Lorraine Heath (27 page)

“I gave him my word that I wouldn’t let him die. I’ve never gone back on my word.” He leveled his gun at the center of the doctor’s chest. “I’m givin’ you my word now that if he dies, you’ll be keepin’ him company in heaven.”

“Don’t do this, son.”

“I ain’t your son.”

“I know it’s hard to let go of those we love, especially when they’re so young, but I give you my word that death is better for him.”

“I ain’t interested in your word. I’m only interested in mine. Now, fix him.”

In resignation, the doctor sighed, reached behind him, picked up a pair of scissors, and began to cut away what remained of Houston’s gray jacket. Stoically, Dallas stood and watched as the doctor worked. Two hours. Two long torturous hours of staring at his brother’s mutilated flesh.

“I’ve done all I can do,” Dr. Barnes said as he finished wrapping the last bandage around Houston’s’ head. “It’s up to him now whether he lives or dies.”

Dallas lowered his shaking hand. “I appreciate what you did.”

“I guarantee you that he won’t appreciate it at all. In years to come when you look at his face, you remember the night you played God.”

“He was right,” Dallas said with a heavy sigh. “I had to leave, go with my company, but when I came back, you weren’t smiling. You wouldn’t talk to me. When we were traveling home, you kept to yourself, hugging the shadows if we stopped in a town. I figured you wished I’d let you die. When I built the house for Amelia, you didn’t want to live here, built yourself your own place. Figured you wanted nothing to do with me.”

Houston could barely speak for the emotions clogging his throat. “I thought you wouldn’t look at me because you knew I was a coward. I ran. If I hadn’t run, Pa wouldn’t have been killed.”

“Sweet Lord, Houston, you didn’t even have a gun to defend yourself, just a drum. If a soldier couldn’t kill the man giving the orders, he’d do all in his power to silence the messenger. You were the messenger. I told Pa to give you a rifle, but he wanted someone to beat out his orders. You were a boy. Pa had no right to enlist you. I told him not to, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“You weren’t much older.”

“Not in years, but in temperament. I wanted to go. I wanted the glory that came with war. Only I discovered glory doesn’t come with destruction. I thought I’d find it here, taming the land, building an empire, creating a legacy that I could hand down to my son.”

Dallas’s son. The foundation of his dream. Dallas had saved Houston’s life—twice—and now Houston was asking him to sacrifice a portion of his dream so Houston could find happiness. “That brings us back to Amelia,” Houston said quietly.

“Yeah, it does.” Dallas shoved himself away from the desk and walked to the window.

Houston’s chest ached more than it had when shrapnel had cut through it. He rose and joined his brother. “I owe you for keeping your word and not letting me die. The doctor was wrong. I never regretted that I’d lived. I only regretted that Pa didn’t.”

Dallas shook his head. “He had no right going after you. He had men to command. His place was to lead them. He wanted to shape you into the man he thought you ought to be. A battlefield wasn’t the place to do it.”

“You don’t blame me at all?”

Dallas glanced at him. “It was his decision to run after you, stupid as it was. I loved him, Houston. I admired his strengths, but he wasn’t perfect.”

“I loved him, too,” Houston said, for the first time realizing that he had indeed loved his father. “I just couldn’t be what he wanted me to be.”

“No fault in that. God help me, I’m his mirror image.” Dallas looked back toward the corral at the woman still standing with the moonlight wreathed around her. He had never expected her to love him. He was too much like his father, a hard man to love, not truly appreciated until he was gone. Neither did he relish the thought of taking a woman to his bed, knowing she was thinking of another. Especially if that man was Houston.

“Give her a divorce,” Houston said. “I swear to God I won’t touch her for a month, not until she knows for sure whether or not she’s carrying your son.”

Dallas raised a brow. “It’s highly unlikely that she’s carrying my son, since we are constantly interrupted.”

“Then give her an annulment.”

“What in God’s name makes you think she wants to marry you? You stood in my parlor and held your peace. You don’t think that might have broken her heart?”

“She has every right to hate me, but at least let me ask her.”

Guilt, misunderstandings, and regrets had given Houston thirteen years of solitude. Now, Houston had the opportunity to receive the love of a woman, something Dallas would never have. Any woman could give Dallas the son he wanted, but only Amelia had returned to Houston his smiles and laughter.

“I’ll leave the decision up to Amelia,” Dallas said quietly. “Let me talk to her. If she wants an annulment, I’ll give her one. If she wants to marry you … I’ll hold my peace.”

A full moon graced the heavens, its light illuminating Dallas’s way as he approached the corral. Valiant skittered away to the other side, but the woman remained, gazing into the darkness beyond the corral.

Dallas crossed his arms over the railing. “That’s a beautiful horse.”

“Yes, she is.”

“Houston has the patience of Job when it comes to horses.”

“Yes, he does.”

“You know what I was thinking about when I was walking out here?”

Shaking her head, she glanced at him.

“I was thinking about the last time I heard Houston laugh. We’d been swimming in the creek. I told him to get out, and while I was dressing, he hid in the shadows. When I looked up, I couldn’t see him. I thought he’d drowned. Made a fool of myself, thrashing through that water, looking for him. He laughed so hard I thought he’d bust a gut.”

She smiled softly. “I can’t imagine that.”

“No, I don’t imagine you can. The next day, our pa went to war, dragging us along with him. I never heard Houston laugh again until the first night you were here. Fifteen years is a hell of a long time for a man not to laugh.”

He trailed his finger along her cheek. “I don’t need love, Amelia, but I think you do, and if you find it with a man who dreams of raising horses, know that you do so with my blessing.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and a tremulous smile curved her lips. “I think if you’d come to Fort Worth to fetch me, I might have fallen in love with you.”

He smiled warmly. “I’d think the fates had conspired against us if I didn’t believe that we shape our own destiny. In my office is a man who wants to make you part of his destiny. I think it would be worth your time to listen to what he has to say.”

Houston sat in the chair, his elbows on his thighs, his shoulder aching unmercifully. He ran Amelia’s cloth through his fingers, over and over. He knew every silken strand, every knot, every loop. It was all he’d have of her if she didn’t come, and he had a feeling she wasn’t going to come.

“Dallas said you wanted to talk with me.”

He shot out of the chair at the sound of her gentle voice. He wadded up her cloth and stuffed it into his duster pocket. “Yeah, I did.” He pulled her mirror out of his other pocket. “You left your mirror on my table.” He extended it toward her.

“You can keep it,” she said quietly. “We have lots of mirrors here.”

“I’ll keep it, then.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

He’d never rushed headlong into a battle, but he figured this time, it might be the best approach. “I spent a lot of time studying it. The back is real pretty with all the gold carving. Took me about an hour to gather up the courage to turn it over and look at the other side.”

“And what did you see?”

“A man who loves you more than life itself.”

Closing her eyes, she dropped her chin to her chest.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me. I haven’t held your feelings as precious as I should have.”

“I don’t hate you,” she whispered hoarsely. “I tried to, but I can’t.”

“Dallas is willing to give you an annulment.”

Damn, the words were as ugly as his face, not at all what she deserved. He’d consider himself the wealthiest man in the world if he only possessed the words he thought she longed to hear, words worthy of her. He thought he could see a tear glistening in the corner of her eye. “Damn it, woman, look at me.”

Slowly, she lifted her head. The sight of the tears welling in her eyes hurt more than the wound healing in his shoulder.

“I’ve had plenty of moments in my life when I’ve been scared, but I swear to you that I’ve never been as scared as I am right now. I’m afraid you won’t take Dallas up on his offer for an annulment … and I’ll have nothing in my life but the emptiness that was there before you stepped off that train in Fort Worth. I wouldn’t blame you for staying with him. God knows I haven’t done right by you—” He slammed his eye shut. “Ah, hell, this isn’t what I wanted to say.”

He slipped the mirror back into his pocket and

sank down into the chair. He’d never felt so tired in his life. She rushed forward and knelt beside him.

“Are you bleeding?”

“No. Just need a moment to gather my strength.”

“You shouldn’t have come here tonight. You should have stayed in bed—”

“I couldn’t. Every time I took a breath, I smelled you.” He wrapped his hand around hers, pressed a kiss to the heart of her palm, and held her gaze. “I’ve got a one-room cabin, a few horses, and a dream that’s so small it won’t even cover your palm. But it sure seems a lot bigger when you’re beside me.”

The moonlight streaming through the window shimmered off the tears trailing along her cheeks. “I’ve always wanted a dream that I could hold in the palm of my hand,” she said quietly.

His heart slammed against his chest, and all the things he’d feared melted away. “I want you beside me until the day I die, Amelia. If you’ll have me … as your husband.”

She smiled softly. “I’ll take a question.”

“What?”

She raised a delicate brow. “A question.” He swallowed hard, took her hands, and brought them to his lips. “Will you marry me?” “Yes.”

Joy overflowed within his heart, creating a sunrise bathed in love. “I’ll take a dare,” he rasped.

“Kiss me as though you love me.”

“Woman, don’t you know that I’ve always kissed you that way?”

Guiding her onto his lap, he took her into his arms and lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her tenderly, this woman of courage who would soon become his wife.

T
hey waited until spring, when the wildflowers formed a bright multicolored carpet over the plains.

Amelia stood beside the springs, listening to the babble of the water as it flowed over the moss covered rocks. Her dress of white lace and silk whispered in the breeze, a gift from Houston, one of many he’d brought her from Fort Worth. A gift to capture her memories.

In the years to come, she knew she would take it from the cedar chest, look upon it with fondness, and remember the first of the happiest days of her life.

She had intertwined her arm through Houston’s, just as their lives would forever be joined. No brand would emblazon their union. Only the words they exchanged today.

She couldn’t take her eyes off Houston as he stood beside her in his new brown jacket and woolen trousers. She thought he more closely resembled a banker than a man who spent the best part of his day with horses … and soon she hoped, the best part of his night with her.

The even, straight brim of his new broad-brimmed hat made her smile, and she wondered how long it would be before old habits crumpled it. Around the brim, he wore her linen of long ago, with its delicate embroidered flowers, faded and frayed. Through the eyes of her heart, she knew she’d never seen a more handsome man.

Reverend Tucker’s melodious voice rang out as he once again spoke the words he’d said the previous autumn. Dallas stood solemnly beside her, and she wondered briefly if he was remembering the day she had become his wife or if he was mentally designing the layout of the town he planned to build. She hoped he was thinking of his town, and that it would bring him a wife.

Austin stood on the other side of Houston, smiling broadly, his sparkling blue eyes competing in beauty with the pond as the sun reflected off the rippling waters.

“If anyone knows of any reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever”—Reverend Tucker held the gazes of the three men in attendance for the space of a heartbeat—“and I do mean
forever
hold his peace.”

Amelia caught her breath and waited. She knew Dallas had the right to object. A part of her was saddened with the knowledge that she would not give him the son he desperately longed for; a corner of her heart would always be reserved for the memories of the short time that she had been his fiancée, and then his wife. And her love for him would grow over the years as he’d predicted, only it would be the love of a sister toward her brother.

Reverend Tucker cleared his throat. Amelia released her breath and repeated the vows she’d said once before, her gaze never leaving Houston’s.

Reverend Tucker shifted his attention to Houston. “And if you’ll repeat after me—”

“She’s had those words given to her before,” Houston said gruffly. “She deserves better than hand-me-downs. I’ve got my own words to say.”

Lifting a brow, Reverend Tucker chuckled low. “Well, I’ve never heard my words referred to as hand-me-downs, but I suppose they are. I have no objection to you giving your own vows as long as your bride doesn’t. Amelia?”

“I have no objections,” she said, her heart thrumming with the rhythm of the falls. She imagined that they still carried the sound of Houston’s laughter mingling with hers, and after today they would forever echo their vows.

Reaching around her, Houston cupped her elbow, tugging slightly until she faced him completely. He swept his hat from his head, the shadows retreating to reveal the craggy left side, the perfect right side that came together to form the face she loved.

He took the hand that wasn’t holding the bouquet of wildflowers and stared at it, holding it so tightly that she thought he might crack her bones. Then his hold gentled. He slipped a gold ring onto her finger and lifted his gaze to hers.