Free Jodi Thomas by The Texans Wager

was doing. Pouring water in the bowl, pulling back the bedcovers.
    Carter rolled to his stomach and placed a pillow over his head. He didn’t want to think about what the woman was doing. There were enough times she’d be with him, she shouldn’t invade his thoughts when he was alone. He’d figured she’d alter his pattern of life slightly, not turn it upside down.
    He forced himself to think of how he’d scrubbed the walls of the bedroom for days, trying to get all his parents’ blood off and how he’d burned the furniture and bedding. Then slowly he’d begun to rebuild the room as if somehow by making it normal his life would return to normal also. Samuel had helped him build the huge bed on the spot so large it couldn’t be moved by one man. He’d also brought Carter flyers from Fort Worth showing all the items he’d bought to place inside the room.
    Now the woman claimed it as hers. A woman who was also settling into his thoughts.
    Maybe tomorrow he’d tell her how she filtered into every thought. But that probably shouldn’t be the first thing they talked about. Besides, telling a woman you think about her when she’s not there seemed a rather foolish thing to admit.
    Even with the pillow buffering, he heard the latch being released from the shutters in the bedroom above.
    Carter sat up in bed. The woman had opened a window. On this cold rainy night she opened the window. The thought crossed his mind that she might be escaping, running away from him, but why wouldn’t she use the door four feet away? He’d done nothing to make her believe he’d hold her against her will.
    Rolling to his back, he gave up trying not to listen. He heard the bedropes creak slightly as she crawled into bed. The light disappeared above him. She’d blown out the candle.
    Carter lay perfectly still trying to hear her breathing. The ropes creaked again. She was settling in, he thought, and she hadn’t relatched the window and she wasn’t running away.
    He’d never been more wide awake.
    After several minutes he thought he heard her crying softly, then only silence.
    Carter waited half an hour. There was no question of sleep when he knew a window upstairs was open. Finally he gave up and stood, pulling on his trousers with a sudden jerk. The only sound he made was a light tap at the top of first his bedchamber doorway and then a second later at the entrance to the hallway. He stepped between the sliding panels and into the cellar, then climbed the stairs two at a time.
    Moving as silently as he could, Carter crossed the main room and stood at her door. He hesitated with his fingers already on the knob. What if she wasn’t asleep? The sight of him entering her room might frighten her. Though he’d given her no reason to fear him. The memory of the woman the sheriff had called Sarah flashed in his mind. She’d looked so frightened, and all she’d done was marry, just as Bailee had.
    But he had to be safe. Since the night he’d returned home all those years ago, he double-checked every lock every night.
    The need to secure his fortress won out. He opened her door and crossed to the windows. Carefully he closed the shutter and lifted the latch into place. Glanced at her, curled up in the middle of the bed, he couldn’t help but stare for a long moment. Her hair, unbound and spreading across the pillow, shone even in the faint light.
    He left her room as silently as he’d come and returned to his bed. Now he could sleep; all was in order.
     
    Bailee awoke late, thinking it was before dawn. When she sat up, she saw tiny slivers of light through the shutters and knew it was full sunrise. Somehow, the shutter she’d thought she’d opened must have drifted back into place.
    She dressed as quickly as she could and hurried into the kitchen. There was no sign of Carter, but a half pot of coffee warmed on a corner of the stove. She went about making breakfast, finding the basics of stores, but nothing for baking, or canning, or