The next morning, Ginny's eyelids fluttered open to stare at her bedroom's shadowed ceiling. Thoughts of yesterday floated around her mind. Both Braeden and Kate had assured her that the community would replace her corn and hay as soon as word spread that she was in need.
Perhaps when she married Braeden next month, things would calm and her life would go back to normal.
The faint crunch of footsteps from the backyard ended Ginny's musings. She tensed, pushed aside her covers and peered out the window. The full moon illuminated the yard, bathing it with it's silvery glow.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Nothing- until she heard someone walking in her yard, prowling around her house.
Ginny's body froze in fear. Bill, I have to go get Bill, she thought.
She got up from her bed and shivered when her bare feet touched the icy floor. She slipped into her housecoat and crept to her brothers room. As she pushed open the door, she suddenly remembered. Bill's bed was empty.
"Oh Bill, I forgot you're not here." her lips quivered and her eyes misted with tears. Ginny stumbled back up the narrow hall. She had to protect the ranch now.
But could she? Apparently Bill hadn't thought so, otherwise he wouldn't have sent for Harry Potter. Ginny backed into her room and grabbed the gun by her bed. She would and could protect her ranch.
Ginny silently tiptoed down the hall to the back door. She grasped the cool handle. Should she go wake Kate?
No, she decided, because that would take too long, and whoever was out there might get away before she got a good shot at him.
Fearfully, she eased open the door and peered into the yard. A man, tall and lean, held a lantern and stood beside the ashes of what once was her barn. He looked toward the giant willow tree behind the house, then glanced at the tree's twin in the back of the big barn.
Ginny stepped out the doorway. The dry grass pricked between her toes as she snuck across the yard. Her lips quivering, she stopped at the big pine tree, propped the rifles barrel against it's trunk, and pulled back the gun's hammer.
"All right, Mister, hold it right there!" she ordered.
Jumping, the man looked around.
"Now raise your hands nice and easy," she instructed.
"Ginny, is that you?" the man called.
Her heart slowed with relief as she lowered the gun. "Mr. Potter?"
"Yes it's me. I was just-"
Walking from behind the tree, Ginny approached the barn. "What on earth are you doing out here in the middle of the night?"
Her big coonhound, Bug, barked once from behind the barn, ran to Ginny's side, and licked her fingers.
"I couldn't sleep and came out to see if I could spot anything else in this here heap that might help figure out who set the fire." Harry raised the lantern, illuminating the few feet between them, and he saw Ginny, standing there in her night clothes. A flicker of something wicked flashed in his eyes and she stumbled out of reach of the lantern's light. Heat rushed to her cheeks.
"Excuse me, Ma'am," he said like a shy schoolboy. "I just ain't never seen a lady in her night clothes before."
Ginny placed an unsteady hand against her chest as if to cover her already covered bosom. Bill would have skinned her alive if she had stepped out of the house like this when he was alive.
"I don't usually go outside dressed like this Mr. Potter," she said, "but I was so scared I didn't think."
"Please forgive me, Ma'am. What must you think of me acting like a plumb fool." his voice was almost too kind, too thoughtful.
She turned toward the house after a firm "goodnight," and hurried into the safety of her home. Perhaps she should have listened to Braeden's silent warning about letting Harry stay in the barn.
After stealing back to her room, she leaned the rifle back against the wall and peered out her window. Harry was walking at a slow pace back to the bar, the lantern casting shadows across the yard.
Suddenly a warm hand gripped her shoulder. Ginny clamped her hand to her mouth to stifle a scream.
"It's only me, child," Kate said. "What are you doing? You woke me up."
Ginny placed a calming hand over her chest and took a deep breath. "You scared me. I was just.. I was… oh Kate! I think I made a mistake letting that Mr. Potter stay here."
Ginny expected a reassuring hug and encouraging words, but all she got was a peck on the cheek and heavy silence. "Now don't you fret, child," Kate finally said. "He'll be up and gone before you know it."
Ginny pulled away slightly. She looked into Kate's eyes. "You don't think I should have let him stay, do you?"
"Now I didn't say that. Seeing as I was the one who told you to be nice to him, it doesn't seem right for me to say you've done wrong by letting him stay here."
"But he isn't… he's so…" Ginny didn't know quite how to express her feelings.
"I know, child. And there's another thing I just don't understand."
"What?"
"Well, I remember little Harry Potter when your brother and his ma and pa were coming from Tennessee twenty years ago, after the war."
After Ginny's parents died in an accident andher brother, 19 years her senior, raised her. He hired on Kate as Ginny's nanny, and Kate moved out with Bill and lived with them ever since. Kate became Ginny's Momma. Ginny sometimes wondered why Kate had never married. She now suspected that the reason was laced with pain.
"That there Harry Potter was the spitting' image of his pa. He wasn't but eight years old, but everybody said he's grow up to look just like Mr. James Potter."
"Well, does he look like him?"
"That's the problem, Gin. He doesn't look like any Potter I every saw."
"Oh."
"But his horse has Mr. Potter's brand."
"You looked at it?"
Kate nodded. "After supper yesterday. I sneaked out and had a look-see while he was bathing in the creek."
"But why was he standing by the barn's ashes, looking around like… like"
"Shh, child, there he goes."
Ginny observed Harry as he left the barn with a shovel in one hand and a lantern in the other, He stopped to peer over his shoulder as if the demons of hell were watching him.
"What's he up to?"
"I don't know, child, But I aim to find out." Kate turned for the door.
"No… you can't… he might…he… he looked at me just horrible when I went out there. I.."
Kate slowly widened her eyes. "Has that man tried to get… to get ugly with you?"
Ginny said nothing, but Kate's incredulous expression said she heard all she needed to hear. "I'll just fix him where he can't do that no more."
"Oh, I wish Bill were here, or Braeden, or-"
"That man's tryin' to get ugly with my child. I don't care whose son he is. Make him think again about how he acts."
"Momma Kate, you can't!" Ginny hissed, rushing after her. "He's stronger and… and…" She started to say "bigger than you," but stopped herself. Harry might be taller than Kate, but he sure didn't outweigh her.
Kate entered the hall, rifle in hand. "I'm gonna see what he's up to. Then I'm gonna tell him to get of this here property."
"What are you going to do if he don't leave?"
Bug's low warning growl sent a spiral of chills down Ginny's back. A shot suddenly echoed in the woods.
Another shot exploded and Bug's growls turned into wild and furious barking.
Running into her bedroom, Ginny grabbed her rifle then raced back into the kitchen with Kate.
"Help," a deep voice moaned, but a new shot silenced it. Then a shadowed figure collapsed in front of the window.
Ginny blinked against the tears flooding her eyes. Was Harry the gunman or the victim? Were she and Kate next?
But nothing happened. A long eerie silence settled across the ranch. The only noise was the sound of Kate's short, rasping breaths.
Nothing, neither she, nor Kate moved. And neither did anything outside.
Kate dared to open the door an inch or so. "I hear the man. He's running."
"Bug," Ginny whispered.
"We gotta see about the man who's been shot." Kate said urgently, then opened the door.
"What if their was more than one. What if they're still out there?"
"I imagine they're gone. "They've probably done what they came to do. Go get me a lamp, child."
Kate and Ginny silently made their way to the body that lay still on the ground.
"It's Mr. Potter," Kate said, "And he's dead.
As she started at the lifeless body, Ginny's body went numb. Two perfectly round bullet holes oozed blood into Harry's tan shirt just under his left shoulder.
"What are we gonna do?"
"We gotta go get Mr. Braeden."
"I'll go."
"No, we'll go. I ain't letting you go alone. That man might be watching, and he might have friends."