Promise Me Texas (A Whispering Mountain Novel) (20 page)

CHAPTER 22

A
WEEK HAD PASSED SINCE
C
OLBY
D
IXON LEFT
F
ORT
W
ORTH
with the rangers, and they were no closer to catching the outlaws who’d raided his ranch than they had been the first day.

Slim Bates thought the men had sold the stock fast and then turned toward the border. The young ranger had the theory that the outlaws must have been close, maybe even seen Colby come back home, but since Colby rode in with a marshal and rangers, they gave up on their plan to get the deed. His ranch was good-sized, but not worth a shootout with the law.

After three days on the trail, Marshal Butler gave up talking altogether and started complaining. He was ready to call off the search, but he wouldn’t turn his horse around before the others agreed.

On the fourth day, they found two dead men on display at a mission fifty miles from Colby’s ranch. Apparently, they’d tried to rob a stage and only collected lead for their trouble. Among their belongings was a coin purse that Colby said looked like his pa’s. The undertaker had set the bodies out in front of the mission hoping someone would identify them. With the cold weather they’d barely started to smell.

The marshal put his hand on Colby’s shoulder. “Go home, son, get your affairs in order. You’ve got a ranch to run. The trail is cold. I’ll do my best to see if I can find out the names of the two dead men. From there we may be able to get a lead on who they rode with, but it doesn’t look promising.”

Slim reluctantly agreed. “If there is a third man out there still alive, he’ll brag to someone some night when he’s drunk and the rangers will hear about it. I’ll circle by your place one day with good news.”

Colby didn’t want to stop looking, but he saw their reasoning. He needed to be home.

He turned his horse toward home, already thinking of all that needed to be done at the ranch. When he got time, he’d write Madie and the others, telling them everything that had happened. He didn’t know if he’d aged since he’d seen them, or if he was simply so tired he felt old.

Maybe, if he thought of it, he’d mention that Madie could write him back, if she wanted to.

CHAPTER 23

D
ARK WINTER CLOUDS BILLOWED FROM BEHIND THE
mountain as the sun set on the McMurray ranch. Andrew decided for a bachelor who’d spent the past seven years of his life living totally alone, he’d somehow skipped dying and fallen into hell. He had a wife he couldn’t touch, kids who weren’t his, and a father-in-law who he was sure was still plotting to kill him.

As they pulled up to the bridge, Beth took his hand. “This is it, Andrew. This is Whispering Mountain.”

He didn’t miss the pride in her voice. “Should we wake the kids?” Madie and the boys were stretched out in the wagon, sound asleep after staying up all night on the train. It hadn’t been an easy journey, with Madie throwing up twice and Leonard spilling his supper.

His beautiful almost-wife shook her hair free of pins. “No, let them sleep until we reach the house.” With her hair tumbling she looked younger and so beautiful that she took his breath away.

He drove across a wooden bridge that he’d been told had been burned twice over the years to keep strangers out. Not exactly a good sign for him.

The mountain sat behind the huge ranch house as if on guard. It crossed Andrew’s mind that the spirits of the McMurrays’ Apache ancestors might still be watching over future generations. Spirits in the wind, maybe.

Or, maybe not. He hadn’t had any sleep in two days, so maybe his imagination had started dancing with hallucinations.

“The first McMurray to come to Texas was named Andrew also,” Beth said. “Teagan’s father was Irish and still in his teens when he met Autumn at a mission. He’d studied to be a teacher and had inherited a little money in Ireland. Since he had no family left, he headed for Texas. She was Apache, and they fell in love as he taught her to read. Autumn’s father told my grandfather about this land bordered on three sides by water, and they settled here. In the beginning all they had was a few fine horses he’d brought and a dozen ponies her father gave them as a wedding present.”

Andrew studied the quarter mile to the main house as he listened. With luck they’d make it in before the storm broke. He watched a cowboy near the barn climb on his horse and ride out to meet their wagon. A one-man welcoming committee, or someone sent to warn him?

Beth might feel a sense of coming home, but all Andrew felt was an uneasiness whirling around him, colder than the wind.

When the rider drew close, he circled and came up beside Beth. “Welcome back, Bethie,” he said with a tip of his hat. “Your mom told me to ride out and let you know that you’ve got parlor company.”

Beth introduced the hand to Andrew as Jake, then asked, “Any idea who?”

“Yep, he told us all he was Senator Lamont LaCroix. Said it loud as if ordering everyone to remember his handle. When your papa got here about an hour ago on horseback, the senator asked to talk to him in private. Your father closed the parlor doors, but I figure they’ll be out by the time you get to the porch.”

Andrew studied Beth. To her credit, she showed no emotion. She obviously never thought LaCroix would be on the ranch or she never would have come home.

“Thanks for letting us know.” She smiled at Jake. “I was hoping we’d get in without having to deal with company today. It’s been a long trip.”

Jake winked at Andrew. “You’re a lucky man, sir.”

“Yes, I am.” Andrew tried to sound believable, but the last person, next to Chesty Peterson, that he wanted to see was Beth’s ex-fiancé. Both men wanted to kill him, but the outlaw wouldn’t want to talk first.

When the messenger rode off, Beth whispered, “When my mother says, ‘we’ve got parlor company,’ that’s not good. Friends come into the kitchen for coffee. People doing business usually go into my papa’s study, but if she puts them in the parlor to wait, that puts us all on our toes. What do you think he wants?”

“Same as everyone else,” Andrew said simply. “He wants to kill me.”

She looked frustrated. “Oh, I know that, but he’s after more, otherwise he wouldn’t have come to the ranch.”

“It seems quite enough to me.” Andrew grinned. “I spent a year wishing I were dead once. Tried everything: drinking, fighting, starving. Nothing worked. Who knew it would have been so easy if I’d just come out west and met you? Hardly a day goes by that I’m not reminded that I’m counting my remaining days in single digits.”

“You regret saving me from that wreck?”

“No. Funny thing about almost dying—when you realize you’re still breathing, you feel fully alive.” He meant his words and wished he had time to tell her the hundred ways she’d made him remember to breathe lately. But there was no time now. They had another problem to face first.

“You’ll stand with me on this lie?”

“Of course,” he answered. “For better or worse, for richer or poorer. Till death us do part.”

He could feel her watching him as she whispered, “I’m sorry. I never thought it would go this far. I thought Lamont would leave after I told him I was your wife. You’d get better and I’d say good-bye at dawn and ride away.”

Andrew didn’t answer. They were close enough to the house to see Lamont watching from what must be the parlor window. Thunder seemed to vibrate the ground as Andrew climbed from the wagon and lifted Beth down.

He’d grown used to the easy ways he touched her. Nothing too personal, just the way a man touches his woman in public. Only there were no private touches to balance out his hunger for more. He enjoyed talking to her; she had a strong mind. He liked working with her—she’d helped him greatly—but he missed really touching her. The need ached in him, washing over him when he least expected it.

For a moment, he held her a little longer, a little closer than needed, and, to his surprise, she didn’t seem to mind at all.

A small woman with gray hair ran from the porch and hugged Beth as if she hadn’t seen her in years. “My baby,” she cried. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

Beth laughed, but he didn’t miss the tears in her eyes. “Now, Momma, you know I’m full-grown. I want you to meet my husband.”

Jessie McMurray stared at Andrew as if she thought he’d stolen her child, but all Andrew saw was her beauty. Beth might have gotten her stubborn streak from her papa, but she got her looks from her mother.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. McMurray. I’m very sorry I didn’t get the chance to meet you before we married.”

Beth looped her arm in his. “I couldn’t let go of him from the minute I met him. It’s my fault I didn’t bring him home first, but I thought of myself as married to him from the moment we met.”

Jessie nodded. “I felt the same way about your papa.” She started up the steps. “Now, come on into the kitchen. I know you didn’t stop for supper. Teagan asked me to have something ready for you when he rode in earlier. You know your papa, he’s not coming in on a wagon if he can ride a horse and be home in half the time.”

Beth didn’t follow her mother but backed toward the wagon. “Did Papa tell you we brought guests?” She helped Leonard down just as huge drops of half-frozen rain began to tumble from the sky. Levi scrambled out just behind his brother, then stepped in front as if guarding.

“No, he didn’t, but get those kids in here before they get wet. I’ll meet them while I’m putting food on the table.” She smiled at Andrew. “Bethie knows I always make extra. I’ll just add a little water to the gravy and we’ll have plenty.”

If LaCroix hadn’t been staring out the window, Andrew might have felt right at home.

Jessie motioned everyone along the wide porch and around to the kitchen door, as if she’d forgotten there was a front door to the house.

Andrew seemed the only one to notice Lamont staring from behind the thin lace curtain. He thought he saw the outline of Teagan standing back near the parlor doors with his arms folded. If Andrew were guessing, he’d say Lamont wouldn’t be joining them for dinner.

As they ate the best food he could ever remember having, Beth told her mother all about what had happened from the time she left home. Except, of course, she left out the part about them not being really married or in love.

He liked watching her in her own surroundings. There was an ease about the way she moved, getting up to refill his coffee before he even thought to ask, touching his shoulder as if it were something she’d grown accustomed to doing, answering for him now and then when her mother asked a question.

Finally, when the boys and Madie had gone off with the cook to pick their rooms, Andrew found time to ask about the man in the parlor.

Jessie McMurray frowned. “Teagan’s keeping him company. People who come unannounced often have to wait awhile in the parlor.”

Beth laughed. “Papa never talks to anyone more than a few minutes, so I doubt Lamont feels like he has company.”

“I know,” Jessie answered, “but since he’s been here, all Lamont does is talk. I think if we left a pair of bull ears in the parlor, he’d keep talking.”

“How long has he been here?” Beth asked.

“Two days. When he arrived I didn’t know you’d married someone else. He told me he’d come here to wait for you. Since your papa wasn’t home, I didn’t think it would be proper to let him stay in the house, so I had him set up in the bunkhouse.”

When she paused, Beth finished her mother’s sentence. “And now the cowhands are complaining.”

Jessie nodded. “There’s a pot going on which man will knock him out first. He told them all about how he planned to run for one of the seats from Texas, and one of the men said he was thinking Texas should secede again.” She giggled behind her hand. “Once he got around to telling them you didn’t marry him, I think the men decided they’d had enough of his talk. He came over here for breakfast, but I left him with the cook.”

Andrew fought to keep from laughing. Most of the time he thought he did little right to please Beth, but all he had to do was stand next to Lamont and he won out. Teagan would probably let him live now that he saw what Beth’s other choice had been. An out-of-work writer looked far more prosperous than an out-of-work senator, and the writer would be quieter.

Teagan stomped into the kitchen, and Andrew stood. “Evening, sir,” he said.

Teagan waved him back into his seat and poured himself a cup of coffee while Jessie served him up a slice of pie. “I told your ex-fiancé to call it a night, Bethie. You’ve been traveling all day and don’t need to face him. He claims he wants to plead his case, but I think he just wants to talk us all to death.”

“I don’t need to face him again ever, Papa.” She stood up to her father.

“He seems to think you do.”

She jumped from her chair and paced. “That man has no business coming here. I told him I was married and that should be enough. If he doesn’t—”

“Andrew!” Teagan shouted over her tantrum. “Get a handle on your wife before she wakes up the milk cow in the barn.”

“Me?” Andrew said almost calmly. “I’ve had her for two weeks; you’ve known her all her life. Why don’t you calm her down? You’re the one who spoiled her until she thinks she always gets her way.” He stared at Teagan. “And, you’re the one who has got her all upset.”

Teagan opened his mouth, obviously to swear, then thought better of it when his wife cleared her throat.

“Bethie,” Jessie said as she pulled out a chair for her daughter, “we’ve faced this problem many times before. You smile at some man and he starts hanging around thinking you’ll marry him. Half the men in the state have made fools of themselves trying to catch your eye.”

“Only this time I’m married, Momma. I’ve done nothing to encourage Lamont. When I saw the kind of man he was, I knew I could never marry him.”

“I know, dear; just like all the rest, he didn’t measure up.”

Teagan had calmed and was now staring at Andrew. “Why’d she marry you, McLaughlin? She finds fault in every man who looks her direction. What’s so special about you?”

Andrew decided to go for honesty. “Hell if I know.”

Teagan raised an eyebrow. “That makes two of us, but she must have seen something. Maybe you’ll show better in daylight.”

Beth’s father looked him up and down, and Andrew waited for the insult about his clothes.

Jessie stepped between the two men. “We can talk about this in the morning. I planned on putting the newlyweds in Duncan and Rose’s new little cabin by the stream, but we’ll never get a wagon down there tonight with this rain, and we’ll have ice and snow by morning. So, if you don’t mind sleeping in the new wing, Beth, Papa and I will take the extra bedroom in the old wing and watch over the children you brought.”

Teagan didn’t look happy at having to move out of his room. “Bethie’s room is all done up in pink with her doll collection on one wall. You have a problem with that, McLaughlin?”

“None at all,” Andrew answered.

“I didn’t figure you would, considering the way you’re dressed and all.”

Jessie patted Teagan on the chest as if he were a wild animal. “Come along, dear, you can pick on the new son-in-law in the morning.”

Andrew listened to the middle-aged couple moving down the hallway to what he guessed was the older part of the house. He wondered if he’d ever understand someone as well as they did each other. Beth must have been raised around this kind of love and acceptance; he didn’t even know how to react to it.