Jodi Thomas - WM 1 Read Free

shook the water from his hair, Sage had gone. He grabbed the lye soap and began to scrub away a month’s worth of trail dust.
    Martha came out once to ask if he wanted a steak or ham. The chubby little woman didn’t even smile at him, which didn’t surprise Travis. Martha hadn’t liked any of the McMurray boys since the day she arrived from New Orleans in answer to an ad. Teagen told Travis once that Martha had just gotten out of prison when she’d traveled to Texas for the job, but the boys had to hire her because she’d been the only one who applied after their mother died. She’d loved baby Sage dearly, but made the brothers sleep in the barn most of that first summer until they decided to act “house-broke” as she called it.
    To Travis’s knowledge, Martha had never left the grounds around the house, but she stood before Teagen each month and took her pay in cash. She would quote Travis her list of supplies before he went to town and insisted on paying for any items for her personal use. In the eighteen years since his parents died, food had been on the table every meal. Good, hot, solid food. That, Travis decided, said more than a smile.
    “You going to the Spring Dance?” Travis yelled as Martha turned to go back inside.
    “No,” she answered simply. “Sage is waiting to cut your hair. Best show some sense and get out of the rain before God mistakes you for a tree and strikes you with lightning.”
    Travis was so wet he hardly noticed it had started to rain. “I know,” he said, remembering what followed all her warnings. “If I get dead, it’ll mean more work for you.”
    “Right,” she mumbled into the thunder.
    He grabbed his clothes and made it to the porch just as a downpour hit. The log home his father built stood solid against the storm as Travis dressed on the wide porch. Ten years ago they’d finished out the second floor for the men, but everyone called the main part of the house Martha’s. From the moment she arrived, she’d treated the place like her own. That first year “Don’t get mud on my clean floors” had been a constant echo around the place. A few years later, when Teagen and Travis had been almost men, she’d added, “No smoking or drinking in my house.” They’d challenged her only once and watched their supper fed to the hogs.
    Travis smiled when he entered the house. Nothing had changed. His father’s tartan carried from Ireland still hung on the north wall. The beads his mother wore at her wedding were looped across the McMurray Clan colors. An Apache girl and an Irish boy had fallen in love and stood against the world.
    He crossed to the kitchen and wasn’t surprised Martha had cooked a table full of food. While the storm raged, Travis ate and talked of his life as a Ranger. Martha stood by the stove acting as if she wasn’t listening. Sage sat across the table taking in every word. If she’d been born a boy, she’d be riding with him by now, for Andrew McMurray taught his children to love Texas—he’d even died for its freedom.
    After dinner Travis watched the sun set over the newly washed earth as he smoked one of Teagen’s thin cigars on the porch. He was full and cleaned up to a point that he almost looked like a gentleman. Almost, he thought, for there was no amount of scrubbing that could take the wildness out of him. Part of him had to roam, had to live on the edge, had to be alone. He knew, without a doubt, that the west section nearest the hills would never have a house built on it even though the brothers called it Travis’s. His place would remain pasture land forever.
    Sage moved up beside him. “Teagen and Tobin probably won’t make it in tonight, what with the storm. They’d come if they knew you were here.”
    Travis smiled down at his little sister. “They’re staying away because they fear you’ll badger them about going to the dance.”
    She shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe they finally decided to climb Whispering Mountain and sleep on