Two Texas Hearts

Nothing he could think of sounded right.

Letting the first few swallows burn his throat, Winter decided he’d probably have little use for speech from now on. Kora seemed as quiet as her sister was chatty. He couldn’t imagine how two women from the same parentage could be so different. Jamie looked as if she’d never worn a dress, and he guessed Kora was always a lady.

Finally she broke the silence. ‘‘I like a little sugar in mine.’’

For a second her words made no sense, for he’d forgotten all about the coffee. She was trying to help make it easier, he guessed. The least he could do was try also. ‘‘In a china cup?’’

Kora smiled. ‘‘No, I’ve always like the feel of a mug in my hands. That way the coffee warms my fingers.’’ She stared down at the cup.

That’s it, he thought. That’s as far as the conversation will go. What else could he say? They might be married, but he didn’t feel he knew her well enough to comment on her hands now hugging the cup, or ask her why she’d touched him last night. Or why she’d chosen to sleep in the attic on the floor and not in one of the beds downstairs. Or why she was already dressed this morning. Shouldn’t she have been in her nightclothes? He wasn’t about to inquire.

Hell, he swore again to himself, I could spend a lifetime thinking about what not to talk about with this woman.

‘‘I have to ride out to the south pasture this morning,’’ he said between sips. ‘‘I’d invite you to come along, but it’s not as safe as usual.’’

‘‘I don’t ride,’’ she answered.

‘‘Never?’’ Winter couldn’t imagine a woman never riding. Being able to handle a horse was a part of life, like walking, or breathing, or swimming.

‘‘I never learned.’’ She smiled suddenly. ‘‘Maybe you should have asked me that last night before you married me.’’

Winter frowned. ‘‘Most definitely. I might have changed my mind. A rancher’s wife who doesn’t ride, now that’s something to consider. I’ve never heard of that.’’ Even Miss Allie could ride when she was in her sixties.

Kora laughed suddenly. ‘‘You’re kidding!’’

‘‘Of course.’’ He liked the way she laughed. ‘‘Whether you ride or don’t is up to you.’’

‘‘If you’ll wait until I get the house in order, I could get Jamie to teach me. I’ve always been afraid of horses, but if you’ve got a gentle one, I’ll try.’’

‘‘No.’’ He stood and downed the last of his coffee. ‘‘I’ll teach you to ride. I wouldn’t trust that sister of yours to be safe.’’

She followed him to the door. Before he could reach for his hat, Kora lifted it from the peg and handed it to him. She was doing it again, he thought, playing the part of a wife as though she’d read a book on what to do.

‘‘If there’s trouble, I may be late.’’ He wished he could think of something else to say. There were a thousand things he didn’t know about her. Like where she came from and how her parents died. How did she get the ribbon of calluses on her palms?

‘‘I’ll wait up.’’

‘‘It isn’t necessary.’’

Nodding, she didn’t look up at him. He had the urge to ask her to let her hair down again like it had been last night, but it seemed a very personal thing to request of a woman. She might be a mouse afraid to talk to him, but her hair was magic, all shiny white gold.

Winter didn’t want to leave. Maybe if they spent some time together, they’d finally stop being as jumpy as spring colts around each other. ‘‘Kora?’’ He tried to say her name without sounding like he was snapping an order, but his voice had rusted from lack of conversation.

‘‘Yes?’’ She raised her gaze.

He saw it then, the fear he’d seen before. Here they were standing in the kitchen in broad daylight, and she was looking at him as if he might try to murder her at any moment. Without thinking, he said the only thing that came to his mind. ‘‘Are you sorry?’’

‘‘For what?’’

‘‘For marrying me,’’ he answered. She was the one who’d come into this marriage with nothing. The marriage had made her a wealthy woman, for even if she left, he planned to offer her far more than train tickets. But he was the one who felt like the beggar. He’d taken advantage of her impoverished situation. He knew the moment he’d seen what little she had in that hole she called a home that she’d have to agree to marry him or face starvation.

‘‘No,’’ she answered. ‘‘I’m not sorry.’’

Winter dragged his fingers through his dark, straight hair and let out a long breath before lifting his hat. ‘‘Will you promise me if you ever are, you’ll tell me?’’

Kora tilted her head slightly. ‘‘I promise.’’

‘‘I’ll tell one of the men to have a wagon ready to take you into town. I’d like you to buy anything you need to settle in here. Anything. Just put it on my account.’’

‘‘All right.’’

‘‘And take Logan along with you. Until this trouble’s over, I’d feel safer if you had him along if you leave this area.’’

He wasn’t sure if she agreed or was too frightened to argue. ‘‘Try to get some rest today. Logan will see that the men move one of the beds up to the attic and anything else you want hauled up there.’’

She didn’t answer.

Winter opened the door, angry with himself for ordering her. The woman had no idea how desperate the men were to break the quarantine. A man who’d kill another man’s herd with the fever was just one step away from killing the man. Later, he’d try to make her understand that his ranch was in the dead center of the only logical crossing. Which made him, and now her, the most likely targets.

He walked out onto the porch, almost colliding with Cheyenne. ‘‘Shouldn’t you be asleep? We were up all night,’’ Winter growled at the Indian.

‘‘No.’’ Cheyenne didn’t bother to say the obvious. ‘‘ Logan says you’re saddled up. I thought I’d join you.’’

Checking his Colt, Winter lowered his voice. ‘‘I can almost smell trouble in the air.’’

Cheyenne glanced over Winter’s shoulder to make sure Kora wasn’t listening. ‘‘So can I. They’re coming. I can feel it beneath my boots.’’

‘‘Like a man feels a stampede coming even before he sees it,’’ Winter added. ‘‘Well, let’s ride. I’d rather go out to meet it than have trouble come knocking at my door. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover before dark.’’

‘‘It wouldn’t knock twice in one day at your door,’’ Cheyenne mumbled as he walked to the hitching rail. ‘‘Yesterday you had no wife. Today you almost had two.’’

Winter sighed, knowing that if Cheyenne was mentioning it, the other hands were probably joking about Mary Anna’s visit by now. ‘‘You saw the lady?’’

‘‘She was riding out in such a rage, she’ll whip her poor horse to death before she reaches town.’’

‘‘Maybe he’ll buck her off.’’

‘‘Some women aren’t as easy to be rid of.’’ Cheyenne swung into the saddle without another word, leaving Winter to wonder if Cheyenne was talking about Mary Anna’s horse being rid of her or him being rid of Mary Anna.

They didn’t talk for several hours as they rode back and forth across Winter’s land, making sure all the lookouts were in place. Miles of range stood with open pasture, but each rancher knew where his land ended and his neighbor’s began. As the weather warmed, the chances of a herd trying to cross grew greater. A few of the small ranchers had suggested barbed wire to close off the land, but most of the older ranchers were dead set against it. Some of his neighbors were even talking about hanging any man who tried to drive a sick cow over their property, but Winter thought shooting the infected cattle was as far as he’d go.

By nightfall every bone in his body ached from exhaustion. Cheyenne left him at the barn, and Winter walked slowly to the house. He could see a light on in the kitchen and found it strangely welcoming. For most of his life he’d never felt a sense of home. Before this house, the only place he’d called home had been a village along the Washita. His last memory of it had been the screams of his mother’s people as soldiers rode in.

No one was around as he washed on the porch and entered the kitchen, but he found a meal on the table with a cloth covering it. He downed the glass of milk and tasted a leg of chicken with one hand while he tried to remove