Read Promise Me Texas (A Whispering Mountain Novel) for Free Online

group pulled back a few feet, mumbling about whether a future husband had the right to take charge of an unstable woman.
    Andrew knew the law. Beth, without family, would have very few rights. A senator might talk the doctor into declaring her unstable. If so, the sheriff would be on LaCroix’s side.
    He told himself he’d only known the woman a matter of hours, and most of them he’d been asleep. For all he knew she was batty as they come. After all, she had been traveling alone in a freight car with her horse when he met her. She’d claimed they were engaged even though she knew he’d been with the robbers. That outlandish claim was the reason he wasn’t in jail right now, so he did owe her something.
    He’d saved her and she’d helped him and now, damn it all, he’d save her again if for no other reason than he didn’t like the way LaCroix talked to her. It seemed to Andrew that a man who loved a woman, even a nutty one, would try being kind first and not ordering her around with a sheriff and an opium-offering doctor at his side.
    As Beth trembled beside him, Andrew pulled her hand into both of his. With movements not even she noticed, he slipped the ring from his little finger and moved it onto the third finger of her left hand. The ring fit perfectly.
    When the three men moved forward again, LaCroix offered his hand. “Come along, dear. This game is over. I’ll wire your father and tell him you suffered an accident and that I’ll look after you. Teagan McMurray will be forever beholden to me, his new son-in-law. I’ll insist we take our time traveling to give you an opportunity to recover and get used to being married.”
    “My papa will kill you for trying to order me around,” she whispered.
    He laughed. “Death threats won’t work. You belong to me. We agreed to marry. You came to meet me alone. No one forced you. I have a room for us at the hotel where you can rest. You’ll see, in a few days everything will be as it should be. You got mixed up, that’s all.”
    Andrew had had enough. He opened his good eye and cleared his throat. “I don’t know what your game is, mister, but I’m guessing there’s not a court in the country that’ll find me guilty of shooting a man trying to force my wife to leave my side. Get this straight. She isn’t going anywhere with you.”
    Everyone, including Beth, stared at him as Andrew pulled himself up. Every muscle in his body was sore, but they all worked. He circled his arm around Beth’s waist and was relieved to find her Colt still strapped to her side. Smart girl.
    “I didn’t put a ring on her finger to give her away to the first man who wants her. If you’re interested in marrying my wife, you’ll have to bury me first.” He leveled Beth’s gun at the senator’s middle.
    “Now hold on a minute.” The sheriff took a step backward and looked at LaCroix. “Senator, I thought you were saying that this woman claimed she was engaged to a dying unconscious man. You didn’t say she
was
married.” He pointed at the ring on her left hand. “I want no part of taking a man’s wife away.”
    Lamont no longer looked sure of himself. He stretched his neck like a huge turtle and examined Beth’s face. “There couldn’t be two women who look like her. She’s a liar, Sheriff, and obviously, so is he. The two of them are trying to pull something over on me.”
    “Yeah, and I’m starting to think I’m joining their ranks, ’cause damned if I don’t see matching gold bands on their hands. Seems to me like a man playing a joke wouldn’t have time to leave his deathbed to go with his crazy bride to pick out rings.”
    “I tell you it’s a trick. She’s not married to him. Just ask anyone who knows her. She’s spoiled and probably figured out she couldn’t get everything she wanted if she married me, so she’s made up this story. I’ve heard tell a hundred men have proposed to her and she’s said no to them all.”
    The sheriff nodded as if