Untethered by Marcia Lynn McClure Read Free Book Online

fact that all the other men in Pike’s Creek silently envied Zeke’s having scooped up Ada for his own.
    Furthermore, the moment Heathro Thibodaux moved to Pike’s Creek—well, Cricket Cranford was more than merely glad that her father had snatched up Ada Hatley and carried her over their threshold. Cricket was forever thankful in fact that her father had married Ada before Heathro Thibodaux had come to town. No doubt Ada would’ve been as smitten by Heathro as every other woman was, had she not already been in love with Zeke. Furthermore, Ada was beautiful—a real dark-haired, blue-eyed beauty! Cricket figured that of any woman in town, Ada would’ve had the best chance of catching Heathro’s eye. Ada might just have managed to lasso Heathro for her own if she hadn’t already been married to Cricket’s father.
    Cricket frowned. Thoughts of Heathro Thibodaux being snatched up by any woman always made her feel a bit sick to her stomach. Oh, certainly she knew the day would come when he would marry someone. In truth, it was probably a miracle that he hadn’t been roped in by some woman’s feminine wiles already. But until the day came that the handsome ex-Texas Ranger was legally wed to another woman, Cricket was determined to dream of being the one to lasso him and tether him to her porch.
    “Heathro Thibodaux,” Cricket whispered aloud. She liked the way Heathro’s name felt on her tongue—smooth and sweet like a delicious secret. As she’d done every night for months before drifting off to sleep, Cricket let her thoughts linger on the handsome newcomer to Pike’s Creek.
    He was, without question, the most handsome man Cricket had ever seen—or even imagined, for that matter. In fact, the first time Vilma had seen Heathro, she’d called him a “tall drink of water” and said staring at him was more refreshing than swimming naked on a summer Sunday afternoon. Considering how stiff and perfect Vilma was, her scandalous description of Heathro Thibodaux was even more significant.
    As Cricket lay in the soft comfort of her bed, continuing to let her mind nest on thoughts of how truly wonderfully attractive Texas Ranger Thibodaux was, she giggled, thinking that looking at him was more refreshing than swimming naked on a summer Sunday afternoon. He was a tall drink of water—far taller than most of the other men in town—and his shoulders were as broad as the state of Texas itself. Sky-blue eyes, bronze skin, square jaw, and dark hair—and that smile! In truth, Cricket had only seen Heathro Thibodaux smile three or four times, but each incidence was something she’d never forget. His smile was bright and white, and the gold tooth he owned on the upper-right incisor of his smile only embellished the richness of it.
    That one tooth. Cricket’s smile faded as she thought of it. Oh, no doubt the flash only added to the splendor of his smile. Yet it also served as a reminder to anyone who had ever read or heard of what had happened in Texas one year before. No doubt it was a powerful remembrance to Heathro Thibodaux himself—a visual indication of true barbarity, pain, and loss.
    In that moment, Cricket wondered—when Heathro looked in the mirror each morning and saw that tooth, did he think of eight dead girls buried in the bottom of a bleak and barren canyon? Did he think of the eight dead girls that he, for no fault of his own, had been unable to save? After all, the outlaws who had cracked Ranger Thibodaux’s tooth, beat him nearly to fatality, shot him, and left him for dead were the same outlaws who had murdered the eight girls he’d been trying to save. Cricket was certain the poor man never once saw that tooth in his head without thinking of those girls. It was no wonder he’d quit rangering.
    Though Cricket had spent many a night thinking of Heathro Thibodaux, of the horror of what he’d been through, this was the first night she’d ever wondered about his tooth—the tooth she found so perfectly