The Bounty Hunter's Heart

by Jillian Hart

  Please, let this be for always for Jack, he wished. The first muffled pop of the corn in the kettle rose above the merry conversation. He moved woodenly, grabbing up the plates, taking them before Saydee could turn around and come do the work, and nodded toward his son in the direction of the parlor. The dog, curled up beneath the table at Jack's feet yawned, licked his chops (he may have benefited a bit from being under the table) and walked away lazily and satisfied right along with the boy. The joyous pop, pop, popping accentuated his boot steps as he slipped the pile of dirty plates onto the edge of the counter and gave them a shove.

  "Out of here!" Peg's words resonated with great love for her niece as she refused to give over control of the kettle. She kept giving it a shake on the stove. "Go on, Nola and I can handle it here. Go take a look at the chair. You never got to really take a look, so buy fixing lunch like you were. Go discover how comfortable it is and tell Stan what other pieces you want. I already took it upon myself to tell him you want a matching ottoman. You go do it, or I vow I shall do it myself when I'm done here, and you don't want that!"

  "You really don't," Stan chimed in, helping himself to the last of the potatoes.

  "I give up! I can't win with you two." Love beamed in her words, warm as melted butter on a hot stove, like the saucepan Nola was melting alongside her mother. Saydee rolled her eyes, swishing away from the attempt of taking over the popcorn popping operation. She flashed him a smile and wove around him, leaving him breathless, unable to fit a word in edgewise as she kept going. "I'll just go try out my new chair then, so I can ply Uncle Stan with plenty of praise, thanks and compliments."

  "Plenty?" Nola teased, setting the pan aside full of melted butter. She grabbed one of the big mixing bowls set out, ready to be filled. "You seem to be assuming we all are going to sit around complimenting him. If you're to do that, we'll have to spend the next week criticizing him so that he doesn't get a blown up, puffed up over-confident self opinion. He's already sure he's perfect enough as he is. We can't have that, can't we?"

  "I thought all men needed to feel like they were appreciated and do so much good. Like Winn, who has taken such good care of our horses today. He can fix anything. Anything, even the barn door."

  Winn laughed. "Hey, don't go putting the description of good on me. I'm not who you think I am. Once, I was so utterly worthless I've never confessed it to anyone. It's top secret."

  "Why? What happened?" Saydee asked with great curiosity. "Tell me!"

  "I hate to ruin your good first impression of me, but I can't fix everything. Once I was patching up the shirtsleeve of one of Jack's shirts, thought I was done, went to go stand up and discovered that I'd sewn my own trouser leg to it. And when I stood up, it tore and all but unraveled and that's when I decided to hire someone to do the sewing."

  "That takes skill, good humor and real confidence in order to tell that story." Stan looked up from his place at the table, fork in mid-air. "I like that about you, Winn."

  "I like you too, Stan." That was purely the truth. He realized too late that his boots had taken him from the window where he'd been standing behind the table following Saydee into the adjacent room. His heart thundered, making it hard to listen when she turned to him with her breezy, full-of-life smile.

  "Well, this looks flawless. Just right." Saydee's skirts rustled to a stop around her ankles, brushing the toes of her polished shoes, and he felt her nearness like a stove's heat. He wanted to reach out, pull her into his arms and take her to bed and feel like a lover again. "Thanks for being a good man about all this. I know many a fellow would be truly upset at this interruption and you simply carried the heavy end so my uncle wouldn't strain his back."

  "I didn't mind. I decided since I'm here I might as well make myself useful," he said, never letting his gaze stray from her eyes. "And don't be fooled. I'm not so good."

  "What? You? I don't believe that for a moment."

  "Just look at this situation here." He couldn't hide the caring in his voice. "I haven't fixed their false assumption that I'm staying at the boardinghouse in town. It goes against my grain to allow it but if I don't, then it damages your reputation and their good opinion of you. So, it's for your sake and Jack's."

  "I can set things straight with my aunt and uncle after you leave. They will understand, a bounty hunter like you might have enemies. They are good and understanding people."

  "Good, this is to keep them safe. And don't forget there is that misunderstanding about me being the man your stepfather wanted you to marry."

  "It's another problem I might correct after you leave, also, and I'm going to wish that Jack is here only for a short stay. I am going to hope for that with all I'm worth."

  "I wish that could be." He did his best to hide the truth from her view. A storm raged there, between his anger over what men like Brant did to his life and the lives of others, and the hard longing he felt for a life here like this, full of light, love, laughter and family, on top of the raging longing, not lust alone, for the lovely lady swishing away from him, her voice like a bell drawing his heart ever more true to her. "I don't have high hopes about being able to come back to Jack."

  "I won't stop wishing so that I can see you again." She ambled over to the beautiful contemporary big reading chair, no wingback but comfortably made in Stan's shop. She sashayed over to one corner of the dining room and, as elegant as a sonata, swirled around and settled into the thick cushion of the chair. She eased back, leaning against the well padded upholstered chair back, and sat as elegant as a princess of old. "This is terribly comfortable. What a wonderful place to sit and sew or read. What do you think, Jack?"

  "I think that is a chair for a girl." Jack padded up to her and quietly continued on, eyes wide as saucers, plodding up to the window. "What's that thing hanging here for, Miss Saydee?"

  "You can go ahead and touch it. And you're going to have to just call me Saydee, that's mandatory, especially if you're going to be staying here. That's what my family calls me, if you've noticed, and that's what you are going to be too, okay? Or as good as. That's pretty good, isn't it?"

  "That would be mighty fine."

  "Good, I'm glad that's settled, and look. That is a glass blown Christmas ornament my brother's wife picked out for me. She was kind enough to let me stay with them for a visit on my way here. It was for my new home. Since I didn't have a tree, I hung it on a ribbon in front of the window. When the sun shines it sparkles and sprinkles little rainbows all over the walls of the room. What do you think of it?"

  Jack's jaw dropped as he touched the delicate glass snowflake hanging quietly from the window frame with gentle care. The lamp light caught the glass as it moved just a hair from his touch and it sparkled like a quick glance of sunshine.

  "Huh." The boy nodded, his dark eyes furrowed, holding back his opinion or reserving it until the full sun came out to shine. He looked like a boy without hope as he cast his gaze upward to his pa and sighed.

  Footsteps knelled closer, echoing in the pleasant room. Peg hustled in with two bowls full of white fluffy popcorn. "Help me with these, will you, Jack? Saydee, hon, that's beautiful right there in that corner, but you get back on your feet and come with me. We are going to have some great fun."

  "Uh oh, that sounds like trouble."

  "That's me, nothing but trouble as far as anyone can see. Look, I don't even get any popcorn and the rest of you do. It's because I'm not loved." Uncle Stan paused on his way by with a third bowl of popcorn, snowy white and buttery, which he carried tucked in one arm and handed over to Winn. "It's a man's lot in life not to fully appreciate. I may have gotten gourd preserves on my sandwich but my wife is putting me work and won't let me eat popcorn while reading aloud for my audience, which is all of you. I suffer for my art."

  "It was a missed calling, Stan not being able to run off to be an actor," Peg said with all love and deep affection glittering like mischief in her happy eyes. "Very unlucky for me. Think of the better quality husband I could
have landed instead of the likes of you."

  "That's why I'm so nice to you, my sweet wife, because I care and I have nothing but gratitude that you settled for a clod like me."

  "But so handsome," Peg complimented while they both broke into happy laughter.

  "I can only apologize for them," Nola said as she led the way into the parlor. "Sorry, Saydee."

  "I'm not suffering, and it's heartening to see their great love for one another," she quipped, pushing to her feet and swishing across the room. "Even if they makes jokes about the torture of married life, they are the happiest people I know."

  "That's good to know," Winn said. "There should be more of that in the world."

  "We sure try to do our part," Peg happily settled down on the sofa and set the large mixing bowl full of buttered, salted popcorn on the cushion beside her. "Saydee, sit right on down here on my other side and you share with Winn. Jack, come share with me. Do you know what you do with really good popcorn?"

  "Eat it," he said eagerly, eyes wide, cheeks pink with happiness.

  "Why, of course you do and you enjoy every bite. When it's gone, we make Stan pause his reading and I'll go make another batch nice and buttery. I know what I'm doing. What do you think of that?" Peg smiled down on him. "Come to think of it, I'll put Nola in charge of making more."

  "See how she tortures me!" Nola quipped from the chair in the corner.

  "There ought to be a law." Saydee settled down on the sofa cushion, unaware of the golden gossamer tendrils tumbling down from her chignon escaping their pins, creating a tender gold-spun lightness he ached to brush away from her eyes just so he had a reason to touch her. Her voice warmed with love and laughter. "What are we going to do about these injustices?"

  "Enjoy them," Peg advised filling her hand with popcorn from the bowl. "Time flies, and this life goes by in a blink."

  "Too true," Stan winked. "It seems like yesterday I was Winn's age, a young strapping man. Now look at me, although maybe that's not time's effect, but marriage."

  "A happy marriage definitely will do that, for it goes by too fast." Love, endless love, glimmered bright in Peg's warm eyes and wreathed her sweet oval face. "Forgive me for being too romantic, Winn, I don't want to embarrass your male sensibilities."

  "Oh, he's tough enough to take it." Stan rolled his eyes, full of good humor, and reaching down to take a handful of buttery popcorn from the big bowl Jack carried. "He might not be able to withstand all this good humored cheer. Heaven knows that I can't."

  Stan winked, popped a few fluffy kernels into his mouth and chewed away happily. Peg squinted at him comically while she did the same. Nola rolled her eyes, took a perfect piece of popped corn and popped it into her mouth. "You laugh all you want, but you are not getting out of your job, Pa. Winn can help you, and Jack, too. Jack, do you know what you men are supposed to be doing right now?"

  "Eating the popcorn?" he guessed, grinning happily around a mouth full of buttered popcorn.

  "Exactly right." Saydee looked up from filling her hand from her shared bowl with Winn. "Jack, you and your father likely feel overwhelmed by these two. I know just how you feel. When I was a little girl still living with my ma, Aunt Peg lived nearby."

  "Those were the years of happiness, before we had to move to take care of Stan's parents," Peg explained.

  "And you would invite us over for Christmas Eve and pop popcorn," Saydee finished.

  "I still intend to invite you over every year forever now," Peg added. "Funny how times don't really change. It's nice to be near you again, Saydee. Remember how happy you were then, on Christmas Eve?"

  "Of course I do, it was the highlight of my year. You had such a happy home and still do, but it was a big difference from my ma's house when I was so little." Saydee nibbled on a single fluffy popcorn. "You have no idea how warm and loving it was, just like Christmas itself. As a little girl, your home felt like walking into a dream, and it still does."

  "Well, that is how love feels." Peg smiled.

  Saydee nodded, and Winn watched, breathless, unable to eat, as she opened her lush mouth, hanging on what she would say next but no words came. Her eyes filled and emotion gathered like heartfelt tears, and for the life of him he ached, wanting to cradle her in his arms, in his bed, to bury himself in her, his woman.

  "That seems like a lifetime ago, when you were that little, about Jack's age and older. But that mother of yours still has a dried up raisin of a heart. She's never been much for loving other people, even family, and that's why she never is happy. It's a crime to have a heart with no love in it." Peg filled her hand again from the popcorn bowl. "She's my sister, so I have the right to talk about her in such terms. Isn't that right, Saydee?"

  28

  "It's true. My mother despises anything happy. Love. Birthdays. Holidays. Christmas." Saydee paused to swallow and chew. "When I was growing up, any holiday, even Christmas, was just like any other day."

  "That is the entire reason why Saydee lacks skills in celebrating Christmas properly," Peg added as she reached for more popcorn pieces. "I have an obligation to help her correct that. Whether she wants it or not, what can I say? I have an auntly duty."

  "Notice that I'm not protesting overly much," Saydee smiled. "Or, at all, but some have pointed out that you might have too much Christmas enthusiasm."

  "Have you not read Dickens? It is impossible. Always hold Christmas's love in your heart all year long and hold it tight, never let it go. Stan, isn't that right?"

  "Absolutely," Stan quipped, reaching for the book he'd placed on the side table next to the other wingback chair. "If there's one thing a married man wants to do is to always agree with his wife, or he lives to regret it."

  "He tells people I beat him." Peg rolled her eyes.

  Winn held back a bust of laughter so hard that tears popped into his eyes and threatened to roll down his cheeks. Across the room, Saydee's gaze met his, his heart forgot to beat and time froze in place.

  She could make him forget who he was and what price was on his life, a bounty on his head. She could make him believe in a life like he used to dream of once and knew was gone forever. But now it was within his reach.

  And so was she.

  For that brief moment, he forgot reality, and then the feeling and his dream was gone forever. He bowed his head.

  "I get a lot of mileage out of people's sympathy," Stan joked. Leather crackled as he leaned back into the chair. "Although most people don't believe it for a minute. There's no fooling them."

  "That's because they can clearly see my trouble being married to a jokester of a man like you! Look what I have to put up with. I thought you were going to start reading, dear." Peg blushed, eyes full of love and good humor and blew him a sweet kiss across the room and made her husband blush.

  Winn looked away to give the loving, married couple their moment of closeness, and felt Sadie's warm hand land on his sleeve, bridging the gulf between them. "Sunshine, I know I'm going to lose at attempting to love you before I even start."

  "Why do you say that?" Her soft-as-silk fingers curled around his, holding on tight, as if she never wanted to let go. He ran his thumb around the tip of hers, wanting her to know he felt the same. She made his heart, big and strong, feel frail.

  "I can't offer you anything and I wish I could." He nodded in the direction of her aunt and uncle still talking sweetly to one another. "It's that simple."

  "I know." Saydee opened her mouth as if to say more, dragging his attention there and keeping it drawn there, along the lush kissable surface of her lips, reminding him of the paradise it had been to kiss her long and deep. Her gaze traveled up to meet his with a penetrating force. Her brow furrowed and her bottom lip puffed out in thought. "Why did you call me Sunshine?"

  "Because you light up my dark." He leaned in to graze a kiss at her temple, just a quick light caress of a kiss against gossamer wisps of gold and satin-soft skin. The fragile pieces of iron guarding his heart crumbled forever into dust. />
  "If you keep saying things like that to me, Winn McMurphy, you are going to make me like you, and then what am I gonna do when you walk out my door?"

  "Don't forget me." It was all he could ask. He could make no other vow, and no promise could be kept, not where he was headed.

  "I won't," she promised. The fire in the hearth crackled, and the scent of wood smoke filled the air. Time stayed frozen, as if refusing to beat forward, and she breathed him in, the warmth of his smile, the combination of sorrow and affection in his eyes, noticing the morning stubble starting on his jaw. He smelled like fresh hay, cedar and winter wind.

  "My baking!" She remembered too late, the fool for him that she was, tapping away from him, leaving him behind in the cozy parlor while Stan cleared his throat, opened the book and began to read, making the day bright.

  * * *

  Winn glanced over his shoulder in the warm sanctuary of the little barn. "What are you doing out here, my boy?"

  "Just wanted to help you hitch up the horse. I bundled up real well." Jack tugged the barn door almost closed, just like Winn had left it, to let in a view of the road in case of trouble, any returning deputies or Stan ambling his way. The little boy's face scrunched up with worry. "Are you mad? Saydee was real busy with her aunt, so I sneaked out."

  "Good decision. That way I get to spend more time with you."

  "I know you aren't coming back, not ever." He gave a big sigh and moseyed over. "It's nice that Uncle Stan said to call him that. He said I am as good as family. But it won't be the same as being with you." Jack gave a hiccup, that was all, and squared his little shoulders. "Do you need help buckling up?"

  "I sure do, my boy." Such a beautiful boy. "Did they torture you real bad with all their happiness and caring for you? Sorry I had to leave you alone with them to see to the horses."