Outlaw Wife

“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.”