The Parker Ranch, run by Parker sons and daughters since before The War Between the States. Tough, rugged, and fiercely loyal...to each other and to the people they let into their hearts.
WEST TEXAS MATCH
Book 1 of the The West Texans series
By Ginger Chambers
Author’s Edition
Published by Ginger Chambers
©2017
ISBN: 978-1-940081-07-6
Originally published as A Match Made in Texas
Cover Design: Rogenna Brewer, Covers by Rogenna
License Notes:
All Rights Reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events in the book have no existence outside the imagination of the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Chapter One
"I hope you like this book, Shannon.” The determinedly bright female voice carried across the otherwise silent room. “I haven’t read it myself yet, but everyone says it’s wonderful. I’ll just leave it by the bed, all right?” There was a brittle pause. “Or would you rather have it by the chair? You’re able to sit there for so much longer now. Every time I visit I can see the progress you’ve made. You…
A tiny brown sparrow fluttered onto the narrow window ledge and busied himself in a search for food. Pecking on the wooden surface, he seemed completely unaware that only a thin pane of glass separated him from the human on the other side.
Shannon Bradley sat very still, her fingers clenching the light coverlet spread across her legs. She watched as the bird hopped from side to side. Soon another sparrow joined him, gave a few desultory pecks, then flew away. Within seconds the first bird took wing, too. Shannon’s gaze followed him as he landed by a cluster of bright pink azalea blossoms that decorated the pathway curving toward the rehabilitation center’s front door.
“Shannon?”
The taut appeal cut through Shannon’s detachment. When she raised her head to look blankly at the tall thin brunette standing across the way, Julia exclaimed contritely, “Oh, Shannon,” and hurried to gather her in an embrace. A cloud of expensive perfume enveloped Shannon, as well, and she was relieved when her friend pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” Julia said, her amber eyes stricken. “I’ve come at a bad time. I know you usually rest after lunch. I should’ve waited. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I’m all right.” Shannon offered a smile. “I’m not tired, just rude.”
“That’s impossible,” Julia protested. “You don’t have a rude bone in your body!”
“If I do, I probably broke it,” Shannon murmured.
Her attempt at humor failed.
“I should go,” Julia said quickly, straightening.
“I’m all right, Julia, really,” Shannon repeated. It was irritating to have to continue telling everyone that. Would they feel better if she added, for the moment. For as long as I don't think about anything...as long as I don’t let myself remember?
Julia didn’t seem to know what to do, what to say. The two of them had been friends since childhood. They’d gone to high school together, even attended the same university—but Julia seemed at a loss to handle such a difficult situation. Only how many people would know how to handle it? Would she react any differently if the tables were turned? After the passage of four months hadn’t most of the appropriate phrases dried up?
Shannon rubbed the side of her head next to her temple, trying to ease the dull pain. The headaches could come and go for months, the doctor had said. Well, it had been months, and they still continued.
“Randolph is waiting,” Julia said tightly. “I have to go. Our lunch date…”
Julia longed to escape. It was obvious in the way she held herself, in her surreptitious look at the door. Was she afraid that if she stayed Shannon might explode in a frenzy of grief and loss? Or cry out in indescribable pain and ask aloud the question that seared her? The question that no one could answer: Why her? Why had she survived when all the others...
Shannon severed the thought, afraid that if it continued she might make Julia’s fears come true. She forced a smile. “Tell Randolph I said hello. And, Julia...thank you for the book. I’m looking forward to reading it. I’ve heard it’s a good one.”
Julia smiled tremulously and hurried out the door.
Once she was alone Shannon’s fingers clenched the coverlet more tightly. At times the strain of dealing with people was too much for her. Watching the few relatives she had left, her father’s friends, her mother’s friends, her own friends—watching them watch her. Sensing their anxiety that at any second she might shatter. Knowing their fear that it might happen during their visit...yet they felt they had to visit because of long years of devotion or blood ties.
She took a series of steadying breaths. If there was one thing she wasn’t, it was fragile. If she’d been going to break it would’ve happened while she’d sat strapped in what was left of the twin-engine plane, immobilized, unable even to stretch her hand far enough to touch the bodies of her father or the man she’d planned to marry. For two days she’d sat there with her father, James, Bill, Maggie, the pilot all dead around her.
No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t remember the plane actually going down. She remembered everyone in their places, papers being passed back and forth, her father practicing sections of the speech he planned to make at the campaign rally for one of his associates. She remembered laughter and jokes and James leaning close to press her hand and steal a kiss. Then something had happened. The pilot cursed, the plane dipped radically to one side, then...nothing until sometime later when she regained consciousness.
The small lunch Shannon had eaten a half hour earlier made her stomach churn, just as her stomach had churned that afternoon when she’d awakened to the horror that surrounded her. Nothing had looked the same. The fuselage was tilted forward and to the left. Debris was scattered everywhere—jumbled luggage, briefcases, sheets of paper. Rocks and dirt were somehow tumbled into the mix. The branch of a tree jutted through the window at her side. A hole where a hole shouldn’t be let sunlight pour in from above and wind whistle softly through the cabin.
At first Shannon’s mind hadn’t let her take in the rest. It was as if shock was somehow protecting her. Then slowly, as she adjusted to the realization that the plane was no longer in the air, that somehow they had fallen hard to earth, she saw the first of the bodies.
She hadn’t screamed. In fact, no sound had passed her open lips as she stared at Maggie, hanging upside down from a seat across the aisle, a seat that angled crazily over the one in front—James’s seat. Then she saw James, his head cocked oddly to one side, his lashes pale crescents against his unmarred skin. He might have been taking a nap. She strained to reach him, to prod him awake, but she couldn’t get close enough. Then she saw her father, his body twisted, his back pressed against the nearest window, blood congealing around a gaping wound in his head. She could see one of Bill’s hands, resting palm up on the floor next to his seat. It never moved. The pilot was half in and half out of the missing windshield, on his back, his eyes staring blankly at the sky.
Only the wind made a sound as Shannon sat frozen in place. Sometime later—she never knew how much because the passage of time lost all meaning—she began
to whimper. And as she looked again from person to person, her eyes lingering longest on James and her father, the full impact of what had happened finally registered, and her whimpering grew to a terrified wail.
Frantically she tried to extricate herself. Her hands shook and her teeth chattered as she battled to push the tree branch aside, thinking it responsible for her captivity. But when it gave way and she still couldn’t move, she turned her attention to the seat belt. She released it, but still couldn’t stand up. She pounded on her legs in frustration...and felt nothing. Then she saw the next horror. The bone in her left leg was protruding through the skin just below her knee. Beads of cold sweat broke out on her body as she sank back against the seat cushion.
Oh, God. She tried to think what she should do, but her mind kept screaming for her father, for James.
This had to be a bad dream. Soon someone was going to wake her and tell her they’d landed and she’d better get the lead out and get to work. But the pain that was starting to gnaw at her left side beneath her rib cage offered little room for doubt. Neither did the blood she saw on her fingertips when she withdrew them from the suddenly painful bump on her head.
She cried out for help again and again. Surely someone would hear her! But only the wind gave answer. Where were they? How far had they come? They’d been flying from Lubbock to Abilene, a short trip in Texas miles, but over terrain where towns were sparse. When they didn’t show up at the rally as expected, someone would notice. Someone had to notice! How long, then, would it take for a search party to form? How long before the downed plane was discovered?
Shannon was afraid. She didn’t want to die—not out here, not like this. Yet part of her knew she had nothing left to live for. Why hadn’t she died along with the others? Why should she be the only one to survive? Her mother had died two years before, leaving a huge gap in her and her father’s lives. Now her father was gone. And James.
Emotion clogged her throat, burned her chest, made the discomfort in her side increase. She didn’t want to live without James. She loved him! She’d just found him! He’d just found her!
She started to whimper again, soft and low like a child. Then mercifully she blacked out, allowed at last to sink into a temporary oblivion.
The day and a half that followed was enough to test the mettle of even the strongest spirit. Pain and thirst were her constant companions. The first time she felt a tingling sensation in her legs, she’d exclaimed with joy. Her paralysis wasn’t permanent! Later, though, she’d longed for the earlier numbness as the nerves in her injured leg made themselves known with demanding ferocity. Each time she moved, trying to search for the water bottles or food she knew to be on board, she was stopped by excruciating pain.
She began to float in and out of consciousness, images in her mind slipping from reality to dreams and from dreams back to reality. One realm blended seamlessly with the other. Sometimes her father spoke to her, other times James. Both told her not to try to follow them. To fight for her life.
She heard neither the plane that spotted hers nor the helicopter that hovered overhead before landing a distance away from the shallow canyon where she was trapped. Her clearest memory was of hands reaching for her. Hands and a pair of strong arms.
“The others,” she’d croaked brokenly, trying to direct the rescuers’ attention away from herself.
She could still hear the compassion in the man’s voice as he and another man ministered to her. “It’s all right,” he’d said. “Everything’s going to be fine now. You just sit back and let us take care of things.” She’d been letting other people take care of things ever since.
A nurse strode briskly into the room. She was Shannon’s age, in her late twenties, but the antithesis of all that Shannon felt at the moment. A cheerful smile tilted the young woman’s lips, her thick blond hair bounced against her shoulders as she walked, and she exuded an aura of good health and contentment.
“Hello again,” the nurse said as she automatically straightened a bouquet of flowers. Intelligent brown eyes flickered over Shannon in professional assessment as she rearranged the pale yellow roses, sprigs of greenery and white baby’s breath. “You’re looking a little tired. Too many visitors today?” Before Shannon could answer she continued, “You have more people come to see you than anyone else here, I think. It must be nice to be so popular.”
Shannon pushed a tendril of her own blond hair away from her face. She knew what she looked like now and she didn’t much care. Her hair hung limply past her shoulders, her blue eyes—once so open and filled with curiosity—were dull. She found it difficult to hold her shoulders back when instinct urged her to curl forward and withdraw from everyone. She mustered a wan smile. She didn’t need to pretend with the nursing staff. They’d seen her at her worst. “They’re mostly people my father knew in the legislature.”
“But for them to keep coming…he must have been a very special man.”
“He was,” Shannon said thickly.
“And they care about you, too. Believe me, people don’t come to hospitals or even rehabilitation centers as nice as this one to visit unless they feel something special for the patient. The smell of a hospital scares them, makes them realize they’re vulnerable. They don’t like to think it could be them lying here.” Her smile was rueful. “Sorry. We touched on one of my pet peeves. But you’re not going to have to listen to my tirades for much longer, are you? Didn’t I hear you’re scheduled to be released next week?”
“So I’m told,” Shannon replied, her voice carefully neutral.
The nurse—her name was Carol—frowned slightly. “Have you made arrangements? Do you have somewhere to go? Someone to stay with you?”
“I seem to have a wide array of choices. I haven’t settled on any particular offer yet.”
“Because you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings? My suggestion is that you do what’s best for you. Don’t worry about other people right now. You’re the one who has to finish getting well.”
The nurse stood by as Shannon walked slowly back to the bed.
“Would you like me to close the blinds a bit?” she asked as Shannon settled against the fluffed-up pillows.
“That would be wonderful,” Shannon murmured, her eyelids falling shut.
The nurse moved so quietly that Shannon wasn’t even aware of her leaving the room.
She must have slept, yet what seemed only minutes later her eyes snapped open to find she was no longer alone. A woman sat in the chair directly across from the head of the bed. An elderly woman—eighty if she was a day—thin but strong-looking with a no-nonsense set to her mouth and a watchful look in her dark eyes. She sat ramrod straight, her hands braced on the chair arms. She wore pale blue pants, a matching blouse and a tan leather vest. On her feet were pointed cowboy boots, old but well cared for. Her snowy white hair, pulled into a smooth knot on top her head, was worn with such bearing that stray hairs didn’t dare escape.
“I’ve come to get you to change your mind,” the woman said bluntly, her voice strong, in command.
Shannon blinked. She had no idea who this person was. As she struggled to sit up she tried to place the chiseled features that age had done little to soften. “I don’t...I’m sorry, but I—”
“I won’t take no for an answer,” the woman interrupted her.
“But—”
The woman cracked a hand against one knee. “It’s a done deal. Just because your daddy and I were political adversaries doesn’t mean I can sit by and watch his daughter struggle. The Parker Ranch is the perfect place for you to finish getting well. I know what you’ve been through—the operations, the therapy. I broke my leg a few years back and thought the doctor and his people were going to kill me before I could get them to let me go home again.”
The Parker Ranch! Now Shannon knew who the woman was: Mae Parker, the notorious matriarch of the Parker clan. “Mrs. Parker—” Shannon began.
“It’s Miss. I never married.”
“Miss Parker,” Shannon corrected herself. “I told you on the phone last week—”
Mae shook her head. “It’s what your father would want. He’d have done the same for me and mine. He was born in West Texas—he knew. People take care of each other there.”
“But we’re not in West Texas now,” Shannon reminded her, trying to gain the upper hand. “And we’ve never met—”
“Yes, we have,” Mae contradicted her sharply. “I met you when you were ten years old. You look like your mother, God rest her soul. She was a good person. So was your daddy. We had some tough battles behind the scenes, him and me, but we never lost respect for the other’s point of view. Need more of that these days, not less.”
Shannon again attempted to state her case. “It was kind of you to invite me, Miss Parker, but—”
Mae stood up. “We won’t coddle you. And you can do something special for me if you like. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, but kept putting it off. I want to write a history of my family. The Parkers go back to the early days in West Texas—Indian raids, bandits, the War Between the States, the cattle drives to Kansas. Lots of stuff to write about. But I’m not good with putting words down on paper. You have an English degree, don’t you? You know how to put words together. You can put ’em together for me.”
“A book?” Shannon said faintly.
“An account. I’ll get the thing published, no need to worry about that. Pay for it myself if I have to. I just want to get it all down while I can still remember what I was told.”
“That...that sounds very interesting,” Shannon stammered, “but right now I’m not—”
“I didn’t mean right now. Of course you have to get your strength back first. I meant later. After you’ve been on the ranch for a while. After you get your legs back under you.”
West Texas Match (The West Texans Series #1) Page 1
