In a Texas Minute

by Bagwell, Stella

Why would she want to wait? Sierra wondered blissfully. They’d already had nine years together. She knew he’d be around for the next nine and for always after that.

  “Actually I’ve got to admit something, Alex. For the first time ever, I forgot to take my birth control pill this morning. I guess I was just too excited with wedding preparations to remember. Maybe now is a good time to toss the rest of them in the trash?”

  Laughing, he tugged her up from their seats on the sand and pulled her along toward the roaring surf.

  “Uh, don’t you think that project would work better if we went back to bed?” she asked.

  “Later.”

  “Alex!” she squealed as water rushed over her feet. “What are you doing?”

  “We’re going to take a little swim.”

  “Now?” she asked incredulously. “What about the bed?”

  Laughing, he teased, “Just think how good it will feel once we get back in it.”

  Epilogue

  Sierra didn’t waste any time about paying off her debt to her sisters. The next weekend after she and Alex had come home from their honeymoon, she offered herself to Christina and Gloria as their happy slave.

  Since either sister couldn’t think of any task they considered awful enough to punish Sierra for going back on her word and marrying a man, she suggested they allow her to cook each one of them a nice dinner. She even managed to add a shudder, as though the very thought was downright horrible.

  Let them think they were punishing her, Sierra thought, as she happily hummed to herself in Christina’s kitchen. She loved to cook and because she did so much of it, she was very efficient in the kitchen.

  Yesterday had been Gloria’s payday and Sierra had pretended to kill herself over a huge pot roast dinner. She wasn’t about to tell her sisters that she’d read a paperback while the whole thing was cooking in the oven.

  Today, for Christina, she was preparing steak fajitas. What could be easier than stir-frying a few strips of meat, peppers and onions and rolling it all up in warm tortillas, she thought with a clever giggle.

  “Hey, I thought this was supposed to be a chore for you,” Christina suddenly spoke from out of nowhere. “Instead you’re laughing. If you think it’s so funny, maybe Gloria and I should put you outside mowing the lawn.”

  Christina wasn’t supposed to be back in the house for another hour. The sound of her voice shocked Sierra and she whirled around from the sizzling skillet to see both her sisters standing in the middle of the kitchen, eyeing her with amused but accusing looks.

  Laughing sheepishly, Sierra waved a dismissive hand in the air and tried to appear as weary as possible. “Oh, you two are really mean. I wasn’t laughing about the cooking. In fact, I’m just exhausted from standing over this hot stove. I don’t know why Christina made me do all this frying!”

  “Uh-huh,” Gloria said with a pointed smile. “Everybody laughs when they’re exhausted.”

  Sierra’s mind grabbed on to the first feasible excuse that popped into her head. “For your information, dear sisters, I was laughing because I’m so happy. Alex and I received some great news this morning.”

  “Oh? What?” Christina quickly prompted. She walked over to the cabinet and picked up a strip of raw bell pepper and chomped into the piece of vegetable.

  Sierra’s brown eyes were suddenly lit from within and the glow spread to her entire face. “We’ll be signing the adoption papers for Bowie on Tuesday.”

  “That soon!” Gloria exclaimed. “I thought there’d be weeks of red tape. Even with Alex using his legal prowess.”

  “So did we,” Sierra explained. “Alex and I both expected a long process. But he has friends in high places. One of the state legislators owed him a favor and he pulled some strings. The papers will be ready for us to sign in a couple days. And then you two can help me plan a christening party.”

  “Oh, Sierra, that’s the greatest news!” Christina cried with joy.

  “Absolutely wonderful!” Gloria added as both sisters rushed to hug Sierra tightly.

  After a few moments of happy tears and congratulations, Sierra disentangled herself from the two women and turned back to her skillet before the whole meal was burned to a crisp.

  Christina and Gloria grabbed cold sodas from the fridge and sat down at a nearby table. Both women kicked off their heels and sighed with pleasure as they wiggled squished toes.

  After a moment Christina looked at Gloria and winked. “Sierra, there’s flour all over that cute little nose of yours. You’d better be careful and not sneeze. Your nostrils might glue together.”

  “Very funny,” Sierra drawled. “That’s what I get for making you homemade tortillas. See what I ever do for you again.” Glancing over her shoulder, she arched a brow at her sisters. “So what have you two been doing, out trying to make up nasty jokes about your sister’s cooking?”

  Laughing, Gloria reached down and rubbed her aching calves. “Not hardly. We’ve been out all day shopping for evening dresses.”

  Surprised, Sierra looked back and forth between the two of them. “Evening dresses,” she repeated blankly. “What’s the occasion, Fortune-Rockwell is throwing some sort of shindig?”

  Christina rose from her chair and twirled around on the ball of her bare foot. “It’s much more exciting than that. Governor Meyers is throwing a party and we’re invited.”

  Sierra raised her brows to mocking proportions. “Oh, I didn’t realize you two were chummy with the governor.”

  Gloria laughed. “We’re not. But we’re friends with Ryan Fortune and the governor happens to think Ryan deserves a party for all of the charitable deeds he’s done for our area.”

  “He certainly does deserve it,” Sierra said matter-of-factly. “So did you two find something to wear?”

  “Not yet,” Christina told her. “We’re going to look again tomorrow. Want to come with us?”

  Sierra tossed her sisters a wry smile. “Why would I want to go? I don’t need an evening dress.”

  “Oh, yes, you do,” Gloria spoke up. “You and Alex are invited, too. But come to think of it, you look pretty cute in that getup you’re cooking in. Maybe you just ought to wear that.”

  Sierra glanced down at her flour-and-grease splotched T-shirt and jeans, then burst out laughing.

  Giggling along with her, Gloria and Christina left their seats to join her and all three women hugged together in a tight, loving circle. They were truly a family again.

  You won’t want to miss Signature Select’s new

  twelve-book series,

  THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS: REUNION,

  which features your favorite family!

  Ann Major launches the series with

  COWBOY AT MIDNIGHT—

  available June 2005.

  For a sneak preview, turn the page!

  Prologue

  The Double Crown Ranch

  Somebody was going to die!

  Rosita Perez knew this as she sprang forward in her bed and threw off her sheets and cotton quilt; she knew it by the swift darts of pain that made her left breast ache.

  The room felt as icy as a meat locker. Even so, her long black hair with its distinctive white streak above her forehead was soaking wet, as was her pillow. Hot flashes, her gringo doctor would say.

  Smart gringo doctors thought they knew everything.

  She knew better.

  Somebody was going to die. Somebody close at hand.

  Rosita was descended from a long line of curanderos. Since birth she’d been cursed, or blessed, with the sight. Like her ancestors, who’d been natural healers, she saw things; she felt things that other people didn’t feel.

  Life wasn’t lived on a single plane. Nor was the world and its machinations entirely logical, much as her bosses, Ryan and Lily Fortune, might like to think. She’d learned to keep her visions to herself because most people, even her beloved husband, Ruben, didn’t believe her.

  After pulling on her robe, she tiptoed out of the bedroo
m and down the hall, taking care not to wake Ruben. A light from outside beckoned her and she headed for the front windows of her living room.

  The red glow in the sky above the ranch made her shake even more. Sensing evil, she felt too afraid to go out on her front porch.

  Which was ridiculous. She’d faced cougars and bob-cats and convicts on the loose while living alone on the ranches. Despite her misgivings, no, because of them, she opened the front door and forced herself to pad bravely out onto the porch of her ranch house.

  Help! The cry was silent and it came from nowhere, and yet from everywhere. The plaintive wail consumed her soul. Sensing death, she sucked in a breath and stared at the dark fringe of trees that circled her home like prison walls.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  A blood-red moon the exact shade of the skull in her nightmare hung over the ranch. Circling it was a bright scarlet ring. She stared and stared, aware that the dense night smelled sweetly of juniper and buzzed with the music of millions of cicadas.

  Summer smells. Summer sounds. Why did they make her feel terrible tonight?

  She kept watching the moon until it vanished behind a black cloud. She wasn’t feeling any easier when a bunch of coyotes began to hoot and she heard a man’s eerie laughter from beyond the juniper long after they stopped.

  “Who’s out there?” she cried.

  The cicadas stopped their serenade. A thousand eyes seemed to stare at her from the thick wall of dark trees.

  Had someone heard her? Stark fear drained the blood from her face.

  With a muted cry, she raced back inside her brilliantly lit living room with its dozens of velvet floral paintings and comforting overstuffed furniture. Not that she felt comforted tonight.

  Slamming her door, she stared unseeingly at the sofa piled high with her recent purchases from a flea market—mirror sunglasses, towel set, children’s clothes and toys, all in need of sorting.

  Maybe the moon hadn’t been a human skull, but one thing was for sure—she’d never seen anything like that blood-red moon circled with a ring of fire before. Never in all her sixty-six years.

  And the laughter…that terrible, inhuman laughter…

  Someone was out there.

  Rosita could trace her blood to prehistoric civilizations in Mexico. She knew in her bones that such a moon meant things didn’t bode well.

  The Fortunes were in trouble—again.

  She’d worked for them for a long time. Too long, Ruben said. He wanted her to retire, so she could focus on him. “We’ll move away, not too far, but we’ll have a place of our own.”

  Ruben had always wanted his own land, but she loved Ryan Fortune and his precious wife, Lily, as if they were members of her own family. She couldn’t leave them. Not now! Not when she knew they needed her more than ever. In the morning she would try to warn them as she cooked them eggs, bacon, tamales and frijoles. She cooked frijoles with every meal.

  They would probably laugh at her and tease her as they always did. They’d waited so long to realize their love. They wanted to be happy, and she wanted that for them, too. With the sun high in the sky, maybe she would be able to laugh and hope all would be well.

  She made a fist. “I have to tell them anyway! First thing, when I go to the ranch house!”

  When she finally stopped shaking, it was a long time before she felt safe enough to switch off the light. Even then she was still too restless to go back to bed or to sort through her flea market purchases, so she curled up in her favorite armchair and let the rosy-tinted darkness wrap her while she waited for the sun to come up and chase her ghosts away.

  If only she could wake Ruben and tell him about the skull and the laughter.

  But he would only think her stupid, tell her it was nothing and order her to bed.

  “Ya veràs. You’ll see, viejo. You’ll see, she whispered.

  Then she shivered as the shadowy forms of the tall furniture in her living room shaped themselves into snakes and cougars and alligators.

  Somebody was going to die!

  Special thanks and acknowledgment are given

  to Stella Bagwell for her contribution to

  THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS: REUNION series.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-1640-2

  IN A TEXAS MINUTE

  Copyright © 2005 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  Visit Silhouette Books at www.eHarlequin.com

  * Heartland Holidays

  † Twins on the Doorstep

  †† Men of the West