Lorraine Heath (18 page)

When the calf broke through to freedom, another cowboy lassoed it. Dallas rode past the bawling calf and caught up with Austin and Amelia. “What are you doing out here?”

“Took Amelia out to see Houston. Discovered she didn’t even know what a longhorn was so figured she ain’t never seen a roundup. Thought I’d show her.”

Dallas nodded and glanced over his shoulder. “They’re smaller in the fall. Come spring, you can hardly see for the dust the cattle stir up.”

“Houston said you had two thousand head of cattle.”

He smiled. “At last count.”

“I thought a ranch would feel like a plantation, have its grace and charm.”

“You don’t find the smell of burning cowhide and the ruckus of bawling cattle charmin’?”

She laughed lightly. “I find it fascinating, but nothing like what I’d expected. It’s so big. I think it takes a special breed of men to tame it.”

“That it does.”

“Houston mentioned that you were that sort of man.”

A blush swept down Dallas’s face, disappearing behind the red bandanna he wore wrapped around his neck. “I’m having a hard time believing how much that man talked. Reckon I got some catching up to do.”

A tinny sound filled the air. Amelia looked toward its source: the chuckwagon. With a metal bar, the cook was hitting a metal triangle.

“Are you hungry?” Dallas asked.

Amelia smiled. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

“Austin, go fetch us a couple of plates.”

As Austin rode to the chuckwagon, Dallas dismounted and helped Amelia off her horse. He removed his vest and set it on the ground. “It’s not fancy, but it’ll protect your skirt somewhat.”

“Thank you,” she said as she lowered herself to the ground.

“Think we’re having beefsteak today,” he said, dropping down beside her.

“I suppose when you raise cattle, you always have meat to eat.”

“Yes, ma’am, we do.”

She sighed, her mind suddenly blank. Asking questions of Houston had come so easily. She couldn’t think of a single thing to ask the man she was going to marry.

“Do you—”

“I’ve never—”

She laughed, he smiled as their voices bumped into each other.

“Go ahead,” he said. “No, you go first.”

“All right.” He yanked a spear of grass out of the ground and slipped it between his lips. “I was just gonna say that I’ve never had a girl before so you might need to prod me from time to time if you need or want things.”

“You’ve never had a girl?”

He flung his arm in the direction of the cook. “No, ma’am. As you can see, my company is made up of men and cattle.”

“But you’ve been to a brothel.”

He sat straighter. “I beg your pardon?”

“Houston said that sporting women don’t charge you, so I’d assumed you’d had a woman.”

“I meant I’ve never had a steady girl.” He leaned forward until she could see her reflection in the brown depths of his eyes. “Did Houston mention that I stopped visiting brothels when I got your first letter?”

“No, he didn’t tell me that.”

Dallas stretched out beside her, raised up on an elbow, and smiled. “Why don’t you tell me everything he
did
mention?”

Dallas rode his horse hard, with the cold midnight wind circling him, and his temper hotter than a branding iron straight out of the fire.

Houston said … Houston thought … Houston had told her …

Dallas had spent the afternoon and early evening hearing about everything Houston had ever said to Amelia. Dallas had known Houston for twenty-eight years and his brother had never in his whole entire life talked that much! Never!

Not when he was a boy working the cotton fields, not when he was beating a drum for the Confederacy, not when they’d traveled back to Texas … Never!

Dallas hadn’t planned to break his leg, but when he had, sending Houston after Amelia had seemed the right decision.

He’d known Amelia would be safe with Houston. Houston kept to himself, had since after the war. Dallas had moments when he felt regret over that … and a measure of guilt. Sometimes, he wondered if his actions on that fateful night had been self-serving. He’d never gone back on his word in his life, but he often wondered if the price of keeping his word had been worth it.

He shoved the unsettling thoughts back into the dark corner of his heart that he reserved for regrets, and set his spurs against his horse’s sides.

A rough ride usually calmed him. But tonight, nothing was working. He kept hearing Amelia’s voice, speaking Houston’s name so softly, as though she liked the way it sounded or enjoyed saying his name. As though she spent time thinking of him …

He drew his sweating horse to an abrupt halt and listened to the beast’s breath wheeze into the night. He wasn’t a man who usually abused his animals, and any other time, he would have dismounted and asked no more of the horse than he asked of himself.

But this time he had a burning inside him that couldn’t be contained. He urged the horse forward at a slower gait. He saw the lantern hanging on the front porch of the log cabin, a lantern to welcome strangers and friends alike. He hadn’t expected Houston to be so accommodating.

He drew his horse to a halt just beyond the front porch and gazed at the simple log structure. Judging by the size, he didn’t think it could be more than one room. It reminded him of … home.

Home before the war. Home, where his mother would flap her apron at them when she discovered them sticking their fingers into her precious sugar or honey. Home, where his pa would let him herd the few cattle they owned instead of making him work in the fields. He’d hated the fields, hated the cotton. Sitting on a horse with the scent of cattle riding the wind was preferable any day to tearing up the land and breaking his back to do it.

He dismounted, pushed the memories aside, and pulled on the tether that harnessed his anger. He took no pains to be quiet as he stepped on the porch and pounded the door so loudly he was certain he’d wake the dead.

If his brother didn’t get his butt out here, that was exactly what he’d be—dead.

Sleeping on a pallet against the corral fence, Houston had awoken to the sound of hooves beating the earth unmercifully. His first thought as he saw his brother riding in like hell’s vengeance was that something had happened to Amelia. His heart had matched the rhythm of the horse’s gallop, and although the evening air was cool around him, he’d broken out in a clammy sweat.

He’d thrown off the blanket, scrambled to his feet, and would have gone tearing across the yard like a madman if Dallas hadn’t brought his horse to a grinding halt, and then sat there as though he’d come in from a leisurely Sunday ride.

Now his brother was banging on his door loud enough to start a stampede.

“Goddamn it, Houston! Open the door!”

A memory flickered through Houston’s mind of a time when they were boys: They’d been swimming in the cold creek. Dallas had left the water, claiming it was time to go home, ordering Houston out of the creek, always ordering Houston around. This day, Houston hadn’t been in the mood for orders. Taking a deep breath, he’d gone under the water and swam to a place where the shadows were deep. He’d come up for air just as Dallas was stomping his boots into place. Then Dallas had looked out over the creek and started yelling for him. Houston had held his silence, hard as it had been, until Dallas had finally plowed back into the creek, slicing his hands through the water like he was Moses and could part the waters of the creek to reveal his brother. Houston had crept out of the water and moseyed over to where his clothes were. He’d sat there quietly waiting until Dallas stopped his thrashing and called out his name again.

“You might try lookin’ a little to your left!” Houston had yelled. “I might be over there!”

Dallas had spun around so quickly that he had lost his balance and slid beneath the water. He’d come back up sputtering and angry.

They’d wrestled, as boys were prone to do, until the laughter took over, and they both agreed it had been a fine day. They’d come home covered in mud, smiling as they told the story. Unfortunately, their father hadn’t shared their enthusiasm for the prank. Houston had received a lecture on the evils of crying wolf and had been sent to bed without his supper. But it had all been worth it to see the surprise on Dallas’s face when he’d turned around, and the horror in his eyes when he’d realized he was going down.

Oh, yeah, it had been worth it.

Dallas’s pounding hadn’t abated as he yelled once again, “Houston, open the goddamn door!”

Houston stepped silently onto the porch, eased his arm beneath his brother’s pounding fist, grabbed the latch, and shoved the door open. “That what you wanted?” he asked.

Dallas jerked back as though someone had just roped him and given him a sharp tug. His breathing was labored, and Houston was certain if it had been daylight, he would have seen fury within his brother’s dark eyes.

“Where in the hell were you?” Dallas demanded.

“Sleeping by the corral.”

Dallas turned toward the corral, and Houston almost imagined he could see the horror on Dallas’s face. He couldn’t stop himself from adding, “I saw you the minute you rode in.”

“Then you should have spoken up, let me know you were about.”

“But watching was so much more fun.”

“I didn’t give you anything to watch.”

Houston could have argued against that statement, but decided to let sleeping dogs lie. “Has something happened to Amelia?”

“No, she’s fine. I just …” Dallas cleared his throat. “I’ve just never been out to your place before.”

“It looks better at night,” Houston said, a bad feeling in his gut. It wasn’t like Dallas to have difficulty finding the right words, and the man never explained his actions. Never. “What’d you do to Amelia?”

Dallas jerked his head around. “I didn’t do anything to her, but I’d like to know what you did.”

Houston narrowed his gaze. “What do you mean by that?”

Dallas took a step forward. “I mean every sentence she utters has your name in it. Houston said this … Houston thinks that … You’d think the two of you were one person. She’s telling me things you think like she’s an authority on what goes on in your head.”

Houston shrugged. “You travel with a person, you get to know him.”

“How well did you get to know Amelia?”

Houston’s gut reaction was to plow his balled fist right into the center of his brother’s perfect face. Instead, he did what he always did. He took the easy path. “Why don’t you head on home, and I’ll forget you ever came out here tonight?”

“Answer me, goddamn it!”

“I just did. Now get the hell off my land.”

“You bedded her, didn’t you?”

Like most cowboys, Houston had never before hit a man. Guns were a man’s way, not fists. His brother’s face felt like a wall of stone when Houston’s tightened fist made contact with it. The pain shot up his arm as Dallas stumbled back and fell off the porch. Houston leapt off the porch and planted his foot squarely on his brother’s chest. Dallas grunted and wrapped his hands around Houston’s ankle. Houston pressed down.

“I told you to stay off that goddamn horse, but you wouldn’t listen! And I paid the price for your stubbornness. For forty-three days I traveled through hell, wanting that woman like I’ve never wanted anything in my life. For forty-three days, I drew your goddamn brand in the dirt to remind myself that she belonged to you, that she deserved the best of men. Think what you want of me, but never for one goddamn minute think less of her because you forced her into my company.” He jerked his foot back. “She went through hell to get to you: snake, storm, flood, hunger, and cold, and she never once complained. She’s a woman of courage, Dallas, and by God, if you don’t worship the ground she walks on, I’ll find her a husband who will. Now, get the hell off my land.”

Without looking back, Houston strode to the corral and crossed his arms over the railing. He was shaking badly and his legs felt like the thick mud of a bog. He thought they might buckle under him at any moment. That would certainly ruin the effectiveness of his tirade. He thought he might even be sick.

He heard Dallas’s horse whinny and then he heard the pounding of hooves. He slid to the ground and leaned back against the fence post. His father had been a violent man, quick to raise his voice and fist in anger. Houston had never wanted to be like him. He’d kept his temper to himself, letting it gnaw at his insides, never letting it show for fear of what it might do.

Well, now he knew. He was just like the man he despised.

* * *

Within the depths of slumber, Amelia heard her name whispered frantically. She struggled through the haze, squinting against the light burning in the lantern. She could see a slender form hovering over her bed, a young man with worried eyes. Austin.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. Bad news always came at night. Houston. Something had happened to Houston. She jerked upright and grabbed his arm. “What’s wrong?”

“Dallas got hurt.”

“Dallas?” Her momentary relief gave way to panic and guilt. Her first waking thought should have been of Dallas. Scrambling out of bed, she wrapped a blanket around herself.

“It ain’t bad,” Austin explained, “but I think it’s gonna need stitching.”

She rushed to the chair by the window and knelt beside the green dress she’d been trying to repair. She grabbed her scissors and cut the thread before slipping the needle from the cloth. “Where is he?” she asked as she spun around. Caught off guard, she stared at Austin, who had pressed her pillow against his face.

Guiltily, he dropped her pillow to the bed. “Your pillow don’t smell like mine.”

“Do you want to take it?” she asked.

He hooked his thumbs on the waistband of his trousers and ducked his head. “Nah, I’d best not. The men might laugh at me. That sweet smell would surely get noticed in the bunkhouse. It’s rank in there, just like old meat.”

She made a quick mental note to sprinkle some fragrance in his room once he moved back into it after she and Dallas were married. “Where is Dallas?”

“Oh!” He jumped, his arms flailing out. “This way.”