Morning Mountain © 1995 by Peggy Darty
A Bride’s Rogue in Roma, Texas © 2012 by Darlene Franklin
Valiant Heart © 1997 by Sally Laity
Lessons in Love © 2000 by Nancy Lavo
To See His Way © 2000 by Kathleen Paul
Print ISBN 978-1-63058-886-1
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-63409-335-4
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-63409-336-1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Published by Barbour Books, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
Printed in the United States of America.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Morning Mountain
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
About the Author
A Bride’s Rogue in Roma, Texas
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
About the Author
Valiant Heart
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
About the Author
Lessons in Love
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
About the Author
To See His Way
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
About the Author
Morning Mountain
by Peggy Darty
CHAPTER 1
Suzanne Waters withdrew her leather glove and swiped her bleeding thumb across her jeans. She hated barbed wire, even if Pa and other Colorado ranchers declared it to be the greatest invention of the 1870s. She sighed, checking her handiwork. Through dogged persistence, she had managed to twist a sagging strand of wire back in place, and now Pa would never know how close they had come to losing their horses.
Ever since her father’s accident, she had been riding over the range, checking to be sure there were no breaks in the fence or other calamities to add to their list of disasters. With their only ranch hand gone and Pa laid up with cracked ribs and a sprained ankle, she was praying long and hard.
A strand of blond hair had escaped her felt hat, tickling her sunburned forehead as it dangled over worried gray eyes. If not for a promise to her mother to “remain ladylike,” when Abigail Waters lay dying the past winter, she would grab the scissors and whack the long strands into a more practical style. A boys’ cut, perhaps. After all, she was quickly falling into the role of the son her father wanted but never had.
Behind her, Nellie, her horse, nickered softly.
“We’ll go soon,” she promised, glancing over her shoulder to the beloved mare that had become her best friend in their new home. She had carried on some very serious conversations with patient Nellie, but Nellie, for once, was ignoring her.
“What’s wrong?” Suzanne asked, noticing the way Nellie’s ears were perked as the animal stared out across the valley.
Suzanne looked around, inspecting the landscape. At the base of Morning Mountain, the terrain spread into a valley, enclosed by walls of pine, cottonwood, and aspens. Beyond the woods lay the road to Wiley’s Trading Post two miles down the road. Suzanne frowned. She could see a horse moving through the trees, toward the end of the woods. Soon the horse would reach the clearing and she’d be able to see the rider.
“Just someone headed to the post, Nellie.” Suzanne stroked the mare’s neck then turned her attention back to her sore thumb.
The bleeding had stopped and she pulled on her glove. As she wiggled her fingers into the warm leather, she glanced again toward the woods.
First the head, then the body of a black horse emerged. Suzanne frowned. There was something odd about the rider. She squinted, trying to determine what it was. Something about the rider bothered her. What? The rider sat on the horse, leaning forward like one afraid of falling—a rare sight in ranching country.
She pulled her hat brim lower on her forehead, shutting out the sun’s rays for a better look.
The horse was in plain view now, and she realized the rider had slumped forward. Something was wrong with that rider.
Suzanne bit her lip, torn between Pa’s warning to stay away from strangers and her
own basic desire to help wherever she was needed. Glancing at the saddle scabbard that held her rifle, she felt safe enough to investigate. Gathering Nellie’s reins, she swung astride and kneed her mare.
Nellie, sensitive to her rider, stretched her legs until the two were a gray streak across the upper end of the valley. Suzanne was an excellent rider, spending hours on Nellie’s back. Horse and rider knew each other well, and now Nellie sensed a crisis.
“Whoa,” Suzanne called as they drew near the black stallion. By now, the man was barely hanging on. Even from a distance, she could see a trail of blood along the front of his shirt.
“What’s happened?” she called, drawing rein. She jumped down and approached him cautiously.
The man was tall and well-built, dressed in a blue cotton shirt, dark pants, and leather boots. He wore a wide-brimmed, black hat, shading the face that slumped onto his chest.
She took a step closer. Dark hair tumbled over his forehead. His eyes were closed. Beneath a mustache, his mouth was partially open, as if asleep. But this man wasn’t just asleep. He had lapsed into unconsciousness, unable to respond to her. She could see the mass of blood, clotting his shirt to his chest.
His horse stopped walking and turned wary eyes to Suzanne.
She approached the horse, stroking the dark gray patch on his forehead. Then she looked up at the man. He was bleeding on the left side; his right hand had gone slack on the reins. Another minute and he’d be on the ground.
“Hold on,” she called, reaching up to steady him. “Can you hear me?”
She stared bewildered at the dark hair and neatly trimmed mustache. He was a handsome man, probably in his middle to upper twenties, with high cheekbones, straight nose, and full lips beneath the mustache.
“Mister, I’m taking you to the ranch,” she said, wondering if he would be alive by the time she got him there.
Hank Waters thrust his handmade crutch solidly onto the board floor and hobbled from the living room back to the bedroom. He paused in the doorway, studying the stranger who now occupied his bed. His daughter stood at the bedside, adjusting the bandages she and Hank had just wrapped around the man’s left side.
“Suzanne, your ma couldn’t have stood by and watched me dig that bullet out of him like you did.” Hank’s voice was gruff, as usual, but Suzanne heard the unmistakable note of pride.
“Guess I’m more like you than Mom,” she answered distractedly, her attention focused on her patient.
The man had turned his head on the pillow, as though aware of their words. Suzanne watched him closely. His dark lashes parted slowly, and the bluest eyes she’d ever seen stared into her face. Everything about this man had been a surprise. He had the broadest shoulders she’d ever touched, for starters, and beneath the firm skin, his muscles ware taut. She wondered what he did for a living; she wondered, even more, what had gotten him shot.
His dark brows drew together in confusion as he looked from Suzanne to her father, who was limping to the bed.
“Just lie still,” she said, smiling at him. “Can you sip some water?”
A muffled sound drifted over his cracked lips, which she interpreted as yes. She reached for the tin cup of water on the bedside table.
“Here, I’ll hold his head,” Hank offered, cradling the man’s head in his brawny hands. Hank was tall and wiry, muscular and strong for a man of sixty years.
Suzanne pressed the brim of the cup to the stranger’s lips.
“Sip it slowly,” she warned, gently tilting the cup.
She watched with concern as the water trickled over his tongue, and he began to gulp.
“No!” She withdrew the cup. “You’ll be sick if you drink too quickly.”
Hank’s sharp eyes, the same steel gray as his hair and beard, swept to his daughter. “You oughta go back up to Denver and work in a hospital.”
“Then who’d take care of you?” she shot back.
“I don’t need—”
The stranger began to cough, interrupting their arguments. Their bantering was comfortable and frequent, as native to the cabin as the smell of beeswax, and coffee brewing on the stove.
“What’s your name, mister?” Hank barked as the man’s head sank into the pillow, and his eyes closed.
Suzanne put a hand on her father’s arm and shook her head.
“Let him sleep,” she whispered.
“He’s weak,” Hank lowered his voice, “lost a lot of blood.”
While Suzanne had restrained her father from asking questions, she found herself every bit as curious as Hank, perhaps even more. She checked the bandages—clean white strips of cloth improvised from an old sheet. The bleeding had stopped, thank God. She sighed with relief, pulling the quilt over his chest and motioning her father out of the room.
“Reckon I’ll move my stuff out to the living room,” Hank grumbled, hobbling to the pine wardrobe.
“Pa, I’ll do that,” Suzanne quickly offered. “You go lie down. At the moment, one patient is enough.”
For once, Hank’s stubborn streak refused to assert itself, allowing his daughter to take over. She stared after his thin frame, noticing how his shoulder blades jutted against his shirt. If not for a wide tight belt, his pants would never stay on. She wondered, worriedly, just how much weight he had lost since he’d begun working his daylight-to-dark regime, the labor backbreaking with no help.
God is our refuge and strength. The verse came to her mind; it was on the list she had made from her mother’s Bible. Those verses had been all that had sustained her after her mother’s death, and she found herself quoting them on a daily basis.
She followed her father out of the room, closing the door softly behind her. Hank had settled onto the front porch step and sat staring out at the valley, puffing on his pipe.
CHAPTER 2
Luke Thomason tried to wedge his mind from the nightmare that had gripped him for… he had no idea how long. There had been a woman—or had she been an angel? A woman with beautiful blond hair and a kind smile. Had she given him something to drink?
His mind tumbled backward and again he was trapped in that nightmare, unable to escape.
A kerosene lamp hung over the poker table, casting a yellow glow on the cards in Luke’s hand. He couldn’t believe his luck. He had another winning hand. With a pair of jacks and two eights and another card coming, he could end up with a full house; or if not, he still had two pairs. He glanced at the card lying facedown on the table. That card would tell the tale. Smoothly, he reached down, lifted it, and tucked the card among the others. A jack!
His mouth was dry, his palms were moist. He dared not move for fear of betraying his excitement. What was he doing here playing poker for high stakes when his experience had been limited to the bunkhouse at Godfrey’s ranch?
Slowly, he lifted his eyes, studying the faces of the men at the table, trying to read their eyes. They had acquired the poker faces he’d heard about, but then he’d been told he had one, too. With him, the inscrutable expression had been stamped on years before, by a determination to hide the ache from a heart that had been ripped in two.
The two men, directly to his left and right, wore range clothes. He sensed their lives were similar to his—dirt-poor ranch hands dreaming of wealth at the tables. The man opposite him was from Denver and a thoroughly unlikable sort.
Dressed in a black frock coat and white linen shirt, he was a small man, barely over five feet tall, with a superior attitude and an insulting manner. A nervous twitch pulled at the man’s thin face, and put constant movement into the close-set black eyes. Those eyes jumped from player to player, back to his cards, then to the chips on the table. The eyes shot to his dwindling stack of chips then sank again to the cards in his hand.
The city slicker with the money was losing badly. And Luke, drawing from instincts and a sharp mind, was winning it.
The two men beside him were down to a handful of chips. Luke studied the twin stacks of chips piled high before him.
/> He counted out an impressive stack and placed them in the center of the table. Their faces didn’t betray them, but he could feel the disappointment settling over the other players. He had just upped the price of poker, forcing a show of hands.
“I’m out,” the man next to him said, coming to his feet. “I’m not losing the rest of my money.”
The other ranch hand stood slowly, grabbing his one remaining chip and pocketing it quickly.
“Me, too.”
The city slicker stayed in the game, adding a stack of chips to the pile in the center.
Smoothly, Luke laid out his full house, and the little man’s eyes bulged. He began to cough, looking and sounding as though someone were choking him to death. His wrist went limp, dropping the cards onto the table. Luke was looking at two pairs. He had won again.
Luke was not a gambler by nature, and while the game was a challenge, he knew the danger as well. He was a poor, hardworking cowhand who had hit a streak of luck. But he knew when to quit.
He stood, gathering up his winnings. “Think I’ll cash in,” he said, glancing at the red-faced man across the table.
The little man leaped to his feet, sputtering with rage.
“You can’t quit now!”
Luke towered over him, his blue eyes narrowed. “Beg your pardon,” he drawled, “but I can quit anytime I want to…”
A soft touch moved across his forehead, and the vague aroma of wildflowers filled his nostrils. Was he lying in a meadow? If so, who was touching him? That touch had soothed him, calmed him, freed him at last from the nightmare. He sank deeper into the pillow and found the peaceful sleep he craved.
CHAPTER 3
Suzanne left the room again, closing the door softly behind her. Worriedly, she plodded out to the porch, where her father sat on the slab-log step, smoking his pipe.
“Pa, you’ve had experience with cowboys who took a bullet or got a bad injury riding bronc,” Suzanne said, dropping down beside him. “Do you think an infection will set up in that man’s shoulder?”
Hank squinted at her over a wisp of smoke. “Hard to tell. With all the alcohol we used, I’m guessing we’ve killed the germs.”
“I rubbed down his horse then put him in the back corral so he and Rocky wouldn’t tangle over the mares.”
The Brides of the Old West: Five Romantic Adventures from the American Frontier Page 1