Give Me A Texas Ranger. Jodi Thomas

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ they stopped yesterday, but he hadn’t seen her lift a bite to her mouth.

      He laid the back of his hand against her cheek. She was warm, but not burning with fever. When he began unbuttoning her traveling jacket, she moaned and shook her head.

      “Easy now,” he said, thinking that was probably more something he should say to a horse rather than a woman. “I’m just going to make you comfortable, then I’ll watch the road for your brother.”

      Her fitted jacket was tight across her ribs and he wondered how she’d stood it all night when they’d been climbing in the rocks. When he finished undoing the last button, she let out a sigh and closed her eyes. He couldn’t resist sliding his finger beneath the wool and feeling the warmth of her covered only by a layer of wrinkled cotton.

      He brushed a few stray strands of hair away from her face. “You’re quite a woman, Anna. You collapsed before you complained once.” He pressed his lips against her cheek. “Sleep now, but remember that we’re not finished, me and you. Not by a long shot.”

      She moaned something in her sleep and McCord brushed his fingers over her ribs. He liked the feel of her, the look of her; but most of all, he liked her spirit.

      When he was sure she was sound asleep, he moved to where he could see down the road in both directions. If the army didn’t come soon, looking for the coach, the outlaws would be finished with the men at the station and realize what they were looking for was not in the mailbag. Thorn, the leader of the worthless gang, would be madder than hell and heading toward them.

      McCord tugged the envelope from a slit in the lining of his boot. The letter Thorn was fighting so hard to get wasn’t in the mailbag. It never had been. The governor had trusted it to one Ranger. McCord had orders to burn it before letting it fall into the wrong hands. There’d been no need to ask—he knew he was expected to protect it with his life and deliver it to a Quaker who served as an Indian agent in this part of the world. This one document could change history, maybe end the Indian fighting years early and allow settlers and Indians to live in peace.

      McCord knew without any doubt that he’d die before he’d fail. For the first time in longer than he could remember, his actions might save lives. He smiled, thinking he would do just that, even if he had to kill Thorn and all his gang to do it.

      He moved away from Anna, fighting the need to lie down beside her, fearing that if he did, he’d frighten her even more than he had. He wanted her, but not tired and half-asleep, at least not the first time. He wanted her awake and willing in his arms, and to reach that goal he knew he’d have to go slow, very slow.

      Problem was, he had no idea how.

      McCord frowned and turned his back to her, hoping his need for her would ease. For a man who’d counted his life in days and never looked too far in the future, going slow toward anything was not his nature. He’d been seventeen when he’d ridden with a posse that tracked raiders who’d burned a farm near his parents’ place. He’d killed his first man that night, seeing the bodies of the family they’d pulled from the fire and not the outlaw he’d killed. From that night on, McCord had always felt he’d been playing cards with the Grim Reaper, and one of these times he’d draw the short hand.

      He glanced back at Anna curled in among the cottonwood roots. “Slow and easy,” he promised, proud of himself for taking the time to talk to her a little and not just leave her among the branches. It had been a long time since he’d comforted a woman.

      An hour later, he heard riders coming and watched until he recognized the blue uniforms of the cavalry.

      McCord stepped in the trail, his hand up, his gun pointed down.

      One rider stood out among the soldiers. A young officer on the short side who sat a horse like a greenhorn. He had to be Anna’s brother, same black hair and dark eyes. Wynn remembered her telling the gambler on the stage that her brother was a new doctor who’d just been transferred to Texas before being sent to Camp Supply.

      The Ranger decided he disliked the man on sight.

      The short doctor, in a uniform that didn’t quite fit, half climbed, half tumbled from his mount and hurried to catch up to a sergeant heading toward McCord.

      “Ranger McCord.” Sergeant Dirk Cunningham smiled and offered a friendly salute. “When we heard the stage was late and you might be on it, I headed out just in case you needed help.” He laughed. “You know, burying the bodies or hanging the outlaws. I’ve known you long enough to know if there’s trouble you’ll be the last one standing.”

      McCord touched his hat in a two-finger return salute to a man he’d crossed paths with so many times over the years they’d become friends. “I thought you might be worried about me, Cunningham.”

      The sergeant shook his head. “Not you. I followed you when we was dodging Sherman in the war. You’d fight a twenty-gun man-of-war with a tug boat and still come out ahead.”

      The doctor finally reached them. Anna’s brother pushed his way forward. “If you were on the stage, where are the others? My sister should have been with the stage, unless she missed her connection. I swear, if there was a dog in the road, she’d stop to help it even if it meant missing the stage.” When both men just stared at him, the doctor added, “Was there trouble? Is anyone hurt?”

      Cunningham took the lead. “Ranger Wynn McCord, this is Doctor Devin Woodward. You’ll have to excuse his manners—he’s worried about his sister.”

      Wynn faced Dr. Woodward. “Your sister is all right, sir.” He turned back to his friend. “We were attacked by what looked like Thorn and about a dozen men, but we managed to make it to the station just as the rain hit.” Wynn met the sergeant’s gaze and they both knew they’d talk details later when they were alone.

      “Oh, my God,” Dr. Woodward yelled. “Was my sister hurt? If she’s back at the station in pain, I’ll hold someone accountable. We have to hurry!”

      “No.” Wynn turned back to the doc. “She’s asleep right now. I brought her with me when I escaped in the rain. I figured her chances would be better than at the station once the rain stopped. We followed the stream behind the station for a few miles, then climbed over those hills.”

      Devin Woodward didn’t look like he believed the Ranger.

      McCord added, “She’s quite a little soldier.”

      “You let her leave with you!” Dr. Woodward turned his anger on the Ranger. “You dragged a woman out in a storm and across those hills? Good God, man, you could have killed her.”

      McCord’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t drag her anywhere. Your sister is a strong woman who knows her own mind.”

      “My sister is an idiot. If she’d had any brains, she would have married and not taken on nursing as her cause. She’s wasted her youth running from battle to battle during the war, and now will probably be my burden to bear for the rest of her life.”

      McCord thought of hitting the doc. One good punch should put him out for a while. Anna looked to be almost in her thirties and Woodward appeared to be just past twenty. He’d been too young to fight. He couldn’t know how many men lived because of nurses who worked round the clock in roofless field hospitals and old barns turned into surgery stations. The doctors might have done the cutting and the patching, but it had been the nurses who bandaged and fought fevers and held men as they faced death.

СКАЧАТЬ