Willow never knew her father, and her mother hadn’t said much about him. All Willow knew was that he’d never married her mother. As Willow began her transition from girlhood to womanhood, her mother has been adamant that Willow pay no attention to boys and end up with child as she had. It wasn’t a hard feat. Her mother had been beautiful, and Willow looked nothing like her. Boys didn’t give Willow any amorous consideration anyway.
She didn’t get in the family way, but she’d gotten into plenty of other kinds of trouble. She never took school seriously, and she never mastered how to cook and take care of a household like her female peers. Instead she learned how to ride, fish, and hunt. When her mother died, she learned how to steal, simply because she couldn’t survive any other way.
Willow often wondered if her ma would have been secretly proud of how Willow had handled herself. Instead of going down the most likely path and working in the saloon like the other destitute and unmarried women her age, she’d become a scrapper. She’d never opened her legs for any man, let alone a customer, and she always managed to get by.
“What’s the other reason for wanting me to come live with you, Heath, the reason that’s not noble?” she asked. His name tasted foreign on her lips, like the first time she’d sipped gin. She’d always thought of him as Mr. Wolfe, the rich rancher, voice of authority and reason. Calling him Heath felt too familiar, but he had called her Willow, and she wanted to assert that she was not beneath him.
He tapped the dirt with the heel of his boot a few times. “Don’t rightly know how to explain it without sounding like a braggart, but here goes. You mentioned that many women would be willing to come stay at the house and work for me. That’s the truth. Problem is, if I hire any skirt of marrying age, she might get it into her head that’s where we’d be headed. To the chapel, I mean. And frankly I’m not interested in marrying again. That’s the long and short of it.”
“I’m of marrying age,” Willow pointed out. “But I suppose it would be completely outlandish to think a girl like me might want to get hitched.”
Heath’s ears slowly turned bright red, and he looked stricken. “That’s not what I meant. You’re so much younger than I am and—"
Willow burst into laughter, saving him from having to explain himself further. She knew what he meant. There was nothing about her appearance or attitude that made her seem to want a man. She lacked the coquettish nature and fashion sense. To her all that was a waste of time, and she had no desire to trap a man. She’d rather trap beavers and sell the fur.
Heath shook his head, but there was relief and a twinkle in his eyes. “You’re going to be a handful, aren’t you?”
“I haven’t agreed yet. What exactly would you require me to do?”
“Nothing difficult. Just cooking, milking the cow, cleaning, minding the children, mending clothes and curtains, that sort of thing.”
“Oh, is that all?” she huffed. It never failed to amaze and infuriate her how men thought women’s work was easy. She’d tried both men’s and women’s work in her life, and those tasks which often were thought of as male duties, like tending to horses and hunting, were vastly more interesting and less arduous than the day-to-day female burden of housework. She’d like to see Heath, or any man for that matter, spend years on end maintaining a household instead of cutting cattle.
“Now don’t get your dander up,” he said. “All I meant is working at the house wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. It would be what most every woman in Texas does.”
“The thing is, I’m not all that motherly. I can chase out dust bunnies, but the idea of running after children all day makes me want to pull out my hair.”
His eyes narrowed, and he hesitated a beat before saying, “I’m not looking for you to be a mother to my children. They lost theirs and they’ve had to adjust to that. No one can take her place. As for running after them, they’re well-behaved and shouldn’t require much in that way.”
There was no missing the ice in his tone. He’d put her in her place with a clear message. She would never attain a whit of his late wife’s worth to the family. It made her feel even worse about the prospect of going home with him. At least around town, she commanded some respect from the other wanderers and troublemakers. If she went home with Heath, she’d be nothing but inferior hired help.
“How about we give it one month?” he asked, with a less-chilly voice. He stood to his feet. “That’s what the marshal suggested. If you hate it, you can always leave, but I think you should at least try. It’s better than Clyde locking you in jail.”
Willow stood too. “Fine. One month,” she said sullenly, staring at the third button down on his shirt, which was eye-level to her.
“Don’t sound so sulky,” he admonished, holding out his hand to shake on their deal. “You’re going to live on a ranch, not in the calaboose. It won’t be all that bad.”
Willow allowed her hand to be swallowed inside the rancher’s paw. She suddenly felt small and fragile, something she’d rarely felt before. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant feeling, but it was new to her, and she realized soon everything would be new. Dread welled up and lodged itself deep inside of her. What was she getting herself into?
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About Amelia Smarts
Amelia Smarts is a USA Today bestselling author of fast-paced, steamy western romances with dominant cowboys, Dom/sub discipline, and heartwarming HEAs. Amelia holds graduate and undergraduate degrees in creative writing and English. She loves to read, which allows her writing to be influenced by many different genres in addition to romance, including mystery, adventure, history, and suspense.
Amelia’s accolades include:
Golden Flogger Award Finalist for Best BDSM Book (Emma’s Surrender)
Voted #1 Favorite Historical Romance Author in The Bashful Bookwhore’s Poll
Winner: Best Sweet Spanking Romance (Fetching Charlotte Rose) in the Spanking Romance Reviews Reader’s Poll
Runner-up: Best Historical Western Romance (Claimed by the Mountain Man) in the Spanking Romance Reviews Reader’s Poll
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