Page 76 of Texas Glory
She watched as he swallowed.
“I should have given you the choice that you want to give other women.”
She swayed within his arms, now knowing beyond a doubt that if he had courted her, if she had been given the choice, she would not have chosen differently.
Dallas was not a man prone to doubts, but this evening as Dee rode beside him back toward the ranch, doubts plagued him.
Her lips were curved into a soft smile, her face serene as the moon guided them home. She seemed happy and content, more so than he’d ever seen her.
Like a hopeful litany, her words echoed through his mind:I was a fool to fear you.
A warm breeze blew gently over the land, and in the distance, he could hear the constant clatter of his newest windmill. He held his silence until the windmill came into view, a dark silhouette against the prairie sky.
“I want to show you something,” he said quietly, hoping none of his actions tonight would put the fear back into her eyes.
She glanced over at him. “What do you want to show me?”
He brought his horse to a halt beneath the windmill. She drew her horse to a stop and smiled. “Oh, one of your ladies.”
Dallas dismounted and wiped his sweating palms on his jacket before helping her off her horse.
“I’ve never been so far from home at night,” she whispered as though someone might be lurking nearby to overhear her words.
“This is my favorite time of day,” Dallas said. “I like to view it from up there.”
He pointed to the top of the windmill and her eyes widened.
“How do you get up there?”
“This windmill has a ladder and a small platform.” A platform he had built in anticipation of this night. He held out his hand. A warm jolt of pleasure shot through him when she placed her hand in his.
He led her to the windmill. “Just one foot at a time,” he said. “Hold onto the railing. The ladder will take you to the platform at the top.”
He followed closely behind her until she crawled on the platform. He climbed on after her. The platform was small, barely enough room for the two of them to stand.
Dallas had thought about this moment a hundred times, all the things he would tell her: the things he felt, the things he wanted, the dreams left unfulfilled.
He wanted her to see all that he saw: the vastness of the sky. The canopy of stars. The land that stretched out before them. In the far-off distance, he could hear the lowing of cattle. He could smell the soil, the grass, the flowers that had bloomed throughout the day.
He could smell the night. He could smell her sweet fragrance.
And he knew that no words he could utter would do justice to the magnificence that lay before them, to the future they might share. If she couldn’t envision it of her own accord, he couldn’t describe it so she would. If she didn’t understand it, he couldn’t explain it.
“It’s beautiful.”
Her soft voice, laced with reverence, wrapped around him, increased tenfold the majesty of all he’d acquired, all he had worked so hard to attain.
He had never felt as close to anyone as he felt to her right now, standing high above the earth, with the night surrounding them, and he somehow knew that if he had misjudged the moment, his dream would crumble into dust.
“I want a son, Dee.”
She turned her head and met his gaze, and he prayed that it wasn’t a trick of the moonlight that made it seem as though she harbored no fear in her eyes.
“I want a son that I can share this with. I want to bring him up here at dawn, at sunset, at midnight. As grand as all this is, I want him to know that it pales in comparison to all that he will be.” He swallowed hard. “But I won’t take what you’re unwilling to give.”
He watched her gaze slowly sweep over the land as though she were measuring its worth.
“I want to give you a son,” she said softly.
