Forever in Texas Read online

  Praise for National Bestselling

  and Award-Winning Author

  JODI THOMAS

  “Ms. Thomas’s name should be at the top of everyone’s favorite author list.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “Jodi Thomas will render you breathless!”

  —Romantic Times

  “Jodi Thomas’s writing is exquisite and often lyrical…a very talented writer.”

  —Inside Romance

  THE TEXAN AND THE LADY

  The unexpected romance of a lovely young Harvey Girl and the danger-loving lawman who stole her heart…

  “The woman who made Texans tender…Jodi Thomas shows us hard-living men with grit and guts, and the determined young women who soften their hearts.”

  —PAMELA MORSI,

  Bestselling author of Something Shady and Wild Oats

  PRAIRIE SONG

  Her most sweeping novel of love and glory in the heart of Texas…and of Maggie and Grayson—whose passion held a power and fury all its own…

  “A thoroughly entertaining romance.”

  —Gothic Journal

  THE TENDER TEXAN

  Winner of the Romance Writers of America Best Historical Series Romance Award of 1991

  “Excellent…Have the tissues ready; this tender story will tug at your heart. Memorable reading.”

  —Rendezvous

  “This marvelous, sensitive, emotional romance is destined to be cherished by readers…a spellbinding love story…filled with the special magic that makes a book a treasure.”

  —Romantic Times

  TO TAME A TEXAN’S HEART

  Half the folks in America loved reading the gunslinging tales of Granite Westwind. But nobody knew the real story behind the legend: Granite Westwind was a woman…

  “Earthy, vibrant, funny and poignant, To Tame a Texan’s Heart is Jodi Thomas at her best…a wonderful, colorful love story.”

  —Romantic Times

  And now her latest novel…

  Titles by Jodi Thomas

  Betting the Rainbow

  Can't Stop Believing

  Chance of a Lifetime

  Just Down the Road

  The Comforts of Home

  Somewhere Along the Way

  Welcome to Harmony

  Rewriting Monday

  Twisted Creek

  ***

  Promise Me Texas

  Wild Texas Rose

  Texas Blue

  The Lone Texan

  Tall, Dark, and Texan

  Texas Princess

  Texas Rain

  The Texan's Reward

  A Texan's Luck

  When a Texan Gambles

  The Texan's Wager

  To Wed in Texas

  To Kiss a Texan

  The Tender Texan

  Prairie Song

  The Texan and the Lady

  To Tame a Texan's Heart

  Forever in Texas

  Texas Love Song

  Two Texas Hearts

  The Texan's Touch

  Twilight in Texas

  The Texan's Dream

  eSpecials

  In a Heartbeat

  A Husband for Holly

  Heart on His Sleeve

  Easy on the Heart

  Forever in Texas

  Jodi Thomas

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  FOREVER IN TEXAS

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 1995 by Jodi Koumalats.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Jove Books are published by the Berkley Publishing Group.

  JOVE® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  The “J” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-64514-7

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Jove mass-market edition / September 1995

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedicated to the People of Old Saints Roost

  and to Their Descendants in Clarendon

  A special thank you to

  Connee McAnear

  Susan Nelson

  Sanford Thompson

  for all their help and advice.

  Table of Contents

  Titles by Jodi Thomas

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  HANNAH RANDELL WIPED the mixture of rain and tears from her eyes and stared across the darkness at the depot’s platform twenty yards away. The northbound out of Dallas was being delayed for some reason.

  Two men in wet-darkened yellow slickers stood guard at each end of the walkway leading to the train. Hannah’s only hope of living another day was to catch the train, and these two hired guns from the Harwell ranch made that hope slimmer by the minute. Only a ghost could pass them unnoticed. Absently, she opened the carpetbag at her side and stroked the warm fur of her cat, resting within. The old calico was the only living thing who would miss her when Hannah died.

  A lone man, draped in a huge greatcoat and wide-brimmed Stetson, jumped from one of the passenger cars and moved in fluid steps away from the train. Lightning flashes made him disappear and reappear every few seconds as he drew closer to Hannah.

  “You’d best stay with the others, mister!” the conductor yelled from the shelter of the train steps. “We’ll be pulling out soon as we get a wire saying the tracks are clear up north.”

  The tall, lean shadow didn’t slow his pace. “Blow the whistle twice when you’re ready. I’ll hear it!” he shouted back into the rain. “I’ve had all the people I can stomach for one night.”

  The conductor waved, as if to say “good riddance,” and melted into the interior of the car while the stranger took the platform steps two at a time. He crossed the street with his hat down against the rain and entered the hotel door only inches from where Hannah stood hidden between buildings.

  She glanced at the Harwell men guarding the steps; they’d barely noticed the man. An idea washed through her mind, helping her forget the cold. She lifted the soaked hem of her
skirt with one hand and her mother’s worn carpetbag with the other. Trudging into the muddy alley toward the hotel’s back door, she whispered, “I think I’ve got a plan, Sneeze.”

  Though the cat didn’t answer, the words of Hannah’s mother from years ago echoed in the young woman’s mind. Survive. Do whatever you have to do, but survive.

  Hannah wondered if that might include killing a man before this storm ended.

  Chapter 1

  Midnight

  Dallas, Texas

  SANFORD COLSTON STEPPED off the train and turned his collar up against the icy rain. There was no sense getting angry about the delay. It couldn’t be helped. But he was tired of waiting with the others in the crowded passenger car. He needed space and silence, even if he had to brave the storm to get it.

  Two men stood on the platform in the rain, as though watching for something or someone. Sanford could see rifles beneath their slickers and wondered what kind of trouble would come riding in on a night like this. It might be snowing farther north, but the freezing downpour in Dallas was enough to keep the devil indoors tonight.

  Raising the brim of his hat just enough to see the outline of an old hotel across the street, he headed in long strides toward it, needing desperately to be alone. Being trapped in a car with drunks, loud salesmen, chattery old women, and babies continually crying had proven to be too disagreeable an ending to an already horrible day.

  Silence was what he needed, Ford thought. It was what he’d always needed. Ford’s father had once told him to stay apart from people, that he’d be better off alone. Though Ford was his only son, his father had preferred to see him only when necessary. So, since childhood, loneliness was Ford’s only traveling companion. People had a way of reminding him of his father’s advice.

  The aging desk clerk didn’t even look up as he exchanged a room key for the cash Ford laid on the counter. “Second door to the left of the stairs,” the clerk said with a coloring of Irish in his tone. “Ye’re too late for even coffee from the kitchen, but ye’ve got the floor to yeself tonight. Rain’s drowned out all me profit.”

  Without saying a word, Ford climbed the stairs. He’d never spent much time in towns the size of Dallas, but he guessed they were pretty much the same everywhere—quiet, except for Saturday nights and elections. His sister, Gavrila, however, had warned him Dallas and Fort Worth would be full of wickedness. Though he placed little concern in her usual overreaction, as a precaution he’d worn his Colts.

  The hallway smelled of mildew, and the lock on his door didn’t work. Not that it mattered, since he was the only one on the floor, yet Ford liked order. Without sparking a light, he removed his gun belt and hung it on the iron bedpost. Guessing the sheets would be less than clean, he took off his coat and stretched his long frame out atop the covers. Since he’d been able to afford it, he’d bought the best quality clothing available from mail-order catalogs, but even these clothes would be wrinkled by morning.

  The room was as dark as his mood. He’d failed! The whole town of Saints Roost was depending on him. The council had made it seem so simple. Since Sanford Colston was the only member of the school board who didn’t have a family to care for, he’d been elected to make the trip to Dallas in the middle of one of the worst winters Texans had ever experienced. All Ford had to do was hire a new schoolteacher.

  Lightning flashed outside and thunder rattled the thin panes of his room’s only window. Ford closed his eyes, not caring about the storm. “Just as you predicted, Gavrila,” he whispered, remembering his sister’s parting words. “I had as much luck finding a teacher as I’ve had finding a wife.”

  He could understand why no woman would want to be married to him. Even Gavrila couldn’t stand to be around him for long. You’re not ugly, exactly, his sister said once as a child, trying to be kind. God just gave you features that don’t quite match. Your nose is too big and your chin too square. You’ve eyes so dark they seem to look right through a person.

  Even if a girl could get used to you, she’d still not want to have your children. Sanford, just the way you stand, so still and all, makes chills spread up my spine. And you never say anything. Father always wondered that you learned to talk at all, always hiding out like it wasn’t in your nature to be around people.

  Ford let the memories flow in the darkness of this cheap room, as if the walls could no longer hold them out like his foot-thick bricks could at home. He’d been taller than anyone his age in school, yet so thin he didn’t have a chance in a fight. When everyone else would stand around talking, Ford would only watch. Even later, when he was grown and had a ranch of his own, he couldn’t think of more than a few words to say to anyone. Most people were like his sister, who talked at him and never to him.

  Until he was twenty, his bones looked like they threatened to break the skin. Folks called him “spider,” and “willow,” and “skeleton.” They laughed at his huge hands and feet, as though they’d paid money to see a freak. When he didn’t respond, they’d look at him with a sadness about them.

  Finally, Ford matured. His body filled out with muscles from hard work, and his hands and feet seemed to fit his tall frame. His face, however, never adjusted with age. An aunt had summed it up last July by saying “handsome” was a handle Sanford Colston would never have to worry about having tacked to his back.

  Staring up at the water-spotted ceiling during lightning flashes, Ford decided that though he didn’t mind the loneliness, he resented the cruelty he’d suffered in school. He thought serving on the school board might help, but what good could he do if he couldn’t even find a teacher?

  Slowly, his mind searched through every applicant’s file he’d studied. Only two had met the qualifications necessary and were willing to take over in the middle of a school year. Before he could interview one, however, she decided to marry, and the other had refused to go to the Texas panhandle. He wished he could have bent the rules and hired one of the remaining applicants, but the school board was adamant in their requirements…eight years of schooling and one year of higher education, plus unmarried, highly principled, well groomed, and of course, Methodist, since Saints Roost was a Methodist town. By the time a woman collected all those qualities, she was either planning a wedding or too set in her ways to travel.

  When the door rattled during a sudden roll of thunder, he didn’t bother to look around. The muffled sound of a cat meowing whispered through the blackness. A slight breeze cooled his cheek as the haunting rustle of a gun clearing leather drifted to him.

  Moving with swiftness, Ford reached toward the bedpost. Too late. One weapon was missing from its holster. His boots hit the floor with a thud as he stared into the blackness, almost tasting danger in the thick air. The skin stretched tight across his knuckles as Ford once more heard the cry of an angry cat trapped somewhere in the night.

  “Don’t move, mister, or I’ll shoot!” a woman ordered. Her voice was high with panic.

  Sanford started to stand, but froze at the distinct sound of the hammer being pulled back on a revolver. Again the muffled scratching, fighting sound of a cat echoed Ford’s own frustration.

  “Who are you?” His voice sounded harsh even to himself. “What do you want? I’ve little money, if you’ve come to rob me.”

  His eyes focused enough to see her outline. She was tall, very tall for a woman. He could smell sweat, and mud…and blood. He could just make out her form before him, her carpetbag in one hand and his gun in the other. The tingle of her bracelets chimed in the thick air as her hand shook slightly with the weight of the gun.

  “I don’t want your money,” she answered sharply. “Take off your clothes!”

  “What!” He’d never heard such a ridiculous demand in his life. “I most certainly will not!”

  “Look, mister, I don’t want to have to kill you, but I will if need be.”

  “But you’d hang.”

  “I’ll be dead before morning anyway if you don’t give me those clothes. Now, you can t
ake them off, or I’ll remove them from your corpse.”

  “You’d kill me for my clothes?” Ford realized he sounded like a child. The woman was dangerous, maybe even insane. What other kind of person would sneak into a man’s room, point a gun at him, then demand he disrobe?

  “Don’t push me, mister, or I swear I’ll make you coffin heavy. Now stop asking questions and start stripping.”

  Ford pulled off his vest and began unbuttoning his shirt. “I’ve clean clothes in my bag. You’re welcome to them.”

  “No!” she shouted above the storm. “I need what you had on when you left the train.”

  After pulling out his shirttail, he unbuckled his belt. Curiosity far outweighed fear in his mind as he continued. He’d lived his life in what dime novels called “the Wild West” and never been robbed. Now he had a real live villain before him.

  “Hurry up!” she snapped. “I have to be long gone by sunup. Put your clothes on the bed and back up into the corner.”

  “Do you want my drawers, too?” His thumb pushed into the waistband of his underwear.

  “No!” she answered. “And you should wear an undershirt in this weather. You’ll catch your death.”

  “A mothering robber—how unusual.” Ford tried hard to see her face.

  “Hurry up!” she answered. “Back up.”

  He did as ordered, thinking if he lived through this adventure, he’d finally have something to tell around the cracker barrel at the general store.

  Moving into the far corner of the room, he folded his powerful arms over his bare chest and watched her outline. She carefully placed his gun only an inch from her reach as she started removing her own clothes.

  “Make a move toward me, mister, and I swear I’ll shoot. Don’t get any ideas about jumping for the gun. You may be fast, but you wouldn’t want to bet your life on it.”

  Ford smiled. He must be mad. He was almost enjoying this. No one back home would ever believe such a thing could happen to him. Not to Sanford Colston, the man everyone seemed to speak to only long enough to be polite.

  “Mind my asking, why me?” He watched her in the blinks of lightning as she pulled off her skirt. The material hit the floor in a wet plop.