Page 24 of Fairest of Heart

“Do you like your tea sweetened with honey?” Doc asked as he opened the door for her. “Ike has taken up beekeeping, and I’ve found that a cup of tea with honey does wonders for calming the nerves and fortifying the constitution.”

Miss Snow finally smiled at him, and the effect was instantaneous. Doc’s slightly stooped posture straightened, his ears reddened, and his normally intelligent eyes took on a decidedly bemused glaze behind his spectacles.

“Tea sounds heavenly, Dr. Kingsley. Thank you.”

“Just call me Doc,” he stammered as she moved past him into the kitchen.

Titus expected his grandfather to follow her inside, but the old man pivoted to face his grandson instead. “Come on in, boy. You hardly ate any breakfast yourself. Coy made enough for you, too.”

“I’m going to tend to Rex first. I’ll be in later.” Hopefully, after Miss Snow was away from the table. The woman had an odd effect on his senses, and a Ranger couldn’t afford to be anything other than clearheaded.

“Dusty will see to Rex,” Doc countered. “I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“Fetch a trunk from the attic. I kept a few of your grandma’s things. Thought I’d hand them down to you one day if you ever had a little girl, but I think our guest has a more immediate need.”

Titus’s throat grew thick as he recalled the woman who always smelled of cookies and fresh-baked bread. Who’d sung hymns at full strength in church despite a dreadful lack of pitch.

“God told us to make a joyful noise, not a pretty song, Titus,” she’d whispered to him one Sunday when she caught him cringing behind his hymnal. “He hears the heart, not the voice. So make sure yours is in the right place.” He’d only been ten at the time, but he’d learned more about true worship in that one hushed conversation than he had in a dozen sermons. The woman had shaped him with love and wisdom. And if she were still alive, he had no doubt she’d take one look at Penelope Snow and give her the dress off her back.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you, son.” Doc turned to walk through the door, then hesitated. “Bring it to my room,” he said. “The poor girl will need rest after all she’s been through, and that room is the quietest in the house.”

Titus nodded, patted Rex on the neck, then made his way up the steps and into the house. He moved slowly, hoping to slip in unobserved. He had no doubt the Diamond D men would be tending to Miss Snow, but it wasn’t their attention he hoped to dodge. It was hers. Something about those big gray eyes evoked a protective instinct in him that had proven difficult to ignore. That, combined with the residual guilt he felt over not seeing her home after their encounter yesterday, might tempt him to delay his departure. A happenstance he couldn’t afford. Not if he hoped to earn the promotion to sergeant. He needed to demonstrate to Captain Bill that the Rangers came first. Besides, the men of Company B would never let him hear the end of it if they discovered a woman had kept him from his duty. Not after he’d gained a reputation for being immune to the charms of the fairer sex. The guys liked to joke that he was more likely to go soft over a dog than a woman. A claim he’d taken pride in. A claim that might no longer be true.

Especially when the woman in question was going soft over his dog.

Heedless of her own injuries, Penelope Snow knelt on the floor, head bent close to the dog, who, Titus was pleased to see, was awake and licking at the lady’s face.

“Aren’t you a good boy? So brave. So resilient.” She rubbed his ears, then touched her forehead to his. “You’re going to be fine. You’ll see. Some time to heal. Some good food to fatten you up. Some people to love you. This little mishap won’t hold you down. It might even be a blessing. The first day of a better life.”

An odd tightness squeezed Titus’s chest at her low, earnest voice, pitched solely at the dog, not intended to be heard by the others in the room.

Coy stood a few feet away ladling flapjack batter into a skillet. Doc clinked a spoon against the sides of a cup as he stirred honey into Miss Snow’s tea. Neither seemed to be paying her any particular mind. But then Titus glanced at Jeb. The old bronc buster sat at the table nursing a cup of coffee. His gaze followed the girl, and his face softened with an empathy Titus hadn’t thought the fellow capable of achieving.

Apparently even crusty hearts were susceptible to young women in dire circumstances trying to convince themselves that hope still existed. That good could come from bad, and that they weren’t utterly alone in the world. For as much as her words had been murmured to encourage an injured coonhound, Titus couldn’t help but recognize how well they fit her own situation.

It took impressive strength of character to face what she had and maintain an optimistic spirit. Heaven knew he’d not managed half so well after losing his brother. Anger had driven him. Anger at Tate for not seeing through Nora’s deception. Anger at Nora and her scheming partner who’d left Tate to die after stealing his life savings at gunpoint. Anger at God for allowing it to happen. It had taken Titus three months to track his brother’s killers and deliver them to the law. He’d thought finding justice would bring him peace, but it hadn’t. What it had brought him was an open door to working with the Rangers, a position that offered him purpose and direction. Yet peace continued to elude him. Even after four years, when his anger had cooled and only a few dregs of bitterness lingered behind.

“Come, my dear,” Doc said as he set Miss Snow’s tea on the table and reached for her arm to help her up. “Let’s get those wrappings off, shall we? I have a footbath all set up for you.”

Miss Snow rose from the floor and smiled at Titus’s grandfather. “Thank you. You’re all so kind.”

“I got some flapjacks ready.” Coy plopped a plate on the table next to her tea along with a fork and knife.

Her stomach growled loud enough to echo in the rafters. Titus bit back a smile and slipped out of the kitchen. She was in good hands. Doc would tend her bruises and scrapes. Coy would fill her belly. The only other thing she needed was something decent to wear. His assignment.

It took a mere handful of minutes to fetch the trunk from the attic and cart it to Doc’s room. Duty fulfilled, Titus headed downstairs but gave the kitchen a wide berth. No more delays. No more distractions. He was a Ranger, not a nursemaid. Doc and the others would take care of the girl.

He’d hoped to take a closer look at that knife of hers, but it hadn’t made an appearance. Probably wouldn’t. It was the only weapon she possessed in a strange place surrounded by strange men. If he were in her shoes, he’d keep the blade close at hand for a while, too.

Titus strode to his room, grabbed a spare shirt from his saddlebag, then packed his few belongings. He slipped his arms into the black vest that was as close to a uniform as the Texas Rangers were likely to get and looped a black string tie at his neck. He pulled a few greenbacks from his billfold and laid them on the dresser and placed a scribbled note on top. For the girl.

He dawdled in his room until conversation in the kitchen dwindled, indicating that breakfast had concluded. Lurking in the doorway of his room, Titus listened for an all-clear signal. Ike offered to take the kettles upstairs and warm the bathwater. Doc fussed at him about not splashing the nightgown he’d laid out for Miss Snow, then urged her to make use of the jar of salve he’d left on the cabinet top in the washroom. Footsteps on the stairs urged Titus to peek down the hall.

“You’ll have the entire second floor to yourself today, Miss Snow,” Doc assured her from the base of the stairs as she followed Ike to the second floor. “No one will disturb you. The bedroom at the end of the hall is mine. There’s a trunk full of my late wife’s things in there. Help yourself to anything you find. Then get some sleep. As much as you can. Doctor’s orders.”