Lorraine Heath by Texas Glory

billowing in the sky. “I wanted to play my violin for you, but I can’t do that either.”
    She lowered her gaze to her lap. “Do you need two arms to kiss me?”
    “To do it proper.” He slid down the adobe wall. He deserved to have his head slam into the hard ground. Instead, she scooted nearer, and he found his head nestled in her lap, a pillow softer than any he’d ever known. He closed his eyes. “Gotta kiss you proper the first time.”
    She combed her fingers through his hair. The darkness swirled around him. He moved his good arm around her backside, and promised himself that as soon as his shoulder healed, he’d kiss her proper.
    Cordelia wanted to hide, to be alone with her thoughts, her sorrow. She wanted to be in her own room, curled in her bed, with a book in her lap.
    But here, in this huge house, she had no room that belonged only to her. She had no private sanctuary. No place to call her own.
    She closed the heavy front door behind her and held her breath. She heard no voices, no footsteps. Everyone was outside, celebrating her marriage, a marriage she didn’t want, a marriage that family obligations forced her to accept.
    She tiptoed down the hallway, retracing the steps she’d taken earlier in the day until she reached Dallas’s office.
    Quietly, she opened the door and peered inside. Early evening shadows lurked in the corners. Slipping into the room, she closed the door. She walked to the chair and sat, pulling her legs onto the soft cushion.
    And gave the silent tears the freedom to fall.
    Dallas Leigh didn’t want a wife. He wanted a son.
    She felt like a prized mare chosen for the offspring she could produce. Dallas Leigh cared nothing for her appearance, her wants, her needs, her dreams. She wasn’t the person he wanted by his side as he journeyed through life. She was simply the means to an end.
    Her thoughts drifted back to the kiss Dallas had begun on the veranda. She wondered where it might have led. She supposed that Boyd had interrupted them because he knew exactly where it would have taken them.
    Boyd’s horrid words slammed into her, terrifying her … unless she held on to the memory of Dallas’s kiss. When he had looked at her, before he had kissed her, she had felt … touched, as though his hands were on her when they weren’t. Perhaps if he kissed her again …
    She buried her face in her hands. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be a wife. She didn’t want to give him a son.
    She heard a soft crackling. She tensed, her heart beating at a rapid tempo. She lowered her hands and gazed around the room.
    She was alone.
    The sound came again as though someone were crumpling paper. Slowly, she eased her feet to the floor and stood.
    She heard a thump come from his desk, a bump too loud to have come from a mouse. She held her breath, waiting, wondering what sort of animals Dallas kept, wondering if she should find him and let him know that one of his creatures had escaped.
    Another bump and crackle.
    She studied his desk. Someone had shoved the chair away. The front of the desk spanned its width and nearly reached the floor, where she saw a scrap of blue.
    Hadn’t the little girl been wearing blue?
    Quietly, she sneaked across the room and peered around the desk. A tiny black shoe tapped the air, the foot moving in rhythm to no music Cordelia could hear.
    Cordelia knelt and looked into the alcove where Dallas would normally sit. The little girl sat with sacks wadded within her lap. Her eyes widened to form huge circles of green.
    Cordelia smiled softly. “Hello. You’re Maggie, aren’t you?”
    The girl nodded, scooted forward, and touched her tiny finger to Cordelia’s damp cheek. “You got a sad.”
    Cordelia swiped at the tears that lingered on her lashes. “No, not really.”
    “Yes, you do. I can make the sad go away.”
    “You can?”
    Maggie nodded enthusiastically. She crawled out from beneath the desk and struggled to pull open a