Give Me A Texas Ranger. Jodi Thomas
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a dull kind of politeness that was born more of habit than purpose. His dreary brown eyes reflected the look of a man who didn’t much care if he lived or died. His collar and cuffs were stained with sweat and dirt, but a polished gold watch-chain hung from his vest. She’d never seen him check his watch, not once since he’d joined the stage at dawn.
What kind of man wears a watch and never looks at it? She smiled to herself, figuring out the riddle. The kind of man who owns only the chain.
Annalane moved slightly so she could study the fourth guest, a Texas Ranger, who’d got them to this shelter alive when the shooting started. He was long and lean, with a thin scar along his left cheek that had ended what once must have been a handsome face. His clothes were worn but well made, and his boots, though mud-covered, looked hand tooled. He had twin Colts strapped to powerful legs. The sun had baked his face until she couldn’t tell if he was in his twenties or forties. Not that it mattered; she’d seen more talkative hitching posts.
Annalane sensed things in the way men moved that most people didn’t notice. All those in the room knew of hard times, but this one, this Ranger, was battle worn. From the way he folded his muddy gloves into his belt, to the way he watched the window for trouble, hinted to her about his past. He’d fought, and killed, and survived many times.
Now, the Ranger was on guard. The others, including her, were just observers, or maybe future victims. The driver’s hands weren’t steady enough to fire a weapon. The station manager’s apron was still wrapped around his waist, proving he wanted no part of any fight. Neither man could move fast enough to be of any help if trouble barreled through the door. The gambler didn’t look like he cared enough even to defend his own life. Only the Ranger seemed ready.
Annalane cut her eyes back to the gambler. A coward, she thought, as she watched him flip cards onto the table. He’d run, or bargain his way through life, but never fight.
She looked back at the Ranger, who’d introduced himself as Wynn McCord when he’d climbed into the coach in Dodge. Like her, he carried a paper allowing him into the Indian Territory. Her letter said “visiting relative at Camp Supply.” She had no idea what his said, but she guessed he hadn’t come for a visit.
To her surprise, he glanced up and stared at her from across the room, with stormy blue eyes so piercing she had the feeling she’d been touched. His unnerving stare seemed to tell him all he needed to know in seconds. He shifted his attention back to the night beyond the window.
She stood, straightened the pleats of her traveling dress, and walked toward the Ranger.
As she stepped into the square of watery moonlight glowing on the dirt floor, the Ranger’s arm shot out toward her. His fingers dug into her waist. He tugged her almost violently toward him and away from the light.
Before she could make a sound, her back hit the solid wall that framed the left side of the window and the Ranger’s body held her in place.
“Thinking about suicide, lady?”
Annalane fought for breath.
“You stand in the light for long, a bullet’s bound to find you.” His voice was so low she doubted the others heard him.
Annalane pushed at his chest. She wasn’t used to anyone being so close to her and this man towered over her as few could.
He moved back an inch. She could still feel the heat of his body and the dusty smell of leather and gunpowder that seemed to linger around him.
She straightened, deciding not to yell at him. She needed this Ranger if she planned to stay alive long enough to reach her brother at Camp Supply.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions.” There was no need to do more than whisper. The man still stood so close she wouldn’t have been surprised if he could read her thoughts.
As if she weren’t there, he went back on watch. “I’m all out of answers. Ask someone else.”
“I’m asking you.” She knew she didn’t have to voice the questions. He knew what she wanted to know. “And I want the truth,” she added in her head-nurse tone, just to let him know he wasn’t dealing with a frightened girl.
He looked at her then and smiled. “All right. The truth. Proper ladies like yourself should stay back East, where it’s safe and your husband can take care of you just by locking the door at night.”
He glanced at the broken parasol by the door, which she’d thought would protect her from the rain, then at her very proper shoes now muddy and ruined.
She jerked off her worthless hat before he had time to glare at it and thought of telling him that she’d used most of her savings to buy this outfit. She wanted to make a good impression when she arrived at the camp that would soon become a fort.
When she’d dressed this morning she’d thought she would be meeting her brother by nightfall. He’d written that they would have dinner with the fort’s officers. She had hoped to look more than just presentable. She wanted to look, if not pretty, at least able to fit the definition of “a fine woman.” But obviously, even in this Ranger’s eyes, she hadn’t measured up.
This morning she’d thought she was still in a civilized world. Tonight she knew different. If anyone in this territory had an ounce of brains, they’d give the horrible place to the Indians and leave. If they did need a camp to keep some kind of order, they should have crossed the Red River and set it up in Texas.
She told herself she didn’t care what Ranger Wynn McCord thought of her or her clothes; he’d been nothing but rude to her all day. When the firing started he’d shoved her to the muddy floor of the coach and demanded she stay there. When they’d pulled up at the station, he’d almost ripped her arm off, jerking her from the stage and telling her to run. When she’d turned to grab her small carpetbag, she swore she had heard him growl at her.
As Annalane opened her mouth to finally point out a few of his faults, she froze, seeing only cold steel across the depth of his winter blue eyes, and she knew he wouldn’t care. For one second, she wished he’d let down his guard and she could see what was inside this hard shell of a man. Surely something lay beneath.
Had he ever wanted to belong somewhere, just for one moment in time? Wanted it so badly he would believe a lie to think he was needed? Wanted it so desperately that he tried to mold himself into something he wasn’t?
For one blink, she thought she recognized a loneliness that matched her own, but she doubted he had the hunger to belong somewhere as she’d had for ten years. The need to belong to someone ached in her sometimes like an open wound, but need and dreams had no place in her life.
She’d held to a dream once, then it had been shattered by one bullet. Annalane guessed this Ranger had never known love, not even for one minute. McCord had probably been born to this land and hard times. She’d not reach him with sentiment and crying.
Honesty was her only weapon and she prayed it would work.
“I have no husband to lock the door at night. I was married once for an hour before he left for the war. When he returned, his body was nailed into a box. I joined the army of nurses needed, and for four years moved between hospitals and battlegrounds.” She knew she was rattling on, but she had to reach McCord. “I was baptized into battle medicine at First Bull Run, Virginia, in ’61 and was there at the last in Bentonville, North Carolina in ’65. There were dozens of other places where blood soaked the earth. Until last month, I worked at the Armory Square Hospital.”
Something changed in the Ranger. He shifted. “I was at First Bull Run with Terry’s Rangers. Hell of a battle.”
She almost commented that a few of the bullets she dug out of Northern soldiers were probably his, but she remained silent. The war was over, had been for five years, even if the nightmares still remained.
“What do you want to know?” His voice was as low as the rumble of thunder outside.
“What are our chances? What options?”
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