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the women who lived in this place. The affliction she'd told
him she had with the sun had also meant she needed special
care.
Now he knew none of those things meant a hill of
beans. He had come to that conclusion while packing her
belongings. He loved her regardless of who or what she
was, and he was not letting her go.
"Bri, I'm right sorry for bein' clod-skulled. You ain't
lost me, and never will. Come back to the ranch with me.
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Blood and Dust D. McEntire
We'll make it work, I promise."
He watched the emotions play across her face: fear,
doubt. After a moment a light lit in her eyes. She smiled,
but kept her mouth closed and nodded.
Brody felt a weight lift off his chest. He silently
vowed to give everything he had to make this work.
Already the wheels in his head turned. He had men to help
at the ranch. He would be able to spend time with her
during the evening hours, and though he would be rising
later in the morning than a working man should, his ranch -
- the one his father had worked so hard to build and
maintain -- would not suffer.
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Blood and Dust D. McEntire
EPILOGUE
Trace dismounted and tethered his horse to the post
outside of the Post Office in Fort Worth, Texas. His legs
ached from the long ride. He and his father, Frank, were
returning from Kansas where they had delivered the
longhorns to the white man. Before they left he'd watched
them push the beasts into corrals on the iron horse.
Stretching his tired legs, he took a look around
town. He knew it would not be long before the iron horse
arrived here, too. The earth was changing at the hands of
the white man. Not all of it good, he thought grimly.
He waited as his father stepped into the building
where reading papers came in on fast horses. They were
here to get papers for Brody. The thought of his white
friend and the man's woman brought a sigh past his lips.
Brody had settled at the ranch with Bri. Trace could
not rightly say how he felt about the man's mate -- a
vampire. At first he had thought her kind something to be
feared and kept within one's sight like an enemy. That was
until his father had had a talk with him as they'd ridden the
trail to Fort Worth, after leaving the longhorns in Kansas.
"There are more on this land than man and animal.
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Blood and Dust D. McEntire
We may not understand, and many do not believe they live,
but they do. They are part of this land and are to be
respected. All has a purpose, my son," his father had told
him, and he could not help but agree as the man was very
wise. All his life he had never known his father to have
been wrong on any subject.
When he'd voiced the fact her kind lived much
longer than a normal man, his father had had answer for
that as well.
"Out of love he will share his blood with her and in
doing so he will gain a gift from her as well. As he does
this, the power within her will pass on to him."
Trace inwardly smiled and shook his head. Yep. His
father had some gift of sight, he mused. Glancing at the
sky, Trace sent a silent prayer to the Spirits that one day he,
too, would be so wise.
Clapping his hands on his pants, dirt and trail dust
flew out in every direction. Trace held his breath to keep it
from his lungs. When he straightened, he glanced at the
store and remembered his need to purchase a wedding gift.
Brody and Bri were to join together, or marry as the white
man called it, at the ranch when he and Frank returned.
Stepping onto the porch of B.C. Evans' Dry Goods,
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Blood and Dust D. McEntire
the rumbling of a wagon pulled by a team of horses rang in
his ears. He turned and watched a buckboard, driven by a
young boy, pull up next to the store.
The boy, who Trace thought to be no older than ten
or eleven years old leapt from the bench to the ground, then
quickly ran to the other side of the wagon to help the
woman sitting quietly on the bench.
"You be awantin' me to go in wit' ya Miss Parker?"
the boy said as he held the woman's arm lightly while
escorting her up the single step to the porch.
"Thank you kindly, Thomas, but that won't be
necessary. I'll only be a moment."
The boy released the woman's arm, returned to the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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