Magic and the Texan Read Online Free Page B

course, it also wasn’t on.
    They drove down the trail gauges that led to his ranch headquarters, Bethany on the seat next to him. Neither spoke, until she said, “I met a little girl. Sabrina.”
    â€œShe’s a sweet child. Padre Miguel took her in, with the orphan boys, when her mother left a house of ill repute in Laredo to be with the child’s father.”
    â€œI thought Terecita worked at the cantina.”
    â€œShe dances there. Hoot Todd never saw fit to shelter the mother of his child, or the child.”
    Hoot Todd, Sabrina’s father? That made her Bethany’s niece. Didn’t relations carry responsibilities? What did she owe that child? At least an occasional orange, if not more.
    â€œI so like children.” Beth hoped for a dozen of her own, be they from her body, or small children who simply needed a loving mother. She would never forget Mrs. Persat’s many kindnesses, before her charge proved a disappointment. “I hope you don’t mind if I invite Sabrina to drop in from time to time.”
    â€œFine by me.”
    â€œShall I ask Terecita to come along?” Bethany goaded, unable to stop herself. “Sabrina did mention that her mother had designs on you.”
    Jon Marc gave a snort of laughter, one that carried his trademark click of tongue and arresting blink. “Designs on me?” he echoed. “That’s rich. She’d cut my throat, given the chance. In the words of Congreve, she’s ’a woman scorned.’ ”
    â€œBroken many hearts, sir?”
    â€œI never encouraged Terecita. Never even shared a drink with her. She looked for a rock to sun on, better than what she’s got with Todd. She thought my rocks were better than his.”
    Bethany bit her tongue to keep from howling. Do not, under any circumstances, make something of that rocks remark.
    She concentrated on the countryside.
    Cactus, cactus, everywhere cactus. Cactus and chaparral. Mesquite. Oaks, along the river. And cattle—cows with wide, wide horns sprouting above powerful spotted bodies of several colors such as white, rust, and black. Lots of cattle to drive to market . . . with no clear path to it.
    The entirety of unremarkable little hills and cattle-cluttered dales had turned summer green, as everything had a tendency to do all over Texas in late April. But this was not the Texas Bethany knew. This was a scary place.
    But she’d made up her mind to love Rancho Caliente. Love it, she would. From this land, from this man, she would gain respectability, husband, children.
    Yet, having come from the windswept prairie, Bethany couldn’t imagine cowpokes wrangling cattle in thickets of brambles, terrain cut by fingers of the Nueces River. But water ran in abundance, a luxury in Texas. It could be worse.
    â€œSir, why don’t you burn off some of this scrub?”
    He shook his head. “Start a fire on dry land? Never. No way could livestock get to safety, not with the river branching this way and that. They’d be trapped. Or would drown. Disaster, that’s fire.”
    Put in her place, Bethany tried different conversation. “Pardon me, sir. Didn’t I read you employ but twenty cowboys?”
    â€œYou did.”
    â€œHow can you manage thirty thousand acres with so few cowboys?”
    He flashed good strong teeth. “Skill.”
    â€œSo many cows . . .” No one had that much skill.
    â€œMore cows than a rancher oughta even wish for.”
    The Buchanan miss, Bethany had learned, checked into the O’Brien family, finding they were richlings from the Mississippi River delta. If he’s rich, why doesn’t he employ more than twenty cowpokes?
    Jon Marc changed the mare’s reins to one hand, placing his other palm on a knee. “Remember, I told you how the herd increased during the War, when there weren’t any roundups? ’Course, they were partnership cows at the time. But now the Caliente