Page 101 of Texas Glory
He shoved his hands beneath his head and stared at the ceiling. He’d tell her that he loved her when she got back, whisper the words in her ear just before he joined his body to hers. If she didn’t distract him with all those glorious sounds she made and the way her body moved in rhythm to his.
Smiling, he let his eyes drift closed and began to plan his seduction. Seducing her was so easy. Pleasuring her carried rewards he’d never known existed.
A scream shattered his thoughts. A scream of terror that he’d heard once before—on his wedding night.
He leapt from the bed and jerked on his trousers, buttoning them as he rushed down the stairs, his heart pounding, his blood throbbing through his temples.
On his way down, he met Susan Redd on her way up, her brown eyes frightened. “There’s been an accident.”
“Dear God.” He tore past her.
“She’s behind the restaurant!” Susan called after him.
He raced through the lobby, the restaurant, and out the kitchen. Wooden crates that had once been stacked outside now lay helter-skelter. Tyler Curtiss was lifting one off Dee’s sprawled body.
Oblivious to the cold winds hitting his bare chest and feet, Dallas knelt beside his wife and touched his trembling fingers to her pale cheek. The cold numbed his senses. He couldn’t feel her warmth or smell her sweet scent. “Dee?”
She looked like a rag doll a child had grown tired of playing with and thrown aside.
“She swore she heard a child cry,” Carolyn wailed, her voice catching. “I didn’t hear anything … but she came outside … I heard a crash, her scream … is she dead?”
“Go find the goddamn doctor!” Dallas roared and the people surrounding him ran off in all directions.
He needed to get her warm, needed to get her inside. Gently, he slipped one arm beneath her shoulders, the other beneath her knees.
It was then that he felt it, and fear unlike any he’d ever known surged through him. He’d carried too many dying men off battlefields not to recognize the slick feel of fresh blood.
He had brought her home, thinking he could somehow protect her better, keep her safe.
But as she lay beneath the blankets, bathed in sweat, her face as white as a cloud on a summer day, her hand trembling within his, he feared nothing he did, nothing anyone did, would keep her with him.
With a warm cloth, he wiped the glistening dew beading her brow. He didn’t want her to be cold.
If she died, she’d be cold forever. He couldn’t bear the thought, but it lurked in a distant corner of his mind like an unwanted nightmare, keeping company with the sound of her scream.
He would forever hear her scream.
She moaned and whimpered, a pitiful little sound, that tore his hear into shreds.
Where was the damn doctor when he needed him? He was going to find another doctor for Leighton, a doctor who knew how to keep his butt at home so he was there when he was needed, not a doctor who gallivanted around the countryside caring for people Dallas didn’t even know.
Dee released a tiny cry and tightened her hold on his hand. He’d never in his life felt so utterly useless.
He had money, land, and cattle. He’d bathed in the glory of success and what the hell good was it doing him now? He’d trade it all for a chance to turn the clock back, to keep her in that room with him.
“Dallas?” Amelia placed her hand on his shoulder. “Dallas, she’s losing the baby.”
“Oh, God.” Pain ripped through him so intensely, so deeply, that he thought he might keel over. He bowed his head and wrapped his fingers more firmly around Dee’s hand. He’d never known what it was to need, but he needed now, he needed Dee’s quiet strength.
“Just don’t let me lose her,” he rasped. “I’ll do what I can. If you want to leave—” “No. I won’t leave her.”
And he didn’t. He stayed by her side, wiping her brow when she released a tortured cry, holding her hand while her body twisted in agony.
Words failed him, became insignificant. He considered telling her that the loss didn’t matter, that they would have other children, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her, and he knew she’d know his words for the lie they were.
No other child, no matter how special, how precious, would replace this first child.
So he did all that he knew how to do. He remained stoic, held her, and wished to God that somehow the pain could be his and not hers.
