Dreaming Of A Western Christmas. Carol Arens

we never did,” she said in a small voice.

      “And now you’re goin’ all the way out to Oregon to marry this man you never discussed anything with.” It wasn’t a question. It came out sounding like an accusation.

      “Yes, I am. I am going to Oregon to marry him, and don’t you dare say one more thing about it!”

      He tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire. “Suzannah, I have to tell you I think you’re makin’ a big mistake.”

      She clenched her teeth. “You listen to me, Brand Wyler. There is more to a relationship than...well, than kisses.”

      “Yeah.” He looked straight at her, his face set. “But that’s a good start. If they’re good kisses, that’s an important indication of something.”

      “That is shallow and superficial. Just because something feels good doesn’t mean it is good.” Lordy, how straitlaced and prim she sounded.

      He did not look away. “What’s wrong with feeling good?”

      Suzannah swallowed. She wished he would look somewhere else. She knew her cheeks were flushing; her whole face felt hot. “Nothing is wrong with it, I guess. But that is not how I was raised. I was brought up to expect that a man would have high regard for my person and my breeding and my good name. One false step and a girl could be ruined.”

      “You mean,” he said dryly, keeping his eyes on her face, “that your reputation as a respectable virgin would be compromised.”

      “Yes, exactly. That is what happened to your sister, was it not?”

      “Not exactly. This scoundrel, Jack something, took advantage of Marcy. He promised to marry her, then he never showed up for the wedding. She wrote me about it, said she was devastated.”

      “Poor girl,” Suzannah murmured. “Poor, foolish girl.”

      “Yeah,” he muttered.

      “Brand, why are we talking about all this? I know my fiancé is an honorable man. Furthermore, I know exactly what I am doing.”

      “Like hell you do.” He stood up suddenly and paced around the camp with his hands jammed in his back pockets. Finally he stopped in front of her.

      “Suzannah, I think you have to know a man, really know him, before you decide to spend your life with him. I think you have to like that man, and I think you have to like that man’s kisses...and I think you have to feel like you want more than that.”

      She jumped to her feet and confronted him, hands on her hips. “Well! I do not care one whit what you think, Brandon Wyler. So let that be an end to it.”

      Brand stood eye to eye with her. She was good and mad now, but he didn’t care. He wished someone had talked some sense into Marcy; to his dying day he’d regret that he hadn’t been there to do that. Maybe she wouldn’t have paid any attention, kinda like Suzannah was doing now, digging in her heels and refusing to listen. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t let it alone.

       And maybe it’s more than that.

      He pivoted on one heel and gazed out across the hills, now glowing purple as the sun sank in the west. He couldn’t figure out how this overprotected slip of a woman from a South he never wanted to see again could raise his hackles so fast. She was stubborn and argumentative and so damn convinced she was right it set his teeth on edge.

      Ah, hell, why should he care?

      He didn’t, really. Or at least he told himself he didn’t. But he sure couldn’t ignore what had happened to him when he’d kissed her. Something inside his chest swelled up until it hurt, and the next thing he knew he felt as though he was flying.

      “Time to turn in,” he barked. Without glancing at her, he unrolled his blanket, positioned his saddle at his head and shucked his boots. She marched around camp for a good quarter of an hour, then spread her bedroll about as far away from him as she could get.

      Better that way, he acknowledged. He didn’t want to see her curled up in a ball with just the top of her blond head peeking out, or hear those little sighs she made in her sleep, or smell the violet scent of her hair.

      Long after the fire burned down to a handful of faint orange coals, he lay awake calculating not how many days it would take them to reach Fort Klamath, but how many hours.

      And every one, one too many.