Jodi Thomas - Texas Rain

Travis took the time to talk with a peddler who'd traveled from south of the post. He said he hadn't seen a soul all morning, so she couldn't have gone south. Any other direction would be open country and far too dangerous for a woman to travel alone. His little thief seemed to have vanished.

Travis rode on to the wagons hoping that she'd joined up with the rest somewhere along the north road. If she were on the bay, she would have been wise not to let anyone near the post see her ride away. The cowhands might not recognize Travis, but they'd know a McMurray horse.

Two hours later, when he caught up to the settlers snailing their way across a shallow river, he saw that Anderson had been right. No horse. No woman who'd called herself Molly was among them.

She'd disappeared.

The travelers were newly arrived from Germany and' few spoke English. He'd seen them at the dance, keeping mostly to themselves. Travis had assumed Molly was with them even though she'd tried to act like she was Irish. Since Anderson hadn't known her, she wouldn't have been a daughter of a local family. How could a woman walk alone into a dance and no one notice? Or, for that matter, walk away with a horse without a soul seeing her go?

Molly with the green eyes was growing more interesting by the minute.

He told himself he knew how she'd done it. Like him, everyone thought she belonged with someone else. No one at the dance knew everyone, so pretending to be with first one group and then another would have been easy for her.

Grinning, he realized that at one point she'd pretended to be with him and no one had questioned her.

William Ackland, the oldest and self-appointed leader of the group of Germans, offered to share their noon meal after Travis made sure all the wagons made it across the river. Ackland spoke a passable English and didn't mind acting as interpreter. The women, shyly at first, asked questions about what lay north-the people, the weather, the settlements past Fort Graham. The men asked about the land, and then what danger they might encounter.

When Travis finished answering their questions, he asked a few of his own. Not one remembered a redheaded woman at the dance. He was beginning to think she'd been a dream. Only a dream wouldn't have kissed him or stolen a horse. A dream wouldn't have spread her fingers over his chest as if needing to know he was real as dearly as he had wanted to hold her when he'd danced with her.

One woman said she met a young woman named Sally who might have had red hair beneath her scarf, but she seemed too afraid to even join the women in conversation. The German woman thought she must have been a local.

Travis doubted that would be his fearless Molly who'd run past a dozen men when she thought she was saving his life. But it made sense that she'd play more than one part; after all, she'd played two with him.

When the leader asked him to travel with them for a while and scout, Travis couldn't decline. Most of the men looked like fanners, and no one, as far as he could see, carried a gun handy. The new settlers had no idea how treacherous Texas could be. They thought their eight wagons would protect them.

"I'll go as far as the next trading post," he said to William Ackland. "From there maybe you can find a supply wagon heading for the fort. You all will be far safer traveling with men who know this part of the country."

As Travis swung back into the saddle, he decided heading north to find the redhead was as good a direction as any. If he didn't find her, he'd need the ride home to think of a reason he'd lost the bay.

Rainey Adams crawled out from under the sage-brush where she'd curled up to sleep and stared at the trading post a quarter mile away. Even the late sleepers from the night before had long ago left the area around the barn where the dance had been held. But to her surprise horses were gathered at the entrance to the mercantile. Too many, she thought. Something, besides everyday trade, must be going on.

Rainey pushed back through the brush and into the shadows of live oaks growing near the creek. This had been her refuge since she arrived almost a week ago, and the clearing was starting to feel like home. The branches, newly green, formed a roof and the rocks were her furniture. The few belongings she had were safely hidden away in her traveling bag behind a fallen log.

She'd paid for passage on a freight wagon, but asked to be let off before they reached the trading post. She wanted time to study the place before going into the little settlement. A woman alone needed to be careful. She'd watched those coming and going, waiting for the right people to travel on with before announcing herself. She had one more leg to her journey, or at least she hoped there would be only one more stop. When she'd reached Galveston, she'd thought to settle there, but the town was wild, and the only boardinghouse for women that she'd found had been loud and dirty. Though her money was getting dangerously low, she didn't bother to look for work in Galveston.

Rainey also knew that if her father followed her, the coastal town would be his first stop. She would be safer to journey inland. She'd met several families on the ship from New Orleans, and most of them were moving north, traveling with the freighters or spacing their wagons between them for safety.

One older driver, with hands crippled up from years of holding the reins on a mule team, offered her a ride as far as the Anderson Trading Post if she'd do all the cooking when they camped and pay for half of the food. She kept her bargain. He ate most of the food as they traveled north dropping off families at farms and settlements along the way. By the time they reached the Anderson Trading Post, she'd been his last company to leave.

The old freighter insisted she take a blanket and half the remaining food. He also offered her a pistol, but Rainey refused.

She'd waved goodbye to him, then disappeared into the trees at the last bend in the road before the trading post. By the time she'd worked her way through the brush to where she could see the post clearly, the freighter had unloaded and was heading back south. She'd almost waved him down and asked for a ride back to the nearest town, but he'd told her the fort lay three or four days further and he'd heard one of the officer's wives was sickly and had been asking for a nurse. He'd made her promise to wait until a group of wagons was heading that direction because he claimed one wagon alone wouldn't be safe from this point on.

Rainey agreed. And thanked him for the help. She knew nothing of nursing, but she had taught school since she was thirteen and figured it was time to give nursing a try. That is, if she could get to the fort and if the poor woman were still alive and in need of a nurse.

Frowning, Rainey sat on a rock a few feet from the stream. The ifs in her life were starting to outnumber the maybes , and that was never good news.

Last night, at the dance, she'd had a clear plan. She picked out a good horse, borrowed it without anyone seeing, and hid it near the stream. After dawn, she hoped to blend in with the eight wagons heading north. The German farmers would be miles away before they noticed they had a stranger among them. If she was lucky, they might even think someone in their party had invited her. She'd played that game to get on the boat from New Orleans and had been surprised at how well it worked.

But this morning nothing worked as she planned. She'd overslept. The horse wandered off and was nowhere in sight. The Germans must have left before dawn. Bad luck followed her like a hungry mouse running toward the smell of ripe cheese. Maybe she should develop a new strategy and plan to fail; surely then she'd succeed at something besides making a mess of her life.