Page 44 of Texas Glory
“I never eat as much as my brothers,” she said.
A desperate silence surrounded them. Cordelia wished she could think of something—anything—to say.
“When do you think the railroad will get here?” Amelia asked.
Dallas reached for more potatoes. “Sometime next year.”
“Things should change then,” Amelia said quietly.
“Reckon they will. With any luck, Leighton will start growing as fast as Abilene. I’ll be wanting to build a school. Do you want to be in charge of finding a good teacher?” Dallas asked.
Amelia smiled. “I’d love to. Besides, I have experience at placing advertisements, and we’ll definitely want someone from the East.”
“Give me a list of everything you’ll need so I can tally up the costs before I go talk to Mr. Henderson at the bank.”
Amelia leaned forward and took Cordelia’s hand. “Dee, would you like to help me?”
Cordelia glanced at Dallas. He was studying her as though waiting for her answer. Surely if he had wanted her to help, he would have suggested it.
“I don’t know anything about schools. I had a tutor.”
“Then we’ll learn together,” Amelia said.
Cordelia shook her head. “No, I don’t think I can—”
“Our son will do his learning at this school,” Dallas said. “You ought to have a say in it.”
Cordelia nodded quickly. “All right, then, I will.”
“Good,” Dallas said brusquely.
Amelia squeezed Cordelia’s hand. “It’ll be fun.”
Yes, she imagined it would be, and it would give her something to do besides wash dishes and clothes. Dallas and Austin were seldom inside the house and maintaining it required so little of her time that she thought she could quite possibly go insane.
The conversation turned to other aspects of Leighton, but it made little sense to Cordelia. She had not visited the town since the day the land had been set aside. She’d asked several times for someone to take her, but none of her brothers had ever had time. She had always thought it would be exciting to watch something grow from nothing … like watching a child grow into an adult.
Her husband had planted the seeds for the town the day he had set aside the land. She remembered that Boyd had called him a greedy bastard that day … one of the nicer names he had for Dallas. She knew little about business, but she didn’t see how a school or the church he’d offered to build for Reverend Tucker would bring him much money.
As a matter of fact, in the short time she had been his wife, she had seen no evidence of his greed except for the morning he’d refused to pull his fence back if she left him. But even then, he had gained nothing but a reluctant wife while her family gained access to the river. Eventually, he would gain a son while her family would gain land.
She was beginning to think that Dallas hid his greedy nature well … so well that she wondered how Boyd had ever discovered it to begin with.
“The new addition to the house seems to be coming along fine,” Amelia said, shifting the conversation away from talk of Leighton.
“Ought to have the first floor and most of the walls in place before nightfall,” Dallas said.
“It means a lot to me that you and Austin would give up your day of rest to build onto our house.”
“That’s what family is for,” Dallas said.
“But we won’t be able to return the favor. I can’t imagine that you’ll ever need to add onto your house.”
“Speaking of Dallas’s house,” Austin said. “Dee, what do you think of it?”
Cordelia snapped her gaze to Austin, then to Dallas who watched her with such intensity that her breath almost stopped. Meaningless words scrambled through her mind.
“We need to get back to work,” Dallas said, setting his empty plate on the quilt.
