I'm Not Lisa Ch. 04-06

"So ... why did you ask me?"

"I got the impression it was on your mind. Like somethin' you had to worry about whether I would accept you or not."

I don't know how he got to it, but his comment cut like a knife. I couldn't deny it. I was sensitive about my skin color and the fact that I was of Mexican descent. I had been since I was a little kid. I always expected that I'd marry a man of the same race. When Rance came along, it was like a fairytale for me. I could pretend he might see past my appearance, who I was, what I looked like.

"I'm proud of who I am," I tried. I wasn't very convincing. "Besides ... there's nothing I can do about it."

"No more than I can do anythin' about who I am or where I came from. We're lucky, Julie. We came from happy families and we got a lot of breaks growin' up. I was the oldest, so my sister was always waitin' her turn. I was expected to take over the ranch some day, so I was the one all the effort was put into."

"I'm the middle child. But I was a girl, so I didn't have to worry about taking over any family responsibilities. I would go to school, get married, have children, and make my parents happy. I messed all that up with the college scholarships and my career."

"Do you think your folks are disappointed?"

"No. I think it was all in my head. I worked hard to make sure it didn't turn out that way."

"Somethin' like your issue with your background?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean ... it's all in your head. I don't care about you bein' Hispanic. Although, I must admit I like the all-over tan," he grinned.

I smacked him in mock anger, then immediate recoiled in horror. I had hit him on a large, fading scar on his chest. The missing rib, I guessed.

"I'm sorry. That was a terrible thing for me to do," I cried.

He hadn't flinched, or even acted like he had noticed. He rolled toward me and pulled me into him. His scent was intoxicating and I felt incredibly safe in his arms. He would never let any harm come to me. I knew that for a certainty.

"You'd have to hit me a lot harder than that to hurt me. Haven't you heard that cowboys are tough hombres?"

"Yeah ... I think I did hear that somewhere," I said, happy that I hadn't hurt him.

"We can get hurt, though. It doesn't have to be a punch or a bullet. Sometimes words can hurt more than anythin'," he said, looking at the ceiling.

"I told you, Rance, I'm not Lisa. I won't do that to you."

"So ... you'll marry me then?" he asked timidly.

"Maybe. Not right away."

"Maybe? What's that mean?" I could tell I had unsettled him.

"It means maybe. When I get to know you better and you can convince me that you're really in love with me and not just ... I don't know ... in like."

"I am in love with you. I told you that already."

"Yeah. I heard the words. But there's more to it than that. You've got to search inside yourself and be sure. This is for life, Rance."

"Are you in love with me?" he asked, again without a lot of confidence.

"Yes. I am. I knew for sure when ... when that screw-up with your sister happened. I don't think I've ever felt that lousy in my life. All those hours we spent together in the office ... just talking. I got to know more about you than I ever expected. I told your mother that you were almost too good to be true. But it can't be a one-sided love affair. It has to be both of us wanting the same thing. Both of us feeling the same about each other. Both of us knowing what's at stake if it all goes wrong."

Once again, he lay quietly beside me, gazing at the ceiling.

"What will it take to convince you?"

"I don't know. It's you that has to convince you, Rance. You have to believe. I mean really believe. I won't ... I can't ... settle for anything less."

"How can we work this out?" he asked quietly.

"Being together can't hurt. Learning everything there is to learn about each other. That's what people do before they get married ... if they're smart."

"Bein' together sounds good to me. I like that idea," he grinned, turning toward me.

"Yeah ... I'll bet. You've already translated that into sex, haven't you?"

"Well ... it was a logical conclusion, wasn't it?"

"For a guy!" I reached over and pinched his nose lightly. "We need to see each other when we aren't at our best, or on our best behavior. We need to get to know the real person."

"I know one way we can do that," he suggested. "We can live together."

"We can try it. It will give us a chance to see each other the way we would if we were married."

"Then ... you agree ... we can live together?" He didn't sound like he quite believed it.

"Yes. But there are some other questions that need to be answered first. What about the ranch?"

"Yeah. That is a complication all right," he admitted.

"So ... what was your plan when you came back here to see me?"

"I just wanted you back. I didn't care if it was here or at the ranch. I just wanted you back."

"What about the ranch. Who's looking after things while you're away?"

"Charlie and Dad. When Charlie's not sure about what to do, he's goes to see Dad."

"Is that going to work ... long term?"

He sighed, "Nope."

"Then, as I see it, you need to be at the ranch. Someone needs to be at Kleinhauser. That makes living together impossible, doesn't it?"

"Maybe not. I've been workin' to find a replacement for me that can do my job properly. I may have found one. Ex-army, of course," he smiled ruefully.

"What about Tim?"

"He'll be okay. He knew in the beginning that this wasn't goin' to be permanent. Hell, I've been there three years longer than I ever intended to be."

"Okay ... how long will it take to train your replacement?"

"A month ... maybe a little less."

"And what about me?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I asked. What about me? Doreen could do my job with about a weeks training at most. That would leave me free to be with you."

He waggled his eyebrows, then a chuckle rumbled from his chest.

"Then there'd be nothin' stopping you from comin' with me to the ranch."

That seemed to settle the details. I had agreed to be with him at the family ranch. It seemed like such a simple decision.

"So why did you recruit me for your assistant," I asked after a while.

"It was the best way I could think of to get close to you," he confessed.

"I thought so! But ... if you were planning to get close to me, you didn't do a very good job. You never so much as touched me the entire year I was in that office."

"Sexual harassment."

"What about it?"

"I was tryin' to figure a way to get close to you without it bein' perceived as sexual harassment."

"And you never could bring yourself to tell me how you felt, despite all that private time we spent together?"

"What private time? We were still in the office. I couldn't take the chance that somethin' I said would be misinterpreted."

"So instead, you took no chance at all."

"Yeah."

I sighed my frustration. "A whole damn year wasted."

"We can catch up," he said hopefully.

"So ... listening to your plan, when would we move to the ranch?"

"Soon as we get our replacements in place. There's plenty of room there and you'd get a feel for what bein' on a ranch was like. It wouldn't be a shock then."

"I suppose. But Rance, when it comes to being in love with my man, it doesn't really matter where we go, as long as we're together."

"I was hopin' you'd feel that way. If I had to give up the ranch to be with you, I would. I'd already made that decision."

"Really!" That caught me by surprise. The message was unmistakable. He would go where he had to go to be with me. I can't express the feeling that gave me. It was a cross between warmth and excitement. Maybe I had underestimated his feelings for me.

We never did go back to the office that afternoon. In fact, aside from Rance fixing what he described as his gourmet lunch of grilled cheese on rye, canned tomato soup, and milk, we were barely out of bed. I was going to be very sore the next day, but at the time, it wasn't on my mind. A thousand other things were, but they would have to wait.

As a lover, Rance was every woman's dream. Considerate, gentle when need be, powerful when wanted, virile, and most of all, patient. I really didn't expect him to be so perfect, despite the imaginary persona I had constructed for him. My previous experience with men was limited, I admit, but Rance was so much better than anything I had experienced that it wasn't a fair comparison.

If it sounds like I'm describing Superman, I guess I am. He was my Superman. He was perfect. I'd been around him enough to know just what he was and what he wasn't. Aside from his reluctance to tell me how he felt about me, I couldn't find a fault I couldn't live with. The fact that most of the women at Kleinhauser had the "hots" for him tended to confirm my opinion. But the acid test would be living with him. It was that last step that I knew I had to take.

Editing by ErikThread and DaveT with my thanks.

To Be Continued