Cowboy Fantasy

Cowboy Fantasy
Ann Major

When North Black whistled, everyone came running - except her.And it was Melody Woods he most wanted at his fingertips. The memory of her beautiful body, of that night, coiled around his heart - and squeezed. She'd slipped from his bed, innocence intact - and while she traveled the world, his immense desire only grew more beastly.Now, word on the Texas wind was that Melody was back…and wanted North. But he'd never tangle with that spitfire again…or would he?…

Cowboy Fantasy

Ann Major

ANN MAJOR lives in Texas with her husband of many years and is the mother of three grown children. She has a master’s degree from Texas A&M at Kingsville, Texas, and is a former English teacher. She is a founding board member of the Romance Writers of America and a frequent speaker at writers’ groups.

Ann loves to write; she considers her ability to do so a gift. Her hobbies include hiking in the mountains, sailing, ocean kayaking, traveling and playing the piano. But most of all she enjoys her family. Visit her Web site at www.annmajor.com.

Contents

Prologue

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

Prologue

South Texas

The borderlands

Black feathers spun lazily above in a cloudless, azure sky.

Teo’s head hurt as he lay on the hard earth watching the big black birds. His stomach throbbed queasily.

He didn’t know where he was, only that he was somewhere north of the border, somewhere in Tejas. Somewhere on a huge ranch the coyote had called El Dorado.

Teofilo Perez was ten years old and he was dying.

“Mamacíta!”

Teofilo’s hands clawed sand. Then he remembered.

She’d sent him off to scavenge another part of el dompe with Chaco and his gang. Then she and Papacíto had run away.

When Teo had stayed up all night waiting for them, Chaco had laughed.

“They aren’t coming back. It happens all the time. Todo el tiempo.” Chaco had stared indifferently toward the north. “There are many orphans in el dompe. Left behind when their families disappear over the wire. My father…too.”

Now Chaco was gone as well.

Sweat stung Teo’s eyes like hot tears. Where was he?

Burrs and thorns bit into his back. Here there were snakes and spiders in the high grasses; wild animals, too. If Teo didn’t get up and go on, he’d die.

Then it would all be for nothing.

He was burning up, from the inside out; starving, too. He felt as thirsty for water as a bone-dry sponge. Then the coyotes started howling again, and he tasted the coppery flavor of his own panic.

He had to get up and catch Chaco. He had to keep walking north through the endless sandy pastures choked with mesquite and huisache that led to el norte.

To Houston. To Tiá Irma.

Chaco had warned him to stay out of the open, so La Migra couldn’t spot him from their helicopters.

Teo felt too weak to stand, so he lay on the hard, packed ground, his swollen, sunburned lids blinking, his eyes blurring every time he opened them. Through the screen of his dense lashes a too-bright sun spun above the stunted oak trees, shooting diamond-patterned pricks through the branches. The orange orb grew bigger and bigger until it exploded in a blinding brilliance that flooded the white-heat of that harsh, unforgiving sky.

His last meal had been breakfast two days ago—two boiled eggs and three tortillas that had been gritty and stale. His hands fisted again; he tried to swallow, but his tongue was too swollen and his throat too raw and gritty.

Fat black flies buzzed. Some mysterious creature grunted and snorted in the thicket. Teo shivered as he imagined the claws of a puma or the teeth of a coyote.

“Ayudame, Dios.”

He wanted to go home, not to Cartolandia, which was pocho for Cardboard Land, the barrio where they’d lived near el dompe in Nuevo Laredo. No, he wanted to go back home to his mountainous village, Tepóztlan. But there were no jobs there for Papacíto, no future for any of them. Nothing.

Nada, nada, mi hijo.

Papacíto had said those same words a week ago after government tractors and bulldozers had crushed their shack and bedraggled garden along with thousands of others and left them homeless again.