Page 40 of Texas Destiny
“Will we be meeting any other neighbors?” Amelia asked.
“Not that I know of.”
“How much longer until we’re at the ranch?”
“A good fifteen days.” Or a bad fifteen days, depending on how he looked at it. He’d drop her off at Dallas’s door and head on to his own small place, where he ate alone, slept alone, and dreamed alone.
If he dared to dream. He’d been right in the beginning. Having a woman around made a man long for things he shouldn’t. He’d stayed up all night listening to her even breathing, watching her snuggle beneath the blankets, and wishing that damn bundle board hadn’t been there so she could have snuggled against him.
His stomach tightened as he thought of Dallas’s holding this woman through the night, protecting her from whatever it was that made her sleep with a light burning.
A light seldom kept his own demons at bay. He sure as hell couldn’t keep hers away.
They traveled four days, the land growing flatter, the trees scarcer. Amelia imagined in summer, when the sun baked the earth, that men worshipped the shade they found beneath the few trees scattered about. As Houston had promised, nothing blocked her view of the sunset.
As dusk settled in, she glanced at the scattered trees, the brush, and the withering grass blowing in the breeze, rippling across the land like the sea washing over the shore.
“What can I do to help?” she asked as she followed Houston from the wagon, his arms loaded with supplies while hers remained empty.
“You can gather up some prairie coal.”
“Prairie coal?”
A corner of his mouth tipped up. “Cow dung.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“When there’s no wood, we burn cow dung.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t that rather unpleasant?”
“You get used to it.” The corner of his mouth lifted a little higher. “But I’ll gather it up. Why don’t you look in the wagon and decide which can I should open for tonight’s meal?”
She angled her chin. “You’ve done everything since we left Fort Worth. I can handle prairie coal.” She walked back to the wagon, picked up her reticule, and pulled out a white linen handkerchief with tatted edges.
She marched to the first brown lump she could see peering through the tall prairie grasses. Carefully, she placed her handkerchief over the object and gingerly lifted it off the ground, making certain her fingers never actually touched anything other than the linen.
Holding the coal—she much preferred to think of it as coal rather than dung—as far away from her as possible, holding her breath as well, she walked back into the camp. “Where do you want the fire?”
Working to stretch the tent into place, Houston glanced over his shoulder and a shaft of warmth pierced his heart. He’d never thought of Amelia as prim and proper, but she sure as hell looked prim and proper with some lacy thing hanging over cow dung. “Right there ought to do just fine.”
She started to bend down.
“No, no,” he amended. “A little closer to the tent might be better.”
She straightened and walked toward him. “Here?” she asked.
“Yep.”
She placed the dung on the ground and began shaking out her linen.
“On second thought, that might be too close. A strong wind comes through here and the tent would go up in flames.”
“Where do you want it, then?” she asked, her lips pursed.
He wondered what the hell he thought he was doing. He’d often seen cowboys pull pranks on each other, but he hadn’t been on the giving or the receiving end of a prank in years, and he had forgotten how it was done so everyone ended up laughing.
He wanted to hear her laugh, but playing with manure sure as hell wasn’t the way to accomplish that goal. Irritated with his stupidity, he released his hold on the tent, and it fell into a heap. He picked up the cow dung and tossed it a foot or so away. “Right there ought to do it.”
