The Gallows' Bounty (West of Second Chances) (14 page)

She shook her head in immediate answer and Boden laughed.

“I hate it when the worm struggles and bristles in my fingers.”  She shuddered at the thought.

“I guess I’m stuck doing the dirty work then.”

The morning grew late and Boden spent most of it worming Willow’s hook.  Darned thing was he wasn’t catching a thing, something Willow found amusing.

Boden eventually gave up using his own line and settled himself in the bottom of the boat.  He rested his head between the side of the boat and the back seat and draped his legs over the seat in the front of the boat.  He lowered his hat over his eyes and fell promptly asleep.

Willow found she spent more time watching him sleep than she did watching her line.

After a while,
Willow gave up on fishing entirely.  A fish hadn’t nibbled on her line in a while, and she was growing tired.  She drew her line out of the water and smiled ruefully.  Some wizened fish had removed the worm from the hook without getting caught. Willow turned back to Boden and covered her mouth to keep from laughing aloud.  His mouth had opened slightly in his sleep, and he snored a bit.

She wouldn’t mind a nap herself, but to get one she’d have to curl up next to her husband.  She debated the idea for a moment before deciding she was being silly.  He slept beside her every night.  What would it hurt to take a nap with him in broad daylight?  He must feel they were perfectly safe to be taking a nap as he was.  Heavens, he slept soundly enough.

As carefully as she could, she lay down next to him.  It would be impossible to avoid touching him, so she decided to get comfortable.  She fit easily between the two seats and snuggled into his side.  She was asleep in no time.

If she had been looking, she would have seen Boden smile in his sleep when he felt his wife curl into his side.

FEAR GRIPPED WILLOW
AS
she awoke.  A heavy weight pressed down on her, crushing her.  Panic filled her throat.  She fisted her hands and made to scream.

“Hold still and be quiet, Willow,” Boden commanded sharply in her ear.

Anger replaced panic.  Boden?  How could he do this to her? He’d promised.  She’d begun to trust him. Damn him.

Damn her.

She shouldn’t have been such a fool.

She opened her mouth to demand he get off of her, but rifle fire drowned out her words.  She stilled in his arms.  The sound of a bullet hitting the water reached her ears before it crashed into the side of the boat.

The boat promptly sprang a sizeable leak.

Cold water reached her ankles first, but her mind was drawn away from the discomfort when Boden placed his hands on either side of her face. “We’re going for a swim.  Can you?”

She nodded.

“The water’s going to be cold,” he continued, worry in his eyes.

She smiled to waylay his anxiety.  “I can tell.  My feet are already wet.”

Boden returned her smile despite his obvious worry.  “No one’s ever tried to comfort me during a shootout.”

Shots interrupted them, and Willow lay still with Boden’s body tucked protectively around hers in the bottom of the boat. Bullets ripped through the wooden craft and splinters shot through the air.

“It’s a single shot rifle,” Boden explained as he curled his body more securely around
Willow’s. “Hit the water after the next shot and swim to the opposite shore.  Whatever happens to me, keep swimming.”

The next shot came as his last word died on his lips. Boden stood and took Willow’s hand in his own and propelled them over the side.

Willow sucked in a deep breath.  The coolness of the water surprised her.  She’d gone from being almost uncomfortably hot to uncomfortably cold in one shocking jump.  Her body took a moment to adjust, and she sank a moment beneath the surface of the brackish water.

A strong pull on her arm drew her to the surface.  She gulped for air and willed her body to work.

“I thought you could swim,” Boden said, tucking her close with his injured arm.

Willow
added her kicking legs to Boden’s effort.  “I can swim. The cold water shocked me is all.  Boden, let me go before you pull your stitches out.”

BODEN COULDN'T BELIEVE SHE
was arguing about her ability when he swam for their lives.  But the truth was, his stitches were ripping out.  He wasn’t about to let her go, though.

“Let me go, Boden,” Willow argued and pulled away.  “We’ll never make it like this.”

Boden let her go, but refused to swim ahead of her.  She made it a few feet before she began to tread water.

He reached out to take her against his side again.  With a sudden burst of energy, she kicked out and sliced the water with her arms.  She could swim all right.  They made good time to the shore, but she hesitated to climb out of the water.

“Come on,” Boden urged.

“I’m only wearing undergarments.”

So, that’s why she’d paused to tread water.  She’d been removing her heavy skirts
, Boden realized.

“Willow, we’re married, remember?”
Not to mention we’re being shot at
, Boden added silently.

She came out of the water then, and he took her hand before he could contemplate the sheerness of her undergarments.

“I wonder why they’ve stopped shooting?” Willow asked as he tugged her along behind him.

“They’re most likely flushing us out and hoping for a better shot,” Boden answered before he thought to soften his answer.

“Well, you’re honest,” Willow muttered behind him.

His wife was a bit more open-mouthed when fighting for her life.  He had to remember that.

He pulled them behind a tree for cover, scanning the opposite shore for the shooter.  Meanwhile, their boat sank in the lake.  At least they weren’t sinking with it.

The area grew quiet for a moment before he noticed two figures stepping out of the trees and circling the lake in their direction.  He hoped the shooters hadn’t noticed his and
Willow’s escape.  They may have seen them make a run for it, but they didn’t seem to know where he and Willow hid.

The shooters ended up being Sheriff French and Brady Jenkins, the bartender.  The pair walked quietly and cautiously their way, rifles held to their shoulders.

“No matter what happens, stay out of sight,” Boden said.

He pressed
Willow’s back against the tree and peeked around the trunk, watching for the perfect moment to strike.  It came when the two men split up.  Jenkins headed deeper into the trees and away from their hiding spot, while French continued to step ever closer to where they hid.  The sheriff turned slow circles as he walked, putting his back to Boden at intervals.

He didn’t want French getting close enough to discover
Willow.  Boden started to round the tree, but a hand to his arm stopped him.

“Be careful,”
Willow whispered.

Boden’s heart warmed, and he smiled.  He pressed a surprising kiss to her forehead before stalking quietly away.

WILLOW
WATCHED WITH BATED
breath as Boden approached the gunman from behind.  Sheriff French didn’t stand a chance.  Boden disarmed him in one fluid movement Willow would be hard pressed to explain if she were asked.

She expected Boden to say anything but what he said next.

“Take off your shirt, French.”

“You’re assaulting an officer of the law,” French dared even as he unbuttoned his shirt with shaking fingers and handed it to Boden.

“You were shooting at us,” Boden said, anger at the sheriff’s actions playing across his face.  He held the sheriff at gunpoint as he walked to where Willow hid.

He handed her the shirt, and Willow smiled over his thoughtful action.  She drew the shirt on and buttoned it up.  It reached her knees and covered her wet body.  Boden reached out and took her hand in his, drawing her from behind the tree and behind his back.  Warm liquid touched her hand, and Willow looked down. Blood from his reopened wound ran down his arm, yet his grip on her hand remained firm.

“My wife and I don’t appreciate being shot at, Sheriff,” Boden challenged as he and Willow came to stand in front of the shirtless lawman.

“I don’t reckon you do,” French asserted.  “I wasn’t shooting at the two of you.  Thought you were a pair of thieves we followed from town.”

“A pair of thieves taking the time to nap on a lake?” Willow questioned.

Willow’s hand shook within Boden’s.  It shook not with cold, but with anger. She was furious.

“I tend to agree with my wife,” Boden challenged as he gave Willow’s hand a comforting squeeze.

“And I tend to agree with the sheriff here,” French’s friend, Brady Jenkins, asserted as he joined the group from Boden’s right.

“It appears it’s a standoff, and you’re losin’ too much blood to argue the point,” French boasted.

“Not hardly,” Boden asserted.

“I figure you’re just mad because we interrupted your tussle with your woman,” French dared, his full confidence restored at Jenkins' presence.  He gave Willow’s disheveled appearance the once over and smirked.

Willow’s anger boiled over into action.  Boden held her right hand in his, but that didn’t stop her left from shooting out and catching the sheriff in the eye.  The force of her punch propelled the stunned sheriff backward.  The bartender trained his gun on her, but halted when Boden trained French’s commandeered rifle on Jenkins.

“Well, I’ll see you hanged yet, Willow Roberts,” French threatened, putting a hand to his swelling eye.

“It’s Willow Boden, and no, you won’t,” Boden gestured for Jenkins to drop his gun.

The bartender didn’t hesitate.

Boden continued, “I should shoot you two where you quake, but I don’t care to kill you men in front of my wife.”

“Really, dear, it’s all right with me,” Willow said, looking up into Boden’s face.  She knew her eyes twinkled with her mischief.  Boden seemed to catch on to her game of torture, winking at her.

“Both men are unarmed, darlin’,” Boden pretended to reason with her.

“If that stops you, I’d be glad to do it,” Willow bantered back.  A part of her wished she had the will to shoot the sheriff.  There was no doubt in her mind he deserved it.  But he was unarmed. However, that didn’t mean she couldn’t serve him up some of his own. She stepped away from Boden and picked up Jenkins’s firearm.

“Be careful,” Boden said, continuing with the game, “an inexperienced shooter could accidentally fire one of those things.”

“What’s this do?” Willow asked as she put her hand to the trigger of the rifle, the barrel pointed in French’s general direction.

“It fires the rifle,” Boden answered.

“Really?”  Willow made a show of lifting the rifle to her shoulder.   She aimed just over French’s head and squeezed.  The bullet flew through the air, parted French’s hair, and slammed into the tree behind him.

“You missed,” Boden said, faking dismay.

“Well, I couldn’t expect to get it right the first time,” Willow said on a sigh.  She chucked the rifle into the lake before she gave into temptation and shot the sheriff.

When she turned back to her husband and placed her hand in his once again, she noticed a wet spot on the front of the sheriff’s pants.  She laughed.

Boden followed her gaze and couldn’t choke down his laughter either, but his mirth died with his next warning, “If I ever catch you near my wife again, French, Jenkins, it will be blood soiling your clothing.”

Boden led her away from the pair then, tossing the other rifle in the lake once they reached their own firearms and horses.  Willow let loose of his hand, noting it felt as though they had flour paste on their hands, the blood having long ago grown sticky.  She quickly washed her hands in the lake's water.

“You’ve lost quite a bit of blood,” Willow noted on her way back to her husband.

“I’ll be fine,” Boden said, helping
Willow mount up.  “For a minute there, I actually thought you were going to shoot him.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want to,”
Willow said once Boden was mounted.  “It’s just that I couldn’t.  I know what it’s like to be defenseless.”

Boden rode up alongside her.  “Promise me that if he ever threatens you again you’ll do what it takes to protect yourself.”

“If he’d been armed, I wouldn’t have hesitated,” Willow assured her husband.  She hoped she hadn’t lied.

They made for home then, both wondering if they had done the right thing by letting the sheriff live.

WILLOW
AWOKE IN THE
night feeling strangely warm.  She sat up in bed and looked around the room through sleep-blurred eyes.  The window stood open and a cool breeze fanned her face.  Then why was she so warm?

She lay back down and rolled onto her side.  Her leg accidentally brushed Boden’s.  The contact fully awakened her, and she realized the heat emanated from the man sleeping at her side.  She sat up again and cautiously reached her hand across the bed to feel his forehead.  Hot. Too hot.