place.
She had seen several line shacks in her time of learning to ride. Long riding trips had involved becoming familiar with line shacks. They were neat and tidy and warm. The facilities were primitive but clean. There would be a protected place to rest the horse.
The only fly in the ointment was they might not be alone in the shack. There could be other refugees sheltering from the storm.
With the thought, Lauren began to reason with her guardian angel who was a nuisance at best.
They came to a barbed-wire fence. She glimpsed the fence from the side of her blanket covered face. In TEXAS such fences are called bob wire. When she was little, she thought the fences all belonged to her Uncle Bob. She had been grown before she knew an “r” was in the labeling.
She had never considered having to cope with a fence. She frowned at it. It was tall and securely made. It was five strands instead of the normal three strand indication of property.
Trees were in the distance. That was nice. The horse seemed to be a little perkier. His steps were a bit quicker. Her breasts shimmered somewhat and so did her stomach.
Rock hard Kyle seemed relaxed and indifferent.
The snow became a little heavier. With the fence, the line shack could very well be occupied. Wouldn’t that be a snit! Here she was planning a seduction—right after she confirmed that Kyle was worth a one night stand—and now they were getting back to civilization.
How droll to match a barbed wire fence with civilization.
She glimpsed…a barn? It was inside the fence. There were horses ahead of them! Where had they come from? Horses never sought shelter unless the storm was severe. There were too many loose horses, and the barn was too big for a line shack.
They were not going to a line shack? How discouragingly disappointing. Well, damn. This great opportunity for a discreet seduction of a basic man was fizzling. She wouldn’t know-anything. She was right back where she’d started. No, she had a topless car full of snow…out somewhere on beyond. Which direction? She hadn’t kept track.
However, if they’d had their backs to the storm all this time, they were east of her car.
They came to an entrance in the fence, which had a cattle grid. The other horses went over the grid with distaste. Their horse walked over it with familiarity and some interest. No words were exchanged. Kyle was silent. How like a man to do something like this and thwart a willing woman. How snide of him.
Well, he probably wasn’t interested in women. Or he could have a lover. He could be committed.
He turned east again after going through the gridded gateway. And ahead, nestled in trees, there was a house.
A whole house.
The horse took them through a second gate. That, too, had the cattle guard and the horse went over it with some frisky movement.
She inquired politely, “Do the round tubes on the grill have electricity in them?”
“No,” Kyle responded. “The horse just knows it’s going into forbidden territory and he needs to show off.”
“Oh.”
No one came out to greet them. The place was deserted? It was a big old, old, old house. It was rather elaborate and had been meticulously expanded. It spread as does any place which must house more and more people. How many would be there?
The house had been cared for. It had been repaired and repainted and plumbed. The steps were sturdy.
The front porch was perfect. It had a table and comfortable chairs off to the side, back under the roof of the porch. The porch was on the southeast side of the house. That got the summer gulf breezes.
The northwest was where the storms came with threatening clouds black and mean…and more snow.
There were the leafed pin oaks and the bare-leafed pecan trees and some of the nasty, scrawny mesquites. No one walked barefooted under mesquites. The thorns were mean.
There were not-yet-leafed hackberry trees and barely budding lilac bushes.
And there were bluebonnets. Those precious weeds were a spring flower and the TEXAS state flower.
They really did look like bonnets crowded on a hat rack. And they were blue. But if you looked closely, there was a pink-purple that was accurately put. And there was a perfect cream. That was looking closely. Otherwise, a field of bluebonnets was a marvelous sea of blue and green magic.
Also disappearing under the snow, there were the Indian paintbrushes and the firewheel. There were poppies and buttercups. And the mesquite trees weren’t yet leafing out. They’re generally the last tree to do that, and they are the biggest natural nuisance in TEXAS.
The oaks’ new leaves had pushed off last year’s leaves. The trees did that in one day or night. When it happened, it seemed to be all at once. There was the sound like rain as the discarded leaves slithered, sliding down the roofs like heavy droplets.
Lauren looked around, seeing the snowy setting. It was unusually quiet. The snow softened sound. No one came out to see who was there. She asked Kyle, “What is this place?”
He dismounted, and he looked up at her as if judging, then he replied, “It’s okay.”
He reached up his hands, and she slid sideways into them with long practice. He lifted her down and put her on her feet in the snow.
She had the choice of a barn, which had horses, or a vacant house. “Whose horses are those we saw?”
“Somebody keeps them in the barn?”
And she knew they were his.
So he was an itinerant cowboy? Okay. She watched as he sought a key along the top of a window frame and found it.
She told him, “I hesitate to intrude.”
“Nobody’s here.”
“But what if—”
“The people who owned the place haven’t been here for years and years. The last newspaper was 1938.”
“Aw.”
He looked at her with hooded eyes as he asked, “Why the compassion?”
“My granddaddy told me the thirties were a hard time. The Depression.”
“Most survived.” He unlocked the door and it squeaked open like something never used.
She paused. “Mice. There’ll be mice.”
He countered that. “There are three cats. I’ve seen them.”
If the cats had been seen, then it would seem he’d been there before. He was a squatter. He’d just moved in and appropriated the place? A whole lot like he’d appropriated her?
She looked at him. And he watched her back.
She wondered: Had
