Outlaw Hunter by Carol Arens

Author:Carol Arens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-01-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

“I don’t see any help for it but to break the glass,” Melody said, standing before her father’s bedroom window.

“We’ve pried and budged it every which way,” Jillie said, nodding her head in agreement. “That nail isn’t coming loose.”

Her father peered at them from behind the glass, his expression puzzled. It had been days since she had spoken to him through the crack in the window frame, and she feared that he was slipping into some sort of mental decline.

She only hoped that she would be able to explain to him that he must say that he was coming home of his own free will.

“Hyrum won’t like it.” Melody tapped the glass. US marshals were such sticklers for every letter of the law.

Her father tapped his thumb on the other side of the pane then crossed the meagerly furnished bedroom to sit on a cot that served as his bed.

Jillie hustled to the corner of the yard, kicked at this and that, and then hurried back with a satisfied smile on her face.

“Won’t you look at this pretty rock I found?” Jillie turned the dirt-encrusted stone in her hand. “It will be just the piece for my collection.”

“I didn’t know you had a rock coll—”

Jillie hurled the rock. The window shattered.

“Oh, dear!” Jillie dusted her hands on her skirt. “I don’t know my own clumsiness.”

“Accidents happen.” Melody shrugged, then climbed carefully through the window. “I’ll meet you out front.”

She watched until the blue plaid flare of Jillie’s skirt rounded the corner of the house.

Melody spun about and approached her father.

Standing before him, she cupped his hands in hers.

“Are you ready to come home now, Papa?”

Her father glanced about the dull, dirty bedroom.

“It’ll cause trouble, Mellie. I ought to stay here.”

“I have a room ready for you. It’s clean, and there’s a real feather bed.” She glanced at the worn rag that served as his blanket. The current Mrs. Dawson would answer for this.

“I don’t dare.”

It nearly broke her heart to see the apprehension in his eyes. How had Dixie turned this once-strong person into a man who didn’t dare?

“Please, Daddy, come home. I need you.”

She drew her father up. To her relief, he didn’t resist.

“As long as you tell people you have moved out of your own free will, she can’t hurt you.”

“It’s not me I care about, Mellie. I made a choice, a wrong one, and now it’s mine to live with. But Dixie is a greedy woman. She has her heart set on your house. When you came home, her lawyer was only a month away from taking it from you. It’s you and the children I worry about.”

“Papa, the children and I have lived with far worse people than your wife.” She drew him a step closer to the door. “Trust me, I can handle her. All you need to do is say you have come home of your own free will.”

“All right, Mellie.” He let her lead him into the hallway.

Glancing about while

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