Jodi Thomas - The Lone Texan

Meg continued, "They didn't come to rob. They wanted my husband and my sons. They were planning to make it look like a raid so that no one, including the Rangers, would ask too many questions. They talked openly about their plan because they knew they'd be leaving me and Andy dead within hours."

He thought he heard a refinement in her voice, almost an English accent blanketed in a slight southern drawl. "But…"

"They wanted it to cover up the murder of us all." She cried out softly as if the effort to talk was hard.

"But why?" Drum asked.

She leaned her head to the side against a pillow.

"Why?"

Her voice was so weak he could barely hear her. "When the man who wants us dead finds out the boys are still alive, he'll send more men to kill them. He won't stop. He'll never stop until the bloodline is wiped off the earth."

Roak didn't understand why, but he believed the woman. "What can I do?"

"Keep my boys safe," she whispered, out of breath and energy. "Keep them safe.”

"I promise."

She nodded once and curled around the pillow at her side, like a child going to sleep.

He tried to ask more. He even called her name, but she didn't answer. Her bruised cheek rested against the lace pillow, and he wondered if she'd been beautiful, for even battered, she had a delicacy about her.

Sage stepped back into the room when he called and checked on her patient. Drum stood back, wishing he knew more about why someone would hate a family so much that he wanted them all dead. It couldn't have been for money; the Smith family barely had enough to run the farm. Hate could run deep, but Drum doubted it could run deep enough to kill two little boys for something their father had done.

"She's gone” Sage said calmly as if the woman had simply left the room.

Drum backed to the door and watched Bonnie and Sage pull the sheet over Meg's face and straighten it as carefully as a mother straightens her daughter's wedding veil. He couldn't watch any longer; he stormed from the room and didn't stop until he made it to the cool darkness at the corner of the wide porch.

The town was quiet with few lamps still lit. The cloudy day had settled over the streets, and rain hung in the air as if debating falling. When this storm came, it would be a bull. Roak hoped he'd be somewhere dry to wait it out, only the way his luck was running, he'd probably be hit by the lightning.

He took a deep breath. One good thing, in this kind of night, this kind of darkness, he felt safe. When he'd been a boy, nowhere in the outlaw camps had ever been safe but the shadows. He'd learned early to disappear at nightfall, when the drinking started, and never sleep where anyone could find him.

He moved farther into the moonless night, thinking of the woman who'd just died. She hadn't said a word about her own life; she'd worried about her boys.

Swearing softly, he realized she had a right to worry. If they had no kin, the boys would be on the streets before her body was in the ground. Only, he'd asked what he could do to help, and with her last breath she'd told him. He had to keep them safe, and doing so would probably get him killed.

Drum smiled. For as long as he could remember, he'd been making a list of what would kill him. At first it had been all the animals and half humans in camp. Once he'd started to roam, Apache in the area made several additions to the list when he kept stealing their game. Then, of course, there were the McMurray men, Sage's big brothers. Teagen, the oldest, swore once that Drum was worse than any of the plagues of Israel. Tobin, the youngest brother, had given him the meanest McMurray horse on their ranch in payment for a favor. He'd been so sure Drum would kill himself on the horse that he'd slipped a double eagle inside the saddlebag to help pay for Drum's funeral.

And Travis, the middle brother… Drum drew in a deep breath. Travis had found him a job. Correction: the most dangerous job in Texas. Drum had made that death wish by showing off one night to Travis and his Ranger buddies. He not only was fast with a gun and accurate but, thanks to good night vision, he was as good in almost total blackness as he was in daylight.

He outshot them all that night, and now they paid him well for doing what none of them dared.

Lighting a thin cigar, he leaned against the railing and got back to the problem at hand. How was he going to keep the Smith boys safe, when he could barely manage to keep himself alive most of the time? He knew nothing about taking care of kids. The only role models he'd ever had on how to be a man were the McMurray brothers, and they occasionally took turns arguing over which one of them got to shoot him.

Even in the darkness, with his head full of worry, he sensed Sage was near before he heard her footsteps behind him. He waited without turning around until she halted next to him.

For a moment she didn't speak, she just stood beside him. then she asked. "What did Meg need so desperately to tell you?"

"That her boys are in danger. Great danger. She wanted me to get them somewhere safe."

"Relatives?"

"I asked. Both boys said they had none. They'd only been out here for a year, and before that, they were in Virginia for a while. Will said they kept to themselves. The boys couldn't name their nearest neighbor."

Sage brushed his side as she folded her arms. "Do you think there is someone trying to kill them?"

"Yes," he said, wishing he didn't. If he could convince himself they were in no real danger, maybe he could find someone to take them in and walk away. But Drum made a point of never lying to himself.

She twisted and leaned against the railing. "I hate losing someone. Sometimes I feel like I'm playing a game, doing the best I can, and I still can't win. The angel of death seems to hold an extra ace”

Drum knew she was talking more to herself than to him. He tossed his cigar and put his arm around her shoulder. "You did the best you could” She felt so right, close like this. He had to fight the urge to crush her to hint

When she didn't comment, he tugged her away from the railing and kissed the top of her head. She had no idea how long he'd waited for her to come back. She'd probably laugh if he told her about how he dreamed of going up to Boston and seeing her. Sage was the one dream he let himself believe in.

Without giving it much thought, he leaned down and kissed her gently, a soft hello kiss with a promise.

For a moment she didn't react. When she did, she pushed hard. "What do you think you are doing?"

"Kissing you." He frowned. "We've done it before. I thought you'd recognize it. It happens when two people touch lips."

She stomped halfway across the porch, then turned back to him. "There for a minute I forgot how infuriating you can be. It's been almost four years since I've seen you, Drummond Roak, and, if you ask me, that's not half long enough. I'm a widow in mourning. I'm older than you. I'm…" He was making her crazy. She couldn't even think, but she knew the list was long. "Men don't just go around kissing women when they feel like it."

"Sage, we need to talk about this…" He had no intention of stopping, so to his way of thinking, she might as well settle into the idea.

"No. We need to talk about the boys, and that's all. This” She waved her hand at the space between them. "This, you and me that you seem to think exists has never been more than a boyish infatuation on your part”

"I'm not a boy.” He was getting real tired of having to remind her. He'd been a man since she left. "I'm man enough to be your man," he said in a low tone.

"No," she answered. "Never, Drum”

He watched her walk back into the hotel without another word. He told himself the gun on his hip had more to do with why she didn't want him than his age, but he couldn't be sure. The night he'd first seen her, she'd been crying because her first love, a young Ranger, had been killed. She'd sworn then that she'd never marry a man who lived with a gun within arm's length of him. She'd fallen for a preacher who proved to be an idiot before she married him, and she'd evidently fallen for a doctor who'd died on her right after the wedding.

Drum figured she'd been unlucky in love enough to be marked as trouble by most, but that didn't matter to hint in his mind, she was already his woman.

If I had a heart, he thought that woman would not only break it, she'd stomp on it and set it on fire. There must be something, wrong with me, Drum decided as he followed her inside. Shooting his toes off one at a time couldn't be any less painful than trying to court Sage McMurray.

DRUM MADE IT THREE STEPS INTO HER SITTING ROOM before Sage demanded, "What do you think you're doing here?"

He didn't back down. "I'm doing what I swore I'd do. I'm making sure the boys are safe.” He almost added that he liked the way her gown clung to her, but he knew she wouldn't appreciate his compliment.

Bonnie walked out of the washroom with her hair in rag knots. Without her glasses, she had to squint to see him. "Evening, Mr. Roak. I left you an extra blanket in case it gets cold on the settee."

"Thank you kindly, but I think I'll try the floor.” Drum smiled at the nurse. If possible, she was even plainer without her glasses than with them. "Sleeping on that thing is like trying to sleep in a four-foot canoe.”

Bonnie giggled.

Sage looked at her friend as if she'd lost her mind. She'd never heard Bonnie giggle, not once in two years. ''Good night," she managed as she turned back into her room. Let the man sleep out in the sitting room if he wanted to. She'd be sharing her bed with Bonnie so the boys could have the other room.

The nurse followed her in and closed the door. "I feel so much safer knowing Mr. Roak is just outside.”

"He's not outside” Sage corrected. "He's inside, and if you think that is safer, remind me to introduce you to a few wild animals."

Bonnie didn't get Sage's point. "Why?"

"Because that's what he is: a wild animal. He may look like a man, but trust me, there's the blood of a wolf in him.”

Bonnie laughed. "I don't think we have to worry about Mr. Roak biting anyone.”

Sage crawled into bed and muttered, "I wouldn't be too sure."

She wanted to ask Bonnie why she kept calling him Mr. Roak, but she was too tired to think. All she wanted to do was sleep.

For several minutes the sounds beyond her door kept her awake. Drum moved around and made no attempt to walk softly. Probably just to irritate her, she thought. She heard him look in on the boys and cross to the door, double-checking the lock. Then she guessed he moved to the window, because she thought she heard the rattle of shutters.

All was quiet for a while. Bonnie's slow breathing from the other side of the bed had almost lulled Sage to sleep when she thought she saw a shadow walk the ledge outside her open window.

She didn't move. They were on the third floor. No one would dare step outside or try to stand on the ledge.

Then she smelled the faint odor of a cigar.

The lean shadow crossed again, then sat on the windowsill, half in and half out of her world. He propped his foot against one side of the frame and leaned his head back against the other. The tiny glow of his cigar moved across the midnight.

She watched him through her lashes and wondered who Drummond Roak was truly guarding, her or the boys. He slept so little she couldn't help but wonder if he trusted the night or if he were constantly on guard against the unknown hidden in the shadows.

The thought crossed her mind that this wasn't the first time he'd watched her sleep. That was impossible, of course. She'd been away, and before that, she lived in a busy house full of people on a ranch that was a fortress.

Yet she couldn't shake the feeling. If she hadn't been so tired, she would have crawled out of her warm bed and given him a piece of her mind. In fact, while she was at it, she'd tell him to stop smoking those cigars. But telling Drummond off would have to wait for another time. She needed rest.

Closing her eyes, she relaxed and drifted into sleep, knowing that he was there and despite what she'd said to Bonnie, believing that she was safe.

Once, turning in her sleep, she opened her eyes and saw that the windowsill was empty. Tiny little plops of rain tapped on the wood where Drum had sat. The damp air had also washed away the hint of cigar smoke. She wondered if she'd only dreamed that he'd been at her window.

For the first time in months, she slept the rest of the night through without waking. There'd been no rounds to make, no husband to check in on, just the peace of a gentle rain.