The Texas Ranger's Secret (11 page)

“Sure you were, Aunt Willow,” Ollie agreed. “Your arm heated up and gripped me so hard all a sudden that I thought you was tryin’ to crack me like a pecan shell. You got mad, all right.”

Gage laughed. Thaddeus glanced at Willow as if he was waiting to see how she would take Ollie’s defense of Gage. Not wanting to make her nephew feel cautious about being himself around her or contradict what her niece had clearly discerned, Willow gave in and smiled. “I guess I was at that.”

Thaddeus erupted into one of the sweetest laughs she had ever heard. Willow immediately wondered if he was someone like her—careful not to say or do anything unless certain it wouldn’t offend anyone or make her appear foolish. Her heart went out to him if they shared such a habit and she decided she’d see if she could help him gain some confidence while she was here.

Silence rode with them awhile until Gage finally spoke up. “I take it you didn’t want me discussing anything further with Mr. Hutton.”

“Little ears have big imaginations,” she replied. “No reason that couldn’t wait until another time.”

“That means she didn’t want us to hear what you and Shepard woulda said,” Thaddeus explained.

“Besides, Aunt Willow had to go. She’s got plans once we get there,” Ollie added. “I heard her talking with Myrtle about all them ladies she’s gonna find.”

“Like I said,” Willow told him, “little ears have big imaginations. I’m just going to check on the livery and set things right there. Then I plan to make myself better acquainted with the town. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

Gage took his attention away from the pathway for a moment, facing her and letting his horse have its rein. “When do we start your first lesson?”

“Lesson?” Ollie hollered. “We ain’t goin’ to do no lessons until school starts, are we? If we start now we’d been in real danger of overlearnin’ something.”

Willow glared at Gage, wishing he hadn’t brought up the subject of the lessons, but she couldn’t blame him. She hadn’t asked him not to mention them to anyone. Another thing to add to her list of must-dos. Come up with a logical reason why she’d enlisted his help. Maybe the truth would serve her well. She could just say she wanted to learn how to be a Texan quicker and he’d agreed to offer some lessons.

Then again, maybe Ollie would forget about it without asking more. “No lessons or school for you until it takes up session again, sweetie.”

Ollie squealed. “That’s good. Don’t remind Aunt Snow. She’ll think up some homework to get us primed up.”

“Well, I wish it was already time to start school,” Thad informed them.

“That’s ’cause you need to get smarter,” Ollie retaliated, sticking out her tongue. “I’m smarter than an old hoot owl. Just ask anybody.”

Willow listened to them banter back and forth about who had outwitted whom recently. The fact that they would be in school for hours each day soon would give her extra time to meet with Gage without affecting her responsibility with them.

The road suddenly forked in two directions. The children were arguing so loudly Willow could hardly concentrate. She wasn’t sure which way was the correct road to High Plains, so she just reined to a halt. Waiting on Gage to start down the right path, she was surprised when he reined up short beside her.

“Time to see if you can follow trail,” Gage announced. “Which way?”

The children quit arguing and started to point the direction, but Gage’s command stopped them. “No, let her figure it out for herself. She needs to know how to get back and forth from town to home on her own.”

Panic rose within Willow. What if she got it wrong and made a fool of herself in front of the children? She thought the lessons would be learned in front of him, not everybody. Maybe she needed to add a few rules to the lessons.

Willow frowned at Gage.

“Can we give her a hint?” Thaddeus asked as if he thought she was struggling.

She wanted to slap that expression of infinite patience right off Gage’s face when he shook his head and said, “What if nobody was here to give her one?”

He glared at the bright sun and blinked hard. “Never know when you need to rely on all your own senses. Let’s see what your aunt can do.”

Willow took a hard look at her surroundings. The sun shone slightly past midway in the sky, so that meant it was just past noon. It would set in the west, of course, and High Plains faced east. She thought she caught a white plume of smoke rising in the distance, which could be from someone’s chimney or maybe the diner in town. It made sense that the right part of the fork would lead them to High Plains.

But she wanted to make certain of her choice. A quick study of the wagon ruts leading in that same direction showed heavier grooves and cut a clear path of nothing but well-trodden dirt that had known many travelers. The fork to the left still grew clumps of prairie grass along the way.

Pleased with her deductions, Willow chose the path to the right and said, “We’re headed this way.”

“Mighty fine,” Gage complimented her, joining in beside her. “You didn’t rush your decision and that’s what counts when figuring out a smart move. Tell me why you chose the right.”

She gave him all her reasons.

“And when you head back, which way is home?”

“I’ll turn left.”

“I’d give you an A on this.”

Willow was pleased with herself and even happier that his compliment sounded sincere.

Who knew? Maybe she was smarter than she or any of Biven’s readers thought she might be.

Maybe all she needed was to think things through more thoroughly before applying them to her stories.

Hopefully, time would tell.

Or rather, one month of lessons would provide.

Her reply to the letter she received from her boss last night rested in her pocket. He wanted to review her first story one month from yesterday. Mailing took a week or more at best, longer if there were problems along the route. That meant she’d have to mail it no later than mid-June in order for it to arrive by the deadline he’d given. Everything had to be sped up twice as fast. The lessons had to be learned quickly. Her help with the children needed to go as flawlessly as possible so she could concentrate well on her writing.

She’d thought she’d have two months before she would be faced with proving herself to Biven.

But now she knew the real challenge would be proving to herself she could do this.

Chapter Eight

W
hen they came to a halt outside the livery, Gage noticed the Trumbo brothers had already begun the repair. Burnt wood had been stripped from inside and now lay in a stack near the door, which was propped open by a wagon wheel. Fresh planks leaned against the livery, ready for use. The sound of hammering echoed in rhythm as the three men worked in unison.

Though he hadn’t expected them to start until tomorrow, Gage appreciated that they’d chosen not to put it off. He was glad he’d told Willow about his arrangements with the Trumbos. Otherwise, Willow might have taken up the chore herself. He admired her for wanting to set things right, but from what he’d seen so far, she needed a little more experience between wanting and getting done.

Several horses tied to the hitching rail near the trough danced sideways each time the hammers struck. Chickens squawked on a number of makeshift perches around the livery yard, and from the sound of neighs, the blacksmith or carpenters had tied off other horses around back. The building had been emptied of livestock.

“Maybe you ought to go about your other plans until the men finish,” Gage suggested. “Then you can come back here and take care of whatever you had in mind for Bear.”

He wanted to clear his own saddle first and offer her a hand down, but he had to make sure Willow could dismount as well as she’d taken
to
the saddle. If she met with trouble out on the range, she would need to be good at both mounting and dismounting.

“I’m doing this first,” she said, ignoring his advice. “I can carry boards or give the horses a good brushing while they’re out here. That’ll keep them calm until the hammering stops.”

Gage offered Thaddeus a hand, then dismounted while Ollie nearly flew out of the saddle and ran inside.

“What about those two? They could get in the way—” he nodded toward the boy chasing his sister “—or maybe hurt.”

“They know horses better than I do, according to my sisters.” Willow shook her head, setting her curls afire with light. “They’ll be a big help.”

He peered harder, wondering what the color of such curls would look like at dawn when the light took on its morning glory and his eyes had rested for the night. He could see so much better then.

Gage shook off his thoughts and reminded himself that there was no point in wasting time on such wondering. Appreciating the color of a woman’s hair was a skill he was losing with no way to get it back. Capturing Stanton Hodge gave him no time to chase matters that would be of little consequence to his future.

All of a sudden, the hammering halted. Gage listened as each man took time and boomed a greeting to the children.

“Hey, what happened to that frilly, flouncy thing you was wearin’ this mornin’, little britches?”

“Skinned out of it soon as I could, Uncle Mad,” Ollie answered.

Though he hadn’t been around all that many children in his years on the trail, there was something Gage liked about Ollie. He couldn’t remember a time, other than today, when he’d seen the little tomboy in anything but her overalls. Ollie Trumbo was a piece of work and didn’t let anybody’s opinion stop her from being her own person. If her aunt stuck around High Plains awhile, Willow would learn a thing or two about confidence from the little girl.

“Snow let you come into town already?” asked one of the other uncles.

“I figured we wouldn’t get to see you two till Daisy came home,” the slightly younger third uncle piped in.

“Aunt Willow brung us. She didn’t know no better,” Thaddeus informed them with a sudden squeal. “Oww! Don’t kick me.”

Images of the feisty brother and sister scuffling urged Gage to finish tying off the reins to secure his horse.

“Better get in there,” Willow insisted, forgetting to hitch her horse to the rail. Rushing to lift a plank, she managed to slant it sideways in order to carry the wood more easily.

In trying to keep its weight balanced, she didn’t judge the distance between her and Gage and almost slammed the length of it into his stomach. He jumped backward just enough to dodge the edge of the board.

She turned and flashed him a quirk of an eyebrow. “You coming?”

“Right behind you,” he answered, leaving out the fact that she’d nearly gutted him. Instead, he took her horse’s reins and tied them off, then grabbed a plank, making sure he gave Willow plenty of room to carry hers.

Once inside, he waited until she set the wood down, then did the same with his.

The tallest of the brothers now had Ollie straddled across his right shoulder and the battling children separated. “Glad you could get to town, Willow. Soon as we’re done here, I’ll buy you and these two kicking mules some ice cream. We’re just about finished anyway.”

Gage watched as each Trumbo held out a powerful hand and offered her a shake. To his surprise, she firmly shook each instead of curtsying. She seemed to know the brothers well. Obviously old friends from the past.

“It’s wonderful to see you, Maddox. You, too, Grissom. Jonas. I was so busy this morning at the wedding I didn’t get to visit with any of you much.” Willow smiled. “Mr. Newcomb here told me about the arrangements he made with you. I really appreciate you getting to it so fast. Where’s Bear?”

“Inside with his wife. We told him we didn’t need any help. Almost done. Probably won’t even have to use those boards you carried in.”

Gage noticed the expression that rippled across her face and wondered if it was disappointment in not being needed. When it came to helping, being kind enough to make the offer was what really mattered. Sometimes people didn’t want help. But Willow apparently hadn’t learned how to take things in stride.

“We came to take the buggy back home for Daisy, but I have other things I’d like to do before we go.” She pulled out a list of names from her skirt pocket. “I hope to pay a call on these women.”

Six-foot-five Maddox looked down his broken-in-several-places nose at the list and laughed. “You still like to rattle bones, don’t you, gal? I remember at Oktoberfest when you tangled knees and noggins with Mary Lou Lassiter trying to fish that juicy orange out of the dunking tank. You couldn’t have been more than six or seven, barely able to lean over the tank of apples, much less see where the orange floated.”

His gray eyes lit with amusement. “And best of all, you’d just lost your two front teeth, remember? Once you grabbed hold of that orange, you clamped your jaw shut like a Florida gator and wouldn’t let go for nobody’s business. Mary Lou fought hard with ya, but you hung on. You still smelled like marmalade when your new teeth grew in.”

The younger Trumbo brothers laughed.

Willow apparently didn’t think the memory was so hilarious. Gage watched her jam the list back into her pocket and her shoulders set ramrod straight. She might be almost red haired, but there was nothing almost about her temper.

“We all tested our wings at that age and skinned a few knees,” Gage defended her, trying to soothe the situation. “Nobody’s perfect.”

Maddox studied him as if he’d just noticed Gage’s presence. “Just warning Willow some of these women ain’t gonna have nothin’ to do with her for a few change of bonnets. She got ’em all fired up when she made ’em miss catching that bachelor snatcher this morning. They’ll stay mad till somebody else sets them to cacklin’.”

“Got any idea where she’ll find the ladies right now?” Gage wanted to make sure she at least got a try at whatever she had in mind.

“Over at the diner.” Maddox wiped the sweat from his brow with an arm that looked as if it had been carved from a band of iron railing. “Last I heard, they’re having a hen party, sharing notes about the strutting roosters at the wedding. Most of us unmarried fellas are steerin’ clear and makin’ ourselves plenty useful elsewhere. If Ollie and Thad want ice cream, I’ll pull up my bootstraps and test the rapids if I have to. But you might want to stay clear, Newcomb. I hear tell they think you’re prime pickings.”