Molly peered up at his shadowy face, trying without success to read his expression. “Yes?” she prompted.
“I’m sorry. Your hair. I’ve never seen it down.”
Her hand flew to the cloud of curls over her right shoulder, “Now you know why.”
“I almost didn’t recognize you.”
She pushed at a thick hank. “Probably because you can’t see me.”
“I can see you fine.” He leaned a shoulder against the jamb, bringing his face into the spill of light from the old floor lamp by the front window. His blue eyes moved slowly over her hair, then came to rest on her face. “My God. Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
Molly had to resist the urge to look over her shoulder to see if someone else was in the room.
He nudged up his hat, his gaze still fixed on her face. “Being your boss and all, I promised myself not to do this. But, damn. Talk about hiding your light under a bushel. All that glorious hair, and you keep it in a braid? I could get drunk just looking at you.”
Molly gave a nervous laugh.
“Your hair is the exact color of Scotch whiskey.” He continued to study her. “Very expensive Scotch whiskey,” he added.
Molly touched a hand to the side of her head. Some people had the occasional bad-hair day; she’d had a bad-hair life. In the early years of her marriage, she’d made the mistake of getting it cut short, and she had looked like an overweight, female version of Bozo the Clown. Rodney had threatened to divorce her if she ever went near a beauty shop again.
Jake whistled softly. “Damn. I do have eyes in my head, and I realized you had fine features. But I had no idea you were so pretty.”
Molly wondered if she’d fallen asleep on her feet and was having a crazy dream. “Um … what do you want, Mr. Coulter?”
“Damned if I can remember.”
He didn’t seem in any great hurry to regain his memory. He just continued to lean against the jamb, studying her.
“I hope it wasn’t important.”
“I’m sure it was or I wouldn’t have come all the way back over here.” He smiled suddenly and shook his head. “It’ll come to me in a minute.” He pushed erect and moved into the house, closing the door behind him. “I’m sorry for gaping. The transformation is just so startling.”
Molly pushed at her hair again. “It’s startling, all right. Needless to say, I never wear pink. Can you imagine the clash?”
He smiled slightly as his gaze moved slowly over her. “You’d look fabulous in pink. You really hate your hair, don’t you?”
“Hate is too mild a word. I detest it. You’re very kind to say it’s the color of whiskey. I’ve always likened it to red mud.”
He chuckled. “I think you’re your own worst critic, Stir-Houston, and wouldn’t believe you were pretty if they crowned you Miss America.”
“You’ll never see me in a bathing suit contest. All those spotlights, glaring on my white thighs? The judges would go blind.”
He shook his head again. Then he snapped his fingers. “I remember why I came back. Do you have an alarm clock? I can lend you one of ours.”
“I have one.”
“Good, good.” He hooked his thumbs over his belt, his gaze still moving over her as if he couldn’t quite believe the change. “Well …” He took a backward step toward the door. “I’d better make tracks so you can get some sleep.”
“Morning will come early. Up with the chickens, and all that.”
A moment later, he was gone, and Molly was left to stare at the closed door again. Bewildered, she touched a hand to her hair. Then she threw the deadbolt and returned to the bathroom to finish her nightly ablutions.
When she resumed her position in front of the mirror, she couldn’t resist taking a long, hard look at herself in the glass, something she seldom did since her divorce. Beautiful? She trailed a fingertip down the bridge of her nose, then traced her cheekbone. It was the same old face staring back at her.
As she studied her reflection, Molly got the oddest feeling she didn’t know the woman who stared back. It happened to her a lot lately, which was why she seldom gazed at her reflection overlong these days.
Her features seemed to blur, their definition becoming less distinct with every beat of her heart. She stared, and kept staring, her pulse slamming in her temples. Mud red and serpentlike, the strands of her hair seemed to undulate and slither, curling ever tighter over her face.
No more, Molly.
She flattened a hand against the glass, her breathing ragged, her body filmed with sweat. A singsong voice in her head whispered, “Molly, Molly, where have you gone?”
The horror of it was, she no longer really knew. “Beautiful,” Jake Coulter had called her. Lies, all lies. Molly Sterling Wells was not beautiful. She had it on good authority that she was, in fact, ugly, so ugly that her husband had found her repulsive and turned to other women in the early days of their marriage.
Molly cupped her hands over her face, hating Jake Coulter for doing this to her. Was he only being kind? Or was he amusing himself with her?
She had no idea what his game was, but she did know one thing.
She didn’t want to play.
Sleep didn’t come easily to Molly that night. She slugged her pillow into a lump and then slapped it flat, unable to get comfortable. She tossed, turned, and lay on her back in a sprawl. Then she tossed and turned some more. The sheets caught around her legs, confining her lower body like a straightjacke. She detested the feeling and kicked free, only to shiver when the cool air washed over her.
When at last she drifted into a restless slumber, she began to dream, the images coming in confusing, disjointed cameos.
It was late evening, and Rodney, sitting at the edge of the bed, drew open the nightstand drawer. He took out a magazine and opened it to stare, glassy-eyed, at pictures of nude women.
“Why do you do that?” Molly asked tautly. She glanced at the glossy photographs. The women were beautiful, and their bodies were perfect. “Aren’t I enough for you?”
“I need visual stimulation, is all. A guy has to charge his batteries somehow.” While he continued to look at those other women, he began touching himself. When he was sufficiently aroused, he turned off the light and took her into his arms. “Unfasten your gown and give me some sugar, darling,” he whispered. “Push the tops up with your hands. I like sweet little firm ones.”
He drew her into his mouth and made loud, wet sucking sounds. Molly wanted to die because she knew he was pretending she was someone else. That was why he turned out the lights, so he wouldn’t have to look at her. It went on and on. With each pull of his mouth, she shuddered and felt as if she might vomit. Her skin felt as if it was turning inside out.
He suddenly caught her nipple between his teeth, biting down hard enough to make it hurt. Then he spit her out, as if the taste of her was vile. “It’s like sucking on a cow teat.”
Molly tossed in the bed. Dreaming. This wasn’t real. She was free of him now. It wasn’t real. She needed to wake up. Only she couldn’t, and the dream changed.
She was dressing for work, and Rodney came into the bedroom.
“If you don’t do something soon, your tits will be hanging to your knees. I’ll pay for the surgery. Don’t mention it to your folks, and just get it done. Don’t you love me? Don’t you want to please me?”
She had done nothing but try to please him. She walked the way he wanted, dressed the way he wanted, talked the way he wanted, laughed the way he wanted, even thought the way he wanted, all to save a marriage that hadn’t been worth saving. She didn’t know who she was anymore, except that she was Rodney’s wife. Now he wanted her to let some surgeon hack away at her body. Breast augmentation, a tummy tuck, thigh liposuction. The list of his complaints went on and on. The thought of doing it made her feel frantic. Her body was all she had left—the only thing about her that was still Molly. And now he wanted her to change that, too.
Maybe she wasn’t
beautiful. Maybe she wasn’t desirable. Maybe she was just plain ugly. But it was her body, not his. If she had surgery, he would own her. She’d be the object that Rodney Wells had created.
“I’m not having surgery, Rodney.”
His eyes glittered. “Yeah? Well, maybe I don’t want to spend the rest of my life married to a fat cow. I love you, Molly. But that’s too much to ask of any man. You could have it all fixed. If you refuse, it’s the same as telling me to hit the road.”
She deliberately chose a dress she knew he despised and drew it off the hanger. “So what’s keeping you? Go, Rodney. I no longer really care.”
“You don’t mean that. No other man will ever want you. Then what’ll you do?”
“Die a happy woman.”
The scene changed.
She was lying in bed, and she was sick, so horribly sick. “No more pills, Rodney. They make me so dizzy and nauseated. Please, no more pills.”
He gently lifted her head. “Darling, don’t be difficult. I’m trying to help you. Swallow them down. There’s a good girl.”
In a dizzying swirl of blacks and grays, she felt herself falling.
Then Rodney was there, kneeling beside her on the floor, his face drawn with worry. “Oh, darling. Oh, dear God. How long have you been lying here? Molly? Molly, can you hear me?”
She tried to answer, wanted to answer. But her tongue seemed disconnected from her brain. The pills. They were making her sick. She knew that for sure now. But she was too doped to tell him.
He carried her to bed. Vaguely she was aware of him shaking out medication onto his palm. She clenched her teeth, determined not to swallow the pills this time. No, no, no. They were the problem. Why couldn’t he see what they were doing to her? Yes, they helped her sleep. But she woke up violently ill, and she couldn’t think clearly.
The shadows swirled again.
Rodney was sitting on the mattress beside her.
“Darling, I have some papers I need you to sign from the firm,” he told her as he propped her up in bed. He put a pen into her hand. “Hold on to it, love. There you go. There’s my good girl.”
She tried to see the documents. Her vision was so blurred it was impossible. She could barely bring Rodney’s face into focus. Her father had told her never to sign anything until she read it. Now he was dead, and he’d left her his half of the firm. She had to be responsible—a good businesswoman, as he’d raised her to be. She could remember telling Rodney that. She wasn’t sure when, but she distinctly remembered telling him. So why did he persist in trying to get her to sign these papers?
“Sign the damned things!” he raged. “I’m your husband, goddamn you. I’ve had it with this absurdity. Sign the fucking papers!”
Molly thought he was going to hit her. Never in all the ten years of their marriage had Rodney lifted a hand to her. But now he stood over her with a raised fist. She tried frantically to focus, but she saw two of him, then three. Which of those upraised fists would strike her? Looking up at him and struggling to clear her vision, she no longer believed she knew her husband. The veil of kindness had slipped, revealing a monster underneath.
“If you can’t trust your own goddamned husband, who can you trust?” he raged.
Fear turned Molly’s blood to ice. She could trust no one, absolutely no one. She realized that now.
Now, when it was too late.
Chapter Ten
Jake Coulter wasn’t an easy man to avoid. The next morning, after cleaning up the breakfast mess, Molly went into the utility room to familiarize herself with the milk separator. She’d barely had time to look it over when she heard a floorboard creak behind her. She turned to see her new boss in the doorway. Dressed in what she was quickly coming to think of as rancher garb, chambray and faded denim, he looked absurdly handsome, his sundarkened skin and sturdy shoulders showcased to best advantage by the wash-worn blue cloth.
“Need some help with that?” he asked lazily.
Just the deep timbre of his voice made her nerves hum. “I think I can figure it out.”
He moved to stand beside her. “You pour the milk in this reservoir, and then you just flip the switch. The machine does the rest, filtering the separated milk into that reservoir and funneling the cream out here. It beats skimming it off with a ladle.”
“That sounds easy enough.” Molly hefted the fivegallon bucket. It was heavier than she expected it to be. “My goodness, the poor cow, carrying all this around.”
Jake chuckled and helped to steady the bucket. “I’ve thought the same thing myself a time or two.”
Acutely aware of his nearness and the fact that his left hand grazed her side, she concentrated on getting the milk poured so she could move away. She put the empty bucket in the deep utility sink to wash later. “Thank you for showing me how to run this thing. I know you’re busy.”
“Not a problem. I’ll show you how to use the churn as well. It’ll be nice not having the cream go to waste. I haven’t had time to make butter in days.”
“Are you sure you have time right now? I honestly do think I can manage by myself.”
“No point in that when I can show you how it works in two minutes flat.”
Two minutes stretched into an hour, and Jake was still there, helping Molly wash up and sterilize the equipment. He talked almost nonstop the entire time they worked, revealing an amazing talent for carrying on a one-sided conversation. Molly wondered if that was due to his having worked alone so much. She imagined most ranchers spent much of the day with only animals for company.
“How did you learn to separate milk and make butter?” she asked.
“I grew up out here. Not in the same house, of course. The family place burned to the ground about five years ago, so I had to rebuild. But the remoteness of the location hasn’t changed. Imagine having to drive clear to town to keep milk in the fridge for six kids. My folks got a milk cow, and the rest just followed.”
“I thought—” Molly glanced wonderingly out the window over the sink at the forestland that bordered the yard. “I thought you were just starting up this ranch. You said something once about getting it back, but I figured I mis-understood.”
“No misunderstanding. My father went bankrupt and lost the Lazy J about nine years ago. The man who bought it didn’t insure the dwellings, and when the house burned, he couldn’t afford to rebuild. His family of five had to live in the cabin, which was tough. The price had bottomed out on beef as well, and he never really recovered financially. When I made him an offer late last summer, he jumped at the chance to sell.”
His eyes darkened as he spoke, telling Molly far more than he probably realized, that he loved this piece of land. It was more than just a ranch to him; it was his heritage. She glanced back out at the trees, scarcely able to imagine the history that must exist for him in every blade of grass. “You played in that yard as a little boy?”
He grinned. “I was born out here, so, yeah, that was my playground.”
Molly threw him a questioning look. “Born out here. Your folks were living here at the time, you mean?”
“No, I mean I was actually born here. My dad was out working cattle, and he didn’t get word that my mom was in labor in time to take her to town. He had to deliver me.”
Molly pressed a hand to her waist. “Oh, my.”
He shrugged. “My great-great-grandfather started the ranch, and four generations of Coulters, including my own, were born on this land. After surviving my debut into the world, my mom decided hospitals were for the birds, and for the next five kids, my dad and a midwife attended the births.”
Molly could not imagine having a baby at home. Not that she’d ever have the chance to make the choice. Rodney had promised her babies, but, as with everything else, he’d never carried through. Raised as an only child, she’d always yearned to have a large family. Accepting that she would never have even one child, let alone a half dozen, was one of the heartbreaks of her life, right up there with the grief of los
ing her father.
“What?” Jake asked softly.
Molly realized her expression had turned glum. She forced a bright smile and shook her head. “Nothing.”
He searched her gaze for a long moment. Then he returned his attention to the dish washing. “It’ll happen. You’re young yet.”
Molly gaped at him. She couldn’t believe he’d guessed her thoughts. He flicked her an amused look. “One kindred soul recognizing another,” he said by way of explanation. “I want children, too. Being the oldest of six kids, with all of us boys so close in age that our mom barely had time to take a breath in between, I’ve always wanted a large family.” A dreamy look came into his eyes. “My little sis gave birth just last week. A little boy. I can’t tell you how I felt the first time I held him. It made me want one of my own so bad, I damned near got tears in my eyes.”
“You?” she asked incredulously.
He threw back his dark head and laughed. When his mirth subsided, he said, “Yes, me. Why does that surprise you? Don’t most people want kids someday?”
“Most men don’t. Not really. I think they only say they do because it’s what women like to hear.”
That prompted him to laugh again. “I’m not touching that with a well-charged cattle prod. I’ll only say that I must be an exception. I want kids. I can’t tell you how much.”
Molly had heard that refrain before. Suddenly tense, she busied herself reassembling the churn. The scattered parts were a puzzle, and when she grew stumped, he reached over to help. Her throat going tight with emotions she couldn’t and didn’t want to name, she stared at his forearm, watching the play of tendon each time he flexed his wrist, fascinated by the way the light glistened on the silky dark hair that furred his wet, sun-bronzed skin.
“See?” he said softly after reassembling the churn. “Right when everything seems hopelessly jumbled, something happens and it all falls into place.” He winked at her. “After a divorce, lots of people feel defeated and finished, Molly. It’s natural, and in time, you’ll heal.” With a damp fingertip, he touched the tip of her nose. “Right when you least expect it, some fellow is going to come along. He’ll take one look at you, and he’ll be a goner.”