Damn! He’d have to explain later, and apologize. Her boldness had simply thrown him off. And her impatience. He hadn’t expected either from her. Of course, he never would have expected such passion from her either.
“I rest my case,” Lonny was saying. “That was Amanda.”
Chad rolled his eyes and asked dryly, “Did you miss the part where I said they’re twins?”
“Did you miss the part where I said ‘no way?”
Chad couldn’t help grinning at that point. “Okay, I understand your doubt. Took me a while to notice it myself. Those ridiculous spectacles that distort her eyes are too much of a distraction, and anyone with any decency won’t stare at her long enough to notice that the rest of her features are exquisite—and identical to Amanda’s. The problem is, sometimes you can’t help wondering which one you’re dealing with.”
Last night when he’d kissed her, he’d been sure he was kissing the same woman he’d kissed by the camp-fire that night. But Marian had denied it, had even got huffy about it. Yet he’d been so sure, had even been relieved to have his confusion finally put to rest, only to end up confused again with her denial.
He simply had no trouble accepting that Marian had tried to rescue him from Leroy that night, and that she’d done so quickly and spontaneously that she’d forgotten to put her spectacles on first—and had been able to see perfectly without them. Which would mean that there was nothing really wrong with her eyes. In fact, she probably couldn’t see a damn thing through those silly spectacles, which would account for her abnormal clumsiness.
Believing that it had been Amanda that night had never really sat quite right with him. It had looked like her, yes. He’d had no reason then to think otherwise. But attributing such a selfless act to her had just seemed—strange. And in fact, it was the only nice thing he could attribute to her. But he had no trouble attributing a selfless act to Marian. Yes, she’d gone out of her way to insult him more than once, but he had to wonder about that with what he had learned since. He suspected her rudeness might have been deliberate, part of that jealousy thing with her sister that she’d only half told him about.
He understood the jealousy part now, or at least most of it, which Marian had tried to explain to him without giving him any details. It hadn’t made much sense at the time, when she made herself as ugly as she possibly could. It simply wasn’t conceivable that Amanda could be jealous of her. But they were twins. One hid her beauty, the other let it shine.
But there were ways to tell them apart, thankfully. Amanda’s hands were always moving, to draw attention to her face, her breasts. When she smiled, it never seemed real. If she had a sense of humor, she’d lost it in her displeasure over the trip. If she had anything good to say about anything, he’d yet to hear it. Her mannerisms were different, as were her temperament, her tolerance, her patience. And she was a complainer. Actually, she was probably exactly what his father had called her, a born-and-bred nag. Her beauty had blinded him to all of that, but he saw it clearly in comparison to Marian.
He still didn’t understand the reason for the deception though. It made no sense at all for a woman as beautiful as Marian to want to hide her beauty. But she couldn’t hide what she’d felt today, a powerful desire for him that he’d reacted to in the most primitive way. His reaction still surprised him. He usually had much more control over his baser instincts. Actually, he had never before lost control quite so thoroughly. Or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to stop what was happening between them. That was more likely the case. It was like the kiss last night, something he’d been unable to resist taking. And every time he’d kissed her, she’d yielded, telling him without words that she wanted him, too.
Chapter 30
MARIAN TOOK A LEAF from her sisters book and spent the rest of the day in her room. To keep from driving herself mad with her own thoughts, she asked Rita to help her find Kathleen’s painting supplies. And once that had been easily accomplished, she carried them all to her room.
“When Chad showed up for the promised talk with “Amanda,” he’d have no luck. Amanda’s tactic of hiding in her room was an old one, since she actually felt she was punishing everyone else by denying them her presence.
Marian was hiding for a much different reason. She didn’t want to be around to see Chad waiting around for her sister to make an appearance, or to be asked to talk Amanda into coming down. She wouldn’t be surprised if he asked. But he wasn’t going to find out, at least today, just how much he’d blundered in his conclusions.
She still couldn’t believe he’d done that. God, she’d been so elated that he could actually want her, her, not Amanda. But she should have known better. He’d wanted Amanda from the start, and that wasn’t going to change. Just because she was Amanda’s twin.
He probably thought all along today that she was Amanda, and the worst part was, it was her own fault. What she’d told him last night—that Amanda liked to play tricks on people by pretending to be her—would have been fresh in his mind.
She probably should warn Amanda that Chad was under the mistaken impression that he’d made love to her. But then she’d have to listen to her sister gloat about her fallen virtue, despite the fact that her own had fallen long ago. Marian just couldn’t stomach that on top of everything else that had happened today. Besides, it was no more than Chad deserved, to have both sisters refusing any intimacy with him. Maybe in the future he’d pay closer attention to just whom he was making love to, the dense man.
A few hours after she started painting, she finally began to relax enough to take note of what she was painting. She was surprised. She didn’t paint from sketches because while she was rather good at sketching, she didn’t enjoy it as much as painting. But then she painted just as well from memory, so didn’t need to do both.
Actually, she shouldn’t really be surprised at what had taken form on the canvas. Though she’d been trying to put him out of her mind, he was still lurking there. So finding the basics of Chad’s face staring back at her from the easel merely had her shaking her head in disgust at herself.
It was a good resemblance, though. She hadn’t lost her talent through lack of use. The eyes needed work, not the shape, but the color. The chin needed more definition so it would look stronger. The skin tone would have to be darker to reflect his deep tan. And she should probably add his hat, tipped low as he usually wore it. ...
What was she thinking? She wasn’t going to finish a portrait of him. She removed the canvas, set it behind the easel so she wouldn’t have to look at it, and replaced it with a fresh one. She’d have to be more careful, at least until she could restock Kathleen’s supplies.
There had only been four large canvases to work with, two medium-sized ones, and one miniature, but Marian wasn’t a slow painter. She could finish a portrait in one sitting if she put her mind to it and was careful, so the supplies wouldn’t last her very long.
She decided on a different sort of portrait, while the memory was still somewhat fresh, one that actually amused her to paint. It wouldn’t amuse Amanda, if she ever got a look at it.
She painted her memory of the train robbery, in particular, Amanda’s sitting down with her look of shock and gunpowder all over her face just after she’d been shot at. The passengers around them were a blur, had been a blur at the time, so she left them that way. The two robbers who had marched down the aisle were in the picture, the one who’d shot at Amanda more clearly defined. Though she could only depict half of his face, since the other half had been covered with his bandana, his eyes were rather distinct, more golden in color than brown, and very round in shape.
She started smiling before she was even half done, her mood greatly lightened. Though there hadn’t been anything amusing about that robbery as it was happening, Amanda with her face blackened from gun smoke and shocked into silence, was priceless. Maybe she’d let Amanda have a look at it when it was finished, after all.
She grinned at the thought, but knew she wouldn’t. Aman
da would destroy it, just like she’d destroyed the last picture Marian had done of her that didn’t show her at her best.
She was surprised when the light faded and she realized that it was almost evening. But then she always seemed to lose track of time when she painted. The knock came at the door shortly thereafter.
“Dinner in fifteen minutes,” she heard Rita call out.
She wasn’t planning on going downstairs, not tonight anyway, but she did want to catch her aunt to let her know that, before Kathleen went down. She retrieved her spectacles. While she was painting was the only time she refused to wear them. Of course, she always painted in private, where she wouldn’t be interrupted, so it didn’t really matter.
The second knock at the door came before she reached it. She assumed it was Rita again, making sure she’d heard her, but Kathleen was standing there when she opened it.
“I was told you started painting this afternoon,” her aunt said. “May I see your progress? Or do you prefer to wait until you’ve finished each piece before anyone views what you’re working on?”
“I don’t mind,” Marian replied with a shy smile, and opened the door a bit wider.
“Oh, my.” Kathleen’s surprise was genuine as she approached the easel. “Did she really get that close to gunfire?”
“She was shot at when she wouldn’t give up her purse without a fight.”
“That was—rather brave of her.”
Marian grinned at her aunt’s pause. “No, it was about as stupid as she can get, when there were four of them, all with drawn guns, and we had no reasonable way to prevent the robbery. She’s lucky he only tried to scare her.”
“Or he missed.”
“That, too.”
Kathleen had to cover her mouth to hide her own amusement over the depiction of Amanda’s surprise.
“You’re very good. It looks just like her, despite the gunpowder.”
“It’s all right to laugh, now that the danger is over. Her expression was quite funny.”
Kathleen released her humor with a chuckle. “Still is. I’m impressed, sweetie. Staring at this makes me almost feel as if I were there and—oh, my.”
“What?”
“I just noticed, the robber, I think I know him. Goodness, he looks just like John Bilks who used to work at the general store in town. He got fired when it was discovered that some money was missing from the cash box. The owner wanted him arrested, but there was no proof that he actually took the money. He moved on soon after—and has apparently progressed to train robbing. I’ll bet the sheriff would like to see this painting.”
“I’m pretty sure Amanda would object to that,” Marian replied with a grin.
Kathleen, squinting her eyes at the painting, said, “You think so?” and they both chuckled. But then she suggested, “Maybe a miniature then, of just John Bilks? We can give it to the sheriff when we go to town on Saturday—and get you more canvases while we’re there. You’re obviously a much faster painter than I ever was. Were there at least enough in my old supplies to hold you over till then?”
“Yes, I—”
Marian didn’t finish. Kathleen had moved to the side to look over the material that had been dug out of storage—and caught sight of the half-finished portrait of Chad still leaning against the back of the easel.
“Oh, my,” Kathleen exclaimed before turning to look at her. “Your talent is simply amazing. And you do this from memory, don’t you? Yes, you must. Incredible—and I’m glad you like him. Now, there’s no need to blush about it. Any young girl your age would.”
Marian looked down. “It’s not that, it’s—no one has ever complimented me on my painting before. My father insisted I had no talent, that I was only wasting my time—”
Kathleen cut in angrily, “Mortimer was a bastard, I’m sorry to say. If he could say something like that, I have no doubt it was because his ‘favorite’ had no talent in that area. She doesn’t, does she?”
“No.”
“As I thought. It probably infuriated him that you outshone her in this. And you should have known better. Just look at this painting. You’ve already captured the heart and breath of him, and it’s not even finished.”
“He does have an interesting face.”
Kathleen burst out laughing. “Interesting, huh? I suppose you could put it that way. Now come on, dinner’s waiting. Let’s get downstairs before Consuela sends out the posse.”
Marian didn’t move. They’d been talking too long for her to claim she had a headache as she’d planned to do. But she wasn’t about to sit down to dinner with Chad, not tonight, not until she lost the urge to shoot him on sight for the conclusion he’d drawn.
“You go ahead, Aunt Kathleen. I think I’m going to turn in early—”
“Oh, come on, you still have to eat. And it’s just the two of us tonight. Chad’s already begged off. He ended up hanging around my kitchen for quite a while this afternoon for some reason, and Consuela stuffed him to the brim. She can’t stand to have a man underfoot without feeding him.”
“Well, I suppose I could eat a few bites.”
Chapter 31
CHAD SHOWED UP FOR dinner anyway. They were about halfway done when he walked in, sat down, and asked what was for dessert. Kathleen teased him a bit about his horses objecting to the amount of food he was putting away. They bantered back and forth, both laughing, moods light, until he introduced a new topic.
“Is Amanda ill?”
“No, she’d just rather not join the rest of us,” Kathleen replied.
“Don’t tell me she still needs resting up from the trip?” he asked.
“Possibly. She hasn’t taken to the heat very well. You’re used to it, so you barely notice it, but—”
“I notice it. It just hasn’t been that hot lately, at least not enough to wilt the lady. So she’s still pouting over being here?”
Kathleen coughed. Marian stared. To hear him call it on the mark, well, it didn’t quite make sense to her, since he’d never spoken derisively about Amanda before. But then she was forgetting that he was probably still angry with her sister because he thought she’d played one of her tricks on him that morning.
She was amazing herself by how calm she’d remained ever since he walked in. Bantering with Kathleen, laughing, he’d behaved as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened that morning—until he mentioned Amanda. Then his tone had changed abruptly.
Her own anger was still simmering beneath the surface. Not that she still didn’t want to shoot him. Of course, she knew she was being unfair. She’d known from the start that he’d wanted Amanda.
“I’m glad y’all didn’t wait on me,” Amanda said in the doorway, using a thick, if poor imitation of a Texas drawl. “And no, I haven’t been pouting, darlin,” she added, staring at Chad as she fanned herself vigorously. “Goodness, you aren’t still annoyed that our little tryst in the stable got interrupted this morning, are you?”
Marian sucked in her breath. How on earth had Amanda found out about that? And why was she deliberately reinforcing Chad’s conclusion that it had been her that he’d made love to?
Chad was blushing profusely, with Kathleen now staring at him wide-eyed. This was just the sort of scene Amanda loved to create, but for once it probably wasn’t completely deliberate, or planned. She’d obviously overheard his less-than-flattering remarks about her and was now getting even with him. She wouldn’t have come right in, because it would have taken her a few minutes to get her rage under control.
Marian was doing some blushing of her own. God, this meant Amanda had overheard a lot more than the table conversation just now. She had to have been in the stable this morning. There was no other way she could know about what had happened there.
But she had no reason to be in the stable. She didn’t like horses, and she didn’t know how to drive a carriage even if it had occurred to her to escape with the one still on the premises. There was simply nothing to draw her there—except Chad. She’d e
ither seen him return to the ranch and decided to amuse herself with him for a while, to relieve her boredom. Or—actually, it was more likely that she’d simply been watching from her room when they were in the corral, saw Chad drag Marian back inside the stable, and was curious enough to come down to investigate why—and found them making love, and overheard what he’d said.
She must have thought it hilarious, that he’d drawn the wrong conclusion. She’d probably been laughing over it all day and plotting how to make the best use of what she knew in order to hurt Marian. This little scene wasn’t for Chad’s benefit. Amanda could care less what he thought. He was merely a tool to use, and a perfect one, since Amanda now knew that Marian wanted him for herself.
This was so typical of Amanda. She was getting to rub Marian’s nose in the fact that men always preferred her. She was also getting to scandalize Kathleen, which was part of her current agenda. And she would let Chad know how little he mattered in the scheme of things. She wasn’t done showing him the consequences of straying from the path of worshiping her. No, Marian didn’t doubt that at all.
She felt sick to her stomach. She might have wanted to shoot Chad herself, but she wouldn’t have wished Amanda’s vindictiveness on him. And it was pointless for her to speak up with the truth. Amanda would call her a liar, so would Chad for that matter, since he’d been so sure which woman he’d made love to.
Amanda was only half-dressed. Marian hadn’t noticed right off that her sister was making yet another visual statement about the heat. She was without her camisole and probably her bloomers, too, to go by the slimness of her skirt. And her blouse was unbuttoned down the front beyond decency. It was thin enough to show the shadow of her nipples beneath it, not that the deep V of her blouse wasn’t close to showing them off even more. She’d probably come downstairs to shock them with her attire, but with Chad there, she’d found better ammo to use. Marian hoped Kathleen would realize this was just another performance for her benefit, but a glance at her aunt showed she was only just recovering from her initial shock and was blushing again because of Amanda’s state of undress.