Wild Texas Rose Read online

  Though they’d been roommates in finishing school, she hadn’t seen Victoria but once since graduation. Rose had been excited to bump into her in Austin at the Governor’s Ball year before last. At twenty-three they might have been much changed from the girls of sixteen, but the friendship was still there. They’d chatted during the ball, loving the closeness between them that remained intact.

  Rose remembered being surprised when few men asked Tori to dance. She’d even made her cousin Duncan dance with her friend, but neither looked like they enjoyed the one waltz.

  It seemed Victoria Chamberlain, always a beauty, had become polished glass. Men admired her as though she were a painting and not a person. Her friend looked sad even while dressed in the newest fashions.

  They parted that night, promising to write, and had every month since the ball, but Tori’s letters grew formal, without the warmth Rose felt when they’d talked face-to-face. Something was wrong. Rose felt it in the letters. Tori was lonely, so lonely she may have rushed into first an engagement and now a marriage.

  Rose had been shocked last month to get a wedding invitation. Tori claimed that since Rose was her closest friend, her husband-to-be, August Myers, had agreed to one bridesmaid and, of course, one wedding guest to attend with her. Tori went on to explain how they wanted to keep the wedding small.

  So, here Rose was in the grandest hotel in Fort Worth a week before the wedding. Rose was a person of order. Emergencies bothered her. Worry seemed the constant side dish to her life, and with friends like Tori and cousins like Duncan McMurray, the servings were large.

  The hotel clerk made Rose jump as he read her signature on the ledger and rushed around the desk. “You’re Miss McMurray? The major told us to expect you early this morning. We have your rooms ready.”

  Exhaustion tightened her shoulders as she climbed the stairs. She hadn’t slept on the train. If she calculated correctly, she’d been up twenty-seven hours. Maybe that would explain why she was so on edge. She was no longer a child; big cities and strangers shouldn’t frighten her.

  “Your suite of rooms is on the left, Miss McMurray, with a connecting door to Miss Chamberlain’s suite off the sitting room.” The clerk rushed ahead to unlock the door. “Miss Chamberlain’s maid instructed me to tell you her mistress should be back by lunch. She’s at fittings this morning, but the maid is pressing your bridesmaid’s dress for your fitting this afternoon. She said she’d bring it up before Miss Chamberlain and her father, the major, get back.” He leaned forward slightly as if whispering a secret. “All they’ve done since they arrived two days ago is shop.”

  Rose let out a long breath and felt the weight of the Colt in her pocket for the first time. It seemed Tori was in no immediate danger other than being gossiped about by the staff. If her father were with her, Tori couldn’t be suffering any pain . . . other than being talked to death. The major’s two favorite pastimes were spoiling his only child and rattling on about politics.

  Rose almost laughed. She’d wasted hours trying to imagine what might be the problem that had prompted the telegram. Maybe it was nothing more than wedding jitters.

  The clerk opened the door and waved her inside as if the small orderly rooms were a grand palace. “You see, you’ll share a lovely sitting room facing our balcony. Your bedroom, a bathing chamber, and a maid’s quarters are just beyond that door. The second-floor balconies on this side overlook the gardens and are considered our jewel among—”

  “I’m sure I’ll love them. Thank you.” Rose smiled but closed the door giving him no more time to talk. All she wanted to do right now was wash up and sleep until lunch.

  Tossing the hat on the arm of the nearest chair, she removed her traveling coat as she stepped into the bedroom. She pulled the Colt from the hidden pocket and deposited it on the dresser, then unfastened her heavy wool traveling skirt and let it fall. The world was getting far too civilized to worry about train robberies these days. The small gun in her purse should be enough; after all, it was 1876.

  As she tugged the pins from her hair and let the midnight curls free, she caught her reflection in a ceiling-high mirror.

  The long leather-covered legs of a man resting on the bed behind her made her jump for the Colt.

  “Before you get any more undressed, maybe I should say hello?” a deep voice said as the cowboy leaned forward until she could see his face. “I don’t think cousins are supposed to see much more of each other.”

  For a second, Rose considered lifting the Colt and firing. She could claim she hadn’t recognized him before she shot. But reason won. “What are you doing here, Duncan?”

  “Watching you strip. Please, now you know I’m family, continue.” He might be considered good-looking by most, but she’d always thought his grin a bit wicked. His curly brown hair never had any order and his blue eyes seemed to smile even when they were fighting.

  “You need a haircut and a shave.”

  “You, on the other hand”—he winked—“look perfect, dear cousin Rose, as always.”

  “We’re not kin, so drop the ‘cousin’ bit,” she demanded. “I’m a McMurray because my mother married into the clan when I was five and you were found in an outlaw camp and brought home wild as a bear cub. We may be in the same family, but there is no way we are related.” He’d pestered her since the day she first saw him, and two decades later she was still mad at him. His last attempt to marry her off had almost driven her to drink before the suitor Duncan sent finally gave up courting her and left.

  Duncan shrugged as if he’d read her thoughts. “Don’t blame me for Weathers; I thought he was a count.”

  She glared at him, then grinned. “I’m not sure he could count. But you, Duncan, didn’t even check. You just sent him to meet me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Duncan said with little remorse. “I’ll do a better job next time.”

  “Forget it. I don’t want a next time. Stop playing matchmaker.”

  He nodded, but she doubted he’d stop. All the McMurray men were stubborn. He might not have been born to the name, but he’d been absorbed into the family.

  “I still wouldn’t mind watching you undress.” He changed the subject. “Come on, Rose, in twenty years I’ve never seen one of you girls without layers of clothes on. Hell, Martha, that old witch of a housekeeper, permanently dented my head once for even trying to look in on you bathing.”

  She fought down a smile, remembering how Duncan used to fight baths when he was little. He’d slip from his clothes when his adopted mother tried to bathe him and run around sometimes for hours before one of the McMurrays caught him and dropped him in a tub. “I’m afraid I can’t say the same about you. I can smell the trail dust from here.”

  He leaned back on the bed and crossed his boots as if he wasn’t listening. “How about we both compromise and take off all our clothes. Then I’m willing to call it even.”

  “Get your boots off my clean bed, Duck.” She used the name they’d called him as a boy just to irritate him. No one but his mother had been permitted to call him that since he was ten and had been told by Rose that it wasn’t a proper name for a boy. “What are you doing in Fort Worth or, more accurately, in my bedroom?” She knew asking how he got in would be a waste of time. She’d learned a long time ago that if a squirrel could slip inside a place, so could Duncan McMurray.

  “I’m waiting for you. I heard you were heading to Cowtown. Emily wrote and told me how you got pushed into coming to this wedding and how everyone back home begged off on tagging along. I was in Dallas delivering two outlaw brothers to the sheriff when I got a telegram from your dad telling me to check on you. So I rode most the night to get here. Just because no one wants to be around Victoria doesn’t mean they’re not worried about you. That crazy friend of yours is her own kind of strange.”

  She walked to the edge of the bed. “You’re checking up on me before I even have time to get into trouble.”

  He met her eyes and as always Rose guessed that he knew o
f the fears she tried so hard to hide. He might have been a pest, but she remembered once when they were in the second grade, she’d refused to go into the crowded schoolhouse for a program. When she’d claimed she was sick, Duncan had sat in the wagon with her. He hadn’t said a word. He’d just kept her company. They’d wrapped up in a quilt until everyone came back.

  Rose didn’t argue with him now. He was probably right about Tori. The whole family met Victoria Chamberlain one summer when she visited the ranch while Rose and Emily were in their second year of finishing school. Down to the dog, they all hated Victoria. She was spoiled, whiny, and demanding. She wanted her breakfast specially made twenty minutes after she awoke. She never picked up anything or offered to help. At fifteen, she thought she was a queen, but when Victoria told Duncan to wipe the sweat off his horse because she didn’t want to look at it, Duncan swore he’d never speak to her again.

  “I don’t need any help.” Rose sat down on the other side of the bed and tugged off her boots. “I’m sure Tori was just overreacting when she sent the telegram begging me to come early. But if you really want to help, you could always go to the wedding with me. She said I could have a guest.”

  “No way, Rose, and don’t bother trying to talk me into it.” He pulled off his boots. “I may be tired, but I’ll be dead before I ever agree to be in the same room with that woman. That time you made me dance with her, I politely bowed and asked if I might have the honor again sometime. Hell, I was just being nice. She gave me her usual ‘drop dead’ look and said, ‘Not in this lifetime,’ like I’d asked for her hand.”

  Giggling, Rose whispered, “Don’t tell me someone finally turned down the handsome Ranger McMurray. I thought you always got the girl. Some say you’ve broken the hearts of half the unmarried women in Austin.”

  He thought about it a moment and whispered back, “I haven’t had time to break any hearts in Austin or anywhere else. As far as her turning me down, I might have been hurt if I’d cared one way or the other. I swear, I can’t believe she found one man to marry, even a braggart like August Myers.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Rose leaned against the pillows.

  “Nothing, according to Victoria’s father. They’re made from the same muddy cloth, if you ask me. Southerners who don’t think the war is over and plan to bore everyone else alive in the South with their theories about how it will rise again any minute.”

  Rose closed her eyes, for once too tired to pester him. “Tell me about the outlaws you caught this time, Duncan.”

  He settled his shoulder against hers. “Jeb and Owen Tanner are half Comanche and half German, or so the story goes. Neither race will claim them. Some say they have no idea who their old man was, only that he tanned hides during the days of the buffalo hunts. Hauling them from Waco to Dallas was like trying to march rabid squirrels through quicksand.”

  “What did they do wrong?”

  “Everything. Train robbing is their favorite target, but they’ll do anything to get money. I swear I should have just shot them when I first saw them. They were arguing over a pair of boots they’d just pulled off a gunfighter before the doc had time to pronounce him dead. I would have probably never caught them if they hadn’t been busy trying to kill each other and all their gang were making bets on which one would survive.”

  Duncan kept talking, reliving every dumb thing the Tanner brothers had said. Finally, he swore and added, “I was with a band of rangers who almost caught the gang once. We lost two good men and the Tanners lost a brother in the fight. Soon after that the gang started pulling jobs that took some brains to plan. The two left alive are too dumb to stop a drunk duck, much less a train, so they’re getting advice from somewhere.” Duncan absently played with one curl of her hair. “I asked Jeb if he could read and he answered, ‘What for?’”

  Just before Rose dozed off, she heard him say that he knew a driver who’d take her anywhere she needed to go while she was in Fort Worth. He promised to check on her every time he got the chance.

  “Promise me,” Duncan said as he bumped her shoulder lightly. “Promise me you won’t leave the hotel without the driver. I don’t trust any of the hack drivers in this town. The guy I picked has never let a ranger down. He’ll watch over you.”

  “I promise,” she said as she relaxed into sleep.

  Chapter 2

  Duncan listened as Rose’s breathing slowed. He smiled. She might be all grown up, but she hadn’t changed. She could fall asleep in the middle of a sentence. They used to laugh that it was a waste of time to read her a bedtime story; she was gone by the title page.

  He laid his big hand over her small one, remembering a time when they’d been the same size. They’d hated each other since the day they met at five years old, but whenever he was at Whispering Mountain he always knew where she was. She was bossy even then and declared him completely wild, but he kept up with her.

  He’d told himself it was in self-defense so he wouldn’t run into her too often, but in truth, he liked knowing where she was and what she was doing. Rose was as much a mystery to him as he was to her. They might not be blood kin, but they were bound together by something and most of the time he wasn’t sure if it was love or hate. If he’d been more practical, or she’d had one ounce of recklessness in her blood, maybe, just maybe, they might have been a match, but at twenty-five they were both too set to change. He’d never settle down and she’d never take a risk. But that fact didn’t keep him from caring.

  With the mess going on in Dallas, Duncan knew he couldn’t watch over her for a few days, but he’d made sure she’d have a driver who could protect her. If he told her what danger she was in, she’d worry herself sick. Two nights ago a woman walking only a few blocks away had been killed. He didn’t mention it to Rose. He figured this little wedding drama was about the most she could handle and it would keep her busy until he got back. The Tanners would also be a threat until they were locked away for good.

  As he was a Texas Ranger, it wasn’t that unusual for an outlaw to promise to kill him, but Jeb and Owen Tanner had both whispered that they’d murder every McMurray in the state. Reason told Duncan that all his family was safe . . . all except Rose. She’d come alone to Fort Worth with the Tanners and their gang only thirty miles away.

  He’d guard the two during their trial, and then once they were locked away for good, he’d ride back here. Who knows, he might even let Rose talk him into going to the wedding before he put her back on the train heading back to Whispering Mountain.

  Duncan smiled and closed his eyes letting a calmness blanket his tired mind. A stillness always settled inside him when he knew she was all right. They might fight more than talk, but he’d do whatever he had to do to protect her.

  From the day he’d seen Travis McMurray, the man who became his father, Duncan knew deep down that he was one of them. He didn’t remember anything about his first family, the raid that must have killed his folks or being tied up in a camp as if he were no more than a dog or pig they planned to sell. He only remembered being cold and alone for what seemed like forever.

  Then he’d stepped onto the McMurray ranch and known he was home.

  As he fell asleep, he remembered the report he’d seen about the man Rose’s friend would marry in one week. If the documents were true, Rose might need one of the pistols she carried. The husband-to-be wasn’t an outlaw the rangers needed to worry about, but Duncan wouldn’t be surprised if every time he grew he didn’t leave a snakeskin behind. Proper, spoiled Princess Victoria might never see his true colors, but Rose would. She’d always been good at sizing up people.

  He rolled to his side and kissed her hand lightly. The family all thought she hated leaving the ranch because she had no sense of direction, but Duncan knew it was more than that. He’d ridden all night just to let her know that he was near, even if she’d never admit she was afraid. Rose was a mouse in a state packed with lions.

  Now that he knew she was safe, he’d go do his duty and then
get back as fast as he could. As much as she hated the thought, she might need him, if for nothing else but to take out the trash that was about to marry her friend.

  He rolled from the bed and moved silently across the room. Her carpetbag sat open on the table. Without a sound, he tugged the letter from his vest pocket and smiled. It was addressed to him, but with all his bravery he couldn’t force himself to open it. He slid it into the secret fold in the lining of the bag. If he ever mustered up the courage to see what the state registrar’s office discovered about his family, he’d want Rose with him for the news so he might as well leave the letter with her.

  As he slipped from the room, he thought about why he’d want her to know if the state records showed his real name and age. Maybe because she’d been his best friend when he was growing up or maybe because he knew it wouldn’t matter to her what kind of people he’d come from, he’d always be her family.

  Aggravating or not.

  Chapter 3

  Friday

  Second Avenue

  Abe Henderson stepped out in the alley and looked over his shoulder at the back of the Grand. Only ten feet separated him from the fancy hotel, but there might as well be a hundred miles in between. Second Avenue had been the first main road, but when the traffic moved one block over, Second slowed to a small-town feel of merchants and shopkeepers. The stockyards were nearby along with old homes, businesses, and boardinghouses, but all the hotels and gaming houses sprung up on Main Street, where the road was wide and traffic flowed in a steady stream from dawn till dusk.

  Abe Henderson liked the slower pace of Second. No hurry, no panic. Nothing ever changed.

  He always opened his mercantile early on Fridays, and he watched for Killian O’Toole to show up on the bench outside his store. He and Killian had been friends most of their lives and he knew if the Irishman was in town, he’d be stopping by. They’d both been shy boys in school who traded books, and they’d both joined the Confederacy in 1863 when they turned seventeen so they wouldn’t miss the war.