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“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.
“Let me go,” she said, squirming beneath him. “You’re too heavy. You’re hurting me.” She was out of breath and near tears.
“Shut up and stop fighting or I’m not moving from here.”
She stopped her frantic wiggles. “Get off,” she said again.
Her body was firm against his. Through his cotton shirt, he could feel the pointed tips of her breasts. He suspected that if his side didn’t hurt so much, the position would be awakening a lot more than anger in him.
“First you tell me exactly what you expected to accomplish by that little trick.”
“I…I was escaping.”
“Yeah. I understood that part. And then what? You were going to just head out of town by yourself without food, weapons, a horse?”
She tried pulling her right wrist free, but he held it in a deathlock. “I could have stolen a horse.”
“I thought you said you weren’t a thief.”
For a long moment she didn’t say anything. They lay still as Simon began to feel a slow radiation from the warmth of the contact of their bodies. Then she sighed, sending a ripple along her chest underneath him. He answered with a shortened breath of his own. Maybe his side didn’t hurt quite as much as he thought.
“I’m not a thief. Not yet. I don’t know what I was planning, if you must know. But anything would be better than going back to that awful cell.”
For his own sanity, Simon eased away from her, letting some space in between them while still holding down her arms. “I assume it was the accommodation you objected to and not the company,” he said.
She didn’t respond to the touch of humor in his tone. “Don’t make me go back there, Mr. Grant” The moonlight pooled in her eyes as she looked at him, pleading.
“Damn it, woman. I’ve got nothing to do with the matter. If I let you go, I’d be committing a crime myself.”
“But the sheriff’s your friend….”
“Which doesn’t mean he’d let me break the law.” He pushed himself up on his knees, then stood, keeping a firm grip on her wrist. “Come on. I’m locking you back up. And as far as I’m concerned, this time you’ll stay there until you rot.”
Simon awoke the next morning with a blessedly clear head. The effects of Jake Patton’s handiwork and John’s medications both appeared to have diminished substantially. He stretched his legs out on John’s hard cot and took a moment to relish the feeling. His broken ribs were no more than a slight nag, in spite of the tumble in the dirt last night. He scowled at the memory and turned his head toward the cell.
She was watching him, sitting on her bed with her back against the cell wall, her long legs thrust out in front of her, exactly the way he’d last seen her before he’d turned toward the wall to sleep last night.
“Bejeezus, don’t you sleep, woman?” he asked her.
Her eyes were shadowed with fatigue. “Not in this place, I don’t.”
Simon sat up, shaking his head. Some part of him deep in his gut wanted to pity her. But he tamped down the feeling. She was an outlaw, after all. And she had tricked him last night. She’d hurt his side and his vanity, as well. He kept his tone cold. “Suit yourself. Sooner or later you’ll have to sleep, I reckon.”
“So are you going to tell the sheriff that I ran last night?”
Before he could answer, both turned their heads at the sound of the door opening. Simon expected to see John, but instead John’s daughter breezed into the office.
“I hear you and my father are guarding a big bad prisoner,” she said, her voice disdainful.
She spared Simon barely a glance and walked right over to the cell. “You poor thing. What in the world can these men be thinking to keep you locked up in there?”
Willow looked at the tiny newcomer with suspicion.
“Good morning to you, too,” Simon said to Cissy’s back.
Cissy glanced at him over her shoulder. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Simon. How can you sleep there while this poor young thing sits on that filthy bed and…”
Simon held up his hand in protest. “Whoa. Your father’s the sheriff, remember? And I’m here on your orders, as I understand. You told John you’d have my hide if I tried to go home.”
“I’m not talking about you and your aches. Isn’t it just like a man to turn the subject around to himself?” She turned to the prisoner for confirmation. Willow was regarding her with amazement. Cissy was wearing pink, her favorite color, with lace running in delicate rolls up and down the front of her trim bodice. She looked deceptively demure, but her voice cut like a cleaver, and the looks she was throwing Simon were dagger sharp. “How old are you, child?” she asked.
Willow opened her mouth twice before the sound came out. “Nineteen.”
“Hmm. Older than you look. It’s those awful pants.” Cissy turned back to Simon again, her hands on her hips, and demanded, “What exactly is my father planning to do with her?”
Simon’s head was starting to ache again. “I…I don’t know. Keep her here. The marshal will be sending for her one of these days.”
Cissy looked around the room in disbelief. “And he expects her to live here while some marshal takes his sweet time deciding what’s to become of her?”
“She’s an outlaw, Cissy.”
“Horsefeathers.”
Simon was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. Cissy had always had the uncanny ability to make him feel like a schoolboy who’d copied his friend’s homework. “Take it up with your father,” he grumbled.
“Take what up with her father?” John asked as he pushed open the door.
With a new victim, Cissy began her tirade all over again, until Willow interrupted, asking in a small voice if the sheriff would be kind enough to escort her to the outhouse. She gave Simon a wary look when the sheriff released her from the cell, as if waiting for him to relate the events of the previous evening.
Simon closed his eyes, leaned heavily back against the wall and held his tongue. It was time for him to go home, he decided, broken ribs or not. He’d had enough of Bramble for a good spell. All he wanted was to get back home to peace and quiet with his father and with Chester, who rarely strung together more than five words at a time. He opened his eyes. Cissy was still there.
“Are you going to sit back and let my father keep her here?” she asked.
“It’s just until the marshal sends for her.”
“Sends who? A man like that deputy? I saw him over at the hotel, half-drunk and eyeing every woman in the place. What do you think is in store for her if she’s at the mercy of men like that?”
Simon’s stomach rolled at the sudden vision of the slender young outlaw struggling on the ground, as she had against him last night. Only, this time it was Sneed on top of her…pressing her down, forcing her…
“I don’t like the idea any better than you do, Cissy, but what’s the answer? She was riding with the gang. The outlaws who nearly killed me. Remember?”
Cissy walked over to her father’s desk and sat in his chair, chewing on a nail, lost in thought. “I don’t know what the answer is, Simon. But there must be some way…”
Simon boosted himself off the bed. “Well, if I can help out, let me know. For now, I’m going home.”
Before Cissy could protest, he crossed the room and took her by the shoulders. “I don’t care if I rebreak every blamed rib in the process,” he said, leaning over to plant a kiss on her cheek. “Thanks for the nursing.” Then he spun around and walked as fast as he could out the door.
In spite of his bravado, it was harder than Simon had anticipated to boost himself onto Rain Cloud’s back, even with the stable boy, Buck, one of the truant Mahoney brothers, giving him a hand up.
But it felt good to be back in the saddle, and even better to be on his way home—to his father’s gruff affection and Chester’s hearty cooking. The day was bright with the lush, grassy smell of late summer. Simon whistled a little tune as he walked Rain Cloud past the Red Eye Saloon and turned to ride south out of town.
Simon called a greeting to Jim Trumbull who was sweeping in front of his general store, then turned his head in the other direction to avoid catching the eye of the widow Halley. He’d squired her daughter, Priscilla, a time or two to the town dances, and ever since, the buxom widow had marked him down as her private mission. At the moment, he was in no mood for a sermon.
He gave Rain Cloud a nudge with his knees, spurring her to pick up her pace, then regretted the command as she moved immediately into a bone-jarring trot. “I guess we’d be better off taking it easy this trip, girl,” he said aloud, pulling gently on the reins. The horse hesitated, then stopped, waiting for her master to make up his mind. Simon laughed.
“Looks like you’re feeling better, Grant.” Simon hadn’t even noticed the rider approaching from the road out of town. He looked up in surprise to see that it was the deputy, Tom Sneed.
“What are you doing back here?” Simon asked, concerned. “Did you run into trouble with Davis?”
Sneed pulled his horse up in front of Simon and stopped. “Nah. The territorial marshal’s office had sent some men down to look for the rest of Davis’s gang, but it appears they’ve cleared out. So they’re going to ride with Torrance and Davis to Cheyenne. Torrance sent me back here to fetch the girl.”
He had a thin, sharp face that showed the effects of too much smoke and too much liquor. Simon instinctively disliked the man. But he did wear a federal deputy’s badge. He had every legal authority to take Willow Davis with him. Cissy’s words came back to him. What do you think is in store for her if she’s at the mercy of men like that?
“Are you riding out with her right away?”
One side of Sneed’s mouth came up in a leer that showed two blackened teeth. “I figured I’d take myself a bit of recreation first. Torrance hauled me out of your Red Eye Saloon yesterday morning before I’d gotten my money’s worth out of a dainty little blond piece. I gave her three bucks, and I figure she still owes me a hump or two.”
