Lorraine Heath (17 page)

He had enjoyed the spark of temper that his reference to his ladies had ignited in her eyes that afternoon.

Knowing what he now knew about her mother’s ailment, he realized that her outburst, small as it was, had been a form of trust. Perhaps she was beginning to test her boundaries, to see how far he would allow her to go.

He thought about telling her, but he didn’t think she’d believe him. He’d simply have to show her.

Cordelia awoke with a start. A faint glimmer of sunlight shadowed the room. She pulled the blankets up to her chin trying to remember when she had come to bed.

Dallas had been in her room. Somehow she was certain of it. His presence lingered like a forgotten scent. Had he brought her to bed and then left her alone to sleep?

She thought she might never understand him.

He had wanted a wife to give him a son, and yet, with the exception of their first night, he had made no overtures toward her. She wondered if he regretted marrying her, if perhaps he would never truly become her husband.

She eased out of bed, walked to the balcony doors, and drew the curtain aside. She could see Dallas standing by the corral talking with his foreman. When Slim walked away, Dallas mounted his black horse and looked up. His gaze locked with hers.

Her breath caught and her heart pounded. His mouth moved, forming words she couldn’t hear.

She unlatched the door and stepped onto the balcony. “What?” she asked.

“Get dressed to ride!”

“Now?”

“Yep.”

As he dismounted, she hurried back into her room, closed the balcony door, drew the curtains together, and wished she’d never ventured from her bed.

Dallas wasn’t certain what had possessed him to invite his wife to ride with him, although he had to admit that she probably hadn’t considered his words an invitation.

It wasn’t in his nature to ask. Perhaps it had been when he was a boy, but the war had driven it from him. At fourteen, he’d issued his first order. When the war had ended, he’d continued to issue orders. It was the easiest way to accomplish what needed to be done. Tell a man. If he didn’t like it, he could move on.

Unfortunately for Cordelia, if she didn’t like the way he issued orders, she had no freedom to move on. A marriage contract bound her to him, whether she liked it or not.

He’d hoped they were making progress toward an amicable relationship when she’d offered to read to him last night, but now she rode beside him with her back as stiff as the rod of a branding iron, her eyes trained straight ahead, and her knuckles turning white as she held the saddle horn.

The horses plodded along as though they had all day to get to where they were going.

“How good are you at keeping your word?” he asked.

She swiveled her head toward him, her brow furrowed. “I don’t lie, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“My pa taught me that a man is only as good as his word. I’ve never in my life gone back on my word. I’m just wondering if your pa taught you the same.”

Cordelia was at a loss for words. She couldn’t recall her father teaching her much of anything except her place within a man’s world, a place she had never questioned until she had discovered that it didn’t fit very well within her husband’s world. “I know how to keep a promise,” she finally admitted. “I suppose it’s the same thing.”

He nodded. “Then I need you to give me a promise.”

“What sort of promise?”

He drew his horse to a halt. She did the same. Removing his hat, he captured her gaze.

“I want you to promise that if something should happen to me you won’t give my land to your brothers.”

“What would happen to you?”

“Anything could happen to a man out here. I just don’t want your brothers to benefit from my death.”

His death? The words echoed through her mind, through her heart. “Why would you die?”

His lips curved into a slight smile. “I’m not planning to. I just want your word that if we have a son, you’ll hold on to the land for him.”

“And if we don’t have a son?”

“Then hold on to the land for yourself or sell it. Just don’t give it to your brothers.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do with the land,” she confessed.

He looked toward the distant horizon. “Give me your word that you won’t give the land to your brothers, and I’ll teach you how to manage it.”

She swept her gaze over the land. He was entrusting her with his legacy. She realized that if something did happen to him, she would need to know how to manage the ranch so she could teach their son. She glanced at him as he steadfastly watched her. “I could destroy everything you’ve built.”

“If I thought there was the slightest chance in hell of that happening, I wouldn’t have made the offer.”

The force of his words slammed into her. He trusted her with the empire he had built, trusted her to honor her word, just as she had vowed to honor him.

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?

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.