Promise Me Texas (A Whispering Mountain Novel) (8 page)

CHAPTER 8

L
ONG AFTER
B
ETH CURLED UP IN HER BEDROLL,
A
NDREW
watched the night sky and thought of the stories she’d told him when he was finally able to get the taste of her lips out of his thoughts. The stories were the reason he came to Texas. He’d wanted to know what drove people to come to this wild land. What made them stay and love it so?

In a strange way, the stories of others made him feel alive. He was like a sixteenth-century vampire wanting to suck the blood out of the living. Nothing had mattered to him for so long that Andrew wasn’t sure he still had a pulse. He rarely stayed more than a year at any one place. Growing up, there was always a new stepfather, new school, new town. All his life, in school after school, he’d always been a stranger, cared for, but never loved. Some years, when he came home for the holidays he’d find his mother gone with her husband-of-the-month. She’d always leave a note naming some housekeeper or “trusted friend” he didn’t know to watch over him.

When he found Hannah, he thought he’d lucked out and discovered the one person who might love him. He was twenty-three and she nineteen. He met her at the bank where they both worked. He’d noticed her before but didn’t speak until he saw she was reading the same book he was. The poems of Walt Whitman,
Leaves of Grass
. He’d been so cocky that first conversation, telling her that the title was a play on words, with
grass
being a publishing term for “minor value” and
leaves
another name for “pages.” Hannah had thought him brilliant.

Since neither had family, they were married a few weeks later by a judge at the courthouse, and she moved in with him that night. They were so happy they didn’t even know they were poor. He’d had fourteen months of heaven before she died, but the pain of her loss still haunted him. Even now, his kind Hannah with her soft voice and gentle ways always seemed near, but just beyond his reach.

He’d taken her body from Boston to Washington, D.C., to be buried next to his mother in a family plot that had M
C
L
AUGHLIN
over the gate. He couldn’t stand the thought of her being buried among strangers.

As he stood over Hannah’s grave, he noticed a small leather pouch placed in the V of his mother’s headstone. It was from a lawyer asking that if Andrew McLaughlin ever returned to this spot, he should contact someone at the firm of Smith and Adams. The letter added that all other efforts to contact him had been exhausted. Andrew hadn’t thought of leaving a forwarding address. He knew no one would care.

He almost left the note there. He wanted nothing to do with his last stepfather and had no use for his mother’s things. A week later, when he finally did step into the office of Smith and Adams, he found that his mother had left him a small account from money she must have skimmed for emergencies between husbands. It wasn’t much, but over the years, when he’d needed money, he’d always been able to wire the lawyers.

The past few years he’d needed little, thanks to selling a few stories about his travels to magazines and articles to papers across the country. The lawyers said they’d invested the leftover money for him. Someday he’d buy a house on a cliff in Maine or on one of the little islands along Florida’s inland coast. There, he’d live alone with only the memories of his travels and a kiss he’d shared with a beautiful Texas lady.

Andrew stared at the dying campfire. Beth was quickly becoming one of his favorite memories, even though she hadn’t left yet. It had been a few years since he’d kissed a woman. He couldn’t even remember the name of the widow who’d let him spend the night with her for a few dollars one cold night in New Orleans. She’d smelled of spices and her hair had been black. She was liquid passion in his arms, but he felt like it was a practiced recipe. At dawn he’d paid his money and left, never once looking back.

As he crawled into his bedroll in the buckboard, Andrew realized that when he left Beth McMurray in a few days, no matter what did or didn’t happen between them, he’d look back for one last memory of her.

The next day, he wrote her stories in his journal as they moved along the road between Dallas and Fort Worth. The air was cold, but not bitter, and the rain had left the road more a stream at some points.

Now and then they’d pass other travelers, and Andrew was impressed with how friendly strangers were in this part of the country. Beth often stopped to talk, asking about the road up ahead and wishing them well on their journey. Once, to a family who looked down on their luck, she asked if they needed any peaches and gave away half of the fruit she’d packed for the trip. She claimed her group wouldn’t eat them and they’d be doing her a favor.

It had taken him an hour last night to record everything he’d wanted to remember about the day.

By the second morning Andrew was strong enough to drive the team, and Colby had recovered enough to sit up behind him and tell him how. Andrew had been right about the kid; he hadn’t seen his eighteenth birthday, but he was a hardened cowhand. He’d been raised on a ranch and he’d finished his first big cattle drive.

Andrew also noticed that Colby didn’t seem able to talk when Madie was near. She was younger than he was by almost three years, but if Andrew were guessing, he’d say Colby had been around very few girls near his age. She fretted over him, and he politely pushed her away.

Two things were obvious about the cowboy. He knew his way around Texas, and he was crazy about Beth McMurray. Maybe it was because he thought she’d saved his life, but Colby couldn’t stop staring at her. He saw her as Joan of Arc, and he would have followed her into any battle. He kept asking her one question after another just to hear her voice. Levi got so tired of it he declared no one could ask any more dumb questions until dark.

Andrew wasn’t surprised when Beth saddled his horse and rode beside the wagon. She handled the pinto better than he ever had. He rode out of necessity; she rode for pure pleasure. With her acting as scout, they made better time and soon connected with a stage road that was far smoother.

That evening she entertained them all with stories of the McMurrays. She told how Travis McMurray had been a Texas Ranger and ridden in raids after the war to bring home children who’d been kidnapped. She told of the legend of Whispering Mountain that her Apache great-grandfather had told them about. “If a man sleeps on the summit of the mountain, he’ll dream his future. My grandfather dreamed his death, and my father dreamed he’d have daughters,” she told them.

Late into the night, she told them of storms and grass fires the family fought and how once her uncle had almost died in a raging river. She described the hard time during the war when her papa plowed their ranch land in long rows to plant enough food to feed the townsfolk. Madie even cried when Beth described her uncle Drummond Roak walking home after the war and how he was so thin her aunt Sage didn’t recognize him.

For children raised in the West, the stories of hardship were well known, but for Andrew, who’d spent most of his life in the East, they were fascinating. He’d never owned land or cared about a part of the country. The year he’d been married, he’d worked as a teller in a bank, and his journey each day had been three blocks between their rented flat and the bank. He and Hannah had lived near the the center of town. Their exciting evenings were usually walking along the streets and watching people. He’d make up stories about all the strangers and she’d laugh.

He was twenty-four when she died of pneumonia. He’d left everything in his life behind, walking out with only one small pack and a blank journal. That day he began to wander. Always reading, always studying, hoping to find something that interested him, always writing in his journal.

Now, as he looked at Beth, he realized he might have finally found what he was looking for.
She
interested him. She’d fill an entire journal, and years from now when he read about her, she’d keep him warm with memories of her and her Texas.

That night, when she came to tell him good night, he held her, wishing she’d stay by his side a little longer. Every day was one more day he’d have to remember, but he knew they’d reach Fort Worth tomorrow. Tonight was their last night together, and her kiss had been quick, as if she’d been in a hurry to pull away.

He let her walk back to the campfire, having no idea how to stop her.

After everyone settled in around the campfire, Andrew walked into the darkness and studied the stars. Colby had said tonight that the heavens were all the roof he ever wanted. Andrew thought he might adopt that philosophy for a while. He was tired of towns and cities; maybe that was why he’d spent more nights away from his place in Fort Worth than he usually did. The past few years, every time he felt he needed to move on, he always moved west. Sometimes only a town or two, sometimes a state. He didn’t want to just see new lands, he wanted to feel them around him and understand the people who called them home.

He’d change yet again. Maybe he’d start wearing western clothes and carrying a gun. He couldn’t see himself joining the Rangers, but he might sign on for a cattle drive. Surely the skills needed could be learned. Who knows, he might even ask Colby to teach him.

Sometimes he felt like his life was a blank canvas, and every now and then, when he almost got a painting watercolored in, the rain would come along and wash it all away. He’d started over so many times, even starting over didn’t feel new.

“It’s a nice night,” Beth said softly from about ten feet away.

Andrew turned, watching her move toward him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She laughed. “I know you probably think I only talk to you when something’s wrong, but there hasn’t been much time for the two of us to have a conversation.”

He had a feeling they were going to have one now, so he waited for it. She was a planner, a goal setter, a measurer of time and task. For a drifter without purpose she was a hard pill to swallow sometimes, even with her beauty.

“I was wondering why you haven’t even tried to kiss me again.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to come to me if you’re interested. I can’t kiss you while there’s an audience, and I won’t come after you.”

“I’m interested,” she said, without moving closer. She’d walked all the way out here and couldn’t seem to make it the last few inches. “I’ve always had men come after me. You seem to have become a challenge for me.”

“Why do you want another kiss?” It dawned on him he had nothing to offer a woman like her. She was the kind of woman who married a powerful man with goals and ambition. He didn’t even know where he’d be six months from now.

She was silent for so long he thought she might not answer. When she did, her voice was so low he barely heard. “Because I’m in danger of never feeling anything again for the rest of my life, and you seem the only one around who might be willing to help me. Lamont killed a dream inside me. He even killed the hope I’d hung onto for too long. I feel cold and dead inside more than angry.”

He knew that feeling. He’d lived with it for years.

“You’re getting over a breakup with the man you loved. You’ll recover and move on.” Her loss was nothing like his. She was a spoiled woman who hadn’t gotten what she wanted.

She shook her head. “That’s just it. I’m mad about even getting engaged to Lamont. I’m more angry at myself for being so dumb to fall for a man like that than I am at him for being an ass.”

Andrew laughed and wondered if she’d ever used the word before. “So, he’s an ass, is he? You won’t get any argument out of me.”

“I’m not torn up about him. I’m more upset that I was planning to marry him and I didn’t even know him.” Her admission ended with a cry. “I didn’t even love him and now I don’t feel anything. It’s like I got cheated at both ends of the rope. Maybe I’m hollow inside. Maybe I’ll never feel anything the rest of my life. I’ll grow old and wither like an apple left in the hot sun.”

“You’re not hollow, Beth. You’ll feel again.”

“How do you know?”

He wanted to tell her he knew because he was hollow. He’d gone seven years without caring. But, for the first time, he wasn’t so sure he’d be telling the truth. He’d cared enough about Ryan to climb on that train and try to stop him from ruining his future. He’d cared enough about Beth to save her life. Maybe he was waking up from a deep sleep. Maybe it was time to feel again.

“I’ll show you how I know.” Taking a step behind her, he circled her waist and pulled her back against him so hard he felt her breath leave her lungs for a moment. “Relax, Beth, and feel.”

When she opened her mouth to say something, he whispered against her hair, “Just relax and don’t talk. I think we’ve had enough of a conversation tonight. If this is the last time we’ll ever be alone together, we need to communicate in simpler terms.”

His fingers pressed along her ribs as her breathing quickened. He lowered his head and tasted the side of her neck. “Lean into me and feel for once in your life. Don’t think.” He kissed the smooth flesh of her throat.