Beautiful Bandit (Lone Star Legends) by Loree Lough Page B

this.”
    “Come home with me.”
    She turned her head so quickly that a lock of long, luxurious hair gently whiffed his cheek. “You’re joking, right? What would your wife and children think? What would—”

“My wife died three years ago, giving birth to twin boys, who died, too.”
    “Oh, Josh,” Dinah whispered, pressing the fingertips of her free hand to her lips. “I’m so sorry. How sad and—that’s just—it’s just awful, that’s what!” And then she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. After a moment, she leaned back, but only slightly. “You need me to help care for your other children, is that it? Like a governess, or a—a housekeeper?”
    “I live alone,” he admitted, his voice sounding quiet and gravelly, even in his own ears. “No wife. No other children. Just me.”
    Her brow furrowed. “But you said—” Dinah pursed her lips. “Didn’t you say you had a big family in Eagle Pass?”
    Josh started counting on his fingers. “Parents, sisters, cousins who have wives and young’uns, and we all live in houses on the same ranch. My ma could use some help running the big house.” Later, he’d tell her about Lucinda, his mother’s housekeeper, and his unmarried sister, who helped take care of the home.
    “But, my ankle— What help can I possibly be, limping around like a—”
    “You can sew, can’t you?”
    She waved the question away as if swatting at an annoying mosquito. “Well, of course. Can you name a woman who can’t?”
    “Then you can darn socks and sew buttons back onto the field hands’ shirts. There are bound to be dozens of chores you could do, sitting down.” He could tell that he had her attention by the way she was chewing her lower lip, the way her eyes were flashing. “And, once your ankle heals, you can do more.” He hoped she wouldn’t say that when her ankle healed, she’d leave.
    “What would your poor mother say?”
    “About what?”
    She groaned. “Why, about your bringing a stranger into her house—one you found wandering around, alone, dirty, and bruised, in the middle of the night, one who can’t earn her keep because of her own clumsiness!”
    Knowing Ma, he expected her to say, “It’s about time you brought a woman home to meet me!” But that wasn’t the answer Dinah needed to hear. Josh cleared his throat. “She’d say, ‘Thank heaven, I finally have some help taking care of this big, drafty, old house.’”
    “How far from here to your—hey, wait a minute,” Dinah said, narrowing her eyes. She sat up straighter. “I thought you said you lived alone!”
    “I built my house with my own two hands, but I spend a fair amount of time at the home place.” He couldn’t bring himself to tell her he’d built the house as a wedding gift to Sadie, and that he hated it more than anthrax now that she wasn’t around to share it with him.
    It was clear by the way Dinah sat there, wide-eyed, that she was considering his offer. “Why not sleep on it?” he said, giving her hand another little squeeze. Then, he moved to the opposite side of the campfire and spread out his bedroll. “G’night, Dinah,” he said over the flames.
    “G’night, Josh. And thank you.”
    “For what?”
    “I don’t know what I’ll decide to do after sleeping on it, but, whatever it is, it can’t change the fact that you’re very sweet to offer to take me home.”
    Sweet? The last thing he wanted her to think was that he was sweet.
    “Who would’ve guessed…?”
    Did he really want to ask what she meant by that? “Guessed what?”
    “That, in such a short time, you’d become such a dear friend.”
    Her words touched him. But they disappointed him, too, because Josh didn’t want to be her friend. He wanted to be more. So much more.
    But that was plumb loco, since what he knew about Dinah Theodore, he could put in one eye.

    14
    Well,” Josh said, “there it is. The Lazy N Ranch…home.”
    He sat with one hand atop the other on