Two Texas Hearts

TWO

KORA ADAMS FOLDED AWAY THE CLOTHES SHE’D FOUND in Andrew Adams’s trunk. ‘‘Six months,’’ she whispered. Six months since she’d read another woman’s letter at the mercantile and decided to meet a stage. Six months since she’d watched them lift Andrew Adams’s bloody body out of the coach. He’d thought he was coming to Bryan to meet a woman he’d married by proxy. Instead, a stage robber had put four bullets in him, and the woman was long gone with another.

Pushing away the tears, Kora whispered again, ‘‘We were meant to marry, Andrew Adams and I. We have the same bad luck.’’ She hadn’t even known the man, but she had the proxy letter and he had a farm. It was so simple to step forward as the bride of a dying man. No one questioned. No one checked the name on the paper. Her luck hadn’t changed, though. The farm wasn’t Andrew’s, but the bank’s. She’d brought her brother and sister across Texas to starve. Jamie once said they were nothing but weeds in life’s garden. Nothing but weeds.

Kora glanced at her brother, Dan, sleeping in the chair by the fire, and wished as she had a million times before that he had really come back to them from the war. He’d been only fourteen when their father was killed. He had enlisted all excited and ready to fight. Only two years later they brought him home in the back of a wagon. He hadn’t said a word since.

‘‘I promised Mother I’d take care of you and Jamie,’’ Kora whispered, knowing he didn’t hear her. ‘‘I promised and I’m doing a terrible job.’’

Her great idea of marrying and running the farm after Andrew died seemed insane now as she looked around the shabby little one-room cabin that no amount of scrubbing could ever make clean. She’d always been the planner, the organizer, the leader who sacrificed for the others. She had always done whatever was necessary to keep them together, but this time the witchin’ luck that her mother said followed her seemed to be smothering them.

The sound of an approaching rider pulled Kora from her worries. She shoved Andrew Adams’s clothes back in the trunk and quickly added her cigar box full of keys to the chest before closing it. The keys inside the box fit nothing. Just as she seemed to. Even her mother thought the world was over because of Dan. It never mattered that she had two other children. She’d given them nothing, not even her love after Dan returned.

That was when Kora began to collect keys. They were her only treasure for as long as she could remember. Once in a while she found another in the dirt and built the room it would fit in her mind. She cleaned the key up carefully to add to her collection, as though someday she might stumble across the lock her key would fit.

Quickly Kora moved to the door.

But before she could reach the latch, someone pounded loud enough to shake the walls of the small cabin that had been half built, half dug from a rise in the ground.

‘‘Yes?’’ Kora asked as she opened the door, expecting to see one of the neighbors.

‘‘Mrs. Adams?’’

A tall man removed his hat. He was dark-headed with sharp features and a mustache that hid his upper lip. The smell of leather and dust seemed layers thick between them. She could hear the heavy breathing of his mount only a few feet behind him and the soft jingle of his spurs as he shifted impatiently. He wore a jacket of wool, but his vest was leather. Leather was also strapped around his lean, powerful legs all the way past the top of his muddy boots. Kora stepped backward, trying to hide her fright. She’d seen the cattlemen in town. They always wore Stetson hats, leather, and spurs on their boots. But they’d never looked quite so frightening as this one, with his wide shoulders and gun strapped low across his hip. He seemed born to wear a holster.

‘‘Mrs. Adams?’’ he asked again in a voice that rumbled like echoing thunder.

‘‘Yes,’’ she whispered and tried to pull her terror under control. If he’d come to kill her, he’d have little trouble doing so. She barely reached his shoulder, and he looked strong enough to snap her bones in half with one twist. She didn’t dare scream for Jamie, or they might both die. Dan would be no help even if he awoke-which was unlikely.

‘‘May I come in?’’ The stranger slapped his dusty hat against his leg.

Kora let out a breath. If he were going to murder her, he’d hardly be asking permission to enter. A man whose Colt was worth more than everything in her dugout cabin wouldn’t need to rob her.

Moving to the table, Kora turned her back to the stranger as she lit the lantern, burning precious oil. ‘‘If you’ve come about the horse and wagon for sale, you’ll have to return in the morning. I have no way of showing them to you in the dark.’’

Winter stooped slightly and moved into the cabin. Her face had been in shadows when she’d answered the door, and now she had her back to him.

‘‘I didn’t come about the horse,’’ Winter said, wishing she’d turn around. ‘‘You’re small. Logan didn’t say anything about you being so tiny.’’

She turned to face him then, her pale blue eyes huge with fright as her hands knotted around her black shawl. ‘‘I’m not tiny.’’

Forcing her voice not to shake, she added, ‘‘You’re the one who doesn’t fit through the door.’’ He was so tall his hair almost brushed the ceiling.

‘‘I guess I am,’’ Winter answered as his eyes adjusted to the cavelike shadows. Her hair reflected in the firelight as it hung to her waist. ‘‘Your hair,’’ he mumbled. Most of the women he knew looked as if they’d spent hours burning curl into their mass of ringlets piled atop their heads. But hers reminded him of his mother’s, straight and thick. Only his mother’s had been as black as midnight while this woman’s was the color of sunshine.

Kora pulled her shawl over her head as though ashamed. ‘‘I wasn’t expecting anyone, so I’d already unbound it for the night.’’ She felt like a fool explaining her actions to a stranger. What did she care if he thought she ran completely wild in her own house?

‘‘I’m sorry to call so late, but time is vital at this point.’’ He tried to stand still as she seemed to shrink before his eyes, folding into her huge shawl and moving away from the light.

Winter had never backed away in his life. He’d always silently enjoyed the fear he’d seen in most folks’ eyes since he’d reached his full height. But he backed down now, not wanting to frighten her. He put as much distance between them as the tiny cabin allowed.

‘‘I’m Winter McQuillen, Mrs. Adams. Most folks call me Win for short.’’

She was so far into the shadows, he couldn’t even tell if she was looking at him as he spoke.

‘‘I’m sorry I frightened you. I just have to talk to you, and it can’t wait till morning.’’

Kora took a step toward the rifle Andrew Adams had left beside the fireplace. She knew it wasn’t loaded, but it was her only weapon.

Winter widened his stance, wishing they were outside. This half-dugout seemed little more than coffin-size. It wasn’t easy to propose twice in as many weeks, but at least now no one was watching. ‘‘I’d like you to hear me out before you answer, Mrs. Adams.’’

‘‘Agreed,’’ she whispered.

‘‘I’ve got a ranch not far from here. Good land with enough grass and water to run all the cattle I can handle. Square in the middle of my land is a house. I’m hardworking, twenty-seven years old, and healthy. Couldn’t swear I never take a drink, but I’ve never downed so much I couldn’t get up at dawn and do a full day’s work.’’

Kora watched him closely. He showed no signs of a man who’d been tilting the bottle, but he was certainly making no sense.

‘‘I’d see that no harm came to you by my hand or by any other.’’ Winter recited the words he’d practiced all the way from town. ‘‘I’ve never gone to church, but if you’ve a need, I’ll do my best to take you every Sunday, weather permitting.’’

Kora began to shake her head. Somehow this cowboy must be mad and think he was talking to another. ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ she whispered, not knowing how else to respond.

‘‘I’d give you whatever you needed. When I’m on a drive, my credit’s good at every store in town.’’ Winter took a step toward her. She couldn’t be turning him down! He wouldn’t lose, not this time. Not when all that had ever mattered to him in years was the ranch, and part of that ranch was the house, his house. He’d sworn years ago after losing his mother to Custer’s butchering never to turn loose of anything that was his ever again.

‘‘Name your price, Mrs. Adams!’’

The hollow click of a gun cocking was his answer. For a second Winter wasn’t sure where it was coming from, then Kora stepped out of the shadows with an ancient weapon in her hand.

‘‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, mister.’’ She tried to keep both her voice and her hands from shaking. ‘‘But I don’t want anything you’re selling. I think you’d better leave.’’

Winter slowly moved his hands to the front of his holster and unbuckled his gunbelt. He propped his foot on a chair by the table and pulled the string holding the weapon against his leg, then lifted the Colt, holster and all, toward her.

‘‘If you’re going to shoot me for asking you to marry me, would you mind using a weapon that will do the job and not some antique that looks like it might blow off your hand if you pulled the trigger?’’

Kora lowered the rifle slightly and took another step forward. ‘‘You’re asking me to marry you?’’

‘‘I am.’’ Winter didn’t take his eyes off the barrel.

‘‘But why? You don’t even know me.’’ Curiosity outweighed fear for the first time.

‘‘I have to have a wife by sunup or lose part of what is mine.’’ He could tell she was intrigued, if not interested in the proposal. ‘‘If you marry me, the house in the middle of my land is yours forever.’’

‘‘I don’t believe in forever,’’ Kora whispered.

‘‘Then stay for six months and I’ll buy it from you. Then you can leave. I won’t try to stop you.’’ A touch of hope made him smile and he slowly began restrapping his gunbelt. ‘‘The place will be yours the minute you’re my wife.’’

Kora tilted her head slightly. ‘‘Is this place large enough so that my brother and sister can live with us?’’

‘‘It is,’’ he answered soberly. If she had a little brother and sister she wanted to bring along, that would be no problem for him. They’d probably be company for her when he was on a long drive. He hadn’t expected a widow to come without baggage.

‘‘And the price at the end of six months? Is the house worth enough to buy three tickets to California?’’

‘‘That and more,’’ Win answered with a raised eyebrow.

Kora laid the gun down on the table between them and pressed her palms against her closed eyes. ‘‘This is insane. I can’t marry you.’’

‘‘Why not?’’ Winter leaned closer.

‘‘I don’t know you. I hadn’t planned to ever marry and even if I did, I’ve another half year of mourning.’’ She couldn’t explain to this stranger how all her life she’d been invisible. No man had ever given her a glance. He’d be sorry within hours.

‘‘Did you know Mr. Adams well when you wed him?’’

‘‘No,’’ Kora admitted. She wasn’t about to go into detail about how she didn’t know Andrew Adams at all. This stranger, or anyone else for that matter, would never understand.

‘‘I’ll tell you about me.’’ Winter straightened slightly. ‘‘My mother was Cheyenne, my father Irish. But no man’s ever given me trouble about being mixed blood, at least not more than once.’’ Winter knew he had to be honest now for he’d not have her saying she was tricked. ‘‘If you ask my men, they’ll tell you I’m a tough boss but fair. I don’t ask a man to do something I wouldn’t do myself, and I work as hard as any. If you ask women’’-he thought of Mary Anna’s words-‘‘they’ll tell you I don’t have a heart, so don’t go expecting any affection from me. I’ve no time for things as foolish as love. I’m offering a fair bargain of marriage, for a lifetime if you like, or six months. By the time you’ve finished mourning Mr. Adams, you’ll have enough money to go wherever you like.’’

‘‘Are you saying you’re asking for a marriage in name only?’’ Kora felt her face redden from the neck up. She couldn’t believe she was asking such a thing of a stranger.

Winter hesitated, knowing what he was about to say might very well end his chances. ‘‘No, Mrs. Adams. If I’m going to have to marry, I want a wife.’’ He knew he was embarrassing her, but there could be no misunderstanding. ‘‘I expect us to live together as man and wife. I’ll not sleep with another while we’re married, and I’d expect the same of you.’’

He could tell his words frightened her, but she seemed to be fighting gallantly not to allow her fear to show. Logan had told him there would be bargaining in marriage, so he’d better start before she bolted.

‘‘I know you’re newly widowed, so there’d be no rushing you on my part.’’ He backed down guessing she’d be in California long before she climbed into his bed. ‘‘You can take your time to grieve one husband before you bed another. But as far as the world will know we’re to be truly married.’’

The woman’s face paled so much beneath the black shawl Winter feared she might faint, but she didn’t say a word.

‘‘Marry me, Mrs. Adams, and I’ll do my best to see that you’re never hungry or cold.’’ He could tell by looking around the place that she’d be both soon. ‘‘If all you want in the bargain is to be in California, I’ll see you set up there by summer if you don’t want to stay married.’’

She stared at him and smiled as though he’d just sketched her hopes in the air between them. He wanted to yell at her for wanting so little. Hell, he’d give her a fat bank account if she asked, or trips to Dallas to buy clothes, or horses and a proper buggy.

‘‘Name your terms,’’ he said again. ‘‘But marry me tonight.’’

To his surprise she lifted her chin and stood taller. ‘‘I can’t be bought,’’ she said simply. ‘‘I’m sorry. You’ll have to look elsewhere.’’

‘‘I’m not buying you, I’m offering a bargain we both need. A marriage, right and proper as any. And I’m not saying being my wife will be easy. I won’t promise to make you happy, but I will keep you safe. You’ll own the house and the land around it outright. You can kick me out if I get difficult to live with. I’ll stay in one of the line shacks if I must. I swear the house will be yours and you can come and go as you like, but the ranch is mine.’’

A thousand refusals ran through her mind. Even if she’d wanted another husband, which she swore she never would, the man before her wasn’t what she’d look for. He seemed hard and cold and not even overly friendly when he was proposing. He was too covered in dust to sit at a table in a dugout, and the weapon he wore looked like it never came off.

But he just might be the solution she’d been hoping for. He was offering her a place to live, a refuge for a while. Then, by summer, she’d be in the warm sunshine of California. She’d taken a husband once to find a home. It hadn’t worked, but this time it might, if only long enough for Dan to grow strong enough to travel. Nothing lasted forever, not jobs, or homes, or husbands.

She could survive alone, Kora told herself, but she had to think of Jamie and Dan. They were the reason she’d signed the paper to marry Andrew Adams, and they were her motivation now. ‘‘I’d ask one thing,’’ she whispered, realizing she was demanding a great deal of this stranger.

Winter watched her closely, knowing that she was considering marriage for the first time since he’d suggested it. ‘‘Agreed.’’ He felt his body relax. ‘‘Pack what you need tonight. I’ll send one of the hands for the rest tomorrow. I’ll hitch your horse to the wagon.’’

Kora looked up at him. ‘‘But you haven’t heard what I want.’’

‘‘It doesn’t matter. I said name your price.’’ Winter saw no point in trying to bluff when she’d won. Whatever she asked, he’d give.

‘‘One thing I think you should know. I’m left-handed.’’ Kora felt she had to be honest, he’d find out soon enough. ‘‘My mother did everything she could to change me, but nothing worked.’’

The corner of Win’s mustache lifted. ‘‘I can live with that.’’ Among his mother’s people being right- or lefthanded hadn’t mattered. He’d always thought it strange that others seemed to care.

‘‘Some say being left-handed is bad luck,’’ she whispered.

‘‘I believe a man makes his own luck.’’

Kora bit into her bottom lip for a long moment, then offered her right hand. ‘‘Then I’ll marry you tonight, Mr. McQuillen. And I’ll hold you to your word.’’

‘‘Thank you, Mrs. Adams.’’ Winter closed his fingers around her small hand. She seemed so fragile, he wondered how she’d survived in this harsh country. After tonight she’d have it easier, he’d see to that. He might be offering her safety, but she was giving him his dream-all of the ranch.

Before he could release Kora’s hand, a knife flew past his face at bullet speed.

Winter swung with pure instinct, pulling Kora behind him as he raised his Colt and turned in the direction of the door.

‘‘Touch my sister and I won’t just brush your nose next time, cowboy.’’ A high voice sounded from the shadows.

Lowering his weapon only slightly, he answered as he loosened his grip on Kora’s hand, ‘‘I wasn’t hurting your sister.’’

The shadow in the doorway came closer.

‘‘Jamie!’’ Kora moved in front of Winter. ‘‘Stop trying to slice up my future husband. I’ve just told Mr. McQuillen I’ll marry him, and that is exactly what I plan to do if you don’t kill him first.’’

Winter couldn’t stop the grin that widened his mustache. All Kora’s shyness was gone as she scolded her brother, making him hopeful that she might prove stronger than he’d thought.

‘‘You weren’t married to the first husband long enough for me to see him before he died.’’ Jamie moved into the light. ‘‘And judging from the way this place was run down when we got here, he wasn’t much of a man. Now you’re thinking of going and making another mistake? Well, you’re not rushing out in the wrong direction again, Kora. I’m old enough to stop you from marrying another bastard.’’

‘‘We’ll not speak ill of the dead!’’ Kora ordered, as though speaking ill of husband number one was worse than offering to cut up husband number two. ‘‘And put away those knives.’’

‘‘Knives?’’ Winter mumbled, wondering what this sibling of Mrs. Adams might also carry. Jamie was Kora’s height, but younger by several years. The youth’s face was dirty, but the buckskins he wore appeared fairly clean.

Kora turned to Winter and pointed toward Jamie. ‘‘Maybe before we marry, you’d best know my condition. I want you to find Jamie a mate. I promised my mother.’’

‘‘What!’’ both Winter and Jamie yelled.

‘‘I’m not getting hitched,’’ Jamie added.

‘‘I’m no matchmaker,’’ Winter grumbled. He’d had a hard enough time getting married himself. ‘‘Let your brother find his own wife.’’

Kora faced Winter squarely now, and he saw the determination in her stance. ‘‘First, you’ve already promised and we’ve shaken hands on the bargain, and second, Jamie is my little sister, not my brother. She’ll be twenty this spring and near past the marrying age. By summer I want her to at least have been asked.’’ Then at least Jamie would have been asked and could make her own decision to go to California or marry.

If Winter had thought the knife surprised him, Kora’s words cut through the air sharp as a blade. He glanced over at the dirty, half-wild kid in buckskins. She was small, like her sister, but no child. Her eyes were the hard chilling blue of a full-grown woman who’d battled through her share of sorrow and pain.

He folded his arms over his chest. ‘‘You’re right, I have already agreed.’’ He’d find the wildcat a husband if he had to beat, bribe, and bind one to get him to the altar. Once he gave his word, Winter never broke it.

Kora moved around him, lightly touching his arm as if getting used to the fact that he was now a part of her life. ‘‘Then it’s settled. I’ll marry you.’’

As Kora moved away, Jamie leaned across the table toward Winter. ‘‘You’re wasting your breath, ’cause I’m never going to marry no matter how bad Kora wants me to. She thinks she has to settle me down. She thinks her bad luck won’t follow me if I marry, but I’m dead set against it. No one, including my sister, is saddling me with a husband. Have you got that?’’

‘‘Yes, you are,’’ Winter whispered back, wondering how two women so different could be from the same bloodline. ‘‘I’ve given my word. I’ll find you a husband. Have you got that?’’

‘‘Like hell, cowboy! This is one promise you ain’t keeping to her. But if you break another, I’ll quarter you and cook you for stew. I know she’s just marrying you ’cause she ain’t got any other out. I’ll be coming along to make sure you treat her right till she decides it’s time to pack up and leave.’’ Jamie pulled a knife from her boot and played with the point. ‘‘And she will leave you, cowboy, ’cause we ain’t settled in one place long enough to watch the seasons change since I can remember.’’

In silence, Winter watched her toy with her knife. He thought briefly of having the girl kidnapped and dumped into the nearest coyote den before she became his sister-in-law. But he decided he could never do that to the coyotes.

As Kora climbed up the ladder to the loft and Jamie glared at Win, a thin man stood from a chair almost hidden in the corner of the room. Before Winter could speak, the man walked past them as though he didn’t see anyone and went out the door. Win heard him coughing as he stepped out into the night air.

‘‘Who was that?’’ Winter looked at Jamie.

‘‘That’s our brother, Dan,’’ she answered, as if daring Win to say anything against him. ‘‘He fought in the war, but not all of him came home.’’

‘‘What’s he do?’’

‘‘Nothing,’’ Jamie answered, ‘‘except every morning and night, he walks. And sometimes he screams. We think the ghosts in his mind are coming to get him.’’

Kora stepped down the ladder. ‘‘He comes with me,’’ she said with granite determination. ‘‘Ghosts or no ghosts.’’

‘‘Another promise?’’ Win asked.

‘‘No, a fact,’’ she answered. ‘‘He’s my responsibility.’’

Win smiled slowly. He’d take the brother and help get the sister married off as long as Kora would say yes. For suddenly she was the woman he wanted for a wife. She was a woman who kept her word, and that was quite a dowry to bring to a marriage.