Wolf Creek Father (Wolf Creek, Arkansas Book 3) (7 page)

“I recall those years as being quite vexing, as I believe most young girls do, but now that we both have a better grasp of the problem, I believe we’ll work through this.”

Though he wasn’t happy at the prospect, he said, “I’ll do my best, but you may have to spell things out for me.” He stood, reaching into his pocket for some money. “I’ll catch up with you later today or tomorrow,” he said. “Or feel free to stop by the jail to talk over any ideas or suggestions if you’re over that way.”

“Thank you. I will. And thank you for the breakfast.”

* * *

After Allison hugged her sister and niece goodbye, she and Colt parted ways. He watched her cross the street and head toward the mercantile, her back ramrod-straight. Unlike her sister, there was not one bit of sway to
her
hips.

Grunting in frustration, he headed toward the jail, thinking about the time he’d just spent with the spinster teacher. After talking to her, he was convinced that she
was
concerned about the children, and with her optimistic attitude, he even felt a seed of optimism himself that they might be able to bring about a much-needed change. He hoped so.

As a lawman, he was pretty good at reading between the lines and piecing together things that might seem unrelated but often led him in the right direction when it came to capturing the bad guys, like Elton Thomerson and his buddy. Unfortunately, that talent seemed absent when it came to his kids.

During the time spent with Miss Grainger, he had noticed some very interesting things. For instance, her outward composure was a front that hid a lot of insecurities. He’d seen it in her eyes when she’d talked about her beautiful sister, and he’d heard it in her voice when she’d made the offhand comment that he wasn’t interested in her as a wife, and again when she’d said that some men were interested in more than looks. That lack of confidence had been obvious from the droop of her shoulders and the sorrow in her eyes when she’d talked about understanding what Cilla was going through.

Clearly, she was sensitive to the fact that she was not as attractive as her sister. Ellie was tall and curvaceous; Allison was short and plump, thus her skimpy breakfast. Her hair wasn’t the pretty auburn of her sister’s. Allison was a carrottop, and she kept her unruly hair scraped back into a severe knot, as if she were afraid that one loose tendril would mar her image of respectability. Like Ellie’s, her face was oval and her skin was just as creamy and smooth and flawless, except for the overabundance of freckles, which were nothing but a light dusting across her nose.

Her eyes, perhaps her best feature, were a warm brown, framed with long, curling eyelashes that were shades darker than her hair. Her nose was nice, too—one of the few features she and her sister had in common. And the little indentation in her left cheek when she smiled was very eye-catching.

He stopped in the middle of the street. Why was he even thinking about Allison Grainger’s physical appearance? Was he so desperate to find a wife that he was even looking at the town’s spinster teacher as a prospect? No way! It was just a natural thing for a man to look a woman over and catalog her good and bad qualities. He did it all the time. Not that Allison’s flame-red hair and freckles were
bad
qualities, or even unattractive when taken one by one. There was actually a cuteness about her that some men might find appealing. Just not him.

Then what was that little twinge you felt when she made the offhand comment about you not being interested in making her a stepmother?

Colt gave a grunt of consternation. She’d actually sounded appalled by the idea of being his prospective wife. He didn’t think he was conceited, but neither was he accustomed to ladies looking dismayed at the notion of being linked to him. It was downright demoralizing. He wondered what kind of man she’d loved and what she’d been like before he’d broken her heart.

Forget it! he thought, stomping up onto the wooden sidewalk. He wasn’t in the market for a woman like her. No doubt in time she would find another man who would care for her, someone who wouldn’t be intimidated by her intelligence, as many would be—himself included. Someone who didn’t mind that his woman was...well,
dowdy.

While it was admirable that she made her own clothes, her sense of style left much to be desired. He was no expert, but even someone as unschooled in fashion as he was knew that the styles she favored were not at all flattering. Flounces and ruffles and gathers! He supposed she was trying to hide her plumpness, but all she was doing was enhancing it. She’d looked much slimmer in her cleaning clothes the day before.

Oh, well, he thought, pulling open the door to his office and stepping inside. Her style or lack of it was no concern of his.

He found Big Dan Mercer, his deputy, sitting at the desk, reading the latest St. Louis paper.

“Did you and Miss Grainger get things figured out?”

“We came up with a plan of sorts,” Colt told him. “It remains to be seen if it works or not.”

Chapter Four

A
llison left her sister’s café, well aware that the sheriff was watching every step she took as she crossed the street. The knowledge made her even more uncomfortable. Only when she rounded the corner to Hattie’s and was certain she was no longer being watched did she relax.

What a worrisome couple of days! she thought, her mind wandering from one meeting with Colt Garrett to the next. She wasn’t certain which was more troubling—the sheriff’s children or the sheriff himself. She couldn’t deny that she was very aware of him as a man. What woman this side of the grave wouldn’t be? What puzzled her was that he was nothing like Jesse, who had been the yardstick for every man she’d met since he’d said he loved someone else.

So why was she experiencing this sudden, unexpected awareness? She’d met men just as handsome and with
much
more amiable personalities. Men who had more money than the peace officer of a small Arkansas town. Smarter, better-educated men. But not since her relationship with Jesse had changed from a lifelong friendship to love at the age of sixteen had she met a man whose touch could make her heart race. Truth to tell, even Jesse’s touch had never affected her the way the sheriff’s did.

Remembering the way she’d reacted when he’d circled her wrist with his fingers, she gave a little frustrated groan and fanned at the heat in her cheeks. This could not be happening! It simply would not do! Not with a man like Colt, who could never love a woman like her. She didn’t think she could withstand another broken heart.

Pushing her troubling thoughts of him to the back of her mind, she went to the boardinghouse and asked Hattie about an opening for a new piano student. Hattie said there was a spot available, but when she heard who the prospective beginner was, she shook her head.

“Are you daft, woman? That child is a menace and her brother, too! I heard what they did to you over at the store. Why, I might not have a building standing when she leaves.”

“I understand how you feel, Hattie,” Allison pleaded, “but this is important. I’ve spoken with her father, and I believe he finally understands the seriousness of the situation. We’ve decided to work together to see if we can find ways to help the children.”

Arms crossed over her narrow chest, foot tapping an impatient tattoo, Hattie snorted in contempt of the whole notion. Allison poured on the pitiful details and saw Hattie weakening.

“O’ course, the sheriff is happy to pay for the lessons and we would both really, really appreciate your help with this,” she persisted, knowing that Hattie had a soft spot for Colt.

“‘We,’ is it?” the boardinghouse proprietor asked. The impatience in her faded blue eyes had been replaced with a twinkle.

“Don’t start, Hattie,” Allison warned, feeling her face flush hotly. “We’re just working together to help his children.”

“Of course, dear,” Hattie said with a knowing smile and an innocent lifting of her eyebrows. The effect was ruined by her next sentence and wide smile. “This is an excellent thing, Allison. You need a good man like the sheriff in your life.”

“He isn’t in my life,” Allison argued. “Except in a marginal way. The children are sort of like a project we’re working on together.”

“Project?” Hattie snorted again. “That sounds pretty unfeeling, if you ask me.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that it sounds like even though your hearts might be in the right place, you and the sheriff are looking at this all wrong. Ornery as they are, those children aren’t an assignment given to you by the mayor....” After seeing the shock on Allison’s face, Hattie offered a shrewd smile. “Surely you didn’t expect
that
to stay a secret, did you?”

The idea that everyone in town knew that she and Colt were not only trying to help the children, but that they were also fighting for their jobs, was disturbing to say the least.

“Anyway,” Hattie continued, “Cilla and Brady aren’t an assignment or a project that needs to be done by a certain day. If you and Sheriff Garrett go into it with that attitude, all you can hope for is failure. It will take having the right mind-set to make any meaningful changes.”

Hattie was right, Allison thought. She had been looking at it like a tiresome chore, a necessary duty to be dealt with by the beginning of the school year.

“So,” Hattie said, her voice scattering Allison’s uneasy thoughts, “I’ll agree to help you, at least a time or two, but if that child doesn’t work hard or if she won’t listen or if she talks back, the deal is off.”

“I understand.”

Allison hugged the older woman and left, her heart much lighter. Wearing a broad smile, she practically skipped across the street back toward the café. Now she just had to try to talk Ellie into helping teach Cilla embroidery. She’d thought about asking her when she was there earlier, before she and Colt left, but hadn’t wanted him around, in case her sister declined. Of course, Allison doubted she would. Ellie was such a softy that it shouldn’t be too hard to convince her to help.

“Oh, Allison!” her sister wailed when Allison explained what she and Colt hoped to do. “You know I’m stretched pretty thin.”

“I realize that, but I also know that you’re much better at needlework than I am, and I know that you’re teaching Beth in the evenings. I wouldn’t expect you to take her every night, just an hour or so once or twice a week to show her the different stitches and watch her progress.”

“Well...it sounds like a good plan,” Ellie conceded.

“I think it will be,” Allison said, knowing that she’d won. “I feel fairly confident that in time I can make some inroads with Cilla, but Brady’s another thing altogether. I hope I can find the key to help him learn.”

“You’re a good person, sister dear,” Ellie said with a fond smile. “Some man should snatch you up, love the living daylights out of you and give you a house full of babies of your own.”

The image that flashed through Allison’s mind robbed her of breath. Colt loving the daylights out of her. Two little boys with sun-streaked hair who looked just like him, running and flinging themselves into her arms.

“Allie?”

Allison’s head jerked around, a faraway expression in her eyes. “Hmm?”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.” A sigh whispered through her lips. Pipe dreams. Hadn’t she already acknowledged that a man like Colt would never be interested in someone like her?

“How was Colt about all this?”

“Hmm?” Allison said again.

“Allie...what is it that you aren’t telling me?”

Rats! She’d better get control of herself and her errant daydreams. Ellie was as sharp as a tack. “Nothing. It’s just been an eventful morning and I still have a lot to do.”

Still wearing a look of skepticism, Ellie let the comment pass.

“I think I’ll go over to the mercantile and see what Gabe has in the way of embroidery notions. It would make a nice gift for Cilla, don’t you think?”

“It would,” Ellie agreed. “When you get finished, stop back by and have a bite of lunch. I’m making a big kettle of chicken and noodles.”

“I don’t need noodles,” Allison said. “They’ll go straight to my hips.”

“Silly girl. When will you ever get over the fact that you are not overweight? Well, not
much,
anyway. You’re built more or less like me.”

“Am not!” Allison said, her gaze roaming her sister’s tall voluptuousness.

“Are so!” Ellie responded, one of their favorite means of arguing as kids. “You’re just me in miniature, but the thing is that you’re... Well, there’s no way to say it but to tell the truth. You’re much...uh, bustier than I am.”

Allison’s mouth fell open in shock. “Bustier?” she squeaked in a horrified whisper and glanced around the café to see if anyone had overheard.

“Yes. And the clothes you insist on wearing to
hide
the problem only add insult to injury,” Ellie added, disregarding her sibling’s warning look.

“I appreciate your loyalty and your love,” Allison said, “but I am what I am. Plump.”

Ellie’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Are not.”

In spite of her irritation with her sister, Allison couldn’t help laughing. “You’re impossible,” she said, giving Ellie an impulsive hug.

As she passed through the doorway, she thought she heard her sister murmur, “Am not.”

* * *

Allison spent more than an hour at the general store, looking at table scarves and pillowcases already stamped with floral designs, ready to be filled in with colorful threads and fancy stitches. Finally settling on a table runner with bachelor’s buttons and butterflies, she spent more time deciding just which thread colors would make the prettiest combination, adding her choices to the embroidery hoop and needles already stacked on the counter. A small pair of scissors rounded out her purchases.

“Taking up handwork, are you?” Gabe Gentry asked, as he tallied up her purchases.

“These are for Cilla,” she told him, eyeing a bit of blue satin ribbon on a spool across the aisle. “Ellie is going to teach her to embroider.”

“Brave soul, Ellie,” Gabe said with the roguish smile that had set many feminine hearts aflutter during his single years. Probably still did, she mused, even though he was now happily married. Not even the scar on his left cheek, the reminder of an attack by a couple of hooligans a few months ago, detracted from his looks.

“Shall I put this on Colt’s bill, then?” he asked, stacking the items and setting them in the middle of a square of brown paper he’d ripped from a large roll.

“Oh, no. I’m buying it for her,” Allison said. “Sort of a peace offering.”

“That’s awfully nice of you after what those two did to you.”

“Well, let’s just say I’m trying a new strategy, and at this point I’m not above bribery to get cooperation. Before you wrap it up, will you add a half yard of that blue satin ribbon? It will be perfect with Cilla’s dark hair and blue eyes. Oh! And some of that maple candy for Brady.”

“Sure thing.”

Gabe measured the ribbon and added it to the package as she’d requested. “You didn’t look for replacements for your gloves and hat.”

“I’ll do that another day. I’d like to have my glasses back first.”

“Good idea. They should be here soon, and I should have some new hats in at the end of the week.” Finished tying up the package, he slid it across the counter. “Who knows where this might lead for you and Colt.”

Allison raised her eyebrows in question. “I beg your pardon.”

“I mean you’re single and he’s single...” Gabe shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished.

Once again, Allison experienced a sudden loss of composure. Why on earth was everyone insisting on making more of this arrangement than there was?

“And neither of us is looking to change that,” she said in her most prudish tone. “This is about the children. Nothing more.”

Gabe held his hands up, palms outward. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend. It just seems like it would—” he shrugged “—be a good thing for you both. Rachel and I have even talked about it once or twice.”

Allison resisted the urge to stomp her foot and scream in frustration. So now she was the topic of dinnertime conversations! Forcing civility to her voice, she said, “I appreciate that, Gabe, really, but just because you and Rachel are ridiculously in love doesn’t mean that the whole world wants the same thing.”

“You’re right,” he said, nodding. “But I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t.”

“I’m perfectly happy with my life. I do not need a man to feel fulfilled.”

She imagined she saw a hint of impudence lurking in his blue eyes. “You should have quit while you were ahead,” he said, the cheeky grin reappearing.

“I beg your pardon,” she said again.

“Methinks you’re protesting too much, as Shakespeare would say.”

He was right, of course. Rachel claimed that Gabe had always known how a woman’s mind worked better than any man she’d ever met. Allie took refuge in irritation. “I don’t know how Rachel tolerates you,” she said, snatching up her package.

Still smiling, he shrugged, recognizing her response for what it was. “It’s a mystery to me, too.”

She was all the way to the door when his voice stopped her.

“You gonna pay for that?”

Turning with a huff, she said, “Put it on my bill.”

“You don’t have a bill,” he reminded her gently.

“Well, then, start one!” she snapped, and whirled to leave. She turned back in the next instant, full of contrition. “I’m sorry, Gabe. I don’t know why I’m so irritable.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said in a soothing tone. “I understand perfectly.” And he did.

* * *

Allison spent a good part of the remainder of the morning writing letters to two of her favorite, most helpful professors, and then headed to the post office to see that they went out on the next train. Back home, she ate a light lunch, freshened up, snatched up the package, squared her shoulders and walked to Colt’s house at the edge of town, hoping Cilla and Brady would be there when she arrived.

To her relief, Brady answered the door on her first knock. Allison smiled. “Good morning, Brady.”

“What are you doing here?” he countered.

Not a good beginning, she thought, smiling wider. “I’ve come to see you and Cilla and talk to you about the things your father and I discussed.”

“He’s already told us a buncha stuff.”

Allison suppressed the urge to sigh. “May I come in? I’ve brought you and Cilla some things from the general store.”

“Why would you do something like that?”

The question came from Cilla, who was crossing the parlor from the back of the small house. She paused behind her brother, a wary expression in her eyes.

“Well,” Allie said in a reasonable tone, holding out the gift, “because you’ll need these things if you’re going to learn needlework, and I didn’t suppose you had them.” She handed Brady a small brown bag. “This is for you.”

“Come on in,” he said, grabbing the sack with one hand and her hand in the other. Well, one of them could be bribed, anyway. Holding back from Brady, she looked at Cilla for permission.

“Come on in.”

“Thank you.”

The sheriff’s house looked much as she would expect a house inhabited by a single man and two children to look. The brown sofa was worn, and the plain blue curtains were faded. All in all, it looked clean enough, just...tired. Neglected. It needed pictures on the whitewashed walls and flowers in vases, and rag rugs and crochet doilies, and a man’s boots by the door and—