Free The Smartest Horse in Texas (The Traherns #2) by Nancy Radke Page A

felt for Dawn, strong. I might
even be in love with her.
    She raised her head and closed her eyes, then opened them.
    “Well? Aren’t you going to kiss me after you asked for one?”
    I took my hat off, beat it on my leg. “Um...”
    “Matthew, are you shy?”
    “Um, I think... I love you and...”
    She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me soundly. Once
started, I returned the kiss and we went at it for quite a spell. My heart was
thumpin’ and I was a sweating and I just shook.
    Here under the Texas stars, I’d found the one woman who spoke to
that part of me that I hid from the world. The part that wanted a companion, a
completion of myself. Someone I could protect and love and serve.
    It had been growing, ever since I first saw her in the corral,
and grew even more rapidly now when she kissed me back.
    Did she feel the same for me? Her kisses were heating up as fast
as I was. Did she realize it?
    She was a fine woman, a noble woman. I had to control myself,
for I wanted her to know how valuable she was to me. I had to protect her from
myself.
    “Whoa,” I said. “Back off a bit. I need to know. Are those
kisses because you’re happy or grateful, or because...”
    “I love you.”
    It was exactly what I wanted to hear. “And I love you. Dawn,
will you marry me?”
    She stared at me in the dim light. “Are you sure?”
    “Yes. We’ll find us a preacher and do it right proper.”
    “You could have anyone for a wife.”
    “I don’t want anyone else. I’m asking you. Will you marry me?
Just as soon as I return Hero to his rightful owner.”
    “You’d be leaving?”
    “I don’t want you to be marrying a horse thief, so I’ll have to
find Trey and give him back. That might take some time. You could go back to
the ranch and wait until—”
    “Never!”
    I didn’t blame her. “Okay. We can go to Ft. Worth and I’ll rent
a house for you. We can get married as soon as I get back. Then we’ll head
west.”
    “I could wait with the Kiowas.”
    “They aren’t there any longer. The war was harder on the Indians
than anyone else.”
    “Then I’ll go to my aunt’s place. I can stay there while you
hunt Trey. Aunt Mabel’s lonely, with Uncle Tim gone.”     
    “I can drop by your Pa’s place and tell him where you’re at, if
you think he’d worry.”
    “No. He’ll find out soon enough. Any idea where Trey is?”
    “Nope. He could be dead, but he’d be hard to kill.”
    “Why don’t you send out word that you’re holding his horse for
him and need to know where to send it?”
    “That would work, but I’d rather deliver him personally.”
    I held her, but realized things were getting darker, which was strange,
because the sun had come up.
    She pulled back, holding up a hand covered with watery blood.
“Matthew. You’ve been hit.”
    “Yes.” I remember saying that, but nothing more.
    When I woke up, we were traveling. I was on a travois she had
rigged from brush and buckskin cut from my shirt. She had used her underskirt
to bind my wound, and wrapped me in my blanket, and was now riding Misty,
astride. I glanced at her, saw her bare legs, and looked away, embarrassed. She
was quite some woman. She had done what was necessary to save our lives. I
passed out again, and when I came to, we were at her Aunt Mabel’s house.
    George was there, yelling at her, when Mabel came out and
shushed him up.
    She sent Dawn inside and looked me over. “I guess you’ll live.
What happened?”
    I told her as best I could, going into and out of consciousness.
She made George support me and put me into her bed. “It’s the only one of a
size to fit you. You are a tall thing, like my husband was.”
    I remember Dawn, wearing one of her aunt’s dresses, bathing my
wounds and settling me down. She figured the Indians shot me with her rifle.
    She got out the Bible and read to me, with Mabel correcting some
of her words, but she was mostly able to read it. The sound of her voice was
comforting,