Outlaw Wife. Ana Seymour

      “Bars don’t keep out the sound,” John pointed out.

      Simon looked over at the girl, who had grown silent. In spite of the vehemence of her protests about her father, she didn’t look the least formidable. She looked tired. “Will you give us both a break, miss, and save your complaining until tomorrow?” he asked her.

      Her gaze went from him to the sheriff and back. “You can’t keep me here,” she said. “But I guess it can wait until morning. I haven’t slept for fortyeight hours and I reckon I could fall asleep in a den of rattlesnakes tonight.”

      “Do you suppose we fit the description, John?” Simon asked dryly. Then he lay back on the cot and pulled the blanket over him.

      “You’re sure you’ll be all right?” John asked.

      Simon nodded. “Go on and get out of here. Mrs. Harris is probably waiting to sing you a lullaby.”

      If he hadn’t known better, Simon would have sworn that there was a blush on the sheriff’s face as he mumbled and turned to leave. He turned the wick on the lamp before he left, leaving the room illuminated only by the moonlight streaming in through the lone window.

      In spite of sleeping most of the day, Simon felt exhausted. The aftereffects of the medicine, he supposed. He shifted on the bed, trying to find the least painful position for his torso. It would be a relief to give himself up to sleep for a few hours.

      “Mr. Grant.” Her voice was soft, but insistent.

      Simon groaned. Without lifting his head he said, “I thought you said you’d go to sleep.”

      There was a long moment of silence and Simon let his eyes drift shut again.

      “I know…but I…The sheriff left before I could tell him that I do need to go out back.”

      Now Simon felt his own face grow hot. Since he was twelve years old, he’d been helping his father out with the most intimate personal needs, but that was his father. A man. Simon and his father lived in a man’s world. He’d never had to worry about the mysterious things women did in their private moments. And he wasn’t anxious to start now. “Are you sure?” he asked without thinking. The question and the painful silence that followed only made matters worse.

      “I…If you want to leave the room for a minute I guess I could use the jar here.”

      Gritting his teeth, Simon boosted himself up. “If I have to move to get up, I might as well take you out.” Without putting on his boots, he crossed the room and retrieved the key from John’s desk.

      Willow watched as he hobbled painfully along. When she had made her request, the reason had been real enough, but now that she realized Simon Grant was actually going to open the cell and let her loose, she made a quick analysis of the possibilities. He was obviously sore, and evidently he wasn’t even going to put on his boots for the trip out back. It shouldn’t be too difficult to catch him off guard and escape. In his condition, she could easily outrun him.

      “I’m much obliged, Mr. Grant,” she said meekly.

      “I reckon you might as well call me Simon, seeing as how we’re spending the night together, in a manner of speaking,” he said, opening the cell and motioning her to walk ahead of him.

      She smiled as she glided past him. “I reckon. And you may call me Willow.”

      “Willow?”

      She nodded and watched as her smile drew a corresponding one from him. She felt a little surge of excitement. This was going to be as easy as shucking an ear of corn.

      She walked beside him without speaking as he moved slowly along the wooden sidewalk and turned down the alley to the back. She’d planned to make her move on the way back, but her opportunity came sooner than expected.

      They stepped off the sidewalk into the alley, and Simon exclaimed, “Dad blast it!” as his stocking foot hit a rock. Instinctively he lifted his foot to rub it, then clutched at his side with a gasp of pain.

      Willow pushed away a pang of pity. Biting her lip for courage, she shoved his broad back as hard as she could, sending him sprawling in the dirt. Then she jumped nimbly over his tangled legs and took off into the dark alley.

      It took Simon a minute to realize what had happened. And another minute to believe it. The little wretch had actually pushed him into the dirt! Fortunately, he’d landed on his good side, though the reverberations through his chest sent a wave of pain that he could feel all the way through his jawbone. But unfortunately for Miss Willow Davis, he was definitely on the mend. And there was no way he was going to let her get away with her nasty stunt. Ignoring the hurt, he scrambled to his feet and took off after her, his feet padding over the uneven dirt road. She’d darted behind the jail to the right and disappeared. On a dark night he might not have spotted her racing across the yard to Potter’s Feed Mill, but the full moon hung high in the eastern sky, and her silhouette was unmistakable.

      Breathing in short, deep bursts to keep from reinjuring his ribs, he ran diagonally behind the general store, leapt over the water trough and closed the distance between them. She glanced back at him over her shoulder, her face grim, and knotted her fists trying to increase her speed. But just as she was about to round the corner of the mill, he hurled himself the final few feet, knocking them both off their feet.

      “Get away…get off me!” she sputtered, struggling, as he pressed her shoulders down with his hands and straddled her waist with his thighs.

      Her hands were still free, flailing wildly, and one caught him right in the side. “Stop it, you damn little…brat,” he hissed. He flattened himself out on top of her, using his entire body to pin her to the ground.

      “Let me go,” she said, squirming beneath him. “You’re too heavy. You’re hurting me.” She was out of breath and near tears.

      “Shut up and stop fighting or I’m not moving from here.”

      She stopped her frantic wiggles. “Get off,” she said again.

      Her body was firm against his. Through his cotton shirt, he could feel the pointed tips of her breasts. He suspected that if his side didn’t hurt so much, the position would be awakening a lot more than anger in him.

      “First you tell me exactly what you expected to accomplish by that little trick.”

      “I…I was escaping.”

      “Yeah. I understood that part. And then what? You were going to just head out of town by yourself without food, weapons, a horse?”

      She tried pulling her right wrist free, but he held it in a deathlock. “I could have stolen a horse.”

      “I thought you said you weren’t a thief.”

      For a long moment she didn’t say anything. They lay still as Simon began to feel a slow radiation from the warmth of the contact of their bodies. Then she sighed, sending a ripple along her chest underneath him. He answered with a shortened breath of his own. Maybe his side didn’t hurt quite as much as he thought.

      “I’m not a thief. Not yet. I don’t know what I was planning, if you must know. But anything would be better than going back to that awful cell.”

      For his own sanity, Simon eased away from her, letting some space in between them while still holding down her arms. “I assume it was the accommodation you objected to and not the company,” he said.

      She didn’t respond to the touch of humor in his tone. “Don’t make me go back there, Mr. Grant” The moonlight pooled in her eyes as she looked at him, pleading.

      “Damn it, woman. I’ve got nothing to do with the matter. If I let you go, I’d be committing a crime myself.”

      “But the sheriff’s your friend….”

      “Which doesn’t mean he’d let me break the law.” He pushed himself up on his knees, then stood, keeping a firm