Page 88 of Texas Glory
“Do you have all you want?”
“As a matter of fact, I think we do. Would you like to tell me about your sad?”
“It’s not a sad really. I just said that for Maggie’s benefit.”
Amelia angled her head as though she didn’t believe him. Damn the woman, she’d always seen and figured out too much. He turned his hat in his hands, studying it, searching for the right words.
“Do you remember when we were married?” he asked.
Amelia smiled warmly. “A woman isn’t likely to forget her first marriage.”
“When I kissed you … did you like it?” he asked gruffly.
She glanced up quickly as though the answer rested within the eaves of the porch before returning her gaze to his. “I thought it was nice.”
“Nice? The weather isnice.A kiss should be—” He stopped abruptly at the flush racing up her cheeks. “What about when Houston kisses you?”
Her blush deepened. “My toes curl.”
“Is that why you chose him over me?” The words were spoken before he could take them back. Amelia had always had a way of making a man say what was on his mind. It had charmed and aggravated him at the same time.
She rose to her feet, crossed the porch, and wrapped her hand around his. “When it comes to the heart, choice is seldom involved. I don’t know why I fell in love with Houston and not with you. I only know that I did.”
“I don’t begrudge you that,” he said.
She squeezed his hand. “I know you don’t.”
“I just … damn.” He forced the bitter words past his tight throat. “I don’t know how to please Dee in bed … and I want to.”
“That’s the first step, isn’t it? Wanting to please her?”
“Apparently, it’s a damn little first step. What does Houston do when he kisses you?”
“I don’t know. He just kisses me. Maybe you should ask him.”
He glanced over his shoulder. Houston was slipping through the slats of the corral. Dallas had never in his life asked another man’s opinion on anything. It stuck in his craw that he was having to ask now—especially about something as intimate and personal as bedding his wife.
“I appreciate your being honest with me,” he told Amelia.
She patted his shoulder. “Go talk to Houston.”
His stomach reeling worse than the blades of a windmill when the sucker rod had snapped in two, Dallas approached his brother.
“What brings you out today?” Houston asked as he buttoned his shirt.
Dallas shoved down his pride. “How do you kiss Amelia?”
Houston’s fingers stilled over the last button, and he furrowed his brow. “What?”
Dallas heaved a deep sigh of frustration. “Amelia says when you kiss her, you make her toes curl.”
Houston’s mouth split into a distorted grin that moved one side of his face while leaving the scarred side immobile. “She said that, did she?” He peered around Dallas and looked in the direction of the porch where his wife had taken up churning butter again.
Irritated, Dallas stepped in front of him. “Yeah, she said that. So how do you kiss her?”
Houston shrugged. “I just sorta latch my mouth on to hers like there’s no tomorrow.”
“That’s it? Don’t you do something special?”
