Willow

by Norah Hess

  It took Willow and Jess close to two hours to scrub the stove and table, then the dishes and cooking utensils. But at last, after changing the water three times, the job was done and Willow was wondering what to serve for lunch.

  "Why don't you fry some ham, scramble some eggs and make some bakin' powder biscuits," Jess suggested. "Jules hasn't had food like that for months. He'd really enjoy it."

  "So would I," Willow remarked as her hungry stomach growled. "Where do you keep your supplies?"

  "In the larder, through that door to your right."

  Willow opened the door to a good-sized room that was dry and cool. The thick stone walls made it ideal for storing staples and perishable foods.

  As Willow glanced around, she was surprised that such a well-to-do man didn't have his storeroom better stocked. Most of the many shelves were empty. She noted that there was an ample supply of bagged beans, rice, corn meal and flour. Also strings of hot peppers and cans of tomatoes.

  On a bottom shelf there were a few potatoes that were sprouting eyes half an inch long, and hanging from the ceiling was a ham, which had never been cut into, and a slab of bacon in its original state.

  She looked at Jess, frowning. "Who does the ordering of supplies?"

  "It's always been the housekeeper's job. It's not hard to figure out who has been doin' that for a while."

  "I wonder where the eggs are?" Willow searched among the bags and cans of tomatoes.

  "There should be a fresh dozen around here some-where," Jess said. "The farmer who supplies us eggs and milk and butter, and vegetables in the summer, dropped them off the day before yesterday. We had to throw away three dozen that Nina let spoil because she didn't want to cook them. Not once did she make us a decent breakfast."

  "Well, you're going to have a decent lunch," Willow said with a smile, "for I have found the eggs. They were jammed behind some jars of jelly that evidently Nina didn't want to bother with either."

  "If that don't put the lid on it," Jess exclaimed angrily. "She was hidin' them from Jules in case he told her to fry some for him."

  By the time Jules and Smitty returned from the stables and washed up on a small porch off the kitchen, the table had a bright flowered cloth on it, and in the center was a large platter with scrambled eggs on one side and thick slices of ham on the other. Next to it was a napkin-lined basket of biscuits, flanked by a bowl of red gravy.

  Willow was filling the cups with clear, dark coffee when the men entered the kitchen and sat down at the table.

  "Biscuits!" Jules almost moaned his pleasure as he took two and placed them on his plate. "I'd almost forgotten what they looked like."

  Willow and Jess gave him a scornful look, which he didn't miss. He knew what they were thinking: that he had given up good hearty meals in order to sleep with his housekeeper. He knew that it might look that way, but they were mistaken. He had put up with Nina because he had been too busy working the ranch to go looking for a new housekeeper. Mrs. Ames's letter had been a godsend.

  Everyone was hungry and the only sound in the room was the scraping of silverware being put to use. There wasn't even a break in the eating when Nina walked into the kitchen and announced that she was riding into El Paso to begin looking for a new job. Willow and Smitty glanced up at her, but Jules and Jess kept on eating. Nina shot a glance at the table, the cloth on it and the mouth-watering food everyone was shoveling into their mouths. With a toss of her head and a curl to her lips, she flounced through the kitchen door.

  Jess stopped eating long enough to mutter, "Good riddance to bad baggage."

  Lunch was finished and coffee had been served when Jess said, "Nephew, tell Pedro to send his wife over to give Willow a hand getting the worst of the dirt off everything. That Nina has left the place disgustingly dirty."

  Avoiding looking at Willow, Jules nodded. A short time later he nodded again when Willow, refilling the coffee cups, stopped at his chair waiting to see if he wanted more.

  He watched her tilt the pot over his cup, her slender, tanned fingers curled around its handle, and the thought of them on his body made him almost jump from his chair. He hoped that Willow wouldn't glance down and see the growing bulge in his trousers.

  Damn, he swore silently. What is wrong with me? He had known many women and none of them had ever affected him as this one did. And Willow was grieving for a man who had practically left her at the church door.

  He couldn't imagine any man being fool enough to do that. Just making love to Willow every night would be enough for him. The thought of holding that tall, slender, softly naked body against his own, her breasts flattened out against his bare chest, made sweat pop out on his forehead.

  By the time Jules left the table, he was wondering if he hadn't made the biggest mistake of his life by letting Willow Ames become his housekeeper.

  He knew in the same breath that he wouldn't have it any other way. For he felt that in time she would forget the damn fool of a man who'd jilted her, and when she did, Jules Asher would be ready to slide in and take his place. Lord, he hoped it didn't take her too long. How long could a man go around with a perpetual arousal pressing against his fly?

  Pedro's wife, Rosie, came to the hacienda just as Willow and Jess were finishing cleaning up the kitchen. She was young, pretty and a little on the plump side. She had a ready smile and was eager to please.

  When Jess had introduced the two young women, she took herself off to her room for a rest and a nap. "You don't have to bother with my room," she said. "I saw to it that Nina kept it clean."

  Willow and Rosie pitched in then. "We'll change the bed linens first," Willow said and directed Rosie to Nina's old room. The thought of touching that one's sheets revolted her.

  When all the soiled sheets and pillowcases had been taken to the small laundry room off the kitchen, Willow and Rosie went from room to room, taking down limp drapes and curtains, which joined the rest of the things to be washed. The windows were washed then, the tiled floors scrubbed and the heavy, dark furniture polished to a high gloss.

  While Willow cleared away a winter's accumulation of ashes from the big fieldstone fireplace and scrubbed the raised hearth, Rosie gathered up all the bright Mexican scatter rugs and took them outside, where she hung them over a clothesline and beat the dust and grit out of them with a wide, long handled beater.

  It was nearing four o'clock and time for Willow to be thinking about starting supper when she and Rosie looked at each other with wide, pleased smiles on their lips. They had worked like dogs, but the results of their labor were impressive.

  "Now the hacienda looks like it did when old Maria took care of it," the pleasant young woman said. As she was leaving, she paused at the kitchen door and asked shyly, "Shall I come tomorrow to help you do the laundry? There is a mountain of things to be washed."

  Willow saw the hope in the beautiful dark eyes and realized that more money in Rosie's household would be welcome. She didn't know how her boss would feel about paying for extra help, but if he objected, she would pay Rosie from the small amount of money she had brought with her.

  "I'd be happy to have your help, Rosie." She smiled. "Shall we get an early start?"

  "I'll be here bright and early, seňorita." The young woman's eyes shone with excitement as she took off to walk swiftly to the stables where her husband worked.

  "Where do Rosie and her husband live?"

  Willow asked Jess a short time later when the old woman came in from a small, walled patio off the kitchen, where she had been sunning herself.

  "They live with Pedro's brother and his wife and eight children in a three-room shack near the Rio Grande. I guess it's a constant struggle to feed so many mouths. Still, every spring the sister-in-law has another baby in her belly."

  "Why do they keep having more when it's hard to feed the ones they have?"

  Jess gave a short laugh. "Accordin' to Pedro's brother, it's because they're strict Catholics. But it's my opinion that the fool thinks it makes
him a big man, being able to keep his wife expectin' all the time. He don't seem to understand that any man can do that if he wants to. There's nothin' manly about it. The manly thing to do is not to have a pass el of younguns you can't take care of His father used to brag that he sired fourteen children on his wife. He stopped boastin' the day Jules's father reminded him that half of those children had died young, and that his wife had died when she was thirty-four from so many pregnancies. That shut the braggart up, at least around my brother-in-law. A couple years later he got himself killed in some Mexican whorehouse."

  Later, as Willow turned steaks in the frying pan and mashed potatoes for supper, she wondered what kind of husband Jules Asher would make. Of course, first some fool would have to marry the arrogant devil.

  Chapter Four

  When Jules stepped out of the bunkhouse, a full moon had risen, flooding the ranch buildings with a soft, yellow radiance. He stood in the shadow of a large cottonwood his grandmother had planted beside a two-room adobe house that was to be her home for ten years while the ranch of today was being built.

  His gaze focused on the sprawling hacienda that had replaced the little adobe, which had been added onto and was now a part of the bunkhouse.

  He imagined Willow asleep in the room across the hall from his, and pictured himself curled behind her, holding one of her perky little breasts, which would just fit his hand.

  He dreamed on. They made long, slow love time and again, her throaty moans mingling with his harsh breathing as his hips rose and fell in the valley of her hips.

  With a soft oath, Jules became aware of his breathing now and found it harsh and fast, as it had been in his imagination. Also, he had an erection so hard, it threatened to pop the buttons off his fly. He looked over his shoulder at the small cabin where Nina now resided. A light shone in the window. She was still up, no doubt waiting for him. He sighed. He knew she would welcome him in her bed, despite their harsh words earlier. But, somehow, the vision of a tall, slender woman with long blond hair made Nina's lush charms less appealing.

  Willow gave a blissful sigh as she sank back in the hip-tub of scented water. It felt heavenly as the heat penetrated her tired and sore muscles. She had put in a day's work as hard as any on her father's ranch.

  There was a difference, though. Today she had worked hard, but at her own pace, enjoying the task of uncovering the beauty of the fine old furniture hidden beneath dirt and grime. At home her father had made a drudge out of her, always driving her to do more, never satisfied until he had pushed her until she was ready to drop.

  Everything about the Asher ranch house was different from her home in New Mexico. There the floors were wide, untreated boards with a few rag rugs scattered about, so thin and worn that one's feet were always tripping over them. The few pieces of furniture were constructed from such cheap wood that no amount of polishing brought a shine to them.

  The bedrooms were sparsely furnished with a bed, dresser and washstand. There were no heavy drapes at the windows, no colorful spreads on the beds.

  As Willow finished her bath and dried off with a soft, thick towel, she hoped that her work would satisfy her overbearing boss so that she could stay on in this beautiful house.

  When she had slipped on a thin, worn gown, she looked at the tub of water and decided that she would drag it out onto the porch tomorrow and empty it. She wasn't quite ready for bed, though, so she walked down the hall, through the kitchen—sparkling clean now—and out onto the small patio.

  In the deepening twilight, she sat down on an ornate stone bench and leaned back, unaware that a tall, lean man stood nearby, gazing at the house, having erotic thoughts of her.

  How was her mother tonight? she wondered as the old hound came and by down at her feet. Ruth was probably as worn out as Willow had been before her bath. Pa would have been outraged at her disappearance and would have taken his anger out on the frail little woman. He would have ordered that, since she wouldn't tell him where his worthless daughter had gone, her mother could do her work.

  Pain clouded Willow's eyes. There was no way bone-thin Ruth Ames could do half the work Willow did in a day. Tears glimmered in her eyes. If only she could free her mother from the life of misery she had lived for so long. There must be a way, and somehow she would find it.

  The sound of footsteps crunching on the hard-packed soil roused Willow from her dreary thoughts.

  Was the gate locked? She stood up and as quietly as possible walked to the wrought-iron gate and peered through it.

  In the moonlight she saw the receding back of her boss. Where was he going at this time of evening? she wondered. She felt a jolt in her midsection when he turned onto the path leading to a small house where a light shone in the window. Nina now lived there. He was going to visit her. He might have moved the woman out of his house, but he hadn't moved her out of his life.

  She was so upset that Jules was having a rendezvous with the woman, she was hardly aware of returning to the bench and sitting down. "I don't even like the man, so why should it bother me that he will make love to her tonight?" she asked herself angrily.

  The more Willow thought, the more confused she became. Finally she gave up in frustration and went back into the house. In her room, she turned back the covers and crawled onto the softness of the mattress. Worn out physically and emotionally, she fell asleep almost immediately. Consequently, she missed hearing Jules walk down the hall to his room a very short time after she had seen him going to Nina's place. She would have treated him less coolly the next morning had she known that he had found himself completely unmoved by the other woman.

  Willow was up early the nest morning, but not before Smitty. When she walked into the kitchen, he was sitting at the table sipping a cup of coffee. "Mornin', Willow." He smiled at her. "I brewed a pot of coffee. Sit down and have a cup with me."

  "Goodness, Smitty." Willow combed her fingers through her tangled hair. "What time did you get up? It's not even daylight yet."

  "I know, but I'm anxious to get goin'. Things are gonna be hellish for Ruth at the ranch, and I want to get back there and help her all I can."

  Willow filled a cup with the steaming brew and carried it to the table. When she sat down, she looked at Smitty and asked bluntly, "Are you in love with my mother, Smitty?"

  Smitty's weathered face reddened and he opened his mouth to deny such a foolish thought. Instead, much to his surprise, he answered quietly, "Yes, I am. I have been for years. She's the one that has kept me working for that bastard husband of hers. You don't know what hell it has been for me to stand by helpless while your pa abuses her."

  "I know." Willow patted the hand that clenched the coffee cup so tightly. "I've felt that way all my life. I feel so guilty, leaving her there alone with my father. Only the threat of marriage to Buck Axel made me go away."

  Smitty nodded. "You were right to leave. Eventually Otto would have had his way."

  "Smitty," Willow said earnestly, "We've got to think of a way to get Ma out of there. She's worn out and won't live long if she stays."

  "I know that, girl, and I'll do something, even if it means shooting Otto Ames."

  "You musn't do that, Smitty." Willow looked alarmed. "You'd hang."

  "It would be worth it if I could end Ruth's misery."

  "That's not the answer." Willow finished her coffee and stood up. "We must think of something else. For the time being I'm going to fry some slices of ham, and boil some eggs for you to take with you when you leave. Where are your saddlebags?"

  "Over there in the corner." Smitty jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Maybe you can EH an extra canteen with coffee. There might be an evening when I don't dare build a fire."

  "That's right," Jules said from the doorway, making Willow start at his unexpected appearance. "Stay sharp when you make night camp, Smitty," he continued. "As a general rule Indians don't attack once the sun goes down. They have the notion that if a brave gets killed then, his spirit wanders forever. But a person
can never be sure. A young brave not set yet in the beliefs of his people might sneak up on you in the dark."

  "Yeah, I know." Smitty nodded. "I've had that happen to me." He started to speak of the experience but went no further when he saw that Jules's attention was elsewhere.

  Jules, fascinated, was watching Willow slice ham. His gaze moved from her satin-smooth face to the pale blond hair that hang around her shoulders and down her back in disarray. He longed to stretch out a hand and let his fingers smooth the tangles from it.

  But it was her slender, willowy shape that held his interest the longest. Her robe, worn thin from countless washings, clung to her breasts, then dipped in at her tiny waist where it was tightly belted, then followed the gentle curve of her hips. They weren't voluptuous, like Nina's, Jules thought, just wide enough to cradle his.

  That's wishful thinking, he told himself She won't even look at me, let alone welcome me between those long legs.

  Willow was an unforgiving woman, but he was going to work on that. She was different from any female he had ever known, and come hell or high water, he was going to have her.

  When he saw that Willow wasn't going to serve him coffee, Jules stood up and walked to the stove, seeming to accidently brush a hand against her rear as he walked past her. She gave a start and turned an angry look on him, but his features were bland and she gave him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the touch of his hand had been unintentional.

  "Should I make you some breakfast?" she asked Smitty as he finished his second cup of coffee.

  "No, thank you, Willow, I ain't hungry yet. I'll eat one of them sandwiches later on in the mornin' as I ride along."

  "I'm not hungry either." Jules's white teeth flashed in a wide smile as though Willow had inquired if he wanted breakfast also. "I'll eat a little later, after I've shaved."