Jodi Thomas (29 page)
Authors: The Lone Texan
“Ready?” Bonnie whispered.
“Ready.” Sage tried to smile. It was time to move on, she thought, in more ways than one.
The road between their home and Austin had been safe for years, but Sage still remembered the time she’d been on a stage and they’d been attacked. She left Austin well-armed and silently wishing Drummond were by her side.
The third morning out of Austin, Bonnie Faye Pierce sat in the buggy alone. Over the miles she’d learned to drive the small, one-horse contraption that carried her, the luggage, and sometimes little Andy when he decided he needed a nap mid-afternoon.
Sage usually sat beside Will in the front wagon. The seven-year-old was good with the reins and could have handled the team alone, but Sage thought it safer to ride beside him. They were the lead wagon, setting the pace on the trail. Then came Bonnie in what everyone called “her” buggy. Next, a tough old man drove the four-horse team that pulled a wagonload of supplies for the clinic. Bringing up the rear were two wagons Travis’s wife Rainey had packed with household supplies she thought they’d need to set up the apartment where they’d live in back of the clinic.
Bonnie couldn’t believe this crazy dream of the doctor’s was happening. Months ago in Boston right after they’d buried Dr. Barret Lander, Sage had told Bonnie of her plan. She’d even shown her a letter to her brothers back in Texas describing exactly what she needed to set up an office in a little town that didn’t seem to have a name.
Apparently the McMurray family had been working on the clinic while Sage and Bonnie traveled.
The McMurray family was the opposite of her family, she thought. She’d stopped by to see her brother before leaving Boston. He’d told her not to wire for money if she hated Texas, because it wouldn’t be coming. Then he’d asked her to sign the house over to him. When she’d refused, he’d told her to leave, because as far as he was concerned, he had no living relatives.
Bonnie smiled to herself. She’d left his house and walked to the bank. There, she asked the banker to handle the sale of her parents’ old home, should a buyer come along. He’d promised to check into selling the place but didn’t give her much hope.
It didn’t matter, she told herself. In a few days the traveling would be over, and she would step into her new life as the nurse in charge of probably the world’s smallest clinic. They’d planned it all and talked about every detail so often, she could see every square foot of it in her mind. She’d have her own apartment, a new place with walls that held out the wind and a roof that didn’t leak.
Three mornings later, as they moved out once more, thunder rattled in the distance, promising rain, but no one slowed. They were within a day of reaching a small town located an hour from Sage’s family ranch. Rain or shine, Sage planned to make it there by nightfall, and Bonnie, as always, followed along.
Only today, bright sunshine couldn’t have changed her mood. The doctor might be almost dancing with excitement, but Bonnie felt the clouds press all the way to her heart.
A tear started down her cheek. Bonnie shoved it aside. She wouldn’t cry. She’d act happy, even if she knew deep down she was going to destroy Sage’s dream.
Bile rose in her throat, but she fought to keep from throwing up again. If she stopped the caravan one more time this morning, someone was sure to notice. Bonnie chewed down another piece of dry bread and prayed her stomach would settle.
It had been more than a month since the night with her cowboy, and even if she wanted to forget it, she knew she couldn’t. She never would. For the proof of it already grew in her belly. The very proper Bonnie Faye Pierce was pregnant.
She’d thought there was no label worse than old maid. Now she realized there was one: the label of fallen woman.
CHAPTER 30
D
RUM SPENT TWO WEEKS ROAMING AROUND WITH THE Rangers, trying to find a way into the outlaw hideout. They even attempted to lead their horses up the incline that he’d rolled down, but the slope was too steep. The horses wouldn’t climb, and the risk of breaking one of the animals’ legs seemed too great. All the men agreed that they wouldn’t want to go into the hideout on foot, so they regrouped several miles east and sent out scouts, hoping to find another way in.
RUM SPENT TWO WEEKS ROAMING AROUND WITH THE Rangers, trying to find a way into the outlaw hideout. They even attempted to lead their horses up the incline that he’d rolled down, but the slope was too steep. The horses wouldn’t climb, and the risk of breaking one of the animals’ legs seemed too great. All the men agreed that they wouldn’t want to go into the hideout on foot, so they regrouped several miles east and sent out scouts, hoping to find another way in.
Daniel Torry had Drum draw out a map of the back way in. He claimed if he ever went in again with his old man, he wanted an exit if things turned bad.
Drum found it strange that the Rangers talked to him now. He wasn’t used to being included, and for the most part, he found it bothersome. The only peace he seemed to have was at night after everyone turned in. He’d slip from his bedroll and move far beyond the firelight. In the stillness, he’d take a deep breath and try to remember the exact way Sage’s hair smelled or how she’d tasted when he’d kissed her. He’d never missed anyone in his life, but he missed her all the way to his soul. She was a part of him; she had been since the first time he saw her.
The world had always been dark and dangerous for him. Even staying alive before he grew to be a man seemed sometimes a waste of effort. She didn’t just offer light, she made him want to be a better man. He thought of all the things in his life that he’d done because of her, and she wouldn’t ever know about most of them.
Drum smiled in the darkness. He’d even talked Mrs. Dickerson into teaching him to read one winter, and he’d spent a day in a fancy hotel dining room watching people eat so he wouldn’t embarrass her if the McMurrays did ever invite him to Sunday dinner. He bought his clothes tailor made and his boots were custom. It seemed like everything he did, he wondered what she’d think about it or if she’d even care.
He’d wait until almost dawn, then go back to bed.
One night, Daniel rolled over when he returned. “I figure you must be part wolf or coyote, Roak. You hunt at night while the rest of us sleep.”
“You’re drunk,” Roak mumbled. “Go back to sleep.”
Daniel didn’t argue with the diagnosis. “Not drunk enough,” he said as he took another long draw on a flask. “I still remember where I am.”
“Where are you?” Drum asked, just to pester his friend.
“I’m wandering around trying to get myself killed. That’s were I am.” He grinned. “It’s my absolute favorite thing in the whole world to do.”
Drum laughed. “I don’t know which one of us is crazy, you for trying to get yourself killed so you’ll die a hero or me for going along with you just so I can spoil your plan.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Daniel answered. “At least I’m not mooning over a woman.”
“What makes you say that?”
Daniel snorted. “You’re crazy about that little doc. I seen it the first day. But you’re going about it all wrong.”
“I am.”
“Sure. If you want a woman to like you, you got to act like you’re not interested in her. The minute you turn away, they run toward you.”
Drum knew that would be impossible. “You have experience at this?”
“Sure. I’m always acting like I don’t much like the girls I meet. My problem is they all return the favor and act like they don’t like me. If I ever find one willing to come after me, I’ll toss the whiskey and run just long enough for her to catch me.” He was silent for a while, then he asked, “Did you ever wonder what it’d be like to live with a woman, day after day? Sleeping with her every night through the seasons? Talking to her about important stuff and about nothing at all? Having a woman worry if you ate enough and dust you off like she was proud to be with you?”
Drum knew without asking that Daniel was like him; he’d never had a woman care about him. “I’ve wondered,” he said.
Daniel laughed. “I’m wild as a mustang, but I tell you, if a woman ever roped me, I don’t think I’d mind being corralled.” He took another drink, and neither of them said anything else. They were both lost in their own thoughts.
Drum offered Daniel no sympathy the next morning when he had to dunk his head in the stream to clear it enough to ride. Daniel was one of the best Rangers, levelheaded and dependable in a fight, but like half the troop, he medicated his fear with whiskey from time to time. Drum never asked him about his past, but he’d heard the captain tell someone once that he’d lost his mother and sister in a fire over near Victoria when he’d been about four or five. His old man hadn’t slept beneath a roof since. By the time Daniel was old enough to join the Rangers, he’d rattled around most of the state with his father selling whiskey on weekdays and preaching on Sundays. For him, being out on the land was the only home he could probably remember.
Drum offered Daniel a towel when he walked from the stream with his brown hair dripping. “You might want to think about drinking a little less at night,” he said.
Daniel nodded, then moaned. “I think about it every morning. Trouble is, once I start drinking, I stop thinking.”
Drum laughed as he watched two Rangers riding in hard from the direction of the opening to Skull Alley. One led a horse with the rider bound and blindfolded.
The lead man pulled ahead and yelled, “Cap, we caught one of Hanover’s guards riding out alone.”
All the men in camp gathered round as the Ranger swung off his horse. “He gave up without too much of a fight.”
Everyone watched the other Ranger pull the prisoner off his horse and remove the blindfold. In a heartbeat Drum recognized the outlaw as the one who’d brought Sage into the saloon and looped the rope, tied around her neck, over a beam so she’d choke if she didn’t stand up straight and still for the auction.
Anger boiled in every part of his body as Roak moved blindly toward his guns hanging over his saddle.
Daniel slapped a hand against his chest and warned him to stop.
“You know who he is,” Drum hissed.
“I know, and I want to kill him only slightly less than you do right now.”
Daniel held him back while Drum swore. He knew Daniel was right, but that didn’t make standing still any easier.
“Roak, calm down. Let the captain have his say; then I’ll help you string the bastard up.”
Captain Harmon walked past Drum as if he didn’t hear his newest Ranger threatening to kill the prisoner slowly and painfully. “I’ll have your name,” he shouted over Roak’s swearing.
“Luther Waddell.” The big man stood up straight, chest out, like a prisoner expecting a bullet any moment and refusing to beg for his life.
The captain studied him. “Want to tell me what your business is? And don’t try to lie. I got two men here who saw you in the count’s hideout, and one of them is mighty anxious to kill you.” He glanced in Drum’s direction. There were two Rangers holding him back now.
Luther measured Drum. “If I tell you what I’m doing, I want your word that you won’t let that fellow decide my fate. I don’t much mind dying, but he’s promising I’ll beg for death before he’s through, and I can see in his eyes he’s not bluffing.”
Captain Harmon nodded. “Agreed, but only if you’re honest. I can smell a lie.”
Luther turned to Drum and yelled, “I figured she might be your lady that night in the saloon. Ain’t never seen a man pay two hundred dollars for a night. Except she didn’t look too happy to be climbing the stairs with you. I still thought she’d be safer with you than with most of the other men wanting her.”
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