by Thomas, Jodi
She didn’t seem to mind the order at all. She knew he was concentrating on loving her.
A few hours later when they were dressed and eating breakfast in the kitchen, they decided to move their bed to another room.
The plan was simple. They’d move the bed to every room in the house and then make love. Once they’d finished, they’d decide which room would work best as their bedroom.
Only they didn’t agree. So they had to start all over again with the test.
The next morning when Austin suggested they do the same test with every piece of furniture they bought, Ronny threatened to move back to the cabin for some rest.
He gave in and they cuddled in for a nap, but even while she slept she knew he never stopped touching her.
If happiness could be measured in a bucket, hers was running over.
As Austin slept, she thought of her first love. If she hadn’t loved Marty so much, she might not have been able to love Austin enough.
He hadn’t known how to be romantic even in asking her to marry him, but she didn’t care. They matched and that was all that mattered.
Chapter 44
DECEMBER
NEW YORK CITY
KIERAN AND DUSTI’S DATE FINALLY HAPPENED WHEN SNOW was falling in Central Park. He took her for a carriage ride around the park with cups of hot chocolate in their hands and a warm rug over their legs. Dusti was so excited to see him she barely saw all the beauty around her. They’d talked almost every day since Vegas and she’d continued to send him pictures of her world in Harmony. Her fears that they’d have nothing to say after he taught her to play were unfounded.
When the carriage finally stopped, they had dinner in a little side-street café where the waiter fussed over them as if they were family.
Kieran looked different in his winter suit and long coat. He looked like he belonged in New York. She thought of how he’d dressed in Vegas and realized he’d looked like he belonged there too. She realized that this man across the table from her was a man of the world and she was simply a girl from Harmony. They shouldn’t have worked, but over the months of talking they’d become best friends.
He’d kissed her lightly at the airport, but the time apart had left him shy once more around her.
They talked of the poker game and his grandmother as they ate. They talked of Harmony and all the people he’d met.
“Everyone asks about you when they see me now. They think of you as my man.”
“I am your man,” he said between bites.
She nodded. “I thought you might have forgotten about the date. It’s been almost five months and you rarely mentioned it when you called.” Her bedroom wall was covered in the postcards he’d mailed from all over. She knew he’d been busy.
“I was waiting for the right time. August and September you were moving Abby into the dorm at Tech and getting used to handling all the work by yourself. It wouldn’t have been fair to pull you away then.”
“I hired some help with harvesting the pecans. We’ve had a good year.” He was right about the time. With Abby gone she’d worked from dawn to dark most days, taking only a few hours off as the leaves turned so she could capture them with her old camera. She photographed the fall parade downtown and the fair with all its light and winter moving across the lake one morning at dawn. Through his camera she’d seen the beauty of her world.
“I thought you might need help when the pictures kept coming. Some nights I wondered if you slept at all. You were running the farm during the day and living in the darkroom at night.
She nodded. “I had to give up my wild life. Between talking to you and pictures, the only partying I had time for was visiting your grandmother once a week.”
“Thanks for doing that. But you didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to. It made me feel closer to you.” She wondered how this man had come to mean so much to her so quickly. He simply understood her.
He winked at her as if reading her thoughts, then changed the subject. “You like your new camera?”
She smiled. “I do, but I still get out the one that belonged to your father now and then and take a few pictures. It seems to capture some great shots.”
He talked on about his dad and how he’d loved to take pictures, but Dusti was only half listening. The date was nice—perfect, in fact, as if it had been planned for months. But it wasn’t what she’d dreamed it would be.
Kieran had kissed her at the airport, but it had been only a hello kiss, and during the ride around the park he’d kissed her again, but it had been only a light kiss that people do when celebrating. Not the buckle-her-knees kind of kiss she’d wanted. She’d flown all the way to New York, not for a date, but for one more kiss like he’d given her in Vegas.
She told herself she didn’t expect him to toss her over his shoulder and run off to the first hotel room, but she’d been waiting for him long enough. She’d done everything short of tripping him and falling on top of him to let the man know she wanted him.
Nothing was working. The food was good. The atmosphere perfect. The night chilly but not too cold. Only Dusti was hot and getting no closer to being satisfied than she was three hours ago when he picked her up.
“I wanted you to see the windows decorated for Christmas. Want to take a walk after we eat?”
“Sure,” she said, thinking a dark alley might be nice.
Only when they left the restaurant, he placed his long coat over her shoulders and started walking. And walking.
She was about ready to tell him to take her back to the hotel when they turned a corner and she saw the lights of a gallery.
“I want to stop in here for a moment,” he said, pulling her through the door.
Two steps inside, Dusti froze. Suddenly, under bright lights, she was surrounded with Harmony. The barn, the dancers, the tables under the trees.
“I didn’t know how to tell you over the phone. I showed your work to a friend of my father’s who owns this place and he loved it. The next thing I knew, it was on his walls. He thinks you are a real find.”
She walked slowly around, looking at the pictures she’d sent to him. The county fair. The town square. The trees outside her window.
Kieran smiled at her. “They’ll go on sale tomorrow if you agree. Five hundred apiece for the little ones. A thousand for the big ones.” When she looked at the one of him standing by the barn, he added, “That one is not for sale. That one is mine.”
She finally turned to him. “You make me feel like a real photographer.”
“You are, lass. As real as they come. The dealer said he’ll handle as much of your work as you can send. He was thinking you might do a Winter in Harmony show next month. I showed him what I call Winter on the Lake yesterday and he said it took his breath away.”
Suddenly she felt like Cinderella at the ball. She knew it would chime midnight soon, but she wanted to enjoy every second until then.
The gallery owner talked with her. People came in and acted excited to meet her. Kieran stood beside her telling everyone she was his girl. His hand never left the small of her back.
When they finally walked back to her hotel, she couldn’t stop smiling. “You pulled it off, you know. You gave me the best date in the world.”
“It’s not over yet.”
When he opened the door for her, he whispered, “But I want you to know this is not one date. The town thinks I’m your man, and that is what I’d like to be. We’re only five hours apart. I’d like you to come to New York every time you have a few days off and I’ll come to see you. We’re not dating. We’re together.”
“Kieran, I don’t belong in New York and you don’t belong in Harmony.”
He unlocked her hotel door. “I know, but I belong with you and you belong with me. We’ll work out the details later. For me home isn’t a place, but a person. You’re that
person, lass. As long as you agree, we can be together anywhere and I’m home.”
She stepped into the room. “That sounds like a plan.”
“It’s all been a plan, lass, since the moment you asked me to teach you to play poker. I thought if I could just get close enough to you for a while, you might just fall for me.”
She pulled him into the room. “You’re right about the plan, Kieran, but it didn’t start when I asked you to teach me. It started when I looked across the bar and saw you standing there watching me. And, it wasn’t your plan to get close to me, but my plan to get close to you.”
He pulled her against him and slowly removed his coat from her shoulders. “We’ll argue about it in the morning.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She giggled as the very best part of their first date began.
Read on for a preview of the next novel by Jodi Thomas
A PLACE CALLED HARMONY
Coming soon from Berkley!
Truman
TEXAS
FEBRUARY 1876
CLINT TRUMAN HIT THE FLOOR SO HARD HIS TEETH RATTLED, but, as always, he didn’t have the sense to stay down. He came up swinging, ready for another round.
The next hard blow from the miner he’d decided to fight sent him flying through the saloon’s swinging doors and into the muddy street. He slid several feet, picking up horse shit along with the mud as he dug up the road. Then, he just lay still, letting the rain beat on him for a while.
When he tried to straighten, a heavy boot landed on his chest, holding him down like a boulder. Clint stared up but the rain and clouds offered him only a shadow of the man above him. A wide shadow.
“Evening, Truman.” Harry Lightstone’s voice matched his three-hundred-pound body, big and frightening. “You drunk enough to listen to me now?”
“Soon as I finish the fight, Sheriff,” Clint promised.
“The fight’s over.” Harry lifted the gun belt that circled his ample waist. “We need to talk to Truman before you kill someone and I have to arrest you. Now, we can do it here with you in the mud, or we can do it with you behind bars, but we’re going to have a talk.”
“Hell,” Clint said, hating both choices. “How about you buy me a cup of coffee before you get into telling me how to live my life?”
“Fair enough, but clean up first. Between the blood and the mud there ain’t an inch of you left unaffected. I’m tired of standing in this drizzle anyway. You’ve got ten minutes to meet me at Maggie’s. If you don’t pass her inspection to get in, I’m putting you in jail and letting you dry out until the mud flakes off and the bleeding scabs over.”
Clint stood and watched the sheriff head toward the only café in Huntsville, Texas. He hated being bossed around and he wasn’t trying to kill himself by fighting. He just had a ton of anger built up in him and needed to get it out. In a town like Huntsville someone was always looking for a good fight.
Walking over to the horse trough, he dunked his head in and shook, guessing the horses wouldn’t appreciate him bloodying the water.
Thunder rumbled and the sky dumped buckets down on him. Clint turned his head up and took the full blast. “Give it your best shot!” he yelled, waiting for the lightning. Life couldn’t get any more painful.
A kid of about ten ran past him, bumping into his outstretched arm. “Sorry, mister,” he shouted over the storm. “Didn’t you notice it’s raining?”
“Hell,” Clint answered. “It’s been raining all my life.”
He walked to a bench outside the saloon and lifted his saddlebags from where he’d left them three hours and several drinks ago. He might not have the sense to come out of the rain, but at least he’d left his horse in the barn.
Reluctantly, Clint headed to the back door of Maggie’s place. Once inside the mudroom, he stripped off his shirt and dried with a towel the cook/owner tossed him.
Maggie watched from the doorway of the kitchen as he cleaned up. “You’re one hunk of a man, Clint Truman. If you ever give up fighting and turn to loving, you’d make some woman very happy.”
“There’s no more loving left in me.” He said the words as if he were swearing. “You mind turning around while I change my pants?”
“Not a chance. An old widow like me don’t get to see a full-grown man strip but a few times, and I’m not missing this chance. My first husband used to wash in the creek and come back to the house naked, but he was so hairy I thought it was a bear heading my way half the time.”
“You got anything to drink, Maggie?”
“Sure.” She stepped away and he changed soaked trousers for damp ones from his bag.
When she returned, she handed him a cup of coffee and he frowned.
“Trust me, honey, you need this. That bull of a sheriff is out front waiting and he don’t look happy.”
Clint downed half of the hot liquid, which tasted more like the mud outside than coffee. He’d known this talk was coming so he might as well get it over with.
He thanked Maggie for the towel and the coffee, then stepped through the kitchen door to the café. Sure enough, Lightstone was sitting by the window staring out at his town.
Clint took the seat across from him without saying a word.
“You eat today?” the sheriff asked.
“I’m not a kid. I don’t need mothering,” Clint snapped. At thirty he’d about decided he didn’t need anything from anyone.
The sheriff ignored his comment. “I heard you fought with Sherman during the war. Some say you were a crack shot. Maybe even the best in the South.”
“Some talk too much. Most of what I shot was game for dinner. I don’t want to talk about the war, wasted years. We lost, you know, the whole damn country lost.”
“I know how you feel. I thought I was fighting for Texas. For rights, then found out later it was all about slavery. By then, it was too late and I was mostly just fighting to stay alive.” He stared down at his cup as if looking for the answer. “What’d you do when you got home?”
“I drifted for a while. My folks kept a little farm going during the war so I finally settled there. I helped them out for a few years. Then, I thought I’d marry and start a family.” Clint didn’t go on. He couldn’t.
Lightstone waited for a while, then added, “I know enough to fill in the details, Truman. I heard your wife and daughters died a few years ago of the fever. Folks say you burned the house and the barns the morning after you buried them.”
Clint didn’t comment. He felt like his whole life was simply acts in a play and some days he didn’t want to step on the stage. Sometimes he thought the ache to feel his wife by his side would collapse his chest or the need to run his hand over one of his daughters’ curly hair almost took him to his knees. They were gone so fast, like his parents and all the boys he’d joined up with to go to war. Some nights, in his nightmares, he felt like a time traveler going back to them all. They’d smile at him and wave, then curl up and die like dried leaves caught in a campfire.
Clint took a long drink of his coffee and waited for the sheriff’s lecture. He’d heard it before; different people, different towns. If he had enough caring left in him to change, he would try one more time, but he no longer saw the point.
“Truman,” the sheriff began, “I need your help with a matter.”
Clint raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t expected the sheriff would want a favor.
“Now, hear me out before you decide. Promise. This is me asking for something, not me telling you what to do. You make up your own mind.”
“All right. I’ll hear you out,” Clint answered. He didn’t plan to walk back over to the saloon until the rain let up anyway. He had no other clothes to change into.
Lightstone leaned back. “I got a friend I fought with during the war who wants to build a town. He’s been running a trading post up in the wild part of Texas where the India
n Wars are still going on. He makes good money, thanks to the cattle drives coming through, but he wants more. He wants to have a community. He’s got a half dozen kids and a wife who refuses to come west until the town is settled.”
“How does this affect me?”
“My friend is a good businessman, but the war left him crippled up. He’s been robbed several times, once they shot him and left him for dead. If he’s going to do this, he’ll need someone good with a gun working for him. I’ve heard, even if you don’t usually wear a gun belt, that there is no better shot.”
“I’m not a hired gun, Sheriff. Not interested.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t be that. He’s offering every man who comes to work for him forty acres and a house. If you stay ten years, he’ll deed the place over to you. He’ll pay a fair wage and you help him build the town.”
Clint was low on money and knew he’d have to look for a job soon, but he never planned to stay ten years anywhere. He might get attached to folks if he did that, and he never, ever planned to let that happen again. Signing on to be his friend or loved one was a death warrant.
“You’d be hauling supplies and running cattle and who knows what else, but you’d also carry a gun. This time you’d be fighting to keep people alive. That part of Texas has very little law of any kind.”
Lightstone leaned halfway across the table and yelled for Maggie to bring them a couple of meals. He didn’t have to say more, she only served one choice a day.
She yelled that he needed to stop yelling at her.
The sheriff smiled. “I’d marry that woman if she’d have me, but she says four husbands are enough.”
Clint didn’t want to picture the two in bed, but the image came all the same. Both were built wide and thick. Maggie told him once that she was simply big-boned. If she and the sheriff ever did get together and make love, they’d shake the house.
Lightstone drew him back to the conversation. “What have you got to lose? The trip north, even if you decided not to stay, would do you good.”