Wild Texas Rose Read Online Free Page B

Patrick’s Irish brogue sounded sharp as a razor. “Where are you?”
    Thorn rolled away from her, tugging his pants up while pulling her skirt down. She fumbled with the buttons on her dress.
    “Miss Rose?” Patrick’s boots stomped across the wooden floor.
    “Don’t!” Thorn and Rose exclaimed together, and the boots paused.
    “What’s going on in there?”
    Patrick sounded mean enough to tangle with a cougar, but Thorn bobbed up, brushing the straw from his hair. “Nothing, sir.”
    Looking up at Thorn, Rose despaired. His shirt was in a tangle, his Levi’s were buttoned wrong, his face was red and scared and frustrated. He looked just like what he was — a young cowboy who’d been interrupted during his roll in the hay.
    Patrick’s explosion proved it. “Ye worthless young half-wit, what have ye been doing with Miss Rose?”
    Frantic, Rose added her protestation to Thorn’s. “Nothing, Patrick.”
    “Nothing? Then how come ye’re staying out of sight? Haven’t got yerself buttoned up yet?”
    She withered with embarrassment, trying harder to get her buttons closed.
    Thorn said, “Don’t you talk to her like that! She didn’t do anything. I did it.”
    “I never doubted that for a moment. Ye’re nothing but a hoodlum, a no-good half-pint thief and skirt-chaser who’s been after Miss Rose like a stallion in rut.”
    “Oh, yeah?” Thorn stepped out of the stall. “My mama says you’ve got quite a story in your background, too, so who’re you to judge me?”
    Rose heard the crack, saw Thorn fly backward and hit the stable wall. She cried out as Patrick yelled, “Brat!”
    He stomped out of the stable and she ran to Thorn. A bruise puffed his lip and blood trickled out of his mouth. He sat immobile, staring at the empty doorway.
    “Let me get you a wet rag,” she said.
    But he pushed her away and stood.
    She was unsure of his mood, but she knew she didn’t like the savage fury that gathered on his features. “Thorn?”
    “Brat?” he muttered. “Hoodlum? Thief?”
    “He didn’t mean it, Thorn. He’s been like an uncle to me, and he—”
    “Doesn’t think I’m good enough for you. I know what he thinks. What everybody thinks.” He wiped blood off his chin with the back of his hand, and his gaze fell on her father’s best tooled-leather saddle.
    “Thorn?” She scrambled to her feet. “Don’t do that.”
    He laughed, a harsh and reckless sound. “How do you know what I’m going to do? You think you know so much about me, but you didn’t know I was a hoodlum, did you? A thief, like he said.”
    “You don’t steal things — especially not a saddle that’s worth more than any horse in the stable.”
    He turned on her, grabbed her arms, and shook her. “I have. I’ve stolen corn out of the fields and pies off a windowsill.”
    “Thorn!” She was shocked. As shocked as if he’d confessed to cattle rustling. “Stealing is wrong!”
    Perversely pleased, he said, “And one time I stole a book from the traveling teacher.”
    “Oh, Thorn.” She covered her ears, not wanting to hear more. “How could you?”
    “It’s so damn dull here, Rosie. So damned” — he went and lifted the saddle off the sawhorse — “dull.”
    “Please.” She stepped toward him, palm extended. “Please, Thorn.”
    “That’s what you said in there.” He jerked his head toward the stall, and repeated, “ Please, Thorn. Please . But that was before you knew I was a … a half-pint skirt-chaser.” He weighed the saddle in his hand and looked at her with a crooked smile. “Someday you’re going to be mine. No matter what I do or what I am, you’re going to be mine, and proud of it.”
    “Don’t take it.”
    He looked at the saddle as if he didn’t know what it was, then at her. “Mine.”
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
    On that long ago day, Thorn hadn’t meant the saddle, but he hadn’t returned it, so Rose had done what had to be done. She had turned him over to the sheriff