A Fortune in Waiting

by Michelle Major

  She shivered and wound her hands under his coat and around his waist. “At the beach, I’ll cuddle and wear a bikini,” she told him, her teeth chattering a little as she spoke.

  “The beach it is,” he agreed, his mouth going dry at the thought of Francesca in a two-piece bathing suit.

  They hadn’t begun to discuss wedding plans, and for now Keaton was content to enjoy the fact that Francesca belonged to him. But he wasn’t going to wait too long. The amount of satisfaction he derived from the thought of joining his life with hers still shocked him, especially after all of the doubts he’d harbored. But as his mother had told him, love could be a magical thing with the right person.

  “You have to promise to cut me off if I start babbling to your mom and her friends,” she said.

  He shook his head. “I love hearing you talk.”

  Francesca let out a little groan. “I’m so nervous I’ll probably spill a cup of tea in her lap.”

  “There’s no reason to be nervous, luv. All my mum has ever wanted is for me to be happy. You make me happy.”

  She nuzzled her nose against his throat, and Keaton sucked in a breath. “Bloody hell, your nose is as frigid as an ice cube.”

  “I’m a native Texan. I wasn’t made for cold weather.” She pressed closer. “I swear I don’t think I’ll ever warm up.”

  “Leave that to me,” he said and trailed hot, open-mouthed kisses along the underside of her jaw.

  “Keaton, we’re in a taxi.”

  He nipped at her sensitive earlobe. “I’d venture to guess the driver has seen worse.”

  With a laugh, she pushed him away. “Save that for later.”

  “Later,” he agreed and the thought of feasting on Francesca spread out across the sheets of his huge bed had him stifling a groan.

  It was a short ride to the Clapham neighborhood where his mother lived in south London. He pointed out various landmarks and styles of architecture along the way, hoping his incessant talking would distract her.

  As soon as the cab pulled up in front of the modest redbrick row house, his mum was out the front door and heading for the sidewalk. Keaton paid the driver then climbed out and swept his mother into a tight hug, her lavender scent enveloping him.

  “Mum, I’d like you to meet—”

  “The girl who is finally going to give Anita the grandbabies she so desperately wants,” Lydia called from the front porch.

  Keaton rolled his eyes at the comment from his mum’s outspoken friend. “This is Francesca Harriman.”

  “It’s so nice to meet you, ma’am,” Francesca said and for a moment Keaton wondered if she was going to curtsy to his mother.

  “I’m so happy Keaton found you.” Anita took both of Francesca’s hands in hers. “You’re as beautiful as he’s told me.”

  A brilliant smile lit Francesca’s face as she reached out and wrapped her arms around Anita.

  “Oh, my,” his mother murmured. Londoners weren’t typically known for their effusive greetings.

  “Thank you for raising such an amazing man,” Francesca said softly and Keaton heard his mother sniff.

  “It was my great pleasure,” she answered. “Let’s get you out of the cold. I can feel you shivering under your jacket.”

  “A spot of tea,” Mary Jane called from where she stood next to Lydia and Jessa, “will warm the poor girl right up.”

  Keaton smiled as his mother linked arms with Francesca and led her up the cobblestone walk. The women fussed and clucked over Francesca, as enchanted with her Texas accent as the people in Austin had been by Keaton’s London accent when he’d first arrived in America. They were also charmed by the fact that Francesca had brought small gifts for each of them from Austin.

  She quickly relaxed and no tea was spilled during the visit. Instead there was much laughter as each of the women shared embarrassing stories of Keaton as a boy.

  “She’s lovely,” Anita told him as he helped her refill the tray of pastries in the kitchen. As it turned out, his gorgeous Texan had a taste for the very British combination of scones and Devonshire cream.

  “I’m glad you like her,” he said and nipped a bite of a biscuit from the tray.

  His mother gently slapped at his hand. “There’s a lightness to you now, Keaton. You were always so determined and driven, but you relax with Francesca.”

  “She’s good for me.”

  “As is America?”

  He understood the question his mother was really asking. “England will always be home,” he answered, “but I’ve found my place in Austin.”

  Anita studied him for a moment then nodded. “Francesca is your home.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I suppose it’s time I renew my passport,” his mother told him. “Phone calls and FaceTime are all well and good, but I want to see this life you’ve built with my own eyes.”

  He let out a relieved breath, as the thought of telling his mother that he planned to stay in Texas had been weighing on him. “When do I get to meet your Bertram?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow is his day off. Perhaps we could all have breakfast?”

  “Very good.” He picked up the tray once she’d placed the last scone on it. “I can tell he makes you happy, Mum. That makes me happy, as well.”

  “We’d better rescue Francesca before Lydia and Mary Jane frighten her away. They’ve already picked out names for your children, you know.”

  Keaton groaned and followed his mother back into the sitting room, a sense of contentment surrounding him as he watched the women who had raised him make Francesca a part of their tight circle. By the time they said goodbye to his mother and her friends almost two hours later, Francesca’s eyelids were drooping.

  “It’s a food coma,” she said as she rested her head on his shoulder in the black cab taking them back to his flat. “I ate my weight in clotted cream.”

  “It’s also a perfect excuse for me to take you to bed,” he said and that’s exactly what he did.

  They spent the rest of the day holed up in his flat, and Keaton had never been more thankful for the oversize shower he’d had installed as well as the luxury silk sheets that covered his bed.

  “England is much warmer this way,” Francesca said hours later as he curled her curvy body against his.

  “I’m rethinking Antarctica,” he told her. “I plan to spend the whole of our honeymoon wrapped around you, luv.”

  “Wherever we end up,” she said, kissing him deeply, “it will perfect because we’re together.”

  “Always and forever,” he said and claimed her once again.

  * * * * *

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  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 sh
e 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.”