To Tempt A Texan. Georgina Gentry

for this wagon? I’ll drive.” She struggled to get up into the seat. It was difficult with her long skirts.

      Blackie simply ignored her, climbed up on his side and took the reins. “No woman drives when I’m aboard.”

      “You are outrageous,” Lacey seethed.

      “I’m a Texan, what do you expect? Didn’t your mama tell you ‘You can always tell a Texan, but you can’t tell ’em much?’”

      “My parents are dead, I was raised by my aunt and uncle.”

      “Oh, sorry. My Ma died, too. Pa had it tough feedin’ a passel of kids after he lost a leg in the war.”

      “The war?”

      “Yep, one of Colonel Terry’s Texas Rangers.”

      Horror swept over her. “A Rebel? Your family were sympathizers in the Rebellion?”

      “No, sister, he was a Southern patriot in the War of Yankee Aggression.” Shock gradually swept across his handsome features. “Don’t tell me you’re a damnyankee?”

      She drew herself up proudly. “The Durangos were supporters of old Sam Houston when he tried to keep Texas in the Union.”

      He snorted. “I should have known.” Blackie snapped the little whip at the horse as he turned the rig back south. “Get comfortable, Miss Durango, five miles is a long way.” Under his breath, he muttered, “A damnyankee.”

      “I am not a damned Yankee, I am a true Texan whose family was smart enough to know that leaving the Union was poor judgment. I believe the South’s defeat proved my point.”

      He heaved a sigh. “Do you always have to be right?”

      “Only when I am.”

      They drove the next three miles in hostile silence.

      Finally Blackie seemed unable to control his curiosity. “What’s a woman doin’ in a land rush alone anyway?”

      “I’m not alone.” She scooted as far to her side of the seat as she could. “My assistant, Isaac, is waiting for me back at the station. Hopefully, he’s gotten our equipment unloaded so we can get out the first issue of the Crusader.”

      “The Crusader? Sounds like every man’s nightmare.”

      “For men like you, it probably is,” she sniffed disdainfully. “With a crusading newspaper to lead them, the Ladies’ Temperance Association will build a perfect town with no sin allowed.”

      “And no fun, either. I’m beginnin’ to wish,” he thought aloud as he stared at the road ahead, “that you had fallen under that train.”

      “Aren’t you sweet?” She smiled without mirth, “It’s too bad that your horse didn’t land on you when it stumbled.”

      “I think we understand each other, sister.” He looked straight ahead as he drove.

      “I think we do.”

      And so the battle was joined and each vowed silently not to give an inch. It was no trick too dirty as two Texans each schemed how to bring the other down.

      Chapter Three

      Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

      Cimarron came outside to join her husband sitting on a bench watching the fountain in the courtyard. A brown Chihuahua was curled up in his lap. “Well, Trace, is there anything prettier than a spring sunrise in the Texas hill country?”

      “You, darlin’.” He put his arm around her. After twenty-four years, he was still madly in love with her.

      “Oh, you charmer, you. You could sell whiskey to a church deacon.” She smiled at him fondly.

      “Which reminds me, you heard anything from Lacey?”

      Cimarron shook her head. “Not yet, but you knows she’s as independent as a cowboy who just got paid. I reckoned when she got back from that Grand Tour of Europe and went to work for that Dallas newspaper, she’d get over what happened.”

      “It’s a little hard to forget. Half of Texas is still talkin’ about it.” He sighed and stared at the bubbling fountain.

      “That’s the reason she didn’t feel she could settle around here,” Cimarron’s voice was sympathetic.

      “Maybe if she’d get married…”

      “After what happened?” Cimarron reminded him.

      “You’re right. Still, she ain’t gonna like it up there in the Territory. You can take a gal out of Texas, but you can’t take Texas out of the gal.”

      “Now, that’s a fact.” Cookie, their grizzled old cowboy limped around the oleander bushes at the corner of the adobe and joined them. As usual, his bushy gray whiskers needed trimming and he smelled faintly of vanilla.

      “You through cooking breakfast for the cowhands?” Cimarron smiled at him and he grinned back. Everyone on the giant Triple D ranch knew how much he adored the missus.

      “I did, but they must all be off their feed; none of them ate much.”

      Cimarron and her husband exchanged glances. Cookie had been crippled when a horse fell on him years ago and Trace Durango had made a place for him as the cook for their fifty cowboys. Unfortunately, Cookie couldn’t fry an egg so a starving coyote would eat it.

      Trace ran his hand through his black hair, now turning gray. “Reckon it’s time you retired, Cookie?”

      “And not earn my beans around here? I reckon not.” The old cowboy was a proud one.

      Trace smiled and returned to watching the fountain spray water in the air. He patted the small brown dog in his lap.

      Cimarron decided to take the conversation in a new direction. “We were just discussing the fact we haven’t heard from Lacey yet.”

      The old man spat tobacco juice to one side. “What got that fool girl thinking about takin’ part in the land run?”

      “Maybe still embarrassed about the weddin’.” Trace said.

      “Wal now,” Cookie rushed to her defense, “that weren’t all her fault. That dude she picked out—”

      “My niece might be a mite impossible to live with,” Cimarron admitted.

      “A mite?” Trace threw back his head and laughed.

      “Double damnation, Trace, it’s just that she likes everything perfect, you know that.”

      “It was a perfect weddin’,” Cookie nodded, “fanciest I ever seen. And it was perfect…wal, right up ’til the end.”

      Cimarron sighed. “No girl could have dealt with that embarrassment. And in front of all those people.”

      “Not to mention what happened later.” Trace said. “It’s her own fault she’s now an old maid. I don’t know why that gal keeps lookin’ for perfection in everything; especially in a husband. She ain’t gonna find a man who’s perfect.”

      “You can take that to the bank,” Cimarron muttered.

      “What, darlin’?”

      “Nothing.” Cimarron smiled. “Maybe she’ll be a success owning a paper.”

      “Ha.” Cookie spat tobacco juice. “Who ever heard of a woman runnin’ a paper?”

      “It could happen.” Cimarron said.

      “Yes, and hell could cool off, too.” Trace added.

      “Well, double damnation, you must have thought she’d be a success or you wouldn’t have loaned her the money to do it.”

      Trace petted the dog. “I just felt