by DeWanna Pace
“Ready to pay up?” he finally demanded.
Willow started furiously digging in her skirt pocket.
“Not that.” His voice lowered as an image sprang up clear in his mind. If this was the last time he would lay eyes on all that was Willow McMurtry, only one kind of memory would do. “You said I could ask what I want.”
He closed the distance between them and encircled her with his arms. “I want this.”
Gage dared to take the liberty of the kiss he’d forced himself to withhold for three days now.
At the precise moment his lips touched hers, all kinds of ringing echoed inside his head like a dozen cooks clanging iron triangles to beckon him from the field.
How long he’d roamed the boundaries he’d set for himself, thinking he belonged nowhere. To no one but himself. Yet amid the rush of emotions spurring inside him now, Gage discovered the true trail home lay somewhere within Willow’s arms.
When his hands slid up to delve into those glorious strawberry-colored curls, her eyes opened and she sucked in a breath, ending their kiss. Instantly, a feeling of discontent settled over him, making Gage angry at himself for making such a foolhardy mistake and ignoring the caution that had warned him never to kiss her.
Now it was too late.
She would resent that he’d taken that one liberty and he would never be satisfied to walk away from her as she demanded.
As he must.
For he would never ask her to hitch her wagon to a blind man’s.
It was a price he could not allow her to pay.
Only God could give him the strength to do such a thing, and he wasn’t sure if this promise he’d made to himself was his will or the Lord’s.
Chapter Twelve
The children kept their excitement about what they’d learned that morning between the two of them, giving Willow time to collect her emotions on the ride back to Daisy’s. She knew they’d seen the argument between her and Gage but hoped they hadn’t witnessed the kiss. That would only have left them confused, as it had her.
Tears lurked behind her eyes, her chest gripped with an ache so fierce she wasn’t sure she could endure any more. If a stomach could be tied up in knots, hers was roped tight.
Neither child asked a single question about what had made Gage ride away from them without another word.
She was glad of that. She couldn’t find the words within her to speak now, and she arrived at no real answer to give them. For today she sensed she had opened her mouth one time too many and possibly made the biggest mistake of her life. One that might never be repaired.
When they finally pulled into the yard, Ollie and Thad grabbed the makeshift ropes and Willow’s bag, then ran into the house, leaving her to put away the team. She didn’t try to call them back to help, instead climbing out of the buggy and leading the horses toward the stalls. Maybe unhitching the horses and getting them fed and brushed would keep her busy enough not to think about Gage.
Shepard Hutton appeared at the barn door. “I’ll take care of those for you, Miss McMurtry. You look a bit frazzled. The kids do you in again?”
She handed him the reins, grateful that he had taken the task from her. She wanted to rush inside the house and bury her face in her pillow and cry. But whatever Shepard read in her face, she wouldn’t let him think it was Ollie and Thad’s fault. “The children were really sweet today. They didn’t try anything sneaky this time, and we had fun learning how to make ropes. I’m just tired.”
And she was. Tired of making one mistake too many. She shouldn’t have pried into Gage’s affairs. Admitting his lack of eyesight was his decision. If his pride was more important than facing the truth, then so be it.
When one of the horses shied slightly from Shepard’s touch, Willow noticed the wrangler’s hand shifted to the bullwhip in his holster.
Surely he wasn’t going to use it on the animal.
Remembering how he’d cracked the whip to keep those other teams departing at a steady pace after the wedding, Willow didn’t doubt he was proficient with any way he intended to use it.
“You’ve probably got lots more to do for the evening,” she said, changing her mind about leaving the horses to his care. “I’m not too tired to put them away, and besides, I owe it to them for a fine journey. Brushing them down will soothe me and them.” She reached to grab the reins from him.
When she accidentally touched his glove, Shepard’s hand jerked away. His green eyes hardened as if turning to stone, the jaded glint warning her to back off. Freckles across the bridge of his nose boyishly opposed the flare of a well-aged temper.
She didn’t back up, instead strengthening her grip on the reins.
He held up both palms as though she’d pointed a gun at him. “Was just trying to save you the trouble.”
The fact that she’d never seen him without gloves made Willow wonder if there was a reason why. Had he hurt his hands in some way? Was that why he’d reacted so harshly when she’d touched him?
Shepard had been working every time she’d seen him. Nothing unusual about a top hand wearing gloves while he worked, was there? Was she just trying to find an excuse for his abrupt reaction?
Maybe she ought to rethink the possibility of asking him to replace Gage as her tutor. If he was that quick to fire up, how would he be when she made numerous mistakes? She learned faster and better from someone with patience.
Petting the horse that had riled the wrangler, Willow silently reassured the animal she would allow no one’s ill temper to harm him.
She started unhitching the team, thinking Shepard would go about his business and leave her alone if he saw that she was done talking with him. Instead, he chose to move to a corner where he must have been oiling tools on a makeshift table that stretched over two barrels. Alongside the tools rested a brush and a can of something she couldn’t define from here. Something black dribbled down the can’s rim and darkened the bristles of the brush from its original shade. Leather polish? Boot polish, maybe?
When he turned to find her staring, Shepard swung back and went to work.
Just as she should be doing, she decided, instead of speculating what was so important to get done that he would not let her work alone in the barn.
It took her longer than expected to back the buggy into a stall because she didn’t have enough strength to move it far by herself. Now that she realized how heavy such a conveyance was to move, she couldn’t imagine how much harder it was to align a wagon by its tongue. She sure could have used someone’s help about now and wondered if the other wranglers were out in the pasture taking care of the rest of her brother-in-law’s horses.
“Next time you might want to back the buggy in first before you unhitch the team.”
Shepard’s advice mocked her effort. She noticed him staring at her now, a grin splitting his face from ear to ear. His gold tooth was missing. Had she only thought she saw one when she met him? Or was it one of those that could be removed for cleaning?
“Next time you might be kind enough to offer your suggestion before I make a fool of myself,” she retaliated, wiping the back of her hand against her brow. She’d worked up quite a sweat.
She glanced at the table where he’d been toiling. No sight of a tooth on its surface, but the brush and can of whatever had been there were no longer in sight. Had he finished with them?
“Here, let me help you do this, at least. Then you can brush down the horses all by yourself.” He lent a hand and with his added strength they managed to finally settle the buggy into its proper place.
She dusted her palms free of dirt, then started to offer him a handshake, stopping short as he took a step backward. She’d made the offer on purpose, wanting to see if it would anger him, as it had the first time.
It would have. He didn’t want someone touching his hands.
Her writer’s instincts kicked in and she felt a full-blown need to research the man. He was definitely hiding something.
Maybe even a gold to
oth.
The world was suddenly full of secrets, it seemed.
She needed to know if Shepard had anything to do with the thief Gage was looking for and what danger or cost that posed for her family. Was he in cahoots with the criminal? He certainly had all the necessary skills to be of help to a horse thief and could too easily access a herd of valuable horses. Or could he be the actual thief himself? That would explain the tooth Gage mentioned and the one she was certain she’d seen gleaming on the day she’d met Shepard.
A bead of perspiration trickled down the wrangler’s temple, leaving a strange trail of black.
Willow started to say something about it but a sense of caution filled her. Making him aware that she’d noticed it might not be such a good idea. Could the fact that he was sweating black droplets and had suddenly stored away the hairbrush and stained can have anything to do with each other?
She decided to keep quiet. Until she could find out for sure what was in that can.
Maybe Gage had reasons why he’d chosen to stay silent at times and she’d pestered him when she shouldn’t have.
Maybe this was a fine lesson in learning when to be smart enough not to open her mouth.
And maybe by doing so, she would get the answers she needed regarding Shepard Hutton.
“After I finish brushing the horses, would you mind showing me what you’re doing with those tools?” she asked, pointing to where he’d been working. “I’d like to see how and why you do some of the things you do around here. I’ll pay you extra for showing me. I want to be better help to Snow when you decide to move on.”
“Who said I’m moving on?”
“No one,” she assured him. “You just have that look about you that says you don’t stay anywhere long.”
* * *
The past dozen days had been miserable for Gage. Though he and Willow were still at odds with each other, he’d made a point of keeping watch over her while she and the children were in town and particularly when her top wrangler traveled with her on the days she chose not to bring them.
Like today.
Shepard Hutton had apparently become the person she’d chosen to take his place as teacher. They rode in together on horses rather than in the buggy she used when the children were along. Both horses looked winded and her and her employee’s faces were flushed as they dismounted at the mercantile and hitched their mounts to the rail. They went inside together.
Noticing Willow had been careful to make sure she remembered to tie the reins, Gage was filled with a sense of pride. He’d taught her that bit of precaution and he knew she would pass it along to others in the writing she created, maybe even saving someone’s life someday. Possibly even hers.
Wondering if she’d been racing her horse for fun or had a more serious reason to seem in a hurry, Gage left his horse at Bear’s hitching rail and followed her into the store.
The pair were in the aisle stocked with men’s wares and clothing, talking to Junior Pickens. The merchant thumbed through a row of leather gloves and handed a pair to Willow.
She slipped them on and laughed at the size, holding her fingers up to show how the gloves swallowed her hands whole. “Too big. Better make it a couple of sizes smaller,” she said, giggling.
Good, Gage thought. She wouldn’t have been laughing if anything had been amiss back at the ranch.
Hutton leaned past her and grabbed a pair as she took off the first choice and gave them back to Junior. The wrangler opened one of the smaller gloves and slid it over her now bared hand. He did the same with the second.
“That better?” Shepard asked.
Gage didn’t like the easy familiarity that had formed between Willow and her tutor since the falling-out he’d had with her days ago. He had no right to be angry about it, but he was. He’d known men jealous of their women. Every lawman worth his salt dealt with that crime. But he’d never understood its driving force until today. He was actually envious of the man placing gloves on Willow’s hands. This new sense of possession toward her could become a danger if he allowed it to eat him up inside.
It was beginning to be a pain in his gut every time he saw Willow with Hutton. He almost wished he had another reason to chase the wrangler off. But so far, he’d found nothing to justify running Hutton out of the territory. And he’d searched hard. If the man was any kind of criminal, he hid it well.
Jealousy was a pit of bile Gage wanted no part of feeling. He had to honor her wishes and stay away. Had to remember his own reasons for keeping Willow’s future clear.
Two women strolled in, greeted Willow with a friendly “How are you today?” and swept past her to the bolts of cloth.
Things had turned a corner for her here in High Plains. Willow seemed to be thriving with Hutton’s help and was gaining respect from some of the locals. Deeds she attempted to make up for mistakes she made were the talk of the town now, though she tried to keep her kindnesses secret. Watching her so closely, Gage learned of them almost on the same day the repayments happened, and within hours, others’ speculation always ended in fact with her name involved.
On Sunday the merchant and his bride-to-be even sat next to her and the children in the family pew.
Willow was blossoming without him and with the wrangler instead, finding a sense of worth in herself and respect from others for her goodness of heart.
Gage wanted to blame Hutton for being by her side as she experienced those changes, but it was his own fault he couldn’t be the one celebrating with her all the things she’d worked so hard to achieve.
He had lived so long on the edge of life, like a lone wolf stalking its perimeters, he hadn’t even known he was already mired in shadows long before his eyes were damaged and he met her.
Their time spent together had taught him that taking the opportunity to get to know someone, spending small moments that seemed as if they had no worth, filled him with a lightness and fullness of heart he’d never known existed. He wanted to experience more of the same and had no clue how he would ever live without that fullness, or her, and still remain sane.
Watching another man bask in the glow of her goodness, her friendship, whatever her heart cared to share, would be the sight that cast him into a darkness more blinding than the one he faced.
A yearning deep and consuming urged him to close the distance that separated him from Willow and let her know that he still cared how she was coming along. He didn’t have to resume teaching her, but he hoped she would allow them to at least be simple acquaintances before he headed off somewhere alone one day.
Gage moved toward her, thumbing the rim of his hat. “Hello, Willow... Miss McMurtry. I see you’re out early this morning. The children are both fine, I hope? And your sister? She and Myrtle doing well?”
“Fit and sassy, all of them.”
Those eyes that seemed to warm his soul every time he gazed at them diverted from his and focused instead on the gloves she was removing from her hands.
“Ollie and Thad said to tell you howdy if I saw you,” she mentioned. “I’ve seen you around town a couple of times but you never approached, so I didn’t bother you. Wasn’t sure you’d appreciate being disturbed.”
So she’d noticed him watching, probably sharpening her powers of observation for her writing. That would serve her well, and it pleased him that she cared enough to be on the lookout for him.
“I’ve noticed you writing in your journal a lot. Do you have it with you today, too?” Gage tried to make conversation he knew she liked, but it sounded stiff to him.
Her companion shifted his feet, looking as though he was anxious to leave and ready to send Gage on his way, too.
Gage would have preferred not talking and instead simply taking Willow in his arms to plant a kiss on her beautiful bow of lips. But she preferred talking and that was what he intended to give her.
Bow of lips? Poetic words that raced to mind when he thought of her and only served to make him feel more miserable. He had to stop thinking like th
at.
Matter of fact, he had to stop talking to himself so much in his head so he could find a quiet place again.
“I left the journal in the saddlebag for now.” Willow nodded toward the doorway. “But I’ve had a lot to write about. I even wrote a couple of poems I’m proud of.”
“You seem to have things to talk over,” Hutton said and tipped his hat to Willow. “I need to check on something over at the saloon. I’ll meet you back here in about, say...ten minutes or so. Then we’ll head over to the Rafford place and see about those horses.”
His chin bucked toward the gloves. “Those are a good choice for the job.”
Hutton bid the merchant goodbye but didn’t include Gage. He strolled out the door, the chink of his spurs echoing on the wooden floor.
“What job?” Gage wondered aloud as she took the gloves and told the merchant that was all she needed.
“Not that it’s any of your business anymore,” she said as he followed her to the counter, “but he’s going to show me how to choose good horseflesh to buy. He says I need a good pair of gloves if I’m going to handle horses that haven’t been broken yet.”
Gage didn’t like the sound of that. Too much danger involved. She might have enough knowledge to be sufficient in riding a tame horse, but she was too green to deal with bucking broncos.
“Your brother-in-law gave him money and permission to purchase more while he’s gone?” That seemed odd to Gage. He waited for her to pay for the gloves and put them on, then stuff the ones she’d worn from home into her riding skirt.
She shrugged when she finished. “I suppose the fact that he’s doing this in my company means Bass did. I don’t know the specifics of the agreement between them. Why? Do you think I should question him about it?”
The edge in her voice made Gage wonder if she was keeping something from him. His gut instinct kicked in. “You know something about the man, don’t you?”
Her eyes glanced at the remaining people in the store before she spoke. “Let’s head outside. I’ll wait for him out there.”
Gage reached out for her elbow and guided her as they walked alongside and was glad when she didn’t shirk from his touch. He pointed to the bench just to the right of the door, shaded by the storefront eave. “This okay?”
