His Small-Town Girl (Sutter's Hollow Book 1)

by Lacy Williams

  "I'm not going back to Austin," she said on a slight gasp.

  Her dad frowned. "Of course you are."

  She shook her head, but it didn't faze him.

  "We don't have to talk about it right now. When you're ready, I can get on the phone with the dean's office and get everything sorted out."

  He wasn't even listening to her.

  Cord seemed to sense her distress. "I think it's time you headed out."

  Her dad bristled. "Look—"

  "No, you look.” His voice was low, nearly a growl. “Look at what happened to your daughter."

  Dad's gaze slipped to her in the hospital bed and then away.

  "When Molly's ready to go home, she's leaving this hospital. With me."

  Dad’s mouth opened. He looked at her as if waiting for her to argue, but she would do no such thing.

  He seemed too shocked to speak as Cord ushered him out of the room.

  Overwhelming emotions brought tears to Molly's eyes, and she closed them. She felt like a regular watering pot these last twenty-four hours. Maybe longer than that. Since Toby had showed himself just outside the No Name's boundary.

  Cord said something indistinguishable to her dad and then closed the door. He returned to her, leaning his hip against the side of her bed.

  "You want to lay back down?"

  She shook her head, then nodded. What if her dad made a stink about Cord kicking him out of her room?

  Sometime during the hours she'd been here, she'd overheard Cord call himself her fiancé. She figured he’d said it so he'd be allowed to stay with her.

  But if her dad told the hospital it was a lie, Cord could get in trouble.

  And right now, he was the only steady thing in her life.

  She couldn't stop the tears that slipped free. She squeezed her eyes closed.

  He stopped the motor lowering her bed. "Am I hurting you? Is it your ribs?"

  "No," she whispered. "It's…" She opened her eyes, and more tears spilled out.

  He was right there, pressing a tissue into her hand. "Hey, hey." He brushed a kiss on her temple. "It's okay," he said gently.

  "I don't want to go back to school." She hated that her voice wobbled and broke in the middle of her sentence. She sniffled, dabbing at her face.

  "He can't make you do anything you don't want to do."

  She hiccupped a tiny sob. "What if he tells the nurses we're not engaged?"

  He brushed away another tear leaking out of the corner of her eye. His face was close, his expression serious. He wasn't discounting her emotions, even though they were running wild.

  "If that happens, we'll deal with it. If I need to, I'll get down on one knee and ask you properly."

  He cracked the slightest smile, and that, combined with his words, helped her draw the first moments of comfort since she'd woken up alone in the room.

  "That's right," he encouraged. "Take another breath. Not too deep. Don’t want to hurt your ribs."

  She did. And the oxygen helped her body regain the tiniest bit of equilibrium.

  She was acting crazy.

  And Cord had talked her through it, even teasing her about proposing.

  "Everything's gonna be okay," he whispered as her eyes grew heavy again. He brushed a kiss across each one of them when she closed them.

  Everything's gonna be okay.

  20

  Molly woke in the dark of night from fractured nightmares, but Cord's warm hand in hers soothed her back to sleep. His murmured words reminded her she was at the No Name and safe.

  It was late when she woke up. Bright sunlight streaming through the window illuminated Cord's framed picture, the one that had previously housed that awful newspaper article, which she'd re-wrapped after loading it with pictures.

  She let her eyes linger on it as the last vestiges of sleep fell away.

  She was glad to be out of the hospital after two and a half days. They'd released her yesterday. It had taken far too long for them to finalize her paperwork, and she and Cord hadn't arrived at the No Name until late in the evening. She’d been wiped out and gone straight to bed.

  She made her painful way to sitting, let her legs hang off the side of the bed. She tried to gather the remaining willpower to stand. Her ribs ached. Her side ached. They'd casted her wrist, and it ached too.

  The crash was a blur, but she thought she could remember hitting the steering wheel with her midsection. Her truck was so old it didn't have airbags. She was lucky she hadn't been hurt worse.

  The house was quiet. She knew that, after a few days of being away, Cord would need to check on the stock. He'd told her that Iris and Jilly were taking care of things in his absence, but he'd want to see for himself on this first morning back.

  Having some time to herself was a good thing, she told herself. She needed to figure out where she stood with the enigmatic rancher. He hadn't kissed her again since that first passionate embrace the morning before Toby had shown up.

  Not once during the long hours in the hospital.

  They'd mostly watched renovation shows on TV, where he critiqued the work other builders were doing, making her laugh.

  Last night, she'd thought for sure he would kiss her goodnight. He'd helped her up the stairs and down the hallway, waited while she'd run through a quick shower, her first since the accident.

  When she'd padded back into the hall, he'd told her he had to lock up and make a phone call, so he'd say goodnight in the hallway. He held her close, her face nestled into the hollow of his throat.

  When she had leaned back slightly, anticipating a kiss, he'd only pressed one to the crown of her head and left her to go to bed.

  Had he had a change of heart? What if he thought that, when she’d gone to the hardware store, she was trying to leave him?

  She needed to explain. She didn't like things unsettled between them.

  She wanted to know where she stood.

  He'd joked in the hospital about proposing but never brought it up again.

  Had it been a joke?

  Getting downstairs was a chore. Each step either jostled her broken rib or pulled at the stitches where the surgeons had removed the bullet. She clung to the banister.

  When she hit the landing, the thought that had been nagging her subconscious materialized. Maybe it had slipped through her consciousness in the middle of the night, while she'd been wrestling with nightmares. Or maybe she'd just had to recover to this point before she remembered.

  She saw her phone plugged into a charger on the kitchen counter and crossed to it. Tapped the screen to wake up the display, and her fears were confirmed.

  She'd lost a day somewhere in the hospital.

  It was Tuesday.

  She was in the mudroom, struggling into her right boot, fighting both the pain and the tears in her eyes, when the back door opened with a rush of cold air.

  Cord was there, his expression showing how surprised he was to have almost stumbled onto her.

  "Whoa. Hey." His hands closed over her shoulders, and he nudged her out of the way, her boot dropping to the floor as he got the back door closed.

  Standing up straight relieved the most pressing pain, and she blinked back her tears, praying he wouldn't see.

  "What are you doing?" he asked. He brushed her hair off the side of her face, and she knew he saw too much.

  "I never finished the tractors," she said.

  "You don't need to worry about that." He gestured toward the kitchen. "Why don't you sit down and let me make you some breakfast?"

  Her rising frustration at her limitations made her voice sharp. "I don't have time for breakfast. I need to get out there and get to work."

  "No, you don't."

  "Cord—"

  "Honey, the only thing you need to do right now is relax and recover."

  "But it's Tuesday!" she burst out.

  His hands closed over her upper arms. "Molly." The command in his voice left her no choice but to look up into his serious face. "Will
you please sit down? You're worrying me."

  The pain had settled sharply on her left side, so even though it made tears of frustration rise to her eyes, she let him lead her into the kitchen and settle her in a chair. He poured her a cup of coffee and placed it on the table before he joined her in the nearest chair. Their knees brushed when he sat down.

  "It's Tuesday," he said. "And the No Name isn't going anywhere."

  What?

  "While you were in the hospital, I called my brother."

  He looked chagrined as he rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand, maybe hiding his embarrassment. "When I thought you might die, I realized what was really important. You. Trying to imagine a life without you…”

  He stopped and cleared his throat.

  “I wanted you to have a place where you can recover. Someplace you don’t have to jump at every shadow. Thinking like that made it easier to swallow my pride and pick up the phone."

  She motioned for him to go on.

  "He floated me a loan." He grimaced. "He's saying I don't have to pay him back, but I refuse to think of it as anything other than a loan. The wire transfer went straight to the bank yesterday, and, as of this morning, the loan is current." He squeezed her knee with one big hand. "So you can quit worrying about those stinking tractors."

  Relief melded with happiness. "You're going to patch things up with your brother?"

  He leveled a stare at her. "You going to keep nagging me if I don't?"

  "Probably."

  A tiny grin pulled at one side of his mouth. "Figures."

  The pain in her side became breath-stealing, and his eyes flicked down to where she pressed her hand against the pulsing wound.

  He jumped up from the table. "Let me grab one of your painkillers." He was quick to place the pill and some water on the table in front of her. "You're not supposed to take that on an empty stomach." He turned to the sink and started washing up. "I'll get some toast and eggs on."

  She downed the painkiller and slugged the water, knowing she needed it. A shiver wracked through her, and she clasped her hands around the coffee mug, soaking up its warmth.

  Even through the haze of pain, she was happy for Cord. He needed this, to reconcile with his brother.

  "Your dad's been calling me," he said over his shoulder as he cracked eggs straight into the skillet. "I didn't know whether you'd want to see him again."

  "I-I don't know."

  She couldn't reconcile her feelings for her father. He'd left her to fend for herself when he should've been there for her. He'd listened to Sandy instead of trusting his own daughter. And it didn't seem like anything had changed. The way he'd talked in the hospital, it had sounded like he wanted to control her rather than help her get back on her feet and live her life the way she wanted. If anything, she wanted to be back on her feet firmly before she had to deal with him again.

  Cord was using a fork to whisk eggs in the frying pan when the front doorbell rang. Screeched actually, an electric jangle that told him it needed to be replaced before a spark from bad writing burned the whole place down.

  Another job to add to his list of to-do's.

  But instead of frustrating him, today he was grateful to be on the ranch.

  "You okay?" he asked Molly. "I'll be right back."

  He opened the front door to an older lady he recognized. She used to do readings to kids at the library. By the time he'd arrived in Sutter's Hollow, he'd been too old for that kind of thing. But sometimes he and West had gone to the library after school, and he would hide in the stacks nearby to listen.

  "Can I help you?" he asked.

  "This is for you." She extended a foil-covered casserole dish.

  What? He lifted his hands, palms facing her.

  "Go on now. Don't be shy," she insisted. "Everybody in town heard about your troubles. How that evil man was trying to kidnap her. A couple of friends from my reading group decided we'd better bring some meals for y'all. Take this."

  "I can't…" He didn't get the words out before she had put the casserole dish—surprisingly heavy—into his hands.

  "Tomorrow it'll be Norma Sue bringing your supper." She was gone before he could form another protest, into a truck that reminded him a little of Molly's, pre-crash. A younger man who might've been her grandson gave a two-finger wave before he started backing down the drive.

  Cord still didn't know quite what had happened when he got back to the kitchen. He set the casserole on the counter and went back to the eggs before they burned.

  "What was that?" Molly asked.

  "I am... not sure what just happened. The librarian lady just dropped off a casserole for me. For you. For us. And she said her friends from her reading circle are going to be bringing more."

  When he looked over his shoulder, her eyes were wide and a smile was playing around her lips. Like it was trying to break out, and she was holding it in.

  "What?" He ground out the question.

  "It's official. You're part of the community now. There's no way you're getting out now."

  He pushed the still-runny eggs to the back of the stove and turned to brace his hands on the counter behind him.

  "I guess it's a good thing I don't want out."

  She looked down at the table, toying with her coffee mug. It was still full, as if she hadn't touched the liquid yet. "You shouldn't stay for me." Her words were soft, so soft he almost couldn't hear them.

  "I'm not staying for you. I'm staying for me."

  She glanced up, her eyes asking all the questions.

  "I was running hard when I left Sutter's Hollow before. I'm not running anymore. From this place or from this thing between you and me."

  She shook her head. Opened her mouth. Shook her head again and lifted her coffee mug. After a sip, she said it down abruptly with a clink on the table. "Did you put cinnamon in this?"

  "What can I say? It's growing on me."

  She pushed up from the table, using her good hand and giving a little huff at the exertion. He saw her swipe her finger quickly under her eyes before she turned to face him.

  His stomach swooped. Had he read things wrong?

  "Look, Cord." She swallowed audibly. "Everything happened so fast. Our emotions got tangled up. What if—?"

  "It wasn't fast for me," he said, "when I fell for you. It was as slow as raindrops falling softly in a spring storm. It was you making coffee for me every day, your special way. To show you cared. Wiping my forehead when I was running that high fever. Putting in the hours for the tractor repairs, even when I was barely giving you the time of day."

  He took a step toward her. "It was every smile. That little wrinkle in your nose when you think I'm being ridiculous. The way you look at me." He came close and brushed her cheek with his fingers, cupping her jaw. "Molly, I was in love with you before Toby showed up on Friday morning and threw all of our plans out of whack. I was just too chicken to admit it to myself, much less to you."

  Her eyes welled with tears as she stretched up toward him. He met her kiss gently, conscious of her injuries and not wanting to cause her pain. She gripped his wrist where he still touched her face.

  She was the one who scooted closer, folding into his arms.

  He snugged his free arm around her waist and kissed her until they were both good and breathless, until hopefully she didn't have any arguments left for why they shouldn't be together.

  And when he moved slightly away, he saw the truth in her eyes.

  "I love you too," she whispered.

  He didn't deserve it, but he was going to spend the rest of his life trying to.

  Epilogue

  Nearly a month later, Cord stood on the front porch of Noah's little farmhouse.

  On the top of the hill at the next horizon, not even a quarter of a mile away, sat an empty two-story farmhouse. Nothing else around. Noah had hidden himself out here good.

  At his side, Molly took his hands and he glanced at her, grateful for her support.

  He'd
spent the last month working his butt off to make a start on getting the ranch back in shape. Calving season came and went, and then they'd vaccinated and tagged several dozen head that Mackie had either missed or just not taken the time to care for. He’d spent days fixing fence lines. He still didn't have a solution for the barn. They might not be in the red, but it was going to take years for the ranch to turn a profit, and he didn't see how he was going to rebuild the destroyed structure.

  But all of those were excuses. He hadn’t come to see Noah before because it had taken him this long to shore up his courage.

  Noah had a right to throw him off his property, if that's what he wanted. Cord was hoping for one face-to-face conversation with his friend, one chance to tell him how sorry he was.

  "We going to stand here all day, or are we going knock?" Molly asked.

  Cord resisted the urge to poke her side just under her ribs, where he'd recently discovered she was particularly ticklish. Her recovery had gone remarkably smoothly. She had only a small scar left where the bullet wound had been, and her cast was coming off in another week.

  It had been just as hard as he'd thought to keep her inside resting. Last week, he'd finally relented and let her go out and tinker with the tractors, though he’d insisted she not do any heavy lifting per the doctor's orders.

  Not everything had been easy. Two weeks ago, the water heater had nearly exploded. There'd been water damage and the expense of replacing the unit. But Molly had reminded him to be thankful that neither of them had been hurt and that the damage wasn't worse.

  He'd held her loosely in his arms. Having her close was reminder enough about what they'd been through. Almost losing her.

  Who cared about a stupid water heater when he had Molly?

  She'd insisted on a weekly date night, even if that meant staying in and eating together in the kitchen with a candle between them and no television on.

  He'd learned things about her he hadn’t known before, like how much she missed her mama and some of the precocious adventures she'd had as a child. It had been difficult for him, but he'd shared himself with her, telling her about past broken hearts and some old, old memories of his parents. It had been especially hard for him to open up about Mackie, and she'd suggested he see a counselor to dig through some of those old hurts.