Harlequin Historical February 2013 - Bundle 2 of 2: The Texas Ranger's DaughterHaunted by the Earl's TouchThe Last De Burgh

by Jenna Kernan

Laurie listened to this very rational explanation of her jumbled emotions. Could her mother be right?

  “But I think—”

  Her mother lifted a hand to stop her. “It is not possible, Laura.”

  Laurie stopped speaking, recognizing the sharp note in her mother’s voice signaled the end of this discussion. To continue would lead nowhere.

  Her mother smiled and stroked her hair. “When have you last slept?”

  “I don’t know.”

  A large copper tub was delivered along with a screen and a bucket brigade of maids carrying hot water. Paloma was efficient at getting things done.

  Her mother directed them to set up the bath in her

  father’s bedchamber, commandeering the territory more smoothly than any invading army.

  “Here, let’s get you washed.”

  Laurie retreated behind the screen. She had removed her skirt and was unfastening her blouse when her mother returned. Laurie hesitated.

  “Well?” said her mother.

  Laurie slowly removed her blouse. She slipped her arms from the sleeves and let the blouse fall. Her soiled skirt followed until she stood in only the dirty chemise, torn stockings and black boots.

  “Bustle, corset, bloomers, new stockings and garters, half crinoline and two petticoats.” Her mother finished her survey of Laurie’s attire and met her eyes again. “And hairpins, ribbons and a straw hat.”

  Laurie’s eyes welled.

  “Is that all?” she asked.

  Laurie nodded.

  “I’ve brought your things. You get washed up and I’ll lay them out.”

  Her mother left Laurie behind the screen, so she quickly dragged off the filthy chemise and tossed it aside, stepping into the water.

  She sank into the copper tub with a sigh then scrubbed away the sand and dirt, feeling the sting of soap and water against the many small scrapes and scratches she had suffered during her ordeal. But her wounds were minor compared to Boon’s.

  She washed her hair twice, standing to rinse herself once more with clean water before wrapping up in an absorbent white linen cloth towel.

  Her mother had laid out Laurie’s nightgown and folded back the covers of her father’s bed.

  “Paloma will brush your hair and then you are going to bed. I will be right in the next room. When you wake, I will order supper.”

  She donned the clean chemise that Paloma handed her.

  Were it not for the twinges in her muscles as she lifted her arms into the sleeves and the aching in her heart, she might even succeed in pretending that nothing had happened.

  But she had tried that once before. Hiding her secret about Anton had only brought her shame and stolen her confidence. And Boon’s words were true; Anton had taken advantage of her. Her crime had not been wickedness but gullibility.

  Paloma motioned her to a seat and drew the comb through Laurie’s wet dark hair. When she tried to braid it, Laurie waved her off.

  “I’ll do it.”

  Paloma nodded, leaving the familiar white ribbon on the dressing stand. Her duty done, she left Laurie with an admonishment spoken in Spanish.

  “You be good and do not worry your mama anymore or you make her sick.”

  Laurie watched the housekeeper exit to the hall directly and suddenly found herself alone for the first time since her departure. She stood and stared at herself in the large oval mirror beside her father’s dressing table. Her reflection looked identical, but she was no longer the same on the inside. She felt like a stranger in her own skin. Even her snowy white nightdress felt strange.

  But if she didn’t belong here in her parents’ care, where did she belong?

  Laurie swept the hairbrush through her hair as the answer whispered through her. You belong with him.

  Her mother said it was fear that drove her to Boon and perhaps that was so. But she was not frightened now. She was safe, she was home and she was miserable.

  This was just an adjustment, she told herself. She’d been through a terrible ordeal; it was natural to feel anxious and sad.

  Wasn’t it?

  The hairbrush slipped from her fingers as Laurie began to cry.

  What was the matter with her?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Boon woke feeling as if someone had taken a wedge to his head and used it to split his skull in two. What had happened? He tried to lift his hands to cover his eyes, shield them from the light pouring in past his closed eyelids, and discovered that his left arm pained him, as well.

  He tried to think back, but thinking was hard. His mind was fuzzy as the back of a sheep and felt just as dull and cottony. What could he recall?

  Riding.

  Riding hard with Laurie, her skirts flying, hair rolling out behind her like a curtain as they fled...

  Where was Laurie?

  The Hammer.

  That brought Boon upright.

  “Laurie!” He forced his eyes open. The light blinded him, increasing the pain, so he called out.

  “Easy, son. Lie back now.” Firm hands gripped his shoulders and pressed him back to the bedding.

  “Laurie?” he asked.

  “Safe, son. You brought her home safe.”

  Boon dropped into the pillows, his body urging him to slip back into the darkness, back into the cool, calm, but this time he fought it.

  “Where is she?” he croaked, hardly recognizing his own voice.

  “With her folks. You are in San Antonio. I am Dr. Langor and you had one mean gash across your head and another on your arm. Stitched it up with silk thread.”

  Boon made a tentative exploration of the knot on his head, feeling the scabs and puckering where the skin was stitched. The memories nibbled at him like a fish trying the bait. He’d fought Hammer. Someone had shot the outlaw.

  Laurie.

  Boon stilled at that memory. Laurie Bender, the proper daughter of the fiercest Ranger in Texas, had killed George Hammer, the meanest individual in the state. She was more like her father than she knew.

  But there was a second shooter, a rifleman. Who was that?

  Captain Bender’s partner, the man who opted to hang Boon the minute they caught him, had saved his life.

  Boon remembered returning to the station and one of the Rangers had given him his kerchief to stop the blood. Captain Bender had questioned him. He’d told her father the truth and... Boon closed his eyes, reliving the shock and then the dizziness. It hadn’t even hurt really, but he’d been so surprised and then...had he blacked out?

  “How’d I get here?”

  “The Rangers brought you yesterday. Captain Bender requested he be summoned if you showed signs of rousing. I have sent for him. He seemed very keen to see you.”

  “Imagine so.” Likely wanted to plant a bullet in him. Wouldn’t blame the man if he did. Not after what he’d done with his daughter.

  He longed to see Laurie again, just to hear her voice and know that she was all right. But she was with her family now. Of course she didn’t need him. Unless that one night of lovemaking led her to motherhood. If she came through it all right, he’d give her what she wanted and leave her as he found her, not quite a virgin but at least she could be quit of him, while he’d never be quit of her.

  Boon threw a hand over his throbbing eyes, knowing that he would leave Laurie when he was certain she didn’t need him because that was what was best for her.

  He’d go because he loved her.

  He groaned.

  “What time is it?”

  “Early. You have been out since yesterday. I’ve got opiates, but I will hold off until I can better assess the condition of your brain.”

  It wasn’t his brain that troubled him, but his heart. Laurie Bender had plumb stolen it right out fr
om under his nose. He’d gone in to get her, trying to please her father, trying to prove he was tough enough to be a Ranger, and instead had discovered he wasn’t tough at all. A little dark-haired girl had bested him, reeled him in and landed him. But she would throw him back soon enough, because ladies like Laurie Bender did not take up with outlaw sons of bitches like him.

  He’d been alone all his life and never felt it like this before. Being alone was a damn sight different than giving up the one good thing that had ever come into your life.

  “He still awake?”

  That was the captain’s voice. Boon stiffened and wiped his eyes. Damned if he’d let the captain see him cry.

  “He was a minute ago.”

  “Give us the room, will you, Doc?”

  “Certainly.”

  Boot heels clicked across hardwood floors. Boon uncovered his eyes and squinted, his stomach pitching like an unbroken horse under first saddle, but he swung his legs off the bed and, with the help of the head rail, pulled himself upright.

  Once the door was closed behind them, Captain Bender leveled him with a steady look. Boon’s head pounded and his hands were shaking. He needed to sit down, but he’d be damned if he would. He only hoped the captain would get on with it before he threw up or fell over.

  It seemed a thousand years ago that he had stood before the Texas Ranger and been told that the captain had a mission just for him. Bring her back home by any means necessary. Well, Boon had done it, and in the process he had fallen in love with the captain’s daughter.

  “I come to offer you the reward money for Hammer,” said Bender. “You earned it and it would give you a stake to get started someplace else.”

  The Ranger didn’t mince words—he still wanted Boon gone, but now he tried honey instead of vinegar. The thought of being bought off stirred a fury in him, instantly settling his stomach and straightening his spine. Damned if he’d go on his say-so.

  “Your daughter is the one who shot him,” said Boon. “Give it to her.”

  “You’re not to tell anyone that. She has enough to live down without word of that leaking out.”

  Boon nodded his acceptance of that.

  “With or without the reward, best for you to leave town.”

  Boon couldn’t move his head without the pain half blinding him.

  “I’m here until I’m sure she won’t need me.”

  “Well, she don’t.” Bender tucked his thumbs under the large silver buckle. “I’ll find her a husband quick if I need to.”

  That news hit Boon harder than the barrel of Bender’s pistol.

  “I’m still staying ’til I know.”

  “You’re going, just as soon as you can sit a horse because staying is gonna prove real bad for your health. I’ve offered you the reward. I’ll go a step further and offer you a job punching cows over in El Paso with a friend of mine. That’s work you’re used to. Generous offer. Best you’re likely to get.”

  Boon said nothing. The room was swaying now, reminding him of the waves of heat that came off the ground in the desert.

  “Give you time to think it over. Don’t try to see her, son.”

  Bender turned and left him, leaving the door wide-open. Boon swayed, recognizing that stubbornness could only keep him upright for so long, and sank back to

  the bed.

  He wasn’t sure how he was going to see Laurie. He only knew he would see her.

  * * *

  Laurie did not recall crawling into the covers or falling asleep. She roused sometime later to find the lamp beside her mattress burning low and the room cast in shadows. Her eyes fixed upon a photograph of her mother in a gilded frame on the side table that held the lamp. Her father still had a photo of his wife beside his pillow, even though she had divorced him.

  Voices came from beyond the door, familiar voices. Her parents, she realized. Was that what had roused her? She lifted up on an elbow to hear better. This was not the gentle murmur of conversation, but the escalating pitch of voices raised in anger. She slipped from the sheets and crept across the floor on bare feet, creaking open the door just a crack. Light flooded in and she realized it was morning. Had she slept through the day and night? A glance back confirmed that the heavy velvet curtains were drawn, but light puddled beneath, spilling upon the floor and creeping through the cracks. She turned her attention to her parents.

  “You’re the one who refused to come to San Antonio. That was your call, not mine.” That was her father.

  “Because you had turned our daughter into a wild little Indian.”

  “She could ride and shoot better than most of my men.”

  “But she was a girl, a young lady, or she should have been.”

  Something moved beside Laurie and she nearly fainted from fear. She turned to find Paloma, who was likely sent to watch over her while she slept, as she clutched a hand over her mouth at the last moment before screaming.

  Paloma pressed a finger to her lips and drew beside her at the door. It was a position they had once often assumed, in the days before her parents split apart.

  “I gave her up when you asked me. I let you take her, didn’t I?” Her father’s voice sounded grieved.

  Laurie had never realized her mother had insisted that he relinquish his control over her. She thought back to the hurt and confusion, her body changing, her mind changing and her father’s sudden and complete withdrawal. She had thought something was wrong with her.

  “But why wouldn’t you come when I sent for you? I had a house, like you asked for. What did I do wrong, Valencia?”

  “How could we come back?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Her mother heaved a sound of extreme frustration. She then let out a string of Spanish so fast that Laurie caught only the part that compared him in intelligence to a peasant’s burro.

  “English! Or slow down.”

  She switched in midsentence. “You! You and your wild Texans. What do you think will happen when you bring them right to your daughter?”

  Silence. Paloma now stared at Laurie with the intention of a cat eyeing a tasty little bird.

  Her father’s voice now held a note of menace. “Spit it out, Val.”

  “You remember that one, Anton Fischer?”

  “Use to ride with me. Quit when he got hitched. Liked to care for the horses. What about him?”

  “He liked to care for your daughter.”

  “What!” The sound of her father’s boots clomping across the floor caused both Paloma and Laurie to dash toward the far side of the room. But he spun and returned the way he had come.

  Laurie stood frozen, clutching the bedrail, her mind whirling like a pinwheel. How had her mother discovered this? Had she known all this time? Was that why they had left Father, because of her, because of what she had done? Her heart beat with a fury that caused a dreadful ache in her chest and she looked to Paloma. Her housekeeper’s gaze was steely.

  Paloma whispered in Spanish, “You wonder how your mother knows? I told her. Showed her the blood on the underclothes that you tried to hide. I see everything in my house.”

  Laurie’s ears heated. The voices continued and she could not resist. She returned to the door with Paloma, following her like a calf after its mama.

  “Did he...” Her father’s words fell off.

  Silence.

  “I’ll kill him.”

  “Yes, I knew you would. And that is why I took our daughter away from you both. That way she is safe and you are not under arrest for murder.

  “Anyway, he is gone. I have kept my eye on him. After he left you, he got married but is still a Don Juan. When I heard he was shot in Austin by the father of a Mexican girl, I was not sorry. But I was sorry for the Mexican man, for they hung him.”

  Laurie sta
unched most of the gasp that escaped her by clamping a hand over her mouth. She thumped back against the wall beside the door as Paloma’s eyes glittered like obsidian as she stared at Laurie.

  “Now I fear the same is happening with this one, Boon. Who is he, one of your men?”

  “No. Not one of mine.” His response was so emphatic that it made Laurie twitch as if her father had slapped her. Boon had been right about this. Her father had used him with no intention of offering Boon a place in his company.

  “A private man, then? Someone you hired outside the law, paid for Laurie’s safe return?”

  This time his no was slower in coming. “Not exactly.”

  “Then why did that boy ride into an outlaw camp to rescue our daughter?”

  Laurie knew why. She had figured out that Boon wanted to be a Texas Ranger. She wondered if her father knew that was why he went. Had her father taken advantage of a man who obviously looked up to him?

  Her mother continued her interrogation, proving she might have made a fine peace officer herself. “Had he prior knowledge of her?”

  “None.”

  Valencia’s voice held irritation. “Was it, perhaps, because the great and influential Captain John Bender asked him to go? And they were alone, how long? What did he do to her, Johnny?”

  “Just what you fear he did, Vallie.”

  Her mother gave a shriek of aggravation.

  “He said she was a virgin and he took her.”

  Laurie held her breath in the silence. Boon had lied for her. It gave her a moment’s hope.

  Her mother spoke at last. “He is protecting her then. This is trouble brewing. She needs to be married soon and to a man who will stay put. Not a cowboy or a lawman.”

  Laurie sagged against the wall. They would not turn her out because of her wicked behavior. Her relief lasted only until she realized they meant to marry her off to the first man they could find. Boon. She had to get to Boon and tell him. Her shoulders sagged. He couldn’t save her, not from this. Her condition was her own fault. He had done his job, seen her safe.

  Her mother spoke again. “Sooner is better.”

  “No one knows where she’s been.”