Outlaw Wife

John’s kindly gray eyes held a touch of sympathy as he chuckled and said, “It’s the kind of thing that usually just happens, whether we intend it or not. You’re young yet. But I’m glad to hear that you’re not mixed up with Patton.” He straightened his chair and his expression sobered. “’Cause if he’s the one who messed with Simon, here, I wouldn’t count on him having much of a future.”

Willow paced the length of the cell for what must have been the thousandth time. The afternoon had seemed one of the longest in her life. Her father had spent most of it dozing fitfully, waking only to cough in that quiet, ominous way that seemed to reverberate through his entire body. She’d been urging him to see a doctor for weeks, but he’d brushed her off.

“I don’t need any damned sawbones poking at me” had been his standard reply. “Don’t you worry that pretty head, Weepy Willow.”

Now, if his dire predictions were true, the cough would be the least of his problems. She stopped walking for a minute and shrugged the tenseness out of her shoulders. Her father had been uncharacteristically passive since the arrest. Except for his protest over her involvement, he’d seemed almost resigned to his fate. It was just one more indication that things were not right with him. Which meant it was up to her to do something about the situation.

The sheriff had discouraged all her attempts to draw him into conversation. He’d been polite enough, and had agreed to accompany her out to the privy in back instead of making her use the jar in the cell. But when she’d tried batting her eyes at him, the way Aunt Maud had said girls did when they wanted a man’s attention, he’d appeared not to notice.

Which left the other man: Simon Grant. He, too, had been dozing most of the afternoon, sleeping off the effects of the laudanum, the sheriff had said. She went over to the bars to look at him. He wore no shirt over the wide swath of bandages around his middle. Her eyes were fixed on the even rise and fall of his chest with its sprinkling of dark hair. It was darker than the wavy hair on his head where there were highlights, no doubt from long days in the sun. She’d spent the past year riding with men, but she couldn’t remember ever studying one who was half-naked. Her father had been real fussy about how his men dressed and behaved in her presence.

With a half-conscious groan, the man on the cot moved, his hand clutching his side. Then his eyes opened, focused directly on her.

“What time is it?” he asked.

Willow blinked, her eyes dry. She’d been staring for longer than she thought. “It’s getting dark.”

Simon sat up, keeping his hand in place. “Damn drugs. That’s the last time I drink John’s coffee. I can’t keep my eyes open for more than five minutes at a time.”

Willow’s throat felt tight. She couldn’t decide if it was due to this man’s importance to her father’s future or to the easy ripple of the muscles of his bare arms as he pushed himself up. She forced herself to smile at him.

“Where is he, anyway?” he asked, looking around.

“The sheriff?”

Simon nodded, swinging his legs to the floor and using the momentum to stand.

“He went to have dinner with the marshal and the deputy.” Standing, Simon Grant looked much more powerful than he had on the cot. Willow swallowed away the odd knot in her throat. She might not have another opportunity to get this critical witness on their side. “How…how are your injuries?” she ventured. Desperately she wished that she’d paid more attention to Aunt Maud’s proclamations about the relationship between the genders. Not that Aunt Maud would have been the best teacher. She’d never been married, and Willow couldn’t imagine her proper, staid aunt ever falling in love.

The wounded man grimaced. “I’m all right.” He finally broke his gaze and began looking around the room. “If I knew what John did with my shirt…” he muttered.

“Is that it?” She pointed to a chair in the corner of the room.

“Oh, right.” He walked over to retrieve it.

Willow felt a moment of panic. “Ah…you’re not leaving?”

His eyes went back to her. Earlier in the day she had thought she’d seen interest in his expression and something like pity. Now he just looked tired. “I’ll head over to the hotel, I guess. I don’t suppose you two can cause much trouble locked up like that.”

“But I…I wanted to talk to you.” Her fingers made tight curls around the steel bars.

He shrugged awkwardly into his shirt. “Talk about what?”

“I…You were right. I was there when they robbed you.”

“I know. I saw you.”

“And I did cut the ropes and leave you the water.”

“For which I’m much obliged, like I said.” He turned toward the door.

“No, wait! I saved your life—you admitted it yourself.”

Simon stopped and looked at her with his eyes narrowed. “Forgive me for not being too grateful at the moment, miss. My head’s throbbing and my side aches. I guess I’m just one of those people who gets surly when they’re near stomped to death. So I thank you for your help, but I would give quite a lot of money right now to have never set eyes on you, your father or the congenial bunch you ride with.”

“Jake’s the worst of them. The rest aren’t so bad.”

“I’d just as soon not find out.”

Willow thought about batting her eyes, but somehow she didn’t think it would help Mr. Grant’s mood. Anyway, it hadn’t worked on the sheriff. Perhaps Willow just didn’t know how to do it right. She’d never been very good at playacting. She gave a deep sigh. “The truth is, Mr. Grant. I need your help.”

He looked surprised, but not the least sympathetic.

“Your testimony can put me in prison.”

He nodded. “I reckon.”

“But what’s even more important to me is that it could send my father to his death.”

Simon made no reply. He leaned against the far wall, waiting for her to continue.

“I untied you,” she said again, trying to keep the desperation from her tone.

“I’m willing to testify to that in court, miss,” he said. “And if that keeps you out of prison, it’ll be all right by me. But I don’t think it’ll help your father any. From the sound of things, they have enough piled up on him whether I testify or not.”

Willow’s eyes darted to the sheriff’s desk, then back to the man across the room. The sheriff had not lit the lamps before he left. In the darkening shadows, Simon Grant’s battered face looked monstrous. She couldn’t blame him for not having much charity toward her. But he was her only hope. “You could save him by handing me the keys to this door and looking the other way for five minutes.”

Simon gave a chuckle of disbelief. “Now why in tarnation would I do that, Miss Davis?”

“I…We could pay you. My father would give you money…whatever you want.”

Simon shook his head slowly. “No thanks.”

Willow bit her lip and tried to study his face in the gloom. There was no sign of that kind of male interest she thought she’d seen earlier. She may have been mistaken that it had ever been there. But at this point, she couldn’t think of anything else to try. She looked back at her father to assure herself that he was still sleeping. He’d skin her alive if he heard what she was about to say. She let the words come out in a rush. “Maybe I could pay you with something other than money.”

Simon straightened up and dropped the hand he held at his side. He took three halting steps closer to her. His dark eyes were inscrutable. “What did you have in mind?” he asked in a low voice.

To tell the truth, Willow didn’t know exactly what she had in mind. Aunt Maud had told her how men always wanted something from women. And Willow knew it had to do with mating, like the frantic couplings of the animals on the farm. But she hadn’t let her thoughts linger on the matter. It wasn’t something she’d ever intended to find out for herself.

He was watching her with that odd expression on his face again. Willow felt a strange flutter at the base of her stomach. She looked him square in the face. “I would do anything to save my pa, mister. Anything you want.”

There was a slight tremble to her voice as she said the last words. Simon could see that her hands were gripping the bars so tightly that her fingernails had gone white. All at once he found it impossible to meet those clear blue eyes. The girl might be nineteen, might have ridden with an outlaw gang, but she was obviously an innocent Her father had been right when he’d said that she didn’t belong in that cell. She waited like a lamb at a slaughterhouse for him to respond to her offer. An offer he was almost sure she didn’t even understand.

Suddenly it was as if he was the guilty one. As if it was somehow his fault that he had ended up at the wrong end of Jake Patton’s boot, robbed and beaten, and that as a result this young woman and her father were facing an uncertain future. How the hell had she managed to turn the tables like that?

“How about it, mister?” Her voice was not much more than a whisper.

He tried to take a calming breath, only to have it stab at his sore side. Damn it. He was the victim, not this outlaw girl. He wasn’t about to take on the responsibility for her dilemma. He wasn’t about to let her compound the hurt her father’s gang had already inflicted on him. Steeling himself with anger, he looked up and down her slender form and said with deliberate rudeness, “Sorry, miss. I’m just not interested.”

The anger died swiftly at her stricken look and sharp intake of breath. He was not used to insulting women. But then, he was not used to getting his ribs broken and his face smashed, either.

She seemed to sag, still holding on to the bars. “I saved your life,” she said again, but the energy had gone out of her voice.

“Yeah, well, that’s one point in your favor. But I reckon it’s up to a jury to see how much it counts.” There was an expression in her eyes that made Simon want to say something more. It was something underneath the hurt and frustration. In spite of the girl’s bravado, deep down in those eyes he was almost certain he could see fear. It made him pause for a minute, but he forced himself to turn around and head toward the door. It was none of his business if the girl was afraid.

“Please, mister. Please help me.”

His back stiffened at her soft plea. But he didn’t turn around. Snatching his hat from the rack, he opened the door and left.

“What the hell are you doing here?” the sheriff greeted Simon with a scowl.

Simon pulled out a chair next to Tom Sneed, the deputy, and nodded across the table at Marshal Torrance. “Good evening, gentlemen. Don’t mind John’s manners.”

“You’re supposed to be in bed, goldang it.”

“I need some coffee—some real coffee, not the stuff you drugged me with this morning.”

“I was going to bring you something when I finished here.”

“Kind of you, John. But I think I’ve imposed on your hospitality enough.”

“Hog swill.”

Simon smiled and motioned to Porter Smith, the hotel’s only waiter, to bring him some coffee. “Are you two about ready to set out for Cheyenne?” he asked the marshal.

Torrance stabbed a piece of his well-done steak. “That’s what we were just discussing when you arrived, Grant.”

His tone warned Simon that something was amiss. “Is there a problem?”

“We’ve had word from the deputy over at Cat’s Butte. He says the remaining members of the Davis gang were seen staking out the road between here and Cheyenne.”

“You figure they’re going to try to free their boss?”

“As sure as a puppy knows how to bark.”

John’s round face was creased with worry. “You can’t ride out there to be ambushed, Marshal.”

Sneed was the only one at the table with whiskey rather than coffee. He lifted the tumbler and took a deep drink. “I wouldn’t mind meeting up with that crew,” he said, swiping his hand across his mouth.

“I don’t intend to be ambushed, John,” the marshal replied. “We’ll skirt around them—ride through the hills.”

“There’s some rough country,” the sheriff pointed out.

“I’d rather deal with rough country than that quartet of Davis’s. Jake Patton alone can drill a nickel at sixty paces. And he’s a mean son of a gun with his fists.”

“He’s none too gentle with his boots, either,” Simon added.

John shook his head. “I say you all wait here until they can send reinforcements. Call in some help from the army.”

The marshal pushed away his plate. “No. We’ll handle it. Go easy on that, Tom,” he said as his deputy drained his glass.

Simon and John shared a glance that mirrored each other’s doubt. “At least let me keep the girl here,” the sheriff said finally. “Davis is the one you really want to nail, and you’ll have a better chance without a female along.”

“When the female’s as tasty as that little cottontail, she’s no trouble at all,” Sneed said with a leer.

“Shut up, Tom,” Marshal Torrance barked. “You might have something there, John. It’s Seth Davis I want to see swinging. I don’t really give a damn about the daughter.”

“I can hold her until the Davis gang clears out of the territory. Then you can send someone to fetch her.”

The marshal considered for a moment. “All right,” he said, standing. “I’ll take you up on your offer. One less problem for me to worry about. C’mon, Sneed.”

The deputy rose unsteadily to his feet. John stood along with them, but Simon stayed sitting, letting comfort take precedence over courtesy.

“Do you need me to go open the cell for you?” John asked.

“No, finish your supper. We know where the keys are.” Torrance and John shook hands. “I’ll send word when I make arrangements for the girl.”

The two lawmen said goodbye and walked out of the restaurant, leaving John to settle back down in his chair. “So it looks like I have a real prisoner on my hands for a while.”

“I don’t know why you offered to keep her. She’ll be madder’n hell when they take her father away, and you’ll be the one she’ll take it out on.”

“We’ll be the ones,” John corrected.

“Uh-uh. I’m going home.”

“You’re not riding for two more days, remember?”

“If you’ll let me have another dose of that stuff you gave me this morning, I can just float home.” Porter came over to the table to fill their coffee cups, and Simon ordered a steak.

“Bloody,” he told the stocky old gentleman who had been waiting tables at the Buckhorn Inn as long as Simon could remember. “Tell Mrs. Harris to just pat the cow on its head and send it on in here.”

Porter chuckled and shuffled off into the kitchen.

John resumed his argument. “Just because you don’t feel the pain, doesn’t mean you’re mended. Do you want Cissy riding out to Saddle Ridge to give you a piece of her mind?”

“Not especially.”

“Then just forget about it. You and Miss Davis will be nice cozy roommates over at the office for the next couple of days.” One of John’s white eyebrows shot up. “Anyway, I didn’t notice you finding it a hardship to look at her.”

“Looking’s one thing. Listening’s another.”

“Listening?”

“Before I came over here she was trying to talk me into letting her and her pa go. She said I owed it to her because she saved my life.”

John gave a whistle. “I expect that could be a powerful argument for a softy like you, Simon.”

“I wasn’t tempted,” Simon said, not entirely sure he was telling the truth.

“Good lad. But it’ll be close quarters over the next two days. Do you think she can change your mind?”

“I may be soft when it comes to kids and old folks like you, John, but I have no charity in my heart for outlaws.”

“Not even pretty ones?”

Simon hesitated just enough to let a grin begin to light John’s face, then said firmly, “Not even pretty ones.”

Chapter Three

When John and Simon returned to the sheriff’s office, the pretty outlaw was clearly upset. The minute they opened the door she launched herself against the bars like a caged wildcat and said in an anguished voice, “You have no right to keep me here. I want to go with my father. He’s not well. He…he needs me.”

Her attractive features were strained and desperate and on closer perusal, Simon could see traces of tears on her cheeks. But she wasn’t crying now.

“I demand to see a lawyer,” she said to the sheriff, her voice a little calmer.

John picked up the papers the marshal had left on his desk and began to examine them. “If you want a will signed or a deed filed, Judge Abercrombie’ll see to you. But he’s retired from criminal cases, and the only other lawyer available is Philip Sutton.”

“Then I want to see him.”

Simon’s eyes were on the girl’s lips. She licked them nervously, then clamped them in a stubborn line. They were full and red, he noted idly, feeling a stir. He hung his hat up and went over to the cot with a rueful shake of his head. The girl was an outlaw, behind bars. She was upset and desperate and in trouble up to her ears. And here he was letting himself get bothered by a pair of lips. He sat down with a jolt of pain. Hell, even three broken ribs couldn’t keep his body in line. He hadn’t been with a woman since he and Cissy had broken up. Perhaps it was time for him to find someone for a Saturday-night tumble in the hay.

“I’ll let Sutton know,” the sheriff answered her. “He rides through here every six weeks.”

“Six weeks!” Willow’s exclamation turned into an undecipherable sputter.

“I’m turning in for the night,” the sheriff continued, unperturbed by her anger. “Do you need to take a trip out back before I go?”

“I’m not staying here,” she said again.

Simon tried to bend far enough to pull off his boots, but gave up the attempt almost immediately. “I need you to nursemaid me one more time, John. Sorry.”

“Is he staying the night here, too?” she asked as the sheriff went to help Simon.

John gave her a quick glance. “If you’ll be quiet long enough to let him get some sleep.” Then he turned back to pull off Simon’s other boot and said to him, “Maybe you should come with me to the hotel.”

“I’m not up to Mrs. Harris’s mothering, John. One of her hugs and I’d have the right side of my rib cage as sore as the left.”

“I could tell her to go easy on you.”

“No, thanks. I’ll take my chances with Miss Davis, here. At least she’s behind bars.”

“Bars don’t keep out the sound,” John pointed out.

Simon looked over at the girl, who had grown silent. In spite of the vehemence of her protests about her father, she didn’t look the least formidable. She looked tired. “Will you give us both a break, miss, and save your complaining until tomorrow?” he asked her.

Her gaze went from him to the sheriff and back. “You can’t keep me here,” she said. “But I guess it can wait until morning. I haven’t slept for fortyeight hours and I reckon I could fall asleep in a den of rattlesnakes tonight.”

“Do you suppose we fit the description, John?” Simon asked dryly. Then he lay back on the cot and pulled the blanket over him.

“You’re sure you’ll be all right?” John asked.

Simon nodded. “Go on and get out of here. Mrs. Harris is probably waiting to sing you a lullaby.”

If he hadn’t known better, Simon would have sworn that there was a blush on the sheriff’s face as he mumbled and turned to leave. He turned the wick on the lamp before he left, leaving the room illuminated only by the moonlight streaming in through the lone window.

In spite of sleeping most of the day, Simon felt exhausted. The aftereffects of the medicine, he supposed. He shifted on the bed, trying to find the least painful position for his torso. It would be a relief to give himself up to sleep for a few hours.

“Mr. Grant.” Her voice was soft, but insistent.

Simon groaned. Without lifting his head he said, “I thought you said you’d go to sleep.”

There was a long moment of silence and Simon let his eyes drift shut again.

“I know…but I…The sheriff left before I could tell him that I do need to go out back.”

Now Simon felt his own face grow hot. Since he was twelve years old, he’d been helping his father out with the most intimate personal needs, but that was his father. A man. Simon and his father lived in a man’s world. He’d never had to worry about the mysterious things women did in their private moments. And he wasn’t anxious to start now. “Are you sure?” he asked without thinking. The question and the painful silence that followed only made matters worse.

“I…If you want to leave the room for a minute I guess I could use the jar here.”

Gritting his teeth, Simon boosted himself up. “If I have to move to get up, I might as well take you out.” Without putting on his boots, he crossed the room and retrieved the key from John’s desk.

Willow watched as he hobbled painfully along. When she had made her request, the reason had been real enough, but now that she realized Simon Grant was actually going to open the cell and let her loose, she made a quick analysis of the possibilities. He was obviously sore, and evidently he wasn’t even going to put on his boots for the trip out back. It shouldn’t be too difficult to catch him off guard and escape. In his condition, she could easily outrun him.

“I’m much obliged, Mr. Grant,” she said meekly.

“I reckon you might as well call me Simon, seeing as how we’re spending the night together, in a manner of speaking,” he said, opening the cell and motioning her to walk ahead of him.

She smiled as she glided past him. “I reckon. And you may call me Willow.”

“Willow?”

She nodded and watched as her smile drew a corresponding one from him. She felt a little surge of excitement. This was going to be as easy as shucking an ear of corn.

She walked beside him without speaking as he moved slowly along the wooden sidewalk and turned down the alley to the back. She’d planned to make her move on the way back, but her opportunity came sooner than expected.

They stepped off the sidewalk into the alley, and Simon exclaimed, “Dad blast it!” as his stocking foot hit a rock. Instinctively he lifted his foot to rub it, then clutched at his side with a gasp of pain.

Willow pushed away a pang of pity. Biting her lip for courage, she shoved his broad back as hard as she could, sending him sprawling in the dirt. Then she jumped nimbly over his tangled legs and took off into the dark alley.

It took Simon a minute to realize what had happened. And another minute to believe it. The little wretch had actually pushed him into the dirt! Fortunately, he’d landed on his good side, though the reverberations through his chest sent a wave of pain that he could feel all the way through his jawbone. But unfortunately for Miss Willow Davis, he was definitely on the mend. And there was no way he was going to let her get away with her nasty stunt. Ignoring the hurt, he scrambled to his feet and took off after her, his feet padding over the uneven dirt road. She’d darted behind the jail to the right and disappeared. On a dark night he might not have spotted her racing across the yard to Potter’s Feed Mill, but the full moon hung high in the eastern sky, and her silhouette was unmistakable.

Breathing in short, deep bursts to keep from reinjuring his ribs, he ran diagonally behind the general store, leapt over the water trough and closed the distance between them. She glanced back at him over her shoulder, her face grim, and knotted her fists trying to increase her speed. But just as she was about to round the corner of the mill, he hurled himself the final few feet, knocking them both off their feet.

“Get away…get off me!” she sputtered, struggling, as he pressed her shoulders down with his hands and straddled her waist with his thighs.

Her hands were still free, flailing wildly, and one caught him right in the side. “Stop it, you damn little…brat,” he hissed. He flattened himself out on top of her, using his entire body to pin her to the ground.