Page 47 of Texas Destiny
“All I can tell you is that I couldn’t ask for a finer brother, and I don’t imagine you could ask for a finer husband.”
“What if he’s disappointed when he meets me?”
Tenderness filled him at her insecurity. “He won’t be disappointed. I can give you my word on that.” Reaching over her, he tucked his duster around her. “Now you’d best get to sleep. Tomorrow’s gonna be another long day.”
“I’m so grateful you were with me today,” she said quietly as she closed her eyes.
Houston couldn’t remember if anyone had ever before been grateful for his presence. His mother, he supposed. Certainly not his father.
Unlike Dallas, Houston had never measured up to his father’s expectations. He had never been strong enough, smart enough, or fast enough.
“Swear to God, I ought to dress you in girl’s clothing!” his father had bellowed the day he had discovered Houston holding a rag doll in the mercantile.
The doll had looked so lonely sprawled over the counter, where a little girl had left her while she browsed the assortment of candies. And so soft. He’d just wanted to see if she was as soft as she looked.
She had been. Her embroidered face had carried a permanent smile, a smile that had made Houston grin crookedly at her.
He realized now that the smile more than the doll had probably set his father off. Or maybe it had been both. Either way, his actions hadn’t been of a manly nature. When they’d returned home, his father had taken a switch to Houston’s backside. A switch he’d made Houston find.
When the punishment ended, Houston had pulled his trousers up with as much dignity as he could muster. When he had turned, and his father had seen the silent tears coursing down his cheeks, he’d struck Houston’s face. The switch had cut into his tender young flesh, leaving a scar that ran the length of his cheek.
He’d hated the scar, often wished it was gone. His mother had warned him to be wary of what he wished for.
When he was fifteen, his wish had come true. Yankee artillery fire had blown the scar off his face, leaving a place for thicker scars to form. He hadn’t made a wish since.
But he found himself wishing now. Wishing that the arm holding Amelia hadn’t grown as numb as the left side of his face. He could no longer feel the warmth of her body, the sureness of her weight. His one chance to hold a decent woman within his arms through the night, and his arm had fallen asleep.
He thought about adjusting his position, but he didn’t want to wake her. His free hand hovered over her face, and like a moonbeam kissing the waters of a lake, he brushed her hair away from her cheek. So soft. So incredibly soft. Like the rag doll he’d held so long ago.
Only she wasn’t a doll. She was a woman, flesh and blood, a woman whom Dallas had entrusted into his keeping.
A woman with eyes the green of clover, hair the shade of an autumn moon.
And courage as boundless as the West Texas plains.
Chapter Eleven
Everything. Everything was gone.
Amelia stared at the brown flowing river and wondered why they even bothered to look. Her letters from Dallas were gone. A miniature of her mother. She had brought everything that had ever meant anything to her—and now everything was gone.
Everything except the pocket watch she’d purchased for Dallas.
She fought back the tears welling in her eyes. She’d lost everything once before, and somehow she’d managed to survive. She would survive again.
She lifted her chin in defiance, daring the fates to toy with her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the sunlight glint through the mud. Lifting her skirts, she walked cautiously to the water’s edge.
Her mirror, the mirror her mother had given her, caught and reflected the sunlight. Reaching down, she pulled it from the mud and washed it gently in the water. A sweet memory from the distant past.
She dried the mirror on her skirt, then held it up to gaze at her reflection. She was a mess. Her hair tangled, a bruise on her sun-tinged cheek, a button missing from her bodice. She stared harder at the mirror. In the background, a green cloud billowed in the breeze. She gazed over her shoulder and looked down the stream.
She trudged along the water’s edge until she reached the green dress, the bodice wrapped tightly around the spindly branches of a bush, the skirt flapping in the wind. Amelia gathered the skirt close, buried her face in the smooth fabric, and let the tears fall.
And that was how Houston found her. Sitting in the mud with the water lapping at her feet, her knees drawn up, her face hidden by the abundance of green silk.
He wished he could have spared her this journey, could have just plucked her up and put her in Dallas’s house without asking her to endure heartache, storms, and raging rivers.
He imagined sitting on the porch years from now with his nieces and nephews circled around him, telling them about the journey he’d made with their mother. A woman of courage, he’d call her.
