Page 45 of Texas Honor

“What!” Mari burst out, gasping as she grasped the dash. “What is it?”

“Just a rabbit,” he muttered with a quick glance in her direction. “Sorry.”

She stared at him. She hadn’t seen any rabbit, and he sure was pale. What was wrong with him?

“Are you all right?” she asked cautiously, her voice soft with helpless concern.

It was the concern that got to him. He felt vulnerable with her. That evidence of her soft heart wound strands around him, binding him. He didn’t want marriage or ties or babies! But when he looked at her, he felt such sweet longings, such exquisite pleasure. It had nothing to do with sex or carefree lust. It was...disturbing.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I’m all right.”

A little farther down the road he suddenly pulled into a shallow farm road that was little more than ruts in the grass. It went beyond a closed fence, through a pasture, toward a distant grove of trees.

“My grandfather’s place,” he said as he turned off the engine. “My father was born out there, where you see those trees. It was a one-room shack in those days, and my grandmother once fought off a Comanche raiding party with an old Enfield rifle while my grandfather was up in Kansas on a trail drive.”

He got out of the car and opened her door. “I know the owner,” he said when she was standing beside him. “He doesn’t mind if I come here. I like to see the old place sometimes.”

He didn’t ask if she wanted to. He just held out his big hand. Without hesitation she placed her slender one in it and felt tingly all over as his fingers closed warmly around it.

She felt small beside him as they walked. He opened and closed the gate, grinning at her curious stare.

“Any cattleman knows the value of a closed fence,” he remarked as he grasped her hand once more and began to walk along the damp ruts. It had rained recently and there were still patches of mud. “In the old days a rancher might very well shoot a greenhorn who left a gate open and let his cattle get out.”

“Were there really Indian raids around here?” she asked.

“Why, sure, honey,” he said, smiling down at her. “Comanche, mostly, and there were Mexican bandidos who raided the area, too. Cattle rustling was big business back then. It still is in some areas. Except now they do it with big trucks, and in the old days they had to drive the herd out of the country or use a running iron.”

She glanced up curiously. “What’s a running iron?”

“A branding iron with a curved tip,” he said. “It was used to alter brands so a man could claim another man’s cattle. Here.” He let go of her hand and found a stick and drew a couple of brands in the dirt, explaining how a running iron could be used to add an extra line or curve to an existing brand and change its shape entirely.

“That’s fascinating!” she said.

“It’s also illegal, but it happened quite a lot.” He put the stick down and stuck his hands in his pockets, smiling as he looked around at feathery mesquite and live oak trees and open pasture. “God, it’s pretty here,” he said. “Peaceful, rustic... I never get tired of the land. I guess it’s that damned Irish in my ancestry.” He glanced down. “My grandmother, now, says it’s British. But just between us, I don’t think O’Mara is a British name, and that was my great-grandmother’s maiden name.”

“Maybe your grandmother doesn’t like the Irish,” she suggested.

“Probably not since she was jilted by a dashing Irishman in the war.”

“Which war?” Mari asked cautiously.

“I’m afraid to ask,” he said conspiratorially. “I’m not quite sure just how old she is. Nobody knows.”

“How exciting,” she said with a laugh.

He watched her with a faint smile, fascinated by the change in her when she was with him. That pale, quiet woman in the bank bore no resemblance to this bright, beautiful one. He scowled, watching her wander through the wooded area where the old ramshackle ranch house sagged under the weight of age and rotting timbers and rusting tin. She made everything new and exciting, and the way she seemed to light up when he was near puzzled him, excited him. He wondered if she might care about him. Love him...

She whirled suddenly, her face illuminated with surprised delight. “Ward, look!”

There were pink roses by the steps. A profusion of vines bore pink roses in tight little clusters, and their perfume was everywhere.

“Aren’t they beautiful!” she enthused, bending to smell them. “What a heavenly aroma!”

“Legend has it that my father’s grandmother, Mrs. O’Mara, brought those very roses from Calhoun County, Georgia, and nursed them like babies until they took hold here. She carried them across the frontier in a pot. In a Conestoga wagon, and saved them from fire, flood, swollen river crossings, robbers, Indians and curious little children. And they’re still here. Like the land,” he mused, staring around with eyes full of pride. “The land will be here longer than any of us and very little changed despite our meddling.”

She smiled. “You sound just like a rancher.”

He turned. “I am a rancher.”

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