The Cowboy's Texas Rose (The Dixons of Legacy Ranch 1)

“Let that goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it…”He’d wandered his whole adult life, he thought, as he mulled over the lyrics to “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” He’d never settled down.

Why? Why was he thinking on any of this right now?

Maybe he’d been so used to pushing his dad away, who’d done nothing but try to anchor him and force him into one mold or another. He should have come home sooner, after graduating. He should have settled down back at home and been here for the woman who’d been there for him his whole life.

Stinging pricked the back of his eyes as he hoisted himself up into the saddle, stocked with his tool pouch and his water-bottle sleeve clipped to his D ring, as the wail of anguish that had ripped through his throat echoed through the caverns of his mind. He rubbed the mist from his vision, giving his head a shake to cast off the disorienting feeling. But he’d never forget how he’d put his ear to her heart and heard nothing. Her heartbeat had always been there, pumping reliably, and listening to the empty cavern of her chest in her hospice room had been too much to bear.

Goddammit! He’d kept these stupid memories locked up tight so he wouldn’t have to deal with them. He tapped his heels against Cimarron’s belly and guided the gelding into a trot across the flatland as the sun beat down, headed toward the gate that bypassed the cattle grates in the gravel road. But Rose today seemed as if she’d pried open the lid on those memories without even knowing it. That feeling of approval he’d felt when Rose had dove into his arms had been sweeter than pecan pie. He wanted to taste that feeling with her again. Somehow, he sensed his parents would both have approved of Rose.

Anticipation, like he was that freshman again on his first date, replaced the wistfulness. He’d get to dance around these edges of attraction in all its sweet torture tonight while Rose and her crew watched Raiders of the Lost Ark—the first Indiana Jones movie—in his great room. He hadn’t been able to shake Rose from his thoughts since he’d met her, but with her students and dear Howie, bless his heart, in their midst, there’d be no tender embraces, only reminders in the quiet gazes passed between them.

Sweet torture, indeed.