The Texan's Dream by Jodi Thomas

to be so old. Like an old cottonwood, he’d twisted considerably with age.
    “ ’Course she’s alive. They wouldn’t bring us a dead bookkeeper.” Willis’s laughter made a hiccuping sound in his throat.
    “Well, they brought us a dead baby, didn’t they? Wolf said that’s what was in the box he set on the porch.”
    “You’re right about that,” Willis conceded as he glanced at the coffin Wolf had carefully place on a bench by the front door. “Touch her. See if she’s alive.”
    “I don’t know about that.” Luther shook his head so hard it appeared loose. “Maybe we could holler at her?”
    Willis jingled as he shifted nervously. “You holler and you’ll scare her for sure. I heard of women being scared plum to death.”
    Luther sounded frustrated. “Well, I ain’t never heard that. And I ain’t gonna sing to her.”
    Jonathan had listened to enough from the two retired Texas Rangers who lived on Catlin land. His grandmother used to call the worn-out lawmen, who drifted in from all parts of Texas, the Old Guard. Jonathan never thought to question their presence. They just came with the ranch he inherited. He saw them as his responsibility, just as they saw him as theirs.
    Moving between them, Jonathan said, “If you two gentlemen will step aside, I’ll take care of our ‘wee little bookkeeper.’ ”
    Willis jumped, always skittish of anyone standing too close. From the rattle of his spurs to his watch chain, he jingled. He reminded Jonathan of an old cat someone tied a bell around to give birds fair warning.
    Luther took longer to move aside. He relied heavily on a cane as he shifted his left hip that no longer cooperated as part of the whole. Like many of the men, he’d been wounded in his younger days and now the mended body suffered.
    Jonathan debated whether to awaken Kara. She’d spoken to him a few times, asking questions before she fell asleep, but he wouldn’t exactly say they were on friendly terms. When he’d carried her before, she hadn’t known. She was sure to guess this time when she woke up in a strange room.
    Carefully, he lifted her from the buggy. As she’d done the first night he met her, she curled into his chest without waking. He found himself wondering how many hundreds of times a father or brother must have lifted her while she was growing up.
    With Luther and Willis as escorts, Jonathan carried her up the steps to the huge ranch house built by Catlins three generations before.
    The ranch foreman leaned against the front door as Jonathan neared. Though the two men were within a year of the same age, Jason Newton was a head shorter than Jonathan and twice his width. He wore a twin set of Colts which added even more to his girth. “Might want to toss her back.” The foreman couldn’t hold in his laughter. “And hope for a bigger catch next time.”
    “Quiet down.” Luther swung at Newton with his cane. “You don’t want to wake up the bookkeeper, do you, Jason?”
    Newton ignored the advice. “So that’s what she is. I know the ledgers are in bad shape, but did you have to knock her out to get her way out here?”
    “No.” Jonathan frowned as he passed. “She just sleeps soundly, that’s all.”
    Newton joined the procession up the stairs. “My grandmother slept soundly like that. We buried her.”
    Jonathan had the strangest feeling that he wanted to protect Kara. He wished he hadn’t pushed so hard to get here early. Maybe he could have carried her in peace if they’d arrived after midnight.
    “Where we gonna put her?” Luther asked. “I don’t know if Angela fixed up one of the spare rooms. She didn’t say nothin’ about anyone coming. And you know Angela. If she knows anything, she shares it with the world.”
    “Hold her head up more,” Willis grumbled at Jonathan. “She can’t breathe the way you’re carryin’ her.”
    Jonathan groaned. Everything on the ranch had to be a committee decision. If Snort and H. B. were here, they’d be adding their advice to the mix. “I’ll put her in my room. I know it’s