Free Texas Brides Collection by Darlene Mindrup Page B

somewhere, and this feud between the Republic and Mexico over Texas’s boundaries isn’t going to be settled without fighting.”
    “I know. You’re a ranger.”
    “And you’ll still marry me, knowing I’ll be gone for days at a time?”
    “Yes, Chet. I agree to it all. I love you, but…”
    “What?”
    “Please don’t call me skinny.”
    He kissed her again. “I will never call you skinny, just my precious Serena.”
    “You’ve got me, Lieutenant Chet Wilkinson, and I’m never letting you go.”

THE RELUCTANT
FUGITIVE
by Darlene Mindrup

Dedication
    To the two newest members of my family, Ryan and Joniessa.
I love you both.

Chapter 1

    West Texas, 1859
    A pril Hansen set a glass of milk next to her twin brother’s plate, then took a seat across from him. She studied the hard lines of his face and wondered just what had happened to him over the last two years.
    The chilly November wind whistled eerily outside the cabin, the mantel clock above her fireplace chiming the hour of midnight. She shivered, waiting for the heat from the Franklin stove to warm the air around her.
    “So tell me, Ted, what you’ve been doing with yourself. Did you find the gold you were looking for?” she asked, pulling her robe tightly around her to help ward off the chill.
    He grimaced, tucking into the plate of stew, seemingly oblivious to the cold around him. “Not really. How about you?”
    She pushed a strand of coal black hair behind her ear and shook her head slightly. Her sky blue eyes met an exact replica when they collided with his.
    “Not really. I
am
making good money as a seamstress, though.”
    He smiled slightly, pushing the cleaned plate away and downing the glass of milk. “That doesn’t surprise me. Mother always said you had real talent.”
    For a moment, his face darkened. He turned away, looking out the paned-glass window of her kitchen. The wind found its way through cracks in her small cabin where the chinking had dried and left small holes, causing the hurricane lamp to flicker slightly.
    April laid her soft white hand on his darker, harder one and gently squeezed. “They’re with the Lord now, Ted.”
    His blue eyes were like chips of ice when they met hers again. “Why? Because He needed them more than we did?”
    Seeing the pain he caused her, he relented. “I’m sorry, April. I just can’t help wondering if my life would have been different if only they had lived.”
    “We were sixteen when they died, Ted. If you didn’t have their beliefs embedded in your heart by then, what makes you think you would have if they had lived longer?”
    “It wasn’t their beliefs that I needed!” He jerked his hand from hers, glaring a message she refused to heed. She hadn’t seen her brother in two years, and she wasn’t about to miss this opportunity. He needed to come back to the Lord if he wanted any hope of a normal life.
    “You can’t blame God for the way you choose to live your life.”
    He jumped to his feet, his hands clenching into fists at his side. There was a haunted, unhappy look about him that touched her sisterly heart.
    “Can’t I? Can’t I just! Keep your God. I don’t need Him!”
    She got up and reached out to touch him, but he jerked away from her. Her hand fell uselessly to her side.
    “Don’t you, Ted?”
    For a brief instant his eyes were filled with an intense yearning. April seized the moment.
    “Don’t you remember how good it was to go to church every Sunday and sit together as a family? Remember, too, the day you accepted Christ into your life?”
    His lips twitched slightly. “I remember. It was October and the water in the river was
extremely
cold.”
    She smiled. “That day you were baptized, you said that God would be the master of your life.”
    The smile fled from his face, and he turned angry eyes to her. “Have you ever heard of the slavery in the South? When a master is mean, the slaves sometimes run away.”
    April’s face paled. “Don’t say that.