Promise Me Texas (A Whispering Mountain Novel) by JODI THOMAS Read Free Book Online

followed her out. “I know a little place where nobody will bother you. It’s run by a nice girl after dark who gives me and my brother free soup sometimes. Her name’s Madeline, but she hates it so we call her Madie.”
    They went to a little café near a run-down livery so badly in need of repair that Beth had walked another two blocks to stable Brandy Blue. The roads were muddy and the boardwalks in need of repair.
    Levi offered his arm as if he were a man escorting a proper lady. His kindness made her proud to be by his side. He might be only half-grown, but sometime, someone had taught him manners.
    The menu choices in the café were limited, but the place looked clean. Beth didn’t talk to the kid while he ate, so she learned a great deal watching him. It had been a few days since he’d had a regular meal, so he tried to eat slowly and use his napkin each time before he drank his milk. His clothes might be those of a street kid, but he’d had someone who cared about him once.
    When she noticed him squirreling away rolls with a bite of meat inside, she motioned for the waitress to bring more rolls. The young, well-rounded girl smiled down and winked at the kid, then set a full basket of rolls on the table.
    “Thank you, Madie,” Beth said. It crossed Beth’s mind that the girl might be pregnant, but she didn’t look to be older than fifteen. Surely not. Maybe she ate far too many of her boss’s hot rolls at night while she watched over the customers.
    Finally, when Levi sat back to rub his stomach, he said, “You know that pinto your man was talking about losing?”
    Beth leaned forward. “The one with front markings like white stockings?”
    “Yeah. I know where a horse like that is. I was next door at the livery before dark and I saw a man ride in with several ponies he wanted to sell. When I told him the owner wouldn’t be back for a while, he said he’d wait and put the horses in the corral like he owned the place.”
    “How many horses?”
    “Six besides the one he was riding. Most looked all broken down, but the pinto was fine stock.”
    “Were they all saddled?”
    The kid nodded. “Yeah, come to think of it they were. I thought that was strange. Never seen anyone sell a string of saddled horses. My father used to trade horses now and then. He taught me to tell the good ones from the bad.”
    “Where are your parents?” Beth knew she was prying, just as she knew they were probably dead. The boy hadn’t answered when she’d asked about them earlier.
    “My mom’s buried somewhere near New Orleans, but my father, Theodore B. Hawthorne, is off wandering the great and massive world. Our mother always said if something ever happened to her, finding our father would be a grand quest, and it’s proving to be. Sheriff Harris said he could have been here in town for a while last spring. Thought he heard some drunk say that a gambler with a fancy name moved on to Fort Worth for some big poker game going on in Hell’s Half Acre.”
    Levi Hawthorne began to play with the dozen peas left on his plate. “After Mother died, he left us in Jefferson with his half brother. Our uncle was a mean little man who liked nothing better than to swing his cane across our backsides. We stood it for as long as we could, but my mother always said our uncle had mean baked in him to the core.
    “When our father didn’t come back after three months, Leonard and me decided to leave and go find him. The day he left he was heading west, so we did too.” He propped his chin on his fist. “We’re on a quest, miss, plain and simple. Like the knights in stories my father read us, except there’s no riches involved. Our father is a good man, he just forgets about us from time to time. With no money for a train, we’re doing odd jobs until we can afford to move on.”
    Beth didn’t miss the grown-up way the child talked. When he’d said his family knew where he was, she’d thought the boy meant his parents. Now she