Last Dance. Cait London
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on the door, and stepped inside the hallway. She slammed the door on the sunshine that had moments ago gleamed on Tanner’s black waving hair, on that expanse of deeply tanned skin across his chest and the light matting of hair Veeing down into his low-slung jeans.
That shaggy haircut, the black strands damp upon his face and neck, did little to proclaim him a gentleman. The scowl that drew his eyebrows together was too fierce for Anna’s son and the set of his mouth said he wasn’t handing out favors. “I don’t like threats and I’ll decide when I’m leaving.”
One look at Tanner, and buried emotions had hit her like a firestorm. She hadn’t intended to stop at Anna’s, to blast Tanner, but delivering her pottery to Freedom’s Decor Shop and buying feed for the ranch had drawn Tanner-is-back comments from everyone she’d met. It was how they looked at her, that curious hopeful romantic look that brought back that night and how she’d run from him. He’d never hurt her and yet, she couldn’t bear for him to touch her—She should have known…
Sucking in air, listening to the furious pounding of her heart, she flattened her body back against the hallway’s ancient faded wallpaper.
“Hello, Gwynnie,” he’d called from Anna’s rooftop. He’d looked so powerful then, scowling down at her, his body solid from hard work, his big hands broad and rough. His mouth turned into a fierce, grim line, black eyes burning her, tearing through her body. After all those years, his anger was still there, lashing at her.
She’d adored him all her life. He’d been a high school football hero, grabbing a scholarship and soaring away to college in another state. He came home that summer, just after her high school graduation. He’d tilted his head as he looked at her and smiled slowly, as she blushed. “Hello, Gwynnie,” he’d said softly, tugging on her braids, and had asked for a date.
She was frightened then—she’d never had a date, her father wouldn’t let her, and somehow Tanner had understood. The next morning, he’d crossed the fence separating Anna’s land from the Smith ranch and walked to her father’s stalled old tractor. By late afternoon, the tractor was purring, Tanner was plowing, and old Leather was swearing, nettled by Tanner’s “I’ll take good care of Gwyneth. If you have no objections, I’d like to take her to a movie, sir.”
Old Leather, a man who craved respect, had gone down easily.
Then suddenly, they were dating and laughing and playing, and she was floating on air. Tanner’s kisses were steamy, his body taut and hot, but cherishing her, he had wanted to wait. He wanted to start a beautiful life with a perfect marriage. Two more years passed and then Tanner had graduated, ready to take a teaching job far away and he wanted her with him.
Confident in their love and future, he had pushed her to marry him, arguing fiercely with Leather that she was twenty and ready to be Tanner’s wife. Fearing the loss of his daughter and ranch hand and cook, Leather had dug in, snarling and resenting the younger man. But she hadn’t cared about his grumbling; she’d wanted to be with Tanner. She’d never been anywhere, but she was in love and so ready. She hadn’t minded that they hadn’t courted according to Freedom Valley’s century-old customs, she’d wanted Tanner too much.
Had she loved him? She’d worshiped him, adored him, waited for the sight of him. But what did she know of love at twenty? Was she only looking for freedom from a father who demanded too much?
After the wedding, she was terrified; she held tightly against her new groom at the church, his body pressing against hers. That first night, with the new marriage certificate resting beside the bed and Tanner’s ring on her finger, she couldn’t stop the clenched-tight fear. She’d trembled as Tanner had walked toward the bed, a towel around his hips….
Penny’s whining and scratching at the front door cut through the terrifying memory and Gwyneth let the German shepherd into the house. Darker and more sturdily built than his mate, Rolf pushed through the door for an ear-scratching.
Gwyneth tried to stop the twelve-year-old echo—his voice had been unsteady, frustrated—“Gwyneth, I won’t hurt you. Don’t back away from me. Look, we won’t do anything tonight, okay? You’re tired—all that wedding stuff. We’ll just sleep and everything will be better in the morning….”
But it wasn’t, because she couldn’t bear to think of him holding her, his big powerful body invading her body—
Later, when he’d come to the Smith ranch house and tried to talk with her, she couldn’t bear to face him. Tanner came from a loving family and he deserved children; she couldn’t bear for him to touch her—not that intimate way. While they were dating, Tanner had been so gentle and proper, his kisses and light caresses so sweet that she’d hoped—
But the old fear remained firmly embedded and on her wedding night, she’d run crying to her father. He was happy, crowing about how right he’d been, that she and Tanner weren’t “a mix.” She hadn’t returned Tanner’s calls, except the one message two years later that had asked for an annulment—she couldn’t have that and he’d agreed to a divorce.
“He just lives five miles down the country road to Anna’s, and the Bennett property borders mine. The rumors will be flying in no time—” She pointed a stern finger at both well-trained guard dogs. “Do not become friends with Tanner Bennett. Don’t hurt him, but don’t go wagging your tails for a new friend, either,” she amended.
Then pushing her hands through her hair and her memories of Tanner away, Gwyneth took a deep breath. “No one is going to fix that rotten fence post but me, or repair that hose on the tractor, or tag the ears of those new calves, so I’d better get after it.”
She ignored the ringing telephone; she wasn’t in the mood for anyone reminding her that Tanner had returned to town, living not far away. She pointed her finger down the hallway, directing the dogs to hunt through the house for unwelcome intruders. The dogs were not only her friends, but her protectors. One sound from them would tell her of danger.
She paused and jerked open a drawer on the hallway table. Her unframed wedding picture and the simple gold ring rolling across it mocked her. She flipped the picture over and shoved the drawer closed, just as she would any thoughts of Tanner. “I am a woman now, not a twenty-year-old, lovesick girl, high on the town hero,” she said to the pale woman in the mirror. “I’ve got responsibilities and work to do, and Tanner will move on. He’ll get bored with small town life, and he’ll leave.”
Then her thoughts ran across the worn linoleum at her feet, like worrying mice that would not go away.
Why hadn’t he married? Why hadn’t he filled another woman’s body with his babies? What would have happened had they courted in the way most women of Freedom cherished, and she’d trusted him with her secret?
Two
Not all men have good hearts, and that is why the Founding Mothers of Freedom Valley decided to lay out their terms when men came courting. I do not like the rage that burns in my heart now, for someone I love has been hurt and I am powerless to avenge her.
—Anna Bennett
Gwyneth dragged herself from under the tractor and wiped her greasy hands on a rag. She swished the barn’s straw from the backside of her cutoff bib overalls, and stood snarling at the metal monster she’d coaxed to life. She hated the old tractor with all her soul; the unsteady feral growling noises provided frustration relief, curling around the airy old barn. She flopped on her baseball hat and damned Tanner Bennett for making her lose a precious night’s sleep. Yesterday, Tanner had invaded her life, her nightmares. She didn’t want to remember him at all, not the tender way he’d kissed her back then, nor the pain and frustration in his expression that night and all the other times he’d tried to call or talk to her.
She’d hurt him badly, and yesterday his scars were showing. Tanner wasn’t the sweetheart she’d known. The lines across his broad forehead and the crinkling at the corner of his eyes told of hours in the weather. She could almost smell the salt air upon him, the nuances of foreign lands