The Texan's Touch Read online

  Titles by Jodi Thomas

  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

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either 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 TOUCH

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1998 by Jodi Koumalats

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  ISBN: 9781101219225

  A JOVE BOOK®

  Jove Books first published by The Jove Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Version_2

  This book is dedicated to

  my editor,

  Gail Fortune,

  with great love and respect.

  Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ONE

  THE CROP-BARREN hills echoed with rumbles of man-made thunder, scattering it like death’s breeze through the cluster of hospital tents and worn, muddy transport wagons. Dr. Adam McLain pulled off his bloody coat and tossed it atop the mountain of dirty laundry beside the opening of the surgery tent.

  He fought the constant churning in his stomach from a combination of bad food and unbearable working conditions as he slipped into his double-breasted wool uniform. He didn’t bother to button it to meet the proper Union dress code.

  After working almost thirty hours straight, a numbness had settled over him like damp flannel, covering even the creases of his mind, blocking out all dreams, all hopes, and most of his senses. His hands were badly chapped from hours of being cold and wet with blood.

  They’ll scab over while I sleep, he thought as he moved through the shadows between tents. The smell of boiling coffee blended in the cool mist of early spring. There had been another time, another place in his life, but after four years of war, the memories were odorless, tasteless, and almost invisible.

  He could feel his body shutting down with each step toward his quarters. For a few hours he would close his eyes and escape in sleep. He no longer wished for a touch of beauty in his life, silence seemed enough. Living seemed a luxury, survival the only necessity.

  The chief surgeon’s words still rang in his ears. “Work faster, McLain! For every moment you hesitate to consider, another soldier dies waiting.”

  So, at twenty-five, Adam’s dreams of becoming a great physician were shattered, splattering his hopes like soldier’s after soldier’s blood in the dirt. He wasn’t saving lives, or healing. He was only digging bullets out. If he was successful, the man would live on to fight, to shoot rounds into men in gray for some other doctor to worry about. Adam had thought he’d be a knight in this game of war, but he was only a pawn, cutting away like a butcher until he no longer saw faces, but only blood over blackened flesh.

  As Adam lifted the flap of his tent, he thought he caught a movement in the corner. For a moment, he hoped his older brother might have found him. It was time for one of Wes’s one-hour reunions.

  But, before more could register, the cold butt of a gun struck him from behind. Pain splintered into total blackness. Adam felt his body falling as he surrendered all feeling.

  “You’re an idiot, Rafe!” a low, angry man’s Southern-accented voice whispered. “When we said bring back a doctor, we meant one in gray, not a damn Yankee.”

  “I couldn’t find no one else!” a higher voice answered in almost a whine. “Docs don’t grow on trees, you know. I went by the camp and there weren’t one, so I followed the river a few miles and stumbled on another group of hospital tents. I figured a doc’s a doc, Tyler.”

  “I say we kill him now,” a third tone, cold with indifference, offered. “He’s no good to us. We’re so close to the line as it is, one good scream could bring all hell down on us.”

  “No!” the first man, who’d been referred to as Tyler, answered. “We haven’t got time to find another doctor. Nick will be dead by dawn.”

  Adam McLain slowly opened his eyes, then closed them in dread. Just as he’d guessed, the men before him weren’t green recruits, but seasoned fighters who looked born to war. They had no hint of uniform, but the voices and the weapons they carried marked them. One was older, harder. The angry one called Tyler looked to be the leader. He was young and rawhide lean. The third, called Rafe, was little more than a boy.

  Opening his eyes once more, Adam looked straight into the face of Tyler.

  The leader knelt close without breaking his stare. “You awake, Yank?”

  “I’m awake.” Adam saw a coldness in the reb’s eyes and knew he was alive only because they needed a doctor. He saw a man curled up on a table amid the clutter of an abandoned farmhouse. A thin stream of blood ran across the dusty wood and dripped onto a stool pushed halfway beneath the table.

  “Untie me.” Adam could hear the dying man’s breathing from across the room. If he didn’t help fast, the man on the table wouldn’t have enough blood left to survive.

  Tyler laughed. “Not yet, Doc. I got a proposition for you first. We’re part of a group of men known as the Shadows. Ever hear of us?”

  Adam nodded. Who hadn’t heard of the Shadows? They were men who crossed the lines as if they were playing jump rope. Every soldier who walked the perimeters of camp thought he heard them move in the darkness just beyond the campfires.

  Leaning closer, Tyler said, “We got one of our troop down and we need a doctor bad. I risked a fire and brought in water, but none of us know what to do. If you agree to take the bullet out and sew him up, we might just let you live.”

  “Might,” the older man answered from behind the leader. He appeared to be trimming his fingernails with the end of his hunting knife.

  “And if I refuse?” Adam pulled at his ropes. The dying man’s breathing told him they were wasting precious time.

  The young reb smiled again. “Then I turn you over to Henry here. He knows ways to make a man die slow. You’ll meet your Maker deaf from listening to your ow
n screaming.”

  Adam knew he now measured his life by a watch and not a calendar. “I’ll help the injured man any way I can, but I won’t operate with you breathing down my neck. If you trust me with his life, then I work by my rules. And the first one is, I work alone.”

  The older man snorted at the request, and the kid laughed as though he’d just asked for the moon.

  “All right.” Tyler straightened to his feet after he weighed the request. “Everyone out. We’ll cover the doors. You do the best you can, Yank.” He cut the ropes at Adam’s feet. “But if Nick is dead come morning, you can count your remaining heartbeats on your fingers.”

  As Tyler sliced Adam’s hands free, Rafe tossed him his medical saddlebags. “Nick’s the little brother of our captain and he won’t take kindly to you butchering the boy, so be careful. Your life is tied to his.”

  Adam hardly noticed as the men slipped from the room. He knew whether he saved the bleeding man or not, he’d be dead by sunrise. They couldn’t afford to let him live after he’d seen their faces. He knew it and so did Tyler.

  Slowly, Adam moved to the side of a long table where a thin man, still in coat and boots, rested. “Let’s take a look, reb. No use both of us dying.”

  As Adam gripped the man’s shoulder and rolled him over, a Colt, pointed straight at Adam’s heart, rolled with the patient.

  “You’re not touching me!” A low pain-filled voice whispered. “I’d rather die.”

  Adam watched the youth before him, more frightened by what he saw than by the pistol. Blood pulsed out with each heartbeat from the wound at the man’s side.

  “Dear God, didn’t they apply a pressure wrap?” Adam shoved the gun aside and pulled the man’s bloody fingers from the injury.

  His patient relaxed, too weak to stand his ground as Adam began pulling away clothes.

  He noticed the reb didn’t turn loose of the Colt, even when unconscious. The youth wore a thick cotton undershirt that was skintight. With sure hands, Adam grabbed the small scissors in his bag and went to work.

  As he cut the cotton away, surprise almost made him cry out, not at the wound, but at the body of a woman.

  This Gray Shadow was female. Thin to the point of starvation, pale from lack of sun, but definitely all woman.

  Adam smiled. Probably another reason he’d be dead come morning. If the others let him live, she’d kill him for finding out her secret. She’d kept it well by binding her now free, full breasts and her bulky clothes covered any curve of waist or fullness of hip. If Tyler had known she was a woman, Adam knew he’d never have left them alone. And if the woman guarded her secret so carefully, she’d have to see him dead . . . if she lived through the night.

  There was no time to worry about tomorrow or her being a woman. With each heartbeat, she was a little closer to death. Right now all he had time to think about was that she was his patient and he had to fight to keep her alive.

  TWO

  NICHOLE FELT THE stranger’s hands moving along her side. The wound still throbbed but it no longer burned, and the pounding in her head had eased. She seemed to be floating deep beneath murky waters. Only the skin he touched came alive as his warm fingers moved over her.

  Without opening her eyes, she waited, trying to guess what this man in blue might do next. If she’d learned nothing else from her big brother, it had been to anticipate the unexpected from the enemy. Only this Yank wasn’t acting like an enemy.

  Slowly, she tightened the fingers of her right hand and felt her Colt still in place. The fool hadn’t bothered to remove the weapon when he’d had the chance. After years of riding with the Shadows, she’d learned to keep her grip tight even in sleep.

  Warm water dripped across her waist just before a cloth gently stroked her flesh. Long strong hands moved to her back and lifted her slightly from the table. She felt his fingers spread along her skin as he began wrapping a soft bandage around her.

  Nichole tensed. She’d never encountered a man who so boldly touched so much of her body. In fact touching anyone, or being touched, was not a part of her life.

  “Easy now,” he whispered as he worked. “I’ll have you all bandaged up in a minute.”

  She tried to relax, as if still in sleep, while his fingers slid along the bandage, checking his work. The warmth of his caress penetrated the material in healing strokes. She’d always thought a lover’s hands would feel like this—strong, and sure, and kind.

  He lifted her carefully from the table and rested her head on his shoulder as he pulled her shirt down over her injury. She felt his heart pounding next to hers and smelled the hint of shaving soap and wool. Nichole pushed the memory of a blue uniform from her mind and gave herself over to the sanctuary of his arms.

  “You’re going to be all right,” he whispered against her cheek. “No matter what happens to me come morning, you’re going to live. Who knows, maybe you’ll even allow the world to know what a beautiful woman you are hidden beneath these dirty clothes.”

  He cradled her against him and moved to the half-crumbled fireplace. Very gently, he knelt and sat with his back against the brick. He sat her between his chest and knee as she stretched her legs toward the warmth of a dying fire. She could feel his heart beating as his knee braced her back and his outstretched leg rested against hers.

  She fell asleep with his hand gently brushing over her short hair and the warmth of his body barring any cold from her back. For the first time in years, her fingers uncoiled from her weapon. Her hand moved against the wall of his chest. His embrace seemed to welcome her safely home.

  It was almost dawn when she awakened. Without moving, she slowly opened her eyes. The man, only inches away, slept soundly, his warm breath brushing her forehead. One of his arms draped across her shoulder, the other lay along her leg, his hand resting just above her knee.

  Nichole shifted slightly, watching his face. As her hand found the gun, she couldn’t stop staring at the man. His hair was chestnut brown, his face tan and handsome. Tiny worry lines ran along his forehead. Light brown stubble covered a strong chin. Nothing seemed hard or cold about him, unlike every man she’d known. There was a strength about him, a quiet strength.

  Slowly, she raised the Colt.

  He reacted to her movement and opened his eyes.

  Sleepy, brown eyes, filled with worry, stared at her for a moment before he smiled with what she thought was pride.

  “’Morning,” he whispered as his hand moved along her leg and across her hip to gently rest against her side. “Feeling better?”

  Nichole straightened. He’d touched her so easily, so naturally, as if he’d done so for a lifetime. “I’m fine,” she lied. In truth she wasn’t sure she had the energy to stand. “And I thank you for taking that bullet out of me last night.”

  The man chuckled. “I somehow guessed your voice would have a slow low drawl to it, but I never thought your eyes would be green. So green. Like full summer just after it rains.”

  He looked away, thinking he was making a fool of himself. She was his patient, his enemy. “I checked the stitches I had to make in your side about an hour ago. They were holding, but you’ll have to take it easy for a few days.”

  His voice died suddenly as she brought the barrel of her weapon to his throat.

  “Did you touch me last night?” Nichole had to know how much liberty this Yankee took while she was unconscious.

  “I did,” he answered as if he didn’t know he’d just signed his death sentence. “Doctors usually do touch their patients.”

  “How much?”

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. “No more than was necessary during the operation. Afterward, I did my best to clean away all the blood around the wound.” He let out a long breath. “But when you were bandaged and sleeping.” His confession came slowly. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen
anything but war. I couldn’t stop myself from . . .”

  Nichole forgot about the throbbing in her head and the pain in her side. Her finger tightened slightly on the trigger. This man had to be telling the truth. Why would he lie about such a thing? Unless he had a death wish. She’d heard of men just looking for a reason to die and be done with the war. She was torn between killing him for what he’d done and letting him live just to ruin his plans.

  “Where?” she demanded. “Where’d you touch me?”

  The man stared at her with gentle brown eyes. “I assure you, miss, it was nowhere improper. No more than we’d have touched if dancing.”

  Now it was Nichole’s turn to laugh. She’d never danced in her life, and probably never would. She was in the company of men enough to hear how they talked, and she’d be willing to bet most of her comrades would have fondled her plenty if they had the chance and knew she was a woman.

  Pushing the gun against his throat, she whispered, “I have to kill you, Yank.”

  He didn’t look surprised. “I know,” he answered as he swallowed. “I thought about it last night. If you don’t, one of your friends will at dawn. They’re all just beyond the door. But if you kill me first, they’ll never learn you’re a woman. It’s the only way you can be sure of your secret.”

  The man closed his eyes as though waiting for the end.

  When she didn’t pull the trigger, he whispered, “It’s Adam, Adam McLain. My home address is engraved on my medical bag. If you’re able, let someone know I’m dead. If you don’t, I have these two brothers who’ll never stop looking for me.”

  “You’re the chattiest corpse I’ve ever met.” Nichole saw no fear in his face. Either he was the North’s biggest fool, or he’d seen enough killing to be hardened to even his own death.

  Adam looked down at her. “Maybe I’m just tired of all the killing. Until I touched your cheek last night, I’d forgotten what a woman felt like. I’d forgotten there was anything soft and beautiful in this world.”