“I thought you hated all the Stanfords.”
He gave her his rotten-toothed grin. “I don’t hate anybody what promises to share his money with me.” He leaned closer to her. “You don’t think he’s lyin’, do you? He’ll do what he says, won’t he?”
“Yes, I’m sure he will.”
Later at the noon meal Wesley didn’t appear, and when Leah could, she asked Cal where he was. After telling Cal where she was going, she again asked him to keep Revis away. With a sackful of food she trudged up the hill to where Wesley was chopping wood.
For a moment she stood watching him, looking at the sweat gleaming on his muscular back, and found that her own palms were sweaty. But all lust within her died when Wes turned and saw her, his face angry.
“I brought you something to eat,” she said with a dry throat.
Slowly he put down the ax and came toward her.
Instinctively she backed away.
“I’m not going to attack you if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
“I’m not. I came to tell you something. Abe said that you and I…this morning…I mean, he was afraid that Revis might begin to suspect something about us.”
“Such as that you and I were rolling about in the bushes and then we had a quarrel?”
She looked up at him for a moment, watching as he took a seat on a tree stump. “Did you want Revis to believe that?”
“Of course. Why else would I have been acting sulky and angry?”
“Acting?” She sat down on the ground, not far from his feet. “I don’t understand anything.”
“Something I learned from my brother was that it’s best not to let women in on your plans. I was hoping, after I learned you had stupidly returned to Revis’s camp”—he gave her a look of reproach—“that you’d do the sensible thing and pretend to fall madly in love with me at first sight, but I knew that’d be too much to ask from a woman. Especially you, Leah. You have the most contrary mind I ever saw. Every time I give you what you want, you change your mind. You wanted to marry me and when I did, you changed your mind.”
She started to defend herself, but he waved her words aside.
“That’s neither here nor there except that I wanted you safe in Sweetbriar and when you wouldn’t go there I hoped to be able to protect you here. But you always seem to know exactly how to do the opposite of what I want.”
“I couldn’t go with you when I’d turned Revis down. He would have—”
“If you tell me again that Revis would kill me, I may strangle you. Leah,” he said, calming himself, “do you think I am so little of a man that you have to use your own sweet little body to protect me? I’ve told you I wasn’t going to let you control things and damned if you don’t just keep on trying to control everything and everybody. If I tell you to walk left, you walk right. Not only do I have to concern myself with Revis and the Dancer, but I have to worry about what you’re going to do next because you think you’re the only smart one in the world. Except for Revis,” he added with a hurt look in his eyes. “For some reason you think this Revis is so smart he could kill me without me even knowing about it.”
“It’s not that he’s so smart, but he’s so evil. You’re not. You’re good and kind and—”
He was looking at her with his head to one side, a hunk of cornbread halfway to his mouth. “Last night you said I was the best-looking man you’d ever seen and today I’m good and kind. Are you falling in love with me, Leah?”
“Never!” she exclaimed, but her face turned pink.
“Too bad,” he muttered.
“What kind of plans do you have?” she asked quickly, to cover her confusion.
“To be honest, Leah, I’m afraid to tell you the truth. If I told you what I want to do you might decide it was too dangerous for me and do something that would be the opposite. Of course I could tell you the opposite of my plans and then by sheer accident you might end up helping me.”
“Why you—!” she spat at him as she rose.
He caught her thigh in his hand and pulled her to him, her mouth near his. “How come you said all those mean things to me last night when you really think I’m good and kind?”
“How come you only believe the good I say about you and not the bad? Have you ever listened to me?”
Releasing her, he looked back into the bag of food. “Not much I don’t, because to tell the truth, Leah, you don’t make much sense to me. You’re always leaping—or diving—into my arms and then saying the damnedest mean things to me. It just seems to me that if you really didn’t like me you wouldn’t be taking off your clothes in front of me as often as you do.”
Leah had absolutely no reply to his words. Quietly she sat down again. “What plans do you have for Revis?” she whispered.