“I love you, Faith,” he said into the quiet.
She smiled. “How fortunate for me, since I love you, too.”
And she would through all the days and nights that were to follow.
Epilogue
One year later
Faith sat on the porch swing beside her father, looking on tenderly as he cradled his month-old grandson, Jackson Cooper. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so, but it always filled her with an abundance of happiness to see the joy and pride reflected in his face. He’d turned the management of the ranch entirely over to her and Rawley, who was standing with his backside pressed against the porch railing, his arms folded over his chest, one foot crossed in front of the other. Although she knew he wasn’t nearly as relaxed as he appeared.
She also knew they made a great team with him handling the cattle while she had renewed her interest in oil. She believed with all her heart that before too long they’d find a gusher or two. But even if they didn’t, she took comfort in knowing her father’s faith in their ability to ensure his legacy continued relieved him of a burden he’d grown weary of carrying. And with any luck, he’d be with them for a good many more years.
Her mother sat in a nearby rocker keeping a watchful eye on Callie as she chased after Rufus, who would suddenly turn around and start chasing her. Her laughter and shouts of glee echoed around them.
“I can’t believe how big this fella is already getting,” her father said as he skimmed a roughened finger over what she knew to be an incredibly soft, chubby cheek.
“He’s always hungry,” Faith told him.
“He’ll be eating beef before too long.”
“I have little doubt,” she assured him.
He lifted his gaze to her. “I would have loved him just as much if he’d turned out to be a girl.”
She smiled tenderly. “I know, Pa. You never made me feel like you wished I’d been a boy.”
“Not a lot of women could handle running a business as good as you do.”
“I think you’d be surprised.” She looked over at her mother. “We’re pretty sturdy when it comes right down to it.”
“We are that,” Ma agreed.
“Your ma and I have been talking,” Pa said. “We don’t need this big monstrosity of a house anymore—”
“I never saw it as a monstrosity,” her mother said quickly. “It represented a bold man with big dreams.”
“Well, that bold man is growing tired, and you young’uns need the space more than we do, so we’re going to build a smaller place not too far from here, but far enough away that you’ll have your privacy. Or you can build yourself something else, but that little cabin just won’t do any longer.”
She glanced over at Rawley, and with nothing more than a quirk of his mouth, he told her his answer.
“We’d like to move in here,” she said. “It’s full of wonderful memories, and we’ll pass them on to the children.”
“Good, that’s what we were hoping for,” her father said.
“With that settled, are y’all ready for dinner?” her mother asked, starting to rise out of the rocker.
“Uh, before we do that,” Rawley began, halting her progress, looking over at Faith. She gave her husband an encouraging nod. “Uh, I’ve got something to say.”
Her mother lowered herself back to the cushioned seat and waited patiently.
Rawley straightened and slipped his hands into the back pockets of his pants. He shifted his feet, cleared his throat.
“What is it, boy?” her father asked, worry threaded through his voice, and she wondered if parents ever saw the children entrusted to their care as adults.
Placing her hand on his arm, she squeezed gently. “Just give him time.” Then she gave her attention back to her husband and let all the love she felt for him—a lifetime’s worth and beyond—reflect in her eyes. A corner of his mouth tilted up as he gave her a small nod before riveting his gaze on her father.
“Dallas, when I was a boy and you took me in, you offered to give me your name.”
“And you turned me down.”
“I didn’t think I was deserving of it.”
“That is such hogwa—”
She squeezed her father’s arm to silence him because she knew how difficult this moment was for Rawley, knew how very much it meant to him.
“Go on,” her father said brusquely.
Rawley gave another nod. “I’ve been thinking on it. And the thing is, I want my son”—he looked to where Callie was now rolling on the grass with Rufus—“my children”—he looked at Faith—“our children to carry the name of my father. I was hoping that offer you made was still open and you’d give me the honor of taking on your name.”
“’Bout damn time, son,” her father said, his voice a little thready with emotion. “About damn time.”
Then he handed Jackson off to her, shoved himself to his feet, and drew Rawley into his embrace. Over her father’s shoulder, through the welling tears, she saw her husband’s tightly closed eyes, saw a single droplet of water trail along his cheek.
He’d told her in the late hours of the night what he wanted to do, had asked her permission because it affected her name, too. He wanted to adopt Callie, as well, be as much a father to her as he would be to their son. And she knew he’d finally put his past behind him, had finally come to understand that family was not defined by blood.
“If it weren’t Sunday, we’d head into town this minute and get the matter settled,” her father said. “We’ll do it first thing in the morning.”
When her father stepped back, her mother replaced him, hugging Rawley tightly. “You’ve made us both so happy.”
“It took me a while to see things right, to understand,” he said. “Callie’s as much mine as Jackson is.”
As though she heard her name, Callie suddenly came to attention and darted up the steps. “Papa! I want a hug, too!”
Someday, Faith figured she would have to explain everything about the man who’d played a role in her existence. But her father was, and always would be, Rawley.
With the children sleeping, and their parents sitting on the front porch enjoying the stars, Rawley slipped his arm around Faith and led her away from the house, toward the open prairie. As far as he could see was land that would one day belong to them, that they would pass down to their children.
“Things change and yet they seem to remain the same,” Faith said quietly.
“You’ll be Faith Leigh again.”
“I don’t care what my name is as long as you’re my husband.”
He chuckled low. “Rawley Leigh doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”
“I like it.” Swinging around, she stopped his progress, standing in front of him, her arms around his waist, her hands pressed to his back. “I love you, Rawley. I will as long as there is air to breathe and sky to look up at.”
With one hand, he cradled her cheek. “I’ve loved you for so long, Faith, that I can’t remember a time when I didn’t.”
As he claimed her mouth while the fireflies danced around them, he realized the legacy he’d been given had nothing at all to do with land or cattle or the possibility of oil but had everything to do with love, with loving this woman.
An Excerpt from Texas Destiny
Keep reading for an excerpt from
TEXAS DESTINY
The beginning of Lorraine Heath’s breathtaking Texas series
Chapter One
September 1876
His was not a face that women carried with them into their dreams.
Houston Leigh skimmed his thumb over the black eye patch before tugging the brim on the left side of his hat down lower. The right side showed little wear, but the crumpled left side carried the oil and sweat from the constant caress of his hand. Although the day was warm, he brought up the collar on his black duster.
Irritated with the world at large, his older brother in particular, Houston leaned against the wooden structure that had
the dubious distinction of being Fort Worth’s first railway station and gazed into the distance at the seemingly never-ending tracks.
He hated the railroad with a passion.
Fort Worth had been fading into obscurity, turning into a ghost town, before the citizens extended the town’s boundaries so the railroad could reach its outermost edge. It had taken nothing more than a whispered promise to change the fading cow town into a thriving boomtown that the elected officials boasted would one day be known as the Queen of the Prairie.
The Queen of the Prairie.
Houston groaned. His brother had taken to calling his mail-order bride that very name, and Dallas had never even set eyes on the woman.
Hell, she could be the court jester for all Dallas knew, but he’d spent a good portion of his money—and his brothers’ money—building this woman a palace at the far side of nowhere.
“We just need to get one woman out here and the rest will follow,” Dallas had assured his brothers, a wide confident grin easing onto his darkly handsome face.
Only Houston didn’t want women sashaying across the windswept prairie. Their soft smiles and gentle laughter had a way of making a man yearn for the simple dreams of his youth, dreams he’d abandoned to the harshness of reality.
Houston had known men who had been disfigured less. Men who had taken a rifle and ended their misery shortly after gazing into a mirror for the first time after they were wounded. Had he been a man of courage, he might have done the same. But if he had been a man of courage, he wouldn’t have been left with a face that his older brother couldn’t stomach.
He saw the faint wisp of smoke curling in the distance. Its anticipated presence lured people toward the depot the way water enticed a man crossing the desert. Turning slightly, Houston pressed his left shoulder against the new wood.
Damn Dallas, anyway, for making Houston leave his horses and come to this godforsaken place of women, children, and men too young to have fought in the War Between the States. If Houston hadn’t been stunned speechless when Dallas had ordered him to come to Fort Worth to fetch his bride, he would have broken Dallas’s other leg.
He still might when he got back to the ranch.
He heard the rumbling train’s coarse whistle and shoved his sweating hands into his duster pockets. His rough fingers touched the soft material inside. Against his will, they searched for the delicate threads.
The woman had sent Dallas a long, narrow piece of white muslin decorated with finely stitched flowers that he was supposed to have wrapped around the crown of his hat so she could easily identify him.
Flowers, for God’s sake.
A man didn’t wear flowers on his hat. If he wore anything at all, he wore the dried-out scales of a rattlesnake that he’d killed and skinned himself, or a strip of leather that he’d tanned, or . . . or anything but daintily embroidered pink petals.
Houston was beginning to wonder if Dallas had broken his leg on purpose just to get out of wearing this silly scrap of cloth. It wouldn’t do to anger the woman before she became his wife.
Well, Houston wasn’t going to marry her so he could anger her all he wanted, and he wasn’t going to wrap flowers around the crown of his brown broad-brimmed hat.
No, ma’am. No, sir.
He hadn’t stood firm on many things in his life, but by God, he was going to stand firm on this matter.
No goddamn flowers on his hat.
He squeezed his eye shut and thought about breaking Dallas’s other leg. The idea’s appeal grew as he heard more people arrive, their high-pitched voices grating on his nerves like a metal fork across a tin plate. A harsh whisper penetrated the cacophony of sound surrounding him.
“Dare you!”
“Double-dare you!”
The two voices fell into silence, and he could feel the boys’ gazes boring into him. God, he wished he’d never shut his eye. It was harder to scare people off once they’d taken to staring at him.
“Looks like he’s asleep.”
“But he’s standin’.”
“My pa can sleep while he’s sittin’ in the saddle. Seen him do it once.”
“So touch him and see.”
A suffocating expectation filled the air with tension. Then the touch came. A quick jab just above his knee.
Damn! He’d hoped the boys were older, bigger, so he could grab one by the scruff of his shirt, hoist him to eye level, and scare the holy hell out of him. Only he knew a bigger boy wouldn’t have jabbed him so low.
Reluctantly, Houston slowly opened his eye and glanced down. Two ragamuffins not much older than six stared up at him.
“Git,” he growled.
“Heh, mister, you a train robber?” one asked. “Is that how come you’re standin’ over here so no one can see ya?”
“I said to git.”
“How’d you lose your eye?” the other asked.
His eye? Houston had lost a good deal more than his eye. Trust boys to overlook the obvious. His younger brother had. Austin had never seemed to notice that his brother had left the better part of his face on some godforsaken battlefield.
“Git outta here,” Houston ordered, deepening his voice.
Blinking, the boys studied him as though he were a ragged scarecrow standing in a cornfield.
With a quickness they obviously weren’t expecting, he stomped his foot in their direction, leaned low, and pulled his lips back into a snarl. The boys’ eyes grew as large as their hollering mouths just before they took off at a run. Watching their bare feet stir up the dry dirt in the street leading away from the depot, Houston wished he could run with them, but family obligations forced him to remain.
In resignation, he repositioned himself against the wall, slipped his hand inside the opening of his duster, and stroked the smooth handle of the Colt revolver. The thought of breaking Dallas’s leg no longer held enough satisfaction.
Houston decided he’d shoot his brother when he got back to the ranch.
Amelia Carson had never been so terrified in all her nineteen years.
Afraid the train might hurtle her onto the platform before she was ready to disembark, she clung to her seat as the huffing beast lurched to a stop. The wheels squealed over the wobbly tracks, the whistle blew, and the bell clanged as the engine settled with an ominous hiss. The pungent smell of wood smoke worked its way into the compartment as the passengers flung open the doors, forgetting their manners as they shoved each other aside in their hurry to scramble off the train. Amelia had never seen such an odd collection of people crammed together in one space.
Women with throaty voices and low-necked bodices had graced the compartment. A few well-groomed men had worn tailored suits as though they’d been invited to dine with a queen. Only the guns bulging beneath their jackets indicated otherwise. Some men, smelling of sweat and tobacco, had squinted at her as though contemplating the idea of slitting her throat if she closed her eyes. So she’d rarely slept.
Instead, she had spent her time reading the letters that Dallas Leigh had written to her. She was certain the bold, strong handwriting was a reflection of the man who had responded to her advertisement indicating she had a desire to travel west and become a wife. He was a hero—inasmuch as the South could claim a hero in a war that it had lost. He had been a lieutenant at seventeen, a captain at nineteen. He owned his land, his cattle, and his destiny.
He had wrapped his proposal for marriage around dreams, dreams of building a ranching empire and having a son with whom to share them.
Amelia knew a great deal about dreams and how frightening it was to reach for them alone. Together she and Dallas Leigh could do more than reach for the dreams. They would hold them in the palm of their hands.
Countless times during her journey, she had envisioned Dallas Leigh waiting for her in Fort Worth, impatiently pacing the platform. Once the train arrived, he would crane his neck to see into the cars, anxious to find her. She had imagined him losing his patience and barging onto the train, yelling
her name and knocking people out of the way, desperate to hold her within his arms.
With her dreams rekindled and her heart fluttering, she gazed out the window, hoping to catch sight of her future husband.
She saw many impatient men, but they were all rushing away from the train, yelling and shoving through the crowd, anxious to make their mark on the westernmost railhead. None wore her handiwork wrapped around the crown of his hat. None glanced at the train as though he cared who might still be on board.
She fought off her disappointment and turned away from the window. Perhaps he was simply being considerate, giving her time to compose herself after the arduous journey.
She pulled her carpetbag onto the bench beside her and opened it. With a shaky breath, she stared at the conglomeration of ribbons, flowers, and a stuffed brown bird that her betrothed had labeled a hat. Since she had no portrait to send him, he had sent her something to wear that he could identify.
She was grateful . . .
She stared at the hat.
She was grateful . . . grateful . . .
She furrowed her brow, searching for something about the hat for which she could be grateful. It wasn’t an easy quest, but then nothing in her life had been easy since the war. Suddenly she smiled.
She was grateful Mr. Leigh had not met her in Georgia. She was grateful that she didn’t have to place the hat on her head until this moment, that none of her fellow passengers had ever seen it.
She plucked it out of her bag, settled it on her head, and took a deep breath. Her future husband was waiting for her.
She just hoped none of the cowboys still mingling at the depot took a notion into their heads to shoot the bird off her hat before Mr. Leigh found her.
Standing, she stepped into the aisle, lifted her bag, and marched to the open doorway with all the determination she could muster. She smiled at the porter as he helped her descend the steps, and then she found herself standing on the wooden platform amid chaos.
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