Page 112 of Texas Honor

His face closed up. Grew hard, as it had in the time before they married. “I don’t want to hear it.” He tried to move her aside but she clung.

“No,” she said firmly. “You’re going to hear me if I have to sit on you!”

His eyebrows arched. “Aren’t we daring today?”

“We’ll get more daring by the minute, now that we’re loved and happy and secure,” she returned. “So look out, cowboy, I expect to be a sexy shrew in no time. Now, listen. Your stepfather had cancer. He was dying. Your mother knew that. It’s why she didn’t leave him when he had his fling with your mercenary little intended.”

“He what!” He sat straight up, almost unseating her. “And she never told me?”

“You wouldn’t listen, as usual,” she said. “She did try.”

He drew in a slow breath and let it out again. “Damn. All these years I’ve blamed her, hated her for shielding him. She said he died of a heart attack.”

“Mercifully, he did,” she told him. “It was bone cancer, you see. He had very little time to live, and the woman was attentive to him, and he was reliving his youth. And it’s just as well that he did,” she added firmly, “because the last thing in the world you needed was to be tied to some greedy little girl with dollar signs in her eyes!”

“Amen,” he said, his voice husky as he looked at his Maggie with exquisite love in his eyes. “I guess I’ve been blind.”

“You might tell your mother that.”

“And shock her to the back teeth?” he asked. “She doesn’t expect me to be nice to her. I’d hurt her feelings.”

She studied him quietly. “Gabriel.”

He grimaced. “All right. I’ll make my peace with her. I can afford to be generous now—what with my new family and all.”

“This part of your new family loves you to distraction,” she whispered, lifting her lips to his warm mouth. “And would love to prove it to you all over again, if she had the strength.”

He chuckled against her soft lips. “I’ll be sure you get two portions of everything at supper.”

“You’d better eat seconds yourself,” she said, smiling. “I feel primitive again....”

His mouth was moving hungrily over hers when a soft, excited young voice broke through the illusion of privacy they’d created.

“Papa! Mama!” Becky called them, hands on her hips, looking indignant. “Oh, do stop that, and come quick! The ducks have laid an egg! You have to come and look, it’s much more fun than what you’re doing. Why people like all that kissing is just beyond me, anyway. Yuck!”

Gabriel got to his feet with his lips compressed, his eyes shimmering, trying not to burst out laughing. Maggie followed suit, biting her lips with the effort to remain sober.

“You bet I’ll never kiss any boys,” Becky muttered as she turned back to the bushes where the ducks had made a nest. “Not me, no sir. My goodness, you’ll give each other germs!”

That did it. They broke up. Gabe took Maggie’s hand in his and lifted it to his mouth, laughing against the soft palm. “You contagious little thing, you,” he teased as they followed their daughter. “I’ve already come down with a bad case of you, and I hope never to recover.”

“I’ll guarantee that you’ll be properly reinfected if you try.” Maggie pressed close to his side, happier than she’d ever expected to be. Becky was kneeling beside a nest in the brush, her eyes fixed wide and fascinated on two large oval eggs that rested there. Maggie smiled at her daughter. Like the eggs, happiness seemed to be hatching all around them. She glanced up at Gabe’s vibrant face and found him watching her, his eyes tender with love.

Something he’d said once came back to her as she glanced toward the flowered pastures that stretched to the wide horizon. Something about the pioneers coming, claiming the new territory in a rage of passion. Her eyes turned toward Gabe, and she felt it all the way to her toes. And she smiled.