Page 39 of Texas Splendor
“Well, Idon’tlive on the moon. I live in West Texas, and I have the means to provide for you—not in as grand a fashion as I’d like, but I think it’d be tolerable.”
“Tolerable?”
“Dammit, Loree! I wronged you and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make it right.”
“How does convincing me to marry a man who doesn’t love me make it right?”
“Maybe it doesn’t make it right for us, but it’ll make it right for the baby. We have to put her first.”
“Do you still love Becky?”
His stomach tightened, and he clenched his jaw.
Wylan had certainly been right about words spoken in the heat of passion. He’d uttered one word, and this woman was going to hold it against him for the rest of his life. He surged to his feet and stormed from the house. He headed for the woodpile, worked the ax out of the stump, lifted a log, and slammed the ax into it.
He tried to put himself in Loree’s place, remembering the relief he’d felt when she’d confessed there was no Jake. Only for her, there would always be a Becky. His first love.
“What are you doing?” she asked from behind him.
He tossed the split wood onto the pile and hefted another log to the stump. “Chopping you twenty years worth of wood. I’m gonna repair your house, paint it, and do anything else around here that needs to be done. You don’t want to marry me? Fine. But I’ll be damned before a child of mine is gonna suffer because of mistakes I made.”
I’ll be damned before a child of mine is gonna suffer because of mistakes I made.
Those words echoed through Loree’s mind as she lay in her bed unable to sleep. They told her a lot about the man. He accepted responsibility for his actions.
But then, if she were honest with herself, she’d already known that, had learned that fact about him the first night when he’d chopped wood for a bowl of stew.
She didn’t know the little things about him: his favorite foods, preferred colors. She didn’t know if he danced or sang.
But she knew the important things: He was a rare man who thought more with his heart than his head. When he loved, he loved deeply and years didn’t diminish his affections even when memories faded. She had seen him weep over the loss of a woman, had watched him place flowers on the twenty-year-old grave of his mother. Had welcomed his gifts of a burned barn and a puppy.
But above all else, she had welcomed the comfort of his presence, the warmth of his touch. For a while, he had eased the sorrow and the loneliness.
For the past two hours, she had heard Austin tromping around her house. He had no barn in which to sleep. She had left the front door unbolted, the door to her room ajar, a portion of her hoping that he would sleep with her—just sleep with her, his arm around her, his breath skimming over the nape of her neck.
She strained her ears for several moments, but no longer heard him stirring outside. He had probably stretched out in the wagon he’d brought along with his plans to pack her up and haul her to West Texas as his wife.
She pressed her hand to her stomach. It wasn’t the first time that the actions of one night would forever change her life, but their actions were reaching out to touch an innocent child.
Austin was right. Their child would suffer because of their mistake. Born out of wedlock, she would burden the shame that rightfully belonged to them.
She threw off the blankets and scrambled out of bed. In bare feet, wearing nothing but her nightgown, she padded through the house, opened the front door, and saw Austin sitting on the porch steps. He glanced over his shoulder. She felt his gaze travel from the top of her head to the tips of her toes before he turned his attention back to the blackness stretching across the sky.
She knew that rejecting his proposal had hurt him. He hadn’t joined her for supper. He’d prepared a bath for her, but hadn’t indulged himself in the luxury. He seemed intent on giving all to her and taking nothing from her.
Her mouth grew as dry as cotton. She crossed the porch and sat beside him. His knees were widespread, his elbows resting on his thighs, his hands clamped together before him, his gaze trained on the distance. In the shadows of the night, she saw the slight breeze brushing his black hair over his collar.
“Lot of stars falling from the sky tonight,” he said, his voice low.
She followed the direction of his gaze. A ball of light arced through the black void and disappeared like a dream that was never meant to be.
“Make a wish, Loree,” he said quietly.
She closed her eyes. One wish. If she were allowed only one wish, she wished she could unburden her past on this man sitting beside her. She thought he, of all people, would understand all that she had done, the things the killer had goaded her into doing. She wished she could tell him and not risk losing any of the affection he might hold for her.
“What did you wish?” he asked.
Opening her eyes, she peered at him. He watched her, and even in the darkness, she felt the intensity of his gaze. “If I tell you, it won’t come true. Did you make a wish?”
