“I know the feeling. Since my divorce, my mother thinks I should be out searching daily for another man.” She shook her head. “She’s been married to my father for nearly forty years. She has no idea how scary it would be without him.”
Quint cast a curious glance her way. “Is it scary for you to be without your ex-husband?”
Her brows arched with faint surprise, she looked at him. “No. I know how to take care of myself. I just meant that it’s scary to think about dating again. I guess—after Gilbert I don’t trust men,” she said, then swiftly shook her head. “That didn’t exactly come out the way it should have. What I was trying to say is that I don’t trust myself to pick the right man.”
Oh, Lord, there had been so many times he’d felt that very same way, he thought. Choosing Holly had been one of the worst mistakes he’d ever made. And though Holly had done the cheating and the leaving, he still considered the whole affair as his mistake.
It had taken Quint quite a while to finally understand and admit to himself that he’d been blind and young where Holly had been concerned. He’d not been mature or wise enough to see that she’d been wrong for him in the first place.
Picking up a few pieces of gravel, he began to toss the tiny pebbles toward the pool of water. “You probably wouldn’t want to tell me what happened to your marriage, would you?”
Even though he could only see her profile, it was enough to tell him that her expression had become shuttered.
“I wouldn’t mind,” she said, then glancing at him, her lips twisted sourly. “Gilbert married me for my money. I didn’t know that at first. In fact, I didn’t know it with certainty until the very end of our marriage. You see, he was a great actor.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Maybe I should start from the first to explain,” she told him. “I’d been working at a clinic in Alamogordo when I first met Gil. We dated for about four months before I finally decided to accept his marriage proposal. Which was impulsive for me. Up until I met Gil I was very cautious about my relationships with men. But he’d come along at a time when I wanted to get on with my life and he’d been so attentive, so considerate of my needs and wants. He kept reassuring me that he wasn’t interested in my money and I foolishly believed him. After all, he earned a good salary of his own and he never asked me for anything that was connected to finances.”
“You’re a rich woman, Maura. You never had suspicions about his motives?” His brows pulled together. “Damn, you must have been a trusting soul.”
She groaned with regret. “That’s what I meant about being a good actor. Gil was the sort that could make a person believe the sun was shining in the middle of a rainstorm. Even Mother believed he was sincere. But Daddy totally disapproved of him. He described Gil as slicker than an oil pit. At that time I thought Daddy was just being overly protective with his daughter. But unfortunately, it turned out that Daddy was right and I was the naive one. I believed Gil truly loved me.”
He caught the sound of self-deprecation in her voice and was amazed at how much that sound depicted his own feelings.
“So how did you learn he’d married you for your money? Weren’t there signs on the wall that you could have read?”
Maura answered ruefully, “There was nothing about Gil that appeared out of line. Until after we were married. And even then I didn’t think it suspicious when he wanted to use our money—or technically you could call it my money—to buy luxury items like vehicles and boats and exotic vacations. He always reasoned the purchases away by insisting he wanted me to have the best of things. Because he loved me. Because I worked so hard as a nurse that I deserved them.” Full of shame, she looked at him. “I couldn’t see through him, Quint. I wanted to believe that he loved me so much he merely wanted to spoil me with gifts. I didn’t want to consider, even for a moment, that he was in the marriage for ulterior reasons. But as time went on I couldn’t ignore his lavish spending. Then finally I started asking myself if he was really buying these things for himself and using me as an excuse.”
“How did you discover the truth?” he asked gently.
She let out a long sigh. “It all happened over the course of two or three years,” she told him. “But the turning point began when I wanted to get pregnant and have a child.”
Struck by that, he turned toward her. “He didn’t want children?”
Shaking her head, she said, “Gil’s job had him traveling at least three or four days out of the week, sometimes more. We both agreed that wasn’t conducive to raising a family. So I promised to wait and he promised to put in for a desk job that would allow him to stay home. But year after year began to pass and everything stayed the same. He always came up with excuses as to why he couldn’t change jobs within the company.”
His expression stern, he said, “Maybe he resented the fact that you were working at a career you liked while you expected him to change jobs? What did he think about you working?”
“He did resent me asking him to change—but I didn’t find out about that until—” She paused, then went on bitterly, “Well, until later. But as for me working, he was all for it. My job kept me occupied and out of his way. So that he’d be free to do his own thing.”
“I think I see,” he said thoughtfully. “So what did you do?”
She turned her palm upward in a helpless gesture. “I began to question him and he promptly accused me of nagging.” Bending her head, she said in a strained voice, “Most women want to bear a child, Quint. That’s all I wanted. But he couldn’t even give me that much.”
The pain in her voice stabbed him right in the middle of his chest. What kind of man would want to hurt this woman, lose this woman? he wondered.
“That’s why you divorced him?”
She grimaced. “That was only a part of it, Quint. I found out…at the clinic where I worked, I accidentally overheard a couple of nurses discussing us. They were saying how sorry they felt for me because he’d had so many women during his travels and I didn’t seem to know.”
“What they were saying could have been unfounded gossip,” he reasoned.
“That’s what I wanted to think. But I confronted Gilbert about it and he confessed. He’d never intended to take a desk job or have a family. He liked things as they were. In short, he wanted his fun and a rich wife on the side.”
“Sounds like a real nice bastard.”
Her expression was stark as she turned her head and looked at him. “See. A man like that—I should have known all along. From the very first my father tried to warn me about Gilbert. But I was so blinded I wouldn’t listen to him. I let love lead me around by the nose. And now—well, I’m not going to let that happen again.”
Her firm vow sounded like so many he’d made to himself. And yet he had the strangest urge to tell her she shouldn’t be bitter or wary. She was a gentle and lovely woman and some man would eventually come along and love her. Really love her. So why wasn’t he thinking that about himself? he wondered wryly. He was a good and honest man. Why didn’t he believe a good, sincere woman would come along and love him?
Quint couldn’t answer that question. He didn’t even try. Instead, all he could say was, “I understand where you’re coming from, Maura.”
Twisting her body toward his, she reached over and clasped his hand between hers. The unexpected touch warmed him, excited him in ways he’d couldn’t explain.
“Do you, Quint? You and Holly—”
“Weren’t compatible,” he finished for her. “Mainly she wanted a different lifestyle than me. A rancher’s day-today grind wasn’t glamorous enough for her.”
Maura frowned. “Everyone around here knew you would always be a rancher. Surely she didn’t