Dorothy Garlock - [Colorado Wind 03] (46 page)

“I heard the honkers this morning. They’re heading north. Get a wrap and come and sit with me.”

“I don’t need a wrap.” She sat down beside him and pulled his arm around her. “Jason is getting out of hand.”

“He’s just like you, love. Stubborn, mouthy, willful—”

“You’ve got to do something about him.”

“Right now?”

“Not right this minute. You can kiss me first.”

“What’re ya doin’?” The screen door slammed, and a redheaded bundle of energy stood before them with his freckled face screwed up in disgust. One arm was encased in plaster.

“I’m kissing your mother.”

“Mush! I ain’t never goin’ to kiss girls!”

“That’s fine with me. I’ll kiss your share of the girls.”

“Go wash, Jason. Dr. Warren is stopping by to look at that arm.”

“That old
quack!”
he shouted, and ran off the porch.

“Jasons’ right. He is a quack!” Kain looked down at his wife with a teasing light in his amber eyes because he knew she was very fond of the doctor.

“He’s no such thing! If not for him I’d still be living with that terrible dread. Damn you, Kain, for putting me through that . . . hell. I’m still mad about it. If only you’d told me. Even
I
knew enough to know you had an ulcer.”

“It’s been fifteen years, sweetheart. Aren’t you ever going to forgive me?”

“I might, if you’d stop bringing up that thing about me calling you a puffed-up jackass, running you off with the shotgun and clobbering folks with the shovel. You’ve got folks thinking I’m a regular terror!”

“Don’t forget about wearing britches, taking off to kill that bird, Tass, riding Big Red at breakneck speed—”

“Hush up and kiss me, you . . . puffed-up jackass. I’ve got work to do.”

He pulled her to him lovingly, and she raised her mouth for his kiss.

“Are you too busy to go upstairs?” He breathed the words in her ear.

She drew back and laughed up at him. “Kain DeBolt . . . you’re the limit!”

He laughed happily and hugged her. “Maybe. But there’s no limit to my love for a pretty little red bird.”