Page 48 of Texas Destiny
And he hoped that no one would hear in his voice or see reflected in his gaze that he’d fallen in love with her.
He skidded down the muddy bank and caught his balance, stopping himself before he plunged into the river. He trudged through the mud and knelt beside her. “Amelia?”
She lifted her tear-streaked face. “This was the first dress I’d had in over ten years that didn’t belong to someone else first. I was going to save it for the day I married Dallas.” She crushed the skirt to her chest. “It’s all caught up on the branches.”
He knew well the feeling of wearing someone else’s hand-me-downs. He had worn Dallas’s discarded clothing until the war. The first piece of clothing he had worn that had been his and his alone had been the gray jacket his mother had sewn him so he could ride off with pride alongside his father and older brother.
Only he hadn’t felt pride … only fear, a cold dread that had slithered through his bowels. A terror as unsettling as the one surrounding him now. He wanted this woman safe, safe within his brother’s arms, where Houston couldn’t touch her, where he couldn’t drag her down into the hell that was his life.
He removed his knife. “I’ll cut the branches, and you can take your time working the dress free. Maybe you can repair the damage.”
He moved around her and began hacking at the limbs.
“I found my mother’s mirror,” she said quietly. She touched his brim. “You found your hat.”
“Yep. Other than that, I haven’t had much luck. The water’s too strong. The current’s too fast.”
“Are we going to go back to John and Bern’s?”
“Didn’t see that they had much to spare. Think we’d just end up losing time and gaining very little.”
“Then what will we do?”
He cut through the last branch and sheathed his knife. “We’ll survive. We’ve still got everything I’d packed on Sorrel. It’s not much, but it’s enough. I’ve traveled with less.”
She bundled up the green silk and rose. Houston shoved himself to his feet, removed his hat, and extended it toward her. “You’ll need to wear this.”
Her eyes widened. “But that’s your hat.”
“I know, but I can’t find Austin’s hat or your bonnet, and the sun will turn your pretty skin into leather. It can’t hurt mine much.” He grimaced as a tear trailed along her cheek. “Don’t start crying on me.”
“But I know what your hat means to you.”
He almost told her that she meant more, but reined in the words that he had no right to voice aloud. “Then take good care of it because I’ll want it back when we get to the ranch.”
The cold winds whipped through the intimate camp. Amelia pulled the blanket more closely around her, tugged Houston’s hat down so the brim protected her neck, and scooted closer to the fire. They had traveled most of the day, she on Sorrel, Houston straddled across a mule. They had Sorrel’s blankets and the nearby brush to ward off the winds.
“Do you think it will snow?” she asked.
He glanced up. “No. Imagine in a day or so, it’ll be warm again.” “This isn’t winter?”
He shook his head. She returned her gaze to the fire. She wished she had Dallas’s letters. After all the times she’d read them, she should have had every word memorized, but she couldn’t remember anything he’d written.
All she could remember was the way Houston’s kiss had made her toes curl, the firmness of his body folded around hers last night, and the warmth of his breath fanning her cheek.
Would Dallas tuck her body protectively beneath his as they slept after they were married? Would he gently comb her hair back when he thought she was sleeping? Would he make her body grow as hot as the flames licking at the logs?
She rose to her feet, walked around the fire, and knelt beside Houston. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Yeah, I figured that.”
His words surprised her, although she supposed he was coming to know her as well as she was coming to know him. “How did you know?”
“You get this deep dent in the middle of your forehead.”
“What else do you know about me?”
“That you’re about to start asking me questions.”
