"You really are something, Willa. And you just don't know how much it's needed out here. There are a lot of men without women out here and they don't eat right or grow gardens, this will certainly help."
"I'm glad." Willa smiled.
When Clay saw the doc loading his buggy with vegetables, he asked about it.
"Willa gave them to me, to take to a patient, old Howard Mills. He's got the scurvy bad and has no vegetables at all. His wife died a few years ago, since then him and his boy have been living on meat as the main and sometimes only meal. "
"I'm glad we could help then." Clay smiled at him.
The doc looked at him and beamed, "She's quite a lady."
"Yes, she is!" Clay murmured.
"She dug that garden by herself?" the Doc asked a bit shocked.
"Yes, she says she loves working in the garden, her and her mother used to have a big garden all the time. I can tell you one thing; we're eating a lot better now."
"I can see that. Well, better be on my way. If you need me holler." The doc waved.
Chapter Eleven
That night Willa put Elan in his cradle and gathered the few things that were hers and went to the shed to get the horse she ridden here on. Charlie and Clay sounded fast asleep.
Tears streamed down her face, but she quickly wiped them away.
She went to the gravesite of her father and the tears fell down her cheeks now freely. "I must go father, I do not want to, but I love them both too much to bring harm to them. I will miss you, and think of you often, my father. I hope someday I can come back and visit you."
The moon shone like a beacon in the night. She felt a tear fall down her cheek as she looked back at the cabin.
"It's best we leave, sweet Elan." She told him as she adjusted the cradle on her back. "I know you will miss them as much as I."
"Going somewhere?" A voice asked from the darkness.
Willa jumped.
She whirled around as she didn't recognize the voice.
"Who is there?" she shrieked with fright and glanced at Elan in the corner of the shed where she'd put him while she cinched the saddle onto the horse.
"Forgotten me already?" Ed asked stepping out of the darkness now and leering at her.
"What are you doing here, this time of night?" she asked, a sense of fear taking hold of her.
"I came to see you. First time I've caught you alone in days."
She stared with a newborn kind of fear now. "You have been watching me."
"Sure, I did. How else could I get you alone?" Ed sneered.
"What do want of me?" she backed away quickly.
"You know what I want. You knew that day I came over what I wanted. I saw it in your eyes."
He came closer now. So close she could smell the stench of the man.
"I am leaving now; I will not cause any trouble here." She told him.
"Well now, leaving, are you? I can't let you do that until I've had a taste of you myself. Old Clay ain't the only one that's got an itch."