Page 6 of Texas Destiny
Hell, he didn’t know any words like that. She’d just have to be happy with the words he knew, sorely lacking though they were.
Thank God, he wasn’t the one she was going to marry. He’d spent the whole morning thinking about what he would say when he met her. When he’d seen the tears glistening within her green eyes, shame had risen up and sent every word he’d practiced scattering like dust across the prairie. Shame that it had taken him so long to gather his courage and cross that platform to greet her. Shame that he hadn’t considered how she might feel standing alone in a strange town waiting for a man who wasn’t going to come.
At the livery, he’d thought about how he might explain the supplies. Their purchase was sure to be a delicate matter. After all his thinking and word gathering, she hadn’t met him.
Now he was having to think of an apology.
He just wanted to be back at the ranch, where he could walk alone and think alone. He didn’t want to answer questions, or consider another’s feelings, or remove his hat.
With a heavy sigh, he removed his hat, knocked lightly on her door, and waited, the apology waiting with him, ready to be spoken as soon as she opened the door.
Only she didn’t open the door.
She was either angrier than he figured or she’d left. If she’d left, he’d be the one with four bullets in his hide because Dallas always hit what he aimed at.
Earlier, without thinking, he’d placed the key to her room in his pocket, leaving her without a way to lock her door. What if someone had stolen her? Women were rare … so rare …
He knocked a little harder. “Miss Carson?”
He pressed his good ear to the door. The blast that had torn through the left side of his face had taken his hearing from that side as well. He heard nothing but silence on the other side of the door.
Gingerly, he opened the door and peered inside. The late-afternoon sun streamed through the window, bathing the woman in its honeyed glow. Curled on the bed, asleep, she looked so young, so innocent, so unworthy of his temper.
He slipped inside and quietly closed the door. He crossed the room, set his saddlebags on the floor, and sat in the plush velvet chair beside the bed. He dug his elbows into his thighs and leaned forward.
Dear God, but she was lovely, like a spring sunrise tempting the flowers to unfurl their petals. Her pale lashes rested on her pink-tinged cheeks. Her lips, even in sleep, curved into the barest hint of a smile.
He had spotted her right off, as soon as she’d arrived at the door of the railway car. Beneath that godawful ugly hat, the sun had glinted off hair that looked as though it had been woven from moonbeams. The smile she had given the porter as he’d helped her down the steps—even at a distance—had knocked the breath out of Houston.
He still wasn’t breathing right. Every time he looked at her, his gut clenched as though he’d received a quick kick from a wild mustang.
She wasn’t at all what he’d expected of a heart-and-hand woman. He’d expected her to look like an old shirt, washed so many times that it had lost its color and the strength of its threads. He knew women like that. Women who had traveled rough roads, become hard and coarse themselves, with harsh laughter and smiles that were too bright to be sincere. Women who knew better than to trust.
But Amelia Carson did trust. She was a heart-in-her-eyes woman. Everything she thought, everything she felt reflected clearly in her eyes. In her green, green eyes.
The warm depths reminded him of fields of clover he’d run through as a boy. Barefoot. The clover had resembled velvet caressing his rough soles. For a brief moment, he actually relished the thought of holding her gaze.
His brown eye could serve as the soil in which her green clover took root.
What an idiotic notion! The next thing he knew he’d be spouting poetry. He shuddered at the thought. Wearing flowers and spouting poetry. His pa would have tanned his hide good for either one of those unmanly actions.
He watched her sleep until the final rays of the sun gave way to the pale moonlight. He shivered as the chill of the night settled over him. Standing, he reached across the woman and folded the blankets over her. A warmth suffused him, and he imagined drawing the blankets over her every night for the rest of his life.
Only that privilege belonged to his brother. Houston had witnessed the document Dallas had drawn up, something as close to a marriage contract as he could arrange without the “I do’s.” For all practical purposes, Amelia Carson belonged to Dallas.
Which was as it should be. Dallas had spent a month thumbing through the tattered magazine he’d found when they’d driven the cattle to Wichita, Kansas, in the spring of seventy-five. Houston knew desperation for a son had driven Dallas to write his first letter to Amelia.
He could only wonder what had compelled her to reply, to accept his brother’s offer of marriage. He settled back in the chair. It wasn’t his place to wonder about her. He didn’t have to like her. He didn’t have to talk to her. He didn’t have to be nice to her. He just had to get her to the ranch … and by God, that was all he planned to do.
Through a waking haze in which dreams still lingered in the corners of her mind, Amelia snuggled beneath the blankets, relishing the comfort of the soft bed. She had no recollection of drawing the blankets over herself, but she welcomed their protection against the chill permeating the room.
Complacent and rested, like a kitten that had spent the better part of the day lazing in the sun, she stretched languorously, inhaled deeply, and froze.
The aromas of bacon, coffee, and freshly baked bread teased her nostrils. Slowly she opened her eyes, expecting the harsh glare of the afternoon sun to streak across her vision. Instead, the soft glow of early-morning light cast its halo over the furnishings, directing most of its attention on a small cloth-covered table set in the middle of the room. The sunlight shimmered over an assortment of covered dishes.
Amelia’s mouth watered at the same time that alarm rushed through her. She hadn’t heard anyone come into the room.
Unexpectedly, she detected another scent, much fainter than the food causing her stomach to rumble, fainter, and yet in an odd way more powerful. Leather and horses.
