Chapter 3 #2
He finished up with a flurry of hard spanks that left her breathless. Then he pulled her upright to look into her face. He was a demanding, arrogant brute. Whitney impulsively decided the mean right hook her father had taught her would come in handy right now. It was time he learned a lesson.
She gave it all she had.
In retrospect, Whitney realized she shouldn’t have hit Mac as she flung herself into the hay in the corner of the hayloft.
The dull thunk of his head against the hard logs of the woodshed had sickened her.
She hoped she hadn’t hurt him after all.
Still, right now, her pity party was absorbing every emotion she had, mixing in the attraction she felt for him and his arrogant resolution to her problem, creating a swirling mess in a pot of mental stew.
And the worst part of all? The idea of marriage to the handsome cowboy wasn’t that heinous—just not on these terms.
Where was her dad when she needed him the most? She cried harder, missing her mom like crazy, and wishing for her dad to come home and get her out of this mess.
***
MAC NEVER SAW THE SMALL fist coming that darned near took the side of his head off.
He reeled backwards, his skull striking the wall behind him, and he was helpless to stop her from jumping up and running out.
Seeing stars was as accurate a description as he could come up with.
Groaning, he closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them to make sure his vision wasn’t doubled or blurred.
Staring at the open door of the woodshed, he rose carefully to his feet, his jaw throbbing like crazy.
He couldn’t believe she’d actually hit him.
Feeling something wet, he gingerly touched the back of his head. His fingers came away with blood on them. The little brat had caused a break in the skin. Hell, he could have a concussion for all he knew. Where had she learned to punch like a barroom brawler?
The last time he’d taken a hit like that had been when his drunk friend Jake had decked him at Dobbins bar a few years back. But he’d never expected a little girl to punch his lights out.
Cursing softly to himself, he yanked the door wide open and stepped outside, his gaze searching for the obstinate young woman.
He spotted the pink color of her dress just as she disappeared into the ramshackle barn, and he determinedly followed her.
Her butt was going to be the color of cranberries when he was finished with her.
He yanked the barn door open and stepped inside, half expecting to be greeted with a pitchfork at his chest, but he was surprised to hear the sounds of distraught weeping instead.
He followed the harsh sobs that led him up the ladder and into the hayloft.
He finally spied her, lying curled in a little ball on the soft, loose hay in a corner.
The anger drained from him as he listened to her anguished weeping, and he wondered how long it had been since she’d cried.
Sitting gingerly down beside her, he tried to gather her up in his arms, but she pushed at his broad chest, trying to hide her face from him and pull away.
He ignored her and pulled her into his embrace anyway, sliding her onto his lap and then holding her tightly, rocking her stiff little body.
She certainly was a prickly little thing.
At last, he felt her begin to relax, and her distressed cries slowly diminished until finally, a big sigh escaped her bosom.
He just held her, on the alert now, but content to hold her through her stormy emotions.
He figured it must have been pretty hard on her trying to see after Luke and Amelia for months.
Dammed hard, actually, now that he tried to see it from her point of view.
It was a different from her perspective.
Maybe he would have had more choices, being a man and all, but he supposed she had done what she thought had to, even when she stole from him to keep their parents’ absence a secret. Still, that didn’t justify her trying to take his head off, but he would deal with that later.
“I’m s-sorry I hit you,” she confessed into his shirt, hiding her face from him. “That was wrong of me, I shouldn’t have done that.”
“We’ll discuss that later,” he replied gently.
“A...are you very angry with me?” She peeped up at him.
“Furious, but like I said, we’ll settle up later.
” He tilted her chin up to look in her eyes.
They were puffy and red around the edges, and her nose was a little sniffly, but Mac thought she was quite a pretty little thing.
Her dark lashes swept towards her eyebrows like tiny fans, and tears clung to them, making them spiky.
Her lower lip still trembled as she stared back at him.
“Look, I know it must have been a shock for me to spring marriage on you like that, but I figured it was time I got married, and you need someone too.” He rubbed the back of his neck when she frowned at him in disbelief.
“Well, besides, Luke seems a good boy, and little Amelia needs a daddy. I don’t mind a ready-made family. ”
He gazed earnestly down at her. Small talk wasn’t one of his finer points, and he could feel the red creeping up his throat. But here in the hills folks didn’t stand much on ceremony. If couples were interested in each other, they just got married—better to do it before the shotguns came out.
Whitney dropped her gaze, and a pink flush began to spread up her face. “You can’t possibly be serious about...about...” she stammered, unable to finish the sentence as her tongue wrapped itself in knots.
“About getting married?”
She nodded. “Yes...that. We don’t even know each other, and I’m not ready for that.”
“I’m serious,” he replied decisively. He surveyed her shiny hair, the color of a rich, pale honey as it straggled out of the loosened braid.
He lifted the shiny strands between his fingers and worked the braid open, wanting to feel the softness in his work-worn hands.
“There’s something about you that I like, Whitney.
I like you a lot, and I think we could make a marriage work.
I need a woman, and you need a man, someone to help you with Luke and Amelia.
I could do that. Will you at least think about it? ”
***
WHITNEY’S GAZE TRAVELED from the square jaw above her, up past the nose that looked as if it had been broken a few times, and on to the green shimmering eyes of the man who held her.
His dark hair was almost black, longish, and curling at the ends.
It was a rugged, handsome face that stirred something in her belly.
His eyebrow arched upward under her inspection, and a lazy grin curved his firm lips slightly upward.
His natural arrogance irked her independent spirit, but she couldn’t really fault him for exacting a penalty for her thieving.
“I don’t even know your full name,” she said at last, “or anything about you.”
“My name is Maclede Cane Wainwright, I’m 25, and I’ve lived in the Ozarks all my life.
I have a sister named Adeline who lives with me, as well as my mother, Caroline.
My father died in an accident with a horse four years ago.
I own 50,000 acres, give or take a few, and I raise cattle, horses, and turkeys, one of which we just ate, and I like collies. Anything else you want to know?”
“What about my father? I can’t just get married without him,” she pointed out. “At least not until I turn 18 in February.”
Mac frowned. “How long has he been gone?”
“Dad bought this land last year in the summer, but nothing has worked right since he did,” she tried to explain.
“My mother got sick this spring and passed away, and then Dad was never the same. He decided to go into town to look for work and buy the things we need. We put in the garden and then he said to keep it up and that he’d be back in a few months, but it’s been almost six.
I hope something awful hasn’t happened to him. ”
“And he just left you with the kids to take care of,” Mac added flatly. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
Whitney twisted her fingers back and forth, but she defended her father. “He didn’t plan to be gone this long. I told him I would take care of Luke and Amelia while he was gone, but to hurry back. He said he would, but he still isn’t here. I’m worried.”
“So, you’ve been doing the best you can while you’re waiting for him,” he grunted.
She nodded, feeling miserable. “I know we need help, but my biggest fear in trying to get help is the possibility of losing Luke and Amelia. I won’t let that happen,” she added vehemently.
“Don’t worry about it anymore,” he soothed. “I’ll send out some inquiries. I have friends around Bolton and beyond. What’s his full name?”
“It’s Daniel...Daniel Lucas Johnson. It frightens me that he’s been gone this long, Mac. I can’t believe he would forget about us; he loves us.”
“I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten about you, but like I said, I’ll put out some inquiries. What is your full name, Whitney?”
“It’s Whitney Ann Johnson.”
He touched his fingers to the back of his head and realized the bleeding had stopped.
It wasn’t much of a scratch, but his fingers still came away with a bit of blood on them.
He showed them to her. “Well, Whitney Ann Johnson, where did you learn to punch like that? And what do you think I should do about it?”
She stiffened. “Like I said...I’m sorry I hit you.
But you’ve done nothing but boss me around since you came here, and then you told me I had to marry you and.
..and... it was just too much...bossing,” she finished with a scowl.
“I’m not a helpless little girl that needs to be taken care of; I can take care of myself. ”
He nodded ruefully. “I’ll agree that you’ve done an amazing job, Whitney, for as little help as you’ve had to do it with. But you also have to admit that it’s not enough. You have about a fifty/fifty chance of surviving the winter without any help.”
Whitney’s temper simmered. “But there is the chance that I can, you have to admit that.” She poked him in the chest. “I do have a little money for supplies in town, and for more ammunition. I know how to hunt deer and was planning on cutting up the meat and storing it in the stream under the ice. Or in the woodshed. Food would not be an issue.”
“Maybe,” he relented. “But you need firewood to keep from freezing to death. You don’t have enough.”
“Ha! Didn’t you notice the dead trees that Luke, I, and Abraham hauled out of the forest behind the house?
Right near the back door, where I wouldn’t have to go far to bring limbs in and chop them up?
And right there in the cabin if I had to.
I could clean it up in the spring,” she boasted triumphantly.
“Just because the woodshed is full, doesn’t mean I don’t have a wood supply.
” I also have a metal locker to store the meat in,” she finished.
His eyebrow shot up. “Who’s Abraham?”
“The mule,” she replied. “And if I had to, I could always butcher Beulah.”
“Storing meat in the woodshed would not be a good idea because of the animals. Even frozen, predators would smell the meat.”
“I also have a metal locker to store meat in. It would take a bear to break into the woodshed and into a metal locker. Not that they couldn’t, but I heard they hibernate in the winter,” she snarked.
This time, he just stared with disbelief and admiration. “You know, I believe you would butcher that cow.”
She giggled at his surprised face. “Only if I had to. I don’t want to lose her milk, but come next spring, if Dad isn’t back, I’d probably be selling her anyway.
I know we can’t stay out here alone, and I don’t plan to.
I have to get through to my birthday, though, then I can make plans for the future. ”
He popped in indulgently on the nose. “You, little brat, are a very accomplished young woman, and much more organized than I gave you credit for. You’ve impressed me.”
Whitney blushed at the compliment. She was proud of her skills and her ability to do the hard things that others might shirk away from.
She had never wanted to feel helpless. Too many bad things happened to good men, and there were too many evil men in the world to be too dependent.
Besides, there were more dangers in the hills than the two-legged variety.
However, she’d never met anyone like Mac before.
Not someone she was attracted to, anyway.
There had been young men interested in her in their old home area, but she hadn’t liked any of them.
And a lot of them were moonshiners—which wasn’t illegal in certain instances—but it was a situation her dad wanted to escape.
The constant influx of people wanting to buy homemade moonshine brought in some unsavory men with their roving eyes and quick hands.
It was one of the reasons her dad had been adamant about her being able to defend herself. He couldn’t be everywhere all the time.
Her beautiful mother had been accosted and stalked a few times. The hill folk protected their own, but sometimes bad things happened. So, Daniel Johnson had taken them away from the area.
In the end, they had lost her mother anyway.
She really missed her mother, and she knew Amelia and Luke did too.
She peeped up at Mac. If her father didn’t come back, she would be their mother, and Mac wanted to be their father.
It seemed like a reasonable solution, especially since she did like the man, despite his spanking her. She would give it some serious thought.