Cowboy, Stay with Me

Chapter Eighteen: What the Heart Wants

Days passed and Lucy did her best to get back to her normal routine, trying to forget about everything that had happened.

Easier said than done.

She could hold it together for the most part in the daytime, but at night she suffered terrible nightmares about what had happened. Sometimes it was just vague images of hooded villains chasing her through a dark barn. Sometimes it was a bit more graphic.

She would wake up, gasping for air and reaching out into the darkness for...

Reaching for Sean, of course.

But her bed was empty and she would flop back into her tangled sheets, still shaken up and unable to get back to sleep. She would just lie there staring at the ceiling until the sun came up outside, then she would get up and go make breakfast before her clients started dropping off their precious little cargo, one by one.

Of course, the only thing anyone wanted to talk about was what had happened, so that made it pretty much impossible to forget about.

Lucy wasn't sure what was worse; fielding off incredibly inappropriate questions about her and Sean's love life or having to tell the older boys in her Daycare program that no, Farmer Fenton had not in fact been chopped clean in half with a machete.

Kids had a special knack for asking wildly inappropriate questions, but Lucy could clearly see where the tendency came from. She was just grateful that none of the kids were even remotely interested in her love life.

###

It was a couple days before the funeral, so Lucy wasn't expecting to come around the corner of the stables on one of her many errands to see an infamous black Dodge truck parked outside the house.

She took a moment to draw a few deep breaths, working to compose herself before she faced him.

She heard a clamor of voices coming from behind the house just then and she quickened her pace.

Coming around the house to the back yard, she was suddenly buffeted aside by Johnny, who was running away with tears streaming down his face.

Startled, she stared after him. "Johnny!" But he ran off before she could stop him.

Turning back, she saw Sean and Travis standing next to each other with big evil twin grins on their faces.

She sighed, hands on her hips, and approached them both. "Well, I'm glad to see such happy faces at my daycare." She said wryly. "Travis, sweetie, why don't you go pick some vegetables out of the greenhouse for lunch; just a couple of everything, whatever's ripe. There's a good lad."

Travis wrinkled his nose at her in disdain at the idea of chores. He glanced up at Sean as if for reinforcement.

Sean looked down at him and cocked an eyebrow. "Better do as Miss Lucy says."

Travis sighed heavily but then obediently scampered off.

Lucy shook her head, looking back at Sean.

He was slowly prowling towards her and she had to resist the urge to retreat from his predatory advance.

"I didn't think you'd be getting back into town 'til tomorrow at least." She said. She was stalling and they both knew it.

"I dropped Dwight Redfield off in Tulsa, made sure he'd stay incarcerated for the rest of his natural life, then came straight back."

"O-oh?" She faltered.