Texas Gold. Carolyn Davidson
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he said simply. “The estate is yours.”
“And being mine automatically makes it yours, if I recall your mother’s tutoring session correctly.”
“Tutoring?” His eyes narrowed as he repeated the word she had chosen to use. “My mother tutored you?”
“Lectured might be a better way to put it,” Faith said bluntly. “Never failing to remind me how fortunate I was to have been chosen by the great Maxwell McDowell.”
His mouth tightened. “I can’t imagine my mother used that term to describe me.”
“Believe what you like,” Faith said. “Suffice to say, I never measured up to what she felt you needed as a wife. I was too young, too boring, too—”
“Stop it,” he ordered, cutting short her list of failures, a catalog of flaws that had come to light during her years as his wife. “My mother means well, but she gets carried away on occasion.”
“Ah…I should have known you were still her champion.”
His jaw tensed, and a profusion of blood colored his cheekbones brick-red as he made an obvious attempt to be silent.
Faith waved a dismissive hand. “Explain what all this means, the paperwork I’m supposed to sign, and the money my father left for my use.”
“By signing your name where the lawyer has designated, you are accepting the money into your care.”
“I can put it in a bank here and use it as I like?” she asked, doubt coating each word with disdain. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”
“The money will go into the bank in Boston, under my supervision,” Max said bluntly. “You have access to it as my wife. Your father felt secure in the knowledge that I would take care of you, supply all your needs.”
“Fine,” she murmured, snatching the sheaf of paperwork and arranging it before her again. “Where’s the pen, and where do I write my name?”
“No more questions?” he asked, drawing a fountain pen from his pocket and removing the cap. He offered it to her, and she accepted, examining its length.
“Is this the one I gave you?” She thought she glimpsed a flash of sorrow in his gaze as he nodded. “It was the only gift I ever bought you with my own money,” she recalled. “From then on, I used the allowance you gave me. I often thought it was like carrying coals to Newcastle, buying you paltry gifts when you were capable of ordering up anything you wanted with the snap of your fingers.”
“You gave me much more than a pen or hemmed handkerchiefs, or even the small watercolor I hung beside my bed, Faith.”
“Oh? Really?”
“I appreciated every gift I received from you, cherished each gesture of affection you offered.” His pause was long, and she felt the breath leave her lungs, knowing what he would speak of next.
“Most of all I treasure the memories of the times I held you in my arms. You gave me the pleasure of loving you.”
“Loving?” she asked. “You’re telling me now that you loved me?”
“You know I loved you,” he said, his jaw taut, his mouth narrowing as if he recognized the doubt in her query.
“On the contrary, Max. You never told me you loved me. You said I was lovely, that I pleased you, that I wore the elegant clothing you bought for me with a degree of grace…but not once did you tell me—”
“You knew,” he muttered, his voice an accusing growl. “Don’t try to pretend otherwise, Faith.”
“Then where were you when I needed you the most?” And as soon as the words were spoken aloud, she rose from the table and turned her back to him. “No, don’t bother answering. Please. I don’t want to hear excuses about your work, or the trips you were forced to take to expand the business. I heard all of that from your mother, and it wasn’t any more palatable coming from her than it would have been from you.”
“You wouldn’t even allow me into your bedroom,” he said, exasperation lacing his accusation. “I wasn’t allowed to touch you.”
“And who told you that?” she asked, bowing her head.
“It was implicit in your behavior.”
She spun to face him, stalked back to the table and snatched up the pen she had cast aside. Her signature was a scrawl as she shuffled through the pages, leaning over the table and scattering documents hither and yon as she searched out the places marked for her name to be signed.
“There. It’s done,” she said sharply. “Now just leave, and take the promise of a few more dollars for your bank account with you.”
Max leaned back in his chair, oblivious to the hash she’d managed to make of the papers. The table and floor bore mute testimony to her anger, and yet he ignored it, his attention focused on the woman who had wreaked havoc in these few moments.
“I don’t want your money,” he said finally. “And I’m not leaving. In fact, I’ve made arrangements to have my things brought here from the hotel. I’m moving in with you, Faith. The only way you can stop me is by calling your neighbor and telling him to shoot me down or evict us both from his property.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why do you want to hound me this way, Max? Surely you don’t want to breathe life to the ashes. And trust me, that’s all there is left of our marriage. I don’t want you.”
He was silent a moment, as if digesting that claim, and then a twitch at the corner of his mouth revealed his doubt. “Don’t you? When I kissed you, I felt something between us, sweetheart.”
“You’re wrong,” she said sharply. “I might respond to anyone who knew how to kiss as well as you do. In fact—”
“Don’t lie to me,” he said flatly. “We both know you’re grasping at straws, and threatening to seek out another man is impertinent. It doesn’t become you.”
“I’ve never known anyone so arrogant as you,” she said, her teeth clenched against the anger that roiled within her. “Impertinent, am I? That goes right along with your mother’s assessment of me when she called me an upstart, a month after our wedding.”
His brow lifted, and for a moment he looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Apparently, my mother said several things she should be taken to task for.” His frown drew his brows together as he thought for a moment. “Upstart? She really used that word?” And then he grinned.
“Damn you, Max. It wasn’t funny. She made me feel lower than dirt, that I had dared to marry the great Maxwell McDowell.”
“Dared? I begged for your hand. I groveled at your feet.” His grin widened, and Faith was tempted to match it with one of her own. Max on a roll was something to behold. But better sense prevailed.
“You’ve never groveled in your life.”
“I think I may have to before this is finished,” he said, his look pensive as he watched her cross the kitchen to the stove. He sat up straight then, watching as she lifted a long spoon and stirred the contents of a kettle. “Is that dinner?”
“Yes. I killed a chicken and cleaned it before breakfast. I’m making stew.”
“Am I invited, or do I have to be an interloper?”
“I’m not capable of tossing you out on your ear.”
“I’d call that a backhanded invitation,” he said, rising from the table and pushing his chair back in place. He bent, picking up the sheets of paper she had scattered, sorting through them to place them in order, and then tapped them on the table to neaten the pile.
“This can go in the mail to my lawyer, I think,” he said. “I’ll take it into town the next time I make the trip. Perhaps we can arrange