A Little Time In Texas

A Little Time In Texas
Joan Johnston

Angela Taylor owes her life to the Texas Ranger who rescued her from a band of no-good renegades. The problem is that he'd pulled her out of danger–and straight into the twentieth century. Now Angela's as far from Texas, 1864, as she could be, stuck with a disbelieving man too handsome from her own good. She's either a woman out of time…or completely out of her mind. Dallas Masterson isn't sure what to believe.From her crazy clothes to her feisty ways, he's almost convinced that this sassy, smart-mouthed woman fought Comanches, buried her fiance, ran from the law and stole to survive…especially when she steals his horse to try and get back to the cave where he found her.Now, both Angela and Dallas are discovering that when it comes to things like the past–and falling in love–there's no place to go but the future.

Dear Reader,

What a delight to be able to share my one and only time travel novel with you again! I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of going back in time—knowing, of course, everything I know now! When I finally sat down to write a time travel novel, it turned out that, instead of stepping back into the past, I brought my Western heroine into the future.

What made it so much fun was imagining how a nineteenth-century woman would deal with all the modern mechanisms that make our work so much simpler…and our lives so much more complicated. It also gave me an opportunity to focus on how women’s rights, women’s fashions and women’s attitudes have changed over the past century—especially in relation to men! And imagine my hero’s surprise when the beautiful woman he rescues turns out to be from another time and place.

Those of you familiar with my HAWK’S WAY series have an extra treasure in store. You’ll be seeing the first appearance of Honey Farrell, the heroine of Honey and the Hired Hand, and Adam Phillips, the hero of The Rancher and the Runaway Bride. I had no inkling at the time I wrote A Little Time in Texas that these characters were destined to have their own books. But what fun to discover they did.

Happy reading!

A Little Time in Texas

JOAN JOHNSTON

For my sister Jennifer Eloise Wilkes,

who always embraces an adventure

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

1

Angela Taylor backed away until she came up against a wall of solid rock. She was trapped. She counted the odds. Six to one. Not good. She should have gotten off the road when she’d heard them coming. A woman walking alone was considered easy prey. She told herself to calm down, to breathe deeply. These no-good sidewinders didn’t know it, but there was more mettle in her little finger than most women had in their whole bodies. She wasn’t about to give up or give in. Her eyes narrowed, her stance widened, and her hands formed into fists. The six men surrounding her might eventually overwhelm her, but they would pay dearly before they did.

“Say there, little lady,” one cowboy drawled, “you gonna cooperate, or not?”

“I’m not.”

“Ain’t hardly enough of her to go around,” another cowboy complained.

“Don’t like that look on her face,” a third said. “Plain mean.”

Another laughed. “You scared, Slim? One woman ain’t no match for—”

Angel saw the cowboy’s mouth drop and his eyes go wide. At almost the same moment a large male hand clamped around her waist and she was jerked completely off her feet. She clawed and bit and kicked, but her captor didn’t let go. Angel could have wept when she realized that she’d been caught by such an old trick. There weren’t six cowboys. There were seven!

Only this one apparently didn’t intend to share her with the others. And they weren’t too happy about it.

“Hey, there! Where you goin’ with her?”

“That girl belongs to all of us! You bring her back here!”

“Hells bells! There’s a damned cave in that rock. Look out! He’s gettin’ away with her!”

“Come on! Let’s go after him!”

Angel would have screamed but she couldn’t breathe, the seventh man had such a tight hold on her. She struggled mightily in his arms but there was no question of escaping. The arm around her was thick with muscle. From the feel of the hard male body at her back, the rest of him was equally strong. Her feet hadn’t touched ground since he’d grabbed her. They were racing deeper and deeper into the cave, through a labyrinth of tunnels in the rock. It was pitch-black, and she had no idea how the cowboy was going to get them back out again.

Suddenly they stopped. There was no sound except the man’s harsh breathing and her grunts as she struggled against his strength.

Another fear, even deeper than that of the man, took hold of her. The dark. She was terrified of the dark. Abruptly she stopped struggling. Her breathing was tortured as fear overwhelmed her and held her paralyzed. Her eyes went wide, seeking the light.

There was none.

Angel whimpered, a pitiful, plaintive sound.

“Be still,” the seventh man hissed.

But she was in the grip of a terror more powerful than the threat of mere physical harm. The whimper became a low moan.

The kidnapper’s hand clamped over her mouth just as one of the cowboys in pursuit passed close enough that she could smell a month’s worth of sweat and leather and horse. Angel felt relieved, then horrified as the sound of boots on stone faded into the distance. Better to face six men in the light than one in the dark.

“You see anything?” one of the searching cowboys yelled to another.

“Not a damned thing!”

“We’ll never find them in the dark,” a third ranted.

“I’m gettin’ outta here. This place is spooked,” another said.

The voices moved away. They were giving up the hunt. Angel could still hear them. Voices carried in the dark.