“That’s boring!” Bitty exclaimed. “I do too know how to play. It’s not that hard. You run around and try to find a flag.”
Willow dropped flapjacks on the children’s plates, causing the argument to pause while they ate. She added three flapjacks to Heath’s plate along with two strips of bacon. He didn’t look up and continued to read the paper while eating his breakfast.
The bickering soon resumed where it had left off. Bitty’s voice turned plaintive and whining, while Jack’s grew louder and more insistent. They both crossed their arms and scowled at each other. Heath folded his newspaper and stood just as Willow was sitting to have her breakfast.
When Bitty’s eyes filled with tears, Heath groaned and finally intervened in the children’s squabble. “Bitty, if Jack wants to go play with his friends without you, that’s his right. You have your own friends. Now stop whining. And Jack, you might consider taking your sister along sometime. It would be the nice thing to do.”
“Yeah, it would be nice!” Bitty parroted.
Jack sighed like a longsuffering parent. “Fine, but not this time.”
“When, though?” she wailed.
“Enough, Bitty,” Heath said with a slightly raised voice. “I don’t want to hear another word about this. Go outside and play.”
Bitty let out another wail and fled out the back door. Jack grunted and left the table too, heading for his room.
Heath turned his attention to Willow. “All that arguing… You don’t have to wait for me to say something. You can tell them to stop arguing as well as I can.”
Willow took a sip of her coffee. It was cold, even though she’d left it in the pot and waited to pour it until she could actually drink it. She felt irritated by the cold coffee and by Heath’s comment. “Why should I be the one to say something? I told you the very first day that I didn’t see myself minding children.”
When she looked up, she found him glaring at her. “I wasn’t aware you still felt that way,” he said.
She shrugged. “Nothing has changed. I’m not their mother. I’m the hired help. And by the way, hired help usually has time off. I have worked every day for two months, and I need some rest.”
“I know how long you’ve been here. You might have told me you needed some rest instead of allowing that bee to buzz in your bonnet.”
“I just told you, didn’t I?” she retorted.
His jaw clenched in a rare sign of annoyance. He walked to the mat by the door and grabbed his boots. “Then consider tomorrow your day off. Get yourself gaited on out of here and go to town. I’ll stay home with the children.”
“Fine.”
When he finished pulling on his boots, he strode out the door without another word.
Willow pushed her plate of flapjacks away. A day off would do her good, she supposed, but she wished it hadn’t been arranged with Heath so contentiously. She could have just asked him, and he would have said yes.
The problem was, asking him for something seemed impossible. She worried that once she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop. Please, Heath, will you give me a day off? And while you’re at it, will you also give me some attention, love, and your undying devotion?
She scoffed at her own foolishness. A man like Heath would never be attracted to a woman like her, even if he was on the lookout for a woman, which he’d clearly said in the beginning he wasn’t. She needed to settle for the way things were, as tough as that might be, because as difficult as it was to be near Heath the way things were, the thought of not being near him at all was unbearable.
The following day, after breakfast, Heath met her by the front door. “All set to go, Trouble?”
She looked up from where she was buckling her shoes. “Just about.” She tried not to smile. She loved it when he called her Trouble, though she wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t exactly a compliment.
He reached out and pulled down her shawl from where it was hanging on the hook by the door. Handing it to her, he said, “It’s a cool morning. Probably should wear this.”
She finished buckling her shoes, stood, and accepted the shawl, warmed by the simple gesture.
He opened the door and placed his hand on her back to escort her outside. The touch sent hot prickles up and down her spine. Even when he dropped his hand, the ghost of his touch remained a hot memory.
“I saddled Ashton for you so you don’t have to walk to town,” he said.
Willow observed the groomed and saddled horse tied to the hitching post. It felt good, the way Heath was taking care of her. Of course, he had been taking care of her for months now, providing shelter and sustenance, but the nature of his care this morning felt more meaningful.
He walked with her to the horse. His voice was serious when he said, “Please be home before sundown, alright, Willow? Let me give you a leg up.”
She bent her knee and allowed him to grasp her lower leg to hoist her up. After she’d settled on the horse and gathered the reins in her hand, she said, “It’s not really a day off if I can’t stay out after sundown. That’s when the good time begins.”
“Not for you,” he replied firmly. “I don’t want you riding home in the dark all alone. There are bears and wildcats along that trail, plus nothing good happens after dark on the streets of Thorndale.”
“But I can stay the night in the livery, like I used to do.” She was joking, but she wanted to get a rise out of him. It annoyed her that he was giving her a curfew. She hadn’t actually planned to stay out past dark, but now that he was ordering her not to, her rebellious streak roared to life.
“No, Willow,” he answered seriously. “No staying in the livery. I want you home before sundown. Is that clear?”
She looked down into his hard, handsome face. She hadn’t seen this side of Heath. Usually he would trade smart remarks with her, but he was being uncommonly stern. “Why are you being this way, Heath? You’re so… serious.”
“Because I want to leave no room for doubt in your mind. We’ve become friends, and I’m pleased about that, but let’s not forget why you came here to the ranch in the first place.”
She scowled at him. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t feign ignorance about our arrangement. You know the marshal tasked me with straightening you out. You haven’t needed any of that from me thus far, but this is the first time you’ll be alone in town since you came to live here. I don’t want you getting up to any of your old mischief.”
She scoffed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. And if I don’t follow this rule to come home before sundown? What will you do, fire me and tell the marshal?”
Heath’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I will not fire you. But I will discipline you.”
“How?” The question came out in a nervous squeak.
He rubbed his stubbled cheek. “Well, let’s see. How about this? I’ll march you to the barn and give you a thrashing you’ll never forget. You’ll be sleeping bottom-up for a few nights.”
She was surprised by that. Heath had never indicated he would inflict serious corporal punishment, though she remembered the swat he’d landed when she fibbed to him. Studying him, she said, “You— you wouldn’t really, would you? You never hit your children.”
“No, but you’re not a child, are you? You’re a grown woman with a hankerin’ for mischief. I’d have no problem spanking some sense into you.”
She stared at him, trying to find words to protest, but she could think of nothing.
“Willow, say you’ll be a good girl and do as I ask,” Heath said, his voice gentler than before. “More than anything, I care about your safety. That’s why I’m being such a hard case about you coming home.”
She bit her bottom lip and shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. “Alright, fine. Can I go now?”
He shook his head and reached out to gather the horse’s reins below the bit, preventing her from leaving. “Say the words, ‘I’ll be good. I’ll come home before sundown as you’ve requested’.”
Squaring her shoulders, she said the embarrassing words quickly. “I’ll be good. I’ll come home before sundown. Now will you let me go?”
He smiled and released the reins. “Have a hog-killin’ time, honey.”
“Thanks a lot,” she said, tossing her braid over her shoulder.
She nudged the horse with her heels into a smart trot and headed toward town, her mind full of Heath’s threat of giving her a thrashing. She waited for her outrage to increase, but it quelled instead. As embarrassing as it was to be threatened with a spanking, it did nothing to mitigate her feelings for Heath. If anything, it made her feel like maybe he cared for her more than he let on. Her eyes began to sting, and it wasn’t until she reached town that she pushed her conflicting thoughts aside.
Chapter Ten
Twenty-four hours later
Willow’s head ached and pounded with every beat of her heart. She shivered. The air was cool, and she was curled up in the fetal position on a hard surface. Coarse material covered her. She felt it with half-numb fingers and realized it was a thin wool blanket, not the fluffy cotton quilt on her bed at the ranch. Her stomach roiled. She heard a mournful groan and barely recognized that it had come from her own throat.
After prying her eyes open, the first thing she spotted was a chamber pot. Next to it was a wooden table with a white pitcher full of water and a small tin cup. Beyond that were metal bars. That’s when she realized she was in jail. She hadn’t made it back to the ranch before sunset. She hadn’t made it back at all.
The events of the previous evening slowly fell into place, with large gaps between them. Lots of whiskey. Laughter. Cards. Slurred words and wobbling walks. Songs sung out of key. She groaned again when the marshal entered her memory. She recalled two images of his face floating in front of her.
She closed her eyes again, wishing the ache in her head would go away. The next thing she knew, a clanging sound was entering her dreams. It was the blacksmith, standing next to her and whacking heated iron into the shape of a horseshoe. Then the blacksmith vanished, and the marshal appeared, banging keys against metal bars. She was no longer dreaming. She sat up on the cot as Marshal Clyde Shaw walked in holding a bowl of mush.
He handed it to her. “I’ll say this for Heath, you stayed out of trouble for two whole months.”
Hearing Heath’s name brought such a rush of anguish, she couldn’t speak right away. When she did, her voice sounded hoarse and foreign. “Why am I in jail?”
“For your own safety. You didn’t vandalize anything this time. My deputy saw Heath’s horse trotting away toward the ranch with no rider, so I searched for you. Found you behind the saloon passed out. No money in your possession. I’m guessing you were robbed at some point, but it doesn’t seem like anything worse than that happened.”
Willow noticed that light was streaming through the small barred window into the jail cell. Judging by the intensity of the sun’s rays, it was well after sunrise. She was afraid to ask her next question. “Heath…” she began, but her voice trailed off.
“He stopped by this morning when you were asleep. Said he would run errands and return later. You might want to wait here. He didn’t mention to me what his plan was. If he doesn’t want you to work at the ranch anymore because of your reckless behavior, you and I will need to have a very serious discussion about your future, young lady.”
The marshal left, closing the door to the metal cage behind him. He didn’t lock it, and Willow knew she was free to leave. But she could think of no place she wanted to go other than to the ranch. She opted to wait for Heath and pray that he would take her home.
She set the mush aside and poured herself some water from the pitcher into the tin cup. The cool liquid soothed her burning throat but did nothing to help the nausea. She cleaned herself up as best she could, scrubbing her face and hands using the remaining water in the pitcher. She raked her fingers through her long dark hair and braided it in a single plait down her back.
The menial tasks were effective in keeping her mind from focusing fully on her greatest fear. She was terrified Heath would want nothing to do with her now. She’d not only broken her promise to return before sunset, she had also made a drunken fool of herself.
She thought about what had happened the night before. She recalled noticing that the sun was setting and thinking she should get home. But her friend Johnny, whom she hadn’t seen since she’d started working on the ranch, convinced her to have one drink with him outside the saloon. He’d promised it wouldn’t take more than ten minutes and then she could be on her way.
Her apprehension over Heath’s threat of punishment had dwindled after one drink, and she was enjoying her freedom so much that she’d had another, and another. When she realized there was no way she would make it back before sunset, she decided she might as well enjoy her time if she was going to get in trouble anyway.
Still, she’d had no intention of liquoring up to the point where she wouldn’t be able to return to the ranch at all, and she wondered how the horse had ended up getting loose. Had she tried to mount while inebriated and spooked her?
It didn’t matter. She’d messed up in a big way, and she couldn’t think of a single good excuse or reason. With every minute that passed without Heath coming to see her, her fear grew stronger. By the time several hours had gone by, her headache and nausea had diminished, but her fear and sadness were at an all-time high.
What she wouldn’t give to take it all back! She wished she hadn’t even accepted Heath’s offer to take a day to herself. She wished she had spent the day with the children. Thinking about Jack and Bitty brought a lump to her throat. What were they doing? Did they notice she was gone, and did they miss her like she missed them?
It wasn’t until late in the afternoon, after the marshal had insisted she drink a bitter-tasting liquid meant to be a hangover cure, that she heard the rough baritone of Heath’s voice coming from the front of the jailhouse. She couldn’t make out the words spoken between the marshal and Heath, but they were likely about whether Heath would take responsibility for her again.
She was overcome with a terrible feeling of hope—terrible because she knew it was likely useless to hope that Heath would give her another chance. Tears filled her eyes. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if he wanted nothing to do with her now.
By the time Heath came striding into her cell, the tears were streaming down her face. He looked down at her with a mild expression, hands on his hips. She hiccupped and stared into his eyes, waiting for the verdict.
He didn’t make her wait long. “Well? You want to come home now? Or do you fancy staying in the marshal’s fine hotel a bit longer?”
The relief that washed over her caused more tears. She stood from the hard cot and walked to him with her head bowed and shoulders stooped, sniffling. “I want to go home, Heath.”
“Come along, then, Trouble.” He pivoted and strode out of the cell. She followed him outside and to the buggy. When he wordlessly offered her a hand up, she accepted it. His calloused fingers clasped hers, and she squeezed them tight on her ascent, drawing strength from his touch.
Once they were both seated, Heath said, “’Y’yup!” to the horse, and the buggy lurched forward.
Willow held on to the railing until she’d caught her balance, then let go and fidgeted with her hands in her lap. The only sounds for the next half-mile were the crunching of the wheels along the dirt and puffs of air from the horse.
She wished Heath would say something to her. She wanted him to yell at her, tell her she was a terrible disappointment, tell her he was angry with her—anything but the pervasive silence. She couldn’t guess what he was thinking, but a glance at his face told her he was more unhappy with her
than he’d let on at the jail. His jaw was hard, his eyes narrow.
“Are you angry with me, Heath?” she asked, her voice small.
He didn’t respond.
Willow sighed and looked at the grass shuddering over the rolling hills. The air against her cheek felt like freedom. She hadn’t realized how stale it was in the jail until she was away from it. How could she have thought she was freer in her previous lifestyle? Living in the comfort of a home with people who cared about her—that was true freedom. She never wanted to end up in trouble again.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you were angry,” she said. “Matter of fact, I’m surprised you’re even bringing me home. I thought you’d be done with me. I thought you wouldn’t want me working for you anymore.”
He looked over at her and finally spoke. “Is that what you would prefer? Be done with me and the children? Go back to your old life?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head emphatically. “As I was sitting in the cell, the only thing I wanted was to see you and the children. I made a vow to myself never to drink or chew or play cards again.”
“Don’t make vows you can’t keep, Willow, even to yourself,” he said sharply.
Chastened, she quieted, but the silence between them was painful. After some time watching the muscles rippling under the haunches of the horse pulling the buggy, she said, “I wish you would yell at me or something.”
He didn’t respond right away. When he did, his voice was quiet. “I’m not much of a yeller, but if you recall, I did promise you a spanking.”
She swallowed. “I remember.”
“You do, huh? Did you forget last night? Spankings hurt, you know. It would have been wise for you to avoid getting one.”
Her bottom cheeks clenched, and her tummy gave a strange little flip. She thought back to how she’d dismissed her fear of punishment after a drink. Now that the threat was close to becoming a reality, she wondered about her own sanity. “I guess I didn’t think about it very seriously. Honestly, I lost track of time. I wasn’t intentionally going against your wishes.”
Bringing Trouble Home (Lost and Found in Thorndale Book 1) Page 6