He gave it some more thought, then leaned down until just their lips touched. Something dark and bright, like a lightning bolt in a midnight sky, sent a jagged thrill through him. He felt her slender waist under his hands and gently urged her forward, all without making a single plan. Then he tilted his head just so and found he could kiss her much more deeply without their noses in the way.
Maggie’s arms came up to his chest, and for a wrenching moment he prepared to be shoved away and told to forget his clumsy proposal. Then those hands slid on up his chest and wrapped around his neck.
Hoofbeats tore them apart. Connor stepped back so fast he stumbled into his horse, which made the critter prance sideways, just enough to see Uncle Ethan come riding toward them and call out, “Connor, Maggie.”
His uncle was still a hundred feet away, far enough that Connor had time to say, “Marry me, Maggie. Let me stay with you in Denver as your husband. I’m coming anyway. I’m not letting you move away by yourself with no family and no one to help you. When you get on the train tomorrow, I’ll be on it. Please say you’ll marry me.”
Her eyes, which had been so fiercely locked on his, shifted then as if looking into his left eye, then his right, then back again. She drew a deep breath. “I—I don’t know if getting married to you would be good for you.”
“For me?” Connor’s head was spinning from the kiss, so maybe the fact that she was making no sense wasn’t all her fault. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m moving to Denver. It’s a big, busy city.”
“I’ve been to Denver. I know what it’s like.”
“Yes, you’ve been there, but have you ever lived in a city?”
“No, but neither have you. Not until this summer.”
“But before I moved, I visited, stayed a stretch of days. Besides that, I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’ve been planning it for nearly a year. Your goal in life is to be a rancher—it’s always been that, hasn’t it? And you’re offering to give all that up for me without really thinking it through. If you can’t be a rancher, what are you going to be? It’s a huge decision.”
She leaned very close to him as her pa approached. “And I don’t think we dare make that decision just because we shared a really wonderful kiss.”
Connor opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“I’m not going to say yes, Connor, not right now. If you want to follow me, then you do it, but I’m not going to make you take vows for a life you may come to hate. You come to Denver and find work and see if you can stand the strange, bustling life there with never a quiet moment until you swing your door shut at night. No wolves or owls or mountain meadows. No cattle to check or caverns to explore. You come and try it out, then we’ll see if you’re still interested in marrying me. If you can stand Denver, and think you can stand to leave your family, possibly for good, then I’ll be willing to talk more about marriage with you. So I won’t say no, but I will say not now. You try it and then think about whether it’s a good idea or not. You’ll have to be satisfied with that.”
With a silent nod, Connor reached out and clasped her hand, then let it go when her heavily armed father rode up.
“Hi, Pa.” Maggie mounted up.
“We just stopped for a minute.” Connor swung onto his horse without giving Maggie a second look. “Got to talking. It’s fun getting to know each other again.”
Chapter
5
That stung.
Maggie wasn’t sure why exactly. Did she want Connor to go telling Pa he’d proposed? No.
And yet the way Connor had dropped her hand . . . it might not have been too forward just to hang right on, let a hint escape that they had some interest in each other.
As she rode, she got to thinking about just how Connor had reacted when she’d talked about giving up ranching and living in Denver.
At the time she hadn’t really let him talk, but now she thought of the way his mouth had opened and closed, the shocked look in his eyes. She’d chalked it up to the kiss. But now she wondered if it was something else. She’d told him he had to live in a big city if he wanted to be with her, and he’d been struck dumb by that.
They galloped on toward Rafe’s ranch. Absently she listened to Pa talk with enthusiasm about climbing down into the cavern. Pa hadn’t liked the cavern all that much way back when she was little, but since then he’d come to love it. The family now made a fair amount of money giving tours of the cavern, so they were all proud to own it. And they took turns leading tours, so they each had to know it well.
It didn’t matter because she wasn’t really listening. In her heart, two huge ideas clashed like a couple of bull elks in mating season. Now that she’d kissed Connor and found out how wonderful it was, the side of herself concerned with a husband and marriage had woken wide up and she found she did want to marry him.
And the other side, now that Connor had given just a few moments’ thought to living in Denver as opposed to ranching, she feared she’d never hear another proposal—not if Connor couldn’t stand to live in the city.
Yes, she needed to know now, before they went through with a hasty marriage and were miserable. But she’d just spoken the exact, correct truth that would, she much feared, resign her to a life alone, with memories of a soul-stirring kiss and a man she would have loved if she’d only turned her whole life on its head to be with him.
That’s when another thought occurred to her about the life she had chosen and how a man coming along might be trouble.
Babies.
How could she study and later doctor with a babe in her arms?
Nope, there was no wedding in her future. On some very deep level, she’d known she had to choose. School and doctoring, or wife and mother. When she’d signed that contract, she’d made a decision to remain a spinster all her life.
But doing that hadn’t been important enough to bother her before.
And then Connor came home.
She had to think this all through, assume he’d never propose again, and be ready with a reasonable answer if he did. Because her future was set. She’d serve others and serve the Lord with her life. And she’d do it alone.
Connor wanted to spend time alone with Maggie so bad he could barely hold on to his patience as he pitched hay.
She gathered eggs and did the milking, then slopped the hogs with the fresh warm milk because they didn’t need it back home. There were plenty of milk cows at Pa’s and Ethan’s places. Then she went inside the house.
And she did it all while making dead certain she got nowhere near Connor, the little brat.
He wanted the two of them to get away from here and talk. He had to figure out how he was going to survive in Denver, of all places. And none of that was going to happen, because Uncle Ethan wanted to go down into the cavern. Connor did, too, but not as much as he wanted a long stretch of time alone with Maggie.
“Ethan, let’s not go down in the cavern.” Connor had realized in Texas that part of being a man was talking like one, and he’d dropped the aunt and uncle when talking to Luke and Ruthy Stone. Now he’d do that for his Kincaid family, too. “I think Audra expects us home for the noon meal.”
“We’ve got plenty of time, Connor.” Maggie, finally talking to him when he needed her least.
“Good.” Ethan came out of a stall carrying a pitchfork. “Julia found a new room and I haven’t seen it yet. There are lanterns inside the mouth of the cave. The new tunnel is in the room with that grizzly stone.” Ethan stabbed the pitchfork into the haystack and headed for the cavern.
Connor had all he could do not to start growling like a real grizzly, not that bear-shaped stalactite.
Ethan left them behind. He knew they could find the grizzly room.
Maggie walked past Connor as if he were less interesting than a rock formation. He jogged to catch up.
She went into the cavern, Connor at her heels. They lit a lantern for each of them. Ethan’s light was visible as they rounded a bend, th
en turned to a long, downward tunnel that led into the heart of the massive system of caves.
Connor heard Ethan’s footsteps getting more distant, and when he and Maggie reached the bottom of the long slope, there was no sign of light ahead. Which meant they were completely alone. Which was what he’d been hoping for.
“Wait a minute.” He set the lantern down with a hard click. “We need to talk.”
“We need to keep up or—”
Connor cut her off with a kiss. He pulled the lantern out of her hand before she dropped it and caught them both on fire.
Then, in that kiss, another kind of fire started.
“Stop, Connor.” Maggie slipped her fingers between their lips. “You wanted to talk, so let’s talk. Pa won’t leave us alone here for long. He’s too much of a worrier.”
Maggie was a little worried herself, because she knew marrying Connor was a mistake, and when he kissed her she couldn’t remember why.
“If you’re not going to give me time to talk things out, then I’ll just say it straight. When you get on that train tomorrow, I’ll be on it with you.”
She glared at him and that only made her look in his eyes, and they had something a lot like that wild look he sometimes got. Only that wasn’t exactly right. It was something different. Something she’d never seen before.
Something just for her.
Maggie moved her hand from between them, feeling her heart soften when she knew it shouldn’t. She stepped back and reached for his hand. “Let’s catch up to Pa and see what he says about you moving with me to Denver.”
What Ethan said didn’t bear repeating, and Connor’s ears were ringing for a long time after.
Of course, he had waited until Maggie wandered off before he’d done any real talking. Connor told Ethan about the proposal and Maggie’s refusal and . . . well, he’d told Ethan every single thing he knew and he told it fast because his uncle didn’t approve of their going off together this way.
Neither did Connor, but Maggie was stubborn, so he’d go along with her and work his way around to marrying her as soon as he could.
Audra took it better. She seemed to think Connor tagging along to Denver with Maggie was a fine idea. She had charged Connor last night with keeping Maggie safe, which Connor faithfully promised to do.
There’d been no earthly reason why Ethan had picked breakfast this morning to polish and load his rifle.
Then they’d headed into Rawhide and hopped on a train that was a short spur linked to the same train that ran between Colorado City and Denver. Connor knew that shorter sections of train tracks were popping up all over Texas so he wasn’t overly surprised, but Rawhide had been a town near death for most of Connor’s growing-up years.
Now it was a town on the rise, with a church and school and businesses that all looked well established. Maybe five years had been too long for Connor to stay away.
Audra hadn’t ridden to Rawhide with them. She said her ankle wouldn’t hold up to a long ride yet. Ethan refused to cooperate in any way.
Connor tried to load his horse onto the train in Rawhide, but Ethan assured him it wouldn’t be necessary. Boarding a horse in Denver was expensive. Maggie hired a carriage to get from the train to her home, then walked to school and back. Connor was going to have to do the same. He felt lost without his faithful horse, but he trusted Ethan.
Still, it was hard to shake the feeling that his horse was being stolen.
Connor kept a close eye on his cranky uncle just in case Ethan decided he didn’t need his wallet in Denver, either.
As the train chugged toward Denver, Connor realized he had no idea where he’d live or work once there. Maggie seemed to trust him to figure it out on his own. Which just proved she wasn’t half as smart as he’d figured her for.
When they finally stepped down off the train to the platform, Denver about knocked him on his backside.
He’d been to the city before; he’d told Maggie as much. But now Denver had over thirty thousand folks. The crowds rushing past nearly made him dizzy.
Maggie took charge, which pinched his notion of how a man needed to go on. But since he had no idea what to do, he just fell in behind her and made sure to carry everything—a satchel for each of them and his bedroll tucked under one arm. That was all he’d brought back from Texas, and he figured what he held in his arms, along with his rifle slung over his shoulder and his holstered six-shooter, would be plenty enough for him to get by.
He could sleep under the stars and hunt his food until he settled in somewhere. He had a little money in his pocket he’d earned while working for Luke, and that should hold out until he found work. But he couldn’t exactly camp out and build a fire in the middle of a big city, and there was no game to hunt.
Maggie had mentioned a boardinghouse, though she wasn’t sure where to find one.
Connor found it all mighty confusing. If a man needed a house, he felled some trees and built himself a cabin. If he needed food, he went hunting.
Connor wondered if the parson Maggie lived with had a small yard around his house where Connor could camp.
There was no point asking Maggie any of this. And no point at all in sweeping her up into his arms and marching her right straight back to the train so they could go home to the Kincaid Ranch where they belonged.
He jumped up into the carriage she hailed and sat quietly while it rolled through the throngs of people.
The ways of the city were a mystery.
Maggie was amazed at how everything was so simple in the city. Out in the country, if a body wanted shelter, folks had to fell trees and build a cabin. Here? Rent a room. There, if you wanted food, kill, clean, and fry a chicken, or go hunting. Here, go to a grocery store or a diner.
With a few easy questions asked of the parson and his wife, she had Connor settled in a boardinghouse only a city block away from the parson’s house. It was a clean and respectable-looking place, too. They got there just before the evening meal, and the woman serving food offered Maggie dinner for two bits—which Connor quickly paid.
He’d paid for the carriage ride, as well. She’d better warn him to hang on to his money tighter.
They ate chicken and dumplings over warm, freshly baked biscuits, and had custard pie for their dessert. Connor would eat well here.
When the nice lady serving the food turned down Maggie’s offer to help with the dishes, they stood from the table and walked out to the front lobby.
“I’m going to head for the parson’s house now.” Maggie felt awkward leaving Connor here alone. He’d been very quiet since they arrived in town.
“The man at dinner said the blacksmith nearby was hiring. I’m going to find it in the morning and see if I can get the job.”
“You should look around for a few days, Connor, before you take a job. Denver has a big stockyard, and you’ve had plenty of experience with cattle. There are so many jobs in town, you might be able to find one that suits you more and pays better. Have you ever considered working at a desk? In a bank or in a lawyer’s office? And there’s a thriving land office every few blocks here in Denver.”
“But how do I know who needs help?”
And that had Maggie stumped. Then something occurred to her. “Dr. Radcliffe might be able to advise you. He knows a lot more people than I do. If he doesn’t know of any jobs, he might be able to send you to someone who is informed of such things. I’m going to see him first thing in the morning. Why don’t you come along with me and we’ll talk to him together? I’d like you to meet him, anyway.”
“Let me walk you home.”
Maggie realized she was lingering, putting off leaving him. “Thank you. It’s near, but I’d appreciate the company.”
They went outside together, and when they reached the first corner, Connor said, “Wait.”
“Why? Did you forget something?”
He turned around to stare down the street they’d just walked. “No, I’m checking my back trail. I want to be able to get back
to the boardinghouse.”
Maggie turned and stared just like he was doing. “That’s honestly a good idea.”
The sun was still high overhead on the long June day. She’d better make sure she could get where she was going in the dark when that became necessary.
They headed on, and the parson’s house wasn’t much farther. Connor would find his way home, and if she needed him, Maggie would find him just as easily.
Connor agreed to come in the morning and walk her to meet with Dr. Radcliffe and maybe get some ideas for a job. When Connor told her good-bye, it was under the watchful eye of the kindly parson and his wife.
So there was no chance for a private moment and possibly a kiss. Maggie was hard-pressed to be grateful for such vigilant chaperones.
Chapter
6
Connor had a job before noon the next day, and his head was spinning at the very idea.
He was working for Dr. Radcliffe, and for several hours a day he’d be right alongside Maggie.
The doctor said he needed someone strong to help him lift patients and handle a few other jobs. Dr. Radcliffe called the job an “orderly.” When Connor told him he’d worked for a doctor in Texas, Radcliffe said he might give him a chance at a few other things.
Connor liked the idea of being around Maggie, so he took the job. But it didn’t sound like much of a real job to him. By the end of the day, Connor realized he was going to work as hard as he would’ve at the blacksmith’s or back on the Kincaid Ranch.
He walked Maggie home.
“I like having you where I can see you every day, Connor. Do you think you’re going to like the job?”
“It doesn’t matter much if I like it, does it? I’ll do what I’m told and get my pay. It’s probably a better idea than being kicked by a horse while I’m trying to shoe it, or working over a blazing-hot forge all day.”
Maggie smiled. “You seemed to be doing a good job. You were comfortable around the sick people. Not everyone is.”