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

by Jenna Kernan

  He untied his neckerchief and used it to wipe her brow. He couldn’t resist letting his index finger stroke her soft cheek in the process. Laurie gasped and sputtered a moment and he drew her to the shade of the eaves.

  She leaned in and lifted both hands, reaching for his face, but he stepped back. Was she crazy, trying to caress him right out here on the street? If Laurie wouldn’t see to her reputation, he’d have to.

  “Your folks know you’re out here alone?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Go on back to them, Laurie-gal.”

  “I had to see you.”

  So she had been on her way to find him, seeking him out. Lord Almighty, the woman lacked all sense.

  “Well, you seen me. I’m right as rain.” Except he was still seeing double and he couldn’t lift one arm.

  She glanced about again as if expecting pursuit, then met his gaze with those big dark eyes that caused him to melt inside.

  “I am sorry about before, with my mother. I didn’t know what to say or do.” She peeked up at him from beneath dark, thick lashes and he knew for certain his heart was gone. Lord, he’d never get over her.

  He checked himself. This gal stirred him up like dust before a thunderstorm, his rainmaker, but he’d already caused her enough anguish. He’d not make it worse. Her parents were right to tuck her away like the prize that she was and keep her safe until they could find someone who deserved her. If not for that one night together, he’d already be gone.

  Lord, what was she doing talking to the likes of him?

  “I was so worried when you had that fever. I feared losing you.”

  “Well, I thought that was the idea. You never planned on keeping me, Laurie. I ain’t the keeping kind.”

  “You could be.”

  She looked up at him with wide expectant eyes. He needed to put an end to this, for his good as well as hers.

  His heart squeezed with a pain that took him totally unawares. He ached to have her and to have a child by her.

  “Hell.”

  Laurie blinked in surprise and he recalled belatedly that men didn’t say damn or hell to ladies.

  “Do you remember what you told me? Do I look like a banker or a preacher to you?”

  “If you were, I’d be dead right now,” she said. “You saved me.”

  He threaded his hands through the hair at his temples, trying again to do what was right.

  “Your pa told me,” he said. “You come through all right?”

  She flushed and nodded her head. “This morning,” she confirmed. Her eyes welled with tears. “Don’t leave me.”

  “Laurie,” he said, his voice chiding. “How did you think this would end? Did you think your ma and pa would be happy to have their daughter fall for a no-account drifter who’s ridden with the worst outlaw in the entire state of Texas?”

  “They don’t know you.”

  He locked his jaw, not wanting to do what he must. Wishing to savor the moment when Laurie Bender wanted him as much as he yearned for her.

  “Oh, Laurie,” he choked, longing to give in to the fantasy.

  “Stay with me, Boon.”

  He almost said yes. But he loved her too much to stay. Too much to watch her lose everything. Too much to saddle her with the likes of him.

  “You’re not hitching your wagon to mine. I’ve got no land, no livelihood. Hell, I don’t even have a last name to give you. So here’s how it is—I’m going. You’re staying.”

  “But I love you,” she whispered.

  He closed his eyes against the joy and agony. How could he ever have hoped to win the love of such a woman?

  She tried to kiss him but he held her off with one hand.

  “No, you don’t. You can’t. I won’t let you. Your ma and pa are right. You listen to them and marry a man who can give you all the things you deserve.”

  “But I want you.”

  “No.”

  She looped her arms about his neck, looking at him with welling eyes, and he felt his heart turn to dust. She’d never forgive him for what he was about to do and that was best for all concerned.

  He dragged her arms from his neck and pushed her roughly aside. “Laurie, you aren’t my type. I’m used to good-time girls, not some prim, priggish woman who’s as starched as her corset stays.”

  Laurie staggered as if he had punched her. But still she didn’t go. He reached down deep, lifting one last stone, the one he knew would drive her off and still he hesitated, hating to throw it.

  “Boon,” she whispered. “Stay.”

  He shook his head and threw the rock. “I never stay anywhere. You come with me and I’ll leave you upstairs in some saloon, which is probably where you belong.”

  She stared in horror. “But you said...you said it didn’t matter. That any man worth his salt would choose a woman for what is on the inside.”

  He scooped up the saddle. “Oh, hell, Laurie. I’d have said anything to get you on that horse and moving.”

  It took another moment for Laurie to whirl and run back the way she had come, her skirts flying out behind her, leaving him time to contemplate a life without her.

  Laurie was too good for him. Always was, always would be.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Laurie pressed a hand over her aching heart as she staggered back toward the hotel. How was it still beating? she wondered.

  Paloma found her first, just after she reached the porch of the hotel.

  “Your parents are out searching for you. They left me in case you came home.”

  Laurie’s vision blurred. Her head pounded. She allowed Paloma to steer her through the lobby and up the stairs; all the while the sound of a locomotive roared in her head.

  “Do you hear that?” she shouted, holding her hands to her ears, but the sound just got louder. Laurie looked at Paloma’s troubled expression and the edges of her vision darkened until she could see only a small circle of twinkling light. Her stomach pitched and she felt herself falling. She could do nothing but surrender to the darkness.

  She woke in her mother’s room, the quilt tucked under her chin and her mother sitting guard beside her bed. Laurie blinked.

  “He’s gone,” she whispered. “He left me. He’s gone.”

  Her mother nodded and Laurie closed her eyes again, unwilling to face the ripping heartache that tore her insides out.

  “I thought if I told him. I thought...” What? That if she was in love with him that he would magically want to stay? Laurie squeezed her eyes shut at the understanding that he had done exactly what he had told her he would do from the start, that he had no intention of settling down.

  “Laurie, mi hija?” Her mother sounded far away.

  The smelling salts brought her back around. She lay in the same bed, but the doctor was there.

  “Here she is, back again. You’re giving your parents quite a scare.”

  Laurie did not speak, but just looked out the window, wishing she could fly after Boon like a sparrow.

  At the other side of the room, the three conversed in low tones. Is it normal? Great shock. A result of recent happenings. Time and rest, quiet. Their words melted together and she closed her eyes to sleep. Anything to escape the hollowness that yawned inside her.

  Over the next few weeks Laurie slept much, ate little and worried her parents greatly. She had no energy, she had no appetite and she could not seem to do more than sit and stare.

  Her mother tried to coax her with her favorite foods, visitors, consultations with the doctor. Walks were suggested, so every day Laurie was walked up the street and down. While she moved, her body felt as if it were packed in cotton, insulated and apart from everything around her.

  In the second month since her return, her parents announ
ced that they planned to remarry.

  Laurie smiled at the irony. At one time, their reunion was all she ever wanted. Her certainty that their separation had been the only obstacle between her and happiness had been absolute. How naive she had been. She was unwed because she could not see herself as a worthy wife. Now she just felt sad.

  Laurie’s mother filled her daughter’s day with endless projects, certain that routine would restore her to her former self. But she was wrong. Her former self was gone forever, dead and buried. But still, here she sat flipping through a copy of Peterson’s Ladies National Magazine for an idea for a suitable dress to wear to her parents’ second wedding when she stumbled upon a riding outfit that included a pair of voluminous pantaloons designed to cover a woman’s legs when she rode astride. It was the newest fashion, popular among lady equestrians and women of the West, said one of the fashion articles. The garment was actually a skirt, sewn with a split up the middle. When standing or walking, a woman appeared to be wearing a proper skirt and it was only when she mounted a horse that one could see the nonconformity.

  Laurie’s mother noticed her interest and peered at the page.

  “They’re fairly scandalous,” she said.

  “I’m going to make them,” said Laurie.

  Her mother indulged her, possibly because it had been a long time since Laurie had showed an interest in anything.

  Laurie had a pair fashioned out of sturdy denim by the next evening and tried them on the following day. Riding out and away from town gave her the first pleasure she’d experienced since Boon’s departure. Her father accompanied her, making her nostalgic.

  When Arlene Juliet approached her later that same week, Laurie expected it was to give her a good talking-to, but instead, the wife of the general store owner wanted to see about purchasing the garment for herself and also commission several pairs for the store.

  Her mother disapproved of her daughter working like a servant, but Captain Bender overruled her. Had he listened when she said she would be a proper lady no more? Was he actually helping her?

  Over the next month Laurie discarded her corset and bustle. She went riding with her father, taking a rifle along and proving to still be a very good shot. She sewed in the evening, creating the pantaloons and later a split-back canvas duster, similar to the ones the men wore when riding, but fitted to a woman’s form and including a hood that could be tied beneath the chin like a bonnet. These, too, proved popular and Laurie had to hire help to keep up with demand.

  In the third month, suitors began to arrive. It was as if she had turned on a tap, and suddenly a flood of men descended on her, all eager to convince her to be their wife. She suspected her head for business had much to do with it.

  Her mother said it came from her new confidence that somehow showed past her rather unladylike behavior. Men seemed to be drawn to her newfound self-assurance.

  Laurie recognized that she now had everything she had once thought she ever wanted, and knowing that made her miserable.

  Laurie turned the men away one by one, adding to her mother and father’s dismay.

  Her parents’ wedding was small but lovely. Laurie wore her pink gingham dress, having been too busy with work to make anything else. It was the first time she had worn a corset since her nervous collapse. At the reception, Laurie tried to pretend she was happy, but she feared she did not fool them.

  After the wedding supper and before the newly reunited couple departed on their honeymoon to Galveston, her parents drew her aside.

  At first, she feared they would not leave, as both were concerned by the changes in her. But she was fine—healthy and, if she was not happy, she was at least content.

  Her mother had tried and failed to encourage her to accept any of the suitors who had taken a fancy to her. Her father had also tried to talk some sense into her. Neither could accept that she did not wish to marry. Not any longer, not when she knew what it was to feel passion. Boon’s leaving had cut her deep. Her parents thought she just needed time. Laurie knew otherwise. There wasn’t another man in the world who could take Boon’s place in her heart.

  “Laurie, mi hija,” began her mother. “We have some news.”

  The worry in her mother’s eyes brought her to alertness. Her father’s grim expression heightened her worry.

  “We mentioned that we will be moving to Lubbock, to be closer to your father’s latest assignment.”

  Laurie nodded.

  “We will be going upon our return from Galveston.”

  “I’ll be staying here,” said Laurie.

  Her mother gasped. “But, Laurie, you’re still welcome in our home. You know that.”

  “I do. But I want my own home.”

  Her father shook his head. “A woman shouldn’t live alone.”

  “But I will, just the same.”

  The two of them exchanged a look. Since their reunion, they were very good at this silent exchange.

  She saw her parents to their train and waved them goodbye. Afterward she returned to the hotel and packed her belongings, moving into the room Boon had vacated at Mrs. Sheffield’s boardinghouse. Before her parents returned from their second honeymoon she had made enough money to buy her own sewing machine.

  They tried and failed to convince, cajole or browbeat her into accompanying them to Lubbock. She liked her independence too much to ever give it up to live under her parents’ roof again.

  She wrote them and she worked. On Saturdays she rented a horse, went riding and practiced her shooting. Gene Freeman from the mercantile tried to accompany her but she sent him off. She turned down invitations from several other men and also the invitations from women to have tea or join various ladies’ organizations.

  Her parents invited her for Christmas. She declined, and so they came to her. She joined them for dinner at the Cactus Flower Hotel, but resisted yet another attempt to have her return with them. She asked after Paloma and was told she was still in Lubbock.

  Her mother’s efforts to engage Laurie in conversation were painful, but Laurie answered their questions honestly.

  “Is there someone here?” asked her mother. “Someone special?”

  Laurie almost laughed. There was only one someone special and they had chased him off. No, that wasn’t true. She had told Boon how she felt and he had still left her, just as he had foretold. Why was it, after all this time, that just the thought of him made her heart ache as if pressed through a wringer? She hadn’t forgotten him, couldn’t forget. The anger at his leaving her had gone, but the sadness clung like tar. If she knew where he was, she’d go after him in a minute.

  “Are you still pining for that boy?” asked her mother.

  Laurie’s heart quickened and she glanced away.

  “Have you heard from him?” her mother asked.

  Laurie fixed her attention on her mother. “No. Have you?”

  “Laurie, dear, well, we’d thought that after some time had passed you’d come to your senses and that your feelings for him would diminished somewhat. Have they?” Her mother held her brows raised in a hopeful expression.

  This time she did not avoid her mother’s gaze, but stared directly. “I love him.”

  Her mother sighed and then turned to her husband. “Tell her.”

  Her father’s mouth turned grim. “Give her time.”

  “No. Enough. She’s sad. She’s thin. So tell her, please.”

  They knew. Somehow they knew where to find him. Laurie clutched the lapel of her father’s new coat.

  “Is he all right?”

  Her mother nodded and Laurie felt the sweet rush of air into her lungs, sweeping in with the relief. Laurie released her father and closed her eyes, offering up a prayer of thanks. He was alive.

  “What happened to him?” she asked, feeling the first true welling o
f emotion since she fell into a faint after Boon’s departure.

  “I offered him a Ranger’s badge, but he turned me down.”

  “Turned you down? I don’t understand. Boon wanted desperately to be a Ranger.”

  “He said he didn’t take orders well and he was heading to the Dakotas.”

  Laurie’s eyes widened. The Black Hills were notorious for hostile Indians and boomtowns. The lawlessness of that territory was common knowledge. Could she find him there?

  “Where in the Dakotas?”

  Her mother and father flashed another meaningful look between them. Her mother nodded and her father spoke.

  “He’s in Colorado.”

  “But you said...”

  “He lied to me or he changed his mind. Might be he didn’t want you tracking him. In any case, I ran him down. He is the new sheriff of a mining town in the Rockies.”

  Laurie’s eyes brightened.

  “Where?” she whispered half-afraid to hear, fearful of the hope that welled inside her.

  “Now, Laurie, I don’t know much else. He might be...” Her father didn’t finish because she repeated her question. “Town’s called Silver Cliff and it’s wild as Northwest Texas.”

  “I’m going.” She turned but her mother stepped before her.

  “Why don’t we just wire him and let him know you’re still available?”

  Laurie shook her head. “I’m going, just as soon as I can pack.”

  Her mother gave her husband a beseeching look.

  “I’ll bring you myself,” said the captain. “I just need to wire Coats.”

  Laurie would have none of it. The following day she was on a train heading west.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Boon walked along the main street of Silver Cliff, past the sea of unfamiliar faces. More arrived each day from the railhead and by mule team, drawn to the grayish mud that turned out to be 75 percent silver ore.

  Six thousand by last count and he’d already had to hire five deputies. He passed a lady with dark hair and smiled, tipping his hat.

  “Morning, Sheriff,” she said.