The Texas Ranger's Secret (5 page)

How she disliked those times when she became little sister again, treated as though she must have a protective mother hen to watch over her. Willow couldn’t wait until the day both Snow and Daisy saw her as grown and not the baby of the family. After all, she was relatively a spinster’s age.

“Before you go, Willow—” Newcomb’s use of her name revealed he’d listened well “—I’ve got one more question before I’ll consider teaching you anything.”

He’s truly considering it!

Another fine trait to add to her characterization of Ketchum.
Note #2: Texas men pay close attention.
“And what question is that, Mr. Newcomb?”

“We’re getting soaked out here,” barked Snow, “and it’s a long fifteen minutes home.”

She and Snow loved each other but were as different as night and day. Being someone who preferred things calm, quiet and orderly, Snow had the hardest time putting up with Willow’s slower efforts.

“I’ll answer you in just a minute. We forgot to turn out the lantern. I’ll be right there.” Just as she reached to grab it, Willow saw where the daddy longlegs had taken up a new home and nearly knocked the lamp over.

“Owww, that’s hot.” She jerked her hand back but managed to keep from spilling the kerosene and setting another fire.

“You need help?” Newcomb demanded and turned around, her baggage in his hands.

“No! Everything’s just fine. I’m right behind you.” She used the edge of her petticoats for a pot holder and set the lantern on its base, turning off the key to the kerosene. For good measure, she blew at the wick just to make sure no flame remained.

“I’m sorry, horses,” she whispered as she used the lightning flashes to help her see the way out to her sister’s wagon. “I’ll make it up to you tomorrow after the wedding if you’re still here, okay? Don’t know about you, but I need to calm way, way down. I know you will when I’m out of here.”

When she reached her sisters, she found them sitting side by side on the driver’s box. Snow shared a parasol with Daisy, but it did little to fight off the rain. Both started asking all kinds of questions.

“Let me thank Mr. Newcomb for his help,” she told them. “Then I’ll answer everything along the way, okay?”

“Of course,” Daisy replied, appearing unwilling to turn around and greet them face to face. “Thank you, Gage, for lending her a hand. That’s kind of you. Do forgive us for being so... Well, we took a chance on leaving our curlers in, hoping we’d be here so briefly that no one would actually see us except Willow, maybe Bear. He would understand, of course.”

Gage. So that was his name. Willow filed it back in her memory for future reference.

“You all right?” he asked, targeting his question to Willow instead of making any comment about her sisters’ embarrassment about their hair. He lifted her bags into the wagon, then offered Willow a hand up as she climbed in the back.

When their fingers touched, she winced. “I will be. The lantern was hot when I turned it off.”

“Too sore to lasso a stump?” His eyes studied her carefully.

“No. I’m ready to learn from you. The quicker, the better.” If she hadn’t known any differently, she’d have suspected he was trying to help her ease how angry she was with herself. But he didn’t know her at all.
Note #3: Texas men sense when to lend a hand.

“Then, as I started to ask before, I need your word that nobody’s going to get hurt from me teaching you to shoot and everything else you’ve mentioned. That this involves nothing illegal.”

Maybe he truly was a lawman of some kind.

“All I can say is that’s my intention at the moment, but I’ll be honest with you, partner.” She gave her best nasal imitation of Texas twang. “My intentions get out of sorts more often than not. Will you just trust me on this?”

He mulled it over hard. Too hard, in her opinion. Maybe she’d have to ask someone else, but he seemed the perfect teacher.

“
Trust
is the key word here, Willow.” He took off his hat and put it on top of her head. “Don’t ever give me reason to doubt you.”

She shuddered, either from the cool rain or the threat tempering the warning he’d just given her.

She tried to return the hat but he backed away.

“Next time it rains, bring a parasol with you. You’ll stay a lot drier,” he ordered, then headed toward Bear’s quarters without giving her a definite yes.

Chapter Three

T
he wagon seemed to speed up despite the rain. Willow reached up and pulled Gage’s hat down, making sure it didn’t blow off.

“The horses are smelling home,” Daisy announced. “They want out of this as much as we do.”

Willow’s heartbeat accelerated to match the team’s eager gait. She was anxious to be done with the long day’s travel. She hoped her sisters didn’t question her about why she’d been in the livery with Gage. After all, he’d simply taken refuge from the storm, just as she had.

She wasn’t sure how much, if anything, she was ready to tell them about the other reason she’d come to High Plains. Saying anything about hiring Gage Newcomb and her reason for doing so could wait until she was certain he agreed. Besides, she hadn’t decided for sure she wouldn’t change her mind and use someone else.

The team made a turn. A gust of wind whipped Gage’s hat off Willow’s head but she managed to grab it in time. Fearful that she’d lose it again, she tried to tuck it under one thigh, despite the rain. The wagon rocked and swayed hard, sending her sideways. Her hip crushed the hat crown.

She sat upright again, wondering if Gage would be more understanding about her accidentally crushing his hat than she’d been of the lady who’d done the same to hers.

Was there a way to fix it before he found out?

The man made her nervous. That was for sure. But a man like her character should make people want to right their wrongs, shouldn’t he?

She crammed the hat back down on her head, hoping the crown would pop into shape again. Hardly. She’d have to try something else.

Disgust rode with her the rest of the way.

Finally, the horses stopped in front of a large two-story house with a couple of outbuildings and a corral. Willow exhaled a breath of appreciation as the journey ended.

“Shepard, we’re here!” Daisy hailed, setting the brake. “Ollie, Thad, come grab a bag, will you? Tell Myrtle to warm up the coffee for us.”

The rain chose that moment to stop.

“Naturally,” Snow uttered in her sarcastic way and closed her parasol, revealing her normally solid-white hair had not been protected from the dampness of the rain.

From the barn, a man in a slouch hat, a shirt and chaps came running out to take the reins from Daisy. Willow noticed his black hair had a streak of gray running across the left temple.

“You done for the day, Mrs. Trumbo?” he asked, one of his gloved hands stroking the horse closest to him as if it were a treasured pet. “You want me to brush ’em down or will you be headed back to town for any reason?”

“I’m finished. We’ve still got too much to do before morning and I’m sure my groom doesn’t need to see me looking like this.” She headed to the back of the wagon to help Willow down. “Shepard, this is my sister Willow. Miss Willow McMurtry, my ranch hand, Mr. Shepard Hutton.”

“Howdy.”

The ranch hand tipped his hat and revealed eyes the color of cottonwood leaves when they shimmered in the wind. Silver-green. Freckles dotting his nose made him look younger than the gray streak implied. He was about a head shorter than she was, she’d guess, and she noted he stored a coiled bullwhip handle-up in one side of his holster, a gun in the other. He smiled and revealed a tooth on the left side that reminded her of a golden fang. The man exuded a curious mixture of innocence and danger about him. “Glad to meet you, miss.”

What a man he’d make for either a hero or an outlaw! She couldn’t wait to find out more about him and how he used his whip. Did handling animals require the use of one or was it simply a choice?

“I’m happy to meet you, Mr. Hutton.” She held out her hand to shake his, but when she asked, “Have you worked for my sister long?” he didn’t offer his in return.

She let her hand slide down to her side.

“Not long,” he mumbled and started unloading cargo her sisters must have bought in town from the wagon.

Evasive
, Willow delegated him in her notes.
Outlaw. Has manners Ketchum would never display.

Willow was just about to ask Daisy and Snow how long they’d known the man but stopped when two little children came charging out the front door of house.

“Aunt Willow,” exclaimed the little blonde girl in braids and overalls, throwing her arms around her in greeting. Genuine welcome shone in her amber-colored eyes. “’Zit true ya came all the way from Florida to watch us?”

“Actually, I’ve been in Geor—” Willow almost said too much, but she refused to lie to her niece. Instead, she said, “I’d come a lot farther to take care of you if you needed me.”

And she meant it. She should have already been in Ollie’s and Thad’s lives long before now. She’d make sure she made her stay here with them memorable and something they would never forget...but in a good way.

Willow hadn’t expected Ollie to be so friendly right off. A refreshing prospect after Gage’s bent of bossiness.

Her niece barely knew her. Daisy must have been kind in relating anything about her to the children. For that she’d always be grateful to her sister. She wanted them to enjoy being with her, and now she wanted both to miss her if she ever left.

But Thaddeus didn’t seem enthusiastic at all about her arrival. He didn’t hug her, just grabbed one of her bags, as his mother had instructed.

“Thank you for taking that in for me.” She tried to make him comfortable with talking to her. He was the spitting image of his late father—sandy-colored hair and gray eyes. But she’d never known Knox Trumbo to be shy, especially around women.

Daisy had said the boy had been orphaned by both his parents, but her sister still hadn’t revealed how she’d learned about the existence of her now-adopted son.

The fact that Thad and Ollie were the same age stirred lots of speculation in Willow’s overactive imagination, but she would wait to satisfy her curiosity until Daisy was ready to talk about those circumstances.

“Oh, yeah, I’m s’posed to grab the other bag.” Ollie unwrapped her arms from around Willow’s waist. “Mama said I get to show you which room you’re sleeping in. You’ll like it real good. I made sure I cleaned out the spiders and stuff.”

“Spiders? What kind of stuff?” Willow had heard about some of her niece’s antics from Daisy’s letters through the years. Where Willow’s mishaps were accidental, Ollie seemed to have a knack for deliberate shenanigans that went awry.

Hopefully, there would be no more meetings with Texas spiders for the rest of this trip.

“Ollie-Golly likes to play jokes on people.” Thaddeus glared at his sister. “Especially me. I told her you might be one of them prissy ladies who don’t like bugs and worms and crawfish or fleas in your taters.”

“Thaddy-Wumpus ain’t no do-gooder either. He’s trained Butler, our goat, to catch you bent over and—”

“Olivia Jane Trumbo, you two have got two months to catch your aunt up on all those wonderful little details.” Snow McMurtry interrupted the list of torture techniques each child had devised for the other. “Now, why don’t the both of you do what your mama asked? Let’s settle Willow in and we all can meet in the parlor once we’ve changed out of these wet clothes. Shepard, go ahead and put up the team and wagon.”

The ranch hand took the reins and started to lead the team away.

“I ain’t changin’ no clothes. I ain’t wet.” Ollie eyed Willow’s raggedy appearance. “You don’t look like you’d mind much.”

Willow suddenly realized the ranch hand had seen her like this and she’d totally forgotten how she appeared. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to shake her hand. Maybe she’d been too quick to criticize his standoffishness.

“I don’t much mind at all, but your aunt Snow’s right. I’d appreciate some sprucing-up time. Is that okay with you? I don’t normally look this bad.”

“You don’t look bad, Miss McMurtry,” Shepard called back over his shoulder. “I think you’ll clean up real good.”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Hutton. I’ll certainly try my best.” When he disappeared into the barn with the team, she smiled, deciding maybe he could be a good sort after all. Maybe he could teach her a thing or two about the way Texas men treated ladies, especially if Gage Newcomb chose not to. Or she didn’t take Gage on after all.

Daisy and Snow shared a glance and laughed. Willow knew that look too well. Matchmaking thrived in their blood anytime the three sisters were together but particularly now, when a wedding was already on their minds.

They didn’t understand she had no interest in marrying yet. Not until she had value of her own and didn’t need to count on being Mrs. Somebody to be respected.

Willow had a certain kind of man in mind if she ever married. One who valued her opinion and never judged her. Most important, she wanted him to need her. She could never love a man who could live a better life without her. Until she came across such a man, she’d just be a spinster aunt.

“Uh-uh,” she told them, heading inside, “you can just put those thoughts out of your head. I’m here to watch over the children, not find a man.”

A believable character, maybe, but not a husband.

* * *

“May I speak to your husband, ma’am?” Gage eyed the blacksmith’s wife and waited for her to allow him to step inside their quarters. The fragrance of ginger cookies permeated the air, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten anything today and needed to. That would have to wait even longer. Though he looked wetter than a duck in a flood and needed to get out of his soaked clothes, he’d made a promise to Willow McMurtry and he’d keep it.

“It won’t take but a minute,” he promised, wishing he still had his hat so he could pull it down and spare Pigeon the sight of his scars.

But then Willow would have had to ride back home without anything to protect her from the rain. That that caused him any concern had been as much a surprise to him as offering to clean the blankets for her. She brought out a consideration for people he thought he’d lost in long years of riding herd on criminals.