Texas Brides Collection (25 page)

J
ed closed his eyes, terror swimming like ice water in his veins.
Father, I can’t even figure out what I’m supposed to do with myself, much less with a mess of strangers
. Instead of a clear answer, Jed heard the laughter of children in the distance and felt a deep peace descend, only to leave a moment later. He opened his eyes. Grace Delaney looked back expectantly.

“I’ll stay,” he said, unable to believe he’d voiced the words.

“Thank you,” she whispered. For a moment, she lay back on the pillow as if all her worries had left her.

Something poured from those eyes besides the tears shimmering there, and whatever it was, Jed felt the impact right down to his boots. It seemed as if this woman had curled up behind his heart and settled there when he hadn’t been looking. A crazy thought, considering the only thing he knew about her was she’d been a mighty fine cook in her younger days.

He felt the need to say something, anything, to shift the focus from him, possibly to keep her from thinking he meant what he’d said. “But you’re going to be just fine, so there’s no need to worry about those babies of yours. Come spring, this one here’s going to be running around, and you’ll have three underfoot.”

“I can tell…” Her words trailed off as a wave of what must have been pain washed over her, tightening her features into a nearly unrecognizable mask that seemed to remain in place an eternity before it slowly ebbed away. “You haven’t been around many babies,” she finished.

“No, I haven’t,” he said, instantly grateful for the change in conversation. “See, I was the youngest of a mess of boys, and my mama said if I’d been first, I’d have been an only child.” Grace almost managed a smile, so he continued. “We were a lively group, and I’m sure we sorely tried my mother’s patience.”

“Your mother,” she whispered through parched lips. “Is she still alive?”

He shook his head. “The fever took her back in forty-one.”

“Mine, too.” A gut-wrenching scream tore any further conversation from her mouth.

Theresa came running, and he fully expected to be sent from the room immediately. Dashing his hopes, the woman ordered him to a place near the head of the bed.

“Grab her by the shoulders and shove hard when I say the word. This baby’s got to come or else we’re gonna lose her.”

In his lifetime Jed had seen many a man suffer. Never had he seen anyone in such a shape as this woman. Never did he intend to see it again, not even through one eye.

“The children,” she managed. “You promised.”

He slid into place behind her and rested his hands on shoulders too thin and delicate to bear the weight of her present troubles. The position pained his own shoulder a bit and made his wound ache, but he knew it was nothing compared to what the woman bore.

From deep within his soul came the urgent call to pray, which he answered with a desperate plea for help. After a moment, Theresa leveled a hard stare at Jed, interrupting his prayers.

“What did you promise about those babies?”

Grace’s cry of agony prevented his answer. What came next robbed him of the power to do anything but breathe, and he almost forgot to do that. From beneath the heavy quilt emerged something wet and bloody. It looked to be about the size of a fair to middling puppy, but without the hair and tail.

It was still and colored a pale blue.

Theresa swirled a length of toweling around it and thrust it toward Jed, her face without expression. Grace’s eyes slid shut, and her body relaxed as if all the life had gone out of her. Easing damp shoulders onto the mattress, Jed accepted the bundle and followed Theresa’s silent direction to take it and leave the room. On his way out, he slipped the letter in his pocket.

He met Shaw on the porch. “Ruth fetched the children down to pick pecans,” the older man mumbled.

Jed nodded and shifted the bundle to rest against his chest. Instinctively, he wrapped the jacket he realized he’d never taken off around the lump of toweling.

With his free hand, he fished out the letter and handed it to Shaw. The elder man’s dark gaze scanned the writing, then looked up to lock with his. A wave of recognition passed between them.

Shaw looked away to study the porch rail. “I believe I’ll saddle up and ride to town,” he said as he placed the letter gingerly in his coat pocket. “Ain’t no boats today, and the hands can manage what might come. Lord willin’ I’ll be back by breakfast.”

“That’s a fine idea,” Jed answered. “Did you say Ruth had the children down by the pecan tree?”

Their eyes met, and understanding dawned on the gentleman’s wrinkled face. He allowed his gaze to fall to the bundle in Jed’s arms.

“I believe I’ll have her fetch them back to the house. They can busy theyselves upstairs here jest as well as they can play at pickin’ pecans.”

Jed passed by the elder man, studying first the ground and then the horizon as he went. It looked to be a few hours before sunset, plenty of time to lay this soul to rest while there was still light left in the day.

Pulling his coat a little closer against his chest, Jed set off. From his wanderings, he knew where to go with the child, and from his dealings with the inquisitive Bennett and Mary, he knew to be careful to stay out of sight lest they be nearby.

The wind blew across him then abruptly shifted and stalled just as he entered the clearing where the pecan tree stood. Warmth flooded his bones and made his weary heart want to lay down his burdens right where he’d stopped. Instead, he clutched the bundle of blankets tighter to his chest and hit his knees like a preacher late for church.

“Lord, I aim to give this little one over to Your care.” The prayer seemed lacking in something, and frustration brought tears to his eyes. Or maybe it was the body in his arms. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You took him before he even got started, but if You could, give him a warm bed and a full belly tonight in heaven because he’s a scrawny little thing.”

Carefully, he unwrapped the bundle a bit to show the Lord. Shock rendered him speechless when he saw two dark blue eyes looking back at him from a tiny face just as pink as the evening sky.

The war whoop he’d perfected riding with Jack Hays’s First Texas Division during the Mexican campaign back in forty-six echoed across the trees and seemed to shake the very ground on which he knelt. The babe he held in the crook of his arm began to cry, and so did he as he raced toward the house and the woman busying herself at the stove near the window.

“You hush yourself. Can’t you see Miz Grace is trying to—” Theresa flung the back door open and froze when she heard the baby’s cries. “Oh praise the Lord! Ranger, you done saved us again.”

“I didn’t do anything,” he said, though he knew she took no heed of his words as she collected the child and ran to reunite him with his mother.

Bone tired and weary beyond description, Jed sank into the rocker beside the fire and let the warmth seep into his soul. A floor above him, the children played, while down the hall, women wept aloud.

But there in the kitchen, Jed sat alone with his thoughts. He’d promised the state of Texas to be a ranger, the Lord to be a mouthpiece of the gospel, and Grace Delaney to be the keeper of her children until her father came to claim them. Only a miracle would allow him to do all three.

And if anyone could be counted worthy of a miracle, it sure wasn’t him.

It was a miracle, pure and simple. Through the agony of childbirth, her baby boy had been taken away, and through the grace of God and the work of a single Texas Ranger, he had been returned.

Grace blinked back the tears to focus on the man who’d brought her son back. Every evening for more days than she could count, he had come to her room bearing his leather Bible, just as he carried it now.

At first, he merely sat quietly in the corner, dragging her favorite Empire chair from the parlor to sit quietly and read. Theresa said he’d maintained the habit of guarding her door during the dark days following Adam’s birth, a birth she had little more than a dim memory of.

As she improved, he continued to visit, always bringing the Bible and the Empire chair. Nearly two months later, they still held evening visits, only now they spent the time talking across the kitchen table. The one topic they never seemed to cover was how long Jed would continue to visit her table or how long he would carry on the charade of running the landing.

Soon the new year would dawn, and on its heels would come the spring. Grace smiled and gave thanks for living in Texas, a place where the icy winds of winter merely teased but did not linger. If only she could be certain the ranger would be there to share in the joy of it. He’d become a part of the family in the months since his arrival, and even the baby sometimes quieted to the ranger’s touch when Grace’s did not satisfy.

She pictured the dark-haired ranger with the children and smiled. For such a big man, he certainly had a way with her babies. He’d begun to teach Bennett tales from the Bible, and Mary, ever the tagalong, had insisted he teach her as well.

Indeed, they’d all become quite attached to Captain Harte. He would never replace her precious Ben—nothing ever would—but he had somehow managed to carve a tiny spot in her heart and a huge place in her life.

This evening, as Jed settled across the table from her, she noticed a paper half hidden in the pages of the Bible. It looked to be a letter, although only closer inspection could say for sure. If Jed noticed her interest, he gave no indication.

Resolving to put curiosity out of her mind, Grace threaded a needle and picked up one of Mary’s gowns from the mending basket. Now, if she could just keep her attention on her task and off the ranger. She cast a quick glance beneath her lashes.

Tall and arguably easy on the eye, Jed Harte made a figure to be reckoned with, despite the lopsided grin on his face. Lately, although she took great pains not to let it show, that lopsided grin had begun to set off butterflies in her stomach.

As he’d done so many times, Jed began to thumb through the pages. “Grace, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to something, and I’d be obliged if I could ask your opinion on it.”

She nodded and continued with her mending.

“I’m wrestling with something I can’t get a rope around. That ever happen to you?” He removed the paper—definitely a letter—and let the Bible fall open.

“Of course,” she answered, looking away with a start when he caught her staring.

“Well, this is new territory for me. I reckon it all started back when the Lord caught up with me.” He reached for the knife and cut off a large slice of fresh pecan pie. “I figured my ranger days were behind me.” Pausing to eat a bite, he gave her an expectant look.

“Why?” was all she could think to ask.

“Because when I took the Lord into my life, He washed me clean.” Jed cut a slash through the air with his fork. “No more killing; just preaching.”

Grace paused and rested the needle in the cloth. “But now?”

“But now I’ve gone and made other promises.” He paused to chew another bite of pie. “And I’ve killed.”

She winced at the reference. “You shot a man to protect us, Jed.”

They’d never spoken of what happened that night, and Grace sensed now was still not the time. She searched her mind for another topic to discuss.

“Did I ever tell you that the day I found you I had just asked God to bring me a ranger to help?”

To her surprise, Jed closed the book and pushed away from the table. With his big feet thundering across the floor like a herd of elephants, he stormed out the back door and into the night, leaving the Bible and his plate of barely eaten pie on the table.

Grace dropped her mending into the basket and picked up the Bible. The temptation to open the book and read the letter tugged at her, but she refused to give in. On a whim, she grabbed the plate and set off to find the ranger.

He’d taken to sleeping in one of the empty shacks behind the house, or at least that’s what she’d overheard Uncle Shaw telling Theresa. As soon as she rounded the corner past the summer kitchen, she saw the light shining in a derelict dwelling some distance away.

Bypassing the cozy cottage Theresa and Shaw called home, Grace headed toward the dim light, holding the plate of food on top of the Bible. Before she could knock, the door flew open and the ranger appeared, gun drawn. The Bible, the plate, and the pie clattered to the ground, and she whirled backward, landing in a very unladylike heap on the soft ground.

“What are you doing here?” Jed stuffed the gun into his belt and lifted her easily to her feet, retrieving the Bible as well.

A chill danced across Grace’s spine that could be only partly blamed on the temperature. “Well, I, um—” she began.

“I could have killed you, Grace,” he said on a rush of breath smelling faintly of sugar and pecans.

“Oh, I hardly think so.” She attempted a smile. “Besides, you didn’t even have time to aim.”

In an instant, the chill went out of the air. Suddenly there were only two people in the world, and one of them could have melted into a puddle at any moment. The other, the ranger, looked rightly aggrieved.

“I don’t miss,” he said evenly.