Книга - Lawman In Disguise

Lawman In Disguise
Laurie Kingery


The Lawman’s SecretWhen her son discovers an injured outlaw in their barn, the mysterious stranger instantly turns widow Daisy Henderson’s world upside down. But Daisy senses Thorn Dawson’s a good man…and there’s more to his story than he can tell her. So she can’t turn him away before he heals, even if she’s falling for him—something she swore she’d never do again after her husband died.An undercover lawman, Thorn never lets himself get too close to anyone. But that's before he meets single mother Daisy and her spirited son. Now Thorn has to protect them from the Griggs gang—a gang that's come to accept him as one of their own. And if he can't keep up the charade, the woman of his dreams might just pay the price.Brides of Simpson Creek: Small-town Texas spinsters find love with mail-order grooms!







The Lawman’s Secret

When her son discovers an injured outlaw in their barn, the mysterious stranger instantly turns widow Daisy Henderson’s world upside down. But Daisy senses Thorn Dawson’s a good man...and there’s more to his story than he can tell her. So she can’t turn him away before he heals, even if she’s falling for him—something she swore she’d never do again after her husband died.

An undercover lawman, Thorn never lets himself get too close to anyone. But that’s before he meets single mother Daisy and her spirited son. Now Thorn has to protect them from the Griggs gang—a gang that’s come to accept him as one of their own. And if he can’t keep up the charade, the woman of his dreams might just pay the price.


“You’re a good mother,” he assured her. “You let him know you care about him, that he’s important to you. Not like my father...”

He hadn’t meant to say those last four words, but it was as if they had been ripped from the deepest part of his heart.

“Not like your father? What do you mean, Thorn?” she asked, her face puzzled, her eyes searching the depths of his gaze.

Perhaps it was time to get it out in the open. No wound could heal if it was left to fester.

“My birth cost my mother her health,” he told her. “She was never well afterward, and she died before I was old enough to remember her. She’d wanted to name me Thornton, after her father, but after she was gone, my father just called me Thorn. He made sure I knew it was because I was a thorn in his side...”

“Oh, Thorn!” she cried. And suddenly she had thrown her arms around him as she began to cry.

He was so astonished—and moved, because no one had found him worthy of weeping over before—that he could only wrap his arms around her and pull her close...


LAURIE KINGERY is a Texas transplant to Ohio who writes romance set in post–Civil War Texas. She was nominated for a Carol Award for her second Love Inspired Historical novel, The Outlaw’s Lady, and is currently writing a series about mail-order grooms in a small town in the Texas Hill Country.




Lawman in Disguise

Laurie Kingery







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy path.

—Proverbs 3:5–6


To Deb Siegenthal and Rhonda Gibson, the best encouragers anywhere, as well as being fine novelists themselves, and as always, to Tom


Contents

Cover (#u49953578-393c-5211-a6ed-1d74a00f6524)

Back Cover Text (#ude6248e0-d12b-5bf9-abdc-3fa12b0d70a4)

Introduction (#ude059275-69d6-5923-bac4-dce70d337c0a)

About the Author (#ue7d80ebc-501e-5a96-b52c-18cf7cf32bb1)

Title Page (#u89c28752-f79e-5d5c-8384-2d39d30d236e)

Bible Verse (#ufb0a0824-46ea-5f0f-b028-8fba929d7b99)

Dedication (#u83a7f529-eedf-557e-8ef1-5cf378a6d817)

Chapter One (#ulink_113ceba2-efc0-5b7b-8364-e2b54f27e491)

Chapter Two (#ulink_7bb2cbe5-7de6-5e19-8302-a1b64e4a2781)

Chapter Three (#ulink_6179b7f4-5263-5720-9b76-4b5e8daec2a3)

Chapter Four (#ulink_f7c9bad3-608d-5590-be1f-d947ec462eec)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Chapter One (#ulink_66ecd1ad-cda2-5a0c-86cb-d46b0480b6c7)

Simpson Creek, Texas

August 1870

He was at the end of his strength, and he supposed this barn behind someone’s Simpson Creek house was as good a place to die as anywhere else. At least Ace, his horse, was apt to find some forage before he gave up on his master and wandered off. Thorn only hoped that if the law connected the riderless horse to the outlaws involved in the bank robbery, they wouldn’t be able to find him here, or they’d be apt to string him up before he could explain.

Sooner or later, he knew that he’d have to talk to local law enforcement. He’d explain that he was a State Police officer, assigned to infiltrate the infamous Griggs gang and collect enough evidence to bring them to justice for their many crimes. He was prepared for the local sheriff’s skepticism. Thorn just hoped it didn’t come at the end of a loaded gun. This town had shot him enough already.

Weakened as he was by the loss of blood, his dismount turned into an ungraceful collapse into the aisle between the stalls, observed by no one but a trio of chickens scrabbling along in search of bugs and stray oats. The chickens fluttered and clucked in alarm when he collapsed, and he groaned as the fiery pain of his wound punished him for the violent movement. But once they finished their squawking, they seemed content to leave him be. Ace sidled away uneasily before spotting a mound of hay in the corner with a bucket atop it, and ambling toward it, his injured rider forgotten.

Though his vision was blurry, Thorn could see that he was lying right in front of an open stall. The straw bedding looked far from new, but it would at least be a little softer than the dirt. Smothering more groans, he crawled toward it.

He hoped whoever found his dead body wouldn’t be too upset by the discovery. It might have been nice to have a cold sip of water before he breathed his last, but one couldn’t have everything... As soon as he reached the dark haven of the middle of the stall, oblivion overtook him and he closed his eyes.

He awakened with a start some time later to the sound of the barn door creaking open and footsteps trudging toward him. How much later it was, Thorn wasn’t sure, but the light from the barn door hadn’t faded much, so he guessed it to be late afternoon.

“Dumb ol’ eggs,” he heard a boy’s voice mutter. “Why do I always hafta be the one to gather ’em?”

Thorn froze. If the boy was hunting eggs, his search might very well bring him into this stall, and he would be discovered. The boy sounded young. Young enough to be scared at the sight of a man badly wounded? Or old enough to be ready and willing to defend his family’s barn from intruders? There was no way to tell, which meant the safest thing for Thorn to do would be to hide somewhere out of sight. But there was no time to find another hiding place, and he certainly didn’t have the strength to run.

Was his horse still in the barn? He listened, and sure enough, he could hear the beast’s teeth grinding away at something at the end of the barn aisle. Maybe Thorn might be able to reach Ace and flee before the boy could set up a hue and cry...

“Hey, fella, where’d you come from?” he heard the boy call out, and Thorn knew that the kid had spotted his horse. “Ma ain’t gonna be happy you found her bucket of chicken feed. Let’s move you into a stall, and I’ll pull that heavy saddle off so’s you can rest for a spell while I find out where you come from.”

Thorn heard Ace’s snort of displeasure as he was pulled away from the source of his snack, the clop of his hooves down the aisle, the creak of a stall door opening on rusty hinges. The kid had chosen another stall, so Thorn was safe for now...but he couldn’t count on that safety lasting. Not when the boy was bound to start searching for how Ace had gotten into the barn in the first place. As if responding to his fears, he heard the lad’s sudden intake of breath, and his shocked question, “Is that blood?”

Thorn’s wounds must have leaked blood onto the saddle. Oh no, had he left a trail all over the barn floor, as well? He knew better than to be so careless. If nothing else, being an outlaw for the past few months had taught him how to cover his tracks. But he’d been so exhausted, he hadn’t even thought to check to see what kind of trail he was leaving behind.

The door to the stall where Ace had been led slammed shut, and Thorn heard the gelding shift restively. The boy’s footsteps quickened and came closer as each stall door was opened and shut. His vision had been fuzzy around the edges when he’d entered the barn, but he thought there’d been only about four stalls...

He wished there’d been enough hay to cover himself with, or something to hide behind, but he doubted that would have worked, anyway. Stifling a groan, he crouched with the intent of grabbing the boy and putting his hand over the kid’s mouth until he could convince him to keep quiet—

Then the door of the stall where he lay was yanked open. “Mister! What are you doin’ there? Stay where you are, or I’ll beat your brains out!” the boy cried with surprising ferocity, given his small size. He had grabbed up a piece of wood that looked as if it had played a role in stickball games, and was swinging it around in a threatening manner, as if he’d be only too glad to make good his threat. He looked to be about twelve or so, Thorn thought, a boy on the cusp of adolescence and feeling the need to prove himself.

“Quiet down, b-boy, I...I won’t...won’t hurt you, I promise I won’t,” he muttered, reaching for him, but the boy danced back out of his reach. Thorn knew he wasn’t up to clambering to his feet and grabbing the lad, but apparently he looked more dangerous than he actually felt at the moment because the boy kept a wary eye on him, obviously ready to act if the intruder tried anything.

“Won’t h-hurt you,” Thorn repeated, hoping he sounded convincing. “Don’t want to hurt...anybody. Need...help...” His legs wouldn’t hold him up any longer and he sank back into the hay, feeling the sweat dripping from his forehead. And the blood still dripping from his shoulder. At least the wound on his leg seemed to have closed up.

“Who are you?” the boy asked, daring to come closer as he stared at the man.

“My name’s Thorn,” he said. “What’s yours?”

The boy’s expression was fearful, as if he thought possessing his name would give Thorn some power over him, but evidently he thought it was only fair to supply it, since the man had admitted his own.

“Billy Joe...H-Henderson,” he quavered, in a voice on the edge of deepening into manhood. “What happened t’ you? Did you get attacked by Injuns?”

Thorn felt his lips curve upward slightly at the question, and Billy Joe looked embarrassed, as if he had already realized his guess was ridiculous. Attacks by Indians certainly happened often enough—in fact, Thorn thought he’d heard tell that this town had had problems with them before—but his injuries certainly didn’t fit the profile. If Comanches had attacked, the whole town would have heard the war whoops and the commotion, and there’d be more victims than just this one man. Besides, he didn’t have any arrows sticking out of him and he hadn’t been scalped...

He saw the boy’s face change the moment he realized the truth.

“You’re one of them bank robbers, ain’t you?” the boy breathed, clearly awed. “You got shot makin’ your getaway, right? You’re a real live outlaw.”

Thorn started to shake his head, then stopped and stared at Billy Joe, trying to think what to tell him. He couldn’t tell him the truth—that he was working secretly to infiltrate the gang on orders from the State Police. A boy couldn’t be expected to keep a secret like that, and Thorn would be in serious danger if his true identity was exposed. But if the boy thought he was an outlaw, surely he’d feel obligated to run to the sheriff, or at least to tell his pa, who would then go to the sheriff himself.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell nobody,” Billy Joe whispered, crouching low and holding out his hand to the man. “I want to be an outlaw, too, when I grow up, so I won’t turn you in. I seen you and all the other outlaws gallopin’ away after the holdup—not close-like,” he told Thorn quickly, as if he thought Thorn would worry that he could identify all of them. “But my friend Dan was just comin’ out of the mercantile with his ma, across from the bank, and he told me all about what he saw. Wait’ll I tell him you was hidin’ out in our barn,” he said, obviously feeling honored.

“You just said you wouldn’t tell anybody,” Thorn pointed out. “I could be in danger if you did.”

The boy looked startled. “Oh, I wouldn’t tell till after you got away,” he hastened to assure him. He still looked nervous, and Thorn realized in that moment how he must look to the boy, with his shirt blood-spattered, his eyes probably wide and wild, and his face pale from the loss of blood. He was certain he looked dangerous, and to a boy that had to seem a lot more exciting than the ranchers and farmers he probably saw every day. Thorn wasn’t really surprised that he dreamed of being an outlaw. Boys dreamed of all sorts of foolish things.

“You are one of them outlaws, aren’t you?” Billy Joe persisted.

Thorn nodded, watching the boy. “Yes, I was with the gang that robbed your bank today.”

“Ain’t my bank, Mr. Thorn—my ma and me, we don’t have so much as a plugged nickel in it. We ain’t got enough money to keep any in a bank. So why are you all bloody?” Billy Joe asked.

“I got shot during the robbery,” Thorn admitted. “I lost a lot of blood.”

“I gotta get you some help,” Billy Joe told him. “The doctor—”

“No, you can’t bring the doctor here!” Thorn cried in alarm, jerking his hand out, though he knew he couldn’t move fast enough to stop Billy Joe if the boy took off—not with his injuries. “He’ll bring the law...”

“But I can’t just let you die!” Billy Joe insisted.

“Even if it was safe,” Thorn tried to explain, “your doc’s got work enough to keep him busy in town tonight.” He was trying to think of how to explain to the boy that other townspeople had been hurt in the robbery—the bank president and the teller—and that the doctor would be tied up tending to them, when both Thorn and Billy Joe froze at the sound of footsteps entering the barn and coming toward the stall.

“Billy Joe, where are you?” called a female voice. “Didn’t I tell you I needed the eggs before I could cook our supper?”

The lad went still, staring wide-eyed at Thorn, and Thorn stared back, equally dismayed. But there was nowhere to hide. The boy’s lips silently formed the words my ma.

“Billy Joe, who were you talking to?” his mother demanded from just outside the stall. “If one of your no-account friends is here distracting you when you should be doing what I asked, he’ll just have to go home. I—”

She pushed open the stall door, then shrieked as she spotted Thorn crouching in the straw. He saw her wrench the stick out of Billy Joe’s hand and take a firm hold on it—as if a stick could protect them from a desperate man. She pushed her son behind her, clearly determined to stand between him and danger. He was surprised she didn’t yell for her husband. Maybe the man was away from the house, still at work?

“Who’re you? And what are you doing talking to my son?” she demanded. “Billy Joe, run and fetch the sheriff!”

But Billy Joe remained rooted to the spot. “Ma, Mr. Thorn—he won’t hurt us,” he said. “He promised.”

It sounded to Thorn as if the boy was making a valiant effort to make his tone sound adult and reassuring, not frantic and whiny like a little kid’s.

“He’s wounded, that’s all. Ma, we gotta help him, we gotta!”

Thorn saw the woman’s eyes narrow as she listened to her son, then she aimed that piercing gaze back at him. There was not an ounce of belief in her eyes that he was anything but a low-down polecat.

Smart lady, Thorn thought. I wouldn’t believe that someone like me could be trusted, either, after looking at me. He braced himself, expecting to see the woman yank her son out of the barn by his collar, if necessary. Shortly after that, the sheriff would appear and the jig would be well and truly up. Thorn had to try to keep that from happening.

He raised both arms, wincing at the effort. He couldn’t raise the one that was wounded all the way up. Even just lifting it halfway hurt like blazes. “I really don’t mean any harm, Mrs. Henderson, ma’am. I just rode in here looking for...” A quiet place to die, he thought, but he didn’t want to say that and alarm her further. The idea of a dead body in her barn might cause the lady to swoon—though she didn’t precisely look to be the swooning type. She was actually rather pretty, in a quiet, careworn sort of way, or she would be, if she ever got some rest. She had hair of a hue he’d heard called ash blond before, and deep-set, gray-blue eyes that saw right through a man’s bluster. But even with the tiredness that etched her face, she had a quiet sort of dignity he respected. He hoped it wouldn’t make her madder that he’d used her name. “Peace and quiet...”

“That may be, but your horse has helped himself to an entire bucket of chicken feed,” Mrs. Henderson replied tartly, jerking her head toward the other end of the barn. “I certainly hope you have the money to square that with us. I can’t afford to buy more feed.”

“Sorry, ma’am, I’ll pay you for it, soon as I can,” Thorn murmured.

The woman made a dismissive gesture, as if she was accustomed to empty promises and had no use for them. “So how did you get injured? The truth now—I’ll know if you lie,” she said.

“I got shot at the bank when the men I was riding with robbed it,” he said, locking her gaze with his while hoping against hope she would read the message in his eyes that there was more to the story than that. Had she noticed the way he’d phrased it, saying that the bank was robbed by the men he was riding with—not by him? “I promise you, I intend no harm to you or your family, nor will I steal anything—beyond what my horse has already taken. I... I just couldn’t ride any farther.”

Her eyes left his and focused on his bloodstained shirt. “How badly are you wounded?”

“I was hit in the shoulder and the leg, and bled a lot. I think the leg wound may just be a graze. With a little care, though, I’m hoping I won’t get lead poisoning,” he added, with more confidence than he actually felt. But he hadn’t expired yet, so maybe there was reason to hope. “Soon as I’m fit to ride, I’ll leave here.”

* * *

Daisy Henderson heard the unspoken questions within his statement—would she provide the care he needed to recover, and let him stay hidden here until his wounds were healed?

“Oh, so you’re a gentleman bank robber, is that right, Mr. Thorn?” she retorted, allowing an edge of scorn into her voice. “So you weren’t the one who shot the bank president, or the teller?”

“Ma,” her son protested, clearly embarrassed that she was questioning his new hero. “He told me he didn’t want to hurt nobody. I think we should take him at his word.”

She rounded on the boy. “Billy Joe Henderson, I’ll thank you not to question your mother when I’m doing what I must to keep us safe,” she said. She wasn’t at all happy about the admiring tone in his voice in regard to the wounded man at their feet, and the way her son seemed to want to protect an outlaw.

“But, Ma...” Flushed and crestfallen, the boy stared at the hay under his boots.

A glance at the wounded man showed traces of discomfort in his eyes as his gaze shifted from her to her son.

“Billy Joe, mind your mother,” he said gently. “She only wants what’s good for you, and she has no reason to believe that I’m no danger to either one of you.” He turned back to Daisy. “And no, I wasn’t the one who shot the bank president or the teller. I was as surprised as the ones who got shot when the lead started flying. Griggs—that’s the leader of the gang—had said there was to be no shooting unless it became necessary. And it wasn’t necessary from my point of view—none of the bank employees had offered any resistance. The gang shot them purely for their amusement, far as I could tell,” Thorn said.

“If no one in the bank was putting up any resistance or trying to fight, then how did you get shot?” she asked, perplexed by his story. He talked about the gang as if he wasn’t one of them himself. But he must have been right in the thick of the robbery to have gotten shot.

“As we turned to leave the bank, I heard a bang and it felt like someone had punched me, and then there was this stinging in my shoulder. I looked around, and saw that the bank president was suddenly holding a revolver, of all things, aimed at me. And that was funny, really, since I’d put myself in range by trying to stop Zeke—Zeke Tomlinson, he’s one of the Griggs gang and the one who first started firing off his gun—from shooting anyone else. Then another member of the gang—Bob Pritchard—shot the bank president in the shoulder in retaliation, just as he was aiming to fire again. That’s the shot that grazed my leg. And then it was time for us to skedaddle.”

“No one’s looked at those injuries since then?”

“That’s why I wanted to go fetch the doctor for him, Ma,” Billy Joe interjected.

“As I was about to tell your son when you came in, ma’am, I figure your town doctor is pretty busy right now, just tending the bank president and the teller. He doesn’t need another patient.”

Daisy ignored that comment for now. “Billy Joe, go back into the house and stay there—right now,” she said firmly, when the boy seemed loath to leave. “You’re to keep out of the barn until I decide what’s to be done.”

Billy Joe’s lower lip jutted out rebelliously, but after uttering a big sigh, he trudged out of the barn, much to Daisy’s relief. She sighed herself and looked after her son for a moment before turning back to Thorn.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with him,” she murmured. “He’s been through a lot in the past couple of years...and I don’t want you being here to disrupt our family after everything that’s happened already.”

Thorn looked puzzled. “Ma’am, I promise you that I’m no threat to your family, but if you think your husband would object to me staying here in your barn till I’m able to travel, I can move on.” Left unspoken was the fact that he also wanted her to avoid telling the sheriff his whereabouts. She saw that he was watching carefully for her reaction. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d prefer to wait to move till nightfall, though...”

She’d hoped he wouldn’t guess her family’s situation, but he was too clever. “I... I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” she said, avoiding his eyes, “but I won’t lie. I’m a widow...have been for a couple of years now,” she added, when his gaze dropped to her clothes, which were shabby and threadbare, but definitely not the black of recent mourning. “Billy Joe is my only child, and there’s no one living here but the two of us. I don’t even have any kin still living. So there’s no one else to object to your presence. And that’s why I said Billy Joe had been through a lot lately...”

I should have said, “We’ve been through a lot lately,” she realized as soon as she had spoken. It sounded as if she didn’t miss her husband much, which was a horrible thing to admit to a stranger, even though it was true.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the wounded man said automatically. “And for how it’s affected your son. I’d guess that without a father around to set him straight, you’re not happy to hear your boy talking like an outlaw was someone to look up to,” he concluded for her.

“No, I’m not,” she agreed, and thought he saw too much with those dark, knowing eyes. She met his gaze with her chin upturned, daring him to criticize her parenting. He certainly wouldn’t be the first to think she couldn’t raise her son properly as a single mother. There were plenty of good people in Simpson Creek, as she knew firsthand. But there were plenty of mean-spirited gossips, too.

“And I can understand that,” he told her, looking as if he wanted to say more about why he understood. “Mrs. Henderson, I can’t tell you the whole truth about my situation—for the sake of yours and the boy’s safety and my own—but I can tell you I’m not an outlaw, and that I have an honest and honorable reason for riding with the gang. And I promise, you and your son have absolutely nothing to fear from me. If you’d be willing to let me hide here, I’ll leave as soon as I can after that, and you can forget you ever laid eyes on me.”

Should she take him at his word or not? Why should she take a chance that he was telling her the truth?

There was sincerity shining in his dark eyes, but she’d learned from bitter experience that sincerity could be faked. William Henderson, Billy Joe’s father, had been a sweet-talking man with a sincere expression on his face when they’d courted, but shortly after they’d wed, he had turned her life into a nightmare that had lasted until he’d been taken away to prison.

“Again,” Thorn continued, “I know you have no reason to believe what I’m about to tell you, but I’ll say it, anyway—I’m a Christian, law-abiding man, Mrs. Henderson. The Bible is my guide.”

William had said he was a Christian man, too, but he’d twisted the Scriptures to excuse his cruelty to her till she’d almost stopped believing there was a God who cared what happened to her and her little boy. It wasn’t until her husband was killed in a prison riot that she felt able to take an easy breath and start to believe in God’s care for her again.

“Then why are you—” she began, then caught herself. “Never mind—you said you couldn’t say, so I won’t press you to give me an answer you can’t give. I’ll just say that I’m a Christian woman, too.”

At least she tried to be, even though it was hard. Was it truly Christian of her to distrust Thorn—to distrust nearly every man she encountered—because of her abusive late husband? Forgiveness was something she struggled with. She knew it was her duty as a Christian, but it was so very hard to find forgiveness in her heart for the man who had beaten her and Billy Joe for all those years.

Had the Lord sent Thorn to her as a test, to see if she could show compassion and understanding to a man who, by all appearances, was a criminal like her husband? Maybe. The Bible said the Lord worked in mysterious ways—certainly they’d never been clear to her. But that didn’t stop her from wanting to bring herself, and especially her son, closer to God—to live within His plan for their lives.

“We go to church every other Sunday,” she informed Thorn, “which is all I can get off from work, whether Billy Joe’s wanting to attend or not. And I try to get him to go without me when I’m working. I’m trying to be the best ma I can to him. I’m hoping if I ‘train my child up in the way he should go,’ as the Bible says, he’ll turn out to be a better man than his father was.” And what of the example she herself set for her son? Could she teach him a lesson in Christian compassion by letting Thorn stay with them?

The man in question was now staring at her, and she guessed he was wondering if she was always so forthright with strangers. But she had always used that very plain speaking as a sort of armor against the world.

“I have an idea,” he began with some hesitation, “if you’re going to let me stay, that is. You might use that permission to motivate your son, since he wants you to help me. Tell him I can only stay if he does whatever you say, whatever he’s been reluctant to do...such as finishing his chores, going to church, minding his manners and suchlike. But that’s up to you, ma’am, of course—you know your son best, and I hope you don’t mind the suggestion.”

She blinked in surprise, then considered what he’d said. “You know, that’s actually a good idea,” she murmured after a moment. She could use this to teach her son about being a Christian, and give him a reason to behave, all in one. “Very well, Mr. Thorn...you may stay—for now.”

“Much obliged, ma’am. I won’t give you cause to regret it.”

But could he really promise that? Even if she believed him, that he was riding with the outlaws for an honorable reason, he was still technically on the run from the law. If her neighbors found out she was harboring a fugitive, she’d never survive the scandal...

She asked another question to distract herself from that worry. “Umm, you didn’t say, exactly—is Thorn your first or your last name?”

“First name,” he said, and his face twisted as if the name caused him to feel bitter. “Last name is Dawson.”

He must have seen the skeptical look on her face. “I’m telling you the truth, Mrs. Henderson.”

“All right then,” she said. “You can stay here until you’re well enough to ride off, Mr. Dawson. But I can’t have you dying on me. Having a dead outlaw’s body in my barn would be a little hard to explain. Simpson Creek has a very good doctor, and I insist on having him see you. I have no nursing experience, so I need his guidance on how to treat you, if you’re to recover. You can tell him the same thing you told me,” she added quickly, guessing he was about to protest. And that made her irritable. She was trying to help him, and he wanted to question that?

“And you needn’t look so doubtful,” she snapped. “Dr. Walker isn’t your usual small-town quacksalver. He knows all the latest things in medicine, and I’ve seen him save folks who were at death’s door. He doesn’t use all those snake oil remedies like calomel, either.”

“All right, all right,” the wounded man said, waving a hand in surrender. “Have him come—if he’s not needed treating the others in town.”

She saw him wince and guessed that the movement sent fresh, stabbing waves of pain lancing through his wounded shoulder. Either that, or he felt guilty at the thought of the bank president and teller who had been shot.

“I’ll send Billy Joe for him,” she said. “And don’t worry, I’ll tell him to go straight to the doctor’s house, and not to breathe a word of your presence here to any of his no-account friends.” She could easily picture Billy Joe, flushed with triumph at having a “real gen-u-ine outlaw” in his barn, bragging to all his pals. As Daisy turned to leave the stall, she said a little prayer that her son would be obedient enough to follow her command. She still didn’t know whether or not to believe the man who lay in the stall when he said he wasn’t an outlaw, but just this once, she’d take on faith something she’d been told. She just hoped she wouldn’t come to regret trusting him in her and Billy Joe’s lives.

And if he wasn’t an outlaw, what was he doing riding with them?


Chapter Two (#ulink_6c2a2b28-3afa-5345-ac2b-3e42cb65ecf0)

Daisy sighed as Billy Joe took off down the street at a run toward Dr. Walker’s house at the other end of Simpson Creek, leaving the kitchen door gaping open behind him, as usual. Out of habit, she went and shut it, but her mind wasn’t on the flies she was trying to keep out, or her son’s surprisingly quick agreement to her conditions for letting the wounded man stay. It was fixed on Thorn himself.

Thorn—odd first name; short for something else, like Thornton?—Dawson was a puzzle to her. She’d told him so much about herself, but had learned so little about him in return. All she really knew was that he was hurt—and that she’d promised to help.

And that meant she shouldn’t be just sitting here, gazing out the window at the barn and wondering about the man lying in one of the stalls. She should be getting bandaging materials ready—or would Doc Walker bring them? At the very least, she could put a pot of water on to boil in case the doctor needed it.

By the time she’d gathered an old sheet and set some water to boil on the stove, though, Billy Joe still hadn’t returned with the doctor. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that it was getting late and she still hadn’t done anything about supper. She was sorely tempted to go out to the barn to gather the eggs that her son hadn’t collected, but to do so would mean being alone with the stranger out there. Yes, they were alone in the barn before, when she’d sent Billy Joe away, but in that moment protecting her son had been her top—her only—priority. But Billy Joe was fine now, and there was no reason for her to pass any more time than necessary with a strange man. She’d have to face him again at some point, of course, since he’d be staying with them for who knew how long, but it wasn’t something she was ready to do again just yet.

Minutes later, Daisy nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw the shadow of a man’s figure ripple into the yard between the house and the barn. There hadn’t been many full-grown men on her property since her husband had been taken away to jail—and she still felt the familiar sense of dread at the sight of a man’s shadow. But it was the doctor, finally, carrying his big black leather bag. Billy Joe ran before him, looking back over his shoulder with an obvious impatience for the physician to reach the wounded man. She’d better go out and see what assistance Dr. Walker might require from her. Would he think she was a foolish woman for calling the doctor first before the sheriff, under the circumstances?

By the time she got out to the barn, Dr. Walker had already hung his frock coat over the half door of the stall and rolled up his sleeves, and was peering at Dawson’s shoulder wound. The doctor had already pulled away what remained of the bloody shirt off the outlaw’s shoulder.

“Thanks for coming, Dr. Walker,” Daisy murmured, feeling her stomach roil as she flinched away from the sight of the dried streaks of blood, as well as the man’s bare, well-muscled shoulder. She never dealt well with the sight of blood—not since she was a girl, and Peter...but no, she wouldn’t think of her brother now. That was a memory best left buried.

“Mmm. I’d have been here sooner, but I was a mite busy with Mr. Amos and his bank teller. I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear that they’ll live, by all indications,” he muttered.

“I’m real glad to hear it,” Thorn said, and he sounded like he meant it. “It was a lowdown, cowardly thing, what Zeke did, firing like that when there was no cause for it at all. If I’d noticed him aiming just a minute sooner, maybe I could’ve...” He shook his head. “Makes no difference what I would or could’ve done—I know that. There’s no changing what happened. But I sure am mighty glad to hear that both of those men will be all right.”

Dr. Walker gave him a nod of acknowledgment. “You’ll recover, too, once I get the bullet out of your shoulder. But you must know, you’ve lost a lot of blood...”

She was aware that her son was staring at the shoulder wound with a fascinated horror. “Billy Joe, go inside the house.”

“But I’m gonna help the doctor!” Billy Joe protested. “He said he’d need someone to hold the lantern so he could see to clean and dress the wounds.”

She was sure a clear view of Thorn’s injuries was not a sight that a young boy should be seeing. “I’ll do that,” she said in a tone that brooked no disobedience. She would simply have to push past her distaste for the sight of bloody injuries. Perhaps she’d be able to keep her focus on the lantern and not look at the wound at all. “Billy Joe,” she continued, “you gather those eggs like I told you to, then head inside.”

“Are you going to be able to help me without getting faint, Miss Daisy?” Dr. Walker asked. “We don’t want to risk you dropping the lantern and setting your barn on fire, do we?” His tone was no-nonsense, but his eyes were kind.

She set her chin. “I’ll do what needs to be done, as I always have,” she insisted, though her legs already felt like jelly. “Will you have enough light out here with the lantern, or should we move him into the kitchen?”

“Oughta be enough light with that hole up there.” The doc nodded toward the gap in the roof that let in the last of the day’s light at the moment as the sun slowly set, but allowed rain in as well, whenever the rain came. She was just thankful that hill country in Texas rarely got truly cold, or the draught the hole let in might be harmful to the animals. She knew she should get it fixed. She should do a lot of things to maintain her run-down property.

Daisy acknowledged the barn roof’s state of disrepair with a rueful grimace. “I’ve been meaning to get that roof repaired forever,” she muttered. “There just hasn’t been any spare cash—or anyone to do it.”

Thorn had been quiet, watching both of them as the doctor spoke to her, but now he spoke up. “Maybe I can fix that for you, Mrs. Henderson, before I ride on.”

By an effort of will, Daisy kept a skeptical look from her face. Even if he was sincere in his offer—which she doubted, for why would a stranger concern himself with the state of her barn roof?—he must realize there was no feasible way for him to complete the task. It would be a while before he was fit enough to climb up onto her barn roof and repair it. And even then, he’d need to stay hidden, not be working up there in full view of anyone passing by.

“Mmm,” muttered the doctor. “I’d best get on with it, I suppose. Miss Daisy, would you be able to fetch me some clean water, please?”

“Of course. I set some to boil when I sent my son to fetch you, then took it off the fire so it could cool down when I saw that you’d arrived. And there’s a spare cot in the tack room—I’ll bring out some bedding for it.”

“Excellent,” Dr. Walker stated. “I didn’t like the idea of him lying in the dirty straw with these wounds.”

Daisy was grateful for an excuse to get some fresh air before she helped the doctor, even though she had a feeling Nolan Walker would use the time to ask some pointed questions of the stranger in her barn.

She wondered if Thorn would give more answers to the doctor than he’d shared with her. Men tended to do that—hide more troubling details from her, as if she wasn’t strong enough to handle the truth. As if she hadn’t dealt with an abusive husband, and then the shame of a jailed husband while raising her son on her own. She was stronger than most folks realized. Strong enough to deal with this new complication in her life.

Much later, when the ordeal of cleaning out the wounds with carbolic acid and bandaging them was over, the doctor gave Thorn a dose of laudanum, instructed Daisy about his care and then departed, promising to check on him tomorrow.

Back in the house, she scrambled the eggs and set a plateful in front of Billy Joe. Then she loaded up a second plate with eggs, a thick slice of fresh bread and some of her preserves.

“Is that for Mr. Thorn?” Billy Joe asked eagerly. “I can take it to him, Ma!”

“Call him Mr. Dawson, honey. And no, I need you to stay put and eat your supper,” Daisy ordered.

Billy Joe pouted. “But I thought you wanted me to help take care of him. Wasn’t that what you said?”

“I do. And you will. Don’t forget what we agreed,” she reminded him. “You’re to look after Mr. Dawson while I’m at work.”

Her shift as cook at the hotel restaurant lasted from dawn until suppertime. She got only half an hour for a break after the midday crowd thinned out. She usually sat down on the back porch and ate whatever could be spared from the leftovers on the stove, while Tilly Pridemore, the waitress, kept an eye on the dining room.

“I’ll rush back here during my break,” Daisy told her son, “and check on Mr. Dawson then. But you’re responsible for seeing to it that he has whatever he needs the rest of the time.”

“I know, Ma.” Billy Joe rolled his eyes. “You already tole me a hunnerd times.”

“I don’t like that tone, young man. Remember our deal? You promised to be on your best behavior. Have you changed your mind?” Please, no, she prayed. I need this chance to get through to him.

Billy Joe was a good boy at heart—she knew that as surely as she knew her own name. But even good boys could be persuaded to make bad decisions, especially when their friends were leading the way. If Billy Joe was busy looking after their houseguest, it would keep him away from his troublemaking friends, which had to be a good thing. It might even help her boy learn some responsibility.

“No, ma’am,” Billy Joe said meekly. “I’ll look after Mr. Dawson real good, I promise.”

“And you won’t go wandering off with your friends and leave him alone?”

“No way! Not when I can stay here and talk to Mr. Dawson about outlawing.” He looked far too excited at the idea, and Daisy winced. Was it foolish of her to leave her son alone with a man who would fill his head with tall tales that would glamorize the wild life of an outlaw? No, she couldn’t bring herself to believe that Thorn would do that, not after he had already acknowledged that it wasn’t good for the boy to admire outlaws as he did.

“Just see that you don’t bother Mr. Dawson when he’s trying to rest,” she said. “He’s going to need time to heal.”

“Maybe he’ll heal real slow,” Billy Joe said hopefully. “Then he can stay for a long time. I want him to stay and teach me stuff!”

“Teach you stuff?” Daisy echoed, aghast. “Such as what?”

“Like how to do a fast draw,” Billy Joe told her, in a tone that indicated the answer should have been obvious to her.

“What makes you think he’s a fast draw?” Daisy asked. Had Thorn Dawson been boasting of gun-slinging skills to her impressionable son? Wounds or no wounds, he’d be out of her barn tonight if that was true!

Billy Joe shrugged. “Ma, an outlaw has to be a fast draw,” he explained with exaggerated patience. “I’ll just bet he’s good at it, that’s all. Fast as lightning. You can tell.”

They’d do better to hope the man would heal as fast as lightning—and go on his way before anyone else found out he was here. Mr. Prendergast, the hotel proprietor, wouldn’t tolerate even the slightest hint of a scandal when it came to the people he employed. If he found out she was harboring a fugitive, she’d lose her job, and then how would she support herself and her son?

“Ma?” Billy Joe said, interrupting her thoughts. “You sure you don’t want me to take that plate out to Mr. Dawson? I’m all done with my supper, see?” He gestured to his plate, which he’d emptied while she’d been woolgathering. The boy always shoveled down food as if he thought it was going to try to run away from him. And he was always hungry for more. Keeping him fed only got more challenging the bigger he grew—and the challenge wouldn’t get any easier now that they had another mouth to feed. She’d just have to take it one day at a time.

“No, I’ll do it,” she insisted. She could tell that the process of cleaning and bandaging his wounds had been painful and exhausting for Thorn. The last thing he needed was an excitable boy bouncing around him, trying to pump him for exciting stories. Picking up the plate, she headed for the door. It was dark now, and she carried a lantern to light her way into the dark barn.

She found Thorn Dawson asleep in the stall on the cot, covered with the spare blanket she’d brought out. He didn’t stir when she set the dish of food on a bale of hay and softly called his name. The laudanum must have taken effect faster than she’d expected, on top of the exhaustion the man must already have been experiencing.

He was sleeping on his side, his ribs rising and falling with his soft, regular breathing. Seeing his features relaxed in slumber, Daisy found it impossible to believe this man could be an outlaw. But appearances could be deceiving, couldn’t they?

It would be best if Thorn left as soon as he was physically able, as he’d said. But she shouldn’t be thinking of him by his first name, Thorn, as if he were a friend. He should be strictly “Mr. Dawson” to her, even in her thoughts, Daisy told herself. She didn’t know him, not really. And she saw no sense in trying to get to know him when he would just be on his way as soon as he recovered. She’d treat him with courtesy and with simple Christian compassion—no more than that. But no less than that, either. Not when she’d decided that it was her Christian duty to care for him.

He’d said he hadn’t done the shooting and wasn’t really an outlaw, after all. Why, if either of the wounded bank employees took a turn for the worse and died, she could be sending Thorn Dawson to the gallows, even though he wasn’t the man who had shot them, Daisy realized. A judge might be so bent on making an example of Mr. Dawson that, innocent or not, he’d pay the ultimate price for another man’s actions. She shuddered at the thought of Thorn Dawson with a rope around his neck.

No, she had to help him, even though it would be hard. It was the right thing to do. Blessed are the merciful, Jesus had said. So she was doing the right thing, wasn’t she? She could urge him to turn himself in once he was healed and ready to leave, couldn’t she? Sighing at the complexity of the question, Daisy left the barn and returned to the house.

* * *

He’d thought at first she was a dream, a vision conjured up by the effects of the laudanum, which fogged his brain and made opening his eyes wider than slits seem impossible. But he’d been aware of her presence and had even stolen a peek when she turned to stare at his wounded leg and shoulder, both now all properly cleaned up and bandaged.

Daisy. He’d heard the doctor call her that. The name suited her. Thorn could see that she’d been a beautiful woman once—and could be again, if someone cared enough to look after her. That careworn look would fade, he knew, with the right man at her side. Evidently, Billy Joe’s father hadn’t been the right man, not by a long shot, but Thorn could tell Daisy Henderson was a good mother to her son.

Suddenly—and quite illogically—he wondered what it would be like to be that right man for her, and for her boy. But there was no way that could happen. Not with him living a lie, pretending to be one of the Griggs gang. And not even as his true self, an officer of the law, constantly gone on missions to keep the peace.

He’d been so proud, so happy when he’d become a Texas Ranger. He’d been confident that his work would help make Texas a better, safer place. But he wasn’t a Texas Ranger anymore, he reminded himself. Not officially. There were no Texas Rangers—they had been disbanded when the carpetbaggers’ government took over the reins after Texas’s defeat in the War Between the States, and E. J. Davis, the new governor, had set up a new police department. The State Police were largely despised as tools of the Reconstruction government. Moreover, most of the men were motivated by greed rather than by an honest desire to serve, which meant that far too many were open to bribes and other dirty dealings. Instead of acting as an effective force against the growing lawlessness in the state, they were, in fact, part of the problem. But a Ranger leader whom Thorn respected, Leander McNelly, had encouraged him to join the State Police, anyway.

“Better times are coming, Dawson,” McNelly had told him. “This carpetbag Federal government won’t keep Texas under its thumb forever, and when it loses its grip, we’ll want to be able to start the Rangers up again. So go ahead and join the State Police if they’ll have you, and you can be our eyes and ears till those better times come. This way there’ll be at least one officer that’s not corrupt.”

The State Police had accepted his application, either because they were too disorganized to investigate his background and realize he’d been a Texas Ranger, or because there were others doing the same thing. It was a living, Thorn supposed, but it was quite a comedown from the real thing. Instead of keeping bandits out of the state, they were used as instruments to keep the conquered Texans afraid and compliant. It had been a relief when his division had been tasked with bringing down the notorious Griggs gang, and Thorn had agreed to go and join the gang to report on their movements.

So now I am a Ranger in disguise, disguised further as an outlaw, he mused. It was enough to make his head ache, trying to remember who he really was.

What he did know was that Daisy Henderson was a lady, as well as a kind and generous woman, and he was in no position to court her. But perhaps he could do some good while he stayed here, even if that “good” consisted only of providing temporary mentoring to a boy sorely in need of a father’s guiding hand.

Thunder rolled overhead, and a moment later rain began to patter on the roof overhead—or what’s left of it, he thought, as several drops found their way onto his head from above. Yes sir, if he stayed here, he was going to have to find a way to fix that roof for Daisy Henderson.

Groaning with the effort, he raised himself off the cot and dragged it to the side a few inches so the rain fell next to him, rather than on him. In doing so, he found the cloth-covered plate of food she’d left on the bale of hay, complete with a fork to eat with.

“Well, that’s a mighty fine reason to get out of bed,” he murmured, as the scent of the eggs and the sight of fresh bread and a little heap of preserves met his nose and eyes and set his mouth to watering.

As he pulled the plate onto his lap and put a forkful of eggs into his mouth, Thorn blessed Daisy Henderson for her kindness. And he vowed that he would never do anything to make her regret it.

* * *

Inside, Daisy was still trying to satisfy the curiosity of her wakeful son and prevent him from going out to the barn to check on their “guest.”

“So did the doctor have to dig a bullet outta Mr. Dawson, Ma?” Billy Joe inquired. “Do ya think he might give it to me, if he did?”

“Dr. Walker gave the bullet from his shoulder to Mr. Dawson,” Daisy told her son patiently, while hiding her dismay at his eagerness for gory details. She knew the boy would think Mr. Dawson had a greater right to the bullet than he did. “The leg wound was just a graze, as he’d thought.”

Billy Joe’s face fell. “But do ya think he’ll let me look at the bullet? I’d give it back, honest! And maybe he’d let me see his gun? Or I could—”

Daisy had had enough of this conversation. “The only thing you’re going to do tonight is head straight to bed. We’ve had enough excitement for one day and my shift at the restaurant starts at 6:00 a.m., you know, even if you get to sleep later. Settle down now and close your eyes.”

“Okay, Ma,” he muttered.

She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the top of his tousled head, and was rewarded with a grin. She was glad that at twelve, Billy Joe wasn’t yet too old for such motherly attention, and she hoped he never would grow too old to enjoy a mother’s kiss. He also wasn’t too old to try to break the rules, if he thought he could get away with it. She wouldn’t put it past her son to sneak out to “check” on Thorn, so she’d have to sleep with her ears open for the telltale creak of the floorboards.

She started for the door, then had a thought. “Billy Joe, if you want Mr. Dawson to remain safe, you can’t be telling all your friends that he’s in the barn—not even one of them, you hear?” It was clear to her from her son’s startled expression that he had been thinking about doing just that—putting Thorn Dawson on display in their barn for an audience of his admiring pals. “You tell anyone, and the next thing you know it’ll be all over town and the sheriff will put Mr. Dawson in jail.” And her reputation would be in tatters while her job would be long gone. But she couldn’t expect her son to fully understand that, or why it would matter.

“Of course I won’t tell anyone, Ma. Mum’s the word,” he said, shutting his mouth and turning an imaginary key in an imaginary lock there.

“Good boy. I love you, Billy Joe. Good night.”

“Love you, too, Ma. Good night.” He shut his eyes, and a moment later his regular breathing told Daisy that her son had surrendered to slumber.

But it was a long time before she slept. She couldn’t quite get Thorn Dawson’s face out of her mind, nor the change his arrival had made in her humdrum existence. It would not be a change that lasted very long, she knew. As soon as he recovered, he would ride out of Simpson Creek and out of their lives, and her dreary life would go on as before. It was the same return to humdrumness her son was dreading, she realized with a pang.

At times she wished her life could be less dreary, she admitted, but all the changes she had ever pondered making in her existence meant the chance of danger. And she’d never considered exposing herself and her son to danger worth the risk. They faced far too much danger already. If she could just keep herself and her son safe and secure, then she wouldn’t dare dream of asking for anything more.


Chapter Three (#ulink_98635db8-4e77-5a2e-b9f1-e7effcfce0b7)

After waking briefly when dawn light began to steal through the hole in the roof, Thorn had dozed again, only to be awakened by the arrival of breakfast. Based by the light angling through the battered roof, it seemed to be a few hours later. His plate of food was not delivered by Daisy Henderson as he’d hoped, but by her eager-eyed, energetic son, who brought his own breakfast with him. “So ya won’t have t’ eat alone, Mr. Dawson,” he explained.

“Where’s your mother?”

“Ma’s been at the hotel restaurant workin’ for least an hour now,” Billy Joe responded. “She has to get up afore the roosters t’ fix breakfast for the hotel guests and anyone else who happens to come into the restaurant. She left us menfolk our breakfasts on the stove and a note that I was to bring yours to ya soon as I got up.”

Thorn suppressed a smile at the boy’s labeling himself as a man. Without a father or older brother to look up to, Billy Joe probably did think of himself as the man of the house.

It was hard to be disappointed that Daisy hadn’t brought it, given the presence of this cheerful boy, who obviously thought eating with Thorn was a high privilege. But had she chosen Billy Joe to perform the task because she was in a hurry, or because she was avoiding Thorn?

“Your ma’s a good cook,” he murmured, savoring the taste of the crisp bacon and the perfectly scrambled eggs, despite the fact he’d had the same for supper. “The hotel’s mighty lucky to have her working for them.”

“She’s been the cook since mean ol’ Mrs. Powell died,” Billy Joe informed him. “Before that she was a waitress there, and we didn’t ever think she’d get to be the cook, ’cause it seemed like Mrs. Powell would probably keep the job until she was a hunnerd,” Billy Joe reported. “But she died, and that was good, ’cause a cook makes more money and we needed some more of that around here.”

“You sound pretty glad that the woman died,” Thorn commented drily.

Billy Joe had the grace to look ashamed. “I’m glad Ma got the job, but I’d have been just as glad ’bout that if Mrs. Powell had quit or moved away or somethin’. I’m not glad she died.” He paused, then added stubbornly, “But I ain’t all that sad, either. She was old and mean, and she treated my ma bad. I don’t like anyone bein’ mean to Ma.”

“I reckon I can understand that,” Thorn said. “So now she’s treated better at the restaurant?”

Billy Joe shrugged. “Some better. She gets paid more, so that’s good. But there’s still that nasty old Mr. Prendergast, the proprietor,” he explained. “He’s real bossy. Always fussing over every little thing, like he’s lookin’ for a reason to complain or to tell Ma that whatever she’s doin’, she’s doin’ it wrong. Never happy with nothin’. And Ma thinks the lady who’s the waitress now, Miss Tilly, wants her job—to be the cook, I mean. Miss Tilly’s always braggin’ about the great dishes she can make. But I’ve had her cookin’ some now and then and her food ain’t got nuthin’ on Ma’s,” the boy declared loyally.

There was always some bad apple at a workplace making trouble for others because they were jealous or spiteful, Thorn thought. And that was not counting the problems that came from an overly particular boss. As much as he disliked his current task, he was glad he had some independence in the way he made his living. It would drive him loco to work in an office somewhere and have some boss always looking over his shoulder.

From what little he had seen so far, Thorn judged Daisy Henderson to be a proud woman, not a complainer—especially in front of her son, for whom she seemed to want to set a good example. So if the boy had surmised that much about her workplace problems, Thorn suspected she was ill-treated indeed. Which went further to explain the woman’s careworn expression, and once again he wished he were in a position to do something about it.

“Tell me ’bout the outlaw life, Mr. Dawson,” Billy Joe pleaded around a mouthful of eggs. “Bet you’ve had some great times.”

Thorn winced inwardly. There it was, the very thing Daisy had voiced a fear of: her son thinking that being an outlaw was glamorous and exciting. Maybe the one thing that he could do for her would be to nip that idea in the bud and turn Billy Joe onto a better path.

“A few,” he said. “A very few good times, and a lot more times when being an outlaw was dangerous and dirty and we were hungry and cold—or hot—and tired of running and hiding from honest folks.”

The boy’s eyes clouded with suspicion. “Ma told you to say that, didn’t she? She don’t want me to be an outlaw, but wants me to grow up to be a clerk at a stuffy ol’ store, or somethin’ like that.”

“But that’s not what you want,” Thorn said, dodging the question.

The boy screwed up his face. “Naw, what kinda life is that?” he asked, his voice disdainful. “I’d rather be out ridin’ free, with no one to tell me what to do. Like you do.”

If the boy only knew. “But whoever led the outlaws would tell you what to do,” Thorn pointed out.

“Yeah, of course. Somebody has to be the leader,” Billy Joe agreed. “But if I was the bravest and fastest and smartest of the gang, pretty soon I’d get to be the leader, right? And all the men would have to do what I said.”

“Maybe...” Thorn said, picturing Griggs, the head of the gang he’d been riding with for the past two weeks, who was easily the laziest and most cowardly, selfish man he’d ever met. Griggs never risked his own hide if he could order one of his men to do the chancy jobs. Smart, though—he definitely was that. As cunning as a snake, and every bit as mean. His men didn’t necessarily look up to him or respect him, but they did fear him, and he used that fear to keep them in line—for now.

“Usually someone has to die before there’s a new leader,” Thorn murmured. “And until you were in charge, what about having to steal from a nice lady like your ma? You’d have to do it if the leader said so,” he added, when he saw doubt creep into the boy’s eyes.

“I’d never let no outlaw steal from my ma,” the boy insisted. “Not ever.”

“But you’d steal from someone else’s ma? Any lady you robbed might have a boy of her own, waiting for her to bring that money home. What are they to do if you take that money away?” Billy Joe didn’t have an answer for that, so Thorn let him chew on it for a bit before attacking the argument from another angle, one he hoped would be even more persuasive.

“I reckon you’d like to get married someday, wouldn’t you? Find a nice lady like your ma and have sons of your own? Daughters, too.”

“Well, sure. I’d settle down some day, after I’d had enough outlawin’... Amelia Collier at school, one of the twins, said she’d marry me when we grew up if I stayed around Simpson Creek,” he said proudly. “She’s pretty and sweet, and her father owns a big ranch outside of town.”

“You think Mr. Collier would let his daughter have anything to do with a man who used to be an outlaw? A man with a price on his head, who’d robbed folks, maybe killed someone?”

Billy Joe was quiet. “I’d never kill no one, ’less they were bad. And I wouldn’t hurt nobody here, anyway. I’d go away somewheres, and have some fun where there ain’t nobody I know to stop me, or to tell my ma mean stories of what I done an’ make her sad. I’d be far away, till I’d had my fill of outlawin’, and then this here town is where I’d come home to. But I ain’t ready to be stuck here for the rest of my life just yet. I wanna get out and see the country—maybe the world, even.”

Thorn couldn’t argue with that hunger to see what the world looked like outside of the place where you were born and raised. He’d been eager to escape from his home and his father’s bitterness, though he’d stayed in Texas and protected the state against the Indians during the war years.

Other young men he knew had gone to the army, eager to see a bit of the country. He’d heard many a sad tale of what they had encountered from those who returned—and of course, there were many of them who had never made it home to boast of all that they had witnessed.

During Thorn’s own travels, he’d seen many different places, and found that the world outside of his hometown wasn’t so very different from what he’d known before. No matter where he went, some people were kind and others were cruel. Some spots were beautiful and others were ugly. Some folks were happy and settled, while others were restless and sad. That was just life, no matter what scenery surrounded it.

The only thing that truly made one place more special than any other was having people there who loved you, and who you loved. That was what made a place a home—and it wasn’t something Thorn had had in a long, long time. Billy Joe had that right here, with a mother who would clearly do anything for him, but he was too young to really appreciate it. The grass wasn’t always greener on the other side of the fence, but Thorn would never convince this boy of that.

“You could serve in the army for a spell,” he pointed out. “You’d see some sights that way, then you could come home and marry your Amelia, knowing you had your good name and something to be proud of.”

“Join the army? Then I’d have to take orders all the time,” Billy Joe said, his voice scornful. “Besides, I’m a Texas boy—no way I’d join up with a bunch of bluebellies tellin’ me what to do.”

Thorn couldn’t suppress a wry smile. “Billy Joe, unless you’re the president or a king or something, you’re always going to be told what to do by someone,” he said. Come to think of it, he doubted even presidents or kings really got to do whatever they wanted; they had too many responsibilities on their plate for that. “That’s part of living, and being a man.” But he could tell the boy wasn’t convinced.

While he was still wondering how to persuade Billy Joe that being an outlaw wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, he heard footsteps outside. Tensing, he reached for the Colt he’d left under his pillow—and found it was no longer there. Had Daisy Henderson disarmed him, while he was under the powerful influence of laudanum? He couldn’t exactly blame her for taking the precaution, but it left him feeling entirely too exposed. As injured as he was, he couldn’t fight his way out of trouble with his fists. He needed his gun. Foolish, to have let his desire to be free of pain put him in such a vulnerable position.

He hadn’t long to wait to see who it was. A moment later Dr. Walker pushed the creaking door aside and stepped into the stall. But he wasn’t alone. A tall, well-built man with a tin star on his chest followed.

Thorn stiffened. He’d hoped the doctor would keep his presence here a secret, as he had requested, but Walker hadn’t. Evidently his concern for the town’s safety overrode his promise.

Thorn couldn’t argue with the man’s priorities. In Walker’s place, he’d have done the same.

Billy Joe’s face went white with shock, his eyes gleaming with anger at the betrayal. He’d have to be careful here, Thorn thought. Billy Joe was already inclined to sympathize more with lawbreakers than with the men who upheld justice and order. And if he saw Thorn, whom he seemed to like and respect, hauled away by the sheriff, it would just worsen his opinion of lawmen.

“Mornin’, Dawson. I see you made it through the night all right,” the doctor said in his breezy Yankee accent. It had been quite a surprise to hear it the previous evening. To distract Thorn from the pain of having his wounds cleaned and bandaged, the doctor had told him the story of how he’d grown up in Maine, but then befriended a Confederate colonel who had been badly wounded near the end of the war. The doc had explained how he’d helped his friend journey home to Texas once the war was finally over, and had found himself falling in love with the state and choosing to make it his home. That he’d found love with a Texas belle in Simpson Creek had merely cemented it. “How’s the pain?”

“Tolerable,” Thorn said, his eyes darting from the Billy Joe to the Simpson Creek sheriff. “Billy Joe, go back in the house.” He didn’t want the boy to be present when the lawman led him off with the come-alongs he saw sticking out of his back pocket.

Billy Joe had evidently seen them, too. He leaped to his feet and faced the sheriff, fists clenched at his sides. “No! You can’t take Mr. Dawson! He ain’t one of the ones you’re really after, one of them men who went firing off their guns—he didn’t shoot nobody!” Billy Joe cried. “Besides, he’s wounded! He needs to be here where we kin take care of ’im!”

“Billy Joe, I said go into the house,” Thorn said, keeping his voice calm, even as he kept an eye on the sheriff. “Remember, we were just talking about how a man always has to take orders from someone, and this is one of those times,” he said. “Go inside, and everything will be all right.”

Billy Joe whirled to face Thorn. “I won’t let him take you!” he cried, red-faced now with fury. “I won’t!”

“Billy Joe, I said to go inside,” Thorn repeated. “Please.” His eyes dueled with the boy’s for a long moment, then all at once Billy Joe abruptly turned away and ran out of the barn. A moment later the sound of a door slamming door reached their ears. Thorn guessed the boy had been close to tears, and hadn’t wanted anyone to see that.

He glanced at the sheriff, then turned to the doctor.

“Dawson, this is Sheriff Bishop,” Dr. Walker said. “I thought it best to apprise him of your presence, and let him hear your side of the story.”

“I understand, Doctor. Sheriff.” Thorn acknowledged the lawman with a nod.

Dr. Walker said, “While I’m cleaning and changing these bandages on your wounds, why don’t you ask him your questions, Sheriff?” He set his bag down in the straw.

“Yeah, I could use the distraction,” Thorn said. “The doc’s carbolic stings a mite.” He said it with a grin, wanting to lighten the grim, cold look in the sheriff’s eyes, but the ice in them didn’t melt one little bit. Good for him. Clearly, the man was nobody’s fool. And he took his job and his responsibility to the town seriously, exactly as he should. But that admirable toughness might make it difficult for Thorn to turn the sheriff into an ally.

“All I know so far is what the doctor told me you said yesterday—that you’ve been riding with the Griggs gang, taking part in their robberies and raids, but you claim not to be one of them,” Bishop challenged. “Is that true?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“Then suppose you tell me right now what you were doing, robbing a bank with them yesterday? If you’re going to stay here in my town while you recover, then I need more of an explanation than I’ve gotten so far. Unless you want to receive the rest of your care in one of my jail cells, that is,” he added.

Thorn raised a hand—the one that wasn’t clenched into a fist, since the doctor was sponging that burning liquid over the wound in his shoulder—to indicate he was willing to talk, as soon as he could do so without groaning.

“I’m working for the State Police,” he said eventually. “My orders are to infiltrate the Griggs gang so that I can warn the authorities where the gang is likely to strike next. The goal is to set a trap to catch them in the act, so they can be brought to justice.” He kept his eyes locked on Bishop’s, and as he expected, suspicion remained in the lawman’s steady gaze. “You don’t have to believe me,” Thorn said. “You can telegraph the State Police headquarters in Austin. Address it to Captain Hepplewhite and he’ll confirm my identity and my assignment.”

“You’re working with the State Police,” Bishop repeated, with the same curl to his lip he might have had if Thorn had said he was employed by Ulysses S. Grant or William Sherman.

“Yes, although at heart I still consider myself to be a Texas Ranger rather than a state policeman. I was a Ranger and stayed here to protect Texas rather than going off to war, and God willing, I’ll be able to call myself a Ranger again someday.”

He thought the frost melted a little in Bishop’s eyes at his last remark, but the lawman’s tone was as cold as ever when he spoke again. “If that was the plan, why weren’t you able to warn us before our bank was robbed?”

“I just joined the gang a fortnight ago. Griggs doesn’t fully trust me yet, so he doesn’t confide his plans to me,” Thorn said. “His closest men watch me like a hawk. Reckon it’ll take a while before they trust me enough so that I’ll know of a holdup far enough ahead of time that I can sneak away to warn the law. Meanwhile, my orders are to play along with whatever the gang chooses to do, so that I can win their trust, while avoiding harming the citizenry, of course.”

“Sounds like the kind of harebrained scheme the carpetbag government police would come up with,” Bishop said with a sneer. “What makes you think they’ll ever trust you that much, if you’re not shooting innocent people right along with them? Maybe they’re just playing along, pretending to trust you, till they catch you ratting on them.”

His last remark played right into Thorn’s deepest fear. He’d been warned that the plan was dangerous, that the Griggs gang would show no mercy if they found him out.

“Maybe they are,” he agreed. “It’s the chance I’ve agreed to take.” The gang would just continue hurting decent people until they were stopped. Thorn might not be proud to say he was a state policeman, but he’d certainly be proud to play a role in stopping Griggs and his gang. And besides, it wasn’t as if anyone would miss him if he failed and paid the ultimate price.

He’d thought his last admission would be enough to satisfy Bishop, but evidently the lawman was even harder than he appeared, for his gaze remained narrowed. “What makes a fellow willing to take such a risk as you’re taking, Dawson? Money?” he murmured, in a tone that suggested the topic was of only mild interest—though the intensity in his eyes told a different story.

“They’ll pay me well enough, if I succeed,” Thorn drawled, in that same careless tone the sheriff had used.

“Maybe so, but I don’t believe that’s all there is to it,” Bishop shot back. “What is it you’re atoning for?”

The man was too shrewd. Thorn shifted his gaze, hoping the other man hadn’t seen the wince that gave away how accurate the shot-in-the-dark question had been, and set his jaw. “I reckon that’s my business, Sheriff, especially since it has nothing to do with the Simpson Creek bank or anything else about this town. And I’ll tell you right now that Mrs. Henderson and her boy have nothing to fear from me.”

He kept his eye staring unblinkingly at the man, hoping the sheriff could see how deeply and truly he meant the words. After a long moment, the lawman shrugged. “You can keep your secrets, Dawson. But you go back on your word and do one ounce of harm to Mrs. Henderson and her boy, or anyone else in this town, and I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”

Thorn could tell the sheriff meant what he said. Good thing he’d rather die than harm one hair on Daisy Henderson’s head—or Billy Joe’s. But couldn’t his presence here potentially harm her by sullying her reputation? He’d have to remedy that as soon as he was able—by leaving once he’d recovered enough to be able to ride again.

“By the way, Dr. Walker, how’re your other patients doing? The teller and the bank president, I mean?” Thorn asked. In truth, he had been worried about the two bank robbery victims, but he also hoped his query would further strengthen the evidence that he was a good man.

Dr. Walker looked pleased that Thorn had inquired, but Sheriff Bishop showed not so much as a flicker of approval. The man would be an excellent cardsharp, if he ever decided to give up being a lawman, Thorn thought. His face revealed nothing.

Fine with Thorn. He wasn’t here to make friends. He was here to see Griggs and all his miserable thugs land in jail where they belonged. And the sooner he could get back to that task, the better.

* * *

“When did you become such a clock watcher, Daisy?” Tilly inquired, as Daisy dished up yet another helping of the day’s special, chicken and dumplings, and handed it to the waitress.

Daisy wrenched her gaze away from the clock on the shelf above the sink. “I don’t mean to be,” she said. Trust the other woman to notice if Daisy’s attention wandered off of her work for so much as a second. Tilly seemed to resent even the brief half hour Daisy could call her own during the workday, even though she received her own work break right after Daisy returned, during which time Daisy had to take on the waitressing as well as the cooking. “I just need to go home on my break to check on things, that’s all.”

“Things” meant the wounded man in her barn, of course. Had she been right to leave him to her son’s care? Though he’d been asleep, she had thought that Dawson had looked well enough when she’d left for work. She hadn’t seen any indication that an infection was troubling him, or that he was sleeping poorly. But who knew what could happen in her absence? Maybe his wound had reopened, causing him to bleed to death, or maybe a fever had spiked and he’d died. But no, surely Billy Joe would have run to report to her if any calamity had happened. She’d told him to let her know if there was a problem. Had the doctor returned to check on his patient this morning as he’d promised to?

She knew why she was worrying so much. It wasn’t really because of the man himself, but because of the memories he stirred of Peter. She still blamed herself—would always blame herself—for the way her brother’s injury had led to his death when she was supposed to be looking after him. She couldn’t let that happen to Thorn—that is, to Mr. Dawson.

“That boy of yours causing you worry again? Better nip his mischief in the bud, or he’ll turn out just as bad as his daddy,” Tilly opined with a triumphant gleam in her eye. She seemed never happier than when she managed to find a new opportunity to remind Daisy of all the shortcomings of her late husband. As if she could ever forget. The scars—both the physical marks and the bruises he’d left on her heart and her soul—would never go away.

Sometimes Daisy missed Mrs. Powell, who had been the cook when she herself was a waitress. The older woman had been a crank and a bully, but her bullying tactics hadn’t been so full of innuendo and malice as Tilly’s were. Besides, Mrs. Powell had seemed to hate just about everyone, so spread her vitriol around generously, insulting and belittling everyone who crossed her path. Tilly had only one target, and struck it as often as she could.

Daisy wished no one had ever told Tilly about her late husband when the waitress had moved to town after her own engagement to a local rancher had been broken off. But in such a small community it was inevitable someone would have told the younger woman Daisy’s sad marital history. After all, everyone knew he had been an abusive tyrant—toward her and Billy Joe, and toward the schoolteacher who William had eventually gone to jail for attacking. For most people in town, that history was a reason to treat her with kindness and compassion, showing understanding for the difficulties she’d faced. But with Tilly, any flaw or shortcoming in Daisy was something to be pounced on and mocked.

“Billy Joe’s been good as gold,” Daisy replied, striving to keep the defensive note out of her voice, even after Tilly’s face took on a skeptical look at her assertion. “It’s just that I had set him to a task, and I want to make sure he did what I told him to.” That wasn’t a lie, was it? She had given him the task of watching over the wounded man, after all.

Tilly bent to peer out the narrow opening of the serving window between the kitchen and the dining room. “Looks like all the noon crowd’s gone, so go ahead and take your break, why don’t you? Reckon I can handle anyone who happens to mosey in while you’re away. But you won’t be late getting back to prepare supper, will you? Mr. Prendergast might come in to check, and you know he’d ask when you left. I wouldn’t want to lie.” She made no attempt to hide the malice in her tone, and Daisy knew Tilly would be delighted to have any opportunity to show her in a poor light to their employer.

Daisy stifled a huff of exasperation, not wanting the other woman to see that the needling had gotten under Daisy’s skin. Of course Tilly would think tattling to their boss would further her ambition to replace Daisy as cook.

“You’ve never had to cover for my lateness, and today will be no different,” Daisy said evenly. She pulled off her hotel apron. It was all she could do to keep from running out the door, but she managed to walk casually until she was out of sight of the hotel.

She concentrated on looking calm and at ease, but in truth she was a bundle of nerves, worrying about the state she’d find Dawson in when she returned home. And those nerves only got worse when she got further down the road and caught sight of two men heading in the opposite direction: Dr. Walker and Sheriff Bishop.

Were they coming from her place? Had the sheriff discovered she was sheltering a fugitive?


Chapter Four (#ulink_0fc02155-585b-5393-ae88-eb500eb55d29)

“I saw Doc Walker and Sheriff Bishop walking back toward town from this direction,” Daisy said by way of greeting as her eyes adjusted to the dusty gloom of the barn.

“They were just here,” Thorn said, answering her unspoken question.

“And...?” She couldn’t believe the sheriff hadn’t insisted Thorn do the rest of his recovering in a jail cell.

Her patient shrugged. “The sawbones said I was healing up well as could be expected, though he thought the wounds looked a little inflamed. And the lawman told me to watch my step around you,” Thorn added evenly, his expression giving away nothing. “The sheriff knows why I was riding with the outlaws, ma’am, and I believe I satisfied him that he has no cause to worry about your safety or Billy Joe’s, as far as I’m concerned. He says the bank president and teller are recovering well, too.”

Relieved, Daisy let out a sigh, feeling tension draining from her shoulders. But along with the relief was curiosity, wondering what he had told Bishop that he hadn’t told her. The town sheriff wasn’t an easy man to satisfy when it came to anyone or anything that threatened the safety of Simpson Creek, Yet Dawson had apparently managed to set his concerns to rest, at least for the time being. It was an impressive feat, and it made her feel a little better about her own decision to let Dawson stay. Even if he didn’t feel he could share his full story with her, the fact that the sheriff was content with it gave her a real sense of comfort.

Suddenly the sound of his stomach rumbling in the silence reminded her that it was long past noon and the man before her might be hungry. “Here,” she said, reaching inside her reticule and bringing out the plate of chicken and dumplings she’d wrapped in heavy paper and brought from the hotel, careful to carry it so that the food wouldn’t spill over the plate inside its wrapping. She’d stopped at the house long enough to fetch a fork and napkin from her own kitchen, knowing she didn’t dare borrow them from the hotel under Tilly’s all-seeing gaze. As it was, she’d have to make sure the waitress saw her bring the plate back. It would be all too like the woman to spread a rumor that she’d stolen it. “I brought your dinner.”

He eyed it, but made no move to take it from her. “Did you already eat at the hotel?”

She dropped her gaze from his. “No. But I’m not hungry,” she added too quickly before her stomach betrayed her by rumbling, too.

“Miss Daisy, it’s not nice to fib to your guest, even out of politeness,” he chided gently. “That’s your dinner, isn’t it?’

She nodded, eyes still downcast. She hadn’t dared take more than the usual modest portion she usually consumed, for if she’d placed a hearty man-size portion on the plate, Tilly might have noticed and suspected that something was up. And if her suspicions were raised, she was the sort to poke and prod until she found an answer. Once Tilly started digging around to try to find answers, Daisy might as well invite the waitress home to meet Thorn Dawson there and then, because there would be no hiding the secret from her any longer. Nor would there be any way to keep her from spreading the story all over town, and putting the worst, most damaging slant on it that she could. The only way to prevent that disaster was to keep Tilly from suspecting anything at all, for as long as Daisy could.

“Then why don’t you sit down here and eat it?” he said, gesturing toward the cot.

“Oh no... I couldn’t...” she mumbled.

“Couldn’t what, eat in front of me? Just because you don’t have enough for both of us? Please, don’t let that stop you. It hasn’t been all that long since I ate that big breakfast you left for me, so I’m not hungry, but sounds like you are. You’d be keeping me company,” he coaxed.

Uneasily, she sat down on the end of the cot. “What...what’s Billy Joe doing?” she said. “I expected to find him in here with you. I hope he hasn’t been plaguing you with his chatter.”

“Not a bit,” Thorn assured her. “He brought me my breakfast just as you instructed, then went back in the house when the sheriff and the doc came. You might find he’s gone back for more shut-eye. Growing boys like him need their sleep.”

Her patient was probably right, Daisy realized. Billy Joe seemed able to stay awake all night if one of his pals loaned him a penny dreadful to read, but he could be almost impossible to wake up in the morning. Some days when she had to go to work before it was time to get him out of bed, she’d awakened him, only to learn later that he’d fallen back to sleep after she’d left, and was tardy to class. At least school was out for the summer and she didn’t have to worry about that problem right now.

Thorn gestured toward her little paper-wrapped plate. “Come on, open that up and eat your meal. As a mother of a boy like Billy Joe, you’ve got to keep up your strength.”

The truth of that made her smile, and she obediently unwrapped the chicken and dumplings. “All right, then.” She hoped he wouldn’t just silently watch her eat—she couldn’t imagine swallowing a bite under his dark-eyed regard.

“Why don’t you tell me some more about yourself?” she asked him, to turn the focus away from herself.

He smiled as if he sensed her need for diversion, and was willing to indulge her. “What would you like to know?”

“Well...” she said, searching for something to ask. “Start at the beginning. Where are you from?”

His smile tightened a bit, as if this was a painful subject, but he answered readily enough. “My sisters and I were raised on a hardscrabble ranch near Mason, Texas.”

“Sisters?”

At that, he relaxed a bit. “Yes, ma’am—a whole passel of them. I have five sisters.”

“No brothers?

“No, I’m the only boy.”

“Are your sisters older or younger than you?”

“All older. My parents kept trying for a boy, you see, and finally they got me. But my ma, she passed on when I was young. My sisters were the ones to raise me, really.” He kept her entertained for the next bit with stories about his antics as a child, and the struggles his sisters had getting him to behave. “As soon as I was old enough, my pa was putting me to work. I learned responsibility and hard work early, but that just meant that any little bit of time that I had free, I was looking to find some mischief to get myself into. I’m sure I was quite a trial to my sisters, but they were always very good to me, all the same.”

“Is your family still there out by Mason?”

“They sure are, though they’re not still on the ranch itself. All my sisters married, and that meant they had to go where their husbands could find work, or where they could acquire some land. I’m just thankful that none of them had to go too far. There wasn’t enough of our ranch to split it between all of us, so my father left the whole property to me. He passed on some years ago, so one of my sisters, Ellanora and her husband, Hap, are living on the ranch now. They’re holding it until the day I return to live there.”

“And that’s what you plan to do when you’re—” Daisy tried to find a delicate way to bring up the outlawing that was occupying him and keeping him from his ranch for now “—through with the gang?” she concluded.

“That’s been the plan,” he agreed. “Ellanora always said the house was mine whenever I wanted it, but I’ll probably just build another house either for them and their young’uns or a smaller house just for me. Either way, I reckon I’ll add their names to the property deed, since it wouldn’t be right to make them start over somewhere new when they’ve taken good care of my ranch so long.”

How very decent of him, she thought, but then everything this man did seemed to be decent and fair. She just didn’t understand how he came to be an outlaw—and at the same time, not an outlaw, if his word could be believed. She hoped she would get the full story someday.

Daisy thought she noted a certain wistfulness in his face when he spoke of his ranch. “Do you think you’ll go back to live there soon?” she asked.

His gaze left hers and he stared into a shadowy corner of the stall and shrugged. “Maybe. Ranching’s hard work, so I don’t want to wait until I’m too old to do it. And what I’m doing now...well, a fellow doesn’t want to stay in it too long. It’s the kind of work that can be dangerous if he’s pushed himself too far or overstayed his welcome...”

Was he doing that now, overstaying his welcome? Daisy wondered. She wouldn’t force him to leave, not before he was recovered, but that didn’t change the fact that he was making her life more dangerous every day that he stayed. Why was he lying here, wounded, in her barn? If it was true that he wasn’t an outlaw, what sort of dangerous game was he involved in, and why couldn’t he simply tell her the truth? Didn’t she deserve that?

Suddenly, she had to know. “Thorn, then why—”

“Now you know all about me,” he said quickly, before she could complete her question, “so I think it’s time you told me at least a little about yourself.”

Oh, I hardly think I know all about you. But she guessed he wasn’t ready to tell her any more now, at least. Perhaps he never would be.

“There’s very little to tell,” she said, also shrugging. “My parents settled in Simpson Creek shortly after it was founded, and I grew up here. I met my husband when he attended a social put on at the church—he’d just come to Simpson Creek to live—and we were married shortly afterward. Why, I didn’t even know his middle name till we were standing up in front of the reverend,” she added with a little laugh that contained no mirth. Marry in haste, repent at leisure.

“Which was...?”

At first she didn’t understand what Thorn was asking, and her confusion must have shown, for he added, “His middle name?”

“Oh! Wilbur,” she said, with a brief smile. William Wilbur Henderson. She’d almost laughed out loud, right there at the altar, when the reverend had first said it. It was fortunate for her that she hadn’t, though it wasn’t until some days later that she’d learned how dangerous laughing at her new husband could be. How dangerous doing anything around William could be, if he was in the wrong sort of mood.

“What did he do? To make his living, I mean,” Thorn asked.

Daisy was glad he’d clarified his question. For a second she’d panicked, thinking Billy Joe might have mentioned that his father had died in prison, and Dawson wanted to know the crime he’d committed. Or that maybe he’d already guessed how abusive her husband had been and was asking what he had done to her. She wasn’t ready to talk about that yet. Perhaps she never would be.

“Oh, this and that,” she said, trying to sound airy, as if the years of uncertainty and privation while she waited for her husband to settle into a career had never happened. “He helped build the mercantile, worked at the saloon for a while... He could do lots of things.” But sticking with a job wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t incapable, but he’d been lazy and unreliable—not to mention driven by a mean temper. Sooner or later he’d get offended by something his boss required of him, or start spending more time drinking than he did working... She’d gotten used to having little money to buy necessities, to selling family heirlooms she’d brought into the marriage just to make ends meet. Fortunately, her husband didn’t mind providing for them through things like hunting and fishing, and was fairly good at both tasks. And Daisy had worked hard at keeping a vegetable garden. So they hadn’t ever gone hungry, at least.





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