Will shook his head. She was something. Really something. Then he followed her upstairs and, as promised, behaved himself while they went from room to room.
It didn’t take long. There were only three rooms, two small and one large. All three remained furnished.
The visitor had been staying in the big bed in the main room.
Not that he’d messed things up. Quite the opposite.
The big bed was neatly made and clean. The beds in the other two rooms were blanketed in dust.
“I can’t believe how much Mr. Kitner left behind,” Maggie said, when they went back downstairs.
“Guess he really meant it about being finished with Texas,” Will said.
“Part of me agrees with him,” Maggie said. “Part of me wants to ride off and never come back. But part of me knows this is where I belong. That part wants to stay and ride this out, make it work.”
“I feel the same way,” Will said. “There’s a heap of trouble here. But it’s home, trouble or not. And let’s face it, when have Texans known anything but trouble?”
They studied the outside of the house and took their time looking over the barn and other outbuildings. There was a well between the house and barn.
“I love this place,” Maggie said.
“It’s nice.”
“Really nice. Want to ride around the property?”
“If we’re gone too long, Mama and Rose might think we’re up to something.”
“Let them,” Maggie said, climbing onto Honey. “Rose will be delighted. I suspect Mama will be, too.”
And then, without waiting for his reply, she rode off across the open field.
CHAPTER 14
They spent the morning riding around the Kitner place. It was a nice-sized spread, over a thousand acres, anyway, and maybe even two full sections, Will reckoned.
Whatever the exact dimensions, the land was beautiful with plenty of water and grass and some timber and a small quarry out of which Kitner had only just begun to pull stone.
The quarry was one more sign of how ambitious Kitner had been. He had fenced much of the property, too, and built sturdy corrals close to the house and barn.
For as beautiful as the property was, however, it paled beside Maggie’s loveliness.
She mesmerized Will. She truly did.
It wasn’t just her pretty face, flowing red hair, and well-formed figure that made her so attractive. It was her voice, too, the sound of it and the things she said and the way her face lit up when she laughed, which she did often.
He also appreciated her physical grace, which became clearer and clearer as they rode side by side. Whether they raced across open ground, leapt over obstacles, or wove slowly through groves of oak and cottonwood, she rode as well as he if notbetter. Which was saying something, since he was a veteran cavalryman, and one who’d rarely met his match on horseback. But Maggie rode like a centaur, and it pleased him immensely.
When the sun had passed its apex and started toward the West, they finally headed for home. Reaching the creek, Maggie paused and looked back toward the lonely white house and acres of gorgeous pastureland.
“Well, I’ve made up my mind,” she joked. “It suits my needs. You may buy me this ranch.”
“All right,” he said, and they crossed the creek and were on her property again.
“Thanks for bringing me along, Will,” she said, brushing her thigh against his again. “I had a nice time.”
“So did I.”
They returned to the bunkhouse and chatted easily as they took care of the horses. Maggie did most of the talking, reminiscing about the past and giving him a hard time for being so stern and serious when she was little.
