Lauri Robinson Read Online Free PDF Page A

between taking care of a woman, and ruling her life.”
    “I’m not trying to rule her life.”
    “Aren’t you?” Cord leaned forward. “Did you ask her if she wanted your help?”
    “Well, no.”
    “Why?”
    “Because she’d have said no.” Spencer hung his head, exhausted in so many ways.
    “Your mother died when you were very young, didn’t she?” Cord asked.
    Spencer let out a sigh, not in the mood to stroll down memory lane. “Yes, I was three when Trig was born.”
    “And your father never remarried?”
    “Nope, said there wasn’t another woman to compare to Ma. Besides, there was no reason to, we got along just fine.”
    Cord shuffled a stack of papers, set them on the corner of his desk. “I was raised by one of the strongest women in the state. No one ever told my mother what to do. Years ago my father said the only time a man can tell a woman what to do is when gunshots are ringing in the air, then you can tell them to get out of the line of fire.”
    Spencer cracked a smile, imagining burly old Wes Donavon saying such a thing. Then an eerie sensation tickled his spine. “Are you saying I shouldn’t have told Della not to marry Isaac Cramer twelve years ago?”
    “You told her not to marry Isaac?”
    The image forming in Spencer’s mind was the first time he’d seen Della—a couple of years before that night . “She and Otis stopped out at our place when they first arrived in Kansas. She was just a skinny kid, riding an old mule he led with a rope. Otis was looking for work. Trig and I didn’t have anything to offer, so I told them to go to Ester Cramer’s. I knew she needed a handyman and figured the girl could help with the boarders. Afterward, I’d stop by whenever I was in town, just to check up on them.”
    Growing fidgety, Spencer rose from the chair. Della had blossomed in Ester’s care. Practically overnight she’d become the prettiest young woman he’d ever seen, and over the next couple of years, he’d scratched up every excuse to make a trip to town and see her. Then Isaac had returned, boasting his fancy eastern clothes and bragging about his education.
    The M & M had been doing well, even after his father died, but Spencer knew he had to do something different to make it an empire. Purebreds became his goal, and he set up the trip to Texas. He’d gone to town that night because he couldn’t leave without telling her goodbye. It hadn’t been until she mentioned marrying Isaac he understood his real reason for wanting to see her.
    For a moment it felt as if ice entered his veins, just as it had when he’d returned from Texas and discovered Della had married Isaac. He’d spent the next five years herding cows from Texas to Kansas, rarely stepping foot in El Dorado. On one of those few trips home, he’d headed to town and come across Ester Cramer’s funeral. After seeing Della and Isaac arm in arm, he spent even more time down in Texas—until Trig said they’d have to buy more land if he drove home anymore cows.
    Spencer rubbed his chin. He couldn’t tell Cord all of that. “When I heard Della was going to marry Isaac, I told her not to. You know as well as I what a snot-nosed brat Isaac had always been.” Cringing, he offered a silent request for forgiveness for speaking ill of the dead.
    “What did she do when you told her that?”
    “She slapped me.” His heart thudded in his chest and sweat beaded on his neck. He’d wished, practically every day since, that he’d asked her to marry him that night. He’d have given her the home he now knew she’d longed for. But he hadn’t.
    “You gonna marry her?”
    Defense rose in Spencer. “Just ‘cause you tied the knot doesn’t mean it’s meant for the rest of the world.” Slapping his hat back on his head, he stood and walked to the door.
    “Where you going?” Cord asked.
    Eating warm crow wasn’t any easier than eating cold crow. “To ask her,” Spencer admitted.
    “Ask her what?”
    Frustrated,