picked up her vest and slipped into it, being careful to move her upper body as little as possible. "I don't look enough like a woman to tempt him. I'm sure he's used to the most beautiful women wearing the most beautiful gowns and living in the most beautiful houses. What could there be about me to tempt him?"

"Why don't you ask him?" Rose suggested.

"We're halfway to your house, and you haven't said more than a dozen sentences," Madison said.

"I've said enough already," Fern replied. "More than I meant to."

"You mean you've changed your mind about me?"

"Not about why you came," Fern told him. "I mean to see Troy's killer hang."

"I notice you said Troy's killer, not Hen."

"I decided it would be better if I didn't name names. There'll be plenty of time for that later." She couldn't tell him she no longer felt a burning need to do everything she could to thwart him. Neither could she tell him she looked upon him as a temporary diversion, or that she intended to enjoy the game as long as it lasted.

"I didn't set Reed and Pike on you the other night," she said, getting to the subject she had been avoiding.

"I realize that now," Madison said. He was quiet a few moments. "I guess I said some pretty rough things."

"No worse than I said."

"According to George, I should have been incarcerated for that alone."

"George is a gentleman. I doubt he would understand a person of your temperament."

Madison practically shouted with laughter. I have to keep reminding myself you don't know my family very well."

His unexpected reaction surprised her. "You can't deny that George is a gentleman," Fern said.

"And I'm not," Madison answered, still laughing. "Something even my fancy education and expensive clothes can't disguise."

"I didn't say that."

"But you meant it."

"I didn't say it."

"Point taken. Since you're likely to be seeing more of the Randolph men over the coming weeks, at least three of them, let me offer you a piece of advice. We may all look different on the outside, we may act different, but inside we're very much like. No one alive, not even Hen, would be more ruthless than George if anything threatened his family. No one, including George, can be more truly understanding than Hen. But all of us are the sons of our father, and there was more evil in that man than in the entire state of Kansas."

Fern stared at him.

"When you look at George and Hen and me, you're looking at three faces of the same man."

"But you're nothing alike."

"It just seems that way. You'll never really understand us if you try to separate us."

That frightened Fern. If what he said was true, she didn't know anything about him at all. It made her uneasy, as if there might be someone different sitting beside her the very next minute.

She remembered the gentleness of his kiss. He might have kissed her against her will, but it hadn't felt like it.

She'd like it if he acted like George, but it made her uneasy to think he could be like Hen. She'd only met Hen once, but she found him totally lacking in emotion, a killer who felt nothing, who regretted nothing, who probably didn't give his victims a second thought.

It gave her cold shivers to think that Madison could be the same way.

"Tell me what you do back East," she said.

"You wouldn't be interested."

"Maybe not, but I won't know until you tell me." At least he hadn't said she wouldn't understand.

"I'm a lawyer. I help businesses find ways to use the law to make money."

"But that's nothing at all like trying to find out who killed Troy."

"It's close enough. Besides, I'm the only lawyer in the family."

"Doesn't your brother have the money to hire a lawyer?"

"So far George has done me the courtesy to think I don't need any help." "Tell me more about your work," Fern said, reminding herself that she wanted to steer away from anything to do with his family or Troy's death.

But while Madison explained what he did, Fern found herself wondering about the kind of women he met, the kind of women he liked, and how he behaved when he was with them. Troy had been to Chicago and New Orleans. He had told her about the fabulous mansions, the wild parties, the women that rich men sought out when they wanted to have a little fun.

She couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to live in that world, even for a short time. She couldn't imagine being able to sleep as long as she liked, having a maid bring her a breakfast of exotic foods she could only imagine, another maid to dress her in gowns worth more than her father's whole farm, having dozens of handsome men begging to talk to her, walk with her, dance with her, sit next to her, or being ready to lay down their lives for a flower from her hair, a handkerchief, or a stolen kiss.

It seemed a fairy-tale world, one much too enchanted to exist, even for the beautiful, rich, and overindulged women who occupied Madison's universe. Even the richest and most spoiled beauties must have to do some work.

But she had the uneasy suspicion that they didn't, that the world Madison had inhabited before he came to Abilene was so far removed from her experience, she would be totally lost if she suddenly found herself transported there.

Which would serve you right if you were to do anything so stupid as go to Boston.

Fern pulled herself out of her daydream. She would never go to Boston or any place like that. She had been born in Kansas, and she expected to spend the rest of her life here.

''That's pretty much it," Madison concluded. "Not very much to get excited about."

Especially when you haven't heard a t.i.the of what he's said. You'll look like a fool if he asks you anything about it.

They turned from the dim track across the prairie to the more deeply worn ruts leading to the house. "Looks like your father's home," Madison said.

Chapter Eleven.

Her father's mongrel dog, Wink, jumped up from his spot under the house and raced to meet them, barking the whole time.

"I wonder what Papa found to eat," Fern said. "He hates cooking." Wink didn't stop barking when he recognized Fern.

"Maybe he went into town."

"He hates that even more."

"He ought to have hired someone to help you the day he fired Troy. With all you do, you don't have time to cook too."

Fern felt a shiver of pleasure skitter through her limbs. No man had ever concerned himself with the amount of work she did. She didn't understand why Madison should be the first. She wouldn't have thought he'd have even been aware that women worked. Maybe there was more of George in him than she had guessed. Madison brought the buggy to a halt in front of the house. The dog still put up a deafening roar.

"Shut up, Wink," Fern ordered. "It's just me."

The dog subsided.

"You stay here while I make sure it's your father," Madison said, getting down from thr buggy. The dog seemed disposed to take up his barking again, but a sharp command from Fern caused him to whimper and wag his tail in welcome.

Baker Sproull came through the doorway just as Madison alighted from the buggy. He ignored Madison.

"It's about time you got home," he said to his daughter. "Things have been going to h.e.l.l in a hurry since you been gone. Whatever possessed you to lay up so long?"

Madison's anger flared like lightning. "She was badly hurt in a fall," he informed Sproull, his voice and look as cold as a winter gale. "I only brought her back after she promised to take the greatest care of herself for at least a week."

"Fern never needed to stay in bed a day in her life," her father said, his scorn for such an idea evident in the way he looked at Madison, "much less a whole week. Besides, she's got too much work to do. There's nothing in the house fit to eat."

"I'll have something ready in less than an hour, Papa," Fern said, climbing down from the buggy. She gritted her teeth to keep from grimacing in pain.

"You don't have time to worry with the cooking now," her father said. "There's h.e.l.l to pay with that herd. Your steers have been all over. I even had to chase a couple out of my fields. If they get into old man Claxton's corn, he's liable to start shooting. Then you'll have to answer to him and me." "Rose will have a fit if she finds you've been on a horse," Madison told her.

"Set my things inside the house," Fern said, not meeting his gaze. "I'll see to them when I get back."

"And you'd better get started castrating those bulls," her father added. "You wait much longer, and they'll be jumping fences to get at cows."

"I'll take care of it," Fern said. Quickly untying her horse, she intended to swing into the saddle and be gone before Madison could stop her.

She expected it to hurt when she took hold of the saddle horn. She was ready for the arrows of pain when she raised her foot to the stirrup, but she wasn't prepared for the wall of agony that knocked her almost senseless when she tried to swing into the saddle. She felt herself grow dizzy. The world spun around, and she lost her hold on the saddle.

She was falling.

Fern couldn't believe it. She was so weak and helpless she couldn't mount a horse.

"I said you weren't fit to ride," Madison said as he caught her in his arms. "I want you to go straight to bed and not get up again until tomorrow. I'll check on you first thing in the morning."

"She'll, do nothing of the sort," Sproull said. "Who's going to do her work?"

Even through the layers of pain that wrapped themselves around her like ever-tightening coils of a giant constrictor, Fern could feel Madison tense. He seemed to pause, as though some decision hung in the balance.

"I don't care who does it," Madison said, moving again with his usual decisiveness. He carried Fern to the buggy and eased her into the seat she had left just minutes earlier. "I don't care if the steers trample your fields or devour every stalk of Claxton's corn." He tied her horse's reins to the buggy, then turned toward her father. "And I hope those bulls terrorize every cow within a hundred miles of Abilene. It's your herd, Sproull. It's your problem."

Madison retrieved Fern's bags from the stoop and placed them in the buggy.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" Sproull demanded.

"I'm taking Fern back to Rose where she'll get proper care."

"She's my daughter," Sproull shouted, "and I say she stays here and does her work."

"Say anything you please," Madison said, his calm unruffled, "but I'm taking her back."

"She stays," Sproull roared, approaching Madison menacingly.

Fern's heart caught in her throat. Madison was a big man, but he was very slim. Her father was a bear of a man, and years of hard work had made him strong as an ox. She couldn't remember him actually getting in a fight. Even Troy had backed down rather than fight him.

When Madison started to climb into the buggy, Sproull charged without warning.

Fern closed her eyes, unwilling to see Madison knocked to the ground, but when she heard a thump and opened her eyes, it was her father who lay on the ground. Before Baker could get up, Madison jumped into the buggy, cracked the whip over the horse's head, and drove out of the yard at a trot. They departed to a chorus of barks from Wink and curses from her father.

"Don't think I'm running away because I'm a coward," Madison said as he turned onto the truck leading to town. "I just don't feel right hitting your father."

Fern was too stunned to reply. In less than fifteen minutes, Madison had turned her world upside down. The herd would continue to be a problem, but she didn't care. Her father would come to town sooner or later, but she didn't care about that either. Until a few days ago, Troy, the cattle, and her father had been the only things on her mind. This afternoon she had trouble remembering them at all. All she could think about was Madison.

And those d.a.m.ned bulls.

She started to laugh. And once she started, she couldn't stop, even though it caused her ribs to hurt something awful.

"What's so funny?" Madison asked.

"What you said about the bulls," she said between giggles. "I can just picture them chasing terrified cows all over the county with Papa following behind brandishing a knife, the bulls looking over their shoulders calculating how many cows they can mount before he catches them." She broke down in an outburst of laughter. "I'm certain it's something no lady would think about, or admit if she did."