“We’re going to hit rain,” he said, then patted her skirts as if he thought rain might frighten her. “We’ll need to make as many miles as we can before it starts.”
They raced the weather, but by mid-afternoon the rain caught up to them. Wynn pulled the buggy beneath a stand of old cottonwood trees. They climbed out and he watched the clouds as she retrieved apples from their stash of food. When she handed him an apple, Wynn walked away from her and for one panicked moment she thought he might keep walking. He’d asked her to come with him in a hurried moment, with her brother watching. He’d been right about growing stronger, but had he changed his mind about her?
At the edge of the natural shelter, he turned around and walked back, his head down.
He didn’t say a word, but took her hand and pulled her toward a cottonwood, where the air hung still and damp and branches almost touched their heads.
Anna waited. If she had any sense, she’d probably tell him to take her back to the camp. But she didn’t want to go back. She wanted to stay with him. He was the first man in years who saw her. Not a woman alone, to be pitied. Not a battle-weary nurse. Not a sister to be passed along to someone else just because he “couldn’t afford to be picky.”
Wynn McCord saw her.
She glared at him now, praying he didn’t suggest they turn back.
He put his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her back against the tree. “I need to say the words, Anna. I need to make it plain between us.”
She could barely hear him for rain and the wind and her heart pounding.
“I want you in my life.” He stopped, but didn’t let her move. “Hell!” he added. “That’s not right.”
She decided he looked like a man fighting the death penalty, but she guessed anything she said right now would not be welcomed, so she waited.
“That’s not right,” he repeated.
Tears threatened as she whispered more to herself than to him, “You don’t want me in your life?”
“No. I mean yes.” He swore. “Facing down outlaws is easier than this.” He straightened and stared at her. “You might not guess, but I don’t usually talk to a woman, any woman. So let me finish and keep your suggestions to yourself.”
Anger flared, but she held her tongue. If he told her to drop her accent, she’d clobber him right here, right now, even if he was injured.
“I don’t just want you in my life, Anna.” He started again with no softness in his tone. “You are my life. I want you with me here in Texas. In my life and in my bed until we both die of old age. I think I was a walking dead man before you came along. The war took all the caring I had in me. I don’t even know if I have enough to give you now. But I’d like to give it a try. I want to fight with you all day and make love to you all night. I want to build a house around you and have a dozen kids and stay in one place for the rest of my days. I want to stay beside you.”
Anna understood. “What about what I want?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Let go of me, McCord.”
He pushed away, looking very much like he wanted to fight for her, but the only one to fight stood before him. His eyes narrowed, as if he thought she planned to ask for more than he had to give.
“I want you.” She poked him in the chest. “Broken down, hurt, hard as nails, you’re still the best man I’ve ever known. I want you.”
A slow grin spread across his face.
She held up her hand. “But I have terms. You have to tell me you love me.”
“All right, Anna. I love you.” He circled her waist and pulled her closer. “I love every inch of you.”
“And.”
He didn’t let go of her. “I had a feeling there’d be an ‘and.’”
“You have to tell me you love me every day.”
“I’ll tell you and show you. How would that be?” He leaned down to brush his lips along her throat. “Marry me, Anna.”
She felt his hands moving over her as if there were no clothes between them.
“Marry me, Anna,” he whispered again as he cupped her breast. “I’m not alive without you.”
She never said yes. She was too lost in the kiss. When they were both out of breath, he walked her back to the buggy and they continued without a word. He’d said the words she’d needed to hear.
Epilogue
Wynn and Anna McCord built one of the finest cattle ranches in Texas. When she died at the age of seventy-four, her husband and four sons placed her in a grave on the ranch. The stone at her head read, To my angel, Anna McCord. One more time, “I love you.”
Wynn McCord joined his wife less than a year later. Everyone agreed that once she’d gone he was never really alive.
The great-great-grandchildren of Anna and Wynn still work the ranch today. If you ask any of them why they always settle on the McCord land when they marry, they all say the same thing. McCords stay.
Undertaking Texas
LINDA BRODAY
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