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Jodi Thomas
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
Teaser chapter
Praise for the novels of Jodi Thomas ...
THE TEXAN’S WAGER
“An exciting western romance filled with engaging characters ... fans will know they won by reading The Texan’s Wager.”—Midwest Book Review
“A poignant, heartwarming tale ... It’s the perfect beginning for Ms. Thomas’s new Texas trilogy. If, as I do, you love Texas, its exciting history, and a sweet romance, don’t miss The Texan’s Wager. It’s one terrific book.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“A superb start to this new trilogy that will make my keeper shelf... Jodi Thomas has long been a master at character development, but the portrait of Carter is her best yet. I eagerly await the second book in this series ... Kudos to Ms. Thomas for another stunning read!”
—The Romance Reader’s Connection
“A great western read! ... [A] tender loving story... touching and romantic ... It is a testament to the author Jodi Thomas’s skills!”—The Best Reviews
“Jodi Thomas, the queen of the Texan romance, just keeps turning out entertaining stories with interesting characters and plots. The Texan’s Wager will undoubtedly delight her many fans, especially since she has created in Carter McCoy one of the most unusual heroes I have ever come across... A most enjoyable beginning of what promises to be an entertaining trilogy.” —The Romance Reader
“An honestly good story ... Jodi Thomas’s tale of the Old West will warm your heart and touch your soul ... A must-read for lovers of expertly crafted historical romance.”
—Escape to Romance
“Thomas’s crisp prose, sprightly dialogue, and homespun characters will charm.—Publishers Weekly
THE TEXAN’S DREAM
“Packs a powerful emotional punch ... [Thomas‘s] latest western historical romance highlights the author’s talent for creating genuinely real characters. Kara, in particular, is an appealing blend of vulnerability and strength, and watching this plucky heroine discover her own sense of worth and find true love is just one of the joys of reading this exceptional romance.” —Booklist
TWILIGHT IN TEXAS
“A powerful Lone Star romance that brings to life the decade after the Civil War ... filled with action ... loaded with tender passion ... another exciting tale.”
—Midwest Book Review
TO WED IN TEXAS
“Entertaining.” —Publishers Weekly
“Tender, sweet, funny and touching.”—The Romance Reader
“A thrilling tale ... a story that readers will want to read again and again.” —Rendezvous
“Your heart will be moved by the passion, the action, the loyalty, the suspense and the emotion.” —Oklahoman
TO KISS A TEXAN
“Compelling ... fans will appreciate Thomas’s subtle humor and her deft handling of sensitive topics.” —Booklist
THE TEXAN’S TOUCH
“Delightful and memorable characters and a rollercoaster pace... Another wonderful read from a true shining star.”
—Romantic Times
TWO TEXAS HEARTS
“Jodi Thomas is at her remarkable best in Two Texas Hearts.”
—Debbie Macomber
TEXAS LOVE SONG
“A warm and touching read full of intrigue and suspense that will keep the reader on the edge of her seat.”
—Rendezvous
FOREVER IN TEXAS
“A great western romance filled with suspense and plenty of action.”—Affaire de Coeur
TO TAME A TEXAN’S HEART
Winner of the Romance Writers of America Best Historical Series Romance Award
“Earthy, vibrant, funny, and poignant... a wonderful, colorful love story.”—Romantic Times
THE TEXAN AND THE LADY
“Jodi Thomas shows us hard-living men with grit and guts, and the determined young women who soften their hearts.”
—Pamela Morsi, USA Today bestselling author
of Doing Good and Letting Go
PRAIRIE SONG
“Thoroughly entertaining romance.”—Gothic Journal
THE TENDER TEXAN
Winner of the Romance Writers of America Best Historical Series Romance Award
“[A] marvelous, sensitive, emotional romance... spellbind ing.”—Romantic Times
Titles by Jodi Thomas
TWISTED CREEK
TALL, DARK, AND TEXAN
TEXAS PRINCESS
TEXAS RAIN
THE TEXAN’S REWARD
A TEXAN’S LUCK
WHEN A TEXAN GAMBLES
THE TEXAN’S WAGER
TO WED IN TEXAS
TO KISS A TEXAN
THE TENDER TEXAN
PRAIRIE SONG
THE TEXAN AND THE LADY
TO TAME A TEXAN’S HEART
FOREVER IN TEXAS
TEXAS LOVE SONG
TWO TEXAS HEARTS
THE TEXAN’S TOUCH
TWILIGHT IN TEXAS
THE TEXAN’S DREAM
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
WHEN A TEXAN GAMBLES
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Jove mass-market edition / November 2003
Copyright 0 2003 by Jodi Koumalats.
eISBN : 978-1-101-15351-2
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Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Pe
nguin Group (USA) Inc.,
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ONE
Texas
The Fall of 1883
SAM GATLIN REMOVED HIS RAIN-SOAKED COAT AND shirt, knowing they would never get dry before morning. He neatly folded his trousers over the chair before he turned and noticed his new wife had slipped from the bed. She had disappeared, along with one of the Colts from the holster he’d hung on the rusty bedpost moments before.
The pale lightning of a dying storm blinked in the small room, offering him enough light to see. Far away thunder echoed, barely a rumble through the night as it blended with the tinny piano music of the bar across the street.
He was bone tired, so cold he would never get warm, and now he had lost the woman he just married. She couldn’t have gone far, not in these cramped quarters. He stood between where he had set her atop the covers and the door leading into the hotel hallway.
She was either under the bed or folded into one of the dresser drawers.
He found little comfort in discovering his new bride might be insane as well as armed. But bad luck had been running a wide streak through his life lately, so he did not bother to be surprised by the possibility.
He knelt on one knee and stared into the shadows beneath the iron railing of the bed frame.
“Now look, Miss...” he began, knowing she was no longer a ‘miss’ but forgetting the name the sheriff used several hours ago when Sam paid her fine, got her out of jail, and married her. “There’s no need for you to hide.”
He expected she would have the good sense to be grateful that he coughed up the money to save her from a life behind bars. But she hadn’t said a word since they left Cedar Point. He might as well have bought a china doll for all the company she offered on the trip.
The barrel of his Colt poked out from under the bed.
“It’s been a long night,” he mumbled without moving. They’d driven through the worst storm he had seen in years in a flimsy rented buggy. “I’d like to get some sleep in the few hours we have left before dawn. Then I’ll buy a good wagon that can take us the rest of the way to my place.”
No answer.
“Lady.” Lady didn’t sound right. A man couldn’t go around calling his bride lady. Sam straightened his large frame, hating the way his body always ached when he had to cram into a buggy. Man was meant to ride on a horse, not behind one. If he had been alone today, he would have braved the weather on horseback. But his new bride looked so weak, a dozen raindrops would have probably drowned her.
Sam decided to take the direct approach. “Get out from under that bed, lady. The sheriff said you’ve been married before. You should know by now what’s expected on a wedding night. Stop this foolishness and climb under those covers.” .
The barrel pointed at his heart. It occurred to Sam how her first husband might have met his end.
She had looked like an angel when she stepped up and pulled his name from a hat back in Cedar Point. He’d won. A bride for the price of her fine. He thought it fair when he read about the wife lottery. Three young women had confessed to a murder, but the sheriff hadn’t found the body they’d admitted to killing. So, in the name of justice and because the county couldn’t afford to hold them indefinitely, Sheriff Riley had held a lottery.
Sam had gone more to watch than participate, but one look at Sarah changed his mind. He had to at least put his name in the hat. The likelihood of winning had seemed more of a wish than possibility.
“I’m not goin’ to hurt you.” Sam tried to sound kind, but kindness was not something he wore easily. “I’ve never hurt a woman in my life,” he added, then decided that didn’t make him sound much better.
He thought he heard her sniffle. If she didn’t show some sense, they would both catch pneumonia. The room offered little warmth, only a block from the icy wind. The owner downstairs had laughed when Sam asked if the room had a fireplace or a tub.
He wished suddenly that he’d been able to take her to a good hotel, but this had been the shortest way to his land, and he wanted to get home before trouble caught up with him.
“Come out and tell me what’s the matter,” Sam said as if he wasn’t too tired to care. He already knew the problem. The lady figured out she married him and would have to look at him every day for the rest of her life. All six-feet-three, two hundred pounds of him. If his size didn’t frighten her, wait until she found out what he did for a living. He figured bounty hunter ranked right below undertaker in most women’s minds.
He pulled his wet shirt back on, hoping to cover a few of the scars across his chest before she noticed them.
“You are not going to touch me” came a whisper from beneath the bed.
“Well, of course I’m going to touch you. That’s what husbands and wives do. They touch each other. Everyone knows that, lady.” Maybe she was simpleminded. Sam remembered old man Harris’s daughters, who’d grown up down the road from him. They were all fine-looking girls who developed early and fully, but there wasn’t a complete brain among them. Their pa’s only hope of getting them married off was to encourage it while the girls were too young and shy to say more than a few words.
Sam hadn’t thought about his bride being turned that way when he decided to marry. He just thought about how much like an angel she looked, with her pale blond hair and light blue eyes, and how loneliness weighed down on him like a rain-soaked greatcoat. It had been so long since he’d said more than a few words to anyone, or ate a meal across from another person. He wasn’t sure he knew how to act. Half the people in Texas thought him the devil, so why not marry an angel?
He tried again. “Look, miss, if you don’t want me to touch you, I won’t for tonight. I give you my word. Come on out from under the bed.” He thought of adding that he wasn’t all that interested in anything but sleep, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
She didn’t move.
“You could keep the Colt if you like. Just for tonight, of course.”
The shadow shifted. “What’s my name?”
He’d been afraid she might ask that question at some point. “Mrs. Sam Gatlin.” He smiled, proud of himself.
“My first name?”
He didn’t answer. There was nothing he could say that would hide the fact he’d been only half-listening to the sheriff who married them. He’d been staring at her, and that had taken most of his attention.
Sam walked over to the chair and started putting on his trousers, since it didn’t look as if they would be crawling beneath the covers anytime soon. He might be just guessing, but he figured wives didn’t warm up to husbands who couldn’t remember their names. They might be married, but it didn’t look as if there was going to be any wedding bed tonight.
The wet wool of his trousers had grown cold and stiff. He tossed them back over the chair and grabbed one of the blankets from the bed.
Sam wrapped it around his waist. The barrel of the Colt shook. He knew she was as cold as he. “Come on out, Mrs. Gatlin, and get under the covers. I won’t come near you, if that’s what you want.” His new bride made no sense. Why would she marry and leave town with him if she didn’t plan to be his wife? She acted as if he had abducted her and forced her here.
As he pulled the blanket up over his shoulders, she slipped out from beneath the far side of the bed.
“Sarah,” she said. “My name’s Sarah and I won’t hesitate to kill you if you come closer, Mr. Gatlin.”
Sam sat down on the chair and folded his arms, locking the ends of the blanket around him. “You’ve killed before, have you?”
“That’s right.” She lifted her chin. “A man my friends and I met on the way to Cedar Point.” She took a deep breath, as though she’d said what she was about to say one too many times in this lifetime. “Be
cause we were three women, Zeb Whitaker tried to steal our wagon and take my friend Lacy away with him. We all three clubbed him with a board Bailee brought to Texas for protection. So we all killed him.” She stared at him. “I’m a cold-blooded murderer, that’s a fact.”
Sam fought down a grin. The angel lady fascinated him with her sunshine hair and her soft southern voice. She was so beautiful, even now, damp and tired and barely able to stand while she confessed. He found it hard to believe such a creature could swing a board hard enough to hurt anyone.
“Why didn’t you shoot him?” he asked more to keep her talking than out of interest.
She slipped into the bed, covered herself, then wiggled out of her wet dress. “I would have if I’d had a gun, but the wagon master took all our weapons when he threw us off the wagon train. I guess he figured we’d be dead soon and didn’t want to waste a rifle.”
Her dress hit the floor with a wet plop.
She was good, he thought. Her story became more unbelievable by the second, but she wasn’t backing down. He’d hunted outlaws who were like that, so good at telling lies they made people want to believe them even when proven false.
“What wagon train?” It wouldn’t take him long to trip her up and find the truth.
“The last one to leave Independence for California last summer. They called it the Roland Train with a wagon master by the name of Broken-Hand Harrison. I don’t remember much more; first my husband got the fever a few weeks out, then my baby. They both died while we were moving across Kansas.” A tear rolled down her pale china face. “If Bailee and Lacy hadn’t saved me, I would have died, too. I had a fever so bad, I didn’t care one way or the other if I woke up every morning.”