Page 78 of Texas Splendor
He pressed a kiss to her forehead and gingerly moved away from her. She sighed softly and shifted over until she was nestled in the spot where he had been. He brought the blankets over her shoulders.
He carried the lamp to the dresser and increased the flame by a hair’s breadth. He glanced toward the bed. Loree hadn’t stirred. He turned back to his task and ran his hand over the wooden violin case she’d given him for Christmas. On the top, someone had carved his name in fancy script. His gift to her—a small music box—had paled in comparison.
“If you’re not going to play your mother’s violin, you need to keep it protected,” Loree had told him. “Someday, maybe your son will play it.”
His son. He thought of Drew’s tiny fingers and wondered when a child’s fingers would be long enough to play a violin. Houston’s daughter Laurel could probably play. She was five now, but still she’d need a smaller violin.
He imagined the joys of teaching a child the wonders of music. He could teach his own children … He unfolded one of the sheets of music Loree had given him. All the black dots looked like bugs crawling over the page. Reading them was nothing like reading a book. Loree could teach his children to play.
Quietly he donned his clothes and slipped into the hallway. The house seemed incredibly quiet after all the festivity the night before. The children had finally fallen asleep around midnight, giving up their quest to actually see Santa Claus. Their stockings were now filled with goodies and additional presents were waiting under the tree in the parlor.
He crept down the wide winding staircase and grabbed his sheepskin jacket from the coat rack by the front door. Then he walked into the kitchen, prepared his morning coffee, and stepped onto the back porch.
He settled onto the top step, wrapped his hands around the warm tin cup, and waited … waited for the first ray of sun to touch the sky and reveal its beauty … waited to hear the music in his soul that had always accompanied the sunrise before he’d gone to prison.
He heard the door open and glanced over his shoulder, anticipating the sight of his wife, rumpled from sleep.
“What are you doing?” Cameron asked.
He averted his gaze and tightened his hold on the cup. “Iwasenjoying the sunrise.”
“Mind if I join you?”
Austin shrugged. “It ain’t my porch.”
Cameron dropped beside him and wrapped his arms around his middle. “Cold out this morning.”
Austin watched the steam rise from his coffee.
“Loree seems nice,” Cameron said.
Austin sliced his gaze over to Cameron. “She is nice.”
Cameron nodded. “She doesn’t look like she’s got much longer to go.”
Austin narrowed his eyes. “You counting the months? ‘Cuz if you are, I’ll have to take you out behind the barn and teach you a lesson in minding your own business.”
“Nah, I wasn’t counting. I was just saying. That’s all.”
“Good, ‘cuz I wouldn’t like it at all if you were counting months.” Austin extended the cup toward Cameron. “Take a sip on that before your clattering teeth wake everyone up. It’ll help warm you.”
Cameron took the cup without hesitating and downed a long swallow before handing it back. “Thanks.”
“Becky would probably never forgive me if I let you freeze to death out here,” Austin said, squinting into the distance, searching for that first hint of sunlight.
“She missed you like hell while you were in prison.” Cameron clasped his hands between his knees. “So did I.”
Austin laughed mirthlessly. “You two had a hell of a way of showing me that.”
A suffocating silence wove itself between them, around them. Austin saw dawn’s feathery fingers pushing back the night.
“After Boyd died, my pa didn’t want anything to do with me since I didn’t approve of what Boyd had done—paying someone to kill Dallas. Dallas offered me a job—”
Austin turned his attention toward Cameron. “You would have wet your britches every time he gave you an order.”
A smile tugged on the corner of Cameron’s mouth. “Yeah, that’s what I figured so I went to work for Becky’s pa. She and I put a box in the storage room. Every time we got in some new contraption, we’d put it in the box because she knew how much you loved new contraptions.”
Austin took a sip on his coffee before handing the cup back to Cameron. “Didn’t really care about them one way or the other. They were just an excuse to go into town and see Becky.”
