Tall, Dark, and Texan

Table of Contents

“Hot! Thomas, the queen of Texas Romance, does it again, creating a powerfully realistic portrait of the West, peopled with remarkable, unforgettable characters who steal your heart. Her graceful prose paints vivid pictures, and her ability to bring an intense love story to the pages is astounding and unforgettable.”—
Romantic Times
(Top Pick, 4½ stars)

“A fun read.”—
Fresh Fiction

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

—
Booklist

“Strong . . . heartwarming . . . Few authors can bring the reality and romance of the wild Texas towns to life the way she can, evoking the people (good and bad), the land (beautiful and rugged), and the thrilling yet dangerous lives people led. Portraying likable, real characters and the places they live is Thomas’s true gift.”—
Romantic Times

“Bright, realistic dialogue and heart-pounding adventure,
The Texan’s Reward
is a definite page-turner. Don’t miss this terrific story. It’s Texas and Jodi Thomas at their best!”

—
Romance Reviews Today

“Thomas has a down-home writing style that makes her latest Western a treat to read. She also includes a large cast of characters that keep the story moving along ... a pleasant read ... tender.”—
The Romance Reader

“Thrilling ... a story that readers will want to read again and again.”—
Rendezvous

“One of my favorites.”—Debbie Macomber

“A great Western romance filled with suspense and plenty of action.”—
Affaire de Coeur

“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
Bitsy’s Bait & BBQ

“Thoroughly entertaining romance.”—
Gothic Journal

“One of the finest Western romance writers today.”

—
Historical Romance Reviews

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

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South Africa 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 publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

TALL, DARK, AND TEXAN

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY
Jove mass-market edition / November 2008

Copyright © 2008 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.

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eISBN : 978-1-44060158-3

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JESSICA ANNE BARTON TUCKED HER DAUGHTERS INTO bed, wrapped a quilt around her shoulders, and tiptoed down the winding stairway to her desk in the corner of the bookstore. A month ago the two book-lined rooms would have been warm from fireplaces left smoldering. A month ago she would have looked forward to the next day.

But not now.

Now she had no future. Not in Chicago. Maybe not anywhere. If she didn’t plan very carefully, she’d lose the only thing that mattered to her: her children.

Since that first night when she’d been thirteen, cold and homeless, Barton Bookstore had been her refuge. Eli Barton caught her sleeping between the stacks and had put her to work in exchange for food and a cot in the attic. Three years passed before he married her, not out of love or even kindness but simply because he couldn’t run the store without her.

Eleven years and three daughters later, nothing had changed. At dawn she would once again be homeless, and Eli, her rescuer, her husband, her jailer, would be buried.

She settled into an old desk chair far too big for her thin frame. Her life within these walls had crumbled. While a bitter March wind made the eviction notice tap against the glass at the front door, Jessie dug in the bottom drawer for her one hope. When she found the bundle of letters from Texas, she gripped it tightly. Whispering Mountain Ranch had always seemed a make-believe place she visited only in her dreams. But this time, the dream had to be real, for now it was her only hope.

Grabbing a piece of paper, she scribbled a note and signed her dead husband’s name. As she wrote Teagen McMurray’s address on the envelope, Jessie whispered an apology for what she was about to do to this friend she’d never met.

By dawn she’d have her girls dressed and walking toward the train station. Eli’s family hadn’t invited her to his funeral. That hadn’t mattered, for she knew as soon as the coffin was lowered they would be coming to claim what they considered family property: the store, the modest bank account, the children.

They would be searching the house while she and the girls boarded a train heading west. It would be a long, costly journey, first the train, then a boat from New Orleans to Galveston, then a stage almost three hundred miles across land barely claimed. In two months they would be in Texas. The stage would drop them off at a town with no name except Anderson’s Trading Post. There, they’d wait for a man she’d never met to help them.

If McMurray was the kind of man she prayed he would be, she’d probably end all peace in his life.

And if he ever found out the truth about what she was about to do, he’d hate her a day longer than forever.

TEAGEN MCMURRAY WRAPPED THE CUT ON HIS HAND with his handkerchief and used his teeth to help tighten a knot as he drove the buckboard to the front of Elmo Anderson’s Trading Post. The injury looked more bothersome than dangerous, he decided.

Glancing at the sun, he wondered if he would have time to check the property lines before nightfall. The gash would wait, but safety at the ranch couldn’t. If horse thieves came in fast, he had to be ready. The kind of men who stole horses had little regard for property lines or who they might have to kill to get what they wanted. He needed his brothers, but they were too far away to help. This time he’d have to stand alone, at least until the men he’d hired as extra guards arrived from Austin.

He looked around at the growing town behind Elmo’s place, trying to guess if some of the recent residents were responsible for the broken posts and downed fence on his land. Anyone could have noticed his brothers leaving and decided the time might be right to rustle a few head. From the looks of some of the gunfighters and drifters settling in around Elmo Anderson’s place, Teagen wouldn’t be surprised if someone watched him now.

He would have preferred to ride into town on horseback. It meant far less time away from the ranch. But this was the first Saturday of the month, and he had Martha’s list in his pocket. His housekeeper would not be happy if he made it back with half the order, so he’d hitched a team. The matched bays belonged in front of a fine carriage, not a work wagon, but they needed exercise, and a trip to town would have to do.

Climbing down, he checked the rigging. He wanted to hurry, but care of the horses always came first. Eli Barton’s letter was already three months overdue. Teagen could wait another few minutes before he handed over the grocery list and walked back to check the mail that was always tossed into the back corner of the trading post.

Two men in buckskins walked past and gave him a nod. Teagen returned the greeting. Everyone in town knew he didn’t go in for small talk. He might have managed the huge Whispering Mountain Ranch for almost twenty years, but he called no one in this settlement friend. In fact, except for the trading post, Teagen had little use for the town that seemed to be growing like grounded bindweed.

Of course, if he was counting people who should stay, he’d have to add Mrs. Dickerson, the only schoolteacher around, to his list. She’d been bombarding her way into the McMurray brothers’ lives since the winter after their father died fighting for Texas independence and their mother passed away giving birth to their sister Sage. Teagen and his brothers had burned the bridge separating their land from the rest of Texas in order to hold on to what was theirs. Teagen, the oldest, had just turned twelve when he became the head of the family. No one came to help or bothered to check on them. Except Mrs. Dickerson. She’d sent notes out with every food delivery the boys picked up at night from Elmo’s back porch, and with every note came assignments and books the boys should read.

Teagen tied the reins to the brake, remembering how she’d given him an address of a new bookstore in Chicago. He’d waited three years before writing. At first just books came, then slowly a few letters a year, Teagen formed a friendship with the bookstore owner. The past ten years the letters had arrived regularly. One every fall, another near Christmas, and one in March accompanying the new spring catalogue.