Jodi Thomas - The Lone Texan

Strapping on his holster, he shoved his dripping hair back and could think of nothing but her. He'd find Sage later, and he'd say a few of the things he'd thought about saying to her if he had to hold her at gunpoint to do it. Turner wouldn't have come after him if it wasn't something important. The captain was right: Sage could wait a few more days.

As he walked out of the bathhouse, he thought of her in black. Maybe he should give her time to mourn before he did what he'd thought of doing since the first time he'd seen her. He had told her that night in the barn that he would make her his woman someday, and the years hadn't changed his mind.

Now the biggest problem he faced seemed to be changing hers.

THE PATTERSON GRAND HOTEL STOOD LIKE A CASTLE between smaller, duller hotels and storefronts. Sage couldn't believe she was smuggling a stray dog up to the third floor of one of Galveston's best, but there was no helping what had to be done.

The poor animal was too weak to take care of himself, and someone would only shoot him if they saw him hobbling down the street. She'd never doctored anything but humans and horses, but she guessed the dog had a few broken ribs. He'd whimpered until she'd bandaged him. His filthy black coat looked even dirtier with the white cotton wrapped around his thin body.

When she'd left him with Bonnie and circled around to the front desk to pick up her key, she'd been surprised that Drum had ordered a bath and tea to be sent up as soon as she arrived.

The clerk apologized that there would be a delay, saying the girls would be free soon and could take care of it.

Sage slipped back to the back stairs where Bonnie waited with the dog wrapped inside a sheet. "We have to hurry.”

"Can we get arrested for this?" Bonnie whispered as she lifted her side of the makeshift litter in one hand and her cat cage in the other. Awkwardly, she started up the stairs. "Because I've heard what they do to women in jail, and I'm guessing it would be double bad in Texas.”

"No," Sage answered, then whispered, "At least I don't think so. Besides, I've got a brother in Austin who is the best lawyer in the state. Travis would get us off"

Bonnie paused to catch her breath. "Meaning no disrespect, Doc. I've heard you talk about your brothers for years, and I know they're fine men, but they can't walk on water. My guess is, if you keep looking for trouble, you'll finally find a problem they can't get you out of."

Sage laughed. "Wait'll you meet them. Not one man in the state stands as their equal.”

Bonnie frowned. "That'll make it mighty hard for you to find another husband.”

"I'm not looking.” Sage answered. "Not now. Not ever again."

They made it to their room and bumped their way inside. Bonnie lowered her end of the sheet first. "I don't see what were going to do with this dog up here. Now we'll have to smuggle up food, and I'm not cleaning up after a mutt.” She lifted the cat carrier. "I'm keeping Bullet in here. I don't even want to think about what harm he'd do to that dog if he got out."

"It's just for tonight. Tomorrow morning, I'll find someone to take care of him. Maybe the livery will let him stay there for a few days until he's better.”

Bonnie didn't look convinced. "I'll go ask for a cup of milk and a few pieces of bread. If he eats that, he'll probably live. I don't think doctoring a dog is much different than treating a man. If he eats, he's mending.” She set the cage down just inside the first bedroom.

Sage nodded and knelt to check the animal while Bonnie left on her mission. The bony mutt licked her hand and pushed his head against her palm. She wondered if he had once belonged to someone who'd taken care of him and for some reason he now found himself alone. Folks heading west and north usually took their dogs, but maybe his owners had given up homesteading and boarded a boat back East. If so, they might have no use for a dog.

In the stillness of the newly painted room she relaxed for the first time since she'd left Boston.

A breeze ruffled the curtains, offering slices of sunlight blinking across her. The air smelled different in Texas, she thought. She didn't know how or why she believed it, but she could feel a freshness, a wildness, a wonder of the land all around her. Or maybe she was just different here. She belonged here. No one looked at her strangely as soon as she spoke. No one frowned at her dreams.

Texas was as wild as she knew her heart to be, but right now that heart was bound in black. She wished she could go back to when she was eighteen and believed in love, but she'd realized months ago that the only passion she'd ever know would be for her work. She wouldn't be a man's possession, like most wives were, and no man she'd ever met, besides Barret, had treated her as an equal.

If she wanted to be independent, she'd live her life alone. She was a fine doctor, and that would have to be enough.

The tiny gold band on her left hand flickered in the light. Barret had been her teacher in both years of medical school. He'd been one of the few who hadn't laughed at her desire to practice medicine. After the bad luck she'd had with men in her teens, she'd decided to accept his offer of marriage, even though he was fifteen years older than she. Barret was a brilliant man, the best doctor she'd ever seen, but his body had never been strong. He'd told her once that no one expected him to live beyond five or six. When he did, they pampered and protected him. The weak heart inside a frail body housed a determined mind. She'd admired him from the day they'd met.

A single tear slid down her face. She'd known from the beginning that there would be nothing romantic between them. He'd kissed her hands the night they'd married and promised not his love but that he'd make her a great doctor. It seemed he knew his time was running out, and he wanted to pass on as much knowledge as he could.

"Knowledge in medicine is expanding like an exploding star," he'd told her. "And you, Sage, will be part of that new age” He hadn't added that he planned to be at her side. They both knew he would not.

Sage shoved the tear aside, wishing she'd only wanted what he offered, but she'd wanted more. A week after they married, she found him asleep in a bed in the hospital storage room. She crawled in beside him and wrapped her arms around him. All she'd wanted to do was sleep next to her husband. That surely hadn't been too much to ask.

But Barret had gently pushed her hands away and moved off the bed. "Sleep now” he'd whispered. "I need to make rounds." She heard the familiar coughs rack his body as he moved away.

She thought he would come back when he finished, but he hadn't. To her knowledge he never slept in the storage room bed again. He never slept with her. He was the kindest man she'd ever known, but he couldn't bring himself to love her. The legacy of his talent was all he had to give her.

When he finally gave up the role of doctor and became a patient, she'd asked him why he'd married her, and he had whispered simply that he was so sorry, but he didn't want to die alone. She understood then and stayed beside his bed until the end. He'd made her a doctor, and she'd made sure he wasn't by himself when death knocked, but she'd never truly been his wife.

A widow without being a wife is doubly lost.

The sun slipped behind a cloud as though the day outside her window was reflecting her mood. Sage straightened her spine. Melancholy was not a cloak that fit her shoulders. She would not wear it well or long.

A knock rattled the thin door, making Sage jump. Bonnie wouldn't have knocked on the door to their suite, and anyone else would not be happy to find a dog in the best room of the hotel.

Sage wrapped the mutt in the sheet and carefully carried him into the second of the two bedrooms, not wanting the two animals in sight of one another. All she'd seen the black cat do was sleep, but it would be her luck that Bullet would decide to wake, just to pester the dog while he was feeling bad.

The dog didn't move when she laid him in the sun by the window. "Stay," she whispered as another knock sounded. "Please, stay."

The animal put his head on his paw and closed his eyes as if content to do as she asked.

Rushing through the sitting room, she pulled the door wide, already planning how fast she would get rid of whoever it was.

The blood froze in her veins as she stared at the man before her. "Barret?" She tried to breathe as panic rose. In the dimly lit hallway, her husband stood before her.

"No, miss. No” The man waved his hand as if he could take her fear away. "I'm not your Barret come back from the dead. I'm not him”

Sage tried to breathe. Of course he wasn't Barret. She'd buried him back in Boston, and she didn't believe in ghosts. She'd washed his cold body and dressed him in a fine wool suit. She'd walked beside his casket all the way to the cemetery so he wouldn't be alone. Then she'd placed him in the ground beside his mother and father and stood watching as the undertaker covered the coffin with six feet of dirt.

"I'm Shelley, miss. Shelley Darnell Lander." the man in shadow announced. "Barret was my brother."

Sage took his offered hand, noticing the softness of his skin. Barret's hands had been rough and often cracked from constant washing, not smooth. She examined the man standing before her. He wore a tan suit, wrinkled and stained at the cuffs. Barret changed into clean clothes sometimes three or four times a day. He didn't believe in walking into a new patient's room with the blood of another on him.

"Mr. Shelley Lander," she managed as she tried to think of the few times Barret had mentioned his brother. Worthless, he'd called Shelley. Worthless as warts on a leopard. Apparently all the Lander family strived to mold meaningful lives, except Barret's older brother, who embarrassed them all by wasting his life in saloons.