Page 92 of Texas Glory
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Houston said, meeting his wife’s gaze. He knew from experience that when the woman a man loved brought his child into the world, the bond only deepened and grew stronger.
“Mr. Curtiss?”
Cordelia stuck her head inside the tent where Tyler Curtiss worked. She had awoken at two in the morning with a thought about the hotel that she wanted to share with him, but she couldn’t find him anywhere.
Stepping into the tent, she decided to wait.
Large sheets of paper littered his desk, and she couldn’t stop herself from looking at them. She saw the new plans for the newspaper office and the apothecary. Small businesses. Large businesses. They would find a home in Leighton.
Moving the papers aside, she saw a drawing of a building with a great many rooms. Bold letters across the top proclaimed it to be a hotel.
Sinking into a chair, she studied the drawing. It wasn’t her hotel, and yet the layout seemed incredibly familiar, reminded her of Dallas. Bold. Daring. The rooms were large, designed for comfort not convenience. Not practical for a town where a great many people would simply be passing through. Yet a portion of it appealed to her, particularly if—as she suspected—her
husband had been responsible for the plans.
“Mrs. Leigh. What a pleasure!”
She jumped out of the chair with a start. “Mr. Curtiss, I wanted to speak with you.” Her gaze drifted back to the drawing. “Whose hotel is this?”
“Oh, that.” He gave her a guilty grin. “Uh, well … uh.” He swept his blond hair off his brow.
“Dallas asked you to draw up plans for a hotel, didn’t he?”
“Yes, ma’am. Some months back, as a matter of fact.”
“What are you going to do with the plans now?”
“He told me to ignore them. Said this town only needed one hotel.”
“Thank you, Mr. Curtiss.” She began to walk out of the tent.
“I thought you came to discuss something.”
She smiled. “I just realized that I need to discuss it with my husband first.”
As she rode into the ranch, she saw Dallas standing by the corral. A broad smile spread beneath his mustache as she drew Lemon Drop to a halt and dismounted.
She strode to him, entwined her arms around his neck, and kissed him, deeply, soundly. From the moment he had made her his wife, he had been secretly placing gifts within reach, gifts that came without wrapping or bows, gifts whose worth could only be measured by the heart.
He drew back, his brow furrowed. “What was that for?”
“I saw the plans for your hotel.”
He grimaced. “Oh, that. It was just an idea I was toying with. It never took hold, not like your plans.”
She combed her fingers through the hair that curled at the nape of his neck. “I woke up this morning with a thought. I want one of the rooms to be special, but I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted. I was going to talk with Mr. Curtiss about it, and then I saw your drawings. Your rooms were so much larger than mine.”
“I wanted to give a man room to stretch out.”
“I want to give a man and woman a place to make love.”
She broke away and began pacing, the idea little more than a seed. “I truly believe that many of the women who come to work at The Grand Hotel will eventually marry. Some will marry men like Slim, and you’ll have to provide your men with a different type of living quarters.”
“Is that so?” Dallas asked, intrigued as always with the way Dee set the wheels of an idea spinning inside her head, like a windmill built in the path of a constant breeze.
Her steps grew quicker as the excitement burned brightly within her eyes. “For the most part, they’ll marry men of modest means, men who are content to let others dream. They’ll get married in the church that you’ll one day build, and then they’ll go to the house where they’ll probably live for the remainder of their life.
“Most won’t be able to take a wedding trip, but I want to give them a place where they can go for one night and feel special. A room as beautiful as their love, as grand as their hopes for the future, where a man can make love to his wife for the first time in a huge bed with flowers surrounding them.” She stopped pacing. “What do you think?”
