Heart of Texas Volume One Read online

  Friends. It shouldn’t be a difficult concept to understand. Cal and Grady Weston had been good friends for years. It just so happened that his best friend was a member of the opposite sex. People had been trying to make something of it for years.

  Cal regarded him skeptically.

  “What?” Glen asked in annoyance.

  “Men and women can’t be friends.”

  Glen had his older brother on that one. “Wrong. Ellie’s like one of the guys. She always had been—you know that.”

  Cal folded his hands over his trim stomach. “In other words, it doesn’t bother you she’s been seeing Richard.”

  “Not in the least.” It did a little, but not enough to really concern him—and not for the reasons Cal might suggest. Glen was afraid that Ellie was especially vulnerable just then, and he didn’t want Richard Weston to take advantage of her.

  “You know how Grady feels about him,” Cal said.

  “Yeah, so what? Richard wasn’t cut out to be a rancher— we both know that. He has a right to come home now and then, don’t you think?”

  Cal was silent for a moment. Then he said, “If I were you, I’d keep an eye on Ellie.”

  Glen found himself frowning again. Cal had a suspicious nature but he hadn’t always been this cynical or distrusting. Glen traced it back to Jennifer Healy—Cal had been engaged to her a couple of years ago, and Jennifer had dumped him. Afterward Cal’s disposition had soured, particularly toward women. It bothered Glen and he’d tried a number of times to steer his older brother into a new relationship, but Cal didn’t seem interested.

  “Well, I know for a fact that Richard can be a real bastard,” Cal added. “If you’re Ellie’s friend, like you say, you’d better warn her.”

  “Warn?” Obviously Cal hadn’t been around her often enough. Ellie had a mind of her own and wouldn’t take kindly to his interference.

  Anyway, he just couldn’t take Richard seriously as a threat. An annoyance, yes, but not a threat.

  CHAPTER 11

  AS SAVANNAH DROVE TO WARD Bitter End, she considered the unmistakable fact that her family was worried about her. She’d shocked everyone by cutting her hair, no one more than herself. The decision had come on the spur of the moment, without warning or forethought.

  She’d been washing her face as she did each morning and happened to catch her reflection in the bathroom mirror. For a long moment, she’d stood there staring.

  How plain she looked. How ordinary. Carefully, critically, she examined her image and didn’t like what she saw. That was when she decided something had to be done. Anything. Not until she reached for the brush did she consider cutting her waist-length blond hair. One minute she was staring in the mirror, the next she had a pair of scissors in her hands.

  Savannah knew she’d shocked Grady and Wiley that first morning. They’d come into the kitchen for breakfast and stopped cold, unable to keep their mouths from sagging open. Her brother squinted and looked at her as if she were a stranger. Not that Savannah blamed him. She felt like a stranger.

  Naturally Grady, being Grady, had simply ignored the change after that and didn’t say a word. Frowning, he sat down at the table and dished up his breakfast as though there was nothing out of the ordinary. And Wiley, being Wiley, couldn’t resist commenting. He approved of the change and said so, forcing Grady to agree with him.

  Savannah began to like her new look. Everything that followed after she’d cut her hair was a natural progression of this first action. She’d worn the ankle-length dresses for comfort and out of habit. The jeans were leftovers from her high-school days, and surprisingly, still fit.

  Of the three men Richard had been the most complimentary about the new Savannah. Her younger brother had done his best to flatter and charm her. To his credit his efforts had made her laugh, something she hadn’t done in quite a while. She worried about Richard and his finances, but again and again he assured her the check would be coming soon. The one who surprised her most was Grady. It was as if he’d forgotten about Richard, but her younger brother was smart enough to avoid him. He spent his evenings in town, and while Grady was out working, Richard practiced his guitar or serenaded her. The past few afternoons he’d joined her on the porch to keep her company. It helped distract her from thoughts of Laredo, and Savannah was grateful. A couple of times he’d attempted to talk her into going to town with him to, as he put it, live it up a little. He seemed to believe that all she needed was a new love interest. Another man, who’d take her mind off Laredo.

  What Richard didn’t understand was that she couldn’t turn her feelings on and off at will. He prodded her, claiming it would lift her spirits to get out and circulate. While she appreciated his efforts, she wasn’t ready. In truth she didn’t know if she would ever be. Not that she intended to mourn the loss of her one and only love for the remainder of her days. She’d given herself time to accept that Laredo was out of her life; after that, she was determined to continue on as she had before.

  Easier said than done.

  Savannah’s hands clenched the steering wheel as she came to a particularly bumpy stretch of road. Although she knew Grady highly disapproved of her going back to the ghost town, she’d decided to do it, anyway.

  Not because of the roses, either. She’d already discovered the day Laredo had come with her that no other flowers were to be found there, old roses or otherwise. The land was completely barren. Nevertheless, she felt compelled to return for one last visit.

  Her reason was nebulous, hard to analyze or explain. But Savannah didn’t care. The why of it no longer concerned her. She felt drawn in some indefinable way to this lifeless empty town.

  She was pitched and jolted around as she drove slowly toward Bitter End. Oddly, the truck seemed to remember each turn, and she followed without question, parking in the same spot and hiking the rest of the way.

  As she neared the place, the memories of her last visit with Laredo immediately came to mind. For weeks now she’d managed to curtail her thoughts of him, telling herself it did no good to brood on might-have-beens; he was gone and nothing she said or did would bring him back. She had no choice but to accept his decision.

  At least that was the sane and sensible approach. In reality it just hurt too damned much to linger over the memories.

  Every time she stepped into her garden the first thing she saw were the trellises he’d built for her. The roses he’d fertilized and cared for had exploded with fresh blooms. She would cut and arrange them, knowing that his hands had touched these very stems.

  It hadn’t been easy. None of it.

  Caroline worried about her, too, and phoned frequently to check on her. Rather than come right out and tell her she was concerned, her friend manufactured excuses for her calls. She still wasn’t coming out to the ranch very often, but Savannah blamed Grady and his talent for frightening Maggie.

  As she climbed onto the rocky ledge, Bitter End came into view. She stared at the church at the outskirts of town. The whole place looked peaceful and serene from here, and she wondered about the sadness and oppression she’d experienced on her last visit. Maybe it was her imagination, after all. Laredo’s, too. He’d shared her uneasiness and hadn’t been able to get her away fast enough.

  But as she walked past the church and down the main street, the sensation returned. The feeling seemed to wrap itself around her, but Savannah refused to be intimidated. She wasn’t going to run away.

  Not this time.

  She moved forward carefully and deliberately. The side-walks had been built a good two to three feet off the ground and were lined with railings. A water trough, baked for a hundred years in the unyielding sun, sat by the hitching post. Savannah advanced toward it, thinking that, instead of walking down the centre of the street as she had with Laredo, she’d take the sidewalk and explore a couple of buildings along the way.

  Just then she heard a bird’s mournful cry reverberating in the stillness. The wind whistled, a keening sound, as thoug
h someone was grieving some great loss. Sagebrush tumbled down the hard dirt street. She stopped, looking around, and realized there was something different.

  “The rocking chair,” she said aloud. She was certain no chair had been there before. But now one stood outside the mercantile store, creaking in the wind, and her heart lodged in her throat.

  Determined not to give in to the fear that sent goose bumps skittering up her arms, she strolled fearlessly ahead. Her bravado didn’t help. The feeling of dread persisted.

  In that instant she understood. It was an emotional understanding and it told her why she’d come, what had driven her back to the ghost town. Standing in the middle of town, she looked up and down the barren street and saw nothing but tumbleweeds and dust.

  The street was stark. Empty. Bare. Even the land refused to nurture growth.

  This town, this lifeless unproductive street, was like her life. She lived holed up on the ranch with her unmarried brothers. Her entire life revolved around their needs, their wants, their demands.

  Her roses and her mail-order business were tolerated, but no one had offered her one word of encouragement. Except Laredo. Grady cared about her; she didn’t mean to belittle his concern. But he hadn’t the time or energy to invest in understanding her or her needs. As for Richard, although she loved him, she knew he’d never been able to look past his own interests.

  Until Laredo, her existence had been empty. Outwardly focused, with no regard for her own happiness, her own growth. Before Laredo. After Laredo. Savannah smiled to herself. It seemed her entire life would now be divided into two parts. Before he’d come and after he’d left.

  How odd that she’d find herself smiling like that. Just when she’d recognized her life for what it was. Shallow. Without a center.

  The restlessness she’d held at bay all this time felt as though it would crush her. Ignoring the unhappiness had done no good. Repressing it hadn’t worked. For weeks she’d been fighting headaches and listlessness. For weeks her body had tried to tell her what standing alone in the ghost town had finally made her understand.

  She saw a small corral across from the hotel, a large rock beside it. Savannah walked over and sat there, trying to assimilate what she’d learned about herself.

  A memory came to her. One she’d long forgotten. She’d been barely ten when her father had been tossed from his horse. He’d badly broken his leg but had somehow managed to crawl to safety and avoid further injury.

  Savannah remembered how her mother, frightened and ashen-faced, had run to his side and held his hand while she drove him to the clinic. Mel Weston had smiled, and between deep breaths, assured his wife that the pain told him he was still alive.

  That was what this pain told Savannah. She was alive. She could still feel and love and be. Laredo had taught her that, and so much more. For the first time in her adult life, she recognized how much love her heart could hold.

  No matter how much it hurt, she’d do it all again.

  She bowed her head against the wind as it blew sagebrush about her feet. Tears filled her eyes, but they weren’t the same tears that had burned her face in weeks past.

  Savannah had made peace with herself.

  GRADY NOTICED A DIFFERENCE IN Savannah the minute she got out of the truck. Her face radiated a serenity, an acceptance, one that had clearly been hard-won.

  His sister hadn’t told him where she was going, but Grady could guess and he hadn’t liked it. Not one damn bit. How she’d come away from Bitter End with any kind of tranquillity was beyond him. Half a dozen times he’d considered going after her and talked himself out of it, knowing Savannah wouldn’t appreciate his interference.

  She joined him in the kitchen and put on water for a pot of tea. “I’m going to be all right now,” she told him.

  Grady wasn’t sure what to say. He’d wanted to talk to her about the last conversation he’d had with Laredo, wanted to comfort her, but he feared he’d do more harm than good.

  “I won’t be going back,” she said next as she took the china teapot from the shelf above the stove. She didn’t say where and he didn’t ask.

  “Good,” was all Grady said, at a loss for words.

  “Would you care for a cup of tea?” she asked, sounding almost like her old self.

  Grady preferred dark strong coffee and Savannah knew it. The offer was more a gesture of reconciliation, an outstretched hand. “Tea sounds wonderful,” he said.

  Savannah smiled and brought down an extra cup and saucer.

  In the days that followed, the transformation in his sister became more apparent. Color returned to her pale cheeks and a radiance to her face. She started to sing and hum once again and baked his favorite chocolate-chip cookies. Savannah was back, and yet it wasn’t quite the same Savannah as before. These changes were very subtle.

  His sister had always been a fearless advocate for people she believed in. Now she believed in herself, too. Her fledgling mail-order business took off like gangbusters once she finished her catalog. Orders poured in from across the country—surprising even Savannah, who’d barely got her catalog mailed out when the responses started to arrive, at a fast and furious pace. The fax machine was in constant use. She soon became known as an expert on old roses and two awards came in quick succession. First she was honored with the grand prize by the Texas Rose Society for one of her premier roses, which she’d named Laredo’s Legacy. The following day, she was asked to speak at next year’s Rose Festival in Tyler, Texas, known as the rose capital of the world. Public speaking terrified Savannah, and Grady suspected she’d politely decline. To his amazement she accepted.

  Grady wasn’t the only one who noticed the changes in Savannah. Caroline did, too. Even Richard, self-centered as he was, commented on her new attitude. Grady was proud of her, exceptionally proud, and he wanted to let her know. He could think of only one way. He ordered her prize-winning rose, Laredo’s Legacy, and together with Savannah, planted it at their parents’ grave. Savannah had thanked him with tears shining in her eyes.

  His sister, Grady realized, was quite possibly the most incredible woman he’d ever known. How odd that it had taken him so long to realize it.

  CHAPTER 12

  HUMMING SOFTLY TO HERSELF, Savannah checked the living room one last time to be sure everything was in place. Laredo had been gone more than six weeks now, and she’d stopped waiting for him, stopped dreaming he’d return. Her life had settled back into a comfortable groove, and the happiness she’d found with him would forever be part of her. That happiness, that sense of possibility, was what she chose to remember rather than the emptiness she’d felt at his leaving.

  It was Savannah’s turn to host the women’s group from church, and her nerves were fluttering. Within a couple of hours twenty women would crowd into the living room to plan a church dinner.

  Earlier in the day she’d baked apple pies, and because Grady had been such a good sport about everything lately, she’d made a lemon meringue pie for him, too. The scent that lingered in the house was an enticing mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon.

  “Is Caroline coming?” Grady asked, walking into the kitchen. Just as he was about to stick his finger into the lemon pie, she slapped his hand.

  “You can have a piece later,” she told him. “And, yes, Caroline’s coming.”

  “What about Maggie?”

  Savannah carried the pie to safety. “She’ll be with Dovie Boyd.”

  “Dovie?” He sounded almost disappointed. “She’s old enough to be Maggie’s…”

  “Grandmother,” Savannah supplied. “Caroline’s mother and Dovie were good friends, and Dovie likes to fill in as Grandma every now and again. Why are you so curious?”

  He shrugged and strolled out of the kitchen. Savannah didn’t have time to wonder about it. As soon as she finished the last of the dishes, she needed to shower and change clothes.

  Two hours later the living room was filled with the chatter and laughter of women. Savannah handed
out copies of her apple-pie recipe and refilled coffee cups from her mother’s silver pot. She was joking with Millie Greenville from the flower shop when the room went strangely quiet. Everyone had turned to look behind Savannah. Certain Richard was up to one of his tricks, she turned around, too, ready to chastise him.

  She froze.

  Laredo stood in the doorway, his Stetson in his hand. He looked about as uncomfortable as a man could get—as though it was all he could do not to turn tail and run.

  “Hello, Savannah,” he said.

  She couldn’t have responded had her life depended on it. He looked travel-weary. His jacket was dusty and his face pale beneath his tan, but Savannah had never seen anyone more beautiful.

  He seemed to be thinking the same thing about her because for that long, unbroken moment he didn’t take his eyes off her.

  “I can see I’ve come at a bad time,” he said, glancing away from Savannah long enough to scan the room. All the women were openly curious about him; Savannah had never heard anything louder than this silence.

  “You couldn’t have come at a better time,” Caroline insisted, leaping to her feet. “It looks to me like you’d appreciate a slice of Savannah’s apple pie. Sit down and make yourself at home while I dish it up for you. Savannah’ll see to your coffee.”

  A space magically appeared between two women sitting on the sofa. Savannah remained frozen, unable to breathe or think. This was unfair. Just when she’d forged a new path for herself, accepted his absence, he was back.

  Unable to hide his discomfort, Laredo settled down between Nell Bishop and Ellie Frasier, looking as out of place as a junkyard dog sitting between toy poodles.

  Caroline served him a huge slice of apple pie. “Perhaps you’d like to tell Savannah why you’re here?” the postmistress asked pointedly.

  The room fell silent again, awaiting Laredo’s response. Every eye was on him. Including Savannah’s. His gaze darted about the room and he swallowed noticeably. “I’ve come to ask Savannah to be my wife.”