Twilight in Texas

by Jodi Thomas

  But as she crawled into the back of the wagon and stretched out beside him, she didn’t seem angry, only tired. Carefully, she covered them both with his blanket, then felt his cheek for fever.

  He didn’t move. He figured shooting stars were more predictable than this woman. Outguessing her would only drive him mad, and right now, the way his head felt, it would be a short trip.

  She cuddled against him as if he hadn’t seen her standing bare-naked in the moonlight. She acted as though it didn’t matter. Like he’d seen a hundred women without anything on, and she wouldn’t stand out in his memory.

  Or maybe she was just tired. More tired than embarrassed.

  Wolf realized he’d forgotten his pain, but the fever seemed to be returning. He grew warmer with every moment that passed with her at his side.

  She must have felt him heat up, for her fingers stroked his cheek. “Are you all right?” she whispered. “Would a cool cloth help?”

  “No,” he answered, thinking she’d probably not like where he’d need to put a cloth to cool off.

  “Does your head still pound?” She moved her fingers into his hair above the bandage.

  “Yes,” he managed to say. She was so close. Wolf could feel her body along the length of him as she stroked her fingers through his hair. He could smell her, too, the rosewater wash she used on her hair, the perfumed cream he’d seen her smooth over her hands, even the powder he’d watched her sprinkle along her waist. Her bare waist.

  “Try to sleep,” she ordered, her words brushing against his face. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  “Will you stay beside me?”

  “I’ve nowhere else to sleep.” She continued to comb through his hair. “We passed out the last blanket hours ago, and there is no room on the pallet Early and Callie Ann made.”

  His hand circled her middle. “Here is where you belong.” The movement cost him dearly. His head pounded so fiercely he was surprised she couldn’t hear it.

  She must have sensed it, though. Molly closed the few inches between them and kissed his bandage. “Easy now. I’m right here.”

  Without loosening his grip, Wolf closed his eyes and drifted with the pain until he could bear it once more. By the time he could think clearly, she’d relaxed in sleep.

  He floated in and out of consciousness, enjoying her nearness like a sweet dream when he awoke. He relaxed beside her as he slept, a part of him always aware of her. The feel of her fitting so perfectly at his side was like a rich wine washing through him, warming his soul, drugging his thoughts.

  Just before dawn, when the sky was black, he woke once again to the bubbling sounds of the water. For a moment, he couldn’t figure out what was different. The night was quiet, cool. The water lazy and pure-smelling. Molly slept beneath his arm, her hand spread protectively across his chest.

  Then he knew what had changed. The pain was gone. She’d been right.

  Molly moaned softly in her sleep, and he guessed she was dreaming. He wanted to enter the fantasy as he had weeks ago. Maybe she dreamed of him, of Benjamin, and he was right by her side. In the hours before, even through the fever, he’d noticed how comfortable she’d become with him. Touching him as casually as if they’d been together for a long time.

  Wolf couldn’t resist sliding his hand along her hip. He didn’t know if the feel of her would ever become routine.

  She didn’t move as he caressed her.

  His fingers glided lightly over her back. Though her blouse covered her, he had seen her body. He imagined he touched her flesh. He’d always liked the gentle curves of her slender body, but now the feel of them pleased him greatly.

  She rolled onto her back, breathing deep and completely relaxed. He knew she’d worked hard all day and late into the night. Now, she slept as soundly as a child.

  His hand grew bolder, brushing against the starched cotton of her clothing, touching the silk of her hair, caressing the softness of her cheek.

  She moaned again without waking, as though her pleasure in dreams was too great to keep inside.

  He cupped her breast gently in his palm and rolled toward her, unable to resist the taste of her mouth. It was velvet and full in sleep. She made no resistance. He parted her lips with his tongue and kissed her soundly. As he felt her awakening beneath him, his grip closed tighter over her breast, wanting her to enjoy the expression as much as he did.

  He relished the softness of her through the thin layers of clothing and savored every movement she made as she slipped from dreams to his arms. She twisted under him, and he showed his own desire by deepening the kiss.

  Her hands shoved suddenly against his chest. It took his mind and body a moment to react.

  She pounded her fist against him in rapid fire.

  Startled, he pulled away, hating to allow room between them.

  The moment Wolf released Molly, she rolled from the wagon and stumbled to her feet. She turned, staring at him in the velvet night as if she’d just fought her way, not from a dream, but from a nightmare.

  Before he could react, she was running toward the river without uttering a word. But he’d seen all he needed to see in her stormy green eyes. He’d seen hurt. And hatred.

  Wolf pulled himself up and tried to follow her. He must explain. But he felt weak, and the throbbing in his head returned like a low drumbeat. He tried to think but couldn’t get his thoughts to make sense. He had to find her. He had to know if he’d gone too far.

  Stumbling from the wagon, he forced his legs to move. What had he been thinking? To her, he was a man with whom she’d spent only a few days. He’d agreed to her terms of the marriage, and now, the first time she’d relaxed and felt comfortable near him, he’d advanced.

  Daybreak lightened the horizon before he saw her huddled between two rocks at the water’s edge. He moved slowly toward her, wondering if he should apologize or declare his love. Whichever he decided would probably be the wrong choice.

  She didn’t bother looking up at him when he neared, but he knew she heard him. He was making as much noise as a wounded bear, dragging his feet and grumbling as he moved. How could he ever explain that he wanted to get used to the feel of her as she had him? Was that the way it was supposed to be? he thought. She could touch him, but he couldn’t touch her?

  “Molly,” he started, thinking he didn’t have much of a speech, one word.

  “Molly.” Two words, and he was already repeating himself.

  He moved closer. “Molly…”

  Her stormy gaze stopped him. If this kept up, he’d never complete a sentence in front of her. She looked like a little girl, huddled with her arms around her knees. He thought of all he’d like to tell her. How much he loved her. How his very life started and ended with her. How he’d never hurt her, if she’d just let him near. But he couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t even think of where to start.

  “I didn’t mean to undress in front of you.” She snapped so quickly the words slurred together as one. It took his pounding head a few minutes to sort them out.

  He opened his mouth, but this time he didn’t even get his one word out.

  “I only crawled beside you because I wanted to be close if you needed me. I thought you understood that. I wasn’t being forward. Or at least I didn’t think I was, though I can see how it must have looked to you at the time.”

  Wolf rubbed his forehead. She was going to have to slow down. He couldn’t hear as fast as she spoke. At this rate, there would be whole sentences left in the air between them.

  “I came to help you. Until this trouble is over, you are my husband, and I’m trying to do what I think a wife, even in name only, should do.”

  She was apologizing, he thought. Hell, he’d been the one who’d acted like a fool. Here she was justifying herself as if she thought she’d somehow made him act the way he did. He was relieved and insulted at the same time.

  Relieved because she wasn’t angry at him but at herself, and insulted that she thought him so weak-
minded or weak-bodied that he’d try to bed any woman who showed herself to him and cuddled against him. And whispered in his ear, he thought. And ran her fingers through his hair. And let her breasts rest against him.

  Hell, he thought, sitting down beside her and lowering his head in his hands, he had no right to be insulted. Molly was right about him, he was weak-minded when it came to her. Maybe some of his brains splattered out when he got shot. He’d behaved like a fool. She had no business apologizing to him.

  “So that’s why I want you to know I don’t consider it your fault, and I don’t want you to think I’m doing this because of what just happened. I understand about men and their needs.”

  He’d jumped into the middle of one of her speeches and he wasn’t sure he could catch up. But he wasn’t about to interrupt her and tell her he hadn’t been listening.

  “But when we get back to Austin, I feel—”

  “Stop.” He finally found another word to say. “Just stop.”

  To his surprise, she did.

  He took a moment to circle the wagons of his thoughts. He wasn’t sure what she’d been about to say, but he was fairly certain he didn’t want to hear her finish the sentence.

  “I know you didn’t mean to undress in front of me, and I didn’t mean to look. So can we just call that even? As for crawling next to me, your reasons make perfect sense. Normally, I would have said you were putting yourself in the safest place you could sleep.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but he held up his hand. “I have to have twice the time as you, Molly. I only talk at half the rate.

  “I’m not going to blame what I did on a fever or on just being a man wanting to touch someone. I knew what I was doing, Molly. I wanted to touch you. I have since the day we married. No, since the day we met. I should have been honest enough to say something, but I figured if all you wanted was a friend, I could be that.” He had to be truthful about something. If she were going to kill him, he wanted to die for the truth, not for what she thought happened.

  “Hell, Molly. It wasn’t just because you were some woman lying next to me. It was you.” He watched her closely. Now it was her turn to digest his words. “I have no right to touch you, if it’s not what you want. It was my mistake thinking you wanted to be held, to be caressed the way a man touches a woman. My mistake, not yours. You set the rules from the beginning. I had no right to think they had changed.”

  The silence between them was thick and heavy. He’d said all he could today. He wasn’t sure she’d listen to more. She might not believe him if he told her more.

  “It won’t happen again?” She lifted her chin.

  “It won’t happen again,” he answered, knowing he’d cut off his arm before he’d touch her again if she was unwilling.

  “And you’ll forget seeing me nude?”

  Wolf couldn’t keep the corner of his mouth from lifting into a smile and only hoped his beard covered it. “I’ll never forget seeing you, but I won’t mention it to you or anyone. I swear.”

  She seemed satisfied with the agreement. “Friends?” she asked.

  “Friends,” he answered, knowing they were already so much more.

  NINETEEN

  BEFORE THE SUN GREW WARM, THEY RETURNED the wagon to the livery and waited on a pine bench in front of the station for the stage from San Antonio to pick them up. It changed horses at the station and headed straight to Austin. With luck, they’d be home by noon.

  The woman named Early, whom Molly introduced as someone traveling with them, seemed to jump every time Wolf looked at her. She was so shy, he wasn’t sure she knew how to talk. But in her sad eyes he noticed a kindness when she looked at Callie Ann. If she wanted to tag along with them, it was all right with him.

  “I wouldn’t have minded driving the wagon,” Molly said for the third time. “We’d planned to take you back so that you could rest while we traveled. Early and I are both good drivers. You could have slept the day away.”

  Wolf knew he’d upset her plan by insisting on the stage. He wasn’t around women often enough to remember that they always had an order to their world worked out, and it usually wasn’t worth the trouble a man would go through to change the plan. “I can rest in the stage,” he tried to explain. “I don’t want to enter Austin lying in the back of a wagon, and I’m not sure I’m clearheaded enough to sit a saddle.”

  Molly nodded, but he doubted she understood.

  She didn’t say another word about it. When the stage pulled up, she reached into her bag and handed him a roll of bills.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “For the passage,” she whispered.

  “This is my money, not yours?” he questioned.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  He guessed she was lying. He doubted there had been so much left in his account after he’d bought them the new clothes. But this was not the time or place for a husband and wife to have a discussion over money. He paid their fares and helped her into the stage.

  Luckily, there were only two other passengers. Miss Early, as Callie Ann called her, and the child sat on one side with a sleeping cowhand who smelled of his trade. Wolf and Molly took the other seat next to a boy of about fourteen. He seemed happy to have someone to talk to.

  “Mornin’, folks.” He smiled and tapped his hat. “Name’s Riley.”

  “Morning,” Wolf answered without offering his name.

  “You folks traveling far?” The kid tried again.

  “Only to Austin.” Wolf wasn’t sure he could keep up conversation for long. He’d been awake for hours and looked forward to a nap.

  Callie Ann scooted off her bench and folded down the extra side chair.

  Wolf raised an eyebrow.

  “For Uncle Orson,” Molly answered.

  Grinning, Wolf mumbled, “I thought he would want to ride up top.”

  The boy didn’t understand about the chair, but he heard Wolf’s comment. “Ain’t no one riding up top, mister. A girl fell off a few days ago. Every driver’s been asking people to keep an eye out for her. She couldn’t have bounced far from the road.”

  “Maybe she never climbed up at the stop,” Molly suggested.

  “Oh, yes, she did, ma’am. Her mother swore to it. Said the girl was dumb as a box of rocks and probably didn’t hold on.”

  Wolf saw the sadness turn liquid in Early’s eyes. He didn’t have to ask to know the truth about her. “Where you from, son?” Wolf changed the subject.

  “San Antonio, but my cousins live in Abilene. I’m going to see them for a month or so. Their name’s Haynes, Perry and Charlsa Haynes. Maybe you know them?”

  The ranger shook his head. Folks newly arrived in Texas still thought it was a small enough place where everyone who’d been here awhile knew everyone else. “I don’t get up that way much.” He didn’t want to tell the boy what he did for a living, or he knew he’d spend the entire ride answering questions. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take a nap. I’ll let you keep an eye out for the girl who bounced off, son.”

  The boy looked disappointed.

  Lowering his hat over his bandaged forehead, Wolf crossed his arms over his chest. He fully intended to sleep, but as the stage rocked, he became aware of all the places he was touching Molly.

  She didn’t seem to notice. She was busy making notes in her journal.

  The stage rolled back and forth. Her knee kept bumping his. Her elbow pushed against his side as she wrote. After trying to ignore her for several minutes, he finally shifted his shoulders to give her more room. In doing so, his leg now rested firmly against hers.

  Molly thanked him for the elbow room and didn’t seem to mind that their knees touched.

  Wolf watched her through half-closed eyes. She was so beautiful this morning, she took his breath away. He didn’t understand how no one else seemed to see it but him. The world was blind, he decided.

  She wrote as fast as she could with a pencil no longer than her finger. By the way she frowned
and bit the tip of her tongue, she looked like she was arguing with herself on paper about some great dilemma. He remembered her telling him that writing was how she worked things out when she had a problem to solve. He hoped he wasn’t her topic for the day.

  Sleep caught up to him, making the trip short. In what seemed only minutes, they pulled into Austin.

  Charlie Filmore met them at the station with Noah’s wagon.

  “How’d you know we were coming?” Wolf asked Charlie in greeting as he offered his hand to Molly. When she took it, he didn’t let go after she climbed out. To his surprise she didn’t seem to mind.

  “Didn’t know you were on this one,” Charlie answered as he collected the ladies’ bags. “I’ve been meeting every stage. I figured you’d be on one if you were still alive. Miss Molly probably wouldn’t let you ride with a head wound, and the only way you’d be traveling into town in the back of a wagon would be inside one of Miller’s boxes.”

  “You know him better than I do,” Molly said, then encouraged a shy Early to step forward. “Mr. Filmore, I’d like you to meet Miss Early. She’ll be coming home with us for a visit if she can manage the time.”

  Early looked surprised by the invitation. Charlie appeared to be struck dumb at the sight of the young lady. He rarely got to meet respectable women.

  He made the mistake of smiling as she glanced toward him, sending Miss Early hurrying behind Wolf in panic.

  Charlie lowered his head and backed away. “I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I know I’m a sight. Most folks around these parts know better than to look me in the face.”

  “What happened?” she whispered from behind Wolf.

  “Three bullets, three different battles. Each time, the doctors patched me up as best they could, but they didn’t spend much time on me. Figured I’d die. Even left the death certificates signed before they moved on.” He laughed. “But I fooled ’em. I lived even without much of a face left.”

  To her credit, the shy woman stepped out from behind Wolf and offered her hand to Charlie.