say you love me.”
She grinned. “Then I won’t shoot you, because I do love you.”
All three uncles nodded as if they understood what was going on. The doctor shook his head, totally lost.
Michael raised an eyebrow, wondering if he’d ever be able to tell if she was telling the truth. He guessed he’d just have to stay about forty or fifty years and find out.
He might not be much of an outlaw but somehow he’d managed to steal the lady’s love.
Holding his side, he stood. “I think it’s time we said good night, dear.”
She smiled and moved beneath his arm as if they were now an old, settled married couple.
He pulled her close, knowing that in the future he’d be whatever she wanted him to be, but he’d be beside her.
Once the couple was halfway up the stairs, Uncle Abe shouted, “Mickey! How long you figure we’re staying?”
He glanced down at the three men who’d done their best to raise him.
“Forever,” he said.
“Forever,” she whispered beside him.
THE RANGER’S ANGEL
Chapter 1
Texas
April 1870
Annalane Barkley pulled her knees to her chin and lowered her head. Her ruined navy blue hat flopped forward like a gaudy curtain hiding her from the world.
She would give anything if she could go backward in time three weeks to the moment she decided to make the trip to Texas. She should have ripped her brother’s letter into tiny pieces and stomped on it. Since the day Devin realized he’d never be as tall as his sister, he’d hated her. Why had Annalane thought two years apart would have changed anything? If he wanted her with him at Camp Supply it was for his benefit, not hers.
She vowed that if she lived through tonight, she’d demand he send her back to Washington, D.C. If she had to, she’d live with their great aunt Fretta, who dripped snuff from the left side of her mouth and had eleven cats, but she’d never come west again.
However, from the looks of things her brother, Devin, wouldn’t have to pay for the ticket back. Her chances of surviving the night were growing slimmer by the hour.
Rain pounded on the roof of the one-room hut these Texans called a stagecoach station. Normally she loved the rain, but not this hard, fast downpour that thundered in rage. It shook the dust from the rafters, causing tiny bits of dirt to filter down through the damp air and turn into almost invisible mud balls on her skin.
Annalane raised her head enough to watch the four men trapped inside like her.
The driver of the coach was a little old man with nervous movements and a half-empty bottle sitting next to him for comfort. His bloodshot gaze darted around now and then like a rat waiting for a secret tunnel of escape to open up.
The station manager moved around in the corner that served as a kitchen. He was a beefy German who appeared to be multilingual only when he swore, which had been a constant rumble since their stage pulled in at full speed with outlaws in close pursuit. He’d had a meal of mud-colored stew waiting for them, but no one had ordered food.
The third man—a gambler she guessed—had a dull kind of politeness that was born more of habit than purpose. His dreary brown eyes reflected the look of a man who didn’t much care if he lived or died. His collar and cuffs were stained with sweat and dirt, but a polished gold watch chain hung from his vest. She’d never seen him check his watch, not once since he’d joined the stage at dawn.
What kind of man wears a watch and never looks at it? She smiled to herself, figuring out the riddle. The kind of man who owns only the chain.
Annalane moved slightly so she could study the fourth guest, a Texas Ranger, who’d got them to this shelter alive when the shooting started. He was long and lean, with a thin scar along his left cheek that had ended what once must have been a handsome face. His clothes were worn but well made, and his boots, though mud-covered, looked hand-tooled. He had twin Colts strapped to powerful legs. The sun had baked his face until she couldn’t tell if he was in his twenties or forties. Not that it mattered; she’d seen more talkative hitching posts.
Annalane sensed things in the way men moved that most people didn’t notice. All those in the room knew of hard times, but this one,