May I Have This Dance?
"You'd never believe me if I told you that I love you, but it's true and I can prove it."
Adam Cartwright sniffed . The situation he found himself in was incredibly, well, uncomfortable. His hazel eyes darted from one reddened face to the other. His friends were laughing. No, they were snorting and sniggering, and it was all on account of his six-year-old brother who had somehow managed to escape out from under their father's watchful eye and had wandered into the yard outside the dance hall and sought him out, determined to bring him a peace offering.
Which just happened to be a fistful of prairie flowers.
"You think maybe Hoss is hopin' for a kiss?" one of the boys muttered.
"Nah," another one said. "He's gonna ask Adam if he has any room on his dance card."
Adam closed his eyes. He counted to ten and then opened them again.
Nope. Not a dream.
With a sigh, he said, "Hoss, how'd you get away from Pa?"
His little brother's sky-blue eyes widened. His chubby little – well, not so 'little' face – broadened with a smile.
"It weren't hard. I just told him I had to use the necessary."
Adam scowled. "And how long ago was that?"
Hoss' face screwed up. "Well, I don't rightly know," his brother admitted. "I didn't want to tell a lie, so I went like I said to the privy, even though I didn't need to, and then I had to hunt a while to find these flowers." He nodded toward the wilting bouquet in his hand. "Then the Widow Douglas called me over and gave me a peppermint." His young sibling paused. "I'm sorry, Adam."
The black-haired youth blinked. From what he remembered, if there had been fault to be found in what had happened, it had been his. He'd been getting ready for the school dance – preening like a peacock, hoping to look so dashedly handsome that he'd be able to charm Lucy Holder away from his chief rival – when Hoss had come in and wanted him to play checkers. He'd been abrupt in his reply. Cruel, really. Hoss had burst into tears and run from the room – knocking over his washstand and sending the filthy soapy water into his new boots, ruining them. He'd chased him halfway to the stable before their father intervened and told him in so many words to stop behaving like one of their jackasses.
"What for?" he asked.
"She gave me a peppermint for you too, but I 'et it."
"The flowers weren't enough," one of the boys sneered. "He brought you candy too."
Adam glanced up. Lucy Holder had come outside. The black-haired beauty with her pale skin, blue eyes, and a waist a man could have circled with one hand, was dangling like a pearl from the arm of the loathsome Josh Taylor. Josh and his father had recently come to Eagle Station from San Francisco. Mr. Taylor had built a big frame house at the edge of town. He said he wouldn't build it in town due to all the riff-raff and disorderly persons who lived there. One day, when he had been in a bad mood, Pa had said that Josh's father had his nose so high in the air it was a wonder it didn't gush all day like a rain-swollen creek.
Josh had a nose too. One he would have loved to land a punch on.
A tug on his shirt made him look down. Not too far, mind you. He only had a few inches on his brother.
"What?"
"She sure is pretty."
Adam frowned. Then he felt it, a presence behind him. Turning, he realized it was Lucy.
"Who's your 'little' friend?" she asked.
For a moment he was lost. Then he remembered Lucy was new to town too. "He's not my friend. He's my brother."
Lucy was smiling. It made his heart soar. That was, until a sudden wail brought him down to roost.
And here, he considered himself a man of words.
Turning, Adam saw the flowers lying in the dust. The space his little brother had occupied a moment before was empty and Hoss was hightailing it back to town. He started to follow, but a hand on his arm stopped him.
Lucy smiled prettily. "I thought you wanted to dance with me."
"Don't you know, Luce? Adam's dance card's full." Josh snorted. "After all, when you're as big as that stupid ox of a brother he has, there's no room for anyone else to –"
There was no need for Josh's father's nose to gush. His was doing it quite nicely.
"Adam Cartwright!" Lucy scolded. "How dare you? Josh was only – "
He hung his head. "Yeah, you're right." Then he looked her in the eye. "Josh was only saving me from making one of the biggest mistakes in my life." He bent and snatched Hoss' scattered flowers from the ground. "You two deserve each other."
And with that, he turned and jogged after his brother.
It took some hunting. The not-so-little squirt was good at hiding. Hoss made one mistake though. His little brother was never so at ease as when he was around animals and he found him hiding out in the stable. Ned, the man who ran the stable, pointed him out and then left. Adam nodded his thanks before crossing over to his brother who was huddled against a stack of two bales of hay.
"Hoss."
His brother started and then sniffed. Blinking away tears, he turned his face toward him. Adam crouched down and smiled.
"You'd never believe me if I told you that I love you," he said, holding out the bedraggled flowers, "but it's true and I can prove it."
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
As they made their way back through the town, walking hand in hand, Adam had only one hope.
That his dance card would never be too full for a brother.