Page 116 of Texas Glory
He glanced up at her. “When Maggie was born. Houston is pretty useless worrying about Amelia the way he does.”
“And when your son was born?”
She watched as his Adam’s apple slowly slid up and down. “Yeah, I bathed him, too.” He set the kettle down. “Why don’t you lay her on the towels there. I’ll hold her while you wash her.”
She laid the child down. Dallas slipped his large hand beneath the child’s dark head.
“We’ll wash her hair first. She won’t like it, but it’s gotta be done,” he said.
As Cordelia sprinkled the first drops of warm water over the child’s head, the baby scrunched up her face and released a wail.
“Do you think I’m hurting her?” Cordelia asked as the wail intensified.
“Nah, she’s just exercising her lungs.” Gently, he turned the child, cradling her on her side so Cordelia could wash the back of her head.
“She’s so tiny,” Cordelia said.
“Yep, but that won’t last.”
As Dallas helped her clean the child, an ache settled deep within her chest for all the children Dallas would care for in the future, all the children who would not belong to him. Houston’s children. Austin’s children. But never his.
How unfair of Fate to give Rawley’s father a son he would never appreciate while Dallas would live the remainder of his life with no hope of ever acquiring a son.
Dallas, whose large hands cradled and comforted the child.
Dallas, who looked upon a child barely an hour old, with love in his eyes.
While Rawley’s father gave his son nothing but pain, Dallas would have seen to it that his son had all that his heart desired.
When she finished washing the baby, she watched as Dallas patted his niece dry and slipped a blue gown over her head. A gown his son would have worn.
He brought a dry blanket around the baby and cradled her within the crook of his arm. A corner of his mustache lifted as he smiled. “Hello, little December. Aren’t you a beauty? You ready to see your ma? Get something to eat?”
He looked at Cordelia, a sadness in his eyes. “Did you want to take her upstairs?”
At that moment she knew she loved him more deeply than she thought possible. “No, you go ahead.”
When he’d left, she glanced around the kitchen. Together they had cared for Houston’s daughter. They worked well together, they always had. “We would have made good parents,” she whispered to the shadows in the corner. “It’s not fair that we were denied the chance.”
Without knowing her destination, she walked out of the house, her slippered feet leaving a trail in the thin blanket of snow.
The wind whipped around her, and she heard the rapid clackety-clack of the windmill. Then she was standing beside her son’s grave—for the first time.
His wooden marker was simple:
LEIGH
SON
1881
She wanted to hold him. She wanted to bathe him and comb his hair and watch him grow. She wanted his tears to dampen her shoulder, his laughter to fill her heart.
She wanted all that she could never have—and she wanted it desperately.
The anguish ripped through her chest for all they had lost: their son and the foundation for a love that he might have given them. Dallas would never love her now as she loved him.
She heard muted footfalls, but couldn’t bring herself to turn around. She tried to wipe the tears from her cheeks, but others surfaced. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold in the pain, but it only increased.
