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Authors: Joan Johnston
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Creed added, “But I’d be willing to wrestle you again, if that’s the only way I can prove my point and win another kiss from you.”
“You won’t be kissing me again.”
“Why not?”
“Kissing leads to other things.”
“Such as?”
“Fornicating, for one.”
Creed’s brows rose.
“I have no intentions of laying myself down under some buck like you, because fornicating leads to marrying.”
Creed shifted uncomfortably, but Cricket didn’t seem to notice as she finished, “And I want more out of life than being stuck at home as some planter’s wife, being told by my husband what to do and when to do it. It’s a trap I’m aiming to miss, thank you very much. I’ll be no man’s other half. I plan to spend my life doing just as I please. So, like I said, you won’t be kissing me again.”
With that, Cricket stalked—a perfect imitation of Rip, Creed thought—out the barn door ahead of him.
“Ah, my fierce, wild woman,” Creed replied softly to Cricket’s retreating form. “You’re so very wrong about that.”
He quickly followed after her, shaking his head at the female logic that had deduced that kissing led to fornicating and fornicating led to marriage. She was at least half right, Creed thought, chuckling. It might behoove him to expand his acquaintance with a woman who had no intention of marrying. But first he was going to have breakfast. Coffee. Eggs. Sausage. Grits with butter.
Creed followed Cricket to the house. It was built, as were many of the houses in Texas, as two square, separate buildings, with an open dogtrot in the middle connecting them. Only, in the case of Three Oaks, each of the two buildings was rectangular and had two floors, the dogtrot had been enclosed to make a spacious hallway in the center of the house, and a double gallery porch graced the front of the entire abode, giving it a feeling of being a single structure. Stairs in the central hallway led to the second floor. Otherwise, the hallway was bare except for an open-sided sleightype daybed centered along one wall and a rocker bench on the other.
“Rip’s office is over there,” Cricket said, gesturing to the first room on the left, “and the guest bedroom is the next door back.”
Creed could see a canopied four-poster bed through the door she’d indicated.
“The dining room is this way. Follow me.” She led him into the parlor through the first door on the right off the hallway.
Creed was impressed by the subdued elegance in every facet of the simple furnishings: silk and brocade in the curtains and upholstery, polished cherry and maple in the furniture, porcelain figurines, pink marble surrounding the fireplace, silver candelabra, and Persian carpets on the hardwood floors. He was sure there wasn’t anything that could begin to match it anywhere else in Texas.
The graciously appointed home was neat and spotlessly clean, and he couldn’t imagine Cricket being comfortable living there. When he thought of her, he pictured the more traditional Texas home of unfinished pine, with its earth floor and stone fireplace. She belonged in a room with cedar tables, simple ladder-back chairs with rawhide seats, home-spun tablecloths, and linsey-woolsey curtains.
He imagined Cricket standing in an open doorway leading to the shaded dogtrot, with the smell of spring wildflowers wafting around her. For his brava he envisioned a home where everything was raw and natural, in a land as wild and untamed as she was.
Cricket led Creed through the rear parlor door into the dining room. Rip, Sloan, and Bay were already seated at the table, eating breakfast.
“I see you made it,” Rip said.
Sloan stood and reached a firm hand out to Creed. “I’m Sloan.”
Creed hesitated, then shook the work-hardened hand offered by the petite woman.
“Help yourself to whatever you want to eat,” she said.
Cricket had already taken a Wedgwood china plate from the stack at the end of the sideboard and filled it to
“You won’t be kissing me again.”
“Why not?”
“Kissing leads to other things.”
“Such as?”
“Fornicating, for one.”
Creed’s brows rose.
“I have no intentions of laying myself down under some buck like you, because fornicating leads to marrying.”
Creed shifted uncomfortably, but Cricket didn’t seem to notice as she finished, “And I want more out of life than being stuck at home as some planter’s wife, being told by my husband what to do and when to do it. It’s a trap I’m aiming to miss, thank you very much. I’ll be no man’s other half. I plan to spend my life doing just as I please. So, like I said, you won’t be kissing me again.”
With that, Cricket stalked—a perfect imitation of Rip, Creed thought—out the barn door ahead of him.
“Ah, my fierce, wild woman,” Creed replied softly to Cricket’s retreating form. “You’re so very wrong about that.”
He quickly followed after her, shaking his head at the female logic that had deduced that kissing led to fornicating and fornicating led to marriage. She was at least half right, Creed thought, chuckling. It might behoove him to expand his acquaintance with a woman who had no intention of marrying. But first he was going to have breakfast. Coffee. Eggs. Sausage. Grits with butter.
Creed followed Cricket to the house. It was built, as were many of the houses in Texas, as two square, separate buildings, with an open dogtrot in the middle connecting them. Only, in the case of Three Oaks, each of the two buildings was rectangular and had two floors, the dogtrot had been enclosed to make a spacious hallway in the center of the house, and a double gallery porch graced the front of the entire abode, giving it a feeling of being a single structure. Stairs in the central hallway led to the second floor. Otherwise, the hallway was bare except for an open-sided sleightype daybed centered along one wall and a rocker bench on the other.
“Rip’s office is over there,” Cricket said, gesturing to the first room on the left, “and the guest bedroom is the next door back.”
Creed could see a canopied four-poster bed through the door she’d indicated.
“The dining room is this way. Follow me.” She led him into the parlor through the first door on the right off the hallway.
Creed was impressed by the subdued elegance in every facet of the simple furnishings: silk and brocade in the curtains and upholstery, polished cherry and maple in the furniture, porcelain figurines, pink marble surrounding the fireplace, silver candelabra, and Persian carpets on the hardwood floors. He was sure there wasn’t anything that could begin to match it anywhere else in Texas.
The graciously appointed home was neat and spotlessly clean, and he couldn’t imagine Cricket being comfortable living there. When he thought of her, he pictured the more traditional Texas home of unfinished pine, with its earth floor and stone fireplace. She belonged in a room with cedar tables, simple ladder-back chairs with rawhide seats, home-spun tablecloths, and linsey-woolsey curtains.
He imagined Cricket standing in an open doorway leading to the shaded dogtrot, with the smell of spring wildflowers wafting around her. For his brava he envisioned a home where everything was raw and natural, in a land as wild and untamed as she was.
Cricket led Creed through the rear parlor door into the dining room. Rip, Sloan, and Bay were already seated at the table, eating breakfast.
“I see you made it,” Rip said.
Sloan stood and reached a firm hand out to Creed. “I’m Sloan.”
Creed hesitated, then shook the work-hardened hand offered by the petite woman.
“Help yourself to whatever you want to eat,” she said.
Cricket had already taken a Wedgwood china plate from the stack at the end of the sideboard and filled it to
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