Jane Goodger by A Christmas Waltz

with him, for wouldn’t a man, a real man, want to bed a woman, any woman?
    And here he was, eight years later, lusting after another of his brother’s conquests.
    “Boone?”
    He let out a sigh and turned back to her, trying to resist drowning in those eyes of hers. Truly, he had never seen anything quite so pretty as those eyes, even red-rimmed and slightly swollen from her tears. She’d only been in his house one day and already he was feeling himself drawn to her, like a helpless animal pulled down by quicksand. Now she was going to be stuck here for weeks. If he had the money to give her, he would have gladly done so. But with most of the people in this little town far poorer than he, he accepted barters rather than cash most of the time. “Everything will work out,” he said, and was surprised when she smiled at him.
    “No, it won’t. But thank you for saying that. Is there a telegraph office in town?”
    Boone shook his head. “The closest one’s in Abilene.”
    The poor girl looked like she couldn’t take one more bit of bad news. “Where is that?”
    “About three hours east of here on the T&P,” Boone said. “That’s if the train’s in the mood to go fast.”
    “That’s not so bad,” she said, but he could tell she was slightly dismayed that it was so far. “Is it cooler there?”
    Boone chuckled. “Not that you’d notice. Maybe you should start wearing your summer frocks.”
    Amelia looked down at the pretty blue dress she was wearing. “This is a summer dress,” she said.
    To Boone, it looked mighty uncomfortable, with a lacy collar that covered her neck completely and sleeves that ballooned out on her upper arms, but fit tightly down to the delicate bones at her wrist. It seemed silly and completely impractical.
    “Perhaps you are right. This was made for English summers, not summers spent in tropical heat. In Hollings in the summer, even in July and August, the temperature rarely gets past eighty degrees. And when it does, it feels as if it’s sweltering.”
    “It hasn’t gotten hot since you’ve been here,” Boone said, just to see what she’d do. Someone watching might have thought that Boone Kitteridge was flirting, but since he’d never flirted with a girl in his life, Boone would have denied such a ludicrous notion.
    “I pray you are joking,” she said darkly. “If I’m to be here for weeks, I should have some dresses made from a lighter material. Perhaps muslin. That’s what all the women in India wear, I’ve heard.”
    “I’ve got some material in the back of the store. Most women ’round here go to Fort Worth if they want something fancier.”
    Suddenly, Amelia felt overwhelmed. Just talking about dresses was too much. And, she realized, this tiny town no doubt did not have a seamstress, and she would be expected to make the bloody thing herself. How she hated Small Fork. And herself. And her bloody, bloody foolish heart. “I wish I could blink my eyes and be home. I wish I could go back in time and give myself a good lecture on all the reasons I should not come here.”
    “Sometimes the best thing to do is look forward, not back.”
    Amelia shook her head. “But I don’t like what’s ahead. I don’t want to go there.” She pressed her fingers against her mouth, as if she could stop the rampaging thoughts in her head. What she really wanted was her silly dreams to come true. Why couldn’t they, just once? Why couldn’t she have her happy ending? Amelia knew she was not a sensible girl, just as she knew her silly daydreams were never going to come true. So she took a deep breath and searched for that sensible girl she knew was somewhere inside her. That girl knew reality, knew her mother and father and sister were dead, knew she was never going to be a family with them again, knew she was never, ever going to live on a ranch with Carson and raise their children together. She knew all this. She did. But it was so, so wonderful sometimes to just pretend that