A Man to Call My Own

Chapter 8

MARIAN WAS IN THE very pits of the doldrums. She wasn't used to making such a complete fool of herself, and doing it deliberately. Granted she would usually start out with any new acquaintance, at least any that might have a chance of becoming a friend or a suitor, by giving them a bad first impression of herself, just enough for them to mark her down as not worth knowing.

This was her safety tactic, to make sure right from the start that her sister wouldn't get jealous. And she'd been doing it for so long that it was automatic on her part.

She'd made that effort with Chad Kinkaid the day he'd found them. Accusing him of nefarious deeds, when she'd had no doubt he was there to rescue them, should have been enough. He'd been obviously insulted and avoided her ever since, wouldn't talk to her, wouldn't even look in her general direction. The perfect results. She just hadn't counted on the effect he would have on her.

There was no getting around it, she liked him—too much. The initial attraction she'd felt toward him didn't diminish with his cold shoulders as it should have. She found herself thinking about him constantly, listening for the sound of his voice, trying to catch glimpses of him when he rode beside the coach, everything she shouldn't have been doing, but she just couldn't seem to help herself.

Amanda hadn't noticed her interest in Chad yet because she was consumed with her own discomfort. But if she thought for even a second that Marian liked him, she'd put herself out to win him for herself, not to keep him, of course, but just to spite Marian.

So it wasn't that Marian needed to reinforce Chad's dislike of her. He already disliked her just fine. It was that she needed to burn her own bridges more thoroughly, to make sure that there was absolutely no possibility, ever, that he could be hers. Because even if she lost her last bit of sense and let him know that she liked him, she knew she couldn't compete with her sister over him.

Amanda would use every trick in the book to get what she wanted. If what she wanted was a man, she'd even sleep with him, even if only once, just to get him thoroughly devoted to her. She'd done it before, and made sure that Marian knew about it, if it happened to be a man Marian had shown some interest in. So until Amanda was married and had moved somewhere far away from her, she couldn't begin to think of getting married herself.

So she'd made a fool of herself, again, and now she was miserable with embarrassment because of it. And it wasn't even intentional this time. Bumping into Chad that afternoon had been no more than an accident. But finding herself about to apologize for it had set off alarm bells in her head. She didn't want him to think she was just clumsy. That wasn't a bad enough trait to prompt extreme dislike. Another unwarranted accusation was, though.

But she could have at least been a little more inventive. Charging him with being mean to children was beyond ridiculous. It just showed how utterly flustered she'd been, finding herself in such close proximity to him that she couldn't even think straight.

She would have thought she couldn't get more embarrassed. But lo and behold, he faces a little danger during that aborted stage robbery, and she loses all common sense. She wasn't even sure what was worse, experiencing fear for him or behaving like an idiot because of it.

Definite doldrums. Then to find herself eating dinner with him that night of all nights, when high color was rising up her cheeks every few minutes, when she couldn't stop thinking about her silly behavior. But there was no help for it, at least not that night. The town was small, there was only the one eating establishment in the single hotel, and only one table left empty in it, and the dining room was closing — the cook already gone home—so she couldn't make some excuse, then come back to eat later, and neither could he.

At least they weren't served a round of the usual long-winded complaints from Amanda with the meal. She'd slept through the entire robbery that day, so hadn't had to experience any worry over it, had only been told about it afterward, when they were halfway to the next town, and was actually in a somewhat good mood because of it. And Amanda in a good mood meant flirtation with every man within her sights.

Marian found the food tasteless, could barely swallow it. She had so many mixed feelings stirred up that her head began to ache. It was one thing to know what could happen and quite another to sit there and watch Amanda gain Chad's rapt attention. Even poor Will Candles got utterly flustered by Amanda's smiles. It made Marian sick to her stomach.

The headache was a good excuse to leave, and she took it. So what if she went to sleep hungry. She'd be lucky if she could sleep at all.

No one but Ella Mae really heard her make the excuse or noticed her leaving, she did such a good job of making herself ignorable. She found her way to the room she'd be sharing with her sister and their maid, even though the light had burned out in the hall. She was too miserable to light the lamp in the room, either. She just released her hair from the tight bun, tossed her spectacles on the nearest table, dropped her dress to the floor, and crawled under the covers on the bed to nurse her misery.

Such an abundance of diverse feelings actually had one benefit, they exhausted her more than she realized, and, thankfully, she fell right to sleep. She hadn't expected to. And she had no idea for how long, she just knew she had been deeply asleep and was startled abruptly awake by the surprised voice that shouted "What the... ?"

Since their trip had begun back in Haverhill, she had gotten used to being awakened by Amanda, who wasnt the least bit considerate of others when she came to bed. But it wasn't Amanda standing there next to the bed. Marian recognized that deep voice and was surprised enough herself to screech, "Get the hell out of my room!"

He'd had time to recover, and said calmly now, even a bit dryly, "This is my room."

"Oh." Mortified again. That was a bad habit she was developing. "Then I must apologize."

"Don't bother," Chad said.

"Then I won't," she bit out, then added stiffly, "Good night."

She'd realized two things during that brief conversation. Chad had yanked down the covers before he'd realized someone was already in the bed, and the room was still dark. Like her, he hadn't lit the lamp just to get into bed. That meant she could get out of there without letting him get a good look at her and hope she didn't trip on the way out.

It was a good plan, which she implemented immediately. But she didn't count on him flicking one of the matches that were kept next to the oil lamp at about the same time that she started moving. She hoped he was glancing toward the lamp to light it, and not at her. She didn't pause to find out, dashing quickly off the bed and out the door, and ran smack into Will Candles on his way in.

She knocked him over, mumbled a quick, "Sorry, so sorry," but didn't stop. Could her cheeks get any hotter? Probably not. Nor did they cool off once she was safely behind the right door a few more steps down the hall. The only thing she could be grateful for at that point was that the room was still empty, so she didn't have to explain to her sister or maid what she was doing running around the hotel in her underwear.