Free The Texan's Dream by Jodi Thomas Page A

stars.”
    Jonathan took the blow without flinching. He’d learned years ago to take whatever came without showing any sign of pain. Anger was the only emotion he allowed himself to feel. Anger surrounded him now, smothering all other feelings.
    He didn’t need to ask why she’d carried the baby out. He knew what Quil would do if he thought his son dead. But Jonathan hated the fact that he had become a part of a lie against his only friend. Quil asked for his help, and the aid he’d given was deception.
    Jonathan barely listened as Wolf asked all the right questions. Kara told what happened in the tent. He knew judgment would come someday. Quil would find him. Ask for his son. The old woman wouldn’t be there, or the little bookkeeper, or Wolf. Jonathan would have to face his friend alone and tell him the worst thing a father could hear.
    “I’ll make a box.” Wolf scrubbed his eyes. “And check about buying a plot. This fort may be new, but in these parts, there’s usually a cemetery growing faster than the town.”
    “No.” Jonathan knew his voice was hard, but he couldn’t soften it or he might fall apart completely. “Make the box, but we take Quil’s son with us. The boy will be buried on Catlin land. I don’t know what Quil would want, but I know he wouldn’t want his son left here at a fort built beside a buffalo hunters’ camp.”
    “All right.” Wolf nodded. “I’ll make the arrangements. I spoke to the owner’s wife earlier. She seems a good person and she’s half Comanche. She’ll know how to dress the child.”
    Kara sat in a rocker near the window. She still cuddled the baby in loving arms. “I’ll rock him until the woman comes.”
    All three knew the action made no sense. No one mentioned the fact.
    The walls closed in around Jonathan. He needed to breathe. He needed to run. Without a word, he stormed out of the hotel room and rushed down the stairs to the street. Almost running, he hurried to the edge of town and kept going until the night sky was all he saw before him and the racket of so-called civilization lowered to a whisper.
    Low clouds made the night dark and stars only spotty. A sliver of a moon blinked between thin, velvety clouds. The smell of buffalo and blood floated in the air like sour perfume.
    Jonathan crumpled to one knee and took huge gulps of the cold air, trying to cleanse the hurt from his chest.
    “Don’t feel,” he whispered. Fog painted his breath. “Don’t feel anything.” The command had kept him alive when he was five with a wound in his shoulder and no one to help him. It was the one action he could take, pushing away physical pain as well as the tightening in his heart.
    “Don’t feel!” he ordered himself, or the agony would surely kill him.
    All the times he’d said the words flashed through his mind like withered leaves falling. His heart chilled. He’d stood, his shoulder bleeding, and watched his mother’s body piled atop others for burning. He’d seen his second family slaughtered with casual callousness. He’d stood a hundred times against pain and, every time, he’d won because if he didn’t feel, they couldn’t kill him. They couldn’t hurt him. He wasn’t alive inside.
    It took several minutes, but finally he won the battle. He stood, turned and faced the town. As always, he’d won. He’d made all feeling disappear.
    Two hours and several drinks later, Jonathan hit the floor of the saloon so hard he heard ringing in his ears.
    “Get up!” yelled the soldier who’d driven them to the stockade. “Get up, mister. Take a little of what you’ve been dishing out.”
    Two other soldiers grabbed Jonathan by the arms and pulled him into a standing position while a third pounded on him. Jonathan didn’t make a sound. In truth, he didn’t feel the pain. He’d asked for the fight, knowing it wouldn’t be a fair one.
    When he hit the floor again, the soldiers shifted places. It was another’s turn. They pulled Jonathan to his feet once more, and the blows rained. Jonathan didn’t bother to