Twice a Hero, Always Her Man

by Marie Ferrarella

  Cilia placed a hand on the other woman’s wrist. “No, dear, no buttons.”

  Olga’s brow furrowed. Not for the first time she thought that English was a very confusing language to learn. “But—”

  “You’ll get used to Maizie,” Cilia promised.

  “Shh, it’s starting,” Theresa said as the strains of the wedding march began to slowly swell and fill the packed church.

  Everyone rose in anticipation.

  Wordlessly, her eyes fixed to the rear doors, waiting for them to part, Maizie automatically passed out three tissues she’d brought with her in her clutch purse, one for each of the women in the pew. She kept a fourth one for herself. Weddings never failed to make them tear up. She saw no reason to think that this wedding would be different.

  Especially not when she saw Heather entering first, positively glowing as she took measured steps into the church, a flower basket in her hand.

  Grabbing small fistfuls of rose petals in her hand, Heather happily paved the path before her with a mixture of pink and white.

  And then Ellie entered, resplendent in a floor-length wedding dress, a wreath of flowers in her hair and clutching a cascading arrangement of pink and white roses in her hands.

  “They just keep getting more lovely, don’t they?” Theresa whispered to her friends.

  “She’s breathtaking,” Cilia agreed.

  “Colin certainly seems to think so,” Maizie observed, directing their attention toward the groom.

  “And that, in the end, is all that matters,” Olga said in finality, adding her voice to theirs.

  All three old friends exchanged looks and smiled just as Ellie reached the front of the altar, ready to join her life with the man who stood there waiting for her. Attuned to one another’s thoughts, they had no need to voice what they were all thinking: another undertaking well done.

  * * * * *

  Don’t miss Marie Ferrarella’s next

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  THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS:

  THE SECRET FORTUNES

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  Can’t get enough romance? Keep reading for a special preview of WILD HORSE SPRINGS, the latest engrossing novel in the RANSOM CANYON series by New York Times bestselling author Jodi Thomas, coming soon from HQN Books!

  Wild Horse Springs

  by Jodi Thomas

  CODY WINSLOW THUNDERED through the night on a half-wild horse that loved to run. The moon followed them, dancing along the edge of the canyon as they darted over winter buffalo grass that was stiff with frost.

  The former Texas Ranger watched the dark outline of the earth where the land cracked open wide enough for a river to run at its base.

  The canyon’s edge seemed to snake closer, as if it were moving, crawling over the flat plains, daring Cody to challenge death. One missed step might take him and the horse over the rim and into the black hole. They’d tumble maybe a hundred feet down, barreling over jagged rocks and frozen juniper branches as sharp as spears. No horse or man would survive.

  Only, tonight Cody wasn’t worried. He needed to ride, to run, to feel adrenaline pumping in his veins, to know he was alive. He rode hoping to outrun his dark mood. The demons that were always in his mind were chasing him tonight. Daring him. Betting him to take one more risk...the one that would finally kill him.

  “Run,” he shouted to the midnight mare. Nothing would catch him here. Not on his land. Not over land his ancestors had hunted on for thousands of years. Fought over. Died for and bled into. Apache blood, settler blood, Comanchero blood mixed in him as it did in this part of Texas. His family tree was a tumbleweed of every kind of tribe that ever crossed the plains.

  If the horse fell and they went to their deaths, no one would find them for weeks on this far corner of his ranch. Even the canyon that snaked off the great Palo Duro had no name here. It wasn’t beautiful like Ransom Canyon with layers of earth revealed in a rainbow of colors. Here the rocks were jagged, shooting out of the deep earthen walls from twenty feet in some places, almost like a thin shelf.

  The petrified-wood formations along the floor of the canyon reminded Cody of snipers waiting, unseen but deadly. Cody felt numb, already dead inside, as he raced across a place with no name on a horse he called Midnight.

  The horse’s hooves tapped suddenly over a low place where water ran off the flat land and into the canyon. Frozen now. Silent. Deadly black ice. For a moment the tapping matched Cody’s heartbeat, then both horse and rider seemed to realize the danger at once.

  Cody leaned back, pulling the reins, hoping to stop the animal in time, but the horse reared in panic. Dancing on his hind legs for a moment before twisting violently and bucking Cody off.

  As Cody flew through the night air, he almost smiled. The battle he’d been fighting since he was shot and left for dead on the border three years ago was about to end here on his own land. The voices of all the ancestors who came before him whispered in the wind, as if calling him.

  When he hit the frozen ground so hard it knocked the air from his lungs, he knew death wouldn’t come easy tonight. Though he’d welcome the silence, Cody knew he’d fight to the end. He came from generations of fighters. He was the last of his line and here in the dark he’d make his stand. Too far away to call for help. And too stubborn to ask anyway.

  As he fought to breathe, his body slid over a tiny river of frozen rain and into the black canyon.

  He twisted, struggling to stop, but all he managed to do was tumble down. Branches whipped against him and rocks punched his ribs with the force of a prizefighter’s blow. And still he rolled. Over and over. Ice on his skin, warm blood dripping into his eyes. He tried bracing for the hits that came when he landed for a moment before his body rolled again. He grabbed for a rock or a branch to hold on to, but his leather gloves couldn�
��t get a grip on the ice.

  He wasn’t sure if he managed to relax or pass out, but when he landed on a flat rock near the bottom of the canyon, total blackness surrounded him and the few stars above offered no light. For a while he lay still, aware that he was breathing. A good sign. He hurt all over. More proof he was alive.

  He’d been near death before. He knew that sometimes the body turned off the pain. Slowly, he mentally took inventory. There were parts that hurt like hell. Others he couldn’t feel at all.

  Cody swore as loud as he could and smiled. At least he had his voice. Not that anyone would hear him in the canyon. Maybe his brain was mush; he obviously had a head wound. The blood kept dripping into his eyes. His left leg throbbed with each heartbeat and he couldn’t draw a deep breath. He swore again.

  He tried to move and pain skyrocketed, forcing him to concentrate to stop shaking. Fire shot up his leg and flowed straight to his heart. Cody took shallow breaths and tried to reason. He had to control his breathing. He had to stay awake or he’d freeze. He had to keep fighting. Survival was bone and blood to his nature.

  The memory of his night in the mud near the Rio Grande came back as if it had only been a day ago, not three years. He’d been bleeding then, hurt, alone. Four Rangers had stood on the bank at dusk. He’d seen the other three crumble when bullets fell like rain.

  Only it had been hot that night, so silent after all the gunfire. Cody had known that every Ranger in the area would be looking for him at first light; he had to make it to dawn first. Stay alive. They’d find him.

  But not this time.

  No one would look for him tonight or tomorrow. No one would even notice he was gone. He’d made sure of that. He’d left all his friends back in Austin after the shooting. He’d broken up with his girlfriend, who’d said she couldn’t deal with hospitals. When he came back to his family’s land, he didn’t bother to call any of his old friends. He’d grown accustomed to the solitude. He’d needed it to heal not just the wounds outside, but the ones deep inside.

  Cody swore again.

  The pain won out for a moment and his mind drifted. At the corners of his consciousness, he knew he needed to move, stop the bleeding, try not to freeze, but he’d become an expert at drifting that night on the border. Even when a rifle had poked into his chest as one of the drug runners tested to see if he was alive, Cody hadn’t reacted.

  If he had, another bullet would have gone into his body, which was already riddled with lead.

  Cody recited the words he’d once had to scrub off the walls in grade school. Mrs. Presley had kept repeating as he worked, Cody Winslow, you’ll die cussing if you don’t learn better.

  Turned out she might be right. Even with his eyes almost closed, the stars grew brighter and circled around him like drunken fireflies. If this was death’s door, he planned to go through yelling.

  The stars drew closer. Their light bounced off the black canyon walls as if they were sparks of echoes.

  He stopped swearing as the lights began to talk.

  “He’s dead,” one high, bossy voice said. “Look how shiny the blood is.”

  Tiny beams of light found his face, blinding him to all else.

  A squeaky sound added, “I’m going to throw up. I can’t look at blood.”

  “No, he’s not dead,” another argued. “His hand is twitching and if you throw up, Marjorie Martin, I’ll tell Miss Adams.”

  All at once the lights were bouncing around him, high voices talking over each other.

  “Yes, he is dead.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “You stop saying anything.”

  “I’m going to throw up.”

  Cody opened his eyes. The lights were circling around him like a war party.

  “See, I told you so.”

  One beam of light came closer, blinding him for a moment, and he blinked.

  “He’s hurt. I can see blood bubbling out of him in several spots.” The bossy voice added, “Don’t touch it, Marjorie. People bleeding have germs.”

  The gang of lights streamed along his body as if trying to torture him or drive him mad as the world kept changing from black to bright. It occurred to him that maybe he was being abducted by aliens, but he doubted the beings coming to conquer the world would land here in West Texas or that they’d sound like little girls.

  “Hell,” he said and to his surprise the shadows all jumped back.

  After a few seconds he made out the outline of what might be a little girl, or maybe ET.

  “You shouldn’t cuss, mister. We heard you way back in the canyon yelling out words I’ve seen written but never knew how to pronounce.”

  “Glad I could help with your education, kid. Any chance you have a cell phone or a leader?”

  “We’re not allowed to carry cell phones. It interferes with our communicating with nature.” She shined her flashlight in his eyes. “Don’t call me kid. Miss Adams says you should address people by their names. It’s more polite. My name is Melanie Miller and I could read before I started kindergarten.”

  Cody mumbled a few words, deciding he was in hell already and, who knew, all the helpers’ names started with M.

  All at once the lights went jittery again and every one of the six little girls seemed to be talking at the same time.

  One thought he was too bloody to live. One suggested they should cover him with their coats; another voted for undressing him. Two said they would never touch blood. One wanted to put a tourniquet around his neck.

  Cody was starting to hope death might come faster when another shadow carrying a lantern moved into the mix. “Move back, girls. This man is hurt.”

  He couldn’t see more than an outline but the new arrival was definitely not a little girl. Tall, nicely shaped, hiking boots, a backpack on her back.

  Closing his eyes and ignoring the little girls’ constant questions, he listened as a calm voice used her cell to call for help. She had the location down to latitude and longitude and described a van parked in an open field about a hundred yards from her location where they could land a helicopter. When she hung up, she knelt at his side and shifted the backpack off her shoulder.

  As she began to check his injuries, her voice calmly gave instructions. “Go back to the van, girls. Two at a time, take turns flashing your lights at the sky toward the North Star. The rest of you get under the blankets and stay warm. When you hear the chopper arrive, you can watch from the windows, but stay in the van.

  “McKenna, you’re in charge. I’ll be back as soon as they come.”

  Another M, Cody thought, but didn’t bother to ask.

  To his surprise the gang of ponytails marched off like tiny little soldiers.

  “How’d you find me?” Cody asked the first of a dozen questions bouncing around in his aching head as the woman laid out supplies from her pack.

  “Your cussing echoed off the canyon wall for twenty miles.” Her hands moved along his body, not in a caress, but to a man who hadn’t felt a woman’s touch in years, it wasn’t far from it.

  “Want to give me your name? Know what day it is? What year? Where you are?”

  “I don’t have brain damage,” he snapped, then regretted moving his head. “My name’s Winslow. I don’t care what day it is or what year for that matter.” He couldn’t make out her face. “I’m on my own land. Or at least I was when my horse threw me.”

  She might have been pretty if she wa
sn’t glaring at him. The lantern light offered that flashlight-to-the-chin kind of glow.

  “Where does it hurt?” She kept her voice low, but she didn’t sound friendly. “As soon as I pass you to the medics, I’ll start looking for your horse. The animal might be out here, too, hurting or dead. Did he fall with you?”

  Great! His Good Samaritan was worried more about the horse than him. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. When I fell off the edge of the canyon, Midnight was still standing, probably laughing at me.” He took a breath as the woman moved to his legs. “I tumbled for what seemed like miles. It hurts all over.”

  “How did this happen?”

  “The horse got spooked when we hit a patch of ice,” he snapped again, tired of talking, needing all his strength to handle the pain. Cusswords flowed out with each breath. Not at her, but at his bad luck.

  She ignored them as she brushed over the left leg of his jeans already stained dark with blood. He tried to keep from screaming. He fought her hand as she searched, examining, and he knew he couldn’t take much more without passing out.

  “Easy,” she whispered as her blood-warmed fingers cupped his face. “Easy, cowboy. You’ve got a bad break. I have to do what I can to stabilize you and slow the blood flow. They’ll be here soon. You’ve got to let me wrap a few of these wounds so you don’t bleed out.”

  He nodded once, knowing she was right.

  In the glow of a lantern she worked, making a tourniquet out of his belt, carefully wrapping his leg, then his head wound.

  Her voice finally came low, sexy maybe if it were a different time, a different place. “It looks bad, but I don’t see any chunks of brain poking out anywhere.”

  He didn’t know if she was trying to be funny or just stating a fact. He didn’t bother to laugh. She put a bandage on the gash along his throat. It wasn’t deep, but it dripped a steady stream of blood.