by Jodi Thomas
The Lone Texan
Jodi Thomas
Three days after arriving in Galveston, newly widowed Sage McMurray finds herself taken hostage in a robbery. She fears she may never see Whispering Mountain again when the outlaws decide to auction their pretty captive off to the highest bidder, until a tall stranger offers twice the highest bid.
Jodi Thomas
The Lone Texan
The fourth book in the Whispering Mountain series, 2009
PROLOGUE
Whispering Mountain Ranch
September 12, 1859
LATE SUMMER STILL HUNG WARM IN THE NIGHT. EVEN though a few of the leaves on the live oaks along the hills had begun to change. Drummond Roak walked silently down the hallway of the McMurray ranch house toward the main study, where all records and correspondence were stored.
He knew he didn't need to be quiet. The family was in town at the fall school welcome, and Martha, the housekeeper, had retired before dark to her cottage over by the pond. Drum had seen her light go out and knew that, as always, Martha went to bed with the sun.
Smiling, he thought of all the years he'd moved through the rooms of this house, sometimes by invitation, sometimes out of curiosity, and once in a while out of need to check on Sage. He'd been here so often, he thought of this place as home.
The McMurrays would be surprised to learn that the night they'd first caught him on their land, he hadn't been stealing horses but books. Books he couldn't read. Teagem the head of the clan, would never have caught him if Drum hadn't been afraid the books he carried would be ruined if he jumped into the water. He'd hidden them in the brush by the river and faced Teagen.
Even as a boy Drum had loved the McMurray horses, craved their books, and longed for their sister. All three were perfectly good reasons to kill him by McMurray standards.
At six foot one, he no longer fit through the thin study windows, so about the time he turned seventeen, he'd chosen to come in through the mud room off the kitchen. On a ranch as protected by hills and rivers as any fort by a hundred troops, no one had ever thought to put a lock on the door.
Moving past Sage's old room, he forced himself not to look in. When the only sister of the McMurray men left to go back East to medical school, the wives had changed her room into a sewing area.
He hated the change. He wanted it to be as it was, looking like she might walk in at any moment. She'd been gone three years, six months, and a few days, as long as he was counting. The ache for her had never changed. She was his one dream, his one passion, his one goal.
He smiled. That kind of obsession would probably get him locked away if anyone knew about it. A man at the beginning of his twenties doesn't carry one woman in his heart; he collects as many garters as he can. Mooning over Sage was about as practical as planning a trip to Mars.
Only for Drum, there was no one else he wanted and only one dream he'd fight for.
Moving to the study, he crossed to the desk and leafed through the letters from Sage. Thanks to scouting for investors in the North and helping Texas Rangers with trouble on the border, it had been almost a year since he last visited Whispering Mountain. He'd told himself it was because she wasn't here, but he knew he had finishing to do. When she did come back, he wanted to be the kind of man she needed-the kind of man she'd want. Making a living with his gun was the only way he knew. If he kept saving, he'd have enough for a start soon.
Drum moved back through the house to the cellar, where no lantern light would be seen. As he crossed the kitchen, he picked up Martha's cookie jar and a jug of milk. With all the kids in this house, no one would miss a few ginger cookies. He set his feast up on a crate in the root cellar and began to read Sage's letters.
She'd completed medical school. He grinned. He'd finished school also, but not the kind with books and assignments. For him, it had been bullets and wars. The pay had been unbelievable and so had the risk.
He flipped to the next letter, all about her work at Massachusetts General Hospital, in the heart of Boston, with a wonderful doctor named Lander. He found himself sensing what wasn't there more than the lines she wrote. She was busy, challenged, sometimes exhausted, but she wasn't happy.
Drum was proud of her. She'd had the makings of a doctor before she left; she just didn't have the confidence. She was building that belief in herself, but she talked of no joy, no fun, no adventure.
I haven't ridden in months. I miss it terribly.
The snow came and went, and I never had time to walk in it. In Boston the stars don't shine as bright as they do at home.
"It's time she came back” he said as he finished off the milk.
The last letter held the plans for a house and a one-page note. He almost tore the paper in his grip when he read, "I'm coming home."
He glanced at the date. August 4. She was already on her way. Hell, in less than two weeks she'd land in Galveston. Drum stood, folding the letters. With luck, he'd be there to meet her.
Retracing his steps, he left the empty milk jug beside the washtub and the empty cookie jar where he'd found it, slipped out the back door, and climbed on his horse.
Patting Satan's neck, he whispered, "Let's go get her, boy. Let's go get Sage."
He could almost feel her in his arms. This time, when they met, she wouldn't think of him as a kid three years younger. This time he'd be the man she needed.
CHAPTER 1
Galveston, Texas
September 24, 1859
STORM CLOUDS ROLLED LIKE THE MURKY WAVES AGAINST the Galveston shore as the dilapidated Mollie Bea docked from New Orleans. Passengers shuffled among cargo, fighting to disembark before rain drenched them all.
Sage McMurray Lander walked down the rickety gangplank and stepped onto Texas soil for the first time in almost four years. She'd left barely twenty, full of dreams and plans. She returned educated, widowed, and so homesick she almost jumped from the boat and swam the last mile.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath of the warm, humid air and relaxed for the first time in months. Home. She was finally home. Unlike most people on the dock, she was born in this untamed land. Texas ran wild in her blood, and no matter how far she traveled, it drew her back like a jealous lover.
"This is it?" Her traveling companion, Bonnie Faye Pierce, said from behind Sage. "This is Texas? You got to be pulling my leg, Doc. This can't be the place you've been bragging about ever since I met you."
Sage smiled up at the bone-thin woman who'd hesitated to follow her from Boston. If Bonnie had anywhere else to go, she wouldn't have left the city. She'd inherited an old two-story house from her parents that she hated and a black cat named Bullet that she loved. The thirty-year-old considered herself too homely for the marriage market and swore she'd remain single rather than settle for the few half-wits who'd asked her out. Her youth had been spent taking care of aging parents who left what little money they had to her brother with a request that he take care of his sister. He'd ignored their request, leaving Bonnie to have to find employment.
Sage had met the tall nurse during a flu epidemic two years ago at Massachusetts General Hospital. Bonnie Faye had just signed on as a nurse in a free clinic. The minute she spotted Sage, she claimed that her calling in life was to serve as Sage's nurse. From that day on, she called Sage Doc, as if there were no other doctor in her world. Bonnie's schooling was minimal, her energy endless, and her loyalty total.
Sage realized that a trained nurse, especially one who would work with a woman doctor, might be impossible to find in Texas. Convincing her to come hadn't been easy. Talking her into staying might be harder still. To Bonnie, the West was a fictional place men wrote about in adventure novels.
"This is just the coast. It gets better” Sage promised. Rows of cotton bales
stacked ready to load and pens full of half-wild cattle weren't much of a first look at her beloved Texas. "Wait until you see my home, Whispering Mountain.” They moved through the anthill of people and products being delivered and being shipped out.
"Well, I hope there's more to see, or I might just swim back, Doc. This place looks like hell must on a cloudy day and smells worse than New Orleans, and I thought that would be impossible.” Bonnie batted at flies with her long, thin hand as she leaned sideways to compensate for the two bags she carried, one for her personal things and one with her black cat inside.
Sage lifted her own worn carpetbag and maneuvered along the dock. Horses were corralled a hundred yards inland. Pigs and chickens were boxed in wooden crates probably being readied to load on the ship for the return trip. A dozen odors, all bad, floated on the gray, stagnant air like invisible smoke trails.
"Some say Galveston has half a million people.” Sage tried to paint a positive picture. "They've even got a store that sells nothing but jewelry.”
"That Some who counted must have included pigs and chickens."
A drunk, half a head shorter than Bonnie, bumped into her, almost knocking her bag from her fist.
The nurse awkwardly danced around him and widened her stance. "And a few in Some's count could be considered half-pig.” She frowned at the man trying to stumble down the narrow walk and wrinkled her nose. "And half-horse, from the smell of him.” Bonnie stared up at the brooding sky. "Lord, make it rain before that man can find shelter.”
Sage grinned. She'd made the right decision to talk Bonnie into coming along. The woman was stronger than most men and as fine a nurse as any Boston hospital ever produced. And, best of all, she tolerated no dirt. A patient, bleeding and near death would be lovingly cared for until he was out of danger; then he'd be scrubbed clean.
They reached the sandy boardwalk and dodged traffic as they worked their way toward town and the hotel. She could have hired a cart, but a walk after being trapped on a boat sounded good.
Sage promised herself as soon as she had a bath, she'd put away her widow's black and slip into the same riding clothes she'd worn when she left Texas. Only four months had passed since Barret had died, but four months seemed long enough to mourn a man she'd been married to for only four weeks, a man who'd never once said he loved her, not even on their wedding day. In the months she'd worn black for him, Sage realized she'd admired Barret Lander but never loved him.
At the market, they moved beyond the stores and offices packed together in long rows of storefronts. While Sage searched for the name of the hotel her brother wrote he'd booked for them, Bonnie set her bundle down and watched the street. Galveston spread like a tapestry of cultures and colors before her, a place where civilization and the frontier met. There were men in fine suits and uniforms, traders in fur, and cowboys with wide hats and guns strapped across their chests.
Bonnie smiled. "I can't tell if there is a sample of every kind of man about or if this is just where the scraps got left off”
"A little of both.” Sage laughed.
Carts, wagons, coaches, and half-broken horses maneuvered down the road, and every single one seemed to be trying to get around the others.
"This is true chaos” Bonnie set her cat down to push her tiny round glasses farther up her Roman nose. "Half these people need to go home and come back tomorrow."
When she put her fist on her hip, a broad-shouldered cowhand, carrying a fifty-pound bag of grain on his shoulder, bumped into her. He swung around, knocking a burly man into the street as he tried to apologize to Bonnie.
She stood, like a turnstile, in everyone's way, as she stared at the fellow in chaps and boots who towered almost a head taller than her.
"Pardon me, miss." The cowhand smiled down at her as if a six-foot woman were nothing unusual.
Bonnie remained speechless. This sudden contact with the locals seemed too much for her ordered world.
Laughing, Sage realized Bonnie would never speak to the man, no matter how long he stood in the middle of the street apologizing. Between shyness and being raised by overbearing parents, the old maid was destined never to talk, much less flirt, with any male.
Sage looked past Bonnie and the cowboy and spotted the hotel directly across the street. It was so new, the whitewash didn't look dry. Her protective older brothers would, of course, have found the best place they could to welcome her home. It wouldn't matter to them that she was a doctor or a widow; to them all she'd ever be was their kid sister.
A dog's yelp drew her attention to the husky man who'd landed in the muddy street. Anger wrinkled his reddened face, and he kicked again at a stray mutt beside him. He marched back toward the spot where Bonnie now stood. He took one look at the cowboy with the huge bag on his shoulder still trying to apologize and decided to kick the dog running in the street instead of picking a fight he couldn't win.
The animal took the second blow and limped a foot away, whimpering.
The man wasn't finished. He swung back his leg to plant another blow.
Sage reacted before she thought. Her bag slammed into the stout troublemaker at the same moment his foot reached the wounded dog. The man fell backward against the boardwalk, and the dog rolled farther into the street.
She jumped to snatch the animal back and too late realized she'd stepped directly into the path of a team of galloping horses.
Sage scooped up the pup and closed her eyes, bracing for the blow to come.
Bonnie's and her screams blended, but neither had time to move.
Like a swift wind, something or someone brushed against Sage and lifted her off the ground a second before impact.
Feeling suspended between life and death, Sage didn't dare breathe. Maybe that's how it is when you die, she thought. Maybe the angel of death grabs you a split second before you feel the pain.
But she could feel the dog in her arms. She could feel something strong and warm locked around her waist. A second later, she was plopped down on the walk out of harm's way.
"Damn it, Sage!" a furious voice thundered. "You about killed yourself over a stray dog."
Sage cringed. Recognizing the voice, she opened one eye. "Roak?"
The man before her was filthy from his dusty hat to his mud-covered boots. If Satan hired wranglers, this trail duster would get the job. He was tall, dark, and the kind of lean that's molded from solid muscle.
"Roak?" she whispered again. After almost four years there was no mistaking the wildness of Drummond Roak. His stormy gray eyes glared at her as if he was considering murdering her for almost getting herself killed. The lean boy's face she remembered seemed chiseled in strong, hard lines now. Just as she'd suspected, he'd grown up mean and heartless, probably tossing women aside in every settlement from here to the Oklahoma Territory
She opened her other eye. "It is you, isn't it?" None of the boy she'd known remained. This man before her almost frightened her.
He pulled off his hat and shoved midnight hair out of his eyes. "Of course it's me, damn it. Teagen told me you'd be in this week. I had to ride like hell to get here, and what do I see…" He swallowed hard as if choking down curses by the dozen. "I have half a mind to turn you over my knee and whip some sense into you. You must have left your brain back at that college you went to”
"Stop swearing at me!"
"Stop yelling at me!"
From behind him, Bonnie pushed her way through the gathering crowd. She stood almost eye-to-eye with Drummond Roak. "Who is this man, Dr. Lander? He can't talk to you like this. I won't stand for it." There was no doubt Bonnie thought she could straighten him out with a few words.
Sage almost laughed. Bonnie saw herself as not only nurse but bodyguard. As far as Sage knew, the nurse had never met anyone who didn't bend to what the hospital called her "sergeant tone” Sage had seen entire waiting rooms grow silent at her order, but Nurse Bonnie Faye had never encountered Drummond Roak.
He turned toward the nurse before spitting his
words out. "Who am I? Who in the hell are you?"
Sage faced them both, her anger blending with embarrassment as a crowd gathered. "He's a dirty, foulmouthed kid named Drummond Roak," she answered before Bonnie could defend herself, "who has been driving me mad since he was no more than half-grown. I thought I would have at least a few months' peace before I ran into him again.” Sage glared at Roak as if she were six feet tall and not barely over five, but to Bonnie she said, "I don't need protection from this man. I only need distance” She shoved the rock-hard wall of his chest one last time for good measure as though she believed she could budge him.
"I just saved your life, Sage!" Drum shouted. "The least you could do is thank me before you start insulting me.”
"Stop yelling at me.” She poked him with her finger as if it were a saber.
"Stop calling me a kid.” He shoved her hand away, but it swung back.
She had to admit there was little of the boy she'd known standing before her. She was three years older than he was, but he'd never acknowledged the difference that made between them. He'd stolen a kiss from her when he'd been fifteen and always told her that someday she'd be his. Looking at him now, she realized how ridiculous his dream had been. In the years since her brother Teagen had caught him sneaking onto their ranch, from his dress Drum hadn't changed much from the dirty, wild kid raised in an outlaw camp. He looked like he belonged back in the lawless wilderness he'd come from.
Bonnie finally found her voice. "You're Drummond? The Drum that the doctor has told everyone about for years? The boy who tried to fight her big brother, a man twice your age and size? The kid who can swim the Guadalupe River to climb onto their ranch at Whispering Mountain? The Drum who fought with them against invaders and swore he'd die with the McMurrays if need be?"
"Who are you, lady?" Drum asked. "How do you know about me?"
