Texas Heroes: Volume 1 by Jean Brashear Read Free Book Online Page B

the house for thirty days before you make up your mind. It might take a while to grow on you.
    I hope you and my sons can make peace with what I’ve done. At the end of the thirty days, if you don’t want the house, I want you to sell it to Boone. I think he’ll want it, now that he won’t have to put up with me. But if you decide to stay, there’s plenty of land for them to build their own houses on. It’s as fair as I know how to be.
    I hear that you’re a fancy cook back east, but Devlin also tells me you have no other family. Your blood runs deep in this place, Maddie Rose. You have roots here. Generations of Wheelers fought and died, battled drought and Indians and heartache to keep this place. I believe old Rose would like knowing you were here.
    I was off in the service when everything went bad for Dalton, but I know he would have hated to leave. People think he killed his stepfather, but he didn’t. He confessed and then vanished to save his mother from the consequences of what she’d done. In my heart, I know he never felt at home anywhere else, and she never stopped missing him.
    Give it a chance, Maddie Rose. See if Texas whispers in your heart the way it always has in mine. This house was a happy place once, when Jenny was here, but it hasn’t been happy in years. See if you can bring it back to life.
    Sam Gallagher
    When Boone finished, he stared at her for a long, long moment. Then his voice came, so low she almost couldn’t hear it.
    “You can’t mean to stay.” His eyes…
    “No,” she whispered back. “I won’t be staying.”
    Boone laid the letter down on the old scarred table. Then he pushed past Maddie, leaving the air stinging with anguish so deep it echoed in the room. The back door slammed behind him, and Maddie could only stand very still.
    Vondell crossed over and picked up the letter, reading it slowly. Then she heaved a big sigh and pressed one set of fingers to her forehead. “Curse you, Sam Gallagher. It never had to be like this.”
    Maddie’s chest ached. “I said I was going. If I could leave right now, I would, Vondell.” She lifted her gaze to see the older woman’s grim visage. “I won’t stay a minute longer than I must. But surely he’s not so mad he would want to lose the whole place just to get me out of here.”
    “He’s not mad at you, child. He’s just got a hurt real deep, so deep it’s never healed. Boone’s a proud man, too proud to admit it. He was proud even as a young man, and he’d take a bullet before he’d admit how much he wanted his father to love him. The only happy memories Boone has of this place are from when Jenny was still alive. Hearing that Jenny loved a man we all thought was a murderer was bound to go down hard.”
    “I tried to warn him.”
    “In some ways, Boone’s as hardheaded as Sam.”
    “I won’t make this any more difficult for him than I have to, Vondell, but I am not hiding in my room for a month.”
    “Of course you shouldn’t.” Vondell patted her arm and smiled. “Sam was right about one thing—this old place needs someone to liven it up. I’m thinking you’re just the person for the job. You just be yourself, Maddie girl. No harm in that.”
    Maddie’s laugh was shakier than she’d like. “I doubt that Boone would agree.”
    “Well, maybe Boone Gallagher needs a little shaking up. Heaven knows this place has held little enough happiness since Jenny died.” She smiled more brightly. “Now how about you show me what magic you can make from a carrot?”
    Maddie had to smile back. Thank heavens Vondell was here.
    And that come tomorrow it would be only twenty-eight days and counting.

    Boone climbed the stairs and headed down the hall, years of practice dispensing with the need for lights. The house was quiet. He’d heard Vondell’s soft snores downstairs, and he saw no light from under Maddie’s door.
    He paused outside her door, remembering the look on her face when he’d finished Sam’s letter.