Texas Glory

by Lorraine Heath

  He was giving her the opportunity to level the shaky foundation upon which they had begun to build their marriage. “I give you my word.”

  A slow smile spread beneath his mustache. “Good.”

  In the days that followed, she came to know his men and their respective jobs. She had assumed that they simply watched the cattle. She could not have been more wrong. Men constantly rode the fence line, mending the cut or broken wire, replacing posts. The mill rider visited the windmills to grease the bearings and repair anything that had broken. Bog riders searched for cattle that had become tangled in the brush or trapped in mud. The numerous types of riders and their various tasks astounded her.

  It seemed everything always needed to be checked and checked again: the fence, the windmills, the cattle, the water supply, the grazing land. Decisions had to be made as to when and where to move the cattle.

  By the end of the week, Cordelia was overwhelmed with the knowledge she had attained.

  She also had a greater respect and understanding of her husband and his achievements.

  Dallas pounded the nail into the floorboard. This Sunday was turning out to be much the same as last Sunday.

  He worked on the loft while his brothers lollygagged. He was surprised they’d managed to get the walls put in on the first floor.

  He heard the deep rumble of laughter, followed by the gentler giggles. Against his better judgment, he unfolded his body and carefully walked across the beams until he got to the edge of the second floor. He leaned against the open frame.

  Cordelia stood at one end of the yard. Everyone else was positioned in different places. She turned her back to them, and everyone moved up. Houston took one big step and stopped. Amelia took three tiny steps. Maggie skipped and fell to her knees. Austin ran.

  Cordelia spun around. Austin staggered to a stop. She pointed a finger at him. “I saw you running.”

  “The heck you did!” he yelled while everyone else laughed.

  She wagged her finger at him. “Go back to the beginning.”

  He stomped to a rope stretched along the ground several yards away from Cordelia. Cordelia pivoted, giving them her back, and everyone started moving again.

  Dallas shook his head. No doubt another one of Amelia’s games. The woman had more games than a tree had leaves.

  Dallas smiled as Maggie and Houston got sent back to the rope. Houston lifted his daughter onto his shoulders.

  Cordelia turned her back, and Austin’s legs churned faster than the blades of a windmill when a norther blew through. Dallas clamped his teeth together to stop himself from yelling a warning.

  Cordelia spun around too late. Austin scooped her off the ground. Dallas’s chest tightened as she threw her arms around Austin’s neck and laughed. Austin twirled her around, his laughter mingling with hers.

  Maggie yelled that she wanted to play again. Austin set Cordelia on her feet. She glanced toward the house and her gaze slammed into Dallas’s, her smile withering like all the flowers he’d pulled for her over the week and never given her. Dallas turned away and walked to the other side of the room, wondering when he’d grown so old.

  A few minutes later he heard the footsteps on the stairs—the stairs he’d built that morning. He couldn’t fault Houston. If he had a wife who looked at him the way Amelia did and a daughter who adored him, he wouldn’t be up here pounding nails into wood either.

  “I thought you might like some lemonade.”

  He glanced up at Cordelia. She stood uncertainly in the doorway, holding a glass. He crossed the short space separating them, took the glass, and downed the drink in one long swallow. He handed the glass back to her. “Thanks.”

  He walked back to his corner, lined up the board, and hammered the nail into place.

  “You put me to shame,” she said softly.

  Furrowing his brow, he glanced over his shoulder. “Why?”

  She walked across the floorboards he’d already nailed into place and knelt beside him. “I have a clearer understanding of how you spend your days now. All week long you manage a ranch, you oversee the building of a town, and on what should be a day of rest, you’re building an addition onto your brother’s house while I’m playing silly games and purchasing rugs—”

  “I like the rugs.”

  She tilted her head sideways. “Do you?”

  He regretted that he hadn’t mentioned it earlier. “Yeah, I do. I like the quilt you hung on the wall in the parlor and those curtains.”

  “I thought they made the room seem more cozy. I’ve ordered some furniture for the parlor.”

  “Good.”

  Since the night she had first begun to read to him and the day he had first started explaining the managing of the ranch to her, the wariness had slowed faded from her eyes. She watched him now with no fear. He considered leaning over and kissing her, but he discovered that it wasn’t enough that the fear had left. He wanted to see a warmth reflected in her gaze when she looked at him. He wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her.

  A damn foolish thing to desire.

  She dropped her gaze and scraped her fingernail over the nail he had just hammered into place. “Is it hard to build a floor?” she asked.

  “Nope.” He extended the hammer toward her. “Do you want to do it?”

  A sparkle lit her eyes. “Can I?”

  “Sure.”

  She took the hammer, and he handed her a nail.

  “You want the nail to go through the top board and dig into the beam running lengthwise. That holds it in place. Keep your eye on the nail and tap gently.”

  “It always sounds like you hit the nail hard.”

  “I have experience behind me so I’m less likely to hit my thumb.”

  “Oh.”

  He watched with amusement as she set the nail in place and gripped the hammer. Her brows came together to form a deep furrow. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.

  He swallowed, remembering the feel of that lip against his.

  Her eyes darkened with concentration. He wanted to see them darken with passion.

  Gently, she tapped the nail, the furrow deepening, her teeth digging into her lip, her knuckles turning white. He thought about giving her some more instruction,

  but some things in life were better learned through trial and error. After a dozen hits, the nail had settled into its new home.

  She rubbed her fingers over the nail. “Is that what building a town feels like?” she asked.

  He’d never thought about it, didn’t know how to answer her question.

  She looked at him with wonder in her eyes. “Children will crawl over this floor. Then they’ll walk over it and run across it. If this house remains for a hundred years, what you have done today might touch children you’ll never meet. It’s the same with your town and your ranch. Everything that you do reaches out to touch so many people. The things I do touch no one.”

  She laid the hammer on the floor and rose quietly to her feet.

  He fought the urge to grab her ankle and halt her steps away from him.

  “I could use some help,” he growled. “Tell Houston to get his butt up here.”

  She disappeared through the doorway. He pressed his thumb against the nail she had embedded in the wood, and damned his pride. He hadn’t wanted her to leave. He didn’t want to hear her laughter and not be part of it. He didn’t want to witness her smiles from a distance.

  He hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask her to stay, to share the task with him, to lighten his load with her presence.

  If he couldn’t ask her for something as small as that, how in the hell did he think he was going to ask her to welcome him into her bed?

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  With the flowers wilting in his hand, Dallas walked through the house. Every room was empty. Every room except the kitchen, and there, he only found the prairie dog.

  He’d come in from the range early with the thought of asking his wife to take a
ride with him, and he couldn’t find her.

  He stalked out of the house and headed to the barn. It didn’t ease his mind any to see the empty stall where Cordelia’s mare should have been.

  “Slim!”

  His foreman came out of the back room. “Yes, sir?”

  “Do you know where my wife is?”

  “Yes, sir. She went to town with Austin.”

  “Thought she went to town with him yesterday.”

  “Yes, sir, she did, and the day before that as well.”

  Trepidation sliced through Dallas as remembered moments rushed through his mind: Austin holding Cordelia outside the general store. Austin lifting Cordelia into his arms and spinning her around at Houston’s house.

  Cordelia talking to Austin during meals without the aid of her topic list.

  In the evening, Austin had begun to come into Dallas’s office and listen to Cordelia read. Dallas would occasionally look up from his ledgers to find Austin gazing at Cordelia as though she were the most wonderful woman in the world.

  Dallas hated himself for resenting Austin’s intrusion. Austin had been five when their mother had died, and he’d grown up with no other women in his life. Dallas knew he shouldn’t begrudge Austin the pleasure he found in Cordelia’s soft voice—but he did.

  “You want me to stop saddling her horse?” Slim asked.

  “No,” Dallas answered quickly. “No, she’s free to come and go as she pleases.” He tossed the flowers into the empty stall and strode back to the house.

  Dusk had settled over the land before they returned.

  Sitting at the head of the table in the dining room, Dallas heard their hushed laughter in the hallway. His gut clenched at the delightful sound she never made in his presence.

  He forced himself to his feet when they entered the dining room, looking as guilty as two children who had sneaked away to go fishing before they’d finished their chores.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Austin said as he pulled Cordelia’s chair out for her.

  Smiling shyly at Austin, she sat. Austin took his place beside her and began to ladle stew into both their bowls. “We lost track of the time.”

  “I figured that,” Dallas said as he took his seat. “I fed your damn prairie dog.”

  Cordelia glanced up, then quickly lowered her gaze to her bowl of stew. “Thank you.”

  “It was yapping so loud I couldn’t concentrate on my work,” Dallas said.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll take her with us next time.”

  With us next time. The words hung heavy in the air. Dallas’s stomach tightened. “How was your trip into town?”

  Cordelia snapped her head up. She looked at Austin. Austin opened and closed his mouth.

  “Fine,” Cordelia said. “Just fine.”

  Dallas scraped his chair across the floor. As though consumed with guilt, Cordelia and Austin jerked back from the table.

  “I’ll leave you to enjoy your meal,” Dallas said.

  He wasn’t surprised that neither of them protested.

  He walked to the corral, knowing himself to be a fool. He’d asked Amelia to marry him, then he’d sent Houston to fetch her, and she’d fallen in love with his brother.

  He’d married Cordelia, and he’d told Austin to keep her company. What in the hell had he expected to happen?

  Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew the watch Amelia had given him as a sign of her affection when she had first arrived at his ranch. He didn’t expect Cordelia to give him anything as a symbol of her affection, but he was certain she was going to leave him.

  He considered arguing that too many years separated Cordelia from Austin, but he figured love didn’t put a lot of stock in the passage of years. Besides, he was several years older than Cordelia and his heart didn’t seem to notice.

  He’d build them a house on a distant corner of his land because he didn’t think his pride could tolerate seeing the two of them together knowing at one time she was supposed to be his. Then he’d see about finding himself another wife. He could run an advertisement in the newspapers back East or maybe he could—

  “Dallas?” Austin’s voice came from behind him. “Dallas, I need to talk to you.”

  He jammed the watch back into his pocket and wrapped a wall of indifference around himself. Shoving the part of himself that could be hurt back into a dark hole, he turned to face his youngest brother.

  “Figured you did,” he said as he crooked an elbow onto the railing of the corral.

  Austin looked down and scuffed the toe of his boot into the dirt. “I don’t rightly know how to say it.”

  “Just come straight out with it. That’s usually the best way.”

  Austin nodded and met his brother’s gaze. “Dee asked me not to say anything to you, but I figured you ought to know.”

  Dallas swallowed past the knot that had formed in his throat. “I appreciate that.”

  Austin shoved his hands into his pockets. “Remember when you took me to that circus when I was seven?”

  If Austin had hoped to lessen Dallas’s anger, he had succeeded. Christmas, 1867. The Haight and Chambers New Orleans Colossal Circus and Menagerie had pitched tents in San Antonio. Dallas and Houston were still recovering from the war, with little spare change clinking in their pockets, but they had wanted to give Austin a Christmas he wouldn’t soon forget. Dallas couldn’t stop himself from smiling at the fond memories. “Yeah, and you pestered me all day with questions. I threatened to pay that sword swallower to stick one of his swords down your throat just to shut you up.”

  Austin chuckled and rubbed the side of his nose. “I thought you were serious.”

  “The threat didn’t work, though, did it?”

  Austin shook his head. “Nope, and that’s the way Dee is when I take her to town. She’s got so many questions and everything amazes her. They never took her into town, Dallas. Never.”

  “But you did, and I reckon she’s grateful for that.”

  Austin took a step closer. “I wasn’t paying any attention to the questions she was asking. I was just answering them. The whole while I’m answering the questions, she’s working this idea up in her head. Today, she finally gets the courage to do something about it … and Mr. Henderson laughed at her. What made it worse is that Boyd was there and the bastard—”

  “Whoa. Hold your horses.” Dallas held up his hand. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m trying to tell you what happened in town today. See, Dee figured when the railroad comes through here, people are gonna need a place to sleep. So she was thinking of building a hotel. She knew you had talked to Mr. Henderson about a loan for the cabinetmaker so she figured that was where she needed to start—by getting a loan. Yesterday she stood outside the bank all day. Couldn’t get up the courage to go inside.

  “Today she reaches deep down, gathers up that courage, and heads into the bank. Only Boyd is inside, and he tells her the saloon has all the spare rooms this town is ever gonna need. Then he and Mr. Henderson start to laugh. Boyd tells her that your bed is the only bed she needs to be concerned with.”

  “What did she do?” Dallas asked through clenched teeth.

  Austin smiled. “You woulda been proud. She just thanked Mr. Henderson for his time and walked out with her head held high.”

  “Who else was in the bank?”

  “A couple of ranchers and the teller. Anyway, she’s feeling lower than a snail’s belly. I’ve been trying to tell her funny stories to make her laugh, but that ain’t what she needs. I thought maybe tonight you could sweet-talk her, make her feel special.” “Sweet-talk her?”

  “Yeah, you know, say those words women like to hear. The words that make them shine brighter than a full moon.”

  Dallas nodded. “I’ll do that.”

  Austin’s face split into a wide grin. “I’m glad I told you. She was afraid you’d be mad at her for wanting to do something on her own.”

  “I’m not mad at her.”

  “I
knew you wouldn’t be.” Austin backed up a step. “Reckon we ought to get to the house. She’ll be wanting to read soon. I sure do like listening to her read.” He turned toward the house.

  “Austin?”

  Austin stopped and looked back over his shoulder.

  Dallas weighed his words. “Don’t ever tell her that you told me what happened today.”

  “Oh, I won’t. You just be sure you give her some good sweet-talkin’.”

  Dallas nodded. “I will.”

  Sweet-talking. What did he know about sweet-talking? Not one damn thing.

  Dallas pounded on the door until the hinges rattled. He heard the hesitant footsteps on the other side.

  “It’s Dallas! Open up!”

  The door opened a crack. Dallas reined in his temper.

  Lester Henderson opened the door wider. “Dallas, good Lord, you scared me to death. Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t know, Lester. I heard a rumor, and it’s keeping me from sleeping. I’m just hoping it’s not true.”

  Always eager for gossip, Lester Henderson stepped onto the back porch of the second floor. Like most of the newcomers to Leighton, he lived above his business and his business was the bank. “What rumor?” he asked.

  “I heard my wife came into the bank and asked for a loan today.”

  Lester laughed with a high-pitched squeal that grated on Dallas’s nerves. “Oh, that. Don’t worry, Dallas, I turned her down. Boyd was there, and he explained to her the foolishness of her request. She’s supposed to be giving you a son, and Boyd spelled that out loud and clear.”

  Dallas balled his hands into fists to keep them from circling the little weasel’s throat. “Could you come out a little farther, Lester?” Dallas asked.

  “Sure.”

  Lester walked to the edge of the porch. Dallas pointed to the far horizon. “What do you see out there, Lester?”

  Lester shrugged. “Moon. Stars. Land.”

  “My land,” Dallas said. “As far as you can see, I own it. I don’t have a son, Lester. If I get gored by a bull tomorrow and die, all that land goes to my wife.” Dallas tilted his head. “Come to think of it, the land already belongs to her because she honored me by becoming my wife.”