The Path To Tame a Wild Heart: A Historical Western Romance Novel

by Melynda Carlyle

  “Everything seems perfectly fine to me,” Lonnie said. “The weather is fine, there’s a nice breeze, I can’t see anything to complain about.”

  “With an attitude like that, no wonder you’re seeing the sunshine everywhere,” Albert said, rolling his eyes. “Happy go lucky, that’s what we’d call you, Lonnie Steele.”

  “Officer Happy Go Lucky it is then,” Lonnie said with a smile. “You see anything, you know where to find me!”

  Lonnie headed back off into town, greeting people as he went. They seemed pleased to have him around. Maybe it was because not much had happened since the robbery at the bank, perhaps people saw him as a good omen. Either way, they seemed glad to have an officer walking the streets while Tommy was incapacitated.

  He was getting ready to turn back and head to the sheriff's office, to report another tranquil day in Kecheetah to Tommy, when he heard a ruckus up ahead.

  Just outside the local hardware store was a woman with hair as black as night, skin like porcelain, her voice absolutely furious. She was pointing at an older gentleman and shouting something that Lonnie couldn’t make out at this distance. The man seemed a little distressed.

  By a woman? Lonnie thought to himself. Strange.

  She was beautiful, it had to be said. Slim, tall, her pouty lips currently formed into a snarl as she railed on the man. Something had certainly gotten her riled up.

  Lonnie hurried over. “Is there a problem here?” he asked as he approached.

  “Ah, there, the young ranger here will set things right,” the old man said, thankful to have back up. The man’s face was red, sweating. What was so terrifying about this woman? She didn’t seem like she had the strength to hurt him, just a little bit of fire in her.

  Her eyes were locked on Lonnie now, her gaze drifting up and down as she sized him up. He felt a little exposed, like she could see through his clothes and right to the skin underneath. His stomach dropped a little.

  Her lips curled back into a snarl as she turned to the old man. She was dismissing him so quickly. Who on Earth was she? And how had she managed to make him feel so small so quickly?

  “The price is what the price is,” she barked at the man. “You can take it, or you can leave it. Actually, on second thought, I’ve changed my mind. You can leave and never come back.”

  “Excuse me—”

  “No, that’s it, Jimmy, you’ve blown it,” she barked, throwing her hands up in the air. “Get away from my store and go bother somebody else. Good day.”

  The man looked a little dumbstruck, but by the way this woman was staring at him, she was deadly serious. His mouth was moving, but he couldn’t seem to find the words to say anything, so he backed away, stumbling over his own feet and heading back into town. He looked terrified.

  The woman turned to head back into her shop, when Lonnie leaned forward and took hold of her arm. She shook him off, rounding on Lonnie so quickly he instinctively took a step back, his hand reaching for the gun at his waist.

  She laughed.

  “Your name, miss?” he said.

  She didn’t look like she wanted to answer. She looked like she was about to kick him, or worse.

  She sighed. “Evelyn Pierce,” she replied, cold, icy. Lonnie could have sworn he felt a chill on the back of his neck, as soon as he heard her words.

  Lonnie righted himself, ignoring her cool demeanour, and turned on the charm. He smiled and tipped his hat at her, waiting for her to say something else, to at least attempt to continue their conversation. But the look on her face told him he was going to have to work a little harder.

  “Well, since you’re not asking, I’m Lonnie Steele,” he said, still smiling, still trying to break through. He didn’t know why he was so bothered. She just didn’t look like she cared who he was, not even a little bit.

  “May I help you?” she said. “I have a store to run, so if it isn’t important…” She trailed off waiting for him to talk.

  “Um…” He was tongue-tied. Lonnie Steele who hadn’t had a problem with anybody in town since he arrived, Lonnie Steele, who was “happy go lucky”, who was kind, relaxed, could talk to anybody, had nothing to say.

  Evelyn huffed and turned around once again, walking back into the shop and slamming the door behind her.

  Lonnie looked about himself. He was sweating, his brow a little moist, his clothes suddenly feeling sticky and uncomfortable. What was this effect she’d had on him? How had she done that? Even though she had rebuffed him, even though she had made it abundantly clear that she wanted nothing to do with him, he found himself inexplicably drawn to her. He had to resist the urge to go into the shop there and then and try to strike up a conversation.

  How strange, he thought.

  He stopped and stood upright. Was he drawn to that fire because she wasn’t throwing herself at him like every other single girl in town? He could have his pick of the crop because he was young, handsome and, as Albert reminded him of this over and over, new blood. But Evelyn…

  She didn’t want a thing to do with me, he thought. He shook his head. He was being silly now, wanting someone that didn’t want him. But she was so beautiful, her brown eyes so captivating, her perfect soft skin; she had that fire that raged inside her. He wanted to get burned by her flames.

  He left the little hardware store and started back toward the sheriff's office. He received smiles from the townspeople, a few more greetings, a few more of the single (and definitely not single) women of the town offering him wide smiles. He was well liked, and he liked to be liked.

  “Afternoon, Lon,” Tommy said from behind his desk, as Lonnie walked through the door. He took his hat off and fanned himself with it. How was it hotter in here than it was outside? “Anything to report?”

  “Not much,” he said.

  Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Not much?” The man brushed his light brown hair out of his face. “Not much means there must have been something, Lon, what’s happening out there?”

  Lonnie took a breath. “You know the girl from Pop’s Hardware Store?” he started.

  Tommy tutted. “Evelyn Pierce, yeah I know her.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” he said. “Something wrong with her?”

  “An awful lot wrong with her,” Tommy grumbled. “You have a run in with her? She give you trouble?”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” Lonnie said. “She was having an argument with some older guy about the price of some bolts. I only caught the end of it.”

  “And…?” Tommy wanted more. Lonnie was wary about getting her into trouble.

  “I got there as it was ending,” he said. “I spoke to her a little. She’s a frosty one, huh?”

  Tommy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, nothing but trouble, that girl,” he said. “We’re all keeping a close watch on her.” He eyed Lonnie carefully. “And you should too. She’s got a past, a checkered one at that.”

  “Everybody’s got a past, Sheriff Hawker,” Lonnie said.

  “Nobody has a past like Evelyn Pierce,” he said shaking his head. “You’re a sweet kid, Lonnie, but you gotta keep an eye on people here. I treat everybody fair, you know I do, but there are some people who will walk all over you if you give ‘em one too many chances. So, you be careful of that Evelyn Pierce, you hear me?”

  Lonnie nodded. “Yes, sir, I will.”

  “Anything else to report?”

  “Not a thing, sir,” Lonnie said. “Town is quiet today. Everybody still seems a little tense, waiting for something to happen but…” Lonnie trailed off.

  Tommy nodded. “We’ll see. Willard will be back; you mark my words.”

  Lonnie was sure he was right. Everybody talked about Willard and all the terrible things he’d done to the town. They were just waiting for him to come back and start it all over again. And Lonnie was determined to be the one to put a stop to it when he did come back. His father wouldn’t be able to call him a layabout then.

  The day passed by, the burning sun giving way to a balmy
night, the sky moving from clear blue to inky black, and Lonnie left the sheriff's office. He walked the darkened road back to the small house he had rented just a little way from town. It was quiet out here, much quieter than his home had been in California. He liked that. He liked that he could hear the sounds of the crickets chirping through the night, that he could be awake in an instant if anybody were to come near his house or if something were to happen in town.

  “Good evening, Officer Steele.” Jeanie, his landlord’s wife, was on the porch next door. She’d taken to calling him Officer whenever he came home, a wry smile on her face that told Lonnie she was joking with him. They had been incredibly kind to him when he arrived. He’d gotten here with practically nothing, and they’d let him stay in the small house next door to theirs for a very good price.

  “Just call me Lonnie, Jeanie,” Lonnie said as he walked up the path toward his home.

  “But where’s the fun in that!” she crowed back. “There’s dinner left if you’re hungry.”

  He really liked her. He hadn’t really had a mother figure growing up, so to have Jeanie at this point in his life was strange, but it was like making up for lost time.

  “That would be lovely,” he replied.

  “I’ll bring them over,” she said. “Let me just heat them up.”

  Jeanie hurried back into her house, and Lonnie stepped into his. It was a single room, a kitchen and a small table to one side, a bed to the other. There was a rocking chair on the front porch he could sit in and watch the world go by, but he was mostly so exhausted from his days out in the sun as a ranger, that it didn’t happen nearly as often as he hoped.

  He flopped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling. If he didn’t move, he would cool off.

  He allowed his mind to wander through the day. It hadn’t been particularly eventful, but even if it had been, he was sure that what had happened with Evelyn would have stuck in his mind. She was different from all the other women here, that much was sure.

  On a daily basis, Lonnie had women throwing themselves at him, either pretending that they needed help with something or dropping something in front of him, just so they had an excuse to stop and speak with him. He didn’t mind the attention, and there were so many good-looking women in town, he wasn’t about to say no to the attention.

  Yet Evelyn was something different.

  She was beautiful, more beautiful than the other women, because she made it seem so effortless. Her hair was dark and hung loosely around her shoulders. Her skin was bright, white, and clear, a wonder how she could be so pale given the amount of sun they had here. And her eyes…

  Even though her eyes had been staring him down, challenging him in some way, he was unable to get them out of his head. They were a rich, brown color and seemed to go on forever. He could get lost in them, and the feeling he was having in his gut was telling him that he wanted to. He wanted to get to know Evelyn Pierce, despite what the sheriff had said.

  That fire within her was intriguing. She was so angry, so feisty, so unwilling to be pushed around by anybody. He liked that. He liked her. He could feel something special taking over him.

  Chapter 3

  Evelyn leaned forward on the cash desk in the hardware store. It had emptied now. She’d not had a customer for the last couple of hours, so it was about time she closed up and got home to her father. He’d be waiting, but whether or not he’d remember she was meant to be home, that was another story.

  She looked around the store and took it all in, trying to remember the last time she’d seen it with more than just a couple of people in it. She remembered the days when her father was running the store, and there were people coming to the small town from miles away just to see him. He knew what he was doing. His father had been in charge of the hardware store, and his father before him. It was a family business that she was carrying on, but she couldn’t help but feel like she was driving it into the ground most of the time.

  There was a time, in the days before Willard, that people would travel just to come here. Now they were lucky if they had more than ten customers in a day. The aisles weren’t packed like they used to be. It was the reason why she was the only one that worked there. She didn’t need anyone to help her run a half-empty store.

  Evelyn closed the door and locked it from the inside, turning around and sighing as she looked at the place. She took the broom from the store cupboard and swept down every aisle, sure that some of them hadn’t been walked down that day, and even surer that they wouldn’t be walked down tomorrow. If people didn’t trust her in this town, there wasn’t a chance they were going to shop in her store.

  The people from the bank had come to collect supplies to fix everything that Willard had broken, but she didn’t have the heart to charge them for it. After all, he had done it for her. Everybody had heard him say that, hadn’t they?

  When she was done, she left, heading out into the night which was cooling off nicely. The breeze was welcome across her neck and shoulders. She pulled her hair up and out of her face, so she could really enjoy the coolness of it. The day had been hot, and her run in with the new ranger had been… well, an experience.

  She shook it from her head. No time to think of such things, she needed to get home.

  “Evening, Pop,” she said, as she opened the gate and started walking toward the porch. He was in his usual spot on the front deck, sitting on a swing and staring out at the horizon. On some days, Evelyn would sit with him and watch the sun fade in the sky, and they’d watch the world turn from bright orange to gray.

  But not tonight. She didn’t have the heart for it tonight.

  “You have a good day?” she asked as she walked over to the swing. He looked up at her blankly. There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes, the twitch of a smile forming at the corners of his mouth.

  Evelyn sighed. That will have to do, I guess, she thought.

  Her father didn’t understand all that much these days. Some days were better than others. They would sit and have a full conversation sometimes, and she would see glimpses of the man who raised her, but then there were days when he would be this empty shell who couldn’t pick her out of a line up. Those were the days when it hurt the most, when he didn’t even recognize his own daughter.

  “Your father is lucky to have lost his mind,” people in town had said in the past. “He’d be ashamed of who you’ve become.” Miss Sylvia was one of the townsfolk who said things like that. It stung. The last thing in the world that Evelyn wanted to do was disappoint her father. But given everything that happened with Willard, she wouldn’t be surprised if they were right.

  She took a breath and helped her father inside the house. She was fighting against people like that every day, fighting to reclaim her reputation and not be seen as a wild woman. She certainly didn’t want to be seen as someone who sympathised with what Willard did. She was way past that now. She was glad to be rid of him.

  The second he robbed that bank it was over for the two of them. She had loved him so much, possibly too much, enough to make her do some stupid things while they were together. But he’d broken her trust. He’d gone out of his way to make a fool of her in front of the rest of the town, and she couldn’t take it anymore. The only thing he ever really thought about was money. He was addicted to the power it gave people.

  She could see it in the way that he talked about his next scheme, the way he would plan everything and try and rope her into it. No matter what, she thought there was nothing she could do to convince him to stop. That with the drinking was what had driven him to rob the bank in the first place. A hideous combination of the two things he loved the most, drinking and money. There were days when Evelyn wondered where she sat on the list of things Willard loved the most. She didn’t think she would be very high up.

  Evelyn set her father up at the dining table and got to cleaning up. She looked at him sitting there, his eyes looking a little glassy and she wondered how much of it he knew. Did he know about the
stealing? Did he even know that she’d been with Willard? It was hard to tell. He seemed so out of it most of the time, she imagined one day he would surprise her and ask her or scold her about it. But that day never seemed to come.

  Evelyn tidied around him, occasionally saying something to her father that he didn’t answer or acknowledge. Maybe it was better that way. If he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t talk back.

  “I loved him, Pop,” she said as she swept the floor. “I really did. But I didn’t like his stealing, I want you to know that I didn’t.” Nothing. “I tried to encourage him to lead a good life, to be a good man, but there’s only so much a girl can do.” Not a twitch. “I want you to know I ended it. He went too far, Pop, he robbed the bank near the hardware store and, frankly, it was the last straw for me. I couldn’t take it anymore.”