Cricket wondered for a moment if she might drop dead of wanting his kiss to leave her neck and find her mouth. But she didn’t—and it did. Heath ravaged her mouth with such wanton, hungry kisses that she couldn’t breathe for a moment. But she didn’t care to breathe—not if it meant leaving Heath to face what was left of the band of outlaws—not if it meant leaving him at all.
Abruptly, he broke the seal of their mouths. He bent, placing a moist kiss to the burn on her chest—and though under normal circumstances she should’ve slapped him when he took hold of what was left of the sleeve of her camisole, pulling it down her arm and kissing her shoulder with a ravenous sort of vigor and kissing the place where her arm met her bosom—she didn’t.
“Now get on that horse and ride, Magnolia!” he shouted.
Without another word, Heath bent down, taking hold of her left ankle and placing her foot in the stirrup as he lifted her. Cricket swung her right leg over Archie’s back and adjusted the reins.
“Don’t look back,” he ordered when she looked down at him and began to cry once more. “You ride like the devil himself is on your flank, and you get home. You get yourself and these girls home, Magnolia. Promise me you’ll do it.” Cricket nodded her promise, but it wasn’t enough, and he shouted, “Promise me you’ll get yourself and these girls home!”
“I-I will,” she cried. “I promise I will. But you’ll be right behind us, won’t you?”
Heath’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded once. “Now go,” he mumbled. He brazenly lifted her petticoat hem, kissing her squarely on the knee. “Go!” he shouted, slapping Archie on the hindquarters.
Cricket gasped but held her saddle as Archie leapt into a gallop. She heard Heath shouting, slapping the other horses’ flanks to get them moving, and she rode—rode toward the tangerine sun hanging high in the western sky.
Chapter Fifteen
“Come on, Harley!” Cricket heard Ann cry. “We can make it! I know we can!”
Cricket reined in Archie and turned him. The others had fallen behind again. Even Harley was struggling. All the horses were so lathered up it made Cricket’s heart ache with sympathy for them. But even though there had been no sign of Heck Alford and his band of outlaws—not for all the hours the girls had been riding—Cricket knew they couldn’t stop, not when they were so close to town.
Pike’s Creek was no more than two miles. In two miles, they would be home, safe—and she could send someone back for Heath.
She wondered whether he were alive or dead, and the pain of thinking it made her breath catch in her throat. She had to make it back to Pike’s Creek—to send help for Heath.
“Come on, girls,” she encouraged. “We could walk from here if we weren’t so worn to the bone.”
“Can we walk the horses at least?” Ann begged through tear-filled eyes as she reined in next to Cricket.
Cricket glanced back beyond Ann and Harley—back beyond Marie, Vilma, Pearl, and poor Jinny. There was no sign of the outlaws—none. She was sure Heath had stopped them—or at least held them off long enough for her and the others to be miles and miles ahead of them.
“All right,” she agreed. “Let’s walk them home. But let’s keep sharp eyes at our backs, just in case…”
“In case Heath wasn’t able to—” Pearl began.
“He was able to!” Vilma passionately interrupted, however. “He’s still holdin’ them off for us…or he’s killed them all.”
Wiping tears from her cheeks, Vilma began to walk her horse toward town.
“He’s all right, Cricket,” Marie said as she walked her horse forward as well. “I know he is.”
Ann and Pearl walked then, Ann stroking Harley’s mane all the while.
It was Jinny that was last. Her horse looked as severely ill as she did, and Cricket wasn’t sure the animal could make it the two miles to Pike’s Creek even at a walking pace. But Cricket forced a smile of encouragement and led Archie to fall in next to Jinny’s horse.
Harley reared up ahead and made a sound like a cough. “He’s too spent, Cricket!” Ann called over her shoulder. “I’ll kill him if I keep goin’!”
With wild frustration and fear, Cricket watched as Ann dismounted and quickly loosened Harley’s saddle cinch.
“Ann! We’re so close! You can’t stop now!” Cricket cried in near panic.
“I’m not,” Ann assured her. “I just won’t torture Harley anymore. I won’t!”
Cricket watched as Ann used every ounce of strength left in her to push the saddle and blanket from Harley’s back. She removed the bit from his mouth and began leading the horse as she slowly walked toward town.
Marie’s horse, having seen that Harley was free, simply stopped. No amount of encouragement from Marie would get him moving again. Then without warning, Vilma’s horse stumbled. Vilma tumbled to the ground only moments before her horse collapsed, panting for breath as it lay in the cool summer grass.
They were in trouble! The horses were wasting—for Pearl’s and Jinny’s horses stopped as well. The only horse that didn’t stop was Archie. In fact, it was as if Archie knew the circumstances were dire—for in the next moment, Cricket felt her body jerk hard as Archie broke into a violent, reckless sort of gallop toward town.
“I’ll send help!” Cricket shouted as she leaned forward in the saddle to make the gallop easier for Archie.
❦
“Zeke!” Ada gasped as she burst through the front door.
Zeke Cranford wiped the tears from his handsome but mournful eyes as he looked up to his wife. The expression of indescribable joy on her face, mingled with her tears, caused hope to leap in his chest.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s…Z-Zeke! It’s Cricket!” Ada sobbed. “She just this moment rode into Pike’s Creek…on Heathro Thibodaux’s horse!”
Zeke was out of his chair, taking his wife’s hand and pulling her along behind him as he stormed out the front door faster than a hummingbird could blink.
“Cricket!” he breathed as he saw his daughter rather tumble from the back of a frothy horse.
“Daddy!” Cricket cried as she ran to him. “Daddy! Y-you have to go for him! Y-you have to go back and help him!” she sobbed, collapsing into his arms.
“Oh, my baby!” Zeke wept into her hair. “Oh, my sweet baby!”
Cricket knew she could not faint or find herself otherwise unconscious, no matter how much her body hurt or how tired she was or even how close to dying from lack of food, water, and shelter.
Quickly she babbled on, afraid that she would drop dead and then no one would know where to find Heath or the other girls.
“Daddy, the other girls…they’re just outside of town…about two miles east,” she breathed through her sobs. “The horses are failin’…even Harley. Someone has to go for them!” Then, clutching the front of her father’s shirt in her weak, trembling fists, she cried, “But, Daddy…someone has to go for Heath! Please! If he’s not dead…they shot him twice that I saw! Please…please! Someone has to go for him. He’s near the fork…the place where he took the trail to New Orleans and the posse crossed to head for Mexico. Please, Daddy! Please! You have to go get him and bring him home!”
“Shhh, baby,” Zeke soothed, stroking Cricket’s hair.
“What’s goin’ on?” Cooper Keel asked, hurrying toward Cricket, her father, and Ada.
“The girls are two miles east of here, Coop!” Zeke exclaimed. “Get some men out there. And then you and me…we’re gonna saddle up and ride like hell to get Heathro Thibodaux! He’s holed up at the river.”
“I w-wanna come with you, Daddy,” Cricket stammered. “I-I wanna come with you to find Heath, Daddy! I can’t stay here and wait…not knowin’ if he’s alive or dead! He saved us, Daddy. All alone he saved us!”
“What’s happenin’?” Reverend Stanley asked as he and others from the town hurried over.
“You coward!” Cricket screamed. Pulling herself from her father’s arms, she flew at Vilma�
��s father, slapping him hard across one cheek and then the other. “You coward! You let him come for us all by himself? You didn’t believe him? Even after what happened to those other girls? You’re a coward! You and all the men who followed you to Mexico instead of listening to Heath!”
Cricket moved to slap Reverend Stanley once more, but her father bound her in his arms to keep her from doing so.
Still, binding her arms didn’t bind her tired, frightened, angry tongue. “Your own daughter was out there—Vilma! Bein’ dragged with the rest of us to be sold! And you didn’t follow Heath? How long did it take you to realize you’d taken the wrong trail, Reverend Stanley? We waited for the posse to come…waited and waited. And then when we knew Heck would kill Jinny…w-we escaped!”
“She’s mad with fatigue and trauma, Zeke,” Edgar Stanley said. “I forgive her for the rage…and the abuse.”
“Forgive me?” Cricket screeched. Cricket struggled in her father’s arms, and when she couldn’t break free to slap Vilma’s father again, she simply spit at him, feeling triumphant as she saw him wipe her saliva from his lips.
“Cricket,” Zeke whispered in a low, comforting voice. “Settle down, baby. Settle down. We’ll send some folks out to get the girls, all right? And me and Cooper Keel will go for Ranger Thibodaux ourselves. Shhh. Settle down now. Daddy will take care of it from here.”
Turning Cricket away from the vile Reverend Stanley, Zeke pulled Cricket to Ada. “Ada,” he began, “you keep Cricket at home with you here. Just help her bathe. Feed her some broth…only broth…and see if she’ll drop off to sleep.”
“But I wanna go with you, Daddy, please! I have to know if he’s alive or dead! I have to see him! I-I can’t live if—” Cricket cried.
“Shhh,” Zeke soothed as he wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’m sure he’s fine, baby. That man’s tougher than most. Shot up or not, I’m sure he’s fine. You just stay here and keep Ada company while Coop and me ride out and bring him home, all right?”
“He saved our lives, Daddy,” Cricket wept. “All by himself he came, and he risked bein’ killed. He stayed with us…made sure none of the rest of us died…only Nina…and th-then he saved us. You have to bring him home, Daddy. Please!”
“I will, baby. I will,” her father promised. “Now you go with Ada, honey,” he said, taking her shoulders and directing her to Ada. “I’ll go for the Heath…and you just keep Ada company for me, all right?”
Cricket’s tears began anew as Ada embraced her, shushing softly into her ear and stroking her tangled hair.
Zeke was infuriated—purely infuriated! Turning to Edgar Stanley, he said, “You said you lost the tracks at the river…and had the posse head to Mexico even though Heathro Thibodaux said different.”
“It was obvious they’d gone toward Mexico, Zeke,” Edgar defended himself proudly. “By the time we lost the trail to Mexico, it was too late anyway. If even we had gone back to the other trail—the one Mr. Thibodaux took—we couldn’t have tracked them long. The rain had washed any tracks left by the girls, their captors, or that arrogant Texas Ranger. I thought—”
But Edgar Stanley didn’t have the chance to explain what insipid thoughts he’d had after that—for Zeke Cranford laid him out in the street of Pike’s Creek before he could.
“Come on, Coop,” he mumbled to Cooper Keel. “Let’s get this town headed in the right direction for once.”
❦
Once Zeke had led a group of men, women, and wagons out to find the girls east of Pike’s Creek—once he’d talked to the girls a bit and learned a few more details of what had happened to find Heathro Thibodaux holed up somewhere trying to keep a band of white slaving outlaws at bay—he and Cooper Keel had ridden off in search of what was left of the young and heroic Texas Ranger.
Cooper had embraced his niece awhile, assuring her that all would be well. And though Zeke had told Coop he’d be glad to head out on his own, Cooper’s niece, Pearl, had begged her uncle to go too—to try and find the man who had saved their lives.
“I’m sorry I had you up in Thistle and thereabouts for so long, Zeke,” Cooper hollered as they rode. “If we woulda been there when Ada and Maymee had arrived lookin’ for us…we could’ve already been on the trail after the girls.”
But Zeke shook his head. “No. It ain’t your fault…or mine. How could we possibly have known that while we were out huntin’ for your niece, my girl had been taken and that idiot preacher of ours was leadin’ everybody astray? No. We were gonna ride out tomorrow mornin’, Coop. It was all we could’ve done considerin’ how long it took us to get back to Pike’s Creek today.” Zeke choked on the overwhelming emotion settled in his throat. He coughed, adding, “I’m just glad to see my baby girl is still alive. I thought sure she wasn’t. I owe Heathro Thibodaux a far greater debt than I can ever repay…even if we do find him still alive.”
“Amen!” Cooper agreed.
Spurring their horses, Zeke and Cooper rode far into the night, following the river the way several of the girls had indicated.
Along about midnight, they came upon a sight that even their wildest imaginations couldn’t have conjured. As the moon and stars shone brightly in the midnight heavens, Zeke Cranford and Cooper Keel found Heathro Thibodaux—or at least what was left of him.
❦
“Please come inside, Cricket,” Ada begged. “You need some rest. Just for an hour or two and then I’ll let you come back out here and wait.” Ada wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’ll even come out and wait with you, all right?”
But Cricket shook her head. “No. I’m not leavin’. I’m not leavin’ until Daddy rides in with Heathro Thibodaux either sittin’ a horse…or draped over one.” She buried her face in her hands—in the soft, white handkerchief Ada had provided for her once the other one had become so drenched with Cricket’s tears that it was no longer useful.
Ada nodded with acceptance. Settling herself in the rocking chair next to Cricket’s on the front porch, she followed Cricket’s gaze, staring out into the dark, dark night.
Ada sensed there was far more to Heathro Thibodaux’s rescuing the girls of Pike’s Creek, and the two girls from elsewhere, than Cricket had spoken of. The girl was obsessed—entirely consumed with knowing what had happened to him—with hoping he was alive.
Naturally Ada and Zeke both knew Cricket was somewhat sweet on Heathro—that she had been sweet on him since the day he moved to Pike’s Creek. But this was different. This wasn’t just gratitude for the man who had rescued her, and it wasn’t infatuation. It was something far more, and Ada wasn’t about to press Cricket—either for more information on her feelings concerning Heathro or to abandon her post on the front porch watching for his safe return. Until Cricket actually passed out from crushing physical and emotional fatigue, Ada would let her wait for her father to return—let her wait for her father and Heathro Thibodaux. Quietly Ada prayed, however, “Let Zeke come ridin’ in with Heathro sittin’ a horse and not draped over one. Please, Lord. Please.”
❦
It was quiet in Pike’s Creek—even quieter than it had been the night before when Heath had allowed the girls to rest alongside the river for a time. There were the usual sounds to soothe Cricket—the lowing of cattle and calves in the distance, the hum of the crickets in the grasses and cicadas in the tree branches. There was also the sound of Ada’s rocking chair creak-creaking on the front porch next to Cricket’s.
As always in summer, the air was fragrant—filled with a perfume blended of green and growing things like honeysuckle and wheat in the fields. The temperature was not too cool and not too warm. It was perfect—the temperature dreamed of when winter nights were cold and kitchen floors frigid in early spring mornings.
Everything was just as it had been only a week before. Nothing about Pike’s Creek seemed different to Cricket in the least—nothing except everything. Everything seemed different—changed. Or was it Cricket that had changed? As she began rocking in her own rocking cha
ir, matching the slow, easy rhythm of Ada’s, Cricket knew that she had, indeed, changed. Terrible, terrifying experiences did change a person. Stories had always told her that; losing her mother had taught it to her firsthand. But now Cricket knew something else changed a person as well: love—the wild, impassioned, frenzied love of falling in love. And Cricket had been falling in love with Heathro Thibodaux for months.
As she’d sat on the porch for nearly the entire twelve hours since her father and Cooper Keel had ridden off in search of Heathro—since the good people of Pike’s Creek had retrieved Marie, Ann, Vilma, Pearl, and Jinny from east of town—Cricket had considered all she’d been through with the others. It had changed her somewhat. No doubt it had changed them all. As for Cricket, she wondered how long it would be before she wouldn’t be frightened each time she strayed too far from her father’s house. She wondered if sugar would taste as sweet in Ada’s cake frosting as it had before and if she’d still be able to outrun Heath’s ornery old bull if she ever happened on him running loose in the pasture again. She wondered if she’d still want to plan mischievous shenanigans to go about with her friends—wondered if she’d ever be able to think of any to plan again.
And in the darkness of night, as she waited for her father to return—as she waited to know the fate of the man who had saved her, cared for her, kissed her as only a dream could’ve kissed her—Cricket concluded that, yes, she had experience that had stripped away some of her innocence. But she’d survived it, and she knew that from there on, yes, she would be a bit more wary and easily startled for a while whenever venturing away from the house. But she also knew that Ada’s cake frosting would taste far sweeter than ever it had before, that she’d still be able to outrun Heath’s bull if the need ever arose. And she knew that more than ever before she would find profound joy in plotting mischievous plans of do-gooding shenanigans with her friends.
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