by Gayle Riley
Lucy found her eyes narrowing. This man despised Will so much that he was willing to drag her through the mud to get what he wanted. “He’s not my blood brother,” Lucy retorted, but she knew that it sounded weak and wrong even to her own ears. “All his because you want the ranch?”
The man nodded once. “You better believe it. I have worked longer than that boy and I’ve been through more than he will ever know.” Even though he didn’t say the words out loud, Lucy could tell that he was insinuating because he’ll be dead.
“There’s got to be a way that you can reach an agreement.” Lucy tried to reason, but it sounded more like a plea and she hated it.
Richard Polk looked her up and down with his hard grey eyes. “There’s a few ways we could make an agreement.” He paused to do nothing more than make her squirm. “The boss is never going to choose me over him, so he leaves town or he dies. But, I’ll keep quiet about your part in this…” Once more he flicked his eyes over Lucy’s body. “If you let me show you how to please a man.”
There was the catch. Now that she’d thrown out her virtue, anyone thought they could have it. While it was enticing to know it might silence him for the moment. Lucy knew that it wouldn’t make him not tell forever. “No thank you,” she replied as strongly as she could.
“No?” The man looked at her like she was stupid. “What about your role of being the virginal schoolmarm?”
Lucy swallowed hard as she tried to not waver. “I’ve made a mistake. Having sex with you isn’t going to help that. It’s only going to make it worse.”
The man’s demeanor changed immediately. He was no longer was the calm, cool and collected man that had started this conversation. He grabbed her by the arm and gritted his teeth as he spoke just inches from her face. “I can ruin your life in an instant. If you love your stepbrother at all. You’ll do this. Or I’ll kill him. I’ll tell them he raped you and they’ll hang him.”
“I’ll scream and they’ll do the same to you,” Lucy retorted. “How will you get your ranch then?”
The man’s eyes widened before he released her and stalked to the door. “You’ll be sorry for this. Your life will be miserable. You’ll wish you were dead.”
Lucy had no idea how he was going to slip out of the boarding house without being seen. She slumped onto her bed and began to sob. She felt like she had fallen into the sea and the more she tried to tread water, the more she got tired. Soon she would drown.
Chapter 7
“What’s wrong Miss Thompson?”
Lucy must have been thinking too much about her visitor from the previous day or the severity of the situation because her students were staring at her concerned. They were eating lunch on the grass outside of the school house enjoying the beautiful day.
“Oh, it’s nothing, Lucy tried to assure.
“But you look so sad.” One of her older students said. “If you are sad, then we are sad too.”
Lucy smiled at her students and loved how they were so concerned about her. She couldn’t tell them the whole truth, but she could at least try to explain why she was no seeming so out of sorts. “I have a friend who is in trouble. It seems like every option they think of only makes things worse.” As she said this she realized that she was talking about herself as much as she was telling them about Will.
“Miss Thompson, I don’t know your friend or what they’re going through, but I can tell you what I’d do,” said one to of the boys. He was a reluctant student that usually went missing around harvest time, but when he was in school he tried his hardest. “I’d help my friend. I do whatever I could to make things right, even if I got in trouble.”
When the other students murmured in agreement Lucy felt her heart swelling. “You would be that loyal to someone that you would risk being punished or being ashamed?”
“My mother tells me that life is too short,” A girl around ten years old answered. “So I’d rather make my friends happy than worry about making the right choice all the time.”
It was like the children had doused her with a bucket of cold water. She could face the shame. If she worked as hard as she could, she could get a job somewhere even if she was waiting tables or scrubbing someone’s floors. Losing Will to Richard Polk’s jealousy was something she could not bear. She was happy that her students had helped her come to that conclusion.
“Thank you for your opinions,” Lucy said warmly. “Enjoy your recess and be ready to come in about fifteen minutes.”
“Will you play with us?” one of the children asked.
“Not this time,” Lucy answered, wondering if today would be the last time she’d even see some of her students. “I have some planning to do.” She didn’t tell the children that it wasn’t for their afternoon lessons.
***
When the sun went down, Lucy was dashing through the night toward the ranch. Her mind raced as she made her way. She’d left a letter for her landlord, letting her know that she would no longer be staying there and thanking her for being so kind. She’d left lesson plans for the remainder of the week and a letter of apology to her students for having to leave them. Maybe she was being over cautious, but Lucy had a feeling that she would no longer be a school teacher after this night was over. She might not even live in this town anymore.
She reached the ranch in what felt like record time. She could see some men sitting around the campfire so she carefully jumped the fence instead of walking through the gate. She snuck in the shadows to Will’s barn and felt relieved to see him in his quarters eating by himself.
“Will!” She hissed before she threw her arms around him. The man turned around and looked at her in surprise. Before he could say a word, she cupped his face in his hand. “Things are worse than I thought. But it’s okay. I finally see things clearly and I’m not going to run anymore.”
Will cocked his head at her. “I don’t understand. What’s happened?”
Lucy told him everything. About how when she came back from their last visit that Richard Polk was waiting for her and how he had vowed to destroy him. She also explained how he was willing to keep her part of this quiet if she let him have his way with her. “I told him no. I told him I’d rather be shunned.” She smiled up at him wistfully. “Then my students gave me some great advice and now I know that I have to help you. I will do anything I can to help you. I’ll forsake my pure title. I’ll tell the truth of what happened. Hell, I will leave this town and never come back if that is what it takes.” Lucy felt so impassioned that she couldn’t stop talking as the purge felt good. “I know now why you never felt like my brother. You were never meant to be my brother. You were meant to be the love of my life. It just took me ten years to see it. No one else might understand it, but deep in my heart I know it’s true.”
Will smiled at her. “The truth is always discovered.” He kissed her tenderly. “I love you, Lucy.”
For a few seconds, Lucy’s life made sense. It was unlike anything she had ever known or expected yet she finally felt whole that is until she heard the gravelly laugh of a man that she’d heard only the day before. “I thought I saw someone sneaking around the barns,” the voice said. “Should have known it was you. You dirty filthy girl.”
Richard Polk stepped out of the shadows and into Will’s living quarters. Defensively, Will stepped in front of Lucy. “You leave her alone. You have issues with me. This has nothing to do with her.”
“That may be so,” Polk admitted, “but I’ve found your weakness and I plan on using it against you.”
Then he pulled a gun from his holster and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 8
Lucy screamed as the bullet hit her arm. She tumbled to the ground, waiting for the second shot that would end her. Richard Polk cursed as he fumbled with his gun.
“Well shit, I guess I shouldn’t have drank so much with my dinner.”
Lucy locked eyes with Will who nodded at her so quickly that Polk probably didn’t notice. She used the distraction to
crawl out of sight into the darkness of the barn. Pain seared through her arm but she tried to focus on helping Will anyway she could.
“Polk, if this is about inheriting the ranch, you can have it,” Will exclaimed. “I don’t want it.”
“You’re a goddamned liar,” he spat. “You always boast that you’re the best cowboy on this ranch. You’re a braggart just like your father.” Richard Polk retorted in a fury. “I made sure to leave him alone in Indian territory so he wouldn’t be a threat to me either.”
Will’s eyes grew wide. “You did what?”
Richard Polk smiled at him wickedly. “You best believe I’ll do anything to get what I want. I’ll screw your stepsister. I’ll kill you real slow. But I always get what I want.
Lucy had to suppress another scream when Will tumbled on top of the man and began to berate him with punches. Lucy thought back to what her students had said earlier in the day, of how they would risk anything and everything to protect their friends. She knew what she had to do.
Even though she’d only know about Richard Polk for a matter of days she knew that he was an unstable man. She knew he probably had a knife in his boot and that he would kill Will, given the opportunity. Lucy’s arm throbbed and she could feel the blood rolling down her sleeve but she apologized to God for what she was about to do. She’d found the shovel the moment she’d hidden in the shadows. She grasped it in her hands. Her muscles screaming as she gripped it. She knew the adrenaline would kick, the pain would leave her temporarily.
Richard Polk rolled on top of Will and spit in his face before he attempted to get the upper hand. Lucy took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadows. She raised the shovel over her head. Polk was so distracted that he didn’t even notice her approach.
Please, please let it be enough, Lucy pleaded. Then she swung the shovel down, metal shovel making contact with the cowboy’s head. There was a sickening crack and Richard Polk went limp before he slumped over and off of Will’s body. He made no noise, but blood oozed from the back of his head. Lucy dropped the shovel as she realized that Will was pretty much unharmed.
Will scrambled to the man’s side and felt for his pulse. Too much time passed and Will looked up at her with a pale face. “He’s…he’s dead. You killed him.”
As much as Lucy wanted to cry at killing a man and further sealing her fate, she couldn’t. “It was you or him,” she explained. “I’ve already become a harlot. Might as well become a true outlaw by committing a murder.” The words sounded crazy as they left her lips.
“Your arm,” Will said as he looked at her bloodied sleeve.
“We can fix it later,” Lucy promised. “We need to leave. I’m sure people heard me scream.”
“What about you?”
Lucy stumbled to the haystack bed and pulled the sheets away. She tied them into a bunch as looked for other important things to take. “I made my arrangements already.” She stopped quickly. “I had a feeling that there would be no turning back from this.”
Will stopped collecting food and weapons. “You did all that for me?”
Lucy nodded. “I love you.”
Will bent down and kissed her forehead. “I love you too. I’m so sorry things had to be this way,” he said. “You were a great teacher. It’s too bad.”
Lucy nodded. “It is. But I’m confident that things will be even better in our future.”
It was at that point that Will and Lucy could hear the murmurs of mens voices. If they hadn’t heard the gunshot, then they had definitely heard her scream. Soon they would be discovered the embarrassment of losing her virginity while being the town’s teacher would be nothing compared to being tried and executed for murder.
“We have to go,” Will warned.
They tied their belongings in the bed sheets before they escaped through the back door. Will led the way as they ran from barn to barn, trying to throw off anyone that thought to pursue them. Lucy’s arm hurt but she knew that in order for them to survive, she would have to keep going. They ran until the campfire was nothing but a speck on the horizon. They ran until there was nothing but prairie around them. They ran until their lungs burned and their muscles wobbled with fatigue with only the moon to guide them.
Chapter 9
Will and Lucy had come full circle. This whole thing started out by Lucy dislodging part of weapon from Will and now he did the same thing to her. Lucy had never experienced pain like she had when Will had cut around the bullet to get it out of her arm, but she knew that if Richard Polk had shot her anywhere else she wouldn’t be alive at all, and she was grateful for the pain.
They had cleaned the wound as best they could and Will vowed that as soon as they found civilization, they would have a doctor look it over. For now, he had tied a tourniquet near the closest pressure point and covered it the best they could. They might have been far enough from the ranch to not have to run, but they couldn’t rest yet. Not when they could have an angry mob of riders chasing after them.
They found a town a few days later and Lucy was happy for the rest. The shock of everything had worn her down and the pain in her arm had made her exhausted and weak. As soon as the doctor stitched her up properly, she was ordered to rest before they moved on again. Lucy knew that they were safe the more miles they put between them and Richard Polk’s body, but there’s was no way around it. She needed to sleep.
The room they rented above the town’s general store was small but it served its purpose. Now that Lucy was a criminal, she should have been looking over her shoulder whenever every something made a noise, but now that she wasn’t expected to be prim and proper, she found herself more relaxed than she had even been before. That and the medicine the local doctor has prescribed was taking the edge off.
“What now?” she finally asked when she’d been able to rest and her wound had started to heal. “Where will we go? What will we do?”
Will was sitting on the edge of the bed. “We travel until we feel safe. Then I find work.”
“Then what?”
He smiled at her and Lucy found her heart singing at the way his eyes sparkled. “If you are worried about me leaving you behind, I won’t.” He assured. “My biggest dream is to have a ranch of my own someday. One that I earn myself, that isn’t handed to me.”
“I’ll help you however I can.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
Lucy motioned for him to join her under the covers and he gingerly slid next to her, careful to not hurt her as he wrapped his arms around her.
“Can we do this the right way this time, please?” she urged before she turned her body and began to kiss him. In all their running and franticness they hadn’t had the chance to acknowledge that they’d made a huge sacrifice for one another and Lucy wanted to show him that her feelings for him with strong and true.
She pulled herself out of her clothes and was happy that by the time she’d thrown her slip to the floor that he was already bare-chested and naked below the covers. She let her hands feel every inch of him, relishing the way his muscles felt as traced circles on her own bare skin. Will nibbled her neck and made her breathless and Lucy knew that regardless of who they were in the past that he needed to be a part of her future. No, he would be.
Will rolled her onto her and stared at her longingly as he spread her legs wide. “I never let you go all the way,” he said almost regretfully. “I was very selfish that night.” Then he lowered his mouth over of her womanhood and kissed and licked until Lucy was squirming with pleasure. When she tried to wiggle away so she could pleasure him, he pressed her down to the bed so that he could continue. It was not in any way forceful, but perfectly clear that he wasn’t down. In the end Lucy was happy that he’d been so adamant, Her first orgasm rocked through her in a way that she wished she had known ages before.
Happy with himself, Will smiled at her before he let himself into her, inch by inch as if savoring the moment. Lucy wrapped her arms around his neck pleased to feel the sensation, hopeful th
at she would feel the ecstasy that she had felt when her body was full of whiskey. This time she would enjoy every moment, she would feel no guilt.
As more time passed, the tempo of Will’s thrusts increased and Lucy could feel herself becoming lost. The bed squeaked. Will made more noise as time passed. She didn’t know it was possible to reach a climax more than once, yet here she was reaching the point of no return once more. Will cursed and it was like something in her snapped. His pleasure spurred her own and soon she was burying her face into her shoulder to stifle her screams.
Lucy stared at the ceiling as her pulse returned to normal. Will flopped onto the mattress beside her, breathing still labored as he kissed her shoulder. “Feeling guilty this time?” he asked.
“Not at all,” she answered. “For the first time in a long time, a boring life doesn’t seem like the best life.”
As Lucy felt her eyes growing heavy, she knew that no matter what life threw at her, no matter how far she had to roam her life would be better than if she had stayed behind. Maybe falling in love with her stepbrother wasn’t conventional and most people would frown upon it, Lucy had no regrets. She knew her life would be better because of it.
Chapter 10
Five Years Later
Lucy woke up as the sun warmed her face. As the grogginess of sleep faded away, a grin splayed across her face. She rose from the bed as quick as her feet would allow and dressed, finding her best frock in the chest by the door and brushed her hair. Will was coming back today. It had been nearly a month and she was beginning to think that she was going to go made if she had to wait another day.
She tiptoed out of the room and into the kitchen where she put a kettle on to the stove and grabbed a basket from a hook by the door as she decided she would do her chores as best she could in her best dress. She wanted to be ready the moment she saw Will approaching so she didn’t care if she had to wear it all day.