The Texan's Dream by Jodi Thomas

me.”
    “How about we give it a try, old man?”
    Wolf bristled. “Old man! Why, you young pup.”
    To Kara’s amazement the two men lunged at one another. She couldn’t tell if they were fighting or hugging, but both were laughing.
    Finally, Wolf Hayward yelled he’d had enough, and Jonathan backed away.
    The giant took a deep breath. “You sure didn’t forget how to fight while you were away. I was afraid all that traveling around made you soft.”
    “One of these days I’ll take you to the ground and then you won’t feel the need to protect me.”
    Jonathan glanced at Kara and to her amazement, he winked, silently telling her that all the talk between the two men was just that … talk.
    “Wolf, this is our new bookkeeper for the ranch.”
    Wolf looked confused. “Bookkeeper? I thought she’d been hired to—”
    “I think she’ll go along with a plan I’ve thought of for Fort Elliot,” Jonathan interrupted. “But I didn’t want to tell her the details until we were closer.”
    “What details?” asked Kara. She suddenly had a feeling that there was even more to this job than the bookkeeping or Wells.
    Wolf growled at Jonathan as if he couldn’t believe Kara hadn’t been told about the stop at Fort Elliot. Jonathan only looked angry. “I’ll tell her later.”
    “You’ll tell her now,” Wolf insisted, “before the train leaves.” He tipped his hat to Kara. “I’ve got to load my horse and gear, then I’ll be back. Make sure he tells you every detail, miss. The decision is yours to make, not something you feel talked into no matter how much easier having you along might make the job.”
    The huge man disappeared the way he’d come. Jonathan turned toward the window, his hands pressing along the frame as though he could somehow push the opening wider and escape.
    Kara waited. “What is it?” she finally asked.
    “Wolf’s right.” Jonathan faced her. “You have a right to know what you’re getting into before we go any further.” His clear blue eyes met hers. “I do need a bookkeeper, and Clark did think I should hire one here in Kansas City because of the trouble with Wells. But there is another reason I needed a woman with me on the way back to Texas. Wolf saw it the minute he looked at you. It took me longer to figure it out.”
    Kara waited, wondering if his reason could possibly be horrible enough to make her get off the train and face the killer hired by the McWimberlys.
    Jonathan sat across from her and leaned forward, his hands almost touching her knees when he steepled them in front of him. “For most of my life,” he began slowly as if not wanting to tell her or anyone else the story, “I lived with a tribe of Apache. They’d traded for me with a band of Comanche who’d raided my parents’ homestead. The life we lived was hard, but they were fair to me. Among them I had one true friend, Quil. When I was almost fifteen, a group of trappers raided our village. They beat me half to death before they noticed my blue eyes. Then they took me to a fort south of Dallas and left me with the Texas Rangers stationed there. That’s where Wolf found me and took me to my sister.”
    Kara didn’t have to ask; she knew Jonathan had told this story very few times in his life.
    “Quil was the only one in his family who survived the raid. He was taken to a reservation in Oklahoma. I thought he’d disappeared or died until a few months ago. I was heading back to Texas, hoping to get home before my grandmother died. When I passed through Fort Elliot, I saw him among a group of renegades being shipped back to the reservation.”
    Jonathan lowered his head to his hands for a moment. “I almost didn’t recognize him. But he knew me, and I could see the hatred in his eyes. He blamed me for the raid that killed his family. I tried talking to him, telling him how hard I’d fought those first few years to get back to him and what was left of his tribe. But he didn’t believe me.”
    Jonathan leaned back and closed his eyes. Sadness hung thick in the tiny