Lorraine Heath (7 page)

“What do you mean you can’t find her?” Houston asked, panic threaded through his voice.

“I mean she’s lost. The men were supposed to take turns watching her, and they lost track of whose turn it was. I should have kept my eye on her. I shouldn’t have started dancing—”

Houston leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers to silence her. “We’ll find her.”

“But what if—”

“I know where she is,” Dallas said. Relief washed over Amelia’s face. “You’ve seen her?”

“No, but I know where she likes to hide out. If I’m right, she’s gonna go home with a big bellyache.”

He started walking toward the house, Amelia’s peace of mind taking precedence over his own.

“Have you seen my wife?” he asked Amelia as they neared the house.

“Not since you took her walking. Why?”

“I think she’s left.”

He shoved open the front door.

“Surely not,” Amelia said softly.

“I can’t find her, and I don’t imagine she’s hiding under my desk with Maggie.”

Dallas walked down the hallway. He quietly opened the door to his office and peered inside. He didn’t want to startle his niece if she had a lemon drop in her mouth.

He heard paper rattle and smiled. He so loved that little girl.

With Houston and Amelia following in his wake, he crept across the room and waited beside his desk until her heard the paper crackle again, a sign that she’d finished one lemon drop and was reaching for another. He’d taught her not to put more than one in her mouth at a time.

He quickly moved behind his desk and dropped to his haunches. “Caught you!”

A piercing scream ricocheted through the room. Dallas stared at his wife, hunched over beneath his desk. She screamed again.

Maggie yelled, her tiny hands waving frantically. The kitten hissed and slashed a paw through the air.

Dallas reached for his wife. Drawing back, screaming again, she kicked him in the shin. He grunted. Maggie started to cry. The cat made a puddle on the floor.

Houston shoved him aside, and Dallas landed hard on his backside.

“Shh. Shh. It’s all right,” Houston cooed in a voice that Dallas had often heard him use to calm horses. “It’s all right. No one is in trouble. No one is going to get hurt. Shh. Shh.”

Maggie crawled out from beneath the desk and into Houston’s arms. Houston passed her up to Amelia.

With tears streaming her face, Maggie looked at Dallas with accusation in her green eyes. “We had a sad!”

Dallas felt like a monster as he brought himself to his feet. Houston was holding his hand out to Cordelia. “Come on, Cordelia. It’s all right. Dallas doesn’t mind that you ate his lemon drops.”

He watched as his wife cautiously peeked out from beneath the desk. It didn’t ease his conscience to see that she’d been crying, too. She allowed Houston to help her to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she swiped at the tears glistening on her cheeks.

“It was my fault,” Dallas said. “I shouldn’t have …” He shouldn’t have what? Tried to tease his niece? How in the hell was he to know his wife would crawl—

Thundering footsteps echoed down the hallway and Cordelia’s three brothers burst into the room, Cameron waving a gun through the air. “Get the hell away from her, you bastard!” Cameron yelled.

“Cameron—” Cordelia began but Dallas held up a hand to silence her.

He moved around the desk and slowly walked toward her brother, putting himself between those behind the desk and the gun, since neither Boyd nor Duncan seemed inclined to try to take the weapon from Cameron.

“Give me the gun, Cameron,” Dallas said in a low, calm voice.

He shook his head. “I’m not gonna let you hurt my sister.”

“I’m not going to hurt her.”

“I heard her scream. I know the sound of her scream.”

He waved the gun to his right, and Dallas stepped in front of it. “I frightened her,” Dallas said. “It won’t happen again.”

Cameron turned a sickly shade of green and sweat popped out on his brow. Dallas reached for the gun.

“I won’t hurt her,” he repeated.

“Give me your word,” Cameron rasped, the shaking of his hand increasing.

“I give you my word,” Dallas said as he snatched the gun from Cameron’s grasp.

Cameron doubled over and brought up his dinner.

As the others in the room gagged and moaned, Dallas leapt back and ground his teeth together. Wonderful. Now he had vomit
and
piss to clean up.

Cordelia rushed past him and pressed her fingers to Cameron’s brow. “Oh, Cameron.”

“I’m all right, Dee,” he said, wiping his sleeve across his mouth and averting his gaze from Dallas.

Dallas glared at Boyd. “McQueen, wish your sister well, gather up your brothers, and get the hell out of my sight.”

Cordelia eyed him as though he were a snake. “Cameron can’t leave. He’s sick.”

“He can throw up outside as easily as he can inside.”

“You’re heartless,” she said.

“I’m all right now, Dee,” Cameron repeated. He extended his hand toward Dallas. “Can I have my gun back?”

“I’ll bring it to you in a couple of days after tempers have cooled,” Dallas said. “Right now, it would be best if you left.”

Cameron nodded and looked at his sister. “Night, Dee,” He eased his way past her.

“Do you have to leave?” she asked.

“Your husband’s demanding it,” Boyd said. “Let’s go.”

He spun on his heel and stomped out, with his brothers following like dogs with their tails tucked between their legs.

Not exactly the way Dallas had planned to end the evening.

Maggie padded across the room, placed her tiny hands on Dallas’s thighs, and tilted her head back. “We had a bunch of sads,” she said. “A bunch of sads.”

He lifted her into his arms. “Are they all gone now?” he asked her, although he focused his gaze on his wife who watched him as though she thought he might harm the child.

Maggie nodded and laid her head on his shoulder. “Only now my tummy hurts.”

“I’m not surprised.” He looked at his brother. “Why don’t you take your daughter, and I’ll show my wife to her room? Then I’ll deal with this mess.”

He handed his niece over to Houston and held his arm out to his wife.

“Mrs. Leigh,” he said, knowing his voice sounded too stern, but unable to stop it. He’d lost one wife on his wedding night. He didn’t intend to lose another.

She stepped toward him hesitantly as though he’d just said he was going to take her to the gallows instead of to her room. Her fingers dug into his forearm, and dammit, she was still trembling.

“This way.”

Cordelia followed him from the room, down the hallway, and up a wide flight of stairs. He walked to the last room on the right—the corner room where the door was closed.

“This is our bedroom. I moved your trunk into it earlier so it’s waiting for you.”

Their bedroom. Not hers, but theirs. She knew he fully intended to share it with her tonight. “I’m sorry we ate all your lemon drops,” she said inanely, wishing the sun had never set, night had never fallen.

“Did it work?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Did it make the sadness go away?”

“Not entirely.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’m sorry I screamed.”

“I knew Maggie was hiding beneath my desk. I wouldn’t have tried to startle her if I’d known you were there as well.”

“I’m sorry I said you were heartless.”

A corner of his mouth tipped up. “We could probably stand here all night apologizing for things we said or did throughout the day. Let’s just acknowledge we got off on the wrong foot, and we’ll go from there.”

He put his hand on the doorknob.

“The first two conditions—” she said quickly.

He removed his hand from the door, straightened, and looked at her. She licked her lips.

“The first two conditions that my father agreed to … what were they?”

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“He said you would share your water with him if I married you. Without the water, he would lose his cattle.”

“That was the first condition. I promised to pull my fence back the morning after we were married.”

“Was that your idea?” she asked.

“It was my offer.”

“And the second condition?”

“When you give me a son, I’ll deed a portion of my land over to your father.”

“Was that your idea as well?”

He hesitated. “No.”

Cordelia felt as though someone had just pulled her heart through her chest.

“Isn’t there a name for a woman who trades her favors for gain?” she asked.

“There’s also a name for a woman who takes a husband. You’re my wife, not my whore.”

“In this case, Mr. Leigh, it seems to be a fine line. May I have a few moments alone?”

He nodded and opened the door to their bedroom. “I’ll see my brother and his family off, and then I’ll come back.”

She slipped inside the room, closed the door, and pressed her back against it.

Her father knew the fears she harbored, knew what she had seen as a child. She had been standing in the doorway, terrified, when he’d finally rolled off her mother.

He had promised her that no man would ever touch her. He had traded his promise for a strip of land, knowing full well that what Dallas Leigh expected of his wife was what her father had sworn she would never have to give.

Dallas leaned against the veranda beam and watched as Houston tucked Maggie into the back of the wagon. Amelia had been kind enough to help him clean up his office. He wished she had the power to wipe away his doubts as easily as she had wiped away the kitten’s puddle.

Was a son such a terrible thing for a man to wish for?

“Have a safe journey home,” he said.

Houston looked up from his task. “We will.”

“If you need anything—”

“We’ll be fine,” Amelia said. “Get back to your wife.”

Walking into the house, Dallas closed the door behind him. After a day filled with guests, the house seemed unbearably empty. His footsteps echoed down the hallway. He began climbing the stairs.

His wife was waiting for him. His wife. He’d planned to dance with her, toast her happiness, and charm her.

Instead, she’d seen his temper flare up more than once, and he’d frightened her. Her scream had been one of pure terror.

He stopped outside the door to his room. A pale light slipped into the hallway. She was inside waiting on him.

Tonight he’d have someone beside him, and with any luck, nine months from now, he’d have someone in his heart.

He’d vowed for better or worse. He’d do all he could to make everything better for her, but he’d live with worse if he had to.

He put his hand on the knob, turned it, and discovered she had locked him out.

By God, he had been challenged at every turn today, and he was damn tired of it. With a burst of rage that sent the blood rushing through his temples, he kicked in the door.

She screamed and flew out of the chair by the fire he’d built earlier in the hearth, clutching her brush to her breast.

“Never lock the door against me,” he said in a low menacing voice. “Not in my house.”

She shook her head and took a step back. “No, no, I wouldn’t. I know my duty. I … I was just preparing myself for you.”

Her duty. The words sounded incredibly harsh, but then what had he expected? She knew less about him than he knew of her because all she knew of him had come from her brothers, and it was obvious after the confrontation in his office and conversations held throughout the day that they had few kind words to say about him.

Her eyes were as large as a harvest moon, and he could see now that her brush was tangled in her hair. Tangled in her thick black hair that cascaded down to her narrow hips like a still waterfall.

She wore a white cotton shift with lace at the throat and tiny pearl buttons running down the front. Something a woman might sleep in.

As he took a step forward, he saw her bare toes curl. For some inexplicable reason, that small action touched him as nothing had all day. He glanced over at the door, hanging at an awkward angle, torn from the top hinges. He looked back at Cordelia. “I’ll send someone up to repair the door.”

She gave him a jerky nod. He walked from the room, rushed down the stairs, and stormed into the night. He saw Houston, standing by the wagon, kissing Amelia as though he hadn’t spent the whole day with her, wasn’t sharing the rest of his life with her. “Houston!”

Houston lifted his head and drew Amelia closer to him.

Dallas felt like a fool. A damn fool. “I need you to … to fix the door to my bedroom.”

“Fix it? What happened to it?”

“A little misunderstanding. I kicked it in, and now it’s hanging off the hinges. I thought it might be better if someone else repaired it.”

Dallas grunted when Amelia hit him in the stomach.

“Watch our daughter,” she ordered.

Amelia and Houston hurried into the house. Dallas walked to the back of the wagon and glanced inside. Maggie lay on a bundle of blankets, the kitten Dallas had given her curled within the curve of her stomach. “Wouldn’t you like to have a little boy to play with?” he asked quietly.

He caught sight of a movement out of the corner of his eye. Austin was weaving toward the wagon. “Austin?”

Austin stumbled to a stop. “What?”

“Watch Maggie. I need a drink.”

He ignored Austin’s groan as he headed into the house.

Cordelia was shaking so badly that she didn’t think she’d ever be warm. Amelia had added wood to the fire, but Cordelia still felt cold, so cold. Amelia had draped a blanket around Cordelia’s shoulders but that hadn’t brought any warmth with it either.

“I can’t stay here,” she whispered.

Amelia knelt before her and took her hands. “It’ll be all right.”

Cordelia shook her head. “My brother Duncan told me that you had married Dallas and that he had been so cruel that you left after only a week.”

Cordelia saw a spark of anger ignite within the green depths of Amelia’s eyes.

“Is that what he said?”

Cordelia nodded. “I can understand why you left him.”

Amelia began to work the brush free of Cordelia’s hair and smiled softly. “No, I don’t think you do understand. I was promised to Dallas. A few days after we were married, he realized that I loved Houston, and that Houston loved me, so he gave me an annulment.”