Stand-In Rancher Daddy

by Renee Ryan

  “If no one in the bank was putting up any resistance or trying to fight, then how did you get shot?” she asked, perplexed by his story. He talked about the gang as if he wasn’t one of them himself. But he must have been right in the thick of the robbery to have gotten shot.

  “As we turned to leave the bank, I heard a bang and it felt like someone had punched me, and then there was this stinging in my shoulder. I looked around, and saw that the bank president was suddenly holding a revolver, of all things, aimed at me. And that was funny, really, since I’d put myself in range by trying to stop Zeke—Zeke Tomlinson, he’s one of the Griggs gang and the one who first started firing off his gun—from shooting anyone else. Then another member of the gang—Bob Pritchard—shot the bank president in the shoulder in retaliation, just as he was aiming to fire again. That’s the shot that grazed my leg. And then it was time for us to skedaddle.”

  “No one’s looked at those injuries since then?”

  “That’s why I wanted to go fetch the doctor for him, Ma,” Billy Joe interjected.

  “As I was about to tell your son when you came in, ma’am, I figure your town doctor is pretty busy right now, just tending the bank president and the teller. He doesn’t need another patient.”

  Daisy ignored that comment for now. “Billy Joe, go back into the house and stay there—right now,” she said firmly, when the boy seemed loath to leave. “You’re to keep out of the barn until I decide what’s to be done.”

  Billy Joe’s lower lip jutted out rebelliously, but after uttering a big sigh, he trudged out of the barn, much to Daisy’s relief. She sighed herself and looked after her son for a moment before turning back to Thorn.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do with him,” she murmured. “He’s been through a lot in the past couple of years...and I don’t want you being here to disrupt our family after everything that’s happened already.”

  Thorn looked puzzled. “Ma’am, I promise you that I’m no threat to your family, but if you think your husband would object to me staying here in your barn till I’m able to travel, I can move on.” Left unspoken was the fact that he also wanted her to avoid telling the sheriff his whereabouts. She saw that he was watching carefully for her reaction. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d prefer to wait to move till nightfall, though...”

  She’d hoped he wouldn’t guess her family’s situation, but he was too clever. “I... I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” she said, avoiding his eyes, “but I won’t lie. I’m a widow...have been for a couple of years now,” she added, when his gaze dropped to her clothes, which were shabby and threadbare, but definitely not the black of recent mourning. “Billy Joe is my only child, and there’s no one living here but the two of us. I don’t even have any kin still living. So there’s no one else to object to your presence. And that’s why I said Billy Joe had been through a lot lately...”

  I should have said, “We’ve been through a lot lately,” she realized as soon as she had spoken. It sounded as if she didn’t miss her husband much, which was a horrible thing to admit to a stranger, even though it was true.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” the wounded man said automatically. “And for how it’s affected your son. I’d guess that without a father around to set him straight, you’re not happy to hear your boy talking like an outlaw was someone to look up to,” he concluded for her.

  “No, I’m not,” she agreed, and thought he saw too much with those dark, knowing eyes. She met his gaze with her chin upturned, daring him to criticize her parenting. He certainly wouldn’t be the first to think she couldn’t raise her son properly as a single mother. There were plenty of good people in Simpson Creek, as she knew firsthand. But there were plenty of mean-spirited gossips, too.

  “And I can understand that,” he told her, looking as if he wanted to say more about why he understood. “Mrs. Henderson, I can’t tell you the whole truth about my situation—for the sake of yours and the boy’s safety and my own—but I can tell you I’m not an outlaw, and that I have an honest and honorable reason for riding with the gang. And I promise, you and your son have absolutely nothing to fear from me. If you’d be willing to let me hide here, I’ll leave as soon as I can after that, and you can forget you ever laid eyes on me.”

  Should she take him at his word or not? Why should she take a chance that he was telling her the truth?

  There was sincerity shining in his dark eyes, but she’d learned from bitter experience that sincerity could be faked. William Henderson, Billy Joe’s father, had been a sweet-talking man with a sincere expression on his face when they’d courted, but shortly after they’d wed, he had turned her life into a nightmare that had lasted until he’d been taken away to prison.

  “Again,” Thorn continued, “I know you have no reason to believe what I’m about to tell you, but I’ll say it, anyway—I’m a Christian, law-abiding man, Mrs. Henderson. The Bible is my guide.”

  William had said he was a Christian man, too, but he’d twisted the Scriptures to excuse his cruelty to her till she’d almost stopped believing there was a God who cared what happened to her and her little boy. It wasn’t until her husband was killed in a prison riot that she felt able to take an easy breath and start to believe in God’s care for her again.

  “Then why are you—” she began, then caught herself. “Never mind—you said you couldn’t say, so I won’t press you to give me an answer you can’t give. I’ll just say that I’m a Christian woman, too.”

  At least she tried to be, even though it was hard. Was it truly Christian of her to distrust Thorn—to distrust nearly every man she encountered—because of her abusive late husband? Forgiveness was something she struggled with. She knew it was her duty as a Christian, but it was so very hard to find forgiveness in her heart for the man who had beaten her and Billy Joe for all those years.

  Had the Lord sent Thorn to her as a test, to see if she could show compassion and understanding to a man who, by all appearances, was a criminal like her husband? Maybe. The Bible said the Lord worked in mysterious ways—certainly they’d never been clear to her. But that didn’t stop her from wanting to bring herself, and especially her son, closer to God—to live within His plan for their lives.

  “We go to church every other Sunday,” she informed Thorn, “which is all I can get off from work, whether Billy Joe’s wanting to attend or not. And I try to get him to go without me when I’m working. I’m trying to be the best ma I can to him. I’m hoping if I ‘train my child up in the way he should go,’ as the Bible says, he’ll turn out to be a better man than his father was.” And what of the example she herself set for her son? Could she teach him a lesson in Christian compassion by letting Thorn stay with them?

  The man in question was now staring at her, and she guessed he was wondering if she was always so forthright with strangers. But she had always used that very plain speaking as a sort of armor against the world.

  “I have an idea,” he began with some hesitation, “if you’re going to let me stay, that is. You might use that permission to motivate your son, since he wants you to help me. Tell him I can only stay if he does whatever you say, whatever he’s been reluctant to do...such as finishing his chores, going to church, minding his manners and suchlike. But that’s up to you, ma’am, of course—you know your son best, and I hope you don’t mind the suggestion.”

  She blinked in surprise, then considered what he’d said. “You know, that’s actually a good idea,” she murmured after a moment. She could use this to teach her son about being a Christian, and give him a reason to behave, all in one. “Very well, Mr. Thorn...you may stay—for now.”

  “Much obliged, ma’am. I won’t give you cause to regret it.”

  But could he really promise that? Even if she believed him, that he was riding with the outlaws for an honorable reason, he was still technically on the run from the law. If her neighbors fou
nd out she was harboring a fugitive, she’d never survive the scandal...

  She asked another question to distract herself from that worry. “Umm, you didn’t say, exactly—is Thorn your first or your last name?”

  “First name,” he said, and his face twisted as if the name caused him to feel bitter. “Last name is Dawson.”

  He must have seen the skeptical look on her face. “I’m telling you the truth, Mrs. Henderson.”

  “All right then,” she said. “You can stay here until you’re well enough to ride off, Mr. Dawson. But I can’t have you dying on me. Having a dead outlaw’s body in my barn would be a little hard to explain. Simpson Creek has a very good doctor, and I insist on having him see you. I have no nursing experience, so I need his guidance on how to treat you, if you’re to recover. You can tell him the same thing you told me,” she added quickly, guessing he was about to protest. And that made her irritable. She was trying to help him, and he wanted to question that?

  “And you needn’t look so doubtful,” she snapped. “Dr. Walker isn’t your usual small-town quacksalver. He knows all the latest things in medicine, and I’ve seen him save folks who were at death’s door. He doesn’t use all those snake oil remedies like calomel, either.”

  “All right, all right,” the wounded man said, waving a hand in surrender. “Have him come—if he’s not needed treating the others in town.”

  She saw him wince and guessed that the movement sent fresh, stabbing waves of pain lancing through his wounded shoulder. Either that, or he felt guilty at the thought of the bank president and teller who had been shot.

  “I’ll send Billy Joe for him,” she said. “And don’t worry, I’ll tell him to go straight to the doctor’s house, and not to breathe a word of your presence here to any of his no-account friends.” She could easily picture Billy Joe, flushed with triumph at having a “real gen-u-ine outlaw” in his barn, bragging to all his pals. As Daisy turned to leave the stall, she said a little prayer that her son would be obedient enough to follow her command. She still didn’t know whether or not to believe the man who lay in the stall when he said he wasn’t an outlaw, but just this once, she’d take on faith something she’d been told. She just hoped she wouldn’t come to regret trusting him in her and Billy Joe’s lives.

  And if he wasn’t an outlaw, what was he doing riding with them?

  Copyright © 2016 by Laurie A. Kingery

  ISBN: 978-1-474-05619-9

  STAND-IN RANCHER DADDY

  © 2016 Renee Ryan

  Published in Great Britain 2016

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

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