Jodi Thomas - WM 1 Page 8

  But I surprised him, Rainey thought. I ran from the hell of marrying an older man to the hell of trying to keep from starving in Texas. She looked down at her nails, broken and dirty. “I showed Papa,” she mumbled, thinking of how her father had never even noticed how she hated fish—she fought back tears—or how heartbroken she’d been seeing her value in his eyes.

  He’d called her plain all her life. Once, she’d heard him tell a neighbor that she would have been the runt of the litter if his wife had seen fit to give him more children. As it was, he was stuck with a mouse. Oh, he’d tried to make her brave. He’d made her live a life to the ticking of a clock. He’d forced her to be alone for hours when he thought her not listening. He’d taken the candle from her room when she’d been three so she’d learn to be brave in the dark. All she’d ever learned was to curl into a ball and wait for dawn.

  In the end, after she’d been a good daughter for over twenty years, all he’d seen her as was a liability to be taken care of . . . a problem to be passed along to someone else. A tear drifted down her cheek, but Rainey refused to wipe it away.

  A tanned hand crossed into her blurred vision and touched the tear. Rainey looked up into brown eyes. Travis!

  “You’re awake,” she whispered. He looked weak and in pain, but very much alive.

  “I knew your hair wasn’t red,” he answered. “It didn’t fit, somehow.”

  Rainey reached for her hat, realizing she’d given herself away to the one person on the ranch who knew her to be a horse borrower. And he was a Ranger! He’d probably have her hanged at sunrise.

  His strong fingers closed around her wrist. Even in his weakened condition, they might as well have been shackles. She’d never be able to break the hold.

  Slowly, almost gently, he tugged her down beside him. She curled against his side, careful not to touch his bandaged leg. He released one of her wrists and circled his arm around her, pulling her close. She spread her fingers over his bare chest and felt as she had before for his heart. Somehow the feel of it pounding warmed her as if it were the only music her soul longed to hear.

  He covered her hand with his own and took a deep breath. “I knew you were near, even before I opened my eyes.”

  She knew little of this man so close to her now, yet more surprising than the way she felt about him was how he seemed to feel about her.

  “Your name’s not Molly, is it?” The corner of his mouth twitched in a smile for only a moment.

  She thought of lying, but her tired brain couldn’t think fast enough. Panic made her jerk slightly. What good would it serve to tell him her name, he’d never see her again.

  His hand moved along her side as though calming her fear. “Don’t run,” he said as he closed his eyes. “I need to talk to you. I need you close.”

  “But running is what I do best,” she answered, trying to figure out how she could get away from him. Touching him might feel wonderful, but she had to be reasonable. She had to protect herself and follow Mrs. Haller’s advice to disappear, to change, to stay away from the law. One mistake might mean her father would find her, and if he did she knew he’d make her wish for death if he didn’t kill her outright. “I have to run,” she whispered to herself more than Travis.

  “I’ll find you, I swear. If you disappear again, I’ll find you,” he mumbled as his fingers loosened and he slipped back into a place where the pain wasn’t so overwhelming.

  Rainey leaned closer, listening to his breathing. She trailed her fingers along his jaw line and touched her lips one last time to his mouth. As she leaned back, she whispered, “I wish I could stay. I have a feeling you’d be a man worth the knowing, Travis McMurray.”

  He would live, she decided, but he’d never find her. No matter how strong an attraction she felt toward this man, she couldn’t stay and help him. She had to save herself. He had his family. He didn’t need her. But she had no one and nothing but a will to survive. He might think of holding her now, but when he healed, he’d remember he was a Ranger and then he’d arrest her.

  Brushing her fingers over Travis’s hand, she almost wished he’d wake and hold her again. But he needed rest. And she needed to run.

  Rainey woke Sage as she passed to the kitchen and collected a few supplies. From there she moved like a midnight breeze into the corral. By the time she saw a light come on upstairs, she was riding for the bridge and out of Travis McMurray’s life.

  As she rode, the tiny bag holding her grandmother’s ring thumped against her throat, reminding her of the one thing she must never lose again. Freedom.

  CHAPTER 8

  AS THE DAYS PASSED, TRAVIS LOST TRACK OF TIME. HE drifted with the fever, eating and sleeping in no order. His family talked around him, and about him, as if he were a piece of furniture and couldn’t understand. They took care of all his needs even before he thought to ask and whispered encouragement in short prayers near his ear.

  From his bed in the study he paid little notice as summer dried the earth with endless days without rain. During the brief spells he thought of something besides the pain, he searched for her, the woman who’d told him that what she did best was run. Her lips had been cool when they’d touched his, but he’d felt her kiss through the pain that first night in the study.

  He was a man who never let anyone close, and she’d managed to kiss him twice without ever giving him a chance to kiss her back.

  Sometimes he lay with his eyes closed, listening to the conversations around him, listening for her voice . . . a voice he’d recognize whether it was flavored with an accent or not. But it never came. Once, in the middle of the night, he thought he felt her touch him, but when he’d opened his eyes, no one was there.

  He tried to put a name with her face, but none fit. He never wanted to forget how her lips had felt on his, but with each day the memory faded. Only at night, when he drifted in and out of sleep, did he remember exactly how she felt against him. In the silence of midnight, when the entire house was still, he almost believed they were dancing again. Her hand in his. Her body brushing against him. Her foot beneath his boot. Her laughter close to his ear.

  There was a kind of magic in her laughter, almost as if they shared a secret. Travis had a feeling she’d laughed very little in her life . . . but she’d laughed at his dancing.

  He smiled, remembering, he almost whispered that he was sorry for trampling on her toes before realizing he only danced with a dream.

  “I’ll find you,” he’d mumbled, loving the challenge. “I swear, be you fairy or real, I’ll find you again.”

  It took almost two weeks before he felt his mind fully return, another week before he was able to sit up. The bullet had struck at the point between his hip and leg making almost any position uncomfortable. Sage treated him like a child, praising his slight progress from day to day. Teagen and Tobin were back at work, but usually one stopped by at noon for a meal with him. They must have known that between Martha’s bullying and Sage’s smothering he would have gone mad without them.

  Teagen, as always, talked of the ranch, filling Travis in on details that he really didn’t care to know. Tobin talked of horses, when he talked. At night they’d all eat in the study around Travis as if all the McMurrays had to be together to overcome his injury.

  Travis asked only once about how the bay had gotten back to the ranch. When he realized everyone thought the fairy/woman was a boy, he saw no need for other questions. It didn’t surprise him one afternoon when Tobin mentioned that one of the corral horses used by the cowhands was missing. Travis guessed who rode the animal over the bridge.

  He slept the days away and spent hours plotting what he’d say to the girl when he found her. Maybe he’d just walk up like they were old friends and question her as if they’d only been apart for a few days. Or maybe he’d demand to know why she’d walked out on him . . . not once, but twice.

  He even played with the idea of returning her kiss without saying a word to her. When his mind drifted in that direction,
he reminded himself that he was still a Ranger and by right should arrest the woman for a horse thief.

  In a strange way the little thief gave him a reason to push himself each day. She’d gotten to him as no other woman ever had.

  Three weeks after the shooting, Travis tried to stand. His right leg was weak from lack of exercise, but the left wouldn’t hold any weight. Martha tried to tell him the bone might still heal, but he saw the doubt in her old gray eyes. Without asking Travis, she told one of the men to make him a crutch.

  Travis hated even looking at the thing, but finally used it simply because he hated not being mobile more than he despised the crutch.

  Once he could move about, he managed to make it to the kitchen for meals and to the porch to watch the weather. But no farther. He’d not step foot away from the house as a cripple. When he left home, it would be as a full man, or not at all.

  When he advanced to a cane, he saw it as little progress even though the rest of his family celebrated. With each step he had to pause and regain his balance. Travis was a man who’d never known fear, but now, suddenly, he was afraid of falling. Or worse, not being able to get up once he fell. The few times he had tumbled, the pain had almost knocked him out.

  Days shortened and fall settled in with cloudy mornings and evening breezes. The house grew more confining. On cool days Travis paced the porch without a coat, welcoming the discomfort like an old friend. His mood grew darker than any storm that might cross their land and the family left him to his brooding.

  One question kept shifting through his mind, polluting any other thought or plan he might have. How does a Ranger do what has to be done if he can’t ride? How can he stand and aim a rifle when he has to use one hand to hold a cane?

  Finally, when Travis had yelled at everyone in the house, his siblings ganged up on him. When he refused to join them for Sunday lunch, they filled their plates and moved to the study.

  Travis frowned as they filed in. He wasn’t in the mood for company, and from their expressions his family looked more like a war party than dinner guests. He’d never been a man to drink, but if he could have, he would be passed out on the floor. It might not make anything better to drown his troubles, but at least he could forget them for a few hours.

  Martha set a plate in front of him, but Travis wasn’t hungry. He didn’t want to eat, or read, or talk, or even look out the window. It had taken him some time, but he’d finally reached the bottom of the well. He felt he could sink no lower and still be breathing. All he’d ever loved to do in this life had been taken away from him. Since he’d been eighteen his career had defined him. He’d not only lost being a Ranger, he’d lost himself.

  “Something wrong with the pot roast?” Martha asked with a poke to his shoulder.

  Travis looked up from his plate. “It’s fine,” he growled. If she had her way, he’d not only be crippled, but fat. “I thought I’d wait for the jury’s verdict before I eat.” His brothers and Sage did look like they were about to pronounce sentence on him.

  Martha huffed and left the room. She never wanted any part of what she called their “family business.”

  Travis waited for the door to close. He knew the others had been talking about him behind his back. Hell, he’d been so short-tempered, he wouldn’t be surprised if they’d voted to send him to the bunkhouse. Leaning back in the chair, he crossed his arms and waited to hear what they had to say.

  His older brother stood first and paced in front of him. “You’re alive, Travis.” Teagen stated the obvious. “Stop storming around here like you’re in hell.”

  Travis swore and lifted his cane. “I can’t seem to get rid of this. What kind of Ranger walks with a cane? I can’t even get in a wagon without help, much less set a horse, so don’t have me trying to dance about still being alive.”

  “There are other things you can do,” Sage said calmly.

  Travis turned his gaze to her. “Like what? There is nothing else I’ve ever wanted to do.”

  “You could stay here. Help us run the ranch,” Tobin said from his seat on the windowsill.

  Travis shook his head. “I can’t even climb the stairs. If I stay here I’ll be sleeping in the study the rest of my life.”

  Sage tried again. “You could work at the Ranger office.”

  Travis closed his eyes, feeling anger build inside him. Anger not at Sage, but at the world. “What would I do there? Watch everyone else go out on assignments? I’d hate that. Besides, what would I be—the cripple who sweeps up and makes the coffee? Or worse, I could limp around and remind every man what might happen to him one day.”

  “Stop it, Travis.” Martha’s voice cracked like a whip as she entered the room with a tray of mugs. “You’ve never been a whiner. Don’t start now.”

  “I’m not whining.” Travis answered. “I’m being a realist. I see no future for me. Not here. Not anywhere.” He’d always thought that if he ever took a bullet, he’d recover or die, either way he wouldn’t have to worry about not being a Ranger.

  Sage stood and lifted the mugs off Martha’s tray. None of her brothers seemed interested in coffee, but she needed something to do. “You’ll find something.”

  He faced her. “What?”

  Sage whirled suddenly. “Climb the mountain, Travis. Find the answer there.”

  Silence hung in the room, thick as the smell of coffee. All knew the story of how their father had climbed Whispering Mountain and dreamed his future.

  Travis lifted his cane. “How can I do that?” He smiled at his sister almost as if she’d said something funny.

  To his surprise it was Teagen who answered. “We’ll carry you.”

  “What? Are you mad?”

  Teagen met his stare. “Tobin and I can carry you. It’s not that much of a climb. We made it several times when we were boys, remember.”

  Tobin stood and set his cup down. “I’ll get one of the narrow bunks from the bunkhouse. We can use it as a litter. Then you’ll have something to sit on so you can stand once you’re at the summit.” Tobin’s gaze told Travis that his little brother had seen him trying to stand and knew it was painful for him even from a sitting position. It would be impossible from a bedroll on the ground. “Travis and I could carry you up before dark and leave you to dream.”

  “I’ll get blankets and pack a few supplies,” Martha said. “I’ll not have you starving up there.”

  “Wait!” Travis shouted, but only Sage turned to listen. “We need to think about this. I haven’t decided to go.”

  “Yes, you have,” she answered. “You’ve no other option. You said so yourself and waiting will serve no purpose. I don’t think I can stand another day of you yelling at everyone. So you’re going if I have to help carry you.”

  Travis set his jaw and didn’t say another word. He’d never been a coward and he didn’t plan to start being one now. They were right, finding out what his future held, no matter how dark, had to be better than staying here thinking he had none.

  What if he dreamed about his death as his father had? What did it matter? He felt like he was already living in hell. And maybe, once he got out of their sight, he might not sleep at all. Then he could say he’d tried it and nothing happened.

  As he waited for his brothers to return with a bed and wagon, he smiled for the first time in weeks. He’d be sleeping under the stars tonight. Alone! All this family around had been like living in a beehive. If Tobin wasn’t dropping in to tell him a story about one of the horses, Sage was asking his advice, or Teagen thought he had to go over the accounts with him. Even when Travis managed to persuade his brothers and sister into leaving him alone, Martha was always about, cleaning the room or trying to feed him.

  “Ready?” Teagen asked as he walked in the study with Travis’s coat folded over his arm. His gaze met his brother’s. “This was Sage’s idea, and I think it’s a good one, but if you’re against it . . .”

  Travis nodded once, knowing, crippled or not, no one could make him sleep
on the summit of Whispering Mountain if he didn’t want to. “I might as well get it over with. At this point I don’t really care what my future holds, just as long as I have one.”

  Teagen handed him the coat. “We can get to the mountain with a wagon, but we’ll have to climb the rest on foot.” He hesitated. “We’ll have to strap you on the bunk, Travis.”

  “I know.” Travis fought down the pain as he stood and buckled on his gun belt for the first time since he’d been shot. He pulled the leather strip over the Colt to hold the weapons in their holsters. “I’ll take a rifle as well.”

  Teagen nodded as he pulled one from the rack by the door. “We’ll build a good fire that should keep any trouble away.”

  Travis grinned without humor. “Wouldn’t want to take a bedroll and keep me company?”

  “No,” Teagen answered in his no-nonsense way.

  “How about you, little brother?” Travis asked as Tobin walked into the room. “Camp out on the summit with me tonight.”

  His quiet brother shook his head and looked away. But Travis had seen fear flicker in his eyes. A fear they all shared. Once, when they’d been kids, they’d all sworn they’d never climb the mountain to dream. They’d told one another that they didn’t believe the legend. They decided it had only been a coincidence that their young father had dreamed his death the night he’d slept on the mountain.

  But today Travis saw the truth in them all. If a tiny part of each of them didn’t believe in the legend, they wouldn’t be climbing the mountain.

  Travis insisted on walking to the wagon now loaded down with the bed from the bunkhouse. He swore as Teagen and Tobin lifted him into the back. Neither brother took offense. They seemed to understand.