19. Willa
NINETEEN
Willa
The bloodwork proved what we already knew in our hearts—that this baby was real…and that she was ours.
Six weeks old, no bigger than a pinto bean…and the whole damn world. I didn’t know anything about this baby, not even if it was a girl or a boy, not really. But to me, she was already Sophie. Already ours.
A future, even when it felt like the whole world was set to tear us apart.
The night of the attack on me and Forrest, local police joined forces with a SWAT team from San Antonio and ended up arresting Shepherd Daley—Gerald Atchison—and taking him to prison. They set bail too high for anyone to get him out. The women and children on the homestead were left all alone.
And now, I was going back…not to stay, but to see if anyone else wanted to go.
There were nine other women over the age of sixteen—all of them wives of Daley and his men—and twenty-three children on the property. All of them had remained on the property after Atchison was arrested, continuing life as normal…which was both strange and totally expected.
The women had always run things here. The men had just been security.
I watched the familiar road through the window—the same trees, the same limestone cuts, the same sky—and tried to remember that I was different now even if the road wasn’t.
I had a name. I had a job. I had a baby the size of a bean and a man who loved me and a dog who had chosen me in a matter of minutes.
I was not the girl who had sprinted away from this property in the dark.
Stetson drove. Wyatt sat in the back with Haven, their medical kit between them. Nobody talked much…there wasn’t much to say.
The gate came into view, open for the first time I’d ever seen. It had always been padlocked before; I’d carefully crawled through barbed wire to escape. Now they could just come and go, but they still stayed.
“You okay?” Forrest asked quietly.
“Ask me in an hour,” I replied.
He squeezed my hand.
Stetson pulled through.
The homestead looked exactly the same. That was the thing that hit me first; I’d half expected it to look different, smaller maybe, the way places from your childhood were supposed to look when you came back.
But it was the same dusty yard, the same long low buildings, the same kitchen garden running along the south fence that I’d weeded on my hands and knees more times than I could count.
And…the women were still working. Three of them were kneeling in the garden, not looking up, working in silence like we’d been told to for years.
One of them stood up and shaded her eyes.
I recognized her immediately.
Ruth—Daley’s second wife. Forty-something, thin and reedy, the woman who’d run the kitchen and struck me across the knuckles with a wooden spoon more than once because I’d dropped a dish or burned the food.
She’d done it because, in her own words, it was better to take punishment from her than from Mr. Daley.
She didn’t look happy to see me.
“Willa,” she said, voice flat as I climbed out of the car. Forrest stayed right at my shouler, and I pressed my lips together, trying to be strong.
“Ruth,” I said with a nod. “I’m not here to cause trouble. Just wanted to check in.”
“We were fine before you left,” she said. “We’re fine now.”
The other two women had straightened up. I didn’t know them as well—they were the other men’s wives, and we hadn’t talked much. One of them was looking at me with something like hope, like she was on the brink of opening her mouth and terrified Ruth would be the one to shut it.
“I brought some family with medical experience,” I said. “In case anyone needs it and doesn't want to leave the property?”
Ruth stared daggers at me.
But that other woman…she raised her hand tentatively.
“My son hurt his ankle a couple weeks ago and it hasn't cleared up,” she said softly.
Ruth's head whipped around.
But Haven was already at my other shoulder, smiling. “We can take a look,” she said. “We brought medical wrap and splints. Get him back on his feet in no time.”
I watched the two of them, holding my breath…and then she started leading Haven and Wyatt inside.
I exhaled.
Ruth went back to gardening like I wasn't even there.
“Where to next?” Forrest asked.
I thought about it. “Kitchen, the pasture, and the house,” I said. “Most everyone will be working unless they're ill. We can triage from there and report back to Wyatt and Haven.”
He nodded and fell into step beside me without another word.
Stetson stayed by the truck, leaning against it with his arms crossed, watching the perimeter…ready to get us out of here if we needed it.
I hoped we wouldn’t need it.
The kitchen came first, where most of the family would be preparing for dinner.
I knew this building like the back of my own hand—the warped screen door, the smell of woodsmoke and lard and something always simmering, the long table where we’d prepared every meal in silence.
Two women were inside, one rolling dough and one washing dishes, and they both went still when we walked through the door.
I recognized them both: Sarah, who’d been here longer than anyone, Shepherd’s first wife…and Leah, who was twenty-eight. We’d both failed to give Shepherd babies; we’d bonded over it once upon a time, in the quiet after the day ended, the only times we ever had privacy.
“Willa,” she breathed.
“Hi,” I said, not sure how else to start.
Sarah kept her hands moving, rolling the dough. Every hard thing that had ever happened on this property, Sarah had kept her hands moving.
“You look well,” Sarah said.
“I am,” I nodded. “I’m actually really good.”
She nodded once and kept rolling.
I looked at Leah. She had that expression I recognized—want and terror in equal measure, her hands twisted in her apron.
"Can I talk to you outside?" I asked her quietly.
She looked at Mary.
Mary said nothing. But her rolling slowed, just slightly, just enough that I noticed.
Leah followed me out.
We stood in the narrow strip of shade along the side of the building and I looked at this woman who had arrived here already broken and had been here long enough to go further under.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
Her chin wobbled. She got it under control fast—we'd all learned that fast.
"I didn't know you were going to run," she said. "I would've—" She stopped.
"I know," I said. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."
She nodded, swallowing hard, her eyes darting to Forrest. He’d taken a few steps away, giving us space, and was looking over at the pasture where a few kids were tending to the cows.
“Is it…is it actually better out there?” she asked. “Is he safe? Good to you?”
“He’s good to me,” I nodded. “And…Leah. It wasn’t us. Not being able to get pregnant…it was always him.”
Leah blinked like she didn’t understand…then her eyes darted down to my stomach and she gasped. “Willa! You’re pregnant?”
I nodded. “So if you want that, it’s still available. The world is out there, just…waiting.” I looked back at Forrest. “We brought a couple cheap cell phones from the corner store if you want to make a call. Or…you can always come over to Holt Creek and we could get you out, help you start a life.”
Her face crumpled.
Just for a second—long enough for me to see everything underneath it, all the years of hoping and blaming herself and being blamed—but then she got it back under control. We were all good at that, because our weakness had been used as a weapon for so long.
“I have a sister in Austin,” she said, voice soft. “I haven’t talked to her in ten years.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my own phone, the one we’d bought when I started working at the diner. I pulled up the browser and then looked up at Leah.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
“Enid Roxborough?”
I typed it in with the place, and immediately found a picture. “Is this her?” I asked, turning it to Leah.
She covered her mouth with her hands, nodding quickly. “Yes.”
I pulled out one of the prepaid phones next, typed the number for Enid’s work into the contact list, then handed it to Leah.
“Take your time,” I said. “It’s fully charged. And really…you can come with us—”
“I need to stay for now,” she said. “For the kids. For the women. I’ve been talking to Sarah, and she said…she’s been telling me all about how Mr. Daley wasn’t like this before, how he used to beat her—” She paused. “I want to be there for them.”
I watched her for a moment, then I reached out and took her hands in mine. “Leah,” I said, “that’s remarkable.”
She shook her head. “It’s just what needs doing.
” Then she looked at the phone I’d handed her.
“I’ll call my sister. Maybe she can help from the outside.
Connect us with resources.” She paused. “I think most of the women want to stay, but not…not the way we were before. With us in charge now. And they want to be able to send the kids to school, to the doctor—”
“We can make all of that happen, and I’ll be here for you,” I said. “I promise.”
She nodded, squeezing my hands once before letting go.
We found three more women before we left.
One who took a phone and slipped it straight into her apron pocket without a word, eyes down, like she was afraid to be seen wanting it.
One who told us to leave and meant it—not angry exactly, just done, her whole body closed off in a way I recognized and didn't push against. And one sitting alone in the back room of the main house with two small children climbing on her.
I sat with her for a few minutes.
Didn't say much. Just sat.
Sometimes that was all you could offer.
Wyatt and Haven had done what they came to do—the boy's ankle turned out to be a stress fracture left to heal wrong, and they'd assessed three other children while they were at it. Nothing life threatening. Nothing that couldn't be addressed now that someone was paying attention.
We left our numbers with everyone who would take them.
On the way out, I stopped at the gate and looked back.
The homestead sat quiet in the late afternoon light. Ruth was still in the garden. Smoke spiraled up from the chimney, and children moved between the buildings, playing together, oblivious.
It looked exactly the same as it always had.
But the gate was open.
I turned around and got in the truck.
“Okay?” Forrest asked.
I thought about Leah with the phone pressed to her chest. Sarah's rolling pin. The woman in the back room. The children.
"Not yet," I said. "But I will be."
He nodded.
Stetson pulled out onto the road and the cedar closed behind us and I faced forward and didn't look back.