Boots Under Her Bed
Page 1
Praise for the authors of
Boots Under Her Bed
Jodi Thomas
“A masterful storyteller.”
—Catherine Anderson, New York Times bestselling author
“Exactly the kind of heart-wrenching, emotional story one has come to expect from Jodi Thomas.”
—Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author
Jo Goodman
“Goodman’s elegant and wryly written style ensures . . . a perfect treat for readers who enjoy smart, sensual love stories.”
—Booklist
“Goodman knows how to turn up the heat.”
—Publishers Weekly
Kaki Warner
“She is a fine talent.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Without a doubt, Kaki Warner is a writer to watch. . . . She’s definitely an addition to my must-buy authors list.”
—All About Romance
Alison Kent
“Alison Kent delivers up sizzles and thrills.”
—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author
“One of my writing idols—consistently awesome, always on my auto buy list!”
—Lauren Dane, USA Today bestselling author
Boots Under
Her Bed
JODI THOMAS
JO GOODMAN
KAKI WARNER
ALISON KENT
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China
penguin.com
A Penguin Random House Company
BOOTS UNDER HER BED
A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the authors
Copyright © 2014 by Penguin Group (USA) LLC.
“Crazy Callie” by Jodi Thomas copyright © 2014 by Jodi Koumalats.
“Nat Church and the Runaway Bride” by Jo Goodman copyright © 2014 by Joanne Dobrzanski.
“The Scent of Roses” by Kaki Warner copyright © 2014 by Kathleen Warner.
“The Hired Gun’s Heiress” by Alison Kent copyright © 2014 by Alison Kent.
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BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.
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For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-62317-6
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley mass-market edition / January 2014
Cover art: Guy by Claudio Marinesco; metal sign on wood © caesart / Shutterstock; background © frescomovie / Shutterstock; background © Paul B. Moore / Shutterstock; buckle by Shutterstock.
Cover design by George Long.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright
CRAZY CALLIE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
About Jodi Thomas
NAT CHURCH AND THE RUNAWAY BRIDE
Dedication
Falls Hollow, Colorado
About Jo Goodman
THE SCENT OF ROSES
About Kaki Warner
THE HIRED GUN’S HEIRESS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
About Alison Kent
CRAZY CALLIE
Jodi Thomas
Chapter 1
January 27, 1882
THE wind howled through the dusty streets of Shallow Creek like a pack of hungry coyotes running free. A full moon hung amid wispy gray clouds promising rain, but no one in town seemed to notice.
Callie Anne Cramer pulled her buckboard behind a row of seedy saloons and began her shopping. She had one hour until dawn . . . until her stepfather noticed her disappearance . . . and she planned to change her future by then.
“This is the dumbest idea you’ve come up with,” Lindsey Baxter, Callie’s only friend, whined. “I thought when you went away to school in Iowa to study to be a horse doctor was dumb, but this beats that plan.”
Callie Anne’s glare missed its mark in the darkness. “I had no choice then—it was the only place where I could get the education I needed—and I have no choice now, so stop complaining and help me search. You’re the only one I can trust.”
“Lucky me,” Lindsey answered in a scratchy whisper. She might be Callie Anne’s age, but her voice had the low roughness of an aging smoker. It somehow matched her dark hair and gray eyes. “I could have been sleeping, but instead I’m trolling the alley of every bar in town looking for a husband for my only friend. Makes sense. Nice night to be out husband hunting.”
Callie Anne fought down panic. “This is my last option. Howard has made sure I don’t have the money to run and he’s spread enough rumors about me that no one would believe me sane. So start looking for the love of my life. Find a tall one if you can. I don’t want to look down at my husband for the rest of my life. Or until he gets smart and runs.”
“You want me to smell him? I’m guessing if he doesn’t smell like a horse, you’re not interested. Too bad you couldn’t marry one of those animals you love so much. Your stepfather says you sleep more in the barn than you do in the house.”
Callie laughed. “The company’s better in the barn.”
The first man they passed was throwing up; the second smelled so bad she didn’t want to get close enough to talk to him. The third, a cowhand, from the look of his clothes, was slumped over, passed out against the outhouse wall. He looked promising, but when she swung the lantern by his head, she saw that he had to be twice her age, maybe more.
“The pickings are pretty poor tonight,” Lindsey whispered. “Maybe we should try another plan or lower our standards.”
“All I’m asking is he’s single, breathing, and taller than me. Don’t think I can go much lower. And I may not have another night. Howard’s been making threats, bragging that he’ll have me gone off my land before spring.”
The buckboard rattled past a wooden porch at the back of the biggest bar in town.
“What you doing, Crazy Callie?” Plain Edna called as she walked out the Watering Hole Saloon’s back door. She leaned over the railing, a thin cigar hanging off her red lip as she stared in open curiosity. The tattered feather she wore in her hair drooped over one eye, giving her a pirate’s gawk. “That our old-maid schoolteacher, Miss Lindsey B
axter, with you? If she’s looking for her pa, he left hours ago, sober enough to walk.”
Callie didn’t defend her sanity or her friend’s state of marriage. It would have been no use. “We’re looking for a husband for me. Anyone will do, as long as he’s drunk enough to marry me. I can’t stop to talk tonight, Edna. I only got an hour or so before dawn. Lindsey’s riding along to help me shop.”
Plain Edna laughed. “You won’t find a fit husband out here. Besides, what would you do with a man if you had one? You’ve spent most of the time since your bosom filled out trying to avoid marriage.” Plain Edna blew a ghost white ring of smoke. “Now, why would you be in an all-fired hurry tonight?”
Another barmaid joined her rouged-up friend on break. Callie didn’t know the new working girl’s name, but she’d seen her in town. Everyone in Shallow Creek knew one another if only by sight.
The new girl had long red hair nature hadn’t provided, and a dress that looked like it was made from string doilies. When she leaned over the rail, her wares showed creamy white in the moonlight. In daylight, on the main street, neither of the soiled doves would have spoken to Callie, but here among the garbage and the drunks, all seemed equal. Callie’s stepfather had sent her often enough to collect drunk ranch hands that she knew the curve of the alley.
“Howdy, ladies,” Red shouted. “What you doing out here this late?”
Callie didn’t want to talk to any strangers. She and Lindsey had gone to school with Plain Edna so they trusted her, but this girl might spread stories. Callie had learned the hard way how much damage gossip could do. Talking got her into this mess in the first place. Too much talking and not enough acting.
The redhead tossed her cigarette in the alley and went back in as if bored.
Plain Edna moved down the steps and stood close to the wagon. “Tell me how I can help. You ain’t got much time. Red’s probably in there telling Quentin McCaffree you’re out here right now.” She pulled her shawl around her, making her look almost presentable.
“I have to get married or my stepfather is going to send me off to the asylum in Austin. I saw the paperwork on his desk when I went over to help Mamie clean the main house.” Callie fought back tears. Howard Thornville had been trying to marry her off since her mother died six years before. He wanted her hitched, not to a man who’d stay, but to someone who’d take her away.
Plain Edna snorted as she walked along with the wagon. “Didn’t you try getting married once? I heard tell you got all the way to the church, and when Thornville went to walk you down the aisle, you’d cut your dress into tiny squares.” She laughed loud with her mouth open. “That was about the time folks started thinking you crazy. Ever’one I meet swears they saw you heading home in your drawers.”
Callie shrugged. At the time it seemed the only thing that would stop the wedding her stepfather had arranged. She’d only been fifteen and her mother had died that winter. The husband-to-be was a middle-aged peddler who’d been paid a hundred dollars to take her with him. When Callie asked where they were going, he’d said simply, “Never you mind, girl. You’re going with me. That’s all you need to know.”
That had been the final insult. She’d done the only thing she could think of while locked in the preacher’s tiny office. She’d cut up the dress her stepfather paid twenty dollars for into tiny squares.
A year later he tried to get her to marry the neighbor’s half-wit son. She was sixteen by then, and the groom was too shy to talk to her. Both parents agreed to give the newlyweds a worthless strip of land between the two ranches. The kid was a likable enough boy when he wasn’t nervous, but he had the strange habit of trying to set fire to everything. She objected to the wedding when she smelled her hair burning. Her stepfather said she’d have to marry him anyway, since all young couples have their problems.
Callie didn’t say another word, but that night, at their engagement party, she took him behind the barn and told him she was a witch born at midnight and destined to wash in blood. She swore, if he told anyone, she’d make his tongue swell to the size of a horse’s tongue and his ankles snap like twigs.
The next morning, he refused to marry her and offered no reason. In fact, word was, he didn’t open his mouth for three weeks.
Thornville gave up for a few years, resigned to the probability of being stuck with her. When she asked to go to Iowa to study veterinary medicine, he gladly paid the tuition and board, thinking she’d find someone up there and never come back. Then for two years, while she was there, he refused to send extra money for her to come home for a visit.
When she finally returned and started treating every hurt animal in the county, he left her alone in the little house on the edge of the ranch.
Then the stories started about how she talked to squirrels and practiced witchcraft with the blood of some of her patients. Thornville didn’t like having a crazy stepdaughter, but as long as she left him alone to run the ranch, he decided to ignore her. She’d stay at her little cottage in the woods, and he’d live in the big ranch house.
At about the time Callie turned twenty, a widow, Charlotte Van Buren, moved to town and Callie’s stepfather took up courting. Charlotte wouldn’t consider being his wife as long as he had the crazy daughter running around. So Howard took up the cause to get rid of his too-tall, too-crazy stepdaughter and all her animals.
He brought several prospective husbands around, but Callie quickly told them all that she was already engaged to a lumberjack who wouldn’t be too happy when he returned to discover someone pestering her.
When one cowboy repeated her story to her stepfather, Thornville told the whole town she’d moved another step up the ladder of crazy, which got rid of the husband prospects faster than an invisible fiancé.
The widow backed Howard up with stories of finding Callie talking to a stray dog as if he might answer. There were even whispers in town about how Callie danced in the moonlight with birds. By the time Callie turned twenty-one, everyone but Lindsey Baxter shook their heads when she passed. The little schoolteacher hung on to their friendship.
“Climb down and lie next to that one.” Lindsey, beside her, broke into Callie’s thoughts. “See if he’s tall enough.”
“He’s not,” she answered, fighting down panic.
“Last month, Thornville turned reckless from pining after Mrs. Charlotte,” Callie Anne whispered as they moved on down the alley.
“It seemed the widow demanded that I be gone before she’d let him close enough to see if they were suited for one another. Bottled-up longing got the better of him the last snowy morning. He dropped by my place to check on a horse one of his men had brought over half-dead. Howard found me in the barn feeding my animals, and in a rage, he hit me with a shovel. He said it was an accident but I tumbled out of the loft faster than a falling star.”
Plain Edna shook her head. “I’ve been hit like that, by accident, you know, and it hurts just the same.”
“You should have gone to the sheriff,” Lindsey chimed in.
Callie shook her head. “It would have been my word against his. No one would believe me. When Howard looked down and saw I was only bruised, he decided to tell everyone I’d tried to commit suicide. He went right to town and sorrowfully admitted he could no longer handle me even though he couldn’t have loved me more if I were his own.”
“Thornville wants you gone,” Plain Edna said. “Suicide or insane, either one would make the ranch his. Since he’d been married to your mother for two years, then put up with you for six more, he told everyone in the bar straight-out that he figured he deserved all the ranch, including the little cottage at the far corner.”
Callie didn’t argue. “I know, and most folks agree with him. He’s built the ranch up since he’s been there. I’ll give him that.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Lindsey added, patting Callie’s hand. “It’s legally yours, Callie.”
“There’s one.” Plain Edna ran ahead of them in the alley. “He’s young,
not more than seventeen or eighteen. This is his first big drunk and he turned mean and loud until Quentin knocked some sense in him with a chair.” She giggled with excitement. “Serve the kid right to wake up married to you, Callie.”
Lindsey climbed out of the wagon. “Edna, this isn’t funny. We’re serious here. Callie’s running out of time. Do you think this one’s tall enough?”
Plain Edna shook her head. “Everyone’s tall to me.”
“Never mind, ladies,” Callie said. “He’s not the right one.”
Callie Anne put her mind to the task at hand. Maybe everyone was right about her; a thought did seem to wander down one pig trail after another in her brain. Maybe she was crazy for loving animals more than people, but in her life she’d been hurt far more by people.
For once she had to do something right, and tricking a kid into marriage wasn’t right. She was running out of time. Her grandparents’ and parents’ graves were on that ranch, and she wouldn’t give it up without a fight. She couldn’t leave and she couldn’t stay with her stepfather. If he forced her to go, then half, maybe more, of her patients in her barn would be put down, or, worse, Thornville would simply let them starve.
“Over there is one!” Plain Edna yelled. “He passed out a few hours ago, and Quentin brought him out here to sleep it off. He’s been drinking for three days.”
Callie climbed down from the wagon and held the lantern high. The man sleeping facedown in the dirt was long and lean, with clothes that looked store-bought. She grabbed his hair so the light could shine on a dirty face in need of a shave. “What’s wrong with him?”