Wild Texas Rose Read Online Free PDF

lately. Have ye been keeping vigil for this bastard—”
    “Don’t swear.”
    “—for this horse thief?”
    “Just occasionally. Just at night when I can’t sleep, anyway. You can’t watch all the time, Patrick. I worry about you.”
    She did worry about him, more than she could say. When her father had been alive, Patrick had had to keep his drinking and gambling under control. Now he staggered more often than she liked to see, and he often came back from Fort Davis all sad and bedraggled. The burden of watching for horse thieves and doing a good portion of the work had aged Patrick. Yet regardless of his faults, she couldn’t forget his loyalty. When her parents died, he’d put his whole faith in her, refusing to seek greener pastures. In staying, he took the biggest gamble of his life — that her success would provide for his livelihood.
    No one had been prouder or more astonished when she’d sold her first four-year-olds, last spring, for two hundred fifty dollars apiece. Now, with Sonny’s disdain for Patrick still pealing in her mind, she added, “You taught me to ride, you taught me to love horses, and you’ve given me the benefit of all your experience in fine Irish stables. I don’t say it often enough, but you’re my dearest friend in the world. You know that.”
    She guessed he was embarrassed by her affection, for he ducked his head and shuffled through the straw toward the exit. “Did ye count the horses outside?”
    She accepted his change of subject. “They’re all here.”
    “They were all here when I went to bed, too. Maybe I scared that bas— that horse thief away last week when I chased after him. Maybe I wounded him when I shot.”
    Closing Goliath into his stall and taking the lantern, she kept her voice even. “I hope he dies of lead poisoning.”
    “Lost eleven good horses to that” — he paused significantly — “horse thief, and he’s not satisfied yet. I’ve started sleeping in the hayloft, Miss Rose, to keep an eye on the stable.”
    “But he hasn’t stolen from the stable,” she said automatically.
    “The best horses are in the stable.” Patrick jerked his thumb toward Goliath and Starbright. “And a clever thief can pick any lock. He’ll come around, I wager, but I’ll be after him straight off. Ye can count on it.”
    “Don’t chase him,” Rose said, feeling cold with the threat to her prizes. “Shoot him where he stands.”
    “Miss Rose!” Patrick protested, sounding sincerely shocked. “A lady should never think such violent thoughts.”
    “This lady—” She broke off, struck by the vision of Thorn falling, shot, dripping blood, dying.
    A shudder rattled her, and Patrick said, “See? Ye don’t mean it.”
    Straightening her shoulders, she said, “But I do. Better to shoot a horse thief than to hang him.”
    Now Patrick shuddered. “Hanging’s a cruel way to die, Miss Rose.”
    “Yes.” They stepped outside and strolled to the corral, and Patrick draped himself over the rail while she stood erect and unsupported. Unable to help herself, she again counted the horses, then gave in to her appalling curiosity. “What did this horse thief look like, when you saw him?”
    Watching the horses with a keen eye, Patrick ignored her query at first. “I think Lady Hypatia ought to be bred to Goliath next. With their lines, the foal will be a handsome thing.” Then he rolled a cigarette, licked the paper, and lit it with another lucifer. “Couldn’t tell what that villain looked like. He was on horseback, fleeing from me.”
    Fidgeting with the five-foot length of thin hair rope hanging on the post, she demanded, “Short or tall? Thin or fat?”
    “Tall, with broad shoulders. A cowboy, probably, by the way he sat the saddle.”
    “A good horseman?”
    “Born in the saddle. He wore a dark hat and he smiled at me, like he was taunting me.” Patrick warmed to his subject, and lowered his voice dramatically. “Even in the dark, I could see the