Wild Texas Rose (25 page)

Chapter 47

Sunday morning

Anderson Glen

T
he next morning Abe found Stitch down in the
dining room of the small hotel, eating two breakfasts at the same time.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Wish you would. I managed to keep my hat on and my head down until I started eating. The waitress almost tossed my food at me and ran when she got her first good look. Maybe you can get her to come back and bring my coffee.”

Abe waved at a girl hiding behind the swing door that probably led to the kitchen. “Coffee,” he called. “For two.” After a few minutes, she brought it out, but she didn’t look at Stitch.

Before the coffee had cooled enough to drink, Killian and Victoria joined them. Victoria leaned down and kissed Stitch’s cheek as she passed him.

Abe didn’t miss the squeal of fright coming from the kitchen. Suddenly the scarred man became very interesting. Each time the waitress came out she braved getting a little closer to him.

Everyone at the table tried not to notice the waitress who kept circling. They no longer saw the scars on Stitch’s face. He was simply their family and friend. Killian took Victoria’s hand as he looked at his brother and Abe. “We think we’re going to head back today once we give our statements to the town marshal and collect Victoria’s things.”

“I was thinking that too.” Abe smiled. “I’ve been worried about the store. No telling what Henry has given away while I’ve been gone. What about you, Stitch? Going home or after your wagon?”

The big man shrugged. Before he could explain, Hallie and Epley came into the dining room and another table was pulled up. Everyone ordered and settled into an easy way of talking only good friends can manage.

The marshal dropped by and asked each of them to stay another day until all was settled. The Tanner brothers had already been picked up by the rangers and were on their way back to Dallas. They both claimed Myers was the brains behind all the robberies. Jeb Tanner sent Duncan a personal message that said he’d kill him if he ever got out, but the threat wasn’t taken too seriously from a man in chains.

Abe excused himself and dropped by to see Duncan at what everyone called the McMurray little house.

Abe was relieved to find him improved enough to be complaining. Rose had arranged for one of the McMurray wagons to take him back to the ranch, but Duncan didn’t want to leave town until every one of the outlaws had been put away.

When Abe walked in the kitchen to get Duncan a cup of coffee, the ranger yelled, “Where’s your cane?”

Abe looked down, realizing he’d forgotten it. In fact, all morning he hadn’t thought about his leg at all. He’d never pushed himself as he had the past few days, and to his surprise his leg seemed stronger.

“Where’d you leave it?” Duncan asked as he nodded a thank-you for the coffee.

“I’m not sure. I think on the pile of lumber behind the train. I was so worried about Killian and Stitch being hurt, I didn’t even think about it.”

“You could have fallen.”

Abe grinned. “Yeah and I probably will. I guess if I do, I’ll just have to get up. It’s not the end of the world.”

“I don’t know, when you’re looking at the world through one bloodshot eyeball, it looks pretty near the end.” He smiled, then swore at the pain. “I think I’ll go home and recover.”

“Good,” Rose said as she walked in to join the men. “I’ll make the arrangements, but I’m afraid I won’t be going with you. Victoria has asked me to go back to Fort Worth to help set up her new place and I think it will be great fun.”

Abe grinned. The pretty little lady had just added a new level of misery to Duncan’s life.

Chapter 48

Sunday

Anderson Glen Hotel

S
titch waited for Hallie to come onto the porch
of the hotel. He hadn’t been able to speak to her alone since all the trouble started.

She walked out and sat in one of the rockers as if she didn’t notice him standing there.

“When you heading home?” he asked.

“Epley and I thought we’d go when Killian and Victoria do. I’ve got my work cut out for me helping them.”

“That’s the truth,” Stitch said, taking one step toward her.

“When you going back?”

He didn’t look at her. “Whenever you are.”

Hallie laughed. “You think since I let you touch my chest and I kissed you once that I’ll just let you follow me home?”

Stitch frowned. “Something like that.”

Hallie stood up. “And what would I do with a man like you once I got you home and housebroke?”

“Keep me.” Stitch smiled.

Hallie moved up close and locked her arms around him. “I might just do that.” Then, in bright daylight, she kissed him. When she finally pulled away, her cheeks were red and her breath quick. “You do have a way with words, Shawn O’Toole.”

“I’ll not settle for a sample, Hallie.”

“I always figured you wouldn’t.”

“So, we go home together?”

“Together.”

Chapter 49

Wednesday evening

Second Street, Fort Worth

A
few days after the trouble at Anderson Glen,
at exactly six o’clock, Abe Henderson walked across the street to the schoolhouse and informed Miss Norman that in one hour they had a dinner engagement.

She stood and nodded, showing none of the surprise at seeing him reappear in her life that he’d expected.

“Would you like me to pick you up here or at the boardinghouse?”

“Here,” she said. “I have papers to finish, Mr. Henderson.”

He returned one hour later and waited while she collected her things.

She was wearing her Sunday dress and the shawl she wrapped around her looked new. Abe knew without asking that she’d been waiting for him to return. Henry had told him that she’d stopped by the store twice a day, but never asked a direct question about his return.

They walked to the café at the Grand and he told her all that had happened while he’d been gone. She listened, then told him of how she checked on the store and Henry had been very helpful.

He took her arm on their way home.

“Mr. Henderson, it seems your leg is better,” she said as they walked.

“I’ll always limp.” He turned toward his store and not the boardinghouse. “But I no longer consider myself a cripple.”

She smiled that tight little smile of hers. “Mr. Henderson, you were never a cripple. You were only a man with a limp.” She waited as he unlocked the store door and held it for her.

She walked past him and all the way back to the storeroom.

“I’ll leave you to get ready, Sara.” He’d said her name slowly as if it were a caress.

She moved into the little study while he stood just outside the open doorway and watched her take off her coat and pull the pins from her hair. He watched her in the mirror as she unbuttoned her dress, just the exact number of buttons he’d told her he liked unbuttoned.

When she turned, she smiled. “I missed you,” she whispered.

“I missed you.”

He moved close and circled her in his arms. “I’ve been thinking that we could save money if you moved upstairs. You wouldn’t have as far to walk to school and there is plenty of storage up there that we could turn into more space.”

She stiffened.

“No, Sara, don’t say a word. I’ve made up my mind. I want you with me. We can be married Sunday.” He moved his hands over her body. “I plan to have you in my bed until the day one of us dies. If you want a house, I can afford one, but I’m thinking the apartment will serve us well until the children begin to come.”

She pulled away. “I’ll hear the words, Abraham.”

He was tugging the lace off her beautiful breast. “What words?”

“The words you said to me when you left.”

He had trouble thinking much less remembering, but finally he managed, “I love you, Sara.”

She smiled. “I’ll hear them every day we’re married.”

She met his gaze, standing firm on her demand.

“All right. I promise.”

“And, we’ll still close at lunch just like you do now. Some days we’ll come in here and do what we like.

He moved his fingers lightly over the rise of her breasts. “I’ll agree to that.

“And you’ll ask me to marry you, not tell me.”

“I thought I was asking . . .”

She shook her head.

“All right, Miss Norman, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she said, and neither felt the need to say another word.

Chapter 50

Main Street

D
uncan hadn’t seen Rose for almost a week and
he’d been in a bad mood since the morning he’d watched her step on the train.

He was still hurting, but he had to go to Fort Worth and tell her it was about time she came home.

When he got to the Grand, she wasn’t in her room. He searched the café and the dining room, then walked across to Second Avenue and checked with Abe. No one had seen her all morning.

Crossing back to the garden of the hotel, he let himself in the balcony door of her bedroom. Exhausted, he spread out on the bed and fell asleep. He might be healing, but he wasn’t running at full speed yet.

An hour later when he woke, he felt her at his side. Without saying a word, he rolled over and kissed her.

She melted into his arms and gave him back a kiss better than he’d dreamed about. A deep ever-after kind of kiss he’d longed for.

When he finally pulled away, he brushed her beautiful hair back and said, “You’re my home, Rose. You’re where I belong.”

“And you, Duncan, are my one love. You always have been. It just took us both a while to realize it.”

He kissed her again with a passion that shocked him. His wild Texas Rose was in his arms and he never planned to let her go.

When she finally pulled away, he whispered, “Where have you been all my life?”

She laughed. “I’ve been right here waiting for you.”

* * *

Click here for more books by this author

Read on for a special preview of the next novel in Jodi Thomas’s heartwarming HARMONY series

Chance of a Lifetime

Coming soon from Berkley!

Chapter 1

February 3, 2012

Harmony Public Library

H
undred-year-old elms cast spiderweb shadows
from a dry creek bed to the brick corners of Harmony Public Library as Emily Tomlinson closed the blind over the back window of her office. Night was coming. Time for her to move to the front desk. Grabbing the black sweater that always hung on a hook beside her desk, she pulled it over her plain cotton blouse and charcoal trousers.

From now until closing, she’d feel wind blow in every time the library doors opened. Before she could settle, winter’s frosty breath reached her. Emily didn’t look up. Though she wondered who might be coming in just before closing, she didn’t want to see the night beyond the doors. She might be in her early thirties, but the child in her still feared that the night just might look back.

Sam Perkins leaned on his broom and whispered, “You didn’t make it out before dark, Miss Tomlinson. You want me to walk you to your car when you lock up? Ain’t no other staff here on Friday night, and that wind is liable to carry a slim little thing like you away.”

The janitor’s voice sounded rusty in daylight, but at night it turned haunting. Sam Perkins missed his calling as a narrator for ghost tales on a midnight radio show.

Emily didn’t like the possibility that everyone who worked at the Harmony Public Library knew of her fears, even the janitor. “No, I’ll be fine. Who just came in? I was too busy to notice.”

Sam shrugged. “Some guy in muddy boots and a cowboy hat worn low.”

Emily laughed. “That describes half the men in this town.”

The janitor moved on, having used up his ration of conversation for the evening. He wasn’t friendly, smelled of cigarettes most of the time, and had never read a single book as far as she knew, but he was the best janitor they’d had in the ten years since she’d accepted the post of head librarian. The others had been drifters or drunks, staying only long enough to collect wages to move on, but Sam never missed a day’s work.

Emily closed her log and locked the cash drawer for the night. She had a pretty good idea who the cowboy with dirty boots was, as he’d come in on Fridays for as long as she could remember. Most of the time he didn’t say a word to anyone, but she knew he was there.

Walking around the worn mahogany desk, she crossed to the beautiful old curved staircase that climbed the north wall. Cradled beneath the arch of the stairs were all the new magazines and day-old newspapers from big towns across the state.

Emily had bought comfortable leather chairs from an estate sale so the area looked inviting, even though few visited. Most days, the wall of computers drew all the attention.

Sure enough, Tannon Parker was there. His big frame filled the chair, and his long legs blocked half the walk space. His worn, gray Stetson was pushed back atop black hair in need of cutting.

“Evening, Tannon,” Emily said with a grin. “How’s your mother?”

“About the same,” he said as he looked up slowly. “She didn’t know me. She called me by my dad’s name tonight.”

For a second, he reminded her of a little boy and not the man before her.

Emily wished they’d been close enough for her to brush his shoulder in comfort. He might be a tall, powerful man in his prime, but he seemed to carry the weight of the world tonight.

Only she couldn’t touch him. They weren’t friends anymore. She’d known him all her life, could name every member of his family, but one lie, one night, had passed between them years ago, and neither knew how to build a bridge over it.

“I’m sorry,” Emily managed to whisper, “about your mom. I’ll never forget those great cookies she used to make.” A memory from fifteen years past drifted back. She and Tannon had both been seniors on the high school newspaper staff. The night before the paper came out everyone always worked late. Mrs. Parker would tap on the school window and hold up a tray of cookies. Kids knocked each other down to open the door for her.

“Yeah.” Tannon lifted his paper as if he didn’t know what else to say.

Or maybe he was remembering another memory neither would ever forget. A memory that had more to do with pain and blood than cookies.

She straightened, feeling a little like she’d been dismissed. “We’ll be closing in twenty minutes. I’ll let you know when I have to lock up.”

He didn’t answer as she moved away and began collecting books left scattered on tables. When she climbed the stairs to where walls in a once-huge, old home had been removed to allow for long aisles of books, she saw a shadow leaning against the corner window.

“Franky, you still here?”

A girl’s giggle reached her before a boy of about fifteen stepped out tugging his partner-in-crime by the hand. “Is my dad here for me?” she asked.

Emily noticed the girl had pink lipstick smeared across her mouth, but she didn’t seem to care. She just stared at Franky like he was a rock star.

“If you two want to check out anything, you might hurry.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Franky winked at the girl. “We’ve already checked out.”

The girl giggled and ran down the stairs, joining her friends who were clustered around one of the computers. When she was too far away to hear, Emily whispered to Franky, “How long until you get a car?”

“Fourteen more months,” he said with a grin. “I can’t wait.”

“Me neither.” She laughed. “Did you get your homework done?”

“It’s Friday, Miss Tomlinson. No one would ever do homework on Friday. What if the end of the world came or something and you’d wasted your last few hours doing math or English. Monday morning I could be out fighting zombies or aliens for the last food on the planet and I’d be thinking, great! at least I got my homework done.”

Emily saw his logic. “I hadn’t considered that,” she said as she walked with him down the stairs.

“Don’t people like you worry about that kind of stuff?”

“People like me?”

“You know, older people.” Franky shook his shaggy hair. “You should. Tomorrow you could just open your front door and find yourself in a fight for your life.” He looked around. “Come to think of it, nobody would probably come in here. No food, or weapons, or medicine. That’s what we’ll all be fighting over when the end comes.”

She played along. To the boy she must have seemed as old as this building. “Zombies don’t read?”

He shook his head as if she were beyond dumb. “Miss Tomlinson, I fear you’re a goner. Zombies don’t do nothing but run around looking for live people to eat. They’ll rip your arm off, beat you to death, and then have you for dinner. Maybe you should think about getting a gun or a man to protect you.”

When they reached the desk, she handed him a book on the life and works of Hemingway. “Thanks for the advice, Franky. Here’s a book that might help with that English assignment that’s due Monday. Just in case the world doesn’t end.”

He looked at her with raised eyebrows. “How’d you know about that?”

Emily winked. “A zombie told me.”

Before he could ask more, a horn honked and he darted for the door. “Thanks,” he yelled back. “That’s my dad.”

The girls over by the computer wall all giggled and waved at him. Then, like a gaggle of geese, they all hurried out.

The library was suddenly silent. Emily began turning off the computers and closing doors. It had been a long twelve-hour day, but she had nowhere else to be. Friday nights were like every night for her. She’d go home, eat supper, and read.

As she tugged on her coat and reached for her keys, she noticed Tannon waiting.

He held the door as always for her, and she thanked him as he checked to make sure the lock clicked solid. She thought of walking on to her car, but waited. He might not be much for company, but Tannon was steady and safe. Whatever waited in the darkness wouldn’t appear if he walked beside her.

For once, he broke the silence. “The zombies wouldn’t come after you if the end came like the kid said.”

“You heard.”

“I couldn’t help it. You two were standing right above me. But you’d be safe if they were looking for people to eat. They’d go straight to the bakery across the street. The Edison sisters would keep them in food for weeks. Last month, I heard they had to move the counter out a foot because the sisters could no longer get behind it to wait on customers.”

Emily laughed. “That’s not a nice thing to say.”

“Just stating a fact. By the time the zombies finished with the third sister, they’d all be diabetic.”

“Then they’d cross the street to the library and eat me. Maybe I should buy a gun to fight them off. I’m not sure I’d want them in the library even if they were just looking for a snack. I’ve heard they often have limbs fall off as they walk.”

“I’d come get you long before then if there was trouble.”

She glanced up at him, almost firing back that once there had been trouble and he hadn’t come, only the memory of that night fifteen years ago was too painful to speak of. With a quick nervous move, she pulled her car door open and jumped in. The thank-you was lost in the slam of her door.

A few seconds later, she looked back at him in her rearview mirror. He was standing in the empty parking lot. He looked solid as an oak with his feet wide apart and his hands shoved deep into his Western-cut leather jacket. The stoplight caught her at the corner. She watched him as he turned and walked across the street to where he’d parked his pickup in front of the bakery.

It was Friday night and Tannon Parker was headed the same place she was.

Home alone.