To Love an Outlaw (Into the West #1) (A Wattpad Reading List Choice)

Chapter 4

                

 Three days after the incident Callie still had not returned to the saddle. Or, rather, Noah had not allowed her to get back on top of Second Chance. The first two days she hadn’t argued with him; her body screamed from its abuse. Frankly, it reminded her of the days when Obadiah skulked the earth, and Callie hated the memories these injuries evoked.

 So, she dutifully followed her youthful ranch hand around the homestead, hobbling about like an old woman and refusing to remain in bed. She knew it drove Noah batty; he hated to see her unwell, but Callie rejected his suggestion to rest inside. There was time enough to lie around when she was dead.

  But now it was the fourth day, and Callie felt well enough she began entertaining the idea of resuming their lessons. Her cuts and lesions had scabbed over; drawing tight over legs and arms. The many bruises peppering her body no longer resembled the painful quilt of her mistakes.

But still Noah resisted with argument after argument why they couldn’t begin anew. He continually glanced down the drive toward the main road, almost as if he were waiting for something; or someone. At last Callie had enough.

 Following him into the barn, where the boy began mucking Second Chance’s stall while the horse meandered about within the attached corral, Callie snapped her displeasure at his stalwart back.

  “I’m feeling fine, Noah! Let’s just get back to where we left off! For God’s sake, I’m the boss around here! You do what I say!”

  Her aggravated tone struck a nerve at last. The youth swung about, leaning the pitchfork negligently against the stall and facing her, sweat dripping from his face as his young eyes snapped to hers in the filtered light.

  “You may be my boss, Miz Callie, but you’re also my friend! My best friend! And I’m not about to let you get up on ole Chance until you’re completely recovered. You’re the only person I have left in this world that I care a hill of beans about, and I’m not going to lose you, too. So don’t ask me again. We’ll get back to lessons when I say we can and no earlier.”

  The two adversaries remained squared off, chests heaving as they glared into each other’s faces. The heat from the outside, coupled with the intensity of their emotions, flattened clothing to their bodies and hair to their heads moistly. Neither budged in this battle of wills, though the youth’s impassioned words struck a chord within Callie. At last she growled deep in her throat and flounced toward the entrance to the barn in dismay.

  “You don’t fight fair, Noah Lawson,” Callie commented lowly, propping a shoulder against the barn door frame and staring unseeingly at the beautiful horse moseying about its enclosure.

Shuffling noises from behind alerted Callie to her ranch hand’s hesitant approach. His footsteps halted a short distance behind her.

  “I don’t intend to, Miz Callie. You could’ve been killed the other day; or crippled for life. And it woulda been my fault. I don’t want that type of mistake on my conscience. Can’t you see that?”

 His anguished tone brought the widow about quickly, taking in Noah’s miserable appearance and realizing that, although she leaned on him as she would an equal, he was still just a youth, with the fears and anxieties inherent to one. Reaching up cautiously, Callie cupped his face with one hand gently.

  “I’m sorry, Noah, for scaring you. That was never my intention. You know how much I care for you; you know I’d do anything for you. But I think you also realize how important this venture is to me. For us. So can’t we come to an agreement somehow?”