Texas Lightning (Texas Time Travel Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Chapter One

  Texas Lightning

  Texas Time Travel Series 1

  By

  Caroline Clemmons

  Copyright © 2018 by Caroline Clemmons

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Central Texas, 1896

  Treachery!

  A jagged flash of white-hot energy sliced through the canyon shadows, highlighting five men herding cattle into a makeshift corral below. Penny gasped, dadgummit, there they were. She crept closer to the overlook. Danged if her suspicions hadn’t proven true. The nerve of Jim Belton, thinking he could put something over on her. He might be her foreman now, but not for long.

  Oppressive heat hung so heavy no air remained to breathe, and a bad storm threatened. Sweat beaded on her face and trickled between her breasts. No breeze stirred. Lightning flashed as clouds moved in, but the moon peeked through overhead.

  She recognized that yellow-bellied coyote Jim joining with the rustlers. And after he’d been telling her how hard he’d been working to locate her missing cattle. Helping himself to her cattle was more like it. Well, now she knew what she had to do.

  If this bunch thinks they can get around me because I’m a woman rancher, then my name isn’t Penelope Jane Terry. No one gets away with cheating me!

  Flashes warned the heat lightning storm rapidly approached. A sudden breeze swirled around her, a sure sign the storm was eminent. Riding the range was dangerous in any storm, especially one with lightning. She’d linger a few minutes longer to see if she recognized any of the rustlers with Jim, then she’d skedaddle for home. Lightning’s discharge rocked the ground and sped her heartbeat.

  Penny eased forward and crouched to gaze around a massive prickly pear cactus. Seeing Jim laugh as he spoke to another rider spiked her temper sharper than cactus needles. She clamped a lid on her anger—no sense committing suicide by giving herself away. That would please her worthless cousin all too well.

  Charlie was already furious that she’d inherited the ranch instead of him. He’d known all his life that the ranch would go to her. What made him think that suddenly he had any right to her ranch?

  As if he could run the spread without losing everything within two years. That’s what he’d done with Uncle Charles’ store. Charlie couldn’t even keep his wife and son fed without help from his Miller in-laws.

  A pebble crunched and she pivoted, still in a crouch.

  “Hello, little cousin.” Charlie’s smile appeared cold and deadly in the moonlight—and so did the six-shooter he pointed her way.

  “You no-good varmint. I might have known you’d be in on this rustling.” Too late to pull her own revolver, but she jumped to her feet and faced her polecat cousin.

  “I’ll get that ranch one way or the other. Should have been mine anyway.”

  Penny grabbed a large pad of cactus and yanked it loose. Thank goodness for her leather riding gloves. A large bolt of heat lightning flashed much closer. Charlie winced. Penny lunged and smashed the cactus onto Charlie’s face. She ran for her horse, Star.

  “Yeeoww! You stupid bitch. I’ll get you for that.” He yelled to his cronies, “Up here! The brat’s up here.”

  She raced to where her mare, Star, stood and jumped into the saddle.

  Penny shouted, “Run, Star, run!” Hooves pounded behind her but she dared not pause to see if others had joined Charlie in the chase.

  Fear clutched at her chest. No one would come to her rescue. Only Jake, her cook, knew where she’d gone. Lawsy, he’d warned her not to go alone, but she hadn’t known who to trust. If she didn’t return, it would be his word against Jim’s and Charlie’s. Who knew how many of her ranch hands had joined the rustlers?

  The whine of a bullet hissed past her. She pulled Daddy’s Colt and fired over her shoulder behind her. When she’d emptied the Colt’s bullets she holstered the revolver. She heard shouts as rustlers pursued her, and knew their horses galloped faster than her little mare.

  If they catch me, I’m a goner for sure. There’s no shelter, nowhere to hide. I have to outrun them to the house. Will I even be safe there with only Jake to help me?

  “Come on, Star, dig in your heels, girl.” The sweet little mare was not built for this kind of race.

  Clouds covered the moon, and flashes of lightning boomed closer. A bullet sent her hat flying from her head and grazed her ear lobe. Dadgum! They were going to kill her for sure.

  She pulled the Winchester from its saddle scabbard. Levering the rifle, she looked behind her and fired. The closest rider fell from his horse. Dear Lord, had she killed her own cousin?

  A giant blaze of light shook the earth in front of her. Before Penny could rack another bullet into the chamber, Star reared then fell. Penny jumped free, the rifle still in her hands. She hit hard. Cradling the firearm to her, she rolled down an incline into darkness.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “What the devil?” Penny sputtered and swiped her arm across her face. Danged if she didn’t feel like she’d been dragged through a knothole backwards. Dark night revealed no hint of the moon to shed light. Raindrops had wakened her and wind whipped more streams of rain her way. She held still for a moment to regain her composure.

  The rustlers…

  Her right hip hurt like a sonofagun. She felt for her revolver and found the holster empty of Daddy’s special Colt. Dropped out when she fell or rolled downhill.

  Feeling around, she located the source of her most painful injury, the Colt under her. No wonder her hip ached. Pausing, she brushed grit off the revolver and reloaded before she slid the firearm into its holster.

  She sat in a cave-like fissure at the base of a ravine. Must have been knocked out when she fell from her horse. At least she still had her Colt and Winchester. A bolt illuminated the night and thunder rumbled. Fear silenced her while she surveyed her surroundings.

  Another sheet of lightning split the sky and shook the earth. From the torrent of water running down the ravine, this downpour would soon flood her hiding place. She needed to get out while she could.

  Listening for the rustlers, she heard nothing except the cloudburst. The lightning moved away with distant thunderclaps. No shouts or yells from the men hunting her echoed through the black night.

  How long had she been out? Had those scurvy coyotes searched and given up or were they waiting for her to emerge? Co
uld they be waiting at the ranch for a showdown when she returned?

  Slowly she crawled out of the tiny rock cleft. Struggling up the ravine’s mud-slicked sides, she skidded and slid back to the bottom. She landed on her rear with a spine-tingling splat. Cursing the men who’d chased her, she clambered up again.

  Before she reached the crest, she lost her balance and slithered down the ravine on her stomach. Muddy water slapped her in the face at the end of her glide. On all fours, she tried again, recovering the Winchester along the way. As she inched over the edge, she kept a careful watch for anyone lurking near.

  Her horse was nowhere in sight. I feel like I’ve been swimming in mud, but this rain will soon wash the grime away. Probably ruin my best riding skirt. At least I have Daddy’s guns for protection. Surely Jake will send someone searching when Star shows up riderless—unless the rustlers had the little mare. What if they had harmed Jake?

  Dear Lord, don’t let those skunks hurt Jake.

  With no lightning to illuminate her way, the night remained dark as a cellar. She knew this ground like her own bedroom, but she must be almost two miles from home. Letting out a string of curse words, she cradled her rifle and began walking. Ranchers never walked anywhere. That’s what horses were for.

  Within half a mile, heavy rainfall had saturated her boots inside and out, and each step squished. Drenched clothes clung to her skin. The leather skirt’s weight was like walking with an anvil tied to her waist. She shivered from cold rivulets that ran down her face and sluiced down her body. Only her anger fueled her.

  She never cried, but—mud or no mud, storm or no storm—she had a strange longing to plop down right here and bawl. None of this trouble ever would have happened if Daddy hadn’t died last year. At least he’d taught her everything about ranching and she was good at her job. She cursed again.

  No one alive could run her ranch better than she could. No one. No one had the right to steal her cattle just because she was a woman.

  The longer she walked, the madder she got. She cursed the rustlers, her foreman, and her good-for-nothing cousin.

  “Daddy,” she shouted. “How could you go and get yourself killed?”

  “Mama, how could you die when I was a little instead of sticking around to raise me?”

  Penny didn’t forget the prissy teachers at that female academy her Daddy had made her attend for two long years, or the catty other students. When she’d cussed at everyone she could think of, she started over on each one.

  She’d show everyone that—woman or not—no one was taking her ranch away from her. The land had been in her family for sixty years, ever since Sam Houston himself gave her granddaddy a Republic of Texas Land Grant in 1836. She’d see it stayed in her family for however long she lived. She hoped that was a long time—in spite of those rotten rustlers.

  Wait until she got home. If Jake was still all right, she’d send him for Sheriff Cravens. No waiting until daylight and give those cowards time to escape—or to strike. She’d see each of them locked in jail. They’d realize they’d tangled with a wildcat before she finished with the rotten polecats.

  Finally, the lights of home shone faintly in the distance. Nothing had ever looked so good. She couldn’t keep going much further. Damned if blisters hadn’t burned on her heels from walking so far in wet boots. She was near frozen in these wet clothes.

  Wait.

  How could she be so cold now when the heat earlier had nearly suffocated her? Nevermind, she just wanted to be home, safe, and in her bed. There stood the fence next to the paddock. Almost home now, keep walking.

  Don’t pass out, don’t fall. One foot in front of the other. You can do this.

  Stumbling from fatigue, she labored up the front steps onto the long wrap-around porch and bumped into a rocker. Who’d put that there? Just like Jake to move stuff around without telling her. How she’d love to sink into it and rest. First, she had to send for the sheriff and find out if Star came home.

  At the door, she paused and listened for men talking—rustlers waiting to waylay her. She heard no sound. Lights shone so brightly, Jake must have waited up for her with every lamp in the house lighted. She eased opened the door, listened again, then walked in and leaned her rifle against the stair’s banister.

  “Jake? Jake? Did Star come home?” She unbuckled her gun belt and hung it on the newel post—not something she’d do under ordinary circumstances.

  Tugging off her gloves, she avoided a couple of cactus spines stuck in the fingers. How had they remained there without her feeling them? No matter, she sat down on the third stair tread to remove her boots.

  She should have gone around to the back door, but she couldn’t walk another step. Weariness and sore muscles overwhelmed her and she wanted nothing more than to shuck out of her wet things and lie in her nice bed—if she could summon the energy to walk upstairs. She heard footsteps approaching and raised one foot. Eyes closed, she leaned back against the stairs.

  “Had me a passel of trouble, Jake. Help me get these danged boots off, would you? Then I’ll tell you all about it.” A dog’s cold nose pressed against her cheek. She jumped and pushed her hair out of her eyes. A black and white dog stared at her. “Who are you?”

  “His name’s Rascal.” An unfamiliar baritone said, “He’s mine.”

  She looked up.

  Whoa! The man who faced her wasn’t Jake. In spite of her wariness, her mouth dropped open in awe. Instead of her arthritic middle-aged cook, this man was young and tall and definitely fit. And handsome. Unbelievably, mesmerizingly handsome.

  He might be as comely as a fairy tale prince, but the regal disapproval on his face appeared anything but friendly.

  Energized by fear, she jumped to her feet and grabbed her rifle. “Who the heck are you?”

  He crossed his arms and ignored the Winchester pointed at his middle. His dark hair glistened in light that seemed too bright. Dark blue eyes had tiny creases at the corners, as if he laughed a lot.

  He sure wasn’t laughing now.

  “I might ask you the same question. And what are you doing tracking in mud and dripping water all over my foyer?”

  “Your foyer? This is my house, and it’s been my house since my daddy and I built it six years ago. Don’t you think for one minute I’ll let you steal my home.”

  The dog growled, the fur of his ruff bristling.

  The man snapped his fingers. “Quiet, Rascal.”

  Who was this man? He didn’t look the type but maybe he was one of the men stealing her cattle. Could he and his dog have been waiting for her? She gripped the rifle with all her strength. Why hadn’t Jake shown up to help her?

  Oh, no, had they killed Jake?

  He glared at her. “Lady, I don’t know who you are, but this is my house, get it? I grew up here. My daddy grew up here. My granddaddy grew up here.”

  Penny’s knees trembled, but she fought fear to appear strong. “Don’t try and trick me. The Double T ranch was started by my granddaddy in 1836. No con man is going to steal it from the Terry family, and you can take that to the bank.”

  “The Terry family hasn’t owned this since Penelope Terry died in 1896. Knights have owned it since then.” He threw up his hands. “Hell, why am I arguing with a crazy woman?”

  “Crazy?” She was about to light into him when the first part of his statement hit her. “Hey, what do you mean, I died? I’m as alive as you, whoever you are.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? I see you’re alive. I said Penelope Terry died. Are you hard of hearing as well as nuts?”

  Increasing fear spiraled inside Penny, knotting her stomach. How could this man think her dead? What kind of trick was he working? Had she been conked out long enough that Jake sent men out to look for her and they decided she’d died?

  Forcing herself to appear calm when she shook inside, Penny stood erect. “I’m Penelope Jane Terry and you can see I’m very much alive. Are you in with the rustlers trying to steal my ranch?” br />
  He started to reach for the rifle barrel but she stepped back and cocked the gun. He exhaled and motioned her into the parlor. Light filled the room when he touched a place on the wall. He walked near the fireplace and pointed to the painting hanging above the mantel.

  “That’s Penelope Terry. Her father—Harmon Terry—had that portrait done just before he sent her off to finishing school. Way I heard it, the schooling didn’t take and she was just as wild when she got back home.”

  His comment stung but she had other things to worry about. Penny looked at her portrait over the fireplace, then back at him. “Don’t you think I know when that was painted? I sat for the infernal artist for two boring weeks. I thought he’d never finish the thing. Had to argue to convince him to leave off my freckles. That was before Molly showed me how to make them fade.”

  He looked her up and down and shook his head. “You? Penelope Terry was a beautiful woman. I hardly think a drowned rat looks anything like the woman in that painting.”

  Touching her dripping hair, she wondered how bad she looked. “I’m hardly at my best after walking two miles in that downpour.” She suddenly became aware of the room’s furnishings. She turned slowly. “Just another darn minute, what have you done to my parlor? Where’s my furniture?” She touched the oddly-shaped sofa. “Who put this in here?”

  She heard someone approach behind her and turned. A man who looked very much like the first, but maybe younger, stood in the doorway.

  “Hey, Jake, what are you carrying on about? And who’s our armed visitor?”

  Penny whirled back to face the first man. “You’re not Jake. What have you done with him?”

  “Ma’am, you are sadly confused. I am Jacob Knight and folks call me Jake. This is my brother Bartholomew, and folks call him Bart.” He turned to his brother. “This lady thinks she’s Penelope Terry and that this is her house.”

  Bart folded his arms and glared at her. “Look, Lady, I don’t know what kind of scheme you’re running, but you can forget trying to con my big brother.”