Free Texas Rose TH2 by Patricia Rice Page B

entered and glanced around. Whoever had left the cabin had meant to return. In the light of the dying sun through the room's one window, he could discern a crude table and chair, and a bed nailed to the corner walls and supported by one post. A faded quilt covered the thin mattress, and an iron skillet still hung beside the fireplace. Dust covered everything, but dust always did. It was impossible to tell how long the owner had been away.
    Evie swept by him and immediately began scanning the cabin's meager supplies. "Can you start a fire? I can cook these beans. It looked like there was a bit of a garden out there. There might be some root vegetables for a stew."
    Tyler watched her for a minute, hating her for her cool behavior, wishing she would behave like any hysterical female so he could despise her even more. His best friend was dead or dying in the middle of a road to nowhere, and she was discussing beans and stew. In the room's crude interior her trailing gabardine gown and ruffled ruching were as out of place as a ghost in daylight She ought to be cursing the fates and yelling at him to do something.
    Instead, she waited patiently for him to light a fire in the ghastly heat of this day.
    Tyler walked out, returning shortly later with an armload of tinder. He set the fire, went back out for some larger limbs, and fed them into the blaze until they caught. Then he stood and stared down into her pale face.
    "I'm going back out to look for Ben."
    Her blue-black eyes widened into shadowed circles. "Ben? What happened to Ben?"
    Of course. She hadn't seen him fall. She was too busy running like a scared goose in the opposite direction. Tyler wanted to ask her what the hell she had thought she was doing, but he was too tired to care anymore.
    "One of the passengers shot him," Tyler replied with a hint of scorn, the only emotion he could summon at the moment. When she seemed at a loss for words for once, he turned and walked out. There was still enough daylight left to ride back to the road. He didn't give a damn what happened to Miss Evie Peyton while he was gone.
    By the time Tyler returned, without any sign of Ben or his horse, the sun had long since gone down. Tyler was weary clear down to the marrow of his bones, and the contents of the flask of whiskey in his saddlebag was the only thing keeping him going.
    He could smell the smoke from the fire as he brushed down his horse and the stray he had found, watered them, and fed them some hay from the ramshackle stall beside the house. He threw the saddle over the gate when he was done, picked up his bags, and headed for the cabin and Evie.
    He hadn't come home to a woman since he was seventeen years old. The eight years since then might not have been long in terms of time, but they were decades in terms of experience. Tyler felt nothing now at the thought of the woman waiting for him, supper on the table, her lovely face lined with worry. He wanted to feel nothing.
    Evie always caught him by surprise. He walked in and found her hanging her newly washed petticoats beside the fire. In the fire's light, her wet hair gleamed with dull red against chestnut. She looked up at him without surprise or criticism, and his glance dropped to her slim figure silhouetted against the fire. To his disappointment, she had donned a corset and all the other proper accoutrements of a lady after her bath, all except the heavy petticoats.
    "There's a vegetable stew in the pot. Help yourself." Evie went back to adjusting her petticoat so the wet side faced the fire.
    Tyler watched through hooded eyes as she played the part of homemaker. She was always playing some part or another. He ate his stew while she shook out the bedcovers and inspected the mattress for insects. He sipped his whiskey while she scoured the plates and pot. She was beautiful, efficient, and eerily silent. He liked it that way. They had nothing to say to each other.
    But when Evie left the cabin to avail herself of the privy