Jodi Thomas (6 page)

Chapter Eight

An hour before dawn Joanna slipped from her bed. She’d heard Colt leave the house for his morning dip in the creek and knew she didn’t have much time. She’d thought about her plan all night and knew she couldn’t leave him without taking with her one last memory of his touch. Even when she’d told Milton she’d be going back with him on the morning train, she knew she’d spend one last time in Colt’s arms. If he didn’t declare his love, at least she’d have a memory to carry into her spinsterhood.

Silently she tiptoed across the room and opened her door. She moved without hesitation the few steps to Colt’s room.

Once inside his private quarters, she felt suddenly cold and wished she’d brought her robe, but there was no going back now. She only had time enough to add a log to the small fire before she heard Colt returning.

He stepped into the room, drying his hair as he moved. Firelight danced off his bare chest and sparkled in his damp hair as he closed the door and turned to face her. At first he didn’t react, but only stood staring at her as if seeing a dream take form.

She wanted to tell him how much he’d changed her life. She thought of begging him to hold her one more time and not send her back to her room without a memory. But Joanna couldn’t make herself speak.

Even now his gaze touched her far more deeply than any other man’s hands ever would. He was stubborn and cynical, and yet he made her feel not only wanted and needed, but loved.

Silently he moved toward her. When he was only a foot away, Colt pulled the towel from his neck and tossed it aside. Firelight danced in his dark eyes as he looked at her.

Joanna raised her chin slightly, as though steeling herself for his order for her to leave, but he slowly raised his hand and lightly touched her hair.

Colt wished he had the words to tell her that her hair reminded him of sunshine. He thought of a hundred things he wanted to tell her about how important she was to him and how she’d brought happiness into his life. But he’d heard her tell Milton she’d go back with him, and Colt was too proud to beg any woman to stay.

He moved toward her, loving the way her eyes welcomed him with growing need. Somehow in the predawn light the world seemed unreal and magical, made up of only the two of them. He knew if he spoke of his love, it would somehow shatter the perfect world.

Gently he bent and lifted her into his arms. In long strides he walked to his bed and laid her down on sheets still warm from his sleep.

With no other sound but the crackling of the logs on the fire, he removed her nightgown and lowered himself beside her. The night had been chilly, but neither felt the cold as he touched her gently with hands unaccustomed to gentleness.

Joanna didn’t close her eyes, for she wanted to see him as she gave herself to him. At dawn she might leave with Milton and return home to teach, but she’d know passion once before she left. Colt might never say he loved her, but for once in her life she’d feel loved.

Colt felt as if he were dreaming. She couldn’t have come to his room. But here she was stretching beside him. Touching him as easily as he touched her. He moved his hand over her body, feeling the excitement of a new love and the comfort and belonging, as if he’d already loved her for a lifetime.

He kissed her lightly, enjoying the way she moved at his touch. Slowly, silently, his touch grew bolder, his kisses deeper, until the stream of passion became a raging river that consumed them both and swept them ever faster and faster.

She cried his name as the world exploded around Colt and he clung to her as to life. They drifted slowly into quiet waters of fulfillment, and held on to one another like children afraid to let go of one perfect moment.

He pulled her close against him and fell asleep knowing he’d found heaven. A last thought drifted through his sleepy mind. He’d tell her in words what he’d told her with his body before dawn.

* * *

Joanna listened to his low steady breathing as she slipped from his arms. Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks as she felt on the floor for her nightgown.

“If he’d only said he loved me,” she whispered. “If he’d only said my name, I’d stay forever.” But he hadn’t. He’d taken her body, but promised nothing, and she couldn’t wait forever for him to believe in love.

Joanna walked slowly to her room and dressed in the early light. She could hear Etta already preparing breakfast in the kitchen and was thankful for a few minutes alone. She’d been a fool to believe her plan would work. First she’d thought she could push him into declaring his love by saying that she was leaving with Milton. When that hadn’t worked, she was sure he’d tell her how much he loved her after he’d touched her again. But he’d fallen asleep without a word.

No other choice existed. She would go back to Ohio with Milton and stall her father for as long as she could. Maybe she’d answer another tutoring ad or become the town’s old-maid schoolteacher. It really didn’t matter. The only man she’d ever really loved didn’t believe in love and she’d done everything she could to try to make him. If Colt Barnett wanted to spend the rest of his life alone, that was his choice. She’d done all she could to change him.

Slowly Joanna packed her carpetbag. Aunt Etta had told her after supper that she wasn’t going back with Joanna and Milton. She planned to stay here and help the captain with his daughters until he could find another tutor.

Joanna wasn’t sure how she could leave both Colt and her aunt, but she knew she couldn’t stay in this house loving him and having him only needing her. Maybe pride was a flimsy armor, but it was all she had.

Aunt Etta appeared in the doorway, wiping her tears with the corner of her apron. “I cooked you some breakfast,” she whispered. She’d already begged Joanna not to go. There was no use repeating.

“I’m not really hungry. We have to get an early start.” Joanna hugged her aunt one last time, then turned and lifted her bag. “Tell the girls I’ll write.”

Aunt Etta nodded and followed Joanna to the door. “Are you sure, child?” Etta said as she handed Joanna her mother’s Bible.

Joanna shook her head. “I’ve given up being sure of anything. All I know is that I can’t marry a man who doesn’t love me with all his heart, be it Milton or Colt.”

Etta nodded as if she understood. She hugged Joanna tightly as Milton pulled the buggy up to the porch.

* * *

Joanna rode silently beside Milton as they crossed the empty land between the fort and the train station. He talked of the farm and of all that had happened since she’d left, and she tried to listen.

She wanted to scream that she’d never marry him, but there would be time for them to talk later. A month ago she’d ran from Ohio to Texas because she knew she’d never have the love she wanted and now she was running back for the same reason. If cowards could be rated, she surely would win a blue ribbon.

Milton turned his buggy in at the livery and they walked to the train station.

As the train pulled up Joanna fought back her tears. A couple of hours before she’d been in Colt’s arms feeling more love than she thought she could ever hold. But love couldn’t just be a physical thing. He had to believe it was more. But he hadn’t said a word.

As the whistle blew to load the train she looked up and saw Colt’s lean form storming toward them. “Joanna!” he shouted.

She turned and watched him grow nearer, her heart pounding in her throat.

When he was within a few feet, he stopped. Angry black eyes flashed fire as he stared at her. “You were just going to leave without saying good-bye?”

“You said one month, remember?”

“But there’s still one more day in the month. Today’s only Valentine’s Day. You said you’d leave on the fifteenth. I thought you liked being a tutor?”

“I did.”

Milton was saying something, but neither of them was listening to him.

“Then stay. The girls need you,” Colt shouted.

Joanna closed her eyes. If he’d only told of his feelings; but, no, he would never allow love in his life again. He’d made that plain. “I can’t.”

Milton pulled her onto the first step of the train. “Joanna’s going to marry me, Captain.”

Colt’s eyes never left Joanna’s. He didn’t have to ask her if it was true. No one but Milton believed the statement.

“Stay.” Colt’s voice was hard.

“Another order?”

“A request,” he answered, but his voice still revealed no emotion.

Milton lifted Joanna’s gloved hand and made the gesture of kissing it. Only Joanna knew that his lips never quite touched her glove. “We must go, dear.”

She looked at Colt, his stance rigid, his face an emotionless mask. “And if I stayed, when would you have married me?” she whispered more to herself than anyone as she stepped onto the next step of the train. She knew he’d never talk of marriage. How long would he want her to wait? Until the children were grown? Until the thousands of miles of frontier were settled?

The train started to move.

“My answer’s in that Bible you’re so fond of toting!” Colt yelled above the noise as he turned to leave, knowing he’d lost her forever.

Joanna opened her Bible. Between the pages of the Book of Ruth rested a folded red paper cut in the shape of a heart. Inside, written boldly as though without hesitation were the words
I’d be yours in a heartbeat, and I’ll love you one day longer than forever.
He’d signed his full name as though she wouldn’t know who the valentine was from.

Joanna jumped from the moving train, clutching her carpetbag and Bible, before Milton had time to stop her. She ran toward Colt’s back, not caring that everyone was watching or that Milton was yelling for her to come back.

Colt turned just as she reached him and caught her. As the train rattled by he held her tightly against his heart. “I love you,” he whispered. “I will be yours in a heartbeat if you’ll have me.”

He was still kissing her several minutes later when Buckles pulled up with Aunt Etta and the girls. Etta took one look at her niece and knew the world had finally been set right on its axis.

“I knew she’d come to her senses.” Etta smiled. “Good men are hard to find.” She patted Sergeant Buckles’s knee and he swelled with pride.

The three girls giggled in the back of the wagon as they scratched out Joanna and Colt’s names on a tattered valentine they’d reworked several times and added the words
Mom and Dad.
“We did it all”—Johnnie patted the twins’ shoulders—“even without Cupid.”

Read on for a special excerpt from the next title in the Whispering Mountain series by Jodi Thomas

WILD TEXAS ROSE

Available August 2012 from Berkley!

Prologue

Texas

1876

As the train pulled away from Anderson Glen Station and headed toward Fort Worth, Rose McMurray folded her gloved hands in her lap and tried to remain perfectly still. She knew she looked the part of a proper young woman all starched and pressed from her navy traveling suit to her polished boots. No one saw inside her where fears threatened to choke even the shallow breaths she took.

I could do this. I could leave Whispering Mountain Ranch. I could go alone.

Cold January rain tapped on the coach windows drawing her attention, demanding she look out into the moonless night. No lights beyond offered even one last memory of all she knew and loved. The wheels of the train picked up speed, whispering “Beware” in rapid heartbeats.

Smoke rolled passed her just beyond the glass, pulling a memory with the same sounds and smells of a nightmare that had haunted her since she’d left Chicago with her mother almost twenty years ago.

Rose couldn’t remember why her mother had packed her and her two sisters up and run for the train that cold night, but even at five years old she’d known they were running for their lives. Something frightening followed them. Something far worse than the unknown they rushed toward.

“Emily, hold Rose’s hand,” their mother had ordered as she carried the baby on her back and a carpetbag atop a small trunk in her arms. “Hold tight, girls, until we’re on the train. Then we’ll be safe. We’ll be away.”

They moved into a river of people at the station. Everyone seemed to be yelling, running, pushing.

Smoke billowed across the platform as Rose saw her mother step onto the train and vanish. She heard Emily scream. Someone shoved them, scattering them as if the girls were no more than dust mites whirling in the frozen air.

Then her big sister let go of her hand and Rose was alone.

In one horrifying moment something had shattered inside her, forever scarring across her heart like a razor sharp blade. She screamed and screamed until she felt like her ears were bleeding.

Even when she was safe back in her mother’s arms, Rose couldn’t be comforted. Fear still rocked her thin body.

Now, twenty years later, the memory returned full force like a north wind that had just been waiting around the corner. . . . waiting for a chance to catch her alone once more . . . waiting to frighten her to death.

She’d told herself she was an adult. She could travel through the night to help a friend in need. Only as her home and all those she loved grew farther and farther away, Rose wasn’t sure.

What if she lost control of her world again and this time when fear claimed her, it wouldn’t let go? Would the terror of the night kill her, or was there something more in the darkness waiting to do the job? Waiting unseen to cross out of her dreams.

She sat stone still, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, and counted the seconds until dawn.

Chapter One

Main Street, Fort Worth

Friday, January 1876

Snow whirled in the cold dawn air as the town seemed to come alive like a sleeping giant who’d given up bathing for the winter. Cook fires and coal smoke blended amid the smell of garbage and too many people crammed together. A good three-day rain wouldn’t whitewash this place enough to make it presentable, Rose McMurray thought as she stepped from the rented carriage and fought to keep from covering her mouth. She noticed shadows of people scurrying like rats down the walks and wagons fighting their way through the traffic. The movements of horses and carts didn’t frighten her; she’d survived the train and the night.

“This is it, miss. The best hotel in town. The Grand,” the driver yelled, but didn’t move to help her down. “Point the doorman in my direction and I’ll see he gets your luggage.”

“Thank you,” Rose managed to say, although she wasn’t sure for what. The ride was barely tolerable and she had no doubt she could have handled the team with far more skill; after all, her family owned a horse ranch.

Reaching into her glove, she pulled out the amount they’d agreed on for the fare plus two bits for a tip.

When the driver took the money, he lost his grip on the horses, and the carriage jolted forward a few feet.

Rose tumbled off the step almost falling in the mud as she fought to keep her balance with a bag in one hand and her hat in the other. Her skirts snagged on the rough board of a carriage step, catching the lace of her petticoat between splinters and nails.

The driver held the team but offered no help.

Rose tugged on the lace as people swirled around her. Fear threatened to consume her as it had in the night.

Five, maybe six, steps and she could be inside the hotel. She’d be safe. She moved the bothersome hat to join her carpetbag, not daring to set either down in the street, but even with one free hand, the lace wouldn’t give.

She hated traveling. No matter how well she planned, there was always the unexpected. Big towns like Fort Worth reminded her of her childhood years in Chicago. She remembered swearing she’d never go anywhere by herself, and with her huge family she’d thought she’d be able to keep that promise . . . until now.

She’d come alone, on a mission that made no sense. Yet she’d come, fighting down reason and fear because her friend had sent word that she needed Rose. After weighing the risk, an overnight train ride, and a dawn carriage ride to the hotel, she’d come to help.

Only she hadn’t planned to be tethered to a carriage step in the middle of the Main Street.

Glancing at the hotel door, she tugged again. She took a deep breath, reminding herself that this was in the middle of town and she was not facing down gunfighters or being lost in a stampede. The people almost bumping into her as they passed weren’t even noticing her; they were only rushing to work.

The driver yelled, “Hurry up, lady, I ain’t got all day.”

Rose froze as several people turned her direction. Strangers were staring, some smiling, some laughing, a few looking as if they were sorry they didn’t have time to stop and help. She felt like she’d been tossed in a river and was about to drown if she didn’t act fast.

“May I be of assistance, miss?” a tall stranger in black asked in a tone that seemed more bothered than willing.

Rose detested even the thought that she might be in need of help. She was always the one people turned to on the ranch. “No thank you, sir,” she said without really looking at him. With a firm jerk she felt the lace rip. “I can manage on my own.”

The lace gave and she tumbled backward, finally free but off balance.

The tall stranger’s arm went around her, breaking her fall before she hit the mud. “Careful now, miss,” he said calmly as if her tumbling were an ordinary event in his day.

Rose straightened and pulled away. “I’m fine.”

The stranger tipped his hat and grinned. “I can see that. My mistake to have even attempted aid.”

As if by instinct, he offered his hand to assist her from the street to the walk, but Rose ignored it as she pulled her bag and hat close and rushed for the hotel entrance.

When she reached the huge double doors, she turned feeling obligated to thank him for his help.

Hard gray eyes stared at her a moment before he disappeared into the crowd. Winter eyes, as frosty as the day.

He’d been handsome in a cold kind of way and maybe a bit offended that she hadn’t accepted his help or even thanked him. She was surprised to see such a gentleman in this wild, untamed town. In the menagerie of people, he didn’t seem to fit in somehow. Too clean, too polished.

“May I take your bag?” The doorman reached for her luggage as he touched the brim of his hat.

Rose slipped her carpetbag to her other hand and frowned. “No, thank you, but I’ve a trunk you might pick up before the driver leaves.”

The doorman nodded and waved his gloved hand toward a younger man waiting in the corner. “Of course, miss. You’ll be staying with us then?”

“I’m expected.” Rose walked through the door he held open wide. “I’m with the Chamberlain wedding party.”

The doorman raised an eyebrow. Rose wondered if he’d met the bride, Victoria Chamberlain, and pitied anyone arriving for her wedding. Tori, as Rose and her sister Emily called Victoria, was her own brand of complicated. She’d sent a telegram to Whispering Mountain twenty-four hours ago sounding near panic.

One week until the wedding and big problem. Come quickly. I may not live to wed.

Rose was the only one able, or maybe willing, among the McMurrays to answer the cry for help. She’d tried her best to talk everyone on the ranch into coming with her, but no one felt at twenty-five she needed a companion. Her father insisted she take extra cash. Her mother gave her advice and her best hat, and her uncle, the Texas Ranger, gave her a gun that fit nicely in a hidden pocket of her skirt. They all knew Tori and had decided years ago that Victoria’s crying wolf was more a theme song to her life than any real alarm.

Rose started to question her judgment as she signed in at the desk while the doorman headed upstairs with her trunk. She couldn’t help but wonder what Tori had gotten herself into now. At school, crisis followed her like an echo.

Though they’d been roommates in finishing school, she hadn’t seen Victoria but once since graduation. Rose had been excited to bump into her in Austin at the Governor’s Ball year before last. At twenty-three they might have been much changed from the girls of sixteen, but the friendship was still there. They’d chatted during the ball, loving the closeness between them that remained intact.

Rose remembered being surprised when few men asked Tori to dance. She’d even made her cousin Duncan dance with her friend, but neither looked like they enjoyed the one waltz.

It seemed Victoria Chamberlain, always a beauty, had become polished glass. Men admired her as though she were a painting and not a person. Her friend looked sad even while dressed in the newest fashions.

They parted that night, promising to write, and had every month since the ball, but Tori’s letters grew formal, without the warmth Rose felt when they’d talked face-to-face. Something was wrong. Rose felt it in the letters. Tori was lonely, so lonely she may have rushed into first an engagement and now a marriage.

Rose had been shocked last month to get a wedding invitation. Tori claimed that since Rose was her closest friend, her husband-to-be, August Myers, had agreed to one bridesmaid and, of course, one wedding guest to attend with her. Tori went on to explain how they wanted to keep the wedding small.

So, here Rose was in the grandest hotel in Fort Worth a week before the wedding. Rose was a person of order. Emergencies bothered her. Worry seemed the constant side dish to her life, and with friends like Tori and cousins like Duncan McMurray, the servings were large.

The hotel clerk made Rose jump as he read her signature on the ledger and rushed around the desk. “You’re Miss McMurray? The major told us to expect you early this morning. We have your rooms ready.”

Exhaustion tightened her shoulders as she climbed the stairs. She hadn’t slept on the train. If she calculated correctly, she’d been up twenty-seven hours. Maybe that would explain why she was so on edge. She was no longer a child; big cities and strangers shouldn’t frighten her.

“Your suite of rooms is on the left, Miss McMurray, with a connecting door to Miss Chamberlain’s suite off the sitting room.” The clerk rushed ahead to unlock the door. “Miss Chamberlain’s maid instructed me to tell you her mistress should be back by lunch. She’s at fittings this morning, but the maid is pressing your bridesmaid’s dress for your fitting this afternoon. She said she’d bring it up before Miss Chamberlain and her father, the major, get back.” He leaned forward slightly as if whispering a secret. “All they’ve done since they arrived two days ago is shop.”

Rose let out a long breath and felt the weight of the Colt in her pocket for the first time. It seemed Tori was in no immediate danger other than being gossiped about by the staff. If her father were with her, Tori couldn’t be suffering any pain . . . other than being talked to death. The major’s two favorite pastimes were spoiling his only child and rattling on about politics.

Rose almost laughed. She’d wasted hours trying to imagine what might be the problem that had prompted the telegram. Maybe it was nothing more than wedding jitters.

The clerk opened the door and waved her inside as if the small orderly rooms were a grand palace. “You see, you’ll share a lovely seating room facing our balcony. Your bedroom, a bathing chamber, and a maid’s quarters are just beyond that door. The second-floor balconies on this side overlook the gardens and are considered our jewel among—”

“I’m sure I’ll love them. Thank you.” Rose smiled but closed the door giving him no more time to talk. All she wanted to do right now was wash up and sleep until lunch.

Tossing the hat on the arm of the nearest chair, she removed her traveling coat as she stepped into the bedroom. She pulled the Colt from the hidden pocket and deposited it on the dresser, then unfastened her heavy wool traveling skirt and let it fall. The world was getting far too civilized to worry about train robberies these days. The small gun in her purse should be enough; after all, it was 1876.

As she tugged the pins from her hair and let the midnight curls free, she caught her reflection in a ceiling-high mirror.

The long leather-covered legs of a man resting on the bed behind her made her jump for the Colt.

“Before you get any more undressed, maybe I should say hello?” a deep voice said as the cowboy leaned forward until she could see his face. “I don’t think cousins are supposed to see much more of each other.”

For a second, Rose considered lifting the Colt and firing. She could claim she hadn’t recognized him before she shot. But reason won. “What are you doing here, Duncan?”

“Watching you strip. Please, now you know I’m family, continue.” He might be considered good-looking by most, but she’d always thought his grin a bit wicked. His curly brown hair never had any order and his blue eyes seemed to smile even when they were fighting.

“You need a haircut and a shave.”

“You, on the other hand”—he winked—“look perfect, dear cousin Rose, as always.”

“We’re not kin, so drop the ‘cousin’ bit,” she demanded. “I’m a McMurray because my mother married into the clan when I was five and you were found in an outlaw camp and brought home wild as a bear cub. We may be in the same family, but there is no way we are related.” He’d pestered her since the day she first saw him, and two decades later she was still mad at him. His last attempt to marry her off had almost driven her to drink before the suitor Duncan sent finally gave up courting her and left.

Duncan shrugged as if he’d read her thoughts. “Don’t blame me for Weathers; I thought he was a count.”

She glared at him, then grinned. “I’m not sure he could count. But you, Duncan, didn’t even check. You just sent him to meet me.”

“I’m sorry,” Duncan said with little remorse. “I’ll do a better job next time.”

“Forget it. I don’t want a next time. Stop playing matchmaker.”

He nodded, but she doubted he’d stop. All the McMurray men were stubborn. He might not have been born to the name, but he’d been absorbed into the family.

“I still wouldn’t mind watching you undress.” He changed the subject. “Come on, Rose, in twenty years I’ve never seen one of you girls without layers of clothes on. Hell, Martha, that old witch of a housekeeper, permanently dented my head once for even trying to look in on you bathing.”

She fought down a smile, remembering how Duncan used to fight baths when he was little. He’d slip from his clothes when his adopted mother tried to bathe him and run around sometimes for hours before one of the McMurrays caught him and dropped him in a tub. “I’m afraid I can’t say the same about you. I can smell the trail dust from here.”

He leaned back on the bed and crossed his boots as if he wasn’t listening. “How about we both compromise and take off all our clothes. Then I’m willing to call it even.”

“Get your boots off my clean bed, Duck.” She used the name they’d called him as a boy just to irritate him. No one but his mother had been permitted to call him that since he was ten and had been told by Rose that it wasn’t a proper name for a boy. “What are you doing in Fort Worth or, more accurately, in my bedroom?” She knew asking how he got in would be a waste of time. She’d learned a long time ago that if a squirrel could slip inside a place, so could Duncan McMurray.

“I’m waiting for you. I heard you were heading to Cowtown. Emily wrote and told me how you got pushed into coming to this wedding and how everyone back home begged off on tagging along. I was in Dallas delivering two outlaw brothers to the sheriff when I got a telegram from your dad telling me to check on you. So I rode most the night to get here. Just because no one wants to be around Victoria doesn’t mean they’re not worried about you. That crazy friend of yours is her own kind of strange.”

She walked to the edge of the bed. “You’re checking up on me before I even have time to get into trouble.”