Free Promise Me Texas (A Whispering Mountain Novel) by JODI THOMAS Page A

the other half of his blood before he’d stop enjoying her close like this. Like it or not, he was getting used to the way she fit against his side.
    “I know,” she said casually. “When that happens I’ll probably have to shoot you. It’s been my experience that men tend to make fools of themselves around me. I’ve always had my family to help chase them away, but this time, when you go nuts over me, I’ll have to take care of you myself. With you unarmed it shouldn’t be that hard.” She grinned. “Maybe I’ll bring along a chaperone or two.”
    Andrew made a mental note. Beth didn’t like being called beautiful, and she hated men falling all over her. If he wanted to stay alive, and he definitely wanted to if it meant being around her a little longer, he’d simply have to convince her he wasn’t attracted to her,
    As they walked down the steps, Andrew noticed two little boys sitting on the back gate of the wagon. They were ragged and thin. The bigger one looked like the kid he’d seen sleeping in the hallway of the hospital. “Let me see. I got engaged two days ago, married yesterday, and now I have a family.”
    “Correct,” she said, as if it all made sense.
    “Great,” he mumbled as she helped him into the back of the wagon. “I can’t wait to see my grandchildren tomorrow. Don’t you think we should sleep together at some point? That’s one step I was kind of hoping we wouldn’t skip in our marriage.”
    “Hush, dear. You shouldn’t talk of such things in front of the children.”
    Andrew looked at her closely, wondering if it was possible that she believed the lies she told so easily.
    He tried to make small talk with the two boys while she ran back inside to untie the cowboy. The little boys looked afraid of him. Apparently, they hadn’t noticed he was unarmed and therefore harmless. About the time he ran out of anything to say, he looked up the steps and saw his “wife” half carrying the young man from the hospital out the front door.
    “Help me, Levi,” she called, and both boys jumped to help.
    Colby Dixon had a bandage around one arm and bruises striping his upper arms that looked like he’d been held down with strong hands. He wore a flimsy hospital gown and one sock. Though he was almost as tall as Andrew, Colby was rail thin. His hair, three months past needing a cut, blew around him in a sunny mess of thick curls. The young man was either too young or too sick to realize what a sight he made to everyone passing.
    Andrew moved sideways into the wagon until his back was behind the driver’s seat. Shoving boxes and luggage around, he pulled his saddlebags forward to use as a back support and covered them with a blanket as his “wife” and the little boys reached the wagon with their load. “Beth, what are you doing with that man, trying to kill him? He’s not even dressed and it’s freezing.”
    She looked up, green eyes flashing. “I’m not leaving him in there alone. He begged me to get him out, and that is exactly what I’m doing. Hand me a blanket, Levi, and then run in and see if you can find his clothes. People are starting to stare.”
    “I know where they are,” the boy responded. “I saw the nurse store them away.” He darted up the stairs.
    Andrew watched as she made Colby a bed in the back of the buckboard, then raised the tailgate. In the morning sun Andrew saw his pale face more clearly. He was no more than a kid. Tall and slim, he couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen. He curled into a ball, too weak even to sit up. Beth covered him completely with blankets.
    Levi returned with a stack of clothes, boots, and gun belt. Andrew didn’t know a great deal about guns, but he knew an expensive Colt when he saw one. Colby’s clothes were western down to his worn chaps and custom-made boots. Before he’d been hospitalized, he’d been a working rancher.
    Beth climbed onto the bench with the little boys and looked back. “Everyone ready?”