Free B000XUBEHA EBOK by Maggie Osborne Page A

Della hated him? Once he rode out of Two Creeks, he’d never see her again. They shared a common point in the past, but even at his most fanciful he’d never imagined he would establish anything ongoing with the girl in the photograph, or the woman she’d become. The outcome had always been inevitable.
    He looked at her, trusting and pink with heat, and his resolve shattered. Tomorrow. He would tell her tomorrow. One more day wouldn’t make any difference. He’d have one more day of conversation and perhaps a smile, one more day of looking at her and being near her.
    And there was one more question he had to ask.
    “I’ll be leaving before you do another wash,” he stated abruptly. He couldn’t change that she’d already washed his clothing and would iron it, but he could by God make sure that she didn’t spend any more of her labor on him.
    Her lips twitched with a hint of disappointment. That he was leaving? Or that he hadn’t yet explained his unfinished business?
    “I suppose you need to get on with the business of hunting outlaws.” She ran her fingers over the collar of his shirt, then smoothed the iron along the curve of muslin. “Are you searching for anyone special?”
    Cameron shrugged, watching the back-and-forth movement of the iron. “There are a couple of bank robbers reported to be between here and Santa Fe. If I don’t catch them, some other bounty hunter will.”
    “Would that bother you?”
    “Hell, no.”
    Turning his shirt, she ironed the yoke, then glanced at him quizzically. “Do you care about anything? Does anything matter to you?”
    She asked the damnedest questions, questions no one else would dare put to him. And he felt obligated to answer because she’d been so open with him. And because she was who she was.
    “I care about evening the score,” he said finally. Before she could insist that wasn’t possible, he added, “And a few other things. Right now I care about filling the rain barrel and greasing the buckboard’s axle.”
    He left the house as riled inside as he’d been in a long time. Seeing her ironing his shirts had shocked him, had brought him face-to-face with the one weakness in his life—Della Ward.
    Once he told her, she’d think back to washing and ironing his clothes, and she’d detest him for letting her do it. Well, she couldn’t hate him any more than he hated himself for not noticing earlier and stopping her.
    He had to tell her before she did him any further kindnesses.
    Since the night they’d dangled their feet in the creek, Della had sensed that Cameron held back something he wanted to say to her. Initially, she’d guessed it must have something to do with Clarence, but they had discussed Clarence often, and she’d offered him ample opportunity to speak. Perhaps he wanted to tell her about his mysterious unfinished business. She wished he would. Curiosity was getting the better of her.
    Most of all she wished she’d known James Cameron before the war did its damage. Had his blue eyes sparkled and twinkled as they did so rarely now? Had he laughed easily? Had words come quickly, or had he always been a reticent, solitary man?
    “You’re quiet tonight,” he said, placing his fork and knife across the top of his plate.
    “I guess I still don’t understand why you were so angry about me doing your laundry.”
    Anyone else would have taken her comment as an invitation to explain, but he just nodded. There were things about James Cameron that could drive a woman crazy.
    And there were things about him that would make a woman forgive just about anything. He always wet down and combed his hair before he came to the table, for example. And his hair dried in soft loose curls just above his collar. He had strong, sure hands that didn’t waste a movement that wasn’t necessary.
    But the thing that gave her a fluttery feeling inside was the way he looked at her. As if he really saw her, as if he saw all she had been and all she might ever be. No