To Tame a Texan's Heart by Jodi Thomas

Author:Jodi Thomas
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781101645178
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 1994-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Seth stood in the shadows and watched True kneeling beside Micah’s bed. She held his hand tightly in both hers as if he were drowning and she could somehow pull him back from deep water.

The old man’s voice was so weak Seth could barely hear the words he whispered.

“Now, don’t go crying like some silly girl. You and me, we’ve been around and we know there ain’t nothing hard about dying. It’s the staying alive that gives you fits in this world.”

Tears sparkled down True’s face, but she didn’t make a sound.

“I’m sorry I didn’t have time to write that book. I was thinking it was about time to start. The stories been in my head for years.” He closed his eyes and rested awhile before whispering. “I’m never gonna write it, am I, girl?”

“No,” True answered. In all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen a page of the book he was always going to write someday. For years he’d been rewriting and changing plots in his mind, until now there was no more time.

True lowered her cheek against Micah’s palm. Somehow he’d used up all his creativity helping her. So many times she had heard him say he’d put his story on the back burner and help her with one of the dime novels.

Slowly Micah stroked her dark brown hair with his free hand. “Now, don’t go making a scene here in front of Mr.

Westwind and the Ranger. It ain’t as if you haven’t got two good men to take my place in seeing after you. I know I’m hard to replace, but the two of them should muster it.”

Seth’s smile widened. The old man had told the story of Seth being Westwind so many times he believed it himself.

“Thirty years ago I was in a battle near Shiloh. We thought we were all going to die before sunup. The captain placed those of us able to shoot between corpses leaned up along the line. We was hoping to fool the Yankees into not attacking. I finally got so tired I just curled down between two already cold bodies and prayed the Lord would take me fast so I wouldn’t yell like I could hear others doing in the darkness.”

Micah coughed, twisting his face with the pain.

His normally leathered skin was so white it looked as if it had been powdered like an old wig from a hundred years ago. “Come dawn the only thing moving oh the field was the pickers snatching what they could from the bodies in both blue and gray. I figured right there and then that when my time came I’d go without swearing against God for more breath. He gave me over thirty more years, and I haven’t wasted a minute of it not living.”

An aging hand cupped True’s face. “And he blessed me with knowing you, child. No character I could have ever written would be near the rainbow you are, darlin’. I don’t mind dying knowing I’ve left you to remember me.

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