“Tanya, you're amazing,” Hartley said to her as they pulled away. He was filled with admiration. She was gracious to everyone, while still maintaining her dignity, and trying to give them what they wanted, and yet keep a reasonable distance. But through it all, one sensed constantly how precarious the balance of the crowd was. “I would be terrified of even a little crowd like that,” he said sensibly. “I'm an inveterate coward.” But she was used to doing concerts in front of as many as seventy-five thousand. Yet even in a crowd like the one tonight, someone could easily have lost control and killed her. And she knew it. “You also have a voice straight from God,” he said. “Everyone around us was crying.”
“Me too,” Mary Stuart said, smiling,
“I always cry when you sing,” Zoe said matter-of-factly, and Tanya smiled, touched by all of them. It had been a remarkable evening, and Hartley sat with them for a while when they went back, and then he and Mary Stuart took a walk, and he brought her back around eleven-thirty. They had stood in the moonlight for ages kissing, and Tanya and Zoe thought they were cute and incredibly romantic.
“What do you think will happen?” Tanya asked Zoe as they sat in the living room, talking.
“It would be nice for her if things worked out with him, but it's hard to tell. I have the feeling in a place like this it's a little bit like a shipboard romance. And I'm not sure she's worked it all out in her head with Bill yet.” It was astute of Zoe to notice.
“He's been such a bastard to her all year, I hope she leaves him,” Tanya said, sounding harder than usual, but she was angry at Bill, and she felt sorry for Mary Stuart.
“But he's been in pain too.” Zoe was more familiar with the strain a death in the family put on otherwise decent people. It turned some of them into saints, others into monsters. And Bill Walker had definitely been the latter.
Zoe was going to say something about Tanya's wrangler too, but Mary Stuart came in then, beaming.
“Are we allowed to check for beard burn?” Tanya asked, reminiscent of school, and they all collapsed in laughter.
“God, I'd forgotten what that is,” Mary Stuart laughed, and then turned to Tanya. “You were unbelievable tonight, Tan. Better than ever. I've never heard you like that.”
“It was fun. That's the good part. I always love the singing.”
“Well, you give a lot of people a great deal of pleasure,” Mary Stuart said kindly.
They chatted for a little while, and Mary Stuart and Zoe went to bed, and Tanya decided to stay in the living room reading. She was still exhilarated from the rodeo, and her brief performance, and just after midnight, she heard a soft tapping on the window. She thought it was an animal outside at first, and then she looked up and saw a flash of green shirt, and then a face smiling at her like a mischievous boy. It was Gordon. And she grinned when she saw him. She wondered if in some instinctive part of her she had been waiting for him. The thought crossed her mind as she slipped quietly out to see him. It was chilly outside, and she was still wearing her velvety suedes, and she was barefoot.
“Shhh!” He put a finger to his lips, but she hadn't been about to call his name. She had already guessed that he could get in a lot of trouble for being there at that hour, with her. His cottage was down behind the stables.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered, and he beamed at her. He was as excited as she was.
“I don't know. I think I'm crazy. Maybe almost as crazy as you are.” It was as though he had known her forever. And he would never forget what she had done for him that night, or the voice with which she sang it.
“You were great,” she said, smiling at him. “Congratulations. You won.”
“Thank you,” he said proudly. It mattered to him. A lot. And just as she had, he said he had done it for her. It was his gift to Tanny, as he called her. It made her seem less like Tanya Thomas.
“I know you did.” He was standing next to a tree as she talked to him, and he suddenly leaned against it and pulled her toward him.
“I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm crazy. I could get fired for this.”
“I don't want you to get hurt,” she said honestly, standing close to him, hoping no one would see them.
“I don't want you to get hurt either.” And then he frowned, looking at her. He had never been as afraid as he was that night, not for himself, but for her, when the crowd engulfed her when she left him. “I was terrified… I was so afraid someone might hurt you.”
“They might one day,” she said sorrowfully, it came with the territory for her, and she accepted it. Almost. “It could happen.” She tried to sound casual about it, but she wasn't.
“I don't want anything bad to happen to you. Ever.” And then he surprised himself with what he said, “I wish I could be there to protect you.”
“You can't all the time. Someone could get me coming out of my house any morning, or onstage at a concert. Or at a supermarket.” She smiled philosophically, but he looked unhappy.
“You should have guards around you all the time.” He would have kept her locked in the house, anything to protect her,
“I don't want to live like that, only when I have to,” she whispered. “I'm pretty good in a crowd, as long as they don't go crazy.”
“The police said there were more than a hundred people running after you when you left tonight… that scared me…”
“I'm fine,” she smiled at him. “You're in a lot of danger on those crazy broncos. Maybe you ought to think about that instead of my fans,” she said, as he pulled her still closer and she didn't resist him. She didn't want to resist him, she wanted to melt into him, to be part of him, and as he looked at her he could think of nothing but her face, her eyes, the woman he had discovered behind the legend.
“Oh God, Tanny,” he whispered into her hair. “I don't know what I'm doing…” He had been so afraid of her, of being blown away by her, or impressed, but he had never expected this, this avalanche of feelings. And as she put her arms around him, he kissed her as he had kissed no other woman. He was forty-two years old, and in his whole life, he had never felt for a woman what he did for this one. And in less than two weeks now she'd be gone, and he'd wonder if it ever happened. “Tell me I'm not crazy,” he said, looking down at her after he kissed her. “Except that I know I am.” He looked both miserable and ecstatic all at once, victorious and defeated, but she was just as wildly enamored as he was.
“We both are,” she said gently. “I don't know what's happening to me either.” It was like a tidal wave that just wouldn't stop and he kissed her again and again, and all she wanted to do was make love with him and they both knew they shouldn't.
“What are we doing?” He looked down and asked her. And then he wanted to know something he hadn't even thought to ask her. “Are you married? Do you have someone… a boyfriend?” If she did, he was going to stop now, even if it killed him, but she shook her head and kissed him again.
“I'm getting divorced. It's already filed. And there's no one else.” And then she looked at him, it was as though there never had been. And she suspected that if Gordon had been there instead of Bobby Joe, they would still be married.
“That's all I wanted to know. We can figure out the rest later. Maybe there will be no ‘rest.’ But I didn't want to play games if you were married or something.”
“I don't do that,” she said softly. “I've never done this before… I don't care what they say about singers or movie stars… I've never fallen head over heels like this.” In fact, she had married the men she'd cared for. She was actually pretty square. But what she felt now for him was almost too much to handle. And then she thought of him and the possible repercussions. “You have to be very careful so no one knows. I don't want you to get in trouble.” He nodded, not really caring. He had been at the ranch for three years, and he was the head wrangler at the corral, but he would have gladly given it all up for her, if she'd asked him.