WM02 - Texas Princess (22 page)

“I didn’t know you drank.”

He poured a round in each glass. “You don’t know me very wel at al , do you, Miss Liberty?”

She knew he was right. But in some ways she knew a great deal. The way he smel ed of leather and spring water and male. The way he moved in the saddle. The way he touched her. The way he talked to her when she was nervous, tel ing her to be calm.

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But in other ways, real-life ways, she knew little. She knew how he felt inside her, but she couldn’t name his favorite food, or song, or color.

She almost swore aloud. Something was denitely wrong with her perspective when it came to men.

She took the drink. “What’s wrong, Tobin? I have a right to know.”

When he pul ed a letter from his pocket, Liberty thought her heart stopped beating.

Bad news! Her father?

“Has something happened to the senator?” she whispered. Maybe if she avoided cal ing him Father the news would not hurt as much.

“No.” Tobin shook his head, his food and the drink forgotten. “As far as I know your father is alive and wel .”

Liberty took a deep breath, swearing that once she got her father back to Washington she’d never let him come west again.

“It’s Michael,” Tobin said, unfolding the letter and looking down at it as if hoping the words on it had changed. “Elmo keeps the back door of his post open in case someone needs supplies after he closes for the night. I stopped in to pick up the mail after dropping Stel a off at Mrs. Dicker-son’s place. The old schoolteacher had an extra room upstairs for her, but Stel a didn’t seem too happy with it.”

Without taking her attention from the letter, Liberty whispered, “Forget Stel a. Tel me what’s happened.”

Tobin nodded. “Travis knew the stage would make it in before he could, so he wrote to let us know about Michael.”

For a moment the name meant nothing to her; then Liberty whispered, “Sage’s ranger.”

Tobin nodded. “Travis says he’s bringing Michael home—to bury.”

A cry escaped her mouth before she could stop it. Michael, the young ranger who’d been shot protecting her father. Michael, Sage’s secret love. Dead.

She wasn’t sure how it happened, but she was in Tobin’s arms, crying. Al the strength she’d mustered for a week vanished. She didn’t know if her tears were for the ranger or for Sage and the love she’d never be able to hold. On the porch earlier Liberty had imagined Sage and Michael’s love as enduring. She’d been almost jealous. It hurt Liberty’s heart to realize that the ranger had already been dead several days when Sage had giggled and told of their meeting.

The ripple of Sage’s loss circled round them al . Suddenly there were not just threats and plots. A man had been kil ed. A war had begun.

Tobin lowered into a chair and pul ed her in his lap. He held her gently as she cried, never once tel ing her to stop. His hand moved up and down her back, comforting her when no words would have. The familiar smel and feel of him soothed her.

Final y, she leaned her head on his shoulder and took a deep breath. “When wil you tel her?” Liberty asked wishing Sage had more time to dream of her ranger.

“Tomorrow. After breakfast. They’l be here by nightfal . Travis sent the letter on ahead with the stage, but they’re traveling in a wagon and moving slower. Travis said once that Michael didn’t have any family left. We’l bury him on McMurray land. I think he would have been one of us soon.”

“I think you are right. Sage already loves him.”

“I was afraid of that.”

For a while they were silent. Liberty thought of how hard this part of the country was.

She wished she were far away. “I’l help out any way I can tomorrow.” She wasn’t sure she’d ever said those words before, but somehow they seemed cal ed for.

“Thanks.” Tobin lifted her to her feet. “You better go on to bed now. I need to make rounds.”

She suddenly felt as if they were once more strangers. Without another word, she climbed the stairs.

The door to Teagen’s room was open, a light burning by his bed. Liberty checked on him, touching his forehead lightly to make sure there was no fever. He slept soundly, probably owing to the powder Sage had given him. No blood spotted his pil ow. The stitches in his scalp were holding.

Liberty studied him for a moment. In the low glow of light he and Tobin looked so much alike. There was no mistaking that they were brothers, but Teagen’s features seemed harder, maybe because he was six years older, maybe because he’d borne the weight of the family on his shoulders since he was twelve. Despite his roughness, she had to admire a man who could take on the world at twelve with only his younger brothers at his side.

Liberty decided she like the oldest McMurray. He might be hardened, but he reminded her of her father. She let a tiny smile lift the corner of her mouth as she remembered the senator. If her father had told Tobin he’d come for her, he’d be here.

“Good night, Mr. McMurray,” she whispered, backing out of Teagen’s room. “We’l talk in the morning.”

She passed the next door. Tobin’s room. Empty. Dark.

Opening the door to the third room, Liberty noticed someone had put clean towels on the washstand. She’d planned to share the room with Stel a. With the maid gone, it seemed strange to be upstairs with two men.

She laughed suddenly. One man was hurt, the other had slept within a few feet of her for days. The only one of the three of them who had wandered from a bedrol had been Liberty. Maybe the men should fear for their safety.

Stepping into her room and closing the door, she almost said a prayer of thanks for the privacy. She needed to be alone tonight. Her body felt so tired she was sure she could sleep standing up. Quickly washing and pul ing on a nightgown several inches too short, Liberty slipped into the rst bed she’d seen in almost a week.

But sleep didn’t come. Life seemed too raw here, too real. In Washington she’d worry over having the right clothes or saying the right thing. Here she worried about staying alive.

When she turned on her pil ow, she thought she caught the hint of Tobin’s scent and found it comforting.

An hour passed before she heard Tobin climb the stairs. He didn’t strike a light, but moved about his room in the darkness.

Liberty closed her eyes almost seeing what he was doing.

Tossing off his clothes. Letting his moccasins fal with soft thuds. Walking across and opening his window. Fal ing into bed.

In the darkness, separated by one wal , she thought of how they had made love and wondered if he were lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling thinking the same thing.

Lovemaking hadn’t been what she’d expected. She’d col ected stories and thoughts of it for years. Once she’d heard a maid describe it as heavenly. She’d read a report of a rape in the
Washington Post
that made her esh crawl and, for a long while she thought that sex must be a kind of hel . Her married friends placed it somewhere between duty and delight.

None of the descriptions t what Tobin had done.

Liberty blushed even in the darkness. No, she thought, not what he’d done, what she’d asked him to do. Begged him to do. And even though he’d been drafted into his part, he’d done it with tenderness. His hands had hesitated several times as if testing her reaction before moving on. His mouth, however, had been hungry for her—hot and demanding— making her forget al rational thought.

He could probably be everything she wanted in a man, in a lover, but he was the right man in the wrong place. He belonged here as clearly as she belonged in society and no amount of lovemaking would ever change that fact.

chapter 18

Y

sage woke up early, as usual, tiptoed to the mud

room, and changed out of her wrinkled clothes from the night before. Though she put a pot on to boil, she washed in cold water hoping to be ready for the day before Martha started breakfast. But halfway through her morning ritual, she heard the housekeeper banging around in the kitchen.

The family had long ago settled into the rule that the mud room, off the kitchen, was woman’s domain before breakfast and man’s at night. It made sense, with al the tubs for bathing and washing there, that not only dirty clothes but clean ones too were left in the mud room. Each brother had a dresser in his room for personals, but they saw no point in carrying clean clothes upstairs and then dirty ones back down. So four sets of shelves that no one bothered to identify with tags, lined one wal with neatly folded clothes in each.

The rule was simple: when the boys got in at night, they washed and changed before entering the kitchen, then left their clothes on a chair in their room before sleeping and wore them the next morning. No brother owned a nightshirt or robe.

As she pul ed on her leather vest, Sage paused, realizing that Liberty had slept al alone upstairs in the extra bedroom. Sage had meant to warn the brothers to keep their doors closed. Martha might not care if she saw them in their underwear, but Liberty was a ne lady, anyone could see that. She’d be shocked.

“It ain’t normal,” Martha mumbled as Sage stepped into the kitchen.

Sage rst thought the housekeeper might be worried about Liberty as wel , but Martha continued, “A ful -grown woman don’t sleep in her clothes. That’s why I made the boys buy you gowns, girl.”

Sage shrugged. “I fel asleep.”

Martha clicked her tongue. “That’s another thing. You got the sleeping habits of a town drunk. It ain’t normal, your brothers having to carry you to bed because they can’t wake you.”

“I’d wake if they yel ed.” Sage tried to blame it on her brothers. None had the heart to startle her awake. The few times they’d done so when she was smal , Sage had ended up frightened and crying half the night.

Martha shook her head. “What if someday a kil er or thief breaks into this house and steals you away. You’d be halfway to the gulf before you woke.”

Sage laughed. “Speaking of thieves, have you got any breakfast for the kid tied up in the barn? Teagen may have ordered us to keep him bound, but we don’t have to starve him as wel while he’s waiting for Teagen to recover enough to take him to the marshal.”

Martha handed her a plate of biscuits and eggs. “That’s another thing. I don’t like the idea of keeping him here. Those Roaks ain’t much more than animals. You might as wel keep a bear tied up in the barn. Tobin should have taken him into town last night when he took Stel a.”

Sage grabbed a cup of milk and started out the back door. “He already had his hands ful with Stel a whining and clinging to him. Besides, where would he leave the kid in town? No one would watch him until the marshal rides up from Austin. They’d just let him go and we’d be losing horses again in a week.”

Martha didn’t answer. She was better at stating wrongs than righting them.

Sage crossed to the barn just as the sun colored the horizon. This was her favorite part of the day. The air blew cold and fresh down from the hil s and she could almost hear the world yawning.

The boy was stil in the stal , tied as solidly as he had been the night before, but his arms were tied low against the bottom rail now. Sage had an uneasy feeling as she neared. Maybe she should have waited for Liberty or Tobin to stand guard. It might not be a good idea to be alone with a horse thief, even one too young to shave.

But he hadn’t hurt her last night, and he was tied up. Surely she could manage to feed him a few bites. If he started swearing like Tobin said he did, Sage decided she’d simply walk away and let him starve.

As she stepped into the stal the rst thing she saw were his dark outlaw eyes watching her. He looked more worried than glad to see her.

Sage decided she’d kil him with kindness. “Morning, Drummond. I brought you breakfast.”

He only stared as she pul ed up a milk stool for the plate. “I see you have one of the horse blankets.” She knew Tobin must have thrown it over the kid last night. Her brother Tobin wouldn’t even let an outlaw freeze. She wasn’t so sure Travis or Teagen would have been so kind.

She leaned forward and untied the gag. “The same rules apply. Be nice, understand?”

He nodded. “Your brother tossed me the blanket,” he said in a rush, as if he feared she might have thought he stole it.

Sage smiled. The kid was trying.

She started to wrap a kitchen towel around his neck and then realized his clothes couldn’t possibly be any more stained or dirty.

“I hope you like eggs, Drummond.” She lifted a fork ful .

He took the bite and said as he chewed, “Drum. Just cal me Drum.”

“Al right,” she said, and lifted another bite.

He took it greedily and she wondered how long it had been since he’d eaten. “You’re Sage McMurray,” he said as soon as he swal owed the next bite. “I heard tel of you.”

Sage wasn’t surprised. Folks around here liked to tel stories, good and bad, about the McMurrays. She kept feeding him, stopping now and then to make him take a drink of milk.

He frowned but swal owed. “I’m too old for milk,” he said.

She looked surprised. “What do you drink?”

“Whisky,” he said, bragging. A smile raised the corner of one side of his mouth.

“Wel , no wonder you’re so thin. My brothers are al grown and they drink milk every morning.”

He looked surprised. “They do? Hel , you say.”

To his credit, the boy was quick. He realized his mistake. He froze as if waiting for a blow.

She saw it then, a pride in his dark eyes. Sage had a feeling that she could beat him half to death and he wouldn’t apologize. She hadn’t grown up around men without learning a few things. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t hear what you said.”

Drum watched her as if he feared a trick. “I said I was surprised grown men drink milk.”

“Oh.” She offered him a bite of biscuit. “Wel , our cook is Martha and she believes her job is putting food on the table and our job is eating it. She never asks what we want and she never cooks more until everything is eaten. If she sets a pitcher of milk on the breakfast table, she expects it to be gone before anyone stands up to leave.”

He raised a dark eyebrow and Sage decided that if he lived another ve years he’d be a ne-looking outlaw. “One snowy winter”—Sage offered him another bite—“we ran out of supplies. Martha made cabbage stew. The boys refused to eat it, so we had stew the next morning for breakfast. We al got her point.”