6
“So this is Texas.” Leila tried to keep any hint of disappointment out of her voice as she peered through the windows of the big American car at the jumble of tall buildings and looping ribbons of freeways filled with cars—so many cars, all moving slowly along like rivers of multicolored lava.
“It’s Houston,” her husband replied in that drawling way he spoke sometimes.
Glancing over at him, Leila saw that the corner of his mouth had lifted in a smile—a smile nothing at all like the one that had lit his face like sunshine when he turned in the palace garden to watch the flight of the bird. The one she held tightly in her memory as if to a sacred talisman. Nevertheless, she felt encouraged by it. She had seen him smile seldom enough in the twenty or so hours that she had been his wife.
His wife…I am a wife. He is my husband…. How many times had she repeated those words to herself, sitting beside him in airplanes and cars and airport lounges, standing with him in queues, facing him across restaurant tables? And still the words seemed unreal to her…totally without meaning.
Sitting beside him in the airplanes—that had been the worst part. Sitting so close to him, for hours and hours and hours on end! So close, even in the roomy first-class seats, that she could feel the heat of his body…smell his unfamiliar scent…and, if she was not very careful, sometimes her arm would brush against the sleeve of his jacket. When that happened, prickles would go through her body as if she had received an electric shock. Once…she must have fallen asleep, because she had awakened to discover that her head had been resting on his shoulder. Mortified, she had quickly made her apology, to which he had grunted a gruff reply. Then, looking uncomfortable and shifting restlessly about, he had offered her a pillow.
She had tried very hard to stay awake after that, and as a result now felt fuzzy-headed and queasy with exhaustion. But, she thought, mentally squaring her shoulders, I will not complain. She was a princess of Tamir, after all, and a married woman, not a child. And even as a child had been much too proud to show weakness or fear.
“It is not quite what I expected,” she said lightly, letting her dimples show.
He threw her a glance, a very quick one since he was driving. “In what way?”
“I thought it would be more open—you know, like in the movies. Fewer people, fewer buildings… And,” she added, gazing once more out of the windows, “not so many trees.” In fact, she had never seen so many trees in all her life, not even in England. In some places they made solid curtains, like tapestries woven of green threads, on both sides of the highway.
Her husband laughed softly, deep down in his chest. She had never heard him make that sound before, and she decided she liked it, very much. It made her feel warm, with quivers of laughter in her own insides.
“Like I said, this is Houston—that’s east Texas. The kind of wide open spaces you’re talking about, that’s west Texas. Out in the hill country and beyond. I have a place—guess you could call it a ranch—out there.” He threw her another of those tight, half-smiling glances. “Which I guess you’ll probably see…eventually.”
She caught her lip between her teeth to contain her excitement. “Are we going there now?”
He answered her again with laughter—indulgent this time. “Not hardly. It’d take the rest of today and most of tomorrow to drive out there. Texas is a bi-ig place.”
“Yes,” Leila said with a little shiver of suppressed delight, “I know.” She felt her husband’s eyes touch her, but did not turn to see what was in his glance.
Instead, looking through the window at the unending wall of trees, she asked, “You live here, then? In Houston?”And her momentary happiness evaporated with the realization that she knew so little about the man she had married—not even where he lived.
“Near there. We’ve got a ways to go, though, so if you want to, you can just put your head back and sleep.”
“Oh, no,” she said on a determined exhalation, “I don’t want to miss anything.”
“Wake up, Princess,” said a deep and gentle voice, very near. “We’re home.”
Home. Leila’s eyes opened wide and she jerked herself upright. Her heart was pumping very fast and she felt jangly from waking up too suddenly. She must have been disoriented, too, because the view through the car’s windshield seemed oddly familiar to her, like something she had seen in a movie. Not a western movie. Maybe one about the American Civil War.
They were driving slowly down a long, straight avenue with trees on both sides—not a solid wall, but huge trees with great spreading branches that met overhead like a lacy green canopy. Sunlight dappled the grassy drive with splotches of gold, and somewhere in all those branches she could hear birds singing—familiar music, but different songs sung in different voices. Eager to hear them better, she rolled down the car window, then gasped as what felt like a hot, damp towel slapped her face.
Cade looked over at her and drawled, “Might want to keep that window closed,” though she was already hurrying to do just that. “You’re probably not used to the humidity.”
A squirrel scampered across the road in front of them, and Leila gave another gasp, this one of delight. Again Cade glanced at her, but this time he didn’t speak.
Now, far down at the end of the shaded avenue, the trees were opening into a pool of sunlight. The driveway made a circle around an expanse of bright green lawn bordered by low-growing shrubs and flowers. On the other side of the lawn, twin pillars made of brick with lanterns on top flanked a shrub-and flower-bordered walkway. The walkway led to brick steps and a wide brick porch with tall white columns, and tall double doors painted a dark green that almost matched the trees. On either side of the porch and above it as well, large windows with many small panes and white-painted shutters gave the red brick house a sparkly-eyed, welcoming look.
Again, Leila drew breath and said, “Oh…” but this time it was a long, murmuring sigh. She thought it a lovely house—small compared to the royal palace of Tamir, but plenty large enough for one family to live in.
Family. Are we, Cade and I…will we ever be…a family?
She felt a peculiar squeezing sensation around her heart.
Two people—a man and a woman—had come out of the tall green doors and were waiting for them, standing side by side on the porch between two of the white columns. Neither was tall, but the woman’s head barely topped the man’s shoulder.
He was thin and bony, with legs that bowed out, then came together again at his western-style boots, as if they had been specially made to fit around the girth of a horse. His white hair was slicked back and looked damp, and he had a thick gray moustache that almost covered his mouth, a stark contrast to skin as brown and wrinkled as the shell of a walnut. He wore blue jeans and in spite of the heat, a long-sleeved blue shirt. One gnarled hand, dangling at his side, held a sweat-stained cowboy hat.
The woman seemed almost as wide as she was tall, with a face as round and smooth as a coin. She had shiny blackcurrant eyes and skin the exact color of the gingerbread cookie people Leila had learned to love as a schoolgirl in Switzerland and England. Her hair, mostly black with only a few streaks of gray, was cut short and tightly curled all over her head, and she wore a loose cotton dress that was bright with flowers.
“That’s
