Texas Rain

by Jodi Thomas

  They toasted his homecoming and the two oldest settled in to talk, but Tobin stood. "I'll put up the horses," he said, "and be right back, so don't start telling all of your adventures without me."

  Travis nodded once, then added, "I loaned out one of the bays. I'll get him back tomorrow."

  Tobin left without asking more.

  Travis knew the explanation was sketchy, but it was all he could think to say and still be telling the truth.

  When Tobin left, Teagen offered his brother a cigar, and they lit up with a shared smile. Even though they were in their twenties, they still listened for Martha's steps. The woman could smell cigar smoke from three rooms away.

  "How was the dance?" Teagen asked in his straightforward way.

  "Not bad," Travis answered. "Saw Mrs. Dickerson. I think she's hoping to get married again and give up teaching."

  Teagen nodded.

  "Elmo Anderson told me to tell you that new saddle you ordered should be in by tomorrow or the next day."

  The older brother nodded again. "You coming home to stay this time?" He'd asked the same question for almost ten years. For Teagen there would never be anything but the ranch. For Tobin it was horses. Neither seemed to understand that for Travis it would always be the open land, the roaming. He loved them all, but Travis knew he was born to travel. If it hadn't been the Rangers, it would have been the army, or something else. He needed the sky for a roof and the horizon for walls.

  "What did I miss?" Tobin said from the doorway.

  The brothers pulled their chairs in a circle by the fire, and Travis told them of his adventures while they related everything that had happened at the ranch. Finally, long after midnight, the talk turned to Sage and how much they'd all miss her if she married.

  Teagen suddenly laughed. "We sound like a bunch of old maids."

  Tobin shrugged. "We are. Sage is our only hope of having a next generation. There's not a woman in Texas who'd marry any one of us."

  Teagen leaned back in his chair. "True," he said matter-of-factly. "Martha says piss and vinegar must run in our blood to make us so mean. I'm the oldest, I'm already hard-boiled, but Tobin, you're still young. You could marry."

  "I'm almost twenty-four. An old man, so stop talking about me like I'm still growing."

  Travis looked at Teagen but pointed to Tobin. "He'd have to talk to a girl if he married her. Unless we can find one who looks like a horse, I don't think there's much chance of that."

  Tobin almost knocked Travis out of his chair with a playful blow.

  They were still laughing when they climbed the stairs to the men's quarters. Three rooms, all exactly alike. Travis waved good night as he closed his door and fell into bed. He thought he'd fall to sleep in a few breaths, but the pretty face of a redhead filled his mind. He'd almost told his brothers that he'd danced tonight and a girl had kissed him. But he didn't want to sound like a pup. If he told them details, he'd probably end up telling them about how, likely as not, she stole his horse.

  Travis rolled over. Tomorrow he'd ride to the trading post. She had to be traveling with the group of wagons heading north. He'd get his horse back and lecture her on the law. She could get shot for taking a horse. If he were playing by the rules, he should arrest her and let some judge decide what to do with her. But it was hard to think about cuffing someone he'd kissed.

  Well, could be he didn't kiss her, but she definitely kissed him.

  He thought about why she must have taken the horse. Maybe she had a good reason and he should hear her out before he started his planned lecture. Maybe her sick ma and pa were in a wagon. Maybe she was a widow trying to make it alone. She looked to be in her twenties, so it could be possible. She might have spent her last few dollars burying her man and now she had to make it back to a little farm alone. Or she could have been on the run from a father who beat her regularly.

  Travis spent an hour thinking about her and finally decided two things. One, he'd take an extra horse with him, an animal that wasn't part of a matched set, in case any of her stories sounded good. And, two, when he saw the woman who called herself Molly, if he got the chance, he'd return her kiss.

  He drifted off a few hours before dawn calling himself a fool. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't push the feel of her against him from his thoughts. She'd somehow branded him with her touch. The softness of her body pressed close to his was something he wouldn't be forgetting any time soon. She fit him, he decided and wished mating could have been so simple. No verbal sparring, no courting, just one man and one woman bumping together to see if they fit.

  By the time the smell of bacon woke him, the sun was up. Travis stretched, thinking how good a bed felt. Even when his travels took him into towns, he usually chose to camp out a mile or so away from people. He said it was because the smell of civilization bothered him, but in truth, the filth of hotels never appealed to him. He knew the sheets were changed once a month if the room had been rented every night, but most places rented half the bed. So a stranger might wander in and claim his half during the night.

  He'd seen signs asking all boarders to wash their feet before going to sleep, but Travis felt they should have washed the rest of their bodies as well. Even on slow nights when he could get an almost clean room alone, the odors of former guests kept him awake.

  Travis stripped to his underwear and went down the back stairs to the washroom. He wasn't surprised to find hot water and soap waiting. By the time he washed and returned to his room, clean clothes were on his bed.

  "Thank you, Martha!" he yelled as he dressed while moving down the front stairs.

  A few minutes later when she plopped a platter of food in front of him, she answered, "You are welcome."

  As he shoved eggs into his mouth, she added, "Everyone else has been up and working for hours."

  He didn't answer. Martha seemed to have the idea that being a Texas Ranger was some kind of long game he played and one day he'd grow up and come back home to do real work. None of the boys had ever asked her about her past, or doubted the rumor that prison had been a part of it. For all he knew, Martha had a hatred of lawmen based on personal experience.

  He stared at the eggs hoping she hadn't gone to prison for poisoning someone. Taking another mouthful, he smiled. If she didn't kill him for all the wild things he did growing up, she wasn't going to poison him for sleeping late today.

  Travis stood shoveling in the last bite of bacon. "I have to go into town. Do you want me to pick up any supplies?"

  Martha shook her head. "I get my supplies on the first of the month, and anything I forget we can just do without until the first rolls around again."

  "I'll be back before supper, I hope. If not, I'll leave word with Anderson. I have a feeling Teagen will by riding over tomorrow morning to see if his saddle came in, so tell him if he doesn't see me tonight, there will be a note waiting."

  She didn't even look up as he left.

  He caught two horses in the corral and saddled one, then headed for the back trail through the hills. It was faster than the bridge road. Travis pushed hard, thinking that he should have been at the trading post before dawn. By now the wagons would be a few miles north. He'd catch them easily on horseback, but he could have saved time if he'd reached the post before his green-eyed thief left with his horse.

  When he stopped to talk to the owner of the trading post, old Elmo Anderson claimed there was no woman named Molly with the travelers. He'd supplied every wagon himself and could not remember any woman fitting Travis's description. Elmo also swore that if a McMurray bay had been among the horses, he would have noticed it. Most of the wagons had been pulled by oxen, a few by mules, and the few riders between the wagons were on nags. Anderson couldn't remember even a cart pulled with one horse.

  Travis took the time to talk with a peddler who'd traveled from south of the post. He said he hadn't seen a soul all morning, so she couldn't have gone south. Any other direction would be open country and far too dangerous for a woma
n to travel alone. His little thief seemed to have vanished.

  Travis rode on to the wagons hoping that she'd joined up with the rest somewhere along the north road. If she were on the bay, she would have been wise not to let anyone near the post see her ride away. The cowhands might not recognize Travis, but they'd know a McMurray horse.

  Two hours later, when he caught up to the settlers snailing their way across a shallow river, he saw that Anderson had been right. No horse. No woman who'd called herself Molly was among them.

  She'd disappeared.

  The travelers were newly arrived from Germany and' few spoke English. He'd seen them at the dance, keeping mostly to themselves. Travis had assumed Molly was with them even though she'd tried to act like she was Irish. Since Anderson hadn't known her, she wouldn't have been a daughter of a local family. How could a woman walk alone into a dance and no one notice? Or, for that matter, walk away with a horse without a soul seeing her go?

  Molly with the green eyes was growing more interesting by the minute.

  He told himself he knew how she'd done it. Like him, everyone thought she belonged with someone else. No one at the dance knew everyone, so pretending to be with first one group and then another would have been easy for her.

  Grinning, he realized that at one point she'd pretended to be with him and no one had questioned her.

  William Ackland, the oldest and self-appointed leader of the group of Germans, offered to share their noon meal after Travis made sure all the wagons made it across the river. Ackland spoke a passable English and didn't mind acting as interpreter. The women, shyly at first, asked questions about what lay north-the people, the weather, the settlements past Fort Graham. The men asked about the land, and then what danger they might encounter.

  When Travis finished answering their questions, he asked a few of his own. Not one remembered a redheaded woman at the dance. He was beginning to think she'd been a dream. Only a dream wouldn't have kissed him or stolen a horse. A dream wouldn't have spread her fingers over his chest as if needing to know he was real as dearly as he had wanted to hold her when he'd danced with her.

  One woman said she met a young woman named Sally who might have had red hair beneath her scarf, but she seemed too afraid to even join the women in conversation. The German woman thought she must have been a local.

  Travis doubted that would be his fearless Molly who'd run past a dozen men when she thought she was saving his life. But it made sense that she'd play more than one part; after all, she'd played two with him.

  When the leader asked him to travel with them for a while and scout, Travis couldn't decline. Most of the men looked like fanners, and no one, as far as he could see, carried a gun handy. The new settlers had no idea how treacherous Texas could be. They thought their eight wagons would protect them.

  "I'll go as far as the next trading post," he said to William Ackland. "From there maybe you can find a supply wagon heading for the fort. You all will be far safer traveling with men who know this part of the country."

  As Travis swung back into the saddle, he decided heading north to find the redhead was as good a direction as any. If he didn't find her, he'd need the ride home to think of a reason he'd lost the bay.

  CHAPTER 5

  Rainey Adams crawled out from under the sage-brush where she'd curled up to sleep and stared at the trading post a quarter mile away. Even the late sleepers from the night before had long ago left the area around the barn where the dance had been held. But to her surprise horses were gathered at the entrance to the mercantile. Too many, she thought. Something, besides everyday trade, must be going on.

  Rainey pushed back through the brush and into the shadows of live oaks growing near the creek. This had been her refuge since she arrived almost a week ago, and the clearing was starting to feel like home. The branches, newly green, formed a roof and the rocks were her furniture. The few belongings she had were safely hidden away in her traveling bag behind a fallen log.

  She'd paid for passage on a freight wagon, but asked to be let off before they reached the trading post. She wanted time to study the place before going into the little settlement. A woman alone needed to be careful. She'd watched those coming and going, waiting for the right people to travel on with before announcing herself. She had one more leg to her journey, or at least she hoped there would be only one more stop. When she'd reached Galveston, she'd thought to settle there, but the town was wild, and the only boardinghouse for women that she'd found had been loud and dirty. Though her money was getting dangerously low, she didn't bother to look for work in Galveston.

  Rainey also knew that if her father followed her, the coastal town would be his first stop. She would be safer to journey inland. She'd met several families on the ship from New Orleans, and most of them were moving north, traveling with the freighters or spacing their wagons between them for safety.

  One older driver, with hands crippled up from years of holding the reins on a mule team, offered her a ride as far as the Anderson Trading Post if she'd do all the cooking when they camped and pay for half of the food. She kept her bargain. He ate most of the food as they traveled north dropping off families at farms and settlements along the way. By the time they reached the Anderson Trading Post, she'd been his last company to leave.

  The old freighter insisted she take a blanket and half the remaining food. He also offered her a pistol, but Rainey refused.

  She'd waved goodbye to him, then disappeared into the trees at the last bend in the road before the trading post. By the time she'd worked her way through the brush to where she could see the post clearly, the freighter had unloaded and was heading back south. She'd almost waved him down and asked for a ride back to the nearest town, but he'd told her the fort lay three or four days further and he'd heard one of the officer's wives was sickly and had been asking for a nurse. He'd made her promise to wait until a group of wagons was heading that direction because he claimed one wagon alone wouldn't be safe from this point on.

  Rainey agreed. And thanked him for the help. She knew nothing of nursing, but she had taught school since she was thirteen and figured it was time to give nursing a try. That is, if she could get to the fort and if the poor woman were still alive and in need of a nurse.

  Frowning, Rainey sat on a rock a few feet from the stream. The ifs in her life were starting to outnumber the maybes, and that was never good news.

  Last night, at the dance, she'd had a clear plan. She picked out a good horse, borrowed it without anyone seeing, and hid it near the stream. After dawn, she hoped to blend in with the eight wagons heading north. The German farmers would be miles away before they noticed they had a stranger among them. If she was lucky, they might even think someone in their party had invited her. She'd played that game to get on the boat from New Orleans and had been surprised at how well it worked.

  But this morning nothing worked as she planned. She'd overslept. The horse wandered off and was nowhere in sight. The Germans must have left before dawn. Bad luck followed her like a hungry mouse running toward the smell of ripe cheese. Maybe she should develop a new strategy and plan to fail; surely then she'd succeed at something besides making a mess of her life.

  She'd waited days for the German wagons. Who knew how long it would be before more settlers passed the post heading north. She couldn't live out here in the woods forever without someone in the small settlement noticing. She'd been lucky to find this small bend, but several times she'd heard folks watering their horses less than thirty feet away.

  Six months ago, when she'd decided to run away from her father's matchmaking scheme, she thought marrying some nitwit fish merchant twice her age whom she didn't love would be a fate worse than death. Since she arrived in Texas, she'd reconsidered.

  Rainey pulled off the red wig she'd slept in and scratched her head. The hairpiece she'd borrowed from an aging actress on the boat from New Orleans not only hurt her head, she was sure it had fleas. Hurrying to the edge of the stream, she
tried her best not to swear at the latest turn of events. As if oversleeping and losing the horse wasn't enough, now she sensed trouble at the trading post. This was not turning out to be a good day. Not that she would recognize one if it came along.

  She might be an "old maid," as her father called her constantly, but she was not without resources. From the time her parents started running an exclusive girls' school near Washington, D.C., she'd read. Surely she'd learned something in all those years of books that would help her now.

  At thirteen Rainey had taken a teaching position at her father's school, not because of any great love of teaching, but so she could stay at school and practically live, as she always had, in the library. She'd seen enough of the way her father treated her mother to know she never wanted marriage. She thought he would pay her a rightful wage when she reached sixteen, the legal age to teach. She would save her money before heading out on her own. After all, her aunt May had left home and made it in New Orleans alone. Her letters to Rainey's mother told of grand adventures and fascinating people. Rainey planned to do the same.

  Her father, however, made other plans. On her sixteenth birthday he said she'd have to wait another year to draw a wage, but he did increase her responsibilities. At seventeen he made her head of one of the dorms but again refused her a salary, claiming that she was still a minor and therefore everything she made legally belonged to him. At eighteen her mother died and her father refused to talk to her for months. She allowed him his time. At nineteen the school made enough money for her father to build a grand house for his second wife, but he said she must stay in the dorm because it wouldn't be proper for her to live with him and his new wife. When she turned twenty, he said she was ungrateful for all he'd done for her.

  At twenty-one, when she threatened to quit if he didn't pay her, he called her a worthless old maid. A week later he handed his plain little bookworm of a daughter over to the middle-aged widower with six children who owned the fish market. The widower didn't seem to mind, her father had said, that she was worthless and money hungry. They'd both agreed that with a stern hand she would make a passable wife.