Outlaw Wife. Ana Seymour

would’ve worked just as well,” he said under his breath.

      John didn’t appear the least affected by Simon’s grumbling. “Help yourself,” he said indifferently. “It’s in the desk drawer.” He reached over and thrust a plate at Simon. “I’d eat something first, though.”

      Simon took the food and watched as the sheriff picked up the other two plates. “Do you want me to…ah…cover you while you hand that in to them?” he asked, glancing uncertainly toward the two prisoners.

      John chuckled. “I think I can handle it, son. They don’t look that fierce.”

      In fact, at the moment, the pair in the cell looked rather forlorn. The old man was rubbing the sleep from his eyes, his chest moving rhythmically in a silent cough. The daughter sat with her arms clutching her hunched knees. She had shifted her gaze from Simon to her father, and her eyes had clouded with worry.

      “Ready for some lunch?” John asked, balancing the two plates on one arm as he turned the key in the cell door.

      The girl unfurled herself and stood. She moved with the grace of a mountain cat. Simon felt a rumble in his stomach that did not come from the odor of Francine Harris’s baked beans. He watched as she crossed the cell and took the plates from John. “Thank you, Sheriff,” she said. “I can tell that, unlike the marshal and that awful deputy, you are a real gentleman. And I am sorry I kicked you.”

      Simon couldn’t tell if the well-modulated tone of her voice and her shy smile were calculated. If so, her calculations were right on the mark as far as Simon was concerned. If he’d been John, he’d have flung open the cell door and let her walk right on out of there. John, it appeared, was made of sterner stuff.

      “Well, I’m sorry you kicked me, too, miss. I’ll carry that mark awhile, I reckon. Now, if you’d just move back out of the way, I’ll be locking this door up again.”

      The girl’s mouth gave a little twist of annoyance. But then she smiled again and stepped back. “Whatever you say, Sheriff.” Her eyes went once again to Simon, and her smile was not quite so shy.

      Seth Davis stood to take his plate from his daughter. “We aren’t about to give you any trouble, Sheriff,” he said. “But I can’t say as much for the rest of my men if they find out you’re holding us here.”

      John went to sit heavily in his chair. “We’ll just have to hope they won’t find out then, won’t we?”

      “Myself, I wouldn’t mind meeting up with them again, as long as the odds are slightly better than the last time,” Simon put in. He set his plate alongside him on the cot and held a hand against his sore side as he settled into a comfortable position against the wall.

      “Right,” John snorted. “You look like you’re in great shape for a showdown with a pack of gunmen.”

      “I’d rather it wouldn’t be today,” Simon agreed with a faint smile.

      “If you’d let us go, there would be no showdown,” the girl interrupted. “My father would take his men and ride clear out of the territory. I’d see to it.”

      John leaned back and swiveled back and forth in his new chair. He chuckled. “I don’t mean any insult, miss, but it’s a little hard to picture you ordering around the likes of Jake Patton.”

      “Jake’ll do anything I tell him to.” There was absolute conviction in her voice.

      “Is Jake your man or something?” John asked.

      Simon felt himself holding a breath on the girl’s answer. It was none of his business, but the thought of the man who had kicked him with such viciousness being involved with this girl, putting his hands on her, made him want to toss back the greasy sausage that had just slid down his throat.

      She gave a chilly smile. “I don’t have a man. Don’t intend to, either. Not ever.”

      There was a finality to the way she said it that seemed just a little sad to Simon. Of course, he’d said the same thing himself about not intending to hitch himself up with a woman, but his circumstances were far different from this outlaw daughter. He had a ranch to run and an invalid father to care for. That was all the future he needed. But what did this girl have ahead of her? Prison, perhaps. Then back to a life on the run. Would she end up after all with some unscrupulous bastard like Patton?

      John’s kindly gray eyes held a touch of sympathy as he chuckled and said, “It’s the kind of thing that usually just happens, whether we intend it or not. You’re young yet. But I’m glad to hear that you’re not mixed up with Patton.” He straightened his chair and his expression sobered. “’Cause if he’s the one who messed with Simon, here, I wouldn’t count on him having much of a future.”

      

      Willow paced the length of the cell for what must have been the thousandth time. The afternoon had seemed one of the longest in her life. Her father had spent most of it dozing fitfully, waking only to cough in that quiet, ominous way that seemed to reverberate through his entire body. She’d been urging him to see a doctor for weeks, but he’d brushed her off.

      “I don’t need any damned sawbones poking at me” had been his standard reply. “Don’t you worry that pretty head, Weepy Willow.”

      Now, if his dire predictions were true, the cough would be the least of his problems. She stopped walking for a minute and shrugged the tenseness out of her shoulders. Her father had been uncharacteristically passive since the arrest. Except for his protest over her involvement, he’d seemed almost resigned to his fate. It was just one more indication that things were not right with him. Which meant it was up to her to do something about the situation.

      The sheriff had discouraged all her attempts to draw him into conversation. He’d been polite enough, and had agreed to accompany her out to the privy in back instead of making her use the jar in the cell. But when she’d tried batting her eyes at him, the way Aunt Maud had said girls did when they wanted a man’s attention, he’d appeared not to notice.

      Which left the other man: Simon Grant. He, too, had been dozing most of the afternoon, sleeping off the effects of the laudanum, the sheriff had said. She went over to the bars to look at him. He wore no shirt over the wide swath of bandages around his middle. Her eyes were fixed on the even rise and fall of his chest with its sprinkling of dark hair. It was darker than the wavy hair on his head where there were highlights, no doubt from long days in the sun. She’d spent the past year riding with men, but she couldn’t remember ever studying one who was half-naked. Her father had been real fussy about how his men dressed and behaved in her presence.

      With a half-conscious groan, the man on the cot moved, his hand clutching his side. Then his eyes opened, focused directly on her.

      “What time is it?” he asked.

      Willow blinked, her eyes dry. She’d been staring for longer than she thought. “It’s getting dark.”

      Simon sat up, keeping his hand in place. “Damn drugs. That’s the last time I drink John’s coffee. I can’t keep my eyes open for more than five minutes at a time.”

      Willow’s throat felt tight. She couldn’t decide if it was due to this man’s importance to her father’s future or to the easy ripple of the muscles of his bare arms as he pushed himself up. She forced herself to smile at him.

      “Where is he, anyway?” he asked, looking around.

      “The sheriff?”

      Simon nodded, swinging his legs to the floor and using the momentum to stand.

      “He went to have dinner with the marshal and the deputy.” Standing, Simon Grant looked much more powerful than he had on the cot. Willow swallowed away the odd knot in her throat. She might not have another opportunity to get this critical witness on their side. “How…how are your injuries?” she ventured. Desperately she wished that she’d paid more attention to Aunt Maud’s proclamations about the relationship between the genders. Not