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“You were being ungentlemanly, that is all there is to it.” Though her voice was stern her lips twitched. “Every time you kissed me you brought me flowers. After two days, I had over twenty bouquets.”
Her voice dipped and the memory swirled around them. The smile that teased her lips turned even more sensual. “When I asked you what you were doing, you said you reckoned you were courting me.”
She stepped in closer to him, almost touching her breast to him. He restrained the urge to haul her into his arms and take her lips. “I reckon I am courting you now.” The sweetness of her smile caught him off guard, stealing into the corners of his heart.
He watched in disbelief as she turned and skipped towards the barn. She skipped. As if she had not just completely stunned him. He was not sure what amazed him the most, her declaration that she courted him, or the feelings rushing through him. He sifted through the emotions, unable to name them. A nervous feeling swept through him when he identified his feelings. It was fascination. He hated that she was tying him in knots. If only she didn’t fascinate him so.
She was courting him.
He looked at the flowers wondering what to do with them. He cursed himself for not throwing them away. What he saw in her eyes when she spoke of courting, scared the hell out of him. He saw her loneliness, her hunger, her thirst for a home and a family. What annoyed him the most with Sheridan, is that she made him feel. The coldness always thawed around her. She made him want to yearn for something new and wonderful. Almost. But he’d had a family once before. He’d lost them and he did not need another. But God she tempted him. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, and loving Sheridan would be a mistake.
***
Sheridan knocked gently on the door and waited until Miguel bid her entry. She entered with a tray of biscuits done to perfection, bacon, and eggs. She smiled to see him sitting up in the chair by the window overlooking the rolling grasslands. “How are you feeling?”
“Very well, Senora.”
She placed the tray on the oak table in front of him and poured him a cup of black coffee. Instead of leaving as she customarily did, she sat in the chair opposite to him. He bit into a biscuit and a deep rumble of satisfaction came from him. “Cook has outdone herself. These biscuits are perfect.”
Sheridan chuckled. “I will tell her.”
He took his time demolishing the eight biscuits and several rashers of bacon with the mound of scrambled eggs. It was only after he had his fourth cup of coffee he lazed back in the chair and glanced at her shrewdly. “You deliberate, Senora?”
She cleared her throat delicately, wondering where to start.
“It is best to spit it out,” he said gently.
She nodded and poured herself a cup of the coffee. She hated it black but she needed something to do. “You and Elijah have been friends for years, Miguel.”
He canted his head to one side. “Si.”
She fidgeted when he imparted nothing else. “He doesn’t know I am here.”
“I reckon he doesn’t.”
“He has nightmares,” she blurted.
“I reckon that all men that have gone to war have nightmares, Senora.”
“I asked him what they were about. Do you know?”
She wilted under the look he gave her. She shored up her nerve and met his glare head on. “I love him Miguel.”
“I know, Senora.”
“You know?”
“Si, and it is only for that reason why I will answer the questions you have.”
She nodded in relief. “He said they were about his wife. I never knew he was married,” she said softly.
“Her name was Emma.”
Was? “So she has passed away?”
“His family was taken in one of the raids in retaliation to the Sand Creek Massacre.”
Sheridan’s stomach cramped at the dispassionately way Miguel replied. Family? There was a deep part of her afraid of what he would say. “Family?”
