The Texas Ranger's Secret (20 page)

Their time spent together had taught him that taking the opportunity to get to know someone, spending small moments that seemed as if they had no worth, filled him with a lightness and fullness of heart he’d never known existed. He wanted to experience more of the same and had no clue how he would ever live without that fullness, or her, and still remain sane.

Watching another man bask in the glow of her goodness, her friendship, whatever her heart cared to share, would be the sight that cast him into a darkness more blinding than the one he faced.

A yearning deep and consuming urged him to close the distance that separated him from Willow and let her know that he still cared how she was coming along. He didn’t have to resume teaching her, but he hoped she would allow them to at least be simple acquaintances before he headed off somewhere alone one day.

Gage moved toward her, thumbing the rim of his hat. “Hello, Willow...
Miss McMurtry
. I see you’re out early this morning. The children are both fine, I hope? And your sister? She and Myrtle doing well?”

“Fit and sassy, all of them.”

Those eyes that seemed to warm his soul every time he gazed at them diverted from his and focused instead on the gloves she was removing from her hands.

“Ollie and Thad said to tell you howdy if I saw you,” she mentioned. “I’ve seen you around town a couple of times but you never approached, so I didn’t bother you. Wasn’t sure you’d appreciate being disturbed.”

So she’d noticed him watching, probably sharpening her powers of observation for her writing. That would serve her well, and it pleased him that she cared enough to be on the lookout for him.

“I’ve noticed you writing in your journal a lot. Do you have it with you today, too?” Gage tried to make conversation he knew she liked, but it sounded stiff to him.

Her companion shifted his feet, looking as though he was anxious to leave and ready to send Gage on his way, too.

Gage would have preferred not talking and instead simply taking Willow in his arms to plant a kiss on her beautiful bow of lips. But she preferred talking and that was what he intended to give her.

Bow of lips
? Poetic words that raced to mind when he thought of her and only served to make him feel more miserable. He had to stop thinking like that.

Matter of fact, he had to stop talking to himself so much in his head so he could find a quiet place again.

“I left the journal in the saddlebag for now.” Willow nodded toward the doorway. “But I’ve had a lot to write about. I even wrote a couple of poems I’m proud of.”

“You seem to have things to talk over,” Hutton said and tipped his hat to Willow. “I need to check on something over at the saloon. I’ll meet you back here in about, say...ten minutes or so. Then we’ll head over to the Rafford place and see about those horses.”

His chin bucked toward the gloves. “Those are a good choice for the job.”

Hutton bid the merchant goodbye but didn’t include Gage. He strolled out the door, the chink of his spurs echoing on the wooden floor.

“What job?” Gage wondered aloud as she took the gloves and told the merchant that was all she needed.

“Not that it’s any of your business anymore,” she said as he followed her to the counter, “but he’s going to show me how to choose good horseflesh to buy. He says I need a good pair of gloves if I’m going to handle horses that haven’t been broken yet.”

Gage didn’t like the sound of that. Too much danger involved. She might have enough knowledge to be sufficient in riding a tame horse, but she was too green to deal with bucking broncos.

“Your brother-in-law gave him money and permission to purchase more while he’s gone?” That seemed odd to Gage. He waited for her to pay for the gloves and put them on, then stuff the ones she’d worn from home into her riding skirt.

She shrugged when she finished. “I suppose the fact that he’s doing this in my company means Bass did. I don’t know the specifics of the agreement between them. Why? Do you think I should question him about it?”

The edge in her voice made Gage wonder if she was keeping something from him. His gut instinct kicked in. “You know something about the man, don’t you?”

Her eyes glanced at the remaining people in the store before she spoke. “Let’s head outside. I’ll wait for him out there.”

Gage reached out for her elbow and guided her as they walked alongside and was glad when she didn’t shirk from his touch. He pointed to the bench just to the right of the door, shaded by the storefront eave. “This okay?”

She nodded but hurried to her horse instead of instantly sitting, pulled out her journal, then brought it back to hand to Gage. “If he looks out of the saloon, he’ll think we’re just talking writing.”

Gage accepted the journal and asked her, “Why don’t you trust him?”

“Take a look at the last seven or eight pages. You’ll see.”

Gage flipped through and found where the writing ended, then backed up eight pages. It seemed she’d been doing a character study on Shepard Hutton. The one statement that caught his attention first was the missing gold tooth and her speculation about it. “You never mentioned you knew the man had such a tooth.”

“I wanted to make sure I wasn’t mistaken before I told you about it, because I knew you would wonder why he kept that fact to himself when you described the horse thief.”

“Anything else particular bothering you about him?” Gage thought about Hutton’s ability with the bullwhip that day. It took a master of the craft to know exactly where to crack it without causing any harm.

She leaned over, giving him a whiff of how good she smelled. Gage closed his eyes for a second and savored the remembered scent.

“Turn the page and read that.” Willow did it for him. “I think he’s using boot polish to color his hair. I haven’t caught him at it to prove it, but when the man heats up, he sweats black. Didn’t you say your thief was redheaded?”

“Yeah, Hodge is redheaded. Maybe a few shades darker than yours. How do you know how Hutton sweats?”

She elbowed Gage in the ribs. “I work with him, fool. Keep your mind out of the wallow. Quick, thumb over to one of my poems and let me read it to you.”

Gage turned back until he spotted one, then slid the journal into her lap.

Hutton had emerged from behind the swinging doors of the Twisted Spur and was already halfway to them.

About the time he reached the steps that led to the mercantile, she started reading, although clearly not at the beginning of the poem. “...freshly broken sod. The man who never quit now had a heart-to-heart with God.”

Willow slammed her journal shut and complained, “See there, Gage. It sounds too simple. I can’t find the right words to create those images like you and Whitman do. It sounds so ordinary.”

He realized the game she was playing. Making sure Hutton didn’t catch wind of any conspiracy against him. “May I show you one more thing before you go?” he asked, then directed his attention to the wrangler. “Can you wait for a second or two, Hutton? This won’t take long.”

Hutton frowned. “We need to be on our way.”

“Show me.” Willow countered her employee’s impatience. “A few seconds won’t matter one way or the other.”

“Stand up.” Gage stood with her. “Hand that to me.” He accepted the journal and laid it on the bench.

“Now turn around and close your eyes.” When she did, Gage wrapped his arms around her and covered her eyes with his hands.

Her body stiffened a second.

“Don’t worry. I’ll only do this until your mind takes over for me. Now bring up the image of something you’ve seen or want to see.”

“All right.”

She didn’t relax as he’d hoped. Instead, she seemed to become more unsettled. “Tell me what you’re seeing, Willow.”

“Right now, a horse bucking me off.”

Gage knew what stirred that image and would have laughed had he not worried about the same thing happening if she went with Hutton to Rafford’s place. He needed to calm her. “Describe the horse.”

“Sixteen hands. Ready to hop and pitch and rear.”

“Not bad. Now dig a little deeper,” Gage encouraged.

“I told you that’s my problem.” She reached up to remove his hands and he obliged. “I can’t quite seem to get past the first layer. My descriptions just keep coming up full of sand. Nothing rock solid and certainly not hitting any kind of deep well.”

“Sometimes the first thought that comes to you is the right one. Simple can be better, but if you aren’t satisfied with it, dig deeper.” Gage brought up the image in his own mind. “How would it feel to be on that angry beast?”

“Like I was riding bucking thunder.” Her answer came quick.

She whooped with excitement, her eyes flashing open as she swung around to face him. “That’s it, Gage. That’s what I’ve been missing. I can make them
see
it, but I haven’t made them feel it yet. Letting someone experience it as if it were happening to them instead of the person in the poem. Showing, not telling.”

“Exactly.”

She grabbed her journal and hurried to unhitch the reins of her horse. Hutton had already mounted. After stuffing her journal into her saddlebag, Willow stuck a foot in the stirrups and threw her leg over. She reined her horse in the direction of her sister’s ranch.

“I can’t wait to get home and start writing,” she told them. “Thanks, Gage. You’ve been a big help.”

“You still going to Rafford’s with me?” Hutton nudged his horse in the opposite direction.

Willow shook her head. “I’ll probably just get in your way. Go on without me. I’ll send one of the other wranglers to Rafford’s so you’ll still have someone to help you. I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t be able to concentrate anyway. My mind’s on what I just learned. I want to let this sink in first before I learn something new.”

Without bothering to thumb his hat at Willow, he dug his spurs deep into the horse’s flank, making the beast bolt down the street.

Relief filled Gage. He was certain he’d somehow spared Willow from danger. The fact that she was willing to leave Hutton so easily was proof enough she had no part of whatever scheme he might be planning if he was the thief. Once she’d ridden safely out of sight, Gage decided to take a ride out to the Rafford place and see if there was anything more he could find out about the man in question.

One thing for sure. If Hutton and Hodge turned out to be the same person, he would regret taking up residence near a writer full of curiosity.

The second thing? Gage needed to pay a visit to the doctor again and see how much worse his eyes had become.

He shouldn’t have been so easily fooled.

Chapter Thirteen

B
ack at the ranch Willow chose one of the wranglers to substitute for her in helping Shepard. She didn’t want to delay what he had planned because of her change of mind. Rather than putting her horse away, she let her replacement take him so no time had to be used to saddle another. Good thing she was tall and the stirrups didn’t need to be adjusted for Shorty.

Eager to start writing, she hurried up the porch steps and into the house. “I’m home,” she hollered, heading upstairs to change out of her riding skirt and don a fresh blouse.

Willow got halfway to the landing and stopped. She’d left her journal in the saddlebag. By now the rider was probably a mile down the trail.

Her enthusiasm deflated like a child’s balloon that had just popped. Everything she included in her writing today would have to be by memory alone. Could she do it?

Trust yourself. Dig deeper
, she could almost hear Gage’s voice encouraging her.
Write the feeling, not just the sight.

Could she find that instinctive source of creativity within her and trust that it could be good enough to meet the challenge?

Okay. Because of you, I’ll try, Gage
,
she thought and continued up the stairs. He had become the one person she wanted to write for now. To meet
his
expectations. He believed in her. He was the only one who saw in her all that was possible below the layers of her insecurity. If she could reach that level of quality and satisfaction with her writing, then she knew she would become good enough to capture other readers’ interest and her boss’s approval.

She would finish her story this afternoon and feel confident enough to send it off to Biven and let it decide her fate with the newspaper.

“What are you doing home already? I thought you and Shepard would be gone a lot longer.”

Snow’s voice startled Willow. She’d been so deep in thought she hadn’t heard her sister come up the stairs behind her.

Once she reached the landing, Willow faced Snow and waited until her sister finished climbing the stairs. “I decided not to go with him after all. I sent one of the men to help him instead.”

“Why?”

Though she tried not to take any offense in the tone of Snow’s voice, the question sounded like yet another challenge between them. “I’m going to write instead. It’s my day to do what I want, isn’t it?”

She didn’t intend to stand there and have an argument about anything, so Willow headed toward her room and sat down on the bed to remove her riding boots.

“Yes, it’s your day.” A frown creased Snow’s forehead as she followed, pulling out the chair at the reading table to take a seat. “Besides, the children are fishing with Bear and Pigeon. I told them they could spend the afternoon with the Funderburgs.”

“So, I have most of the day off tomorrow, too?” That was good to know. Snow always found the need to mother her or be involved in scheduling her day.

Anticipation made Willow smile. The Lord had answered her prayer before it had even passed her lips. Having extra time was just what she needed. If she could get a fair amount of writing in the rest of the day, she could take Ollie and Thad to school in the morning and get her story mailed off in time to meet the stage.

Maybe she’d even look up Gage and tell him how he’d helped her. Maybe even see if she could convince him to visit the doctor about his eyes. What was the man’s name? She’d passed the plaque enough times hanging outside his office—she should have been able to recall it easily. Thomason, Thomas, Tomlin? One of those seemed right.