Tin-Stars and Troublemakers Box Set (Four Complete Historical Western Romance Novels in One)

by Rice, Patricia

  "Oh, hell. Between the Doolittle Gang and all that's happened, I guess I never did get around to telling you about her, did I?"

  "No." She swallowed hard. "You never even mentioned her name."

  Morgan glanced at Amelia out of the corner of his eye, and then quietly said, "Her name was Virginia. She got caught in the cross fire during a holdup almost three years ago."

  With a soft gasp, Mariah said, "Oh, Cain. How horrible."

  He nodded. "It was all of that and more for Amelia at her tender years. I knew I couldn't raise her alone, so when Virginia's sister Prudence offered to take her in, I let her. I see her as often as I can, but..." Again he glanced at Amelia, who had already managed to make herself a mighty good friend of Daisy's. "We haven't been together nearly enough."

  Because she didn't know what else to say, Mariah whispered, "I'm so sorry. For you both."

  "Don't be. Virginia's death isn't something I dwell on anymore. We were, in many ways, polite strangers." Suddenly, Morgan could no longer bear not touching Mariah. He reached over and brushed his fingertips across her long, loose hair, and then let them fall to her throat, caressing the delicate skin there as he said, "I'd rather talk about us. I love you, Mariah Penny. Did you hear me? I love you. That's something I never could say to Virginia, or anyone else for that matter. I take it as a real sign that we belong together."

  His touch, as always, was magical; her body, as ever, eager to believe his every word. But something disturbed her, a concern that would not be denied. "Cain Law once told me that he loved me. I loved him back with all my heart." He looked as if he was about to take her into his arms, so Mariah stepped out of his reach, evading him while she still had the strength. "I never thought I'd hear those words from a man like Morgan Slater, and frankly, I'm not sure what I think about hearing them now. I don't even know what I think of the man."

  Morgan had halfway expected this kind of reaction to his declarations, so he'd come prepared. "I didn't want to have to get tough with you, Mariah, but I should warn you that Amelia and I decided to make a little stop on the way over here in case we needed some more ammunition." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a bottle of #20 love potion. "I don't want to have to use this on you, princess—it tastes like old socks—but I'll force it down your throat if I have to."

  Her heart lurched, and she began to laugh. In spite of all her doubts and fears, Mariah laughed and laughed until she discovered that she was crying as well.

  Morgan pulled her into his arms, thumbing a tear off the corner of her mouth. "If you still have doubts about this Morgan Slater fellow, we'll just get rid of him again. I'll be anyone you want me to be—anyone at all—just as long as you tell this man standing before you that you love him. And that you'll marry him."

  "Oh... oh, my God." Mariah fell into his embrace, her tears soaking his frock coat, and through a sob of sheer joy, she finally said, "If I say yes, you won't mind if I call you Cain, even though the name belonged to my dog?"

  "I don't mind, if you don't mind being called... Mommy." He took her face between his hands, staring hard into her moist eyes. "I'm serious about that part, princess. I do understand if you have some doubts about Amelia, but I can't neglect her any longer. I intend to keep her with me—with us—even though I don't know what to expect, since I haven't been around much the past few years. I don't know if she's willful or obedient, spoiled or charitable, incorrigible, or even—"

  "Shush." Mariah briefly pressed her lips against his, making sure they would stay sealed, and then glanced over to where Amelia and Daisy were playing on the floor. "That's all I need to know about your daughter, Cain. I trust Daisy's judgment completely. She only cottons to very special people, remember?"

  Remembering that he, as Cain Law, had been special enough for Daisy to "cotton" to, again he drew Mariah into his embrace. As her body molded against his, surrounding him with her intoxicating scent, for a moment he thought he might happily drown in that sea of cinnamon, rosebuds, and silken skin. Gathering himself, he whispered against her hair, "Is that a 'Yes, I'll marry you,' princess?"

  Mariah's emotions exploded inside of her, as wondrous a feeling as the dawning of a new day. "Yes, darling. I'll marry you. Oh, yes." Their lips met again, their hearts beating as one, and the world seemed to spin beneath her feet.

  From across the room, Amelia glanced at the couple and screwed her pert little mouth into a frown. "They're kissing, Daisy. Just like Aunt Prudence and Uncle Jack." She called to her father. "Is there going to be a lot of that kissing, Daddy?"

  Cain broke away from Mariah's mouth long enough to say, "As much as possible, Pumpkin." Then he returned to the decidedly pleasurable task at hand.

  Amelia let out a noisy sigh, and muttered to the little dog. "Kissing. I don't think I like all that kissing."

  Daisy hopped into Amelia's lap, her pink tongue laving the girl's cheeks, and confirmed in her own way that, like it or not, there would be a lot of kissing going on in the Slater household from now on.

  The End

  Want more from Sharon Ihle?

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  THE OUTLAW WAS NO LADY

  The Law and Disorder Series

  Book Two

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  Say You Love Me

  by Patricia Hagan

  Excerpt from

  The Outlaw was no Lady

  The Law and Disorder Series

  Book Two

  by

  Sharon Ihle

  Bestselling, Award-winning Author

  "My goodness," Rayna whispered huskily. "How long have you been thinking that I had nothing on under my skirt?"

  Gant sucked in his breath. He tried to speak, but nothing came out. With a muttered oath, he tore Rayna's hand away from his body. Then, keeping her wrist in his iron grip, he jerked her up hard against his hips.

  Rayna laughed, a dark, velvety purr. "Apparently you have been thinking those thoughts for a very long time, too long, I think. Maybe we should go back to the ship now, to the dressing room, or maybe your cabin."

  "No."

  "No?

  "Here." His expression darkened. "Now."

  She glanced around. "Now? Wouldn't we be better off on the ship?"

  "No. You are not going to have everything your way."

  Then, before she could even blink, much less object, Gant lifted Rayna off of her feet and scooped her into his arms. Without another word, he stormed off toward the dense stand of oaks and beyond to the shadows.

  Then they were lost to the forest, the heavy mist, and their own unquenchable passions.

  The Outlaw was no Lady

  The Law and Disorder Series

  Book Two

  by

  Sharon Ihle

  ~

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  The Outlaw was no Lady

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  SAY YOU LOVE ME

  by Patricia Hagan

  Say You Love Me

  A Historical Western Romance

  by

  Patricia Hagan

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  Prologue

  Texas, 1840

  Violet held the infant to her breast, though it seemed a sacrilege, somehow, to offer milk intended for another baby.

  But that baby is dead, a voice inside reminded her cruelly. Born dead. She never got to draw the first sweet breath of life.

  Violet looked down at the baby through a mist of tears. She was a week old, and precious as only one of God's earth angels can be. A downy fuzz covered her tiny head, promising a crown of sable black hair, and already her blue eyes had a lavender cast, which meant they would eve
ntually be the same color as her mother's.

  Violet felt the empty burning in her heart at the thought of how her own baby was buried before she even had a chance to hold it in her arms. Then just three days afterward, Violet's twin sister Iris had given birth. "Momma named us after flowers," Iris had declared, "and I'm going to do the same with my little girl. I'll name her Jacinth, which is what hyacinths are called in England." But Iris's husband Luke had immediately shortened the baby's name to Jacie, and Jacie her name would be.

  Violet lifted her tear-streaked face to the sky as she knelt among the clumps of sagebrush with the infant in her arms. "Why, God?" she asked. "Why is it that Iris is always blessed with the bread of life, while I'm left with only the crumbs?"

  There was no sound save for the infant feeding. Violet knew that God was not going to answer her. Not this time. Probably not ever. It was just something she was going to have to work out for herself, within her own tormented soul.

  Even though it was early morning, the summer heat was smothering, and perspiration trickled from her every pore. But there was no shade to be had, and the sun's rays were searing. Violet could have stayed with the other members of the small caravan traveling from Georgia to Texas; they were camped in a grove of cottonwood trees beside a cool stream. But after the terrible things she had said to Iris, Violet had wanted to be alone with her misery and guilt, away from everyone.

  It all started one morning when Iris remarked that Violet looked ill. "It's because you have so much milk in your breasts," she had said worriedly. "I'll let you nurse Jacie too, and—"

  "Oh, you know everything, don't you?" Violet had lashed out at her. She lay huddled on a pallet in the back of their wagon, still weak and sore from the birth, in body and in spirit.

  Iris knelt beside her holding the baby, though she was feeling weak herself. They had both delivered early, no doubt due to the ordeal of travel. "I know how you must feel, Violet. I can't imagine anything more heartbreaking than losing a child, but you have to let me help you. If you don't, you'll come down with milk fever, and you could die."

  "You think I care?" Violet glared up at her. "Well I don't. I wish I was back there on the trail beneath that pile of rocks with my baby, because I don't have anything to live for now."

  "You have Judd."

  Violet lowered her voice to a whisper, for despite her despair, she did not want the others in the caravan to hear the embarrassing truth about her marriage. "Judd won't want me anymore when he finds out our baby died. You know as well as I do he wasn't planning on me coming to Texas. He was walking out on me and our marriage, till I found out I was in the family way."

  "That's not true," Iris said, though she knew it was.

  Violet got to her feet, her legs wobbly, all the resentment smoldering within igniting to give her strength. "It is true. Judd never loved me, and everybody knows it. It was you he wanted to marry. The only reason he proposed to me was because you were marrying Luke. Oh, yes, I knew about the gossip, how everybody said Judd married me because it was as close to you as he could get. I knew it that day twelve years ago when we had our double wedding on the porch. His hand holding mine was cold, and so were his lips when he kissed me, because it was you he wanted and always had been. It was always you. And he knew later that you could have given him the children he wanted, because you and Luke had four fine sons, while I couldn't conceive. And now you've got a healthy baby girl, and I've got nothing."

  Violet paused to draw a ragged breath, not caring that Iris's face had turned ashen. In the past, in all those hurting years of growing up, Violet had swallowed her frustrations and kept the pain inside, but now, when her life had crumbled about her, she could hold back no longer. "We were twins," Violet reminded Iris coldly, "but not identical—oh, no, far from it. You were the pretty one. Dainty and pretty, just like Momma. But I took after Poppa. I was big and gangly—I even got his ugly hooked nose." She tapped her nose with a shaking finger. "You and I were never alike in any way. It was you the boys flocked after, while I was the one people said was destined to be a spinster."

  Iris shook her head in protest, her silky black hair flying about her face. "You're wrong, Violet. You're not ugly. And in his way, Judd loves you. He's been good to you—"

  "He never beat me," Violet conceded. "But he never really loved me, and when the years passed with no babies, I knew I'd just about lost him."

  When the Panic of '37 finally hit Georgia, everybody started heading for Texas and the two square miles of land offered to any family brave enough to make the journey. Judd was the first to take off—without his wife. When he did come back he was wearing a shiny badge and bragging about how he'd joined the Texas Rangers. After trying to eke out a living on a fifty-acre dirt farm, Luke, too, decided the promise of over twelve hundred acres of land was too good to pass up. He and Iris made plans to follow Judd back. Violet was better off staying in Georgia, Judd had said. Being a Ranger would keep him away from home most of the time.

  "If it hadn't been for me getting pregnant, like a blessing out of the blue, I'd never have seen him again. But that doesn't matter now, because that blessing turned out to be a curse, and it's all over. All of it. I don't have anything left to live for, but you've got everything. Even the daughter you always wanted. Your baby lived and mine didn't. Now I wish I'd died with her."

  Iris had heard enough. "Stop it. Talking this way is blasphemy. You had a terrible delivery, Violet. You could have died, but God spared you, and it's a sin for you to say you wish He hadn't."

  Violet began to cry, her whole body quaking. She felt so awful, with her breasts swollen and aching. "I don't care. You said I'd never be able to have another baby—"

  "I can't be sure. No one can."

  Violet made a face. "Well, you should know. After all, you were the doctor's little helper, weren't you? Always traipsing around with Poppa when he made his calls. After he died you just took over, like you always do. Folks had something else to talk about besides how pretty you are and how your handsome husband adores you and what wonderful sons you have. They started calling you a 'medicine woman' and treated you like some kind of God."

  Iris's eyes filled with tears. "Violet, don't say these things. You don't mean them. You're sick, and I understand. Now please take Jacie and nurse her. We won't be leaving today as early as we usually do. Luke insisted you and I should get some rest, since we're only a day away from Nacogdoches now."

  Iris did not tell her about the other men's protests that they should keep moving because of the fear of Indians. An old prospector had happened by late the night before and warned them that they should get to the fort at Nacogdoches as soon as possible. Apparently, twelve Comanche chiefs had met with Texas commissioners a few months ago in hopes of a peace treaty—only there had been bad trouble instead. The Comanches had balked at giving up the white prisoners they were holding, and troops had then charged into the council room and started shooting. When the smoke cleared, all of the chiefs had been slaughtered, and the incident had set the Comanche nations on the warpath.

  The other men had not told their wives of the danger, knowing how terrified they would be, but Luke and Iris kept no secrets from each other. He regretted that a delay of a few hours was all he could get the others to agree to after telling them Violet was sick.

  Jacie began to mew hungrily, and Iris held her out to Violet. "Take her and rid yourself of some milk. We'll talk later, and I'll make you see you're wrong about Judd. He loves you, and everything will be fine once we get to Texas. You'll see. I love you too, Violet. I always have. And so did Momma and Poppa."

  Violet started to move away, but then her eyes fastened on the locket Iris always wore on a ribbon around her neck. It contained a daguerreotype of Iris, given to her by their mother, because they looked so much alike. Violet had been hurt, feeling it was a cruel reminder that she was not pretty like her mother and her sister.

  Violet's hand shot out, and she gave the locket a vicious yank, breaking t
he ribbon. Squeezing it in her fist, as Iris stared in wide-eyed wonder, Violet said through clenched teeth, "I am sick of staring at this symbol of the difference between us day after day, year after year. I think I hate you, Iris."

  Even as she had spoken the words, Violet felt awful and knew she did not really mean what she was saying. At the same instant, her breasts suddenly began to ache even more. Finally, she yielded to the agony and roughly jerked Jacie from Iris's arms. "Give her to me. I'll nurse her. Maybe then I'll feel like I'm useful for something in this life," she said miserably.

  She retreated to the distant scrub, but now she felt worse than before. Her breasts were no longer swollen and gorged; Jacie had drunk her fill and slept contentedly, tiny fists curled against her cherubic cheeks, droplets of milk drying at the corners of her little pink mouth. But guilt over the way she had treated her sister was making Violet sick to the depths of her soul. Iris had never been cruel or mean to her. It was not her fault the way life had turned out for Violet.

  Violet thought of Judd and prayed Iris had been right in saying he would still want her after finding out their baby had died. Violet loved him with all her heart and could not remember a time in her whole life when she hadn't. She had sworn to be a good wife and was certain that when the babies came, Judd would love her for being their mother if for no other reason. But could she hold him now, she wondered in anguish, when there would never be any children for them?

  She opened her hand and looked down at the locket, murmuring, "I've got to give it back, and I've got to apologize. God forgive me, how could I have said such terrible things to my own sister?"