Wolf Creek Widow (Wolf Creek, Arkansas Book 4) by Penny Richards Page A

done.
    You have nothing to be sorry for.
    Ace’s words slipped softly into her mind. He was right, she thought. Deep inside, she knew she had nothing to regret, just as she knew she had done nothing wrong those times Elton had taken out his wrath on her. Any wrongdoing she’d been accused of, any unacceptable attitudes he may have claimed she’d had, were all products of his twisted thinking or his drunken fancies.
    More than that, and perhaps worse, his treatment of her had been his carefully calculated way of keeping her under his thumb. She suspected it had been a way of making him feel more important, more like a man.
    And she’d allowed it.
    She knew from sermons at church and studying her Bible how men were supposed to treat their wives, and she knew that a real man didn’t have to be cruel or make a woman feel small and insignificant to bolster his own manhood.
    Gabe Gentry didn’t do that with Rachel. Caleb treated Abby like a queen. Dan Mercer and Sheriff Garrett both seemed besotted with their new fiancées, and Ace...
    An image of him flashed through Meg’s mind and she sucked in a startled breath. His sheer size and the intensity that radiated from him made him look the part of an Elton; instead, he was the perfect example of force held carefully in check.
    There was softness in him, too.
    Strange, that contradiction. She’d seen it when he’d trailed his fingertips along her jaw. His touch had been gentle and his voice filled with concern as he’d coaxed her away from the edge of the dark void that called to her and back to the light. She realized with a bit of wonder that she hadn’t pulled away from him. She’d felt no suffocating alarm, no overwhelming desire to escape.
    No fear.
    The knowledge filled her with something that almost felt like a sense of accomplishment. A step in the right direction. She thought about that while crickets sang outside her window, and her mind whirled with questions and possibilities. Gently, the arms of Morpheus closed around her, and just as she felt herself sink into the welcome embrace of slumber, she heard again the claims her friends had made about Ace.
    He’s a good man.
    * * *
    A noisy commotion shattered Meg’s sleep and drove away a dream she didn’t remember. She bolted upright, her eyes wide and her hands clutching the sheet in fright. Her heart pounded in her chest and her mouth was dry with fear. The last time a ruckus had awakened her at night was when Elton and Joseph Jones had broken out of jail and come back to get the loot they’d hidden in the barn.
    The loud sound of squawking snapped her out of the memory. Something was after the chickens! Probably the fox Ace had mentioned. Knowing she couldn’t afford to lose any of her precious laying hens, Meg threw back the sheet and raced barefoot into the kitchen, where the double-barrel shotgun rested in a rack above the fireplace. The soft glow from a waning moon gave her enough light to see her way.
    Without taking time to light a lantern, she snatched the twelve-gauge down with shaking hands and ran to the shelf where she kept a box of shells. Accompanied by the strident squawking and flapping wings of scared chickens, she loaded the shotgun and flung the back door wide.
    The outbuildings stood in stark relief against the darkness of the woods. Uncertain what to do, she decided that her best course of action was to shoot into the air to see if the noise would deter the furry thief. Aiming the shotgun heavenward, she gave a scream loud enough to raise the dead and pulled the trigger.
    She heard an exclamation of surprise from the vicinity of the chicken coop. Almost simultaneously, she saw the silhouette of a man separate itself from the shadows and hit the ground while a small critter raced from beneath the coop and slipped under the fence.
    Meg’s heart thudded in her chest. Someone was out there! Had Joseph Jones managed to escape again and come back for some of the hidden loot? Determined to