Free A Little Time in Texas by Joan Johnston

down under the covers. Dallas Masterson was a nice man. It wastoo bad she wasn’t going to be around to get to know him better.
    Dallas wasn’t worried when the light didn’t go off in Angel’s room. He figured she was sleeping with it on again. He hadn’t any intention of going in to check on her. Because he just plain didn’t trust himself. It wouldn’t take a tiny crook of her little finger and he would be in bed with her. The problem was if that happened he would end up being responsible for her. She had a whole different set of moral values than he was used to dealing with. Bed her and the next step was marriage. Dallas Masterson wasn’t a marrying man.
    He turned out the lights all over the house, checked the doors to make sure they were locked, then went into the guest bedroom and shut himself inside. He wasn’t coming out again until morning—no matter what the temptation. Dallas listened with a sharp ear as, creaking and groaning, the house settled for the night.
    Angel didn’t even have to guess at the time. The electric clock beside the bed told her it was 11:48. She had promised herself she would be out of Dallas’s hair before midnight. That didn’t leave her much time.
    She had long since packed everything she would need and a few odds and ends for good measure. She’d had to make do with what she hadin the bedroom, because she was certain that rooting around in the dark house was liable to wake Dallas. That she couldn’t afford to do.
    As she silently closed the front door of the house behind her, Angel realized she was going to miss Dallas. She hadn’t much trusted anyone in her life—for good reason—but Dallas was different. Maybe it had something to do with reaching out to him in the darkness of the cave, but she felt a closeness to him that she had never felt with any other human being.
    Angel shivered when she thought about how angry Dallas was going to be when he discovered that not only had she run away, but she had stolen his horse. She consoled herself with the thought that she wouldn’t be around to deal with his wrath.
    “Goodbye, Dallas,” she whispered as she tiptoed across the porch and down the front steps. “Think of me sometime.”
    Then she was off and running for the world she had left behind.

5

    A ngel greeted the approaching cave entrance with a weary smile of relief. It was a starry night, so she hadn’t been forced to deal with total blackness, but there was something eerie about being in a time and place where one didn’t belong. Red started nervously dancing sideways, and she patted his neck to calm him down.
    “There’s nothing out there, boy. Nothing but hill country and you and me. Nothing to get spooked about. Take it easy now.” It was questionable which of the two of them she was trying more to convince. Red’s ears flicked forward and back, as though he was listening to her but distracted by something else.
    Was there something out there? Most likely a coyote, she thought. Or maybe a snake slithering away from Red’s hooves. “Don’t worry, boy,” she soothed the anxious horse. “They’re as afraid of us as we are of them.”
    As she stepped down off the gelding at the cave entrance she felt the hairs rise on the back of herneck. She patted the horse again but didn’t speak aloud. There was someone here. She felt sure of it. She let the reins trail on the ground, effectively ground-tying the animal, knowing any good cowhorse was trained to stay where he was left.
    She had the child’s Mickey Mouse flashlight Dallas had bought for her, which made a less-bright light than the flashlight he had used. But it was light. She didn’t have to stand there in the dark. Still, she felt reluctant to turn it on. What if there was somebody—some human—around here? She hadn’t forgotten the incident that had brought Dallas to her rescue. Angel fingered the penknife she was carrying in her pocket through the rough denim of Dallas’s jeans. She stood