A Little Time in Texas Read Online Free

around her, forming a single tunnel of darkness. It sucked her down, like a whirlpool, and she felt herself surely, inexorably sliding into it.

2

    D allas had faced a loaded gun with calm, but when Angel fainted, he panicked. Somehow, in the time they had spent together in the cave, she had touched some inner part of him that had been held inviolate since his youth. When he saw her collapsing, it was as though something dear to him, something necessary to his very existence, was threatened. Adrenaline flowed, and with superhuman effort he leapt forward and caught her before she hit the ground. Unsure what had caused her to lose consciousness, terrified that she had hurt her head far worse than either of them had suspected, he lifted the slight weight of her limp body into his arms and held her close.
    “Angel?”
    As he stood staring down at her, he realized that he was in serious danger of stepping over some invisible boundary. He felt the threat. And the temptation.
    He fought his inclination to succumb and managed to bring himself back to a more objectivestate of mind. She was just another victim he had rescued from the forces of evil, nothing more and nothing less. She meant nothing to him. No woman did. No woman ever would.
    Still, he couldn’t shake his concern when she didn’t immediately regain consciousness. He quickly carried her to his pickup, and after one-handedly arranging a blanket, he lowered her onto the back seat of the extended cab of the truck. He smoothed the hair off her forehead, exposing a bruise.
    When you dragged me into the cave it was 1864.
    Either she was the best liar he’d ever met, or she’d hurt herself worse then either of them knew. It was impossible to think she had somehow crossed over a threshold from the past. Wasn’t it?
    Right now he had to get her to a doctor as quickly as possible. As he slid behind the wheel and headed the pickup toward San Antonio, he realized he was in something of a dilemma. No doctor was going to believe Angel if she told him she was from the past. Most likely she’d end up committed to some mental institution. And if the doctor did believe her? She’d end up under a microscope in some top-secret government laboratory.
    The possibility that Angel had come from thepast seemed slight to nonexistent. The only thing in her favor was the quaint language she used. It had been in evidence long before there had been any discussion of where—or when—she had come from.
    Unfortunately the cowboys who had surrounded Angel hadn’t looked much different from cowboys today. It was unusual that they’d been on horseback, but not entirely unlikely even in this day and age. Dallas tried to remember distinguishing features about the men who had held Angel at bay. It was hard because once he had caught sight of Angel, he hadn’t been able to drag his eyes off her.
    Then he realized that there had been an usual yellow stripe down the outside seam of two of the men’s trousers. Gray trousers. Confederate trousers? His memory must be playing tricks on him. He realized that he wanted to believe her, because he didn’t want to contemplate the fact that she was really hurt or crazy.
    It was too bad Angel had lost the rucksack he had seen her set down outside the cave. Maybe there would have been something in it either to prove or disprove her claim. Dallas hadn’t thought to check the pockets of her trousers, but he would have her do that—or do it himself—as soon as he got her home.
    Home.
    Dallas shoved a hand through his hair in agitation. Where had the idea come from to take her home with him instead of directly to San Antonio? He had no business even considering it. He made the turn to take him west to his ranch on the Frio River outside Uvalde, even as he told himself it was a dumb thing to do.
    “Where am I?”
    Dallas looked over his shoulder and felt relieved to see Angel sitting up.
    “You’re in the back of my pickup—my truck,” he explained when she