The weight in his stomach lessened a bit. “And you’ve shown me that I can choose to be happy. Thanks to your encouragement, you’re looking at the new owner of Hartville’s hardware store. It used to be called Collingswood & Henderson’s, but from now on it’s going to be known as C & H Hardware.” He paused as two ranch hands held up a weathered plank with a C, a plus sign, and an H inside of a heart.
Coralee laughed. “That looks just like the heart you carved on the back of my daddy’s woodshed when we were courting all those years ago.”
“It is. You were my best friend then, just as you are now. But I want you to be more than that.”
He dropped to one knee, pulled out a velvet-lined jewelry box, and opened it, revealing a diamond ring. She clasped her hands in front of her gaping mouth. “Oh, Houston.”
“I love you with a love that’s bigger than Texas and California combined. I hope that’s enough, because I want you to be my partner as well as my wife. I know I don’t deserve you, but I hope you’re willing to overlook that. Will you marry me, Coralee?”
“Yes! I most certainly will.”
He took her hand and slipped the ring on her finger. Several ladies sighed, and some of the men let out with whoops and hollers, his brother Hays among them.
Houston stood, and Coralee launched herself into his arms, holding him more tightly than she ever had before. He longed to kiss her, but surely, being the Southern lady she was, she’d never allow him to do so in public.
She tilted her head to look up at him. If he wasn’t mistaken, her warm brown eyes held an invitation he wasn’t about to turn down.
He took her face in his hands, pressed his lips to hers, and showed her how much she meant to him. She couldn’t marry him soon enough, because he wanted more of her kisses. Lots more.
All too soon, he was forced to release her. His family gathered around them, showering him with congratulations and offering Coralee their best wishes.
Pa slung an arm around each of their shoulders. “So, when can we expect a wedding? I’m thinking a week from today sounds good. What do you say, Coralee? Would that give you enough time to rustle up a wedding dress?”
Houston held his breath, fearing she’d want time to plan an elaborate event.
She nodded. “A week sounds fine to me, sir. I’ve waited long enough for this day.”
Relief whooshed the air from Houston’s lungs. Coralee was as eager to marry as he was.
“Very well.” Pa raised his voice and addressed the crowd. “We’ll continue with the dance now, but you’re all invited back for the happy couple’s wedding reception this coming Saturday.”
He returned his attention to them. “You told Coralee about your store, son, but does she know that you’ll be a rancher, too?”
“She does now.” He smiled at his finacée. “Pa helped me see that I can do both. I won’t be roping and riding, but I will be—”
“Keeping the books.” Coralee laughed. “You’ll run a fine ranch, Houston.”
“That he will.” Pa gave him a sound thump on the back. “He’ll be a fine businessman, too. And, before too long, I hope, an excellent father.”
Coralee’s cheeks went pink, but she looked Pa in the eye. “I’m sure he will.”
Pa left them, and Houston whisked Coralee off to the far side of the barn, out of sight of the others. He slipped his arms around her waist, claimed her lips once again, and held nothing back as he kissed her. She responded with equal fervor and was breathless when they finally broke apart.
“You’ve made me the happiest woman in all of Texas today, Houston.”
“Well, I’m the happiest man.”
She held out her hand and admired the ring, the diamond catching the last rays of sunlight. “I take it this is what prompted your trip to San Antonio. It’s beautiful.”
“I’m glad you like it. I’m sorry about the confusion, though. I would have told you I was going, but I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. Finding you here was surprise enough, but then you proposed. I’ve never been as shocked as I was when you dropped to your knee like that. You must have been quite sure of my answer to ask me in front of your family and a whole host of our friends.”
He took her hand and squeezed it. “The truth is, I was shaking in my boots.”
“Oh, my darling, you didn’t need to worry. I thought I loved you when I was young, but what I feel for you now is so much richer and deeper than that. I love you wholeheartedly and without reservation.”
He treasured Coralee’s emphatic declaration. “And I love you to distraction, which is why I’m glad you agreed to marry me so soon.”
She smiled. “Of course I did. I don’t think I could wait another day for us to be man and wife.”
Neither could he.
Although award-winning author Keli Gwyn is a native Californian, her mother was raised in Texas, so Keli has an appreciation for the Lone Star State and grew up drinking sweet tea so thick you could practically stand up a spoon in it. She and her husband live in the heart of California’s Gold Country. Her favorite places to visit are her fictional worlds, historical museums and the local hiking trail. Keli loves hearing from readers and invites you to visit her Victorian-style cyber home at www.keligwyn.com, where you’ll find her contact information. To reach her by mail, you can write to her at PO Box 1404, Placerville CA 95667.
For Love or Money
by Susan Page Davis
Chapter One
September 1874
Crockett Hart loped his spotted horse along the easternmost boundary of the 7 Heart Ranch, looking for wandering cattle. The Hart family’s herd grazed mostly on the range that comprised the large ranch. But sometimes strays wandered onto neighbors’ property, and the Hart men and their ranch hands had to bring them back. Of course, the annoying converse was that their neighbors’ stock often came over to the 7 Heart for ample grazing.
Still, the family ranch had made a profit nearly every year for the last two decades. If it wasn’t for his father’s recent edict, Crockett would think they were doing well.
Pa wanted to see all seven of his boys married. That was all well and good for some—like Hays. Though he was the youngest at twenty-three, Hays had been first to woo and wed a bride, Emma. Then Chisholm, next up the ladder at twenty-five, had made a surprise move while Crockett was off on the spring cattle drive, and found his match in the fiery Caro Cardova. Travis and Houston were not far behind, and Annie and Coralee had joined the family.
Well, Crockett just wasn’t ready. Maybe he would be, if there were plenty of suitable candidates in Hartville. The truth was, his work on the ranch kept him so busy, he seldom got off it long enough to go looking for a bride. But September had rolled around, and if Pa had his way, his three remaining sons would fall in line and pick themselves wives before the end of the year.
The smell of wood smoke hit Crockett’s nostrils, and he jerked his head up and scanned the horizon. Sure enough, off to the east, a column of gray smoke rose above the trees and rolling ground between him and the next ranch. The Haymakers were the closest neighbors in that direction.
He studied the smoke for a long minute. He hated to ride over there. They were probably just burning off brush, and old Boyd Haymaker would just as soon run off a neighbor as parley. But Crockett wouldn’t feel settled about it if he didn’t check to make sure everything was all right.
He rode through the line of cottonwood trees that served as a windbreak as well as a boundary line and then loped to what passed for a road to the Haymaker ranch. The stench of burning had grown more noxious, and the gelding snorted and tried to break stride, but Crockett urged him onward.
“It’s all right, boy. I won’t let you get too close.”
He rounded a bend and pulled back on the reins. The Haymakers’ house was engulfed in fire. Flames had torn through the wooden frame. As he watched, the shingled roof collapsed, and a flurry of sparks and debris flew out
ward.
The horse squealed, and Crockett let him turn away from the sight but held the reins short to keep him from bolting. He let the gelding high-step another hundred yards away and then tied him to a tree on the 7 Heart side of the road and hurried back toward the blazing house. The acrid smell of the fire overpowered all else.
The Haymakers had lost everything in their small dwelling, for sure. The sagging barn was still standing, but flames licked across the front yard toward it, and flaming brands had landed near it, starting smaller fires of their own in the dry grass. One had hit the barn roof and smoldered there. If no one did anything, it would soon blaze up.
Where was Boyd Haymaker? And what about his two children, Jane and Ben? As he cautiously approached the hole topped by a tripod of poles that was their well, the heat of the fire baked his face. Crockett sent up a prayer that the family had not been caught inside the burning house.
Jane pulled her roan mare to a halt at the foot of the hill path. “Get down now, Pa. Go up to the cave and wait there.”
“What are you going to do, girl? Where are you going?” Pa slid off the horse’s rump as he spoke and landed with an “oompf” on the rocky ground.
“To save whatever I can.”
Jane didn’t wait to see whether he went up to the cave. She spun the mare around and kicked her forward. The horse didn’t relish running back toward the fire, but Jane pummeled its ribs with her heels and slapped its withers with the knotted ends of her reins.
The smoke billowed up in huge puffs and hung in the sky in slowly dissipating clouds. She was glad there wasn’t much wind today. With luck, she might save the barn. She probably shouldn’t have bothered to get Pa away from the fire. But he was useless and would only get in the way, so she had made him climb up behind her saddle and quickly taken him a quarter mile away, where he would be safe. Her brother had left at dawn to trade work with a rancher ten miles away. He probably wouldn’t know about the fire until tonight.
As she forced the panicky mare closer to the inferno, she glimpsed a figure moving amid the smoky barnyard. Ben? Or maybe someone else had seen the smoke and come to help.
She leaped off the mare and didn’t try to stop her from wheeling and tearing across the range as fast as she could go. That horse wouldn’t go far, and Jane would find her eventually. Right now she had to save whatever she could of the homestead.
The house was beyond help, with the roof caved in and the studs and clapboard siding reduced to smoldering black sticks. She pulled her neckerchief up over her mouth and ran toward the barn.
A man barreled out the door, clutching several burlap sacks, and nearly knocked her down.
“Hey! Sorry!” He dropped the sacks and grabbed her arms to steady her. His face was grimy, but she would have known Crockett Hart anywhere.
“We can’t save the house.” Her voice was raspy.
“I know, but there’s a firebrand on the barn roof. I was going to try to climb up and beat it out.”
“Boost me,” Jane croaked.
Crockett hesitated, but then nodded and led her to the place where the barn roof was lowest. He hunched down. “Get on my shoulders.”
She didn’t spare him but tried not to think about the pain she caused as she climbed onto his back and then stood on his solid shoulders in her worn boots. Grasping the eaves, she pulled herself onto the roof as Crockett straightened. Pa was a lazy man, and he hadn’t pitched the roof as steep as some ranchers would. They rarely got snow here, and he figured a little slope was enough to run the rain off. She rolled onto the strips of wood Pa had used instead of shingles. Crockett tossed a feed sack up beside her.
“Here. I’ll wet another one and bring it to you.” He ran toward the well, carrying the other sacks.
Jane turned toward the slope of the roof. Above the ridgepole, a wisp of smoke rose, darker than the hazy air around it. She crawled, slipping and gasping, to the top. There was the charred stick Crockett had mentioned, in the crease where the main roof met the lean-to that sheltered the pigsty. She sat on the ridgepole and cautiously edged her way down.
When she was close, she leaned over, swinging her sack, and almost tumbled off the roof for her efforts. She caught herself and studied the situation. Maybe she could ease down a bit farther and kick the firebrand off the roof.
“Jane?”
“Yeah, Crockett.”
He was below her, at the side of the lean-to.
“If I toss this up, can you get it?”
“Maybe.”
He stooped for a moment. “All right, look out. I wrapped a rock in it to make it heavier. Here goes.”
As the wet sack thudded beside her, the firebrand caught and flames leaped up from the strips of wood on the roof below her.
“I got it,” she said, “but let the pigs out. We may lose the lean-to roof.”
She grabbed the sack, shook the rock out, and let it roll down the incline to land on the far side of the lean-to. Then she lay on her belly and inched down the steeper main roof toward the blaze. She let the rough shingles catch on her wool pants to slow her down. Within seconds she was slapping at the fire.
“Hey.” Crockett’s soot-streaked face appeared at the lowest edge of the roof. “You got it?”
“Not sure.”
He heaved himself up onto the lean-to, and Jane felt it shudder. Would the feeble structure her father had built support both of them?
Crockett didn’t stop to fret. He wriggled forward and vigorously pummeled the flames and then the smoldering wood. Jane joined him from the uphill side, and they developed a rhythm. Slap, thwack, slap, thwack. Droplets of water flew off Crockett’s sack and sprinkled her face. They felt good.
Finally, he stopped attacking the roof.
“I think it’s out.” He sat back and looked toward the ruined house. “There’s not much left of your house.”
“I could see that from the start.” Jane pushed her singed hair back from her face. “I just figured if I could save the barn, we could make it.”
“Looks like you did.”
“We did,” she said. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “I doubt it will spread from the house now, but we’d better beat around the grass for a while to make sure.”
“How’d you get up here?” she asked.
“Climbed up the pig fence and did some acrobatics.”
She laughed, but stopped quickly when pain scraped her raw throat.
“So, what happened?” Crockett asked.
She coughed. “Beats me. Ben left early, and I rode out to look for a heifer that didn’t come in last night. About an hour later, I’m coming back, and I see smoke. Big smoke.”
He nodded.
“I galloped in and grabbed Pa. He was just standing in the dooryard, gawking at the house, and it was all aflame.”
“Where is he now?”
Jane looked over her shoulder. “There’s a cave up on the hillside. I dropped him at the foot of the path and came back to do what I could.”
“Come on.” Without further warning, Crockett jumped off the lean-to roof. “Slide down to the edge and jump,” he called. “I’ll catch you.”
She could just picture that—her landing in the arms of the Hart boy she’d had a crush on for years. Except he wasn’t a boy anymore.
“Can’t I climb down the pig fence?”
“I sort of wrecked it when I thrashed around, getting up there. Just jump, Janie.”
He used to call her that when she was a kid. She hadn’t heard it in years from anyone but Ben. She slid down, pulling her damp, smelly feed sack with her, and let her feet dangle over the eaves.
Crockett, with a wide grin on his filthy face, stood directly below.
“Fly, little bird.”
Jane pushed off and flew. Crockett caught her, but her momentum swept him off his feet, and they landed breathless in the dead weeds. Crockett held her close to his chest for a moment.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.�
� Jane pushed away from him and clambered to her feet, though she hated to. His arms felt good around her. How long since anyone had hugged her, even for practical reasons like this? Her brother, Ben, was the last, she guessed, and he wasn’t much of a hugger anymore. Pa hadn’t touched her for years, except when he was drunk and she didn’t get out of his way fast enough.
Crockett rolled over and scrambled up. He snatched his sack from the ground and headed for the well with long strides. Jane hurried to keep up. Flames licked at the scraggly grass between them and the well, and they had to beat them down before they could get to the brink.
“Wet the sacks again.” Crockett turned his attention to more flames that had strayed through the dry grass, and began stomping them.
Jane quickly hauled up a bucket of water and soaked a sack. She carried it, dripping, to Crockett.
“I dropped some more sacks over in front of the barn,” he said.
An hour later, Jane collapsed against the barn door. The flames were out, except for a few stubborn flare-ups in the remains of the house.
“Let me get you some water.” Crockett’s eyes were bloodshot above his bandanna, and his voice was raspy. He plodded to the well and hauled up another bucket of water.
For the first time all afternoon, Jane felt shame. Why couldn’t Pa have built a stone berm around the well, or at least a well house over it? She’d seen the Harts’ yard before. Their well had a round masonry wall wide enough that you could sit on it, and a little roof above. The rope coiled up neatly on a windlass. The Haymakers’ well was a disgrace, as was everything her father had made.
Crockett pulled the bucket awkwardly out of the hole in the ground by the rope attached to the bail and poured some water over his bandanna. He wiped his face with it, smearing the soot and grime worse than before, then untied the bucket and carried it over to her.
“Sorry, no cups.”
“It’s all right.” She scooped water with her hands and brought it to her mouth. It bathed her fiery throat. “Thanks.”
Seven Brides for Seven Texans Romance Collection Page 32