Dusty Britches by Marcia Lynn McClure

Author:Marcia Lynn McClure [McClure, Marcia Lynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction, General, Historical, Western, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9780985280765
Publisher: Distractions Ink
Published: 2001-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

There was a mountain of work to be done on the ranch to prepare for the coming autumn and winter. The days turned quickly into weeks. Even as summer was still heating the earth, July was filled with haying, canning, field crops, branding, and more.

Hank had the hands in the fields from before sunup to way beyond sundown every day. Dusty and Becca found the three weeks following the Fourth of July picnic in town to be a lonely time. On occasion, Miss Raynetta visited, and there was a stormy day when rain beat down so heavily the hands were forced in from the fields. Yet most of the time the men were so beaten and tired after the day’s work, they dropped down in whatever pasture they found themselves, sleeping out under the stars. Feller cooked their meals over an open fire, and Dusty and Becca were left at the ranch house to their own tasks—gardening, preserving food, milking the milk cow, making butter, tending the chickens, and more. Their hearts’ desires were nowhere near. All this meant long, hot days with little diversion.

Dusty spent days upon days mulling over in her mind every moment spent and every conversation she’d had with Ryder since his return. At times, she felt hope rise within her. If she were able to soften herself—to find her real self again—maybe, just maybe, he would be interested in knowing her again. And yet self-doubt and the lack of his flirtatious presence caused a gray cloud to hang over her wishes and dreams.

They’d never spoken of it again—his outrageous conduct at the picnic, her all too accepting behavior. They’d both let it remain an unspoken, uncertain past. Yet Dusty wanted desperately to ask him why—why had he treated her so adoringly? Why had he felt such a need to kiss her so recurrently and with such extreme emotion? But they’d arrived home so late from town that evening—and immediately after her father had the men out to tent under the stars, mend fences and windbreaks, count and tend the herd—there hadn’t been a moment to talk with him, even if she’d had the courage.

Dusty could also see her sister’s misery. It was obvious Becca was truly and thoroughly in love with Feller. She was miserable without him and even more miserable for lack of her love being returned. And there was Miss Raynetta. Dusty was convinced Miss Raynetta was as in love with her father as ever she had been twenty years ago! Her own heart ached for Miss Raynetta’s. After all, she knew how agonizing it was to have the man you loved standing right in front of you and not be able to call him your own, draw from him your strength, sleep in the comfort of his arms, and bask in the bathing ecstasy of his kisses. All these thoughts Dusty pondered for days upon days upon days, until her mind was so tired she thought she could not rise another day.

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