“Rattlesnakes are nervous. They rattle to try to scare people into going away.”
It had never occurred to her that a snake could be nervous. She said so.
He sighed. “Anyway, we got him.”
“You got him? You did?” She was excited.
“The boys found him about twenty feet from where you were sitting when he bit you.”
“What did they do with him?”
He pursed his lips. “Do you like cowboy hats?”
“I guess so. I don’t wear them much, except when I go riding.”
“You’ll wear this one. It’s just your size and it’s got a nice new rattlesnake hatband. Or it will have, when the skin’s tanned out.”
“You didn’t!”
“I did.” He grinned down at her. “We’ll go riding, when you’re better.”
“We will?”
One eye narrowed. “You go riding with Clark and Winnie all the time. You can go riding with me now,” he said with faint belligerence.
“Okay,” she said, fascinated. It almost sounded as if he were jealous of her. That was ridiculous, of course.
“I had a television put in your room. You can watch movies on pay-per-view. We’ve got satellite, too, so you can watch programs from all over the world.” His eyes twinkled. “Then, there’s the national news, with the presidential race on every channel, every hour, every day.”
She sighed. “I haven’t watched the national news for weeks. I can’t stand the monotony. The only news they report is on the presidential election and every detail of the private lives of celebrities.”
“The Spanish channel has the real news,” he pointed out. “If you want to know what’s going on in the world, that’s where to find out.”
She smiled. “I can’t speak Spanish.”
“I’ll teach you,” he said quietly, and his eyes were insinuating that he had in mind teaching her other things, as well.
She flushed a little. Her life had been a closed, painful book, her future a dream that she never thought would be realized. Now, here was this dishy man with whom she’d been in love for years, looking at her with acquisitive eyes and smiling at her. It felt as if her heart might burst from joy.
He smiled. “Mrs. Johnston has an assistant cook, Melinda. She’s from Guatemala. She’s teaching us Mayan. You can learn, too.”
“Mayan?” She caught her breath. “Their culture had astronomy and the concept of zero and raised beds for planting and irrigation while Europeans were knocking each other over the head with rocks.”
“I know.” He chuckled. “You spend your time off at the library reading books about them. Or so I hear from the head librarian.”
She flushed. It flattered her that he’d learned things about her. “I’d love to go and see some of the Mayan ruins,” she said. “I’d love to go to Peru and see the Inca ruins, too.”
“So would I,” he told her. “Maybe we can both go, one day.”
For her, that was a pipe dream. She’d never save enough to pay for a plane ticket even to south Texas for a vacation. Her smile was wistful.
He saw that. “What else do you like?”
She smiled. “Ancient history.”
“The Caesars, the philosophers, the politicians…?”
“Don’t mention politicians!”
