The Texan's Reward Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  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

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  EPILOGUE

  THE DALTON LINE

  Critics are Hootin’ and Hollerin’ for “The Queen of the Texan Romance” (The Romance Reader)

  A TEXAN’S LUCK

  “[A] tale with more than enough fast-paced adventure to satisfy suspense buffs. But, as always, it is Thomas’s slower-paced handling of the romantic dynamics between her emotionally warm but wounded characters that is the novel’s strength.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “[An] action-packed, heartfelt story . . . Thomas continues to demonstrate why she is one of the finest Western romance writers today. Strong characters, pulse-pounding action, and sizzling sexual tension are all here in great degrees.”

  —Historical Romance Reviews

  “An exciting story of waiting out the bad guys and discovering love in the process . . . Excellent.”

  —The Best Reviews

  WHEN A TEXAN GAMBLES

  “Beauty and the Beast meets the Old West as the feisty Sarah refuses to fear the man whose reputation makes sane men tremble. Thomas’s second Texas title is even better than the first, which is terrific.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “Another wonderfully told tale of Texas, When a Texan Gambles is exciting, uplifting, and beautifully written . . . Once again, Jodi Thomas has kept me up reading past my bedtime! Don’t miss this terrific novel.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “Lively dialogue and endearing homespun characters . . . This bright, character-centered tale should entertain fans of the Old West.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A superb Western romance that moves at a fast pace, is filled with plenty of action, and contains a strong cast . . . Readers will look forward to the final novel in what is so far a delightful series.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  THE TEXAN’S WAGER

  “An exciting Western romance filled with engaging characters . . . fans will know they won by reading The Texan’s Wager.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “A poignant, heartwarming tale . . . It’s the perfect beginning for Ms. Thomas’s new Texas trilogy. If, as I do, you love Texas, its exciting history, and sweet romance, don’t miss The Texan’s Wager. It’s one terrific book.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “Jodi Thomas, the queen of the Texan romance, just keeps turning out entertaining stories with interesting characters and plots. The Texan’s Wager will undoubtedly delight her many fans . . . A most enjoyable beginning of what promises to be an entertaining trilogy.”

  —The Romance Reader

  “A great Western read! . . . [A] tender loving story . . . touching and romantic . . . It is a testament to the author Jodi Thomas’s skills!”

  —The Best Reviews

  “Thomas’s crisp prose, sprightly dialogue, and homespun characters will charm.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  THE TEXAN’S DREAM

  “Packs a powerful emotional punch . . . [Thomas’s] latest Western historical romance highlights the author’s talent for creating genuinely real characters . . . Exceptional romance.” —

  Booklist

  TWILIGHT IN TEXAS

  “A powerful Lone Star romance that brings to life the decade after the Civil War . . . filled with action . . . loaded with tender passion . . . another exciting tale.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  TO WED IN TEXAS

  “Entertaining.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Tender, sweet, funny, and touching.”

  —The Romance Reader

  “A thrilling tale . . . a story that readers will want to read again and again.”

  —Rendezvous

  TO KISS A TEXAN

  “Compelling . . . fans will appreciate Thomas’s subtle humor and her deft handling of sensitive topics.”

  —Booklist

  THE TEXAN’S TOUCH

  “Delightful and memorable characters and a roller-coaster pace . . . Another wonderful read from a true shining star.”

  —Romantic Times

  TWO TEXAS HEARTS

  “Jodi Thomas is at her remarkable best in Two Texas Hearts.”

  —Debbie Macomber

  TEXAS LOVE SONG

  “A warm and touching read full of intrigue and suspense that will keep the reader on the edge of her seat.”

  —Rendezvous

  FOREVER IN TEXAS

  “A great Western romance filled with suspense and plenty of action.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  TO TAME A TEXAN’S HEART

  Winner of the Romance Writers of America

  Best Historical Series Romance Award

  “Earthy, vibrant, funny, and poignant . . . a wonderful, colorful love story.”

  —Romantic Times

  THE TEXAN AND THE LADY

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

  —Pamela Morsi, USA Today bestselling author of Suburban Renewal

  PRAIRIE SONG

  “Thoroughly entertaining romance.”

  —Gothic Journal

  THE TENDER TEXAN

  Winner of the Romance Writers of America

  Best Historical Series Romance Award

  “[A] marvelous, sensitive, emotional romance . . . spellbinding.”

  —Romantic Times

  Titles by Jodi Thomas

  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

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  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.

  THE TEXAN’S REWARD

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley edition / November 2005

  Copyright © 2005 by Jodi Koumalats.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-09961-2

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  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

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  BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  CHAPTER 1

  JACOB DALTON BRACED HIS BROAD SHOULDERS against the blast of wind howling through Lone River Canyon and urged his horse forward. Dusty, a stallion he had trained from a colt, knew the shortcut across the canyon as well as he did, but unlike Jacob, the horse didn’t seem to share his urgency to brave the treacherous path in order to get home a day earlier.

  Jacob knew he needed to concentrate while crossing Lone River after dark, but he couldn’t clear his mind of the words he’d seen on a telegram four days ago. He read it only once, but once had been enough. He’d hardly stopped to eat or sleep since.

  When he checked in at the Texas Ranger office in El Paso to pick up his mail, he hadn’t even opened the message from the sheriff in Clarendon until he walked across the street, ordered a whiskey, and relaxed into a chair by the window. Jacob had no relatives and, due to his occupation, few friends. Most correspondence he received came under the heading of business. But he opened Sheriff Parker Smith’s note first, knowing the old man cared about the same people Jacob did, and he hoped for news among the sheriff ’s correspondence.

  He’d expected Sheriff Parker’s usual report: All quiet. Nell still recovering. But Jacob ripped the envelope in haste, just in case Nell had taken a turn for the worse. If so, he’d ask for leave and catch the next train east, whether she liked him worrying about her or not.

  But the news had left him no time to wait a day for the train. He’d departed without finishing his drink.

  Dusty’s front hooves slid over an icy rock, jarring Jacob back to the present. He leaned forward, shifting his weight, working with the animal with practiced ease. One wrong step could land them both at the bottom of the canyon with little chance of being found before spring.

  Jacob forced his attention to the slow progress, but he couldn’t rid his thoughts of the hundred images of the kid he’d called Two Bits until she came home from school all grown up and decided her name was Nell. She’d been the orneriest brat ever picked up out of the gutter. Mean, foul-mouthed, stubborn.

  An old madam who owned a house near the tracks in Clarendon took her in, claiming Two Bits was the daughter of one of her girls. Two Bits said her mother willed her to Fat Alice, and the old soiled dove took her responsibility to heart. She saw that Nell was fed and cared for until she was old enough to go back East to a fine school that wouldn’t have let Fat Alice on the grounds.

  Jacob remembered the first time he saw the kid. He’d been seventeen, a month into being a Texas Ranger, when she appeared one morning, following him around like a lost puppy, all big brown eyes and skinny legs. She didn’t look more than eight, but she stood proud when she told him she had dreams. She planned to be the highest-paid lady of the evening in Texas when she grew up. He swore he’d marry her first and make an honest woman out of her.

  Jacob laughed, remembering how she’d called him every name she could think of for trying to interfere with her dreams and yelled that she’d charge him double when he came begging to her bed.

  From that day on, he’d been cursed with the need to watch over her.

  He smiled. She’d been nothing but trouble for almost a dozen years. He’d washed her mouth out with soap so many times that first year, he thought his hands would chap and bleed long before she stopped swearing. Every time Fat Alice tried to make her behave, Two Bits ran away, and the next thing he knew, Jacob would get a telegram asking him to come back to Clarendon to straighten out the hellion.

  When he’d been twice her height, he’d managed to get his bluff in on her. But as she grew, it didn’t take long for her to wrap him around her finger. She thought he was her own private guardian. When Nell was in trouble, she’d call him and, like an idiot, he came running, if for no other reason than that she needed him. He’d always managed to keep her out of serious trouble.

  Except the last time. She’d been hurt bad, maybe even crippled for life, in an ambush. She held onto his hand through those first days of pain, depending on him, needing him. Then as soon as she’d recovered enough to hire a nurse, she’d told him she never wanted to see him again.

  Jacob had spent three days drunk and angry, trying to figure out why. They’d been in each other’s lives for years, fighting, caring. Now suddenly she wanted no part of him. Maybe she’d seen the pain in his eyes when he watched her try to move. Maybe he reminded her of happier days and lost dreams. The more he’d argued that she needed him, the more she’d insisted he leave.

  Dusty reached the far wall of the canyon, and Jacob relaxed. He’d be within sight of Clarendon by dawn. And he’d better be on time.

  Sheriff Parker’s telegram echoed through his thoughts. “Two Bits plans to buy herself a husband.” Fat Alice had left her enough money to do just that.

  “Like hell,” he mumbled to himself. He had to get home in time to stop her. No sorry, money-hungry, worthless excuse for a man was going to take advantage of her while she was down.

  If he missed the wedding, Jacob decided, he’d be making her a widow before nightfall.

  CHAPTER 2

  NELL LEANED BACK IN HER CHAIR AND WATCHED A well-dressed man in his late twenties climb from the best horse the livery in town loaned. He was taller than most, a few inches under six feet, she’d guess. His jaw square. His carriage proud. His dark hair had been cut short. Everything about him seemed to be in place. Fat Alice, Nell’s adopted guardian, would have said he looked like a man who had generations of breeding flowing through his blood.

  “This one just might do, Miss Nell.” Mary Ruth, her nurse, leaned over the back of Nell’s wheelchair. “Nice-looking man, I’d say, and cleaner than most who come to call.” Mary Ruth’s eyebrow lifted almost to her salt-and-pepper gray hair as she emphasized her point. “In Number Twelve we might just have husband material. At least his clothes look tailor-made, which is more than I could say about the past eleven men who’ve come to call.”

  “I don’t care about the cut of his clothes,” Nell said more to herself than anyone. “I hate him already.” She watched the stranger move down the long path toward her front door below. Hadn’t Mary Ruth seen the way he climbed from the horse? Like a man who hadn’t ridden in a long while. Couldn�
�t the nurse see how he walked, slow and careful as though fearing he might step in something on the way to her door that he might have to wipe off? “I could probably outride him, even crippled up.” She lifted the curtain slightly. “And thin. He seems walking bones inside that suit.”

  Mary Ruth, as usual, paid no notice to Nell’s grumbling. She rushed to tidy the room. The nurse had been with Nell for three months, and she’d organized everything upstairs a hundred times. She would have liked to work on the downstairs, but that was Gypsy, the housekeeper’s, territory. Mary Ruth considered herself so far above Gypsy’s station that she only talked to the old woman through Nell.

  At first Nell had found it interesting being the interpreter between the second floor and the first, but she’d long ago tired of the game. As she’d tired of everything within the walls of her home, her prison. The porch was as far as her wheelchair would allow her to roam.

  She looked down from the window once more. The man walking toward her front door had shoulders that weren’t wide enough. His smile seemed forced. She didn’t trust a man who smiled with so many teeth showing. What did he have to grin about anyway? He must be on hard times if he was knocking at her door.