He will find her.”
Rayna heard the respect in his tone, nor was it the first time she’d heard it.
“Libby told me you didn’t approve of her relationship with Case when they first fell in love.”
“Most emphatically not.”
“Because he was an Apache?”
Meade nodded. “I feared my sister was walking into a living nightmare, and I wanted to protect her from making a grave mistake. I’m not particularly proud of some of the things I did to keep them apart.”
“But you’re very fond of Case now, aren’t you?” she asked. “I can hear the respect in your voice when you talk about him.”
“He’s made Libby happy,” Meade replied, betraying a little of the surprise he still felt. “It hasn’t always been easy for them, but their love has given them enough strength to withstand the prejudice. And Case is an easy man to respect. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more honorable or more trustworthy.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting him,” Rayna commented.
“You’ll like him. Anyone who can see beyond the color of his skin does.”
They fell silent a moment, both a little stunned by their ability to have a normal conversation. They’d had so few of them.
“I like Libby very much,” Rayna finally said. “In a way, she reminds me of Skylar. They both have a certain air of quiet refinement and a gentleness of spirit that I envy.”
She sounded so sad about it that Meade nearly suggested she try to emu-late them, but he suddenly realized what a tragedy such an undertaking would be—and how futile. “You can’t change what you are, Rayna. Not every woman can be a Libby or a Skylar.”
“I know that,” she said, looking at him with love and very painful regret.
“But if I were more like them, maybe—” Maybe you could love me, she wanted to say, but couldn’t. She had too much pride to beg him to love her.
Abruptly she stood up. “I should turn in now. We have to get an early start in the morning.”
Puzzled by her sudden change in mood, Meade stood up and cut her off before she reached the door. “Maybe what, Rayna?” He searched her face, unable to escape the feeling that he was standing on the edge of a very important moment in his life. “What were you going to say?”
“Nothing.” She tried to go around him, but Meade blocked her way.
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“Then why are you leaving?”
“Because it’s late.”
Meade placed his hands on her arms to keep her from moving away again.
“I don’t believe that. You’re the one who’s trying to duck and run now.”
Rayna looked up at him imploringly. “What do you want from me, Meade?”
“I want to know why you think you should be more like Libby.”
“I don’t,” she said firmly, wanting desperately to escape him before she did something foolish.
“But you said—”
“I was wrong.” She shook off his hands and took a step back. “I can’t change who I am for any man. Not even you.”
Meade was stunned. “I haven’t asked you to change, Rayna.”
“No, but you disapprove of everything I say, everything I do,” she reminded him, feeling the sting of unwanted tears. “One moment you’re kind, and the next you’re cruel. You snap and growl at me, and just when I think you despise me totally, you do something completely incomprehensible, like making love to me. What am I supposed to make of that, Meade? How can I not be confused?”
“Have you considered that perhaps I’m confused, too?” he asked crossly.
“When I’m not possessed with the desire to wring your lovely neck, I want nothing more in the world than to kiss you.”
“But I’m the one who gets punished for your confusion, Meade.” She looked up at him defiantly. “Which would you rather do right now? Kiss me or kill me?”
Meade felt a familiar, painful swell of desire. “Kiss you,” he answered honestly.
“Then why don’t you?”
“Because it wouldn’t lessen the confusion for either of us.”
“So be it,” she said, swallowing her disappointment. “Sleep well, Meade.
If you can.” She darted around him and disappeared into the house, leaving Meade on the porch to grapple with the intense emotions he didn’t want to acknowledge.
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18
Rayna had already left with Jedidiah by the time Meade came down for breakfast the next morning. Lucas was in the barn tending to his chores, and Jenny was tagging along, doing her best to pester him.
“You look terrible,” Libby told her bleary-eyed brother as she served him a plate of griddle cakes.
“I didn’t sleep well,” he grumbled.
Libby nodded wisely. “That seems to be a common ailment. Rayna didn’t rest too well, either.”
Meade glared at his sister. More and more she was wearing a look that suggested she knew something he didn’t know, and it infuriated him. “Rayna has a lot on her mind,” he reminded her.
“So do you.”
“Is it any wonder? The roundup is almost completed, and Case still isn’t back. Jedidiah’s going to have to start moving the herd to the depot in Prescott in a day or two, and I’ll have to decide whether to go with him or stay here with you. That won’t be an easy decision to make. Jedidiah needs all the help he can get, but I don’t want to go off and leave you and the children all alone.”
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Libby tried to hide her smile. “I can understand why that would cause you sleepless nights,” she said solemnly.
Meade sighed heavily. “Damn it, Libby, if you’ve got something to say, just come out with it. I’ve never known you to pussyfoot around like this before.”
“All right, I’ll tell you what’s on my mind,” she said, pulling out a chair so that she could sit beside him. “You’re in love, and you’re too stubborn to admit it.”
Meade frowned and shoved his plate away. “I am not in love.” His chair scraped loudly against the floor as he pushed back from the table and stood up.
“Really? Then what do you call what you feel for Rayna?” she called after him as he stalked to the door.
“I don’t know, but it’s not love,” he said emphatically, shoving his hat onto his head.
Libby waited until he had flung the back door open to tell him, “That’s too bad, because she’s in love with you.”
Meade stopped in his tracks and turned. “She’s not.”
Libby nodded. “Oh, yes, she is. It took me a while to be certain, but I am now. I can see the hurt in her face every time you growl at her. She’s vulnerable, Meade, and she needs your love and support to get through this ordeal, but all you’re giving her is your own stubborn defensiveness.”
Meade returned to the table and planted his hands on the rail of the lad-derback chair opposite Libby’s. “Rayna Templeton doesn’t need anyone, and neither do I.” He turned away in frustration, then swung toward her again.
“My God, do you really think I want to be saddled with a hellion like that for the rest of my life?”
Libby smiled. “Yes.”
Meade’s scowl deepened. “You’re wrong. And besides, it might surprise you to know that she already refused my offer of marriage. What does that do to your theory that she’s in love with me?”
Libby hadn’t imagined in her wildest dreams that Meade had already proposed. “I don’t know,” she said with surprise. “Is that why you’re so obnoxious to her? Are you trying to punish her for refusing you?”
“Of course not.”
She shook her head in bewilderment. “Well, I certainly can’t imagine why she wouldn’t agree to marry you. It’s so obvious that she wants your love, I just assumed you’d been too stubborn to confess it to her.”