Free Romancing the West by Beth Ciotta

from whupping your children.”
    His back went up. “I’ve never laid a hand on Zach or Zoe.”
    “But you threatened to. Zoe said--”
    He held up a hand. “Zoe either misunderstood or misspoke. I don’t threaten my children.”
    “Oh.” She winced. “Oh!” The branch snapped and she plummeted.
    Athens caught her in his arms. One-hundred-and-some, voluptuous, luscious pounds of the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. Stunned, breathless, she blinked up at him and his heart raced like a school-boy’s. His body pulsed with awareness. Good God.
    She licked her lips, fought for an even breath.
    “Thank you, Mr. Garrett.”
    “You’re welcome, Mrs. Dillingham.” He tried not to stare at her heaving breasts, and failed. “About your husband . . .”
    “I’m a widow.”
    He met her mesmerizing gaze and his mouth went dry. “I’m sorry.”
    “I’m not.”
    Good God.
     
     

CHAPTER 7
     
    Napa Valley, California
     
    What have you done, Father?   Why? Why?” Grief and smoke choked Emily as she tried to beat out the flames with a horse blanket.
    Walt McBride slumped against the outside of the barn, his eyes glazed as he stared at the pile of burning books. “Those stories filled her head with notions. Those notions lured her away. They’re evil, Emily, and I’ve committed them to hell.”
    “You’re the one who needs to be committed,” she sobbed as the blanket caught fire and her mother’s cherished adventure novels turned to ash. “I’ll never forgive you for this. Never!”
    “I should have taken her to Europe,” he said in sing-song voice.
    “Let it go,” she implored. “Let her go.”
    “Let her go. Let her . . .” Emily woke with a start. “Go.” She stared at the ceiling a full minute trying to calm her runaway heart. “Let her go,” she said softly and more to herself than her conjured father. She closed her mind to the bad dream, the unwanted memory, and took a calming breath.
    She squinted at the ceiling, not her bedroom ceiling, she realized. Achy and disoriented she surveyed her surroundings. Sunlight filtered in through a crack in the closed drapes. Worn drapes that had faded with the years like her good vision. She kicked off a thread-bare quilt and pushed herself up on the sofa. She’d fallen asleep in the sitting room.
    She rolled a kink out of her neck while tightening the sash of her mother’s green silk robe in a bid for modesty, even though she appeared to be alone. Blurry-eyed, she nabbed her spectacles from the end table and shoved them on. Her vision cleared but her mind was still fuzzy. Last she recalled she’d been playing chess with Mr. Pinkerton.
    No, wait. That had been directly after dinner. Mrs. Dunlap had been sitting in the rocker, knitting yet another afghan, and Emily had goaded the poet into a sixth board game. Anything to keep him alert as advised by Doctor Kellogg.
    An hour later, Mrs. Dunlap had taken herself off to bed and Mr. Pinkerton, proclaiming himself weary of chess, had perused the bookshelves. He’d noted a lack of poetry in her private collection and she confessed a preference for medieval romances and adventure novels. To which he’d commented, “I can see that.”
    “I know what you’re thinking.”
    “Do you?”
    “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Three Musketeers. Sword play and chivalry. Romanticized violence. You disapprove.”
    “You don’t have to defend your reading preferences to me, Miss McBride.”
    You’re right. I don’t, the new Emily proclaimed, albeit to herself. “Old habits die hard. I’m sorry if I sounded churlish.”
    “I assume your father frowned upon this collection.”
    “He didn’t know about this collection.” She didn’t elaborate, and thankfully, he let the subject drop. If only he’d stop fingering her shelves and books. His scrutiny made her nervous.
    After a few moments, he settled in an armchair with Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. Breathing easier, she