Read Online Running Wild by Denise Eagan - Free Book Online Page B

women’s
suffrage. I believe I asked you at Lee’s wedding, but my parents interrupted
us. What do you think of the women’s rights movement?” Then she wanted to
kick herself. What an idiotic choice of topics for a woman resolved upon
seduction!
    He shrugged. “Not much, I reckon.”
    “You don’t consider it, or you don’t endorse it?”
    “Reckon it doesn’t apply much to folk out here. That kinda
thing is for all the big heads back East to deliberate, not us Westerners.”
    Star tilted her head. “Is the plight of women so different
in the West than it is back East? I should have thought women are much the same
everywhere.”
    “Don’t know about that either. I’m just a rancher.”
    “Why, you must know something,” she said raising an eyebrow.
“You live here, after all.”
    He frowned, his eyes focused ahead as if contemplating an
answer. After a moment, he shrugged and answered, “‘What is the interpretation
of this riddle? For I know that I have no wisdom, small or great.’ Plato.”
    “Plato?”
    “Yeah. From his Defense of Socrates . Figured you’re
all cultured and such, I’d answer with something you’d better understand.”
    “Why, Nicholas, you’ve shocked me. I shouldn’t have pegged
you as a Plato man, although now that I reflect on it, philosophy does suit
you. Yet you stray from my point, which is to discuss the movement.” Another
stupid move! Even Plato was more conducive to seduction than women’s rights.
She could not seem to resist, however, for she’d come to appreciate that under
Nicholas’s rough cowboy exterior hid quick wit and diamond hard intelligence,
the sort of intelligence with which she could spend many happy hours sharpening
her arguments.
    Were she not interested in spending many hours in more novel
activities.
    “Not straying, ma’am, just already said my piece.”
    “In point of fact, Nicholas, you’ve said nothing at all.”
    He turned to her, shaking his head as his eyes gleamed with
reluctant admiration. “Stickin’ to this like death on a dead cat, aren’t you? I
swear, underneath all your sophistication and feminine wiles, you’re the most
cussedly stubborn woman I’ve ever met.”
    Star’s stomach flipped. No man had ever admired her for her
stubbornness. In fact, they despised it. . . . “Am I truly? I suspect I have
learned that from Father. ”
    He chuckled. “As did Monty. I’ll give you credit on that—for
all your charm, every last one of you Montgomerys is a straight shooter. We
aren’t used to that out here. Out here a body’s either direct and rough, or
smooth as silk and tryin’ to get something from you, gen’rally something you
don’t wanna give.”
    “I suppose we’ve discovered that it is—let us call it convenient —to
dance around the truth with people who are dim-witted. With those of greater
intelligence, however, plain speaking is the best tack, as they recognize the
truth regardless of how prettily we dress it up.”
    “Yes’m, I can see that. But me, I’m jist an ol’ cowpuncher
with a grade school edjucation. You might wanna dress it up for me.”
    Amusement bubbled up inside Star and she chuckled. “Oh, yes,
Nicholas, uneducated men always quote Plato. No, sir, I shan’t dress the
truth up for you. It would be a waste of my time.”
    “I only know the one quote.”
    “A fairly obscure one; I have never heard it. You’ve read
quite a bit of Plato I apprehend, and you shall not fool me with that
humble-pie façade of yours, so you might as well drop it.”
    He shook his head ruefully. “It ain’t no fa-cade, ma’am.
It’s jist me, humble and modest.”
    Oh but she did enjoy sparring with him, and from the
sparkle in his eyes, he liked it as well. It warmed her heart and drew her to
him more surely than the myriad of compliments she’d received from other men
over the years. “You cannot sell me on that, either. And you may stop calling me
ma’am, for I am living at your home and the least