One Texas Night

by Jodi Thomas

Genres: Historical Romance; Romantic Suspense; Western Romance

Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author Jodi Thomas lassos the heart of Texas with these four spellbinding stories, available together for the first time, where love shows up unexpectedly. . . Hank Harris wasn't even looking for a woman when he ended up with a wife. Aggie is exactly who he needs as a business partner--if only she weren't so damn beautiful, spirited--and in his bed. . . Rowdy Darnell was born to be wild and Laurel Hayes knows she shouldn't get involved with him--but oh, how he can kiss. . . When Annalane Barkley whispers her dreams to Wynn McCord, the Texas Ranger knows he's found a woman worth fighting for. . . If Cozette Camanez's groom doesn't show up for their wedding by dawn, she'll lose her family ranch. Trouble is, the groom doesn't exist--until unsuspecting thief Michael Hughes comes along. . . "The undisputed queen of Texas romance." -- RT Book Reviews Praise for Jodi Thomas "Thomas knows how to tell a story." -- Love Western Romances "Jodi Thomas's writing is breathtaking. . .her name should be at the top of everyone's favorite author list." -- Affaire de Coeur

Release date: April 1, 2013

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 385

Sample

Fort Worth, Fall, 1889

Hank Harris squared his shoulders, forcing himself not to slump as he passed through the doorway of the Tucker dugout. He stepped into the one-room home with dread settling around his heart like sand.

At six feet six he knew he was destined to hit his head any time he ventured indoors. Seemed like houses all got too short about the time he started growing whiskers. Now, at thirty-one, he’d spent half his life watching out for low rafters.

He caught himself wishing that was all he had to watch out for tonight.

“Welcome, Mr. Harris!” a female bellowed as if he wasn’t standing within reach of her. “Trust you made the five miles from Fort Worth without any problem. That north wind has sure been howling all day.” The woman winked boldly. “I’ll bet you think it’s calling you home to that mound of dust folks call Amarillo.”

Hank removed his hat and nodded, not wanting to encourage conversation. Dolly Tucker’s shrill voice could strike kindling in a dry stove. He only prayed that her tone wasn’t hereditary.

He couldn’t stop the smile that wrinkled his normally hard mouth. Maybe he should be praying for himself. After all, he was the one fool enough to agree to meet Dolly’s little sister. Most folks would say he had no right to be criticizing others. He wasn’t the kind of man anyone would mistake as good-looking and, with the price of cattle dropping, any wealth he had lay far in the future.

I’m a hard worker though, he reminded himself. And honest. If I ever get a wife, I’ll never mistreat her. That should be worth something in this world.

“You’re looking all cleaned and pressed,” Dolly yelled as she patted his arm. “You must have stopped at the creek.” She waddled around him like a round little toy. “Your hair still looks wet.”

Hank didn’t know how to answer. He had no intention of discussing his bathing habits with the woman. In truth, he could never remember discussing anything but the weather with the fairer sex.

When he’d seen Dolly’s husband, Charlie Tucker, at the stockyard in Fort Worth a few hours ago, it had seemed simple. Dolly’s sister was visiting from Chicago and Charlie said they’d like him to meet her. He had even insisted that Hank stop by around suppertime.

Hank knew what that meant. They were introducing her to all the single men in West Texas. He’d played the game before a few times in the ten years he’d been ranching. He was respectable enough for a brother-in-law to introduce. He owned his own spread, was single, didn’t drink to excess. But Hank also guessed that if Charlie was rounding up prospects, he might as well take his place at the back of the line.

On the bright side, he’d get a home-cooked meal for his trouble and Hank figured that made the ride out worthwhile.

“Would you like some coffee, Mr. Harris?” Dolly didn’t give him time to answer before shouting, “Charlie Ray, pour him a cup while I go to the barn and find Agnes. It’s almost dark. She should be able to guess it’s about time for supper. The world can’t always run on her schedule.”

Hank swallowed hard. Agnes was close to the ugliest name he’d ever heard. That must be why they keep her in the barn. Either that or the girl talked like her sister and poor Charlie would be deaf if he heard the voice coming from two directions at once.

Another thought crossed his mind. What if Agnes wasn’t bright enough to know the time of day? Some men in this part of the country weren’t too particular, but knowing the time seemed a necessary skill.

Dolly’s husband moved to the iron stove and burned his hand grabbing the pot. Hank fought down a laugh. What was it about some men? They seem to live perfectly well by themselves for years. Then they get married and act like they’ve never been near a stove.

“I appreciate you stopping by,” Charlie mumbled as he finally managed to pour a cup.

Hank nodded, knowing he was just doing a favor for a friend. Men like Hank lived alone. No woman would have wanted to start out with nothing like he’d had to and, by the time he could afford more than a three-room house, he’d be too old and hardened for a woman to be interested.

Before Hank’s coffee cooled enough to drink, someone tapped at the door.

Hank stood ready to offer his hand as more guests arrived. He wasn’t surprised to see the young banker most of the cattlemen used while they were in Fort Worth. William J. Randell always seemed fair and wore clothes that looked like he must have ordered them from somewhere up north without bothering to take his measurements. He had a habit of playing with his watch fob when he was nervous, which would have made him easy pickings at a poker table. His hair curled in thin waves over his head making him look older than Hank guessed him to be.

The man behind Randell looked almost the same age, only Hank had never seen him before. He was stockier and stood with his feet wide apart as if expecting a fight to break out as he entered the dugout.

“Potter,” the stranger said as he shook hands without waiting for Charlie to introduce him. “Potter Stockton at your service.” His smile never reached his dark eyes.

Hank felt like counting his fingers to make sure they were all still there when the handshake ended. Something about Stockton didn’t seem right. He was too friendly, too eager, too forward for a man not running for office. Hank found himself thinking a little less of the banker for keeping company with Potter.

Charlie Tucker didn’t seem to notice. He offered the two men a seat and grinned. Before he could pour more coffee, Dolly returned alone from the barn. Her little marble blue eyes sparkled as she counted the bachelors at her kitchen table.

Within minutes, Hank was forgotten, which suited him fine. Dolly made over first the banker, then Potter Stockton, who explained he worked for the railroad. As Dolly served the food and insisted they eat, she kept the questions coming in rapid fire.

William J. Randell told all about the big family he came from in Ohio and Potter Stockton said he had relatives in Tennessee who were related to the royals in Europe. Hank kept quiet. As far as he knew he had no living relative. His mother left them when he’d been three and his father worked their small farm around Tyler, Texas, until he died before Hank turned twenty. The sale of that farm had given Hank his start near Amarillo.

They were halfway through the meal before Charlie got a word in to ask about his sister-in-law Agnes.

“She’ll be along,” Dolly scolded her husband as if no one would have remembered the reason they’d all been asked to dinner if Charlie hadn’t mentioned it. “We’ll be eating at midnight if we wait on her.”

Hank pushed food back and forth on his plate, feeling like the walls were closing in around him. He’d always hated dugouts. Everyone said they were warm and protected from the weather since they were built half into the ground, but he felt like he was half buried in them. Even through the cooking odors, he could smell damp earth.

When he stood, mumbling something about taking care of his horse, no one in the room noticed him leave. He felt cheated. Though he had no hope of finding a bride, he had thought Dolly could cook. He would have had a better meal at the café by the train station.

Once outside, he stepped into the blackness between the two small windows and took a deep breath, wishing he could ride back to town. Waiting on the platform for the midnight train north would be better than going back inside. But if he just left, it would be an insult to both Charlie and the invisible Agnes. There was an unwritten law that said the girl, no matter how homely or dumb, had the right to turn away any man who came calling.

And he’d been dumb enough to come calling, even if it was wrapped in a dinner invitation.

He knew he’d be leaving alone. Both men inside were better-looking, better dressed, and probably had more money than him. Potter said he could dance and was a crack shot. Hank had never shot at anything he couldn’t eat. William Randell bragged about building a two-story house in town and said he was up for a promotion at the bank. Potter swore he’d be in the cream of Fort Worth society in five years. They were dueling braggarts and Hank wanted no part of it.

“It’s bad in there, isn’t it?” a voice whispered from the blackness on the other side of the window.

Hank jerked away, almost knocking himself out on the low-hanging roof. He had no doubt the voice belonged to the missing sister, but she’d scared a year off his life when she spoke. In the night, he couldn’t make out even an outline of her. “Yep,” was all he could think to say.

“Dolly and Charlie Ray mean to marry me off,” she whispered after a long silence. “Dolly’s been planning it all day.”

He wasn’t sure if she talked to him or herself. “You Agnes?”

Dumb question, he thought. Who else would be out here this time of night?

“Yep,” she echoed him, but without the accent it didn’t sound natural. “I’m the old maid sister who’s being passed around. If I don’t get married here, I’m due in Austin at my oldest sister’s place next month. Kind of like a traveling sideshow. Dress me up and put an apple in my mouth.”

Hank couldn’t stop the laugh. “I’m sorry,” he quickly added. “I never gave much thought to the other side of this game.”

“Sorry for what? For laughing or for me?”

“Both, I guess.”

“My poppa sent me west before I rotted on the vine in Chicago. You see, I’m the last of five girls. The only one not claimed. As soon as I’m married, my poppa plans to take another wife. There’s not room in the little apartment behind his shop for two women. I’m delaying his plan. I’m as much in the way in my home as I am here.”

Hank smiled. He knew how she felt. “The runt of the litter, last to be picked,” he mumbled, then thought he might have offended her.

Before he could say he was sorry again, she laughed. “That’s right. I’m only half the woman my sister is.”

Hank glanced in the window and watched Dolly waddle past. He couldn’t say anything without insulting Charlie’s wife so he changed the subject. “Don’t you want to get married?”

“Not really. Do you?”

“No,” he said honestly. “I like living alone. Running on my own clock.”

“Me too.”

His eyes had adjusted to the night enough that he could make out her shadow. She appeared short, like her sister, but not as round.

“But why not marry? For a woman, it seems like the best life.” He couldn’t help but add, “Unless you hate the cooking and cleaning part?”

The shadow lifted her head with a snap. “Women do more than cook and clean.”

He’d said the wrong thing. She couldn’t even see how homely he was and she was still rejecting him. “I know, but it helps if they can cook a little.”

Agnes laughed suddenly and he liked the sound.

“You’ve been eating Dolly’s pot roast, haven’t you?”

“Trying to.” He wished she would step into the light. “What do you like to do . . . Agnes?” Her name stumbled off his tongue.

“Back home, I helped my father in his workshop. He was a gunsmith. Sold the best weapons in the state and repaired the others.”

“You liked working in his shop?”

“No,” she answered. “I liked repairing guns in the back. I wish I’d been born a man. I’d love working on my own little workbench all day and coming home to a hot meal. It’s always appeared to me that a wife was more an unpaid servant than a partner. I’d hate that, so I don’t see much point to marriage. If I could, I’d open my own repair shop, but I have no seed money and none of my family thinks it would be a respectable kind of place for a woman to have. So, I’m cursed to circle my sisters’ houses looking for a husband.”

Hank leaned against the building. He could hear Dolly’s voice asking if anyone wanted more pie, but he didn’t glance toward the window to see if any victims had volunteered.

“Would you marry someone if it was a true partnership? Each taking care of himself, taking turns with shared duties. Each supporting the other in whatever work.”

“No one bossing the other, or controlling?” She leaned closer, almost crossing into the light.

Hank had no idea where his thoughts were going, but for once he wasn’t talking to a woman about the weather, so he decided to keep talking. “Right. Just two partners sharing the same house. Both bring in what they can as far as money goes. Both respecting the other’s privacy.”

“No wifely duties? No children coming every year?”

Hank thought he knew what she was talking about. He shook his head, then remembered she couldn’t see him and added, “None. They’d each have their own room, their own things, their own lives.” He’d seen men who ordered their wife around as if she were a slave. On the other side, he had watched a few women bossing their man in the same tone. In truth, he couldn’t remember ever seeing a couple stand as equals.

The one memory he had of his mother circled among his thoughts, not quite substance but more than dream. A tall woman sitting by the window, ignoring all the world around her, including him. Long after she’d gone, Hank remembered asking his father why she’d left. His father had only mumbled that she didn’t want children. They’d never spoken of her again.

Hank glanced across the darkness, pushing the image aside, trying to understand the woman only a foot away.

They were both silent for a few minutes, then she whispered, “I’d marry like that. A partnership. In fact, I’d consider it heaven. But even if I found a man willing to follow those rules, what’s to make him keep his word? He could lock me in the house and beat me, and no one would stop him.”

“You’re the gunsmith, Agnes. You should be able to figure that one out. Ask for his guns as a promise. No man but a fool would stand in front of a barrel, even in the grip of a woman.”

She laughed, then offered her hand across the light of the window. “It was a pleasure talking to you, but I have to go in and turn those two down before they die of food poisoning.”

He took her tiny hand in his. “I wish you luck, Agnes,” he said, realizing how much he meant it.

Just before she shoved at the door, she whispered, “My friends call me Aggie.”

He placed his hand above her head and added his strength to hers. “Aggie,” he said so close to her that he could feel her hair brush his face as the door opened. “I like that name.”

Hank blinked at the light as he stepped inside. Aggie walked ahead of him and stopped just over the threshold as if too afraid to go on.

He looked at the two men at the table. They both glared open-mouthed at her as if she were some kind of creature and not human. His fist clinched, and if she hadn’t been in front of him, he might have closed their mouths with one blow. He didn’t care what she looked like; she seemed a kind person who had a right to some degree of respect.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said as if she hadn’t noticed the way they stared. “One of the calves Charlie brought home from the stockyard is sick, and I had to make sure he’d eat before I came in.”

Charlie smiled a lopsided grin and shrugged as if taking the blame for his sister-in-law’s tardiness. “Once in a while they cull out the little fellows too weak to make the trip north. If I don’t bring them home, I have to bury them behind the lot.”

No one but Hank seemed to be listening.

Potter and William bumped heads trying to stand at the same time. Both were stumbling over words.

Hank stood behind Aggie, proud of her. She timidly offered her hand to each as if these two idiots made sense. The banker started playing with his watch chain and Potter talked even faster than he had at dinner. They were both “honored” and “privileged” to meet her.

The banker pumped her hand up and down so fast Hank feared he might break bone.

Potter kissed her fingers while he mumbled something in French. Hank would bet even money that he learned the phrase in Fort Worth’s rough section called Hell’s Half Acre.

If Hank didn’t know better, he’d swear both men had been drinking.

“And Agnes, I believe you must have met Hank as you came in.” Charlie sat down, adding only, “He often does business at the stockyard when he’s in town.”

Aggie turned to offer her hand to Hank.

“Nice to meet . . .” was all he got out before he saw her face. He’d braced himself for a plain girl, maybe one with pockmarks or scars, thick glasses or a birthmark. But what he saw almost buckled his knees.

She had the face of an angel, with perfect skin and curly auburn hair tied into a mass of curls at the base of her neck. And, he noticed, the devil twinkling in her blue-green eyes.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Harris,” she said shyly. “Would you like a slice of my sister’s pie?”

There it was again, he thought. The sparkle in her gaze—daring him—challenging him.

“If the others left a piece,” he managed to say. “I’d love one.”

He sat down and watched her as she talked with the others. He ate the pie Dolly passed him without tasting it.

Aggie asked the other two men questions, as if she’d been coached, about their life and what their plans were. Hank didn’t try to speak up. His life on a ranch would look pretty stale compared to Potter Stockton’s travels and parties, or the magnificent house Randell planned to build in the center of town. She’d probably be bored to hear the details of raising cattle in West Texas.

He was proud of his house though. She might consider it plain with the high ceilings and wide, uncovered windows. But if Hank could have gotten a word in, he would have told her how from every direction she could see for miles, and how when the clouds hung low, close to the ground, his home seemed suspended between heaven and earth.

The banker and Potter found their footing on her questions and began to compete for her attention. They said pretty things to her, flattering her with words Hank could never hope to put together. Within minutes both men were hinting that she should consider marrying them. William Randell seemed good-natured with the competition, but Stockton’s bragging carried an edge. He seemed a man who was used to fighting for anything he wanted, and he claimed Aggie was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen.

Aggie listened politely, without comment. It crossed Hank’s mind that she’d probably heard such talk all her life. For a woman who said she liked working alone, the idea of entertaining and the dinner parties that Randell talked of must seem frightening. Potter boasted of traveling with his work and staying in hotels across the country.

Hank seemed the only one who noticed she didn’t smile. In fact, if he was reading her right, Aggie was one step away from bolting out of the room.

Hank also noticed that the more she drew everyone’s attention, the sharper Dolly became. It must have been hard on four sisters with the baby being so beautiful. That might explain why the father kept her tucked away in the back workshop. Hank wondered if she’d stayed in back because she was naturally shy, or if the sisters had forced her to remain in the shadow. Whichever, one fact was obvious to Hank. Beautiful Aggie was afraid of people.

He watched her carefully. She wasn’t believing a word they said. She kept her hands laced tightly together over her frilly dress. He felt her loneliness more than he saw it. She was on display, something to be sold to the highest bidder, and no one stood by to help her. In fact, her sister made it plain that if she could decide for Agnes, little sister would already be packing up her things.

After an hour, Dolly ended the torture, not for her sister’s sake, but for her own. Dolly complained that her feet were tired and it was time for bed.

As the banker moved to the door, he held both of Aggie’s hands and kissed them. “I’ll dream of you this night,” he said with practiced flow. “Think of me also.”

Potter was bolder. He swore he’d fallen in love at first sight and asked for her hand in marriage. He said she was the first woman he’d seen in Texas who would be perfect on his arm, and now that he found her he saw no need to hesitate. Without waiting for her answer, he began listing his qualities and continued to do so as Charlie showed him the door.

Aggie politely said she’d consider his offer.

Both men stood at the doorway and waited to see what Hank would say, if anything. Obviously, neither considered him a threat, but they had no intention of leaving him inside with the prize.

Hank stood and put on his hat. When he walked past Aggie, she seemed so small. He hoped his height didn’t frighten her. She didn’t look up, and he wondered if she was embarrassed by all she told him in the darkness. After all, her family had made her options limited and for all her brave talk outside, she might still have little choice but to marry.

“Thanks for the meal.” Hank nodded toward Dolly. “And for the invitation,” he added to Charlie. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Aggie.”

She still didn’t look up. He leaned and unbuckled the gun belt he always wore when he traveled. “There’s a train leaving Fort Worth about midnight. If you’re on it, you’ll be in Amarillo by morning.” He lifted her hands and placed his weapons in her grip. “If it’s a partnership, equal and forever that you want, I’ll pledge my Colts that it will be true.”

The silence in the room was complete for the first time that night.

Finally, Charlie whispered what everyone was trying to believe. “You’re giving her your guns?”

Hank nodded once.

When William Randell and Potter Stockton finished laughing, they yelled things like, “You don’t give a woman a gun, you give her flowers,” and “Give a ring.” One of the men even suggested that maybe this girl was the first woman Hank had ever been around. Both seemed to be rehearsing the story that they planned to tell many times over.

Dolly swore at Charlie, calling him a fool for inviting someone so crazy to their dinner. “Waste of good food,” she yelled as the men mounted.

Aggie stood in the doorway, gripping the Colts and looking up at Hank. He saw the fear in her eyes, the uncertainty, but he also caught a hint of a smile on the side of her lips.

They were all laughing, except her. As he turned his horse, he caught a glimpse of Aggie buckling his gun belt around her skirts, and he knew as sure as he knew the sun would rise that she’d make the midnight train.

Aggie didn’t say a word on the ride into Fort Worth. She sat on the bench of Charlie’s old buckboard feeling like she was waiting for her life to start. She barely noticed the cold wind whipping from the north, or the rustle of brittle leaves that still clung to the live oaks along the creek. Her brother-in-law made this trip each morning and evening, so he knew the road well even in the darkness. Five miles was a long way to travel to work, but between her sister and the cattle auctions, she guessed it might be the only silence he knew.

Hank Harris had asked her to marry him, or at least she thought he had. It wasn’t like any proposal she’d ever heard. He’d offered a partnership, equal and forever. Then, he’d unbuckled his gun belt and handed it to her. And, for the first time in her life, she found she couldn’t say no.

She smiled to herself. Her sister had argued all the while Aggie packed. At one point Dolly even insisted Charlie Ray stop Aggie from going with the crazy cowboy who thought a proper engagement gift was a gun. But Charlie, for once, spoke up and said he’d had enough. He claimed Hank was a good man and if Aggie wanted to go with him the only duty he saw as his was to see that they were married before the train left the station.

Hank and Aggie might be in Amarillo come morning, but they would be wed tonight.

The night air cooled Aggie’s tears as she gripped her hands together in her lap. She’d never been brave, she reminded herself, but the fear of everything remaining the same was worse than the fear of the unknown. She had to go. She had to take Hank’s offer. She had to end the torture of being passed from house to house.

“I never heard Harris swear,” Charlie interrupted as the lights from town blinked on the horizon. “That’s one good thing about him, I reckon.”

Aggie took a breath. “Yes.” She had one brother-in-law in Kansas who thought “damn” should serve as an adjective to every noun he used. Not swearing was definitely a good trait, she decided.

“Though I don’t think he has much money, he always pays his bills at the stockyard. Some ranchers, even after they have the cash for the sale, try to slip by without paying.” Charlie spit a long stream of tobacco into the night. “Paying your bills is good.”

“Yes.” Aggie guessed Charlie was trying to calm her. Maybe he thought she might jump out of the wagon and run away wild into the night. But, to be honest, if he didn’t hurry she was more likely to bolt and run toward the station. Charlie Ray Tucker was the best of her brother-in-laws and he was barely tolerable. After being passed from sister to sister she’d noticed that all their husbands had bad habits.

Closing her eyes, she tried to guess Hank’s.

“If he goes to the whorehouses he ain’t one to brag about it.” Charlie interrupted her thoughts again.

“That’s good.” Aggie tried to forget all the lectures her sisters had given her, as though each man she’d turned down had been her flaw. She grinned, realizing that accepting a proposal hadn’t halted the lectures. If Dolly had had the time she would have ranted for hours.

All her sisters thought Aggie was weak-minded. Poor, beautiful, slow-witted Aggie. She can’t cook, can’t sew, can’t remember the time of day when she becomes interested in something. The only way she’ll find a man, they claimed, was to remain silent until the wedding. They barely noticed what she could do, all the things she fixed, how dearly she loved animals. All they saw was the way she hid in corners at socials and refused to talk to strangers.

Charlie didn’t seem to notice her silence as they passed the pens of cattle waiting to be shipped. He was on a roll praising Hank. “And he’s clean. I swear some of them boys come in smelling worse than the cattle.”

Aggie nodded as she watched the station draw closer. She had no trouble making out the tall man standing with his feet wide apart at the end of the platform. He must have been waiting for her for over an hour. She thought she saw a slight nod when they drew close enough for him to recognize Tucker’s wagon, but his expression was hidden in the shadow of his wide-brimmed Stetson.

“What’s your bad habit, Mr. Harris?” she mumbled to herself. “What will I have to put up with?” With a slight nod, she greeted him, realizing whatever his shortcomings were, they couldn’t equal hers. He’d be the one shortchanged tonight.

Charlie pulled up to the platform and tied the reins around the brake handle. “I’ll go wake the preacher. He don’t live but a block from here,” he shouted so that Hank could hear him. “You two might as well get acquainted.”

She watched her brother-in-law disappear into the clutter of homes behind the station. For a while she just stared into the darkness wondering what she’d say to this man she was about to marry. Getting acquainted wasn’t easy when neither liked to talk.

When she finally turned, Hank Harris looked as nervous as she. He offered his big hand and helped her down from the wagon. As his sleeve slipped a few inches up his arm she noticed a white bandage.

“Are you hurt?” If he’d had a bandage on his arm at dinner, surely she would have noticed.

Hank pulled his shirt over the wound as he shook his head. “It’s nothing really. Right after I bought our tickets, some fellow I’ve never seen before thought I should have a drink with him. When I said I was waiting for someone he pulled a knife.” Hank brushed his coat sleeve as if the wound could be dusted away. “The doc in the saloon across the street stitched it up for me. He was well into his whiskey, but he did a fine job. He wasn’t much of a doctor and it wasn’t much of a cut, so he only charged the price of a bottle. I was more worried about not being here when you drove in than the blood.”

She frowned.

Hank continued, “I think the fellow mistook me for. . .