Willow

by Norah Hess

  She shrugged her shoulders indifferently. If he got hungry enough, he'd come in. When Sammy the wrangler came in to eat, she called to Jimmy and Brian, "Come on, fellows, and fill your plates. I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

  The four of them were sitting in a group, talking and laughing as they wolfed down the food on their plates, when Jules arrived, coming through the willows. When Willow stood up to fix him a plate, he motioned her to stay put and busied himself filling a plate from the tailgate. He joined Willow and the teenagers then and dug into the food the same way they had.

  Jules's stomach had been making empty rumbling noises all the while he stood back among the trees watching Willow move about the cookfire. He had groaned inwardly every time she bent over the pot or skillet, her shapely rear clearly defined in the tight borrowed trousers. He clenched his fists when she stretched up to the wagon for something and her breasts strained against the material of her shirt. He had grown so hard with wanting her that he'd stayed hidden until his men left and he had gained control of himself.

  By the time all five were having a second cup of coffee Jules had relaxed, and the young men saw their boss in a light they had never seen him in before. Jules laughed and joked with them and gently teased Willow, saying that the meal he had just eaten wasn't as good as she usually provided. She had come back at him with a twinkle in her eyes, demanding what he expected from beans and salt pork.

  It came time for Sammy to get back to the remuda, and Jimmy gathered up the dirty dishes, pot and skillet and took them to the stream to scrub them with sand. He talked Brian into helping him and while they horsed around, sloshing water on each other as they took care of scouring everything, Willow and Jules were left sitting alone.

  Willow leaned lazily against a wagon wheel, and Jules remained sitting cross-legged on the ground. "Well, how goes it, Willow?" He smiled as he asked. "How is your butt holding out, bouncing around in the wagon?"

  "I've got a feeling it will be pretty sore tomorrow morning."

  "I could massage it for you tonight, take away all its aches." Jules gave her a suggestive smile and watched Willow's face for her reaction.

  Hope leaped inside him when it looked as though she was considering his offer. A stirring started in his loins at the thought that he might be able to slide his hands over her smooth flesh.

  "Would you be willing to do that every night?" Willow asked. "Yes. Every night, all night."

  It was like a dash of cold water in the face when Willow stood up and, dusting off her seat, said, "I'm sorry, but I only signed on as your housekeeper, not to replace Nina." And while Jules stared at her, she started to climb into the wagon. She caught her breath when Jules sprang to his feet, grabbed her arm and jerked her off the wagon wheel. He spun her around and brought her up solidly against his chest. With an arm clamped tightly across the back of her waist, he pulled her into the vee of his spread legs. With his arousal throbbing against her femininity, he bent his head and settled his lips on hers in a searing kiss that left Willow weak.

  Releasing her and pushing her away, he ground out, "You're nothing but a tease, Willow Ames. If you're not interested, just say so without the games."

  He stamped off, disappearing into the trees, leaving Willow staring after him, her fingers on her burning lips. Flustered by the sensations coursing through her, she hurried the teenagers along, and in less than twenty minutes they were pulling out.

  Jimmy tried to engage Willow in conversation, but when she only answered him in monosyllables, or not at all, he gave up and, leaning back in the seat, nodded off.

  Her feet propped on the splash board, her elbows on her knees and the reins held loosely in her hands, Willow continued to go over in her mind the way Jules had kissed her.

  She had never been kissed by a man before, not even a peck on the cheek from her father, and she didn't know what to make of Jules's demanding lips. The kiss had to have been motivated by pure lust, she told herself He didn't know her well enough to have any tender feelings for her. Thank God she hadn't had time for any response to his embrace. Otherwise she hated to think what she might have done.

  Like kiss him back or press herself against that hot, throbbing part of him.

  She was thinking how thankful she was that she hadn't had time to make a fool of herself, when up ahead she spotted a deer browsing on grass. She pulled the team in and nudged Jimmy awake as she drew the rifle from its sling behind her.

  "Take the reins," she said, "and hold the team still. I'm going to take a shot at that deer."

  Excitement glittering in his eyes, Jimmy gripped the reins firmly as he whispered, "Do you think you can hit him, Willow? He's pretty far away."

  "I don't know," Willow answered as she rested the rifle on her shoulder and pressed her cheek against the stock, the muzzle trained on the unsuspecting animal.

  Jimmy held his breath, watching Willow's fingers tighten on the trigger, then squeeze it. The deer dropped in its tracks and Jimmy let out a whoop that startled the team into motion. "Boy, that was some shot, Willow, especially for a girl. Who taught you how to shoot like that?"

  "Our cook back home. He was a hired gun as a young man."

  "I'd like to meet him some day, have him show me how to bring an animal down at such a distance."

  "I wish you could meet him, too, Jimmy," Willow said, a touch of sadness in her voice. She wished both Smitty and her mother were safe in Texas with her.

  When they arrived where the deer had fallen, Brian pulled the hoodlum wagon in behind them. "Get your skinnin' knife out, pard," Jimmy called, "we're gonna have venison steak for supper tonight."

  Willow smiled and shook her head as Jimmy sang her praises while the two boys skinned and gutted the deer. "She put the bullet right behind his ear, killin' him instantly," the teenager bragged.

  When the carcass was loaded into the hoodlum wagon, a fast glance behind her showed Willow that the distance between the chuck wagon and the herd had shortened considerably. She whipped up the team and was soon out of sight of the cattle.

  It was a couple of hours to sunset when Willow made camp, further up the same stream where she had made lunch. The first thing on the agenda was to have Jimmy and Brian carry the slain deer to the tailgate of the wagon. She took her own special butcher knife from a box and sliced nineteen steaks off one of the haunches. When those had been set aside, she set Jimmy to making a cookfire. While she waited for that to be done, she cut some meat into cubes for tomorrow night's supper. And if the meat didn't spoil, she would serve the men a venison roast the third night.

  When the herd came in sight and was allowed to stop and graze, Willow had the tender steaks waiting, and she was pulling nineteen potatoes from the fire's hot ashes. The vegetables the men would be offered were steamed squash and sliced tomatoes. For dessert she would pass out cookies with their coffee.

  When the men began to come in, their faces wet from a visit to the stream, Jimmy couldn't wait to tell them about Willow's long shot. "She just put the rifle to her shoulder and squeezed the trigger and that buck dropped in his tracks."

  The cowboys looked at her shyly, respect for her marksmanship in their eyes. A few got up the nerve to compliment her as she filled their plates. Each time she answered, "It was just a lucky shot. I probably couldn't do it again in a hundred years."

  "Don't believe that," Jimmy declared. "A gunman taught her how to shoot."

  Jules walked into camp in time to hear Jimmy's last remark and to see the alarmed look that came into Willow's eyes. Did the boy know what he was talking about, and why was Willow suddenly looking nervous?

  How would Willow know a gunman? he asked himself As for that, how well did he know Willow Ames? Her mother's letter had only said that her daughter was leaving home because of a broken engagement. Could this gunman be that man?

  He was still smarting from the way Willow had led him on and then rejected him. No other woman had ever done that to him.

  When Jimmy came up
to him and started to tell him about Willow's great shot, he cut him off "I heard you telling the men. Fill me a plate and bring it to me, will you?" he added, sitting down several paces behind his men, who were eating their supper close to the campfire. And though he mentally called them fools as they stole looks at the beautiful cook, all the time he ate he also watched her out of half-closed eyes.

  Chapter Eight

  A couple of weeks had passed since the cattle drive pulled out from the ranch. Everything had been going smoothly. Most of the men had lost their shyness around Willow, and some even talked and joked with her. Willow liked them all with the exception of one man—Joe Becker, a cowboy who never changed his clothes and seldom shaved. She was very nervous around him and tried to avoid him.

  He had looked vaguely familiar until the evening when Jimmy was singing her praises about her shooting and that a gunman had taught her how to shoot. She had happened to look at Joe Becker while Jimmy was going on about the deer and caught the alert look that came into the man's eyes. She could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to place her. At the same time she remembered why he looked familiar. She had seen him once at her father's ranch.

  He was a cousin to Buck Axel. If he made the connection between her and Buck, he would give away her whereabouts to his relative. She had asked herself repeatedly what she should do. Run again? But run where?

  Every night those questions ran through her mind as she suffered nightmares in which Buck and her father chased her, demanding that she marry the man she so despised.

  On the fourteenth evening of the cattle drive, as the men were topping off their meal with a cup of coffee and a smoke, one of the men asked, "Shouldn't we be comin' to a town pretty soon, boss?"

  "There's a small cow town a couple days' ride from here," Jules answered.

  "That's good. I'm ready to cut the dust in my throat with a belt of whiskey," another man said.

  "You men know the rule about drinking on a cattle drive. You can have one drink apiece, then back to the herd."

  Willow remembered her promise to send Jess a letter the first chance she got. She would write it tonight and put it in the envelope that held the brief happenings of the day which she had jotted down each evening.

  "Have you fellers noticed them dark clouds gatherin' in the north?" a tall, skinny cowboy asked. "I bet we get rain tonight or tomorrow."

  "I hope so." Jules flipped his cigarette butt into the fire. "If it doesn't rain soon, the grass is going to dry up like dust balls. I sure as hell don't want to drive a herd of skin and bones to the holding pens."

  A short time later, Willow left the men and went to the chuck wagon. She struck a match to the lantern hanging from a peg and dug a notepad and a pencil from a box under the tall seat. After a thoughtful minute, she wrote:

  Dear Jess,

  Everything has gone well. I do miss my soft bed, however, and my talks with you. Believe it or not, a woman with nineteen men around her can get very lonesome. Some of them would like to be friendly, to talk to me, but of course Jules doesn't allow that to happen. So I make do with the company of Jimmy, Sammy and Brian. You can imagine how entertaining that is. But it appears they have adopted me, and I guess that's better than having them play tricks on me.

  I hope that all is well with you and that you're not working too hard. I look forward to being with you again.

  Love,

  Willow

  Willow had just turned down the lantern wick and stretched out in her bedroll when she heard Jules tell his men good night, then heard his footsteps go past the wagon. She knew that, as usual, he would spread his blankets close to the wagon. She was especially glad of his nearness tonight, for Joe Becker seldom took his leering eyes off her. If Jules wasn't nearby, her sleep wouldn't be too sound. Her last thought before nodding off was of her mother and her longing to see the gentle little woman.

  Whoever had said it might rain was right. It was around two o'clock in the morning when Willow awakened to a cold, wet wind on her face. She leaned up on her elbows and peered outside.

  There had been no thunder or lightning to warn of its approach, but the rain had arrived. It was blowing sideways in stinging wet sheets. She felt sorry for the men, who had no protection against the deluge. They would be soaked to the skin.

  She was about to close the canvas flap when she saw Jimmy and Brian loping toward the wagon. She barely had time to roll out of the way as the pair stormed inside.

  "We thought you might let us wait out the rain with you, Willow," Jimmy said, his teeth chattering.

  "Well, yes, I guess so." Willow didn't have the heart to order them back outside. "But let me get farther back in the wagon. You're dripping water all over me."

  She had barely pulled her bedroll to the very back of the wagon when it gave a bounce and Sammy arrived. With a sigh, she sat up, and said, "Jimmy, light the lantern."

  In its dim light she thought to herself that she had never seen a sorrier-looking sight in her life. Three gangly, drenched teenagers gazed at her through the water dripping off their heads.

  "Jimmy, you know where we keep the towels and blankets," Willow said, concern in her voice. "You fellows have to get out of those wet clothes before you catch pneumonia. When you've got them off, towel yourselves dry and then roll up in a blanket." She lay back down and turned on her stomach to give them some privacy.

  The wagon shook as the three awkward teenagers bumped into each other as they disrobed, dried off, and then wrapped the warmth of dry blankets around their shivering bodies.

  Willow gave a sigh of relief when the lantern was put out and it grew quiet in the wagon. "Just call me Mother Goose," she muttered before falling back to sleep.

  The rain on his face had awakened Jules. With a curse he sat up, wondering where to go. There was nowhere to go. Only prairie surrounded them. Maybe Willow would give him shelter in the wagon, he was thinking, when he saw Jimmy and Brian bolting for the wagon. Before he could yell, "Stop right there!" they were inside. A minute or two later he saw Sammy running in the same direction. When lantern light flared inside the shelter, he heard Willow saying something and decided to leave it up to her whether the boys stayed or left. A few minutes later, the light went out and it grew quiet.

  Jules pulled the tarp from beneath his bedroll and sprinted to the chuck wagon and crawled underneath it. Damn, he thought when he found that his trail boss and another cowhand were already there.

  When Willow awakened at her usual time, it was quiet outside. As she stepped over and around her three sleeping guests she realized the rain had stopped.

  She shook Jimmy's shoulder. "Come on, Jimmy, get a fire going so we can make breakfast." Jimmy sat up and looked at her out of sleep-filled eyes. "I'll be right there," he muttered, then shook awake his companions. Everywhere Willow stepped was a quagmire of mud. But Jimmy managed to get a fire going in the pit that supper had been cooked in the night before.

  While the coffee brewed, Willow filed extra bacon and flapjacks. The men lined up in front of the hoodlum wagon to wait their turn to get dry clothes. They had a hard day's work ahead of them.

  None of the men took the time to shave, only bolted down their breakfast and hurried off to see how the cattle had fared.

  Jules had checked on them as soon as he crawled out from under the wagon. He found the herd wet, but peacefully grazing. His spirits were high when he walked into camp. For the first time in days, he smiled at Willow and spoke.

  "That was quite a gully-washer we had, wasn't it?" he said as she filled a plate for him. "It sure was. I can't remember ever seeing it rain so hard."

  "You had company, I noticed."

  "Yes." Willow smiled. "They were half-drowned." After a while she added on a sad note, "They're not as tough as they pretend. Last night they were three young boys, bewildered and looking for someone to care for them."

  "I know," Jules agreed. "They haven't had anyone to look after them for a long time. It looks like you've
become their adopted mother."

  "I hope not," Willow laughed. "I can't take care of myself half the time." Jules gave her a smoldering, rakish look. "I know someone who would love to take care of you."

  "You do, do you?" Willow said coolly, then added, "I'm not interested."

  "Not even a little bit?"

  "Not in the least."

  "How long are you going to pine for that man?" Jules demanded.

  "What ma—" Willow began, but she caught herself and corrected, "I'm not pining for a man." She looked anxiously around, wishing Jimmy would put in an appearance.

  "Like hell you're not. You won't let another man get near you."

  "You mean I won't let Jules Asher get near me."

  "All right, let's say you won't let me get near you. Why not if you don't have another man on your mind?"

  "Maybe it's because I can see you for what you are."

  "And what am I?" Jules's voice was losing its bantering tone.

  "You're a womanizer," Willow said bluntly. "When you meet an attractive woman, all you think about is getting her in your bed. You aren't the least bit interested in what she's like, what goes on in her mind, whether she's happy or sad, what her dreams and fears are. And the sad thing is, you don't even care."

  When Willow had finished her assessment of his faults, her voice had risen and her face was flushed. Jules was equally riled up and he glared at her, angry sparks glittering in his eyes.

  "At least something stirs my blood." His voice was dangerously low. "I don't have ice water in my veins like you do. You're the coldest woman I ever came across. No wonder the man you wanted to get your hooks into dropped you. Lucky for him he found out in time that beneath that beautiful shell there wasn't much substance, that you wouldn't be bringing too much warmth to the marriage bed."

  They stood glaring at each other. Jules saw from the rage shooting out of Willow's eyes that she was about to spring at him.