The Texas Ranger's Secret (25 page)

Nothing she could do but drag it. The volume that would give Willow the added height she needed was far too heavy to lift.

She grabbed the rope end and began to pull, only to bump the table filled with magazines.

Grimacing, she readjusted her angle enough to slide around the table leg that had almost proved her undoing. Finally, gratefully, Willow managed to reach the door. Now to lay down the bag and get a good step up.

Thunk! It landed with a thud louder than she’d expected.

Remembering to grab the blanket again before daring to maneuver herself into position, she lifted one foot and planted her heel firmly atop the middle of the feed bag. Testing carefully, she lifted the second.

Seeds shifted, making her wobble, and she had to stuff part of the blanket in her mouth to keep from saying, “Whoa!”

Her pulse bounced in her veins as if it were bubbles dancing in a pot of hot water.

She took the blanket from her mouth and reached up to see if she had enough height to get the job done.

She did. Stretching a length of the blanket between both hands, she balanced on the pads of her feet and threw the material over the bell. Momentum carried the blanket high enough, and she was able to stuff some of it around both sides of the clapper.

Done! She praised herself for a job well accomplished as she lowered her heels to regain a steadier surface beneath her feet. Her weight shifted the seeds again and she almost retwisted the same ankle she’d hurt the other day.

Great, that’s all I need
, she thought.
Hurt myself before I even get started.

Afraid to linger any longer, Willow sucked in her breath, opened the door and looked up. The bell didn’t ring. She exhaled ever so quietly.

But neither would the door open very far. She’d forgotten how heavy the bag was. Willow was afraid to scoot the door open any wider for fear that the movement might be too jarring and change the position of the blanket that kept the clapper silent. Would she be able to squeeze through this small opening?

Only one way to find out. She sucked in her breath again, this time as hard as she could, hoping to flatten her stomach as much as possible. She pushed her right shoulder and hip through, turning her head sideways so as not to bump her nose. Pressing her cheek tightly against the outer side of the door, she slid a little farther but seemed to get stuck. The left side of her body refused to mold itself to the effort.

Willow could just imagine somebody coming along and finding her in such an embarrassing position.

Suddenly somebody grabbed her right hand and gently yanked her from the side. She started to scream but couldn’t. She could only expel the breath she’d sucked in for so long.

“Going somewhere?” a man’s voice asked.

Doc Thomas! She’d thought he was asleep somewhere in the back of his office. What was he doing out here? How would she explain this without his hauling her off to an asylum?

“Uh...I...uh...got stuck, you see.”

“Yes, I noticed that.” He let go of her hand.

“Well, I decided I needed to go check on something important I left back at the house. I didn’t want to wake any of you.” She felt like a child confessing to a bad deed done, but she’d really meant well. “I stuffed a blanket in the bell over the door so it wouldn’t ring and wake up everyone as I left. You’ll see how I managed that when you go inside. But as you can tell, I had a little trouble achieving what I set out to do. I apologize for the mess you’re going to find.”

Doc Thomas nodded. “Apology accepted. I just want to know one thing.”

She hoped she didn’t have to reveal any more about the why of her actions. “Yes?”

“Why didn’t you just use the back door?”

“Oh.” She wanted to melt right there in the road into a muddle of stupidity. Who would have thought there was a back door? “Wasn’t thinking, is all I can say.”

He laughed. “At least you’re honest. I’ll let you go, then, and, Miss McMurtry, if you return and would rather not set off the bell, go around back and come through the kitchen. My office used to be someone’s home before it became a business.”

“I’ll remember that,” she said and hurried away as fast as she could before she died of embarrassment in front of him.

* * *

Gage didn’t know how he’d managed to get here. Last thing he remembered was opening the sheriff’s office door and finding the lawman sprawled over his desk. Rushing up to make sure the man still breathed, Gage had heard a plank in the floor creak under the weight of a heavy boot. Lantern light had played along the wall, revealing a shadow with an arm raised to strike.

Now Gage lay across a church pew staring up at the rafters high into the steeple tower as he fought the dizziness that blurred his vision. He tried to stir up the images lost after the crashing blow that had sent him hurling into oblivion.

With a moment of realization, he noticed daylight dancing through the sanctuary’s stained glass window. Gage sat up, trying hard to focus. The wooden pew creaked as he shifted his weight, remembering.

Someone had muttered Willow’s name in the moment before he’d been clubbed. A promise to make her pay. Then the crashing blow from a blunt instrument that brought nothing but pain.

Gage was surprised to wake up alive. If the person had meant to kill him, there’d been plenty of opportunity.

Vague memories floated back. Wondering if his attacker was a man or woman. He couldn’t tell by the odd shape of the shadow or by the fierceness of the blow. He’d gotten up from the sheriff’s floor. Accidentally stepped on the glasses that had fallen from his face. Stumbled to the church to gather his wits and more guns. Finally passed out on the pew.

How many people were still angry enough at Willow to want to hurt her? To need to get him out of the way, knowing he would stop at nothing to rescue her?

Hutton was the logical conclusion.

Aspiring brides in search of a bouquet couldn’t be discounted either.

A spurned intended?

He had to find Willow, get a quick list of her enemies and hope that he had enough unscrambled brains left to protect her from all threats.

What was it she had said before he’d left her to head to the sheriff’s office? Gage tried to concentrate. Maybe if he could clear his head long enough to remember their conversation, more of his memory of what had happened would come back to him and he’d know who posed the threat to Willow.

She’d forgotten an envelope. Left it behind. Did the envelope have anything to do with whoever had felt the need to get him out of the way?

Maybe all it meant was she was worried about something to do with her writing. Surely that had to be it. Her writing was all that had really mattered to Willow since she’d arrived in High Plains.

In the stillness, Gage heard an inner voice echoing through his mind and heart.

Not true. She cared enough to see you go to a doctor. Faced you down like a gunman, challenging you in the middle of the operating room.

And she didn’t flinch, not once, at your stubborn refusal. Willow cares for you. Not just cares but loves you. And all you can do is insist that you’re leaving her.

If Gage meant to get on with his life and quit pouting, it would take Willow’s kind of grit and heart to see him through the changes. Instead of fearing he would become nothing but a burden, he was meant to glory in what they could be together.

Gage realized he’d been too blind to see what was staring him in the face.

He didn’t have to live alone anymore.

Emotions that he’d only recently come to know filled him. Anticipation that things could get better. Longing for more and belief that he had a right to dream. Faith that he could put his many losses behind him and find a future worth living.

“Thank You, Lord,” he whispered, bending to his knees and bowing his head, “for letting me see in time. For allowing me to survive this attack. Most of all, Lord, guide me straight to the person who means her harm.”

Chapter Seventeen

C
areful not to make a sound, Willow moved through the livery to reach the buggy. With Gage and Snow’s help earlier, she’d managed to face the horses in the proper direction this time, and she didn’t have to worry about harnessing them again. All she had to do was loosen the hobbles, climb aboard and be on her way.

It occurred to her that the ride would be faster if she took just one of the team, but then saddling and adjusting the stirrups to the right length would take up too much time. She would be forced to borrow all the makings from Bear’s tack room and she wouldn’t do that without him knowing. That would be nothing short of theft and there’d been enough of that around here already.

She would just have to chance making it out to the ranch and back in the buggy and hope no one became the wiser of her absence.

After removing the hobbles from the team’s front legs, she stroked the animals and whispered a promise of extra oats when they returned. Willow climbed aboard and settled in the front seat, discovering her journal had lodged between the brake and the footrest. She was glad she’d had the presence of mind to grab it off Hodge’s table earlier. She’d been so worried about the story she’d left behind in the envelope that she hadn’t given the book a second thought until now.

The image of the last place she’d seen it made her shudder. Next to the tooth and the can of boot polish. Proof that Hutton meant to intimidate her.

Just as she retrieved her book, a
whoosh, whoosh, whoosh
broke the silence in the darkened livery.

A sharp sting bit her shoulder, then coiled around Willow so fast that the leather strap pulled her arms against her ribs as if to squeeze the breath from her. She felt like a rabbit trapped in a rattler’s grip. Willow was jerked from the seat, only to land in the straw that covered the stall floor. Her journal lay next to her cheek now.

She did her best to scream, praying it would awaken the men Gage had said were sleeping in the livery. Or at least someone from outside. But she had to spit straw away from her lips, garbling the scream. No help came. Not even from Bear.

“Don’t bother, Willow. Those men won’t hear you or be up anytime soon. We made sure of that,” chided a voice from the door she’d left open to give her quick exit. “And don’t be counting on the blacksmith or your precious Ranger either. Let’s just say each of them’s gonna have a little trouble tracking for a while once they wake up.”

“You better not have laid a hand on my niece and nephew or I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Hutton laughed from atop his horse, backlit by the moon. “Kill me? Should have done it when you had the chance, lady. This ain’t one of your made-up stories. The hero, or should I say in your case, the heroine, doesn’t always get what they want in real life.”

“If I get up from here, you’ll wish you never laid eyes on me,” she spat.

“Oh, you’re getting up, all right, lady. I’m taking you back, using you for bait. Your Ranger’s gonna come calling, I guarantee you. I’m gonna make him wish Ellie had gone ahead and finished the deed instead of leaving him for dead.”

“Ellie?” Surprise filled Willow. She was in on all of this? “Who is she to you?”

“I had a change of heart since I talked to the Ranger. I’m going to be Mrs. Hutton.” The large-nosed woman from Atlanta came around the livery door with a bandanna in her hand. Looking up at the wrangler, she asked, “Now, Shepard?”

He nodded and laughed. “Anytime you’re ready, darlin’. Make sure you stuff it in good.”

Willow struggled against her bond, jerking her head this way and that so Ellie couldn’t cram the bandanna into her mouth. “Ask him what his real name is,” she sputtered. “It isn’t Hutton. Is it, Stanton? Don’t be fool enough to trust him, Ellie.”

The whip jerked and he backed the horse away from the door. Willow slid across the straw on her belly, picking up splinters from the boards beneath.

Did he mean to drag her all the way back?

All of this because she couldn’t wait to get her story sent off. Because she feared she couldn’t re-create it again. Because she’d allowed her need for approval to make her reckless and endanger the man she loved.

Willow closed her eyes, gagging against the dust that billowed beneath each hoof that gouged the trail in front of her. Suddenly the images and emotions rising within her became too vivid for her to hold back the fear. She began to pray and ask God to help her.

Don’t let Gage find my journal, Lord. If he sees it, he’ll think I’m dead. He knows I’d never leave it willingly. He won’t stop until he finds Hutton and then it might be too late. He might not see the danger I’ve led him to.

Please don’t let him die trying to rescue me.

I could never be worth that much.

To him or to myself if I lose him.

* * *

A little after dawn, Gage left Doc Thomas’s office with his head wound looked after and his mind frantic with concern. No one knew where Willow had gone. Only that her cot remained empty. The physician admitted seeing her long before dawn and said she had told him she was going somewhere for something she’d forgotten. He explained the way he’d found her jammed between the door and its threshold and how he’d wondered why she hadn’t thought of using the back entry.

Gage knew. She hadn’t wanted anyone to hear her leaving. Only by happenstance had Doc Thomas come to her rescue and learned of her mishap with the door. Where would she have gone next? Too much time had passed.

He’d best check the livery. See if her buggy was still there. If so, he’d be relieved that she hadn’t taken the foolish notion to return to the ranch and pick up whatever she’d forgotten. Nothing could be that important with the thief still on the loose and believing she had spoiled his racket.

When Gage found Willow, he meant to take her in his arms, beg her forgiveness and pledge his undying love to her. He would even admit that he couldn’t—no,
wouldn’t
—live without her.

Taking Hutton into custody would just have to wait. Telling Willow he wanted her in his future must come first.