"Was she beautiful?"
"Very."
Addie's jealousy doubled. Beautiful, intelligent, fascinating. "She sounds perfect," she said tonelessly.
"I thought so for a while. It was maddening, never knowing where I stood with her. One minute sugar wouldn't melt in her mouth, and the next she'd fly into a rage for no reason. Sometimes she was just plain crazy, taking chances, dragging me into wild adventures. I was either deliriously happy or miserable around her."
"Why was she so wild?"
Ben's gaze was distant, as if he were concentrating on elusive images. "There was no place for her. She'd been given the opportunity to become exotic… different… and then everyone kept trying to put her in a place she didn't belong. Including me. She was a bird in a cage, flying against the bars over and over again. I wondered why she couldn't act more like other women, why she wanted to talk about things that only men… " He paused and looked at her, his eyes unreadable. "You should understand."
Addie nodded imperceptibly.
"But she didn't have your strength," Ben continued. "She had no hope of finding a way to fit in. I watched her suffocating, and I didn't understand why. I thought the only way to help her was to try to change her. The tighter I held on, the worse it was. I loved her, and she felt the same about me. But everything I wanted from her-marriage, a child, a life together-all of that would have been a prison. She wanted no part of it. "
Ben took a deep breath and let it out slowly, amazed at the sudden lightness in his chest. It was the first time he'd ever talked about that part of his past. He hadn't planned to tell Addie, but now it made sense to unburden himself to her. Who else was capable of understanding? Who else could begin to know the kind of struggle it had been?
"How did it end?"
"She… " Ben cleared his throat and stopped. He couldn't get the words out. Addie said nothing, waiting patiently, although inside she wanted to scream with the need to know. "She found out she was going to have a child," he muttered, his eyes flashing with guilt and remembered pain. "My child. I insisted we would get married. It was only a few weeks until graduation, and I already had plans to go back to Illinois and get a job at my father's bank. She was miserable, I was thrilled. I wanted the baby. I wanted her. And the day after she told me, she nearly killed herself having the child aborted. When I found out what she'd done, I wished she had died along with the baby. I never saw her again."
Addie's heart was filled with compassion. "How did you manage to get through the rest of the semester?"
"Money in the right pockets. My father was determined to have his son graduate from Harvard. No price was too high to pay. I didn't care one way or the other. I was numb."
"I'm so sorry about what she did," Addie murmured. "About the baby."
"Part of it was my fault. I would have used the baby as a chain and manacle to keep her with me-"
"No. She should have talked to you about it. You would have helped her find a way to deal with it. She should have trusted you. You would have listened to her."
"No. I was different then."
"Not that different. Nothing will make me believe you would have ignored a plea for understanding. You wouldn't have made her life a prison."
"How can you be so sure?" he asked gruffly.
"Because I know you. Because my heart tells me so."
He turned his face away. Addie sat in his lap, trying to read his silence. Suddenly he drew his sleeve across his eyes, blotting an unfamiliar dampness, and she wound her arms around his neck, holding him fiercely. She had to convince him she wouldn't become like the other woman he'd loved, her spirit crushed by a disapproving world.
"I'm not like, Ben."
"In some ways you are."
"Well, of course I hate not being able to say what I want or to do what I want, just because I'm a woman. But I'm not a bird in a cage. And I want to belong to you."
"I don't want to trap you-"
"I'm more afraid of being alone. Don't you see I have more freedom with you than without you?"
His hands bracketed her shoulders as he looked at her intently. The combination of innocence and experience in her face had never been so pronounced. He saw the eagerness of a child, the passionate love of a woman, and a depth of understanding that belonged to someone twice her age.
"God, I'll never let you go, Addie."
"I know that."
"And I won't try to change you."
"I wouldn't let you."
"No, you wouldn't," he said, and relaxed slightly. "You're quite a woman, Adeline Warner."
"Too much for you to handle?" she asked, her voice soft and teasing. Suddenly she found herself fiat on her back, smiling as she stared up at him. His eyes warmed with desire.
"Not by a long shot," he said, proceeding to demonstrate in a way that left no doubt in her mind.
The agreements Ben and Russell had made in private about how to handle the crisis were never detailed to the family, but some things were very clear. Most important, the fence was going back up. Second, Russell had decided to restrain himself from riding roughshod over the ranch, the Warner family, and the cowboys, contrary to what they had expected. He stayed in the office and kept his distance from the ruins of his fence, while Ben supervised the Construction of extra line shacks, doubled the number of riders who protected the Sunrise borders at night, and appointed men to hammer new fence posts into the ground.
Barrels of precious water were used to soften the ground in order to dig holes for the posts, an outrage to those whose herds of cattle were parched and thirsty. May, Caroline, Addie, and even Leah were kept busy doctoring the gouges and scratches that the barbed wire left on the arms of the men who were engaged in constructing the new fence. After a few days Addie showed Ben ruefully that her fingers were permanently stained brownish-red from handling countless bottles of iodine.
The reactions of the town and neighboring ranches to the attack on Russell's property were mixed. Some cattlemen who had been entertaining the idea of closing in their own land with cheap, durable barbed-wire fencing were- as outraged as if they had been victimized along with Russell. But some people said it was just what Russell deserved. Many cowboys hated the idea of fencing over the range they were accustomed to riding so freely. Small cowmen who often gleaned mavericks from the cattle drifting across the boundaries of their own properties resented the fence too.
As day after day passed by, Addie began to miss Ben acutely. She hardly ever saw him. He was busy dealing with all the problems that were brought to him, no matter how large or small. His work was unending as he supervised the building of the fence and coordinated the other chores done around the ranch. With the constant traffic in and around the house, there was no opportunity for him to come to Addie's room. A man had been appointed to watch over the house at night, the final guarantee that her trysts with Ben were over for a while.
Addie was consumed by frustration, emotional and physical, and it wouldn't be eased until she had Ben to herself again. She lay sprawled in her bed at night, arms and legs outflung as she thought moodily about the times he had visited her. How was it possible to want someone so much? The moments when she did see him weren't enough-there were always family members or ranch hands around, and no chance for any kind of privacy.
How long was she going to last without him? Her need of him grew stronger every minute, until she could hardly bear it when he was near. How strange it was to hunger and thirst for someone so badly, to resent everything that took him away from her. He had awakened needs in her, strong needs that must be assuaged. She'd had so few nights with him, but for the rest of her life, every night without him would be cold and empty. Looking around the table, she wondered if any of them would have understood how she felt. No, none of them, not even lonely, sensitive Caroline.