“Bessie?” Jill asked.
“That would be my mule that pulls my wagon. Y’all’d have to ride in the back, seein’ as how the seat in the front only ’commodates me.”
“Yes, sir. We’d be obliged, and we’ll stock you up on supplies,” Sawyer said.
“Then I expect we’d best get goin’. Sun is up, and if we get there by noon, I can load up and get back by sundown,” he said. “Days are short this time of year.”
“How do you get out of this holler with a mule and wagon? Do you go back to the bridge?” Jill asked.
Tilly chuckled. “I got my ways. Bessie lives across the road on fifty acres I own over there. That’s where I keep my wagon. That side is pretty flat.”
He pulled a rope and a ladder fell down from the rafters. “Fancy, ain’t it? It was made for one of them houses with a ceilin’, but I got it fixed up so part of it falls down to here and the other part stays up there to the hatch in the roof. Y’all follow me.”
He scrambled up the ladder like an agile little boy. “Y’all comin’, or you goin’ to stand down there and look stupid?”
Jill started up with Sawyer right behind her. Where in the hell they were going once they reached the top was a mystery, but it was definitely the only way out, other than going back to the bridge. With her fanny practically in his face, Sawyer couldn’t control the pictures that flashed through his mind.
Her butt would fit so well in his hands, especially if they were both naked and in his big king-sized bed.
“Okay now, we hit this here button and watch what happens,” Tilly said.
A hatch opened up on the roof, letting in sun and cold air. Jill followed him on up the ladder and through the opening to find that the porch roof was level with the road over to the right. And right there was a swinging bridge about twenty yards long, wide enough for one person at a time.
“Cute, ain’t it?” Tilly said. “Let me get to the other side before you get on it. Don’t know how much weight it would bear. One at a time, and then we’ll hitch up Bessie to the wagon and get on our way.”
Chapter 15
Bessie, the old gray mule, had two speeds: slow and stop. A stick of dynamite could not have put any more giddy-up in her pace, but Sawyer wasn’t complaining. He could be walking all the way into town and dodging Gallaghers and Brennans on the way.
Jill smiled at the right places when Tilly told the first story, but when he started on the second one, her eyes grew heavy, and she slumped against Sawyer’s shoulder. He shifted his weight so that he could hold her steady with one arm.
Tilly looked back over his shoulder and smiled. “She’d be a keeper, son. I can see why the Gallaghers and the Brennans both want her. She’d be a prize even without the water rights on Fiddle Creek. Damn fools ought to know better than to kidnap her, though. They ought to be sweet-talkin’ her and bein’ nice. But then so should you. She’s got that special glow when she looks at you.”
Sawyer chuckled. “And what would you know about a glow?”
“Ah, now, there’s a lot you don’t know about me, son, and I’ve seen that look in a woman’s eyes one time before when she looked at me. I was a young man back then, and I ruined it all. Take my advice and don’t let go of the best thing you might ever have. Now where was I? Oh, yeah, I was tellin’ you about the day I found my little bit of land and why I bought acres on both sides of the road,” he said.
Sawyer listened with one ear and kept an eye open most of the time. Tilly didn’t seem to want or need any feedback. He wanted someone to listen, and Sawyer could do that and doze at the same time.
He awoke with a start when the wagon wheel fell into a hole, but Bessie brought them out of it with very little effort. Jill didn’t even move. She still had hay in her red hair, and her cheeks were rosy from the cold. Lashes rested on her cheekbones, and the sunlight brightened the few freckles sprinkled across her nose. The curve of her hip coming away from the tiny waist intrigued him. Tilly was right about her being a looker, but he didn’t have a damn thing to offer Jill Cleary. He’d saved enough money through the years to put a down payment on a small ranch, but banks were a lot stingier with loans in today’s economy than they had been in the past. Still, there was something about her that made him wish he had everything Quaid and Tyrell did, so he could give her what she deserved.
Two trucks passed them on the way into town, and both times they honked and waved, but neither stopped. If it was the feuding families who’d kidnapped them and stolen his truck, they evidently didn’t want to tangle with Tilly or his mule, either one.
He groaned. “My truck. I hadn’t thought about that. I’ll have to call the insurance company and the police as soon as I buy another cell phone.”
“What about your truck?” Tilly asked.
Sawyer filled him in on the story, and Tilly shook his head. “Them bastards. Get you a mule and a wagon. Don’t have too many people wantin’ to steal old Bessie, and if they did, she’d probably bite the shit out of them. She can be a mean-tempered old bitch when anyone crosses her. Well, would you look at that? You can see Gladys’s store. In another five minutes, old Bessie will have us pulled right up to the door.”
Jill pulled away from Sawyer and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Are we almost there?”
“Just up ahead. Town sure looks dead, even for a Sunday. Ain’t seen but a couple of trucks since we left the holler. Did you get a little rest?” Tilly asked.
“I can’t believe I slept that long.” Jill rolled her head from side to side to get the kinks out. “Thank you for helping us, Tilly. It sure beat walking all morning.”
Tilly pulled the wagon up to the front door and hopped down off the wagon seat. “It’s dinner time. Reckon we might fix us up a bologna sandwich in the store before I start back?”
“I’ll fire up the cookstove and make you a steak, if you want it,” Jill said.
Tilly grinned as he held his hand up to help her down. “I got steak and pork at home. But it ain’t often I get a big old bologna sandwich.”
Jill put her hand in his. “With lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, and mustard.”
“Now that’s a meal fit for a king,” Tilly said.
Sawyer jumped down from the back of the wagon and groaned when his knees protested the treatment they’d been given in the past twenty-four hours.
“Best heed the advice I gave you, son. You ain’t gettin’ no younger.” Tilly laughed.
Jill found the spare key inside a fake rock in the flowerpot beside the door. She opened the lock and swung the doors open to a warm store. On her way back to the meat department, where she fully intended to slice a couple of pounds of bologna to send home with Tilly, she removed her coat and hung it on the rack.
“What do you want, Sawyer?” she asked.
“Ham and cheese, mayo, and everything you’re putting on Tilly’s sandwich. I’ll get a bag of chips and some pickles, and we can eat at the checkout counter,” he answered.
“That’s a sissy sandwich,” Tilly said.
“Not if you eat more than one to prove you are a man. I’m having two for starters, and then maybe a half a bag of those chocolate doughnuts right there,” Sawyer told him.
“You want two?” Jill asked Tilly.
“Yes, ma’am. I reckon that would be right fine,” he answered. “And”—he winked at Sawyer—“maybe I’ll have some of them doughnuts too.”
“What are you drinking?” Sawyer headed for the cold soft-drink case.
“Root beer.” Tilly didn’t hesitate for a second. “This picnic gets better and better.”
Once Tilly started eating, he didn’t say another word. He enjoyed his food without conversation. When he finished, he leaned the chair back and propped his boots on the counter. “Well, now, this has been a profitable trip, yes it has. The company has been good, but it is time for me to get on down the road. Bessie will be expecting to get out of that harness come dusk, and she does get bitchy if she doesn’t get her way.”