His Texas Wildflower by Stella Bagwell Page A

me, Rebecca, back in Houston what did you do for play?”
    The question brought her up short and for long moments her mind was stuttering, searching wildly back through her regular routine. To her dismay, the days andnights of the past few years were mostly an uneventful blur of work and travel, exhaustion and sleep.
    â€œWell—I go to the movies,” she finally said. She didn’t add that the outing was mostly a form of work, a chance to see what types of fashions were being worn on the big screen and how the more popular movies would influence the next round of designs to be introduced to the buying public.
    â€œIs that it?”
    She thought for another long moment. “I like going to the beach down at Galveston—whenever I get the chance. But that’s not often.”
    His gaze slipped over her face and she could feel her lips tingling, burning beneath his lazy inspection.
    â€œNo dining, dancing?”
    She looked away from him to focus her gaze on the open field sweeping away to the left of the property. Twilight had fallen and in the gloaming she could see a pair of nighthawks circling over the desert brush. As she watched the birds dip and dive for insects, she wondered how Jake’s simple questions could make her see herself more plainly than looking at her image in the mirror.
    â€œOn occasions. I stay very busy with my work, you see.”
    â€œYes. I am beginning to see,” he replied.
    He placed his plate and cup aside, then reached for her hand. Rebecca tried not to outwardly shiver as the pads of his fingers slid gently back and forth over the top.
    â€œAnd I’m thinking it’s a good thing that you decided to stay on here for a while. For me, ’cause I like your company. And for you, ’cause I get the feeling that you needed some time away.”
    Her throat was suddenly thick and she tried to swallowthe sensation away. “I hadn’t planned on staying. Not at first. But I—well, I decided that my aunt deserved a little of my time. God knows she didn’t have any of it while she was alive. And now—well, everything she had in her life, she left to me. It’s—”
    She was suddenly too choked to speak and she looked down at her feet as she tried to regain her composure. Finally, she spoke in a broken voice. “It’s hard for me to bear, Jake. I don’t deserve anything from her. None of it.”
    â€œRebecca, why would you say such a thing?”
    â€œBecause I never visited her. Never spoke to her.” She looked at him, her expression full of despair. “Jake, this is going to sound crazy, but I never even knew I had an aunt! I didn’t find out about Gertrude until a few days before her funeral.”
    Clearly stunned by her admission, he stared at her. Then finally, he said, “I understood that you’d never been out here to visit. But I thought—well, sometimes people have good intentions that never come through and I figured you were busy with your own life.”
    Her head swung shamefully back and forth. “I wish it were that simple. But it’s not. My family—everything feels like a lie—a sham!”
    â€œWhoa now, Rebecca. That’s a pretty harsh way of putting things. Maybe you ought to back up and explain from the beginning,” he gently suggested.
    Realizing half of what she’d just said probably hadn’t made sense to him, she nodded. “You’re right. I should start at the beginning. So I’ll begin by saying that I’ve always been from a small family. I never knew my maternal grandparents. My mother had been born to them in their latter years. By the time she’d grown to adult-hood they were both suffering from age-related health problems. They passed away before I was born.”
    â€œWhat about your paternal grandparents?” he asked.
    â€œDuring the time I was a very young child they lived in Florida and came for short