Chapter 15 #2
“You’re a madman!” Andrew cried at Kyle, but he hugged him all the same.
“Do you think we’re safe now?” Mrs. Odenkirk asked.
Grace nodded, her head a whirl. “Yes?—”
Just then a group of riders came racing up the track, looking determined to shoot something. Grace threw herself flat in the cart and was reaching for Mrs. Odenkirk to pull her down too, when she heard?—
“It’s okay!”
Her head popped up, and she recognized Kevin among the group of new arrivals.
“Kevin!” Hunter cried. “You missed it.”
“Clearly,” Kevin said. “What blew up?”
“Kyle found dynamite,” Hunter said.
“Oh, well, that explains it.” He rolled his eyes. “So, is this everyone?”
The other riders had dismounted now, and there were joyful cries as fathers and husbands and sons were reunited with their wives, daughters, and sisters. Grace felt tears run down her cheeks as Trudy’s father wrapped his arms around her, sobbing into his daughter’s hair.
She turned then, and Hunter was there, his arms waiting for her, and she melted into them, crying quietly for a long while before she lifted her head at last to him. Hunter smiled down at her and gently wiped her tears away.
“Hunter,” Grace said, looking up at him. “Let’s go home.”
He smiled. “That is the best idea I’ve heard in a long, long time,” he said, and then he kissed her for the first time.
Grace wrapped her arms around him and lost herself in the gentle, tender touch of his lips, the careful caress of his fingers through her hair and down her back. It wasn’t until she needed breath that he finally drew back and rested his forehead against hers. “Ready to leave?”
She grinned through renewed tears. “Yes, please.”
The ride home was slow, what with the cart full of injured people. When they finally arrived, Julie came hurrying out to offer her help, and multiple other townspeople also showed up with food, blankets, and clean clothes.
“I was wrong,” Mr. Pike said as he held his twin boys close.
“It’s not your fault that this happened.
It’s ours. We never bothered to form a town and build much more than our farms. We should have.
We should have thought about the future and done more to make sure that we and our families would be safe. ”
“It’s not all on you,” Andrew said kindly. “We should have tried harder to catch these miscreants.”
“I think you’ve done plenty,” Mr. Emmerson said. He had come along to help despite not having anyone kidnapped from his family. “You saved my family and now all these folks. You’re all heroes.”
“What’s he doing here?” someone asked.
Grace turned and found that Herman had just emerged from Julie’s surgery. His shoulder was bandaged, and Anita was helping him walk. He looked very pale.
“Herman helped us to escape,” Grace said, quickly standing and going to his defense.
“Oh sure, after he helped those monsters keep us prisoners!” one of the other young men yelled.
The waiting room erupted in cries, but Hunter held up his hands.
“Hold on now!” he said. “We all came out here because we believe in second chances. Isn’t that right? So how can we say that we believe in that and then condemn a man without giving him the same opportunity?”
“Herman will be spending some time in the sheriff’s office,” Andrew said. “And once Robert, Michael, and I have spoken to him, we’ll decide what is to be done with him. After all, he helped with the escape by fetching the key to the cages and even got shot in the process.”
Herman smiled weakly. “All I want to do is learn to bake. Grace is amazing. She gave me one lesson, and suddenly I made bread you could actually eat.” He beamed like a little boy.
“How much pain medicine has he had?” Grace asked, stepping up close to Anita.
“A lot,” Anita said. “He needs to go and lie down. But I also think he may be slightly touched in the head already. No matter. He seems like a dear soul who was taken advantage of by the bandits.”
Andrew and Michael took Herman to the sheriff’s office and let him lie down in the cells.
After that, and once Grace had been checked and cleared as being perfectly healthy if a little sunburned, she and Hunter were allowed to go home.
They walked slowly up the street in no particular hurry. Around them, the world was beginning to lighten as dawn crept ever closer. The birds began to sing, the sound full of hope.
“We dealt El Aguila a mighty blow today,” Hunter said, smiling. “I still can’t believe we did it.”
“How did you find me?” Grace asked, leaning closer to him and smiling when he kissed the top of her head. “I was afraid that I would have to walk all the way to the town to find you and show you where the camp was.”
“Mr. Pike pointed us in the right direction,” Hunter said.
“Oh, the poor man, losing his wife like that,” Grace said, shaking her head sadly.
Hunter put an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I think he’ll be all right eventually. He still has his boys.”
“True, but if I lost you, I don’t think anything could console me,” Grace said honestly. “You’ve grown on me.”
“I have?” Hunter asked, grinning.
“Like a fungus,” she teased, and he laughed and kissed her lightly.
They reached their house and opened the door. Grace took Hunter by the hand and led him up the stairs.
And then she kissed him in the hallway. It was a kiss filled with all the longing, fear, hope, and passion that Grace had inside her.
She couldn’t think of anywhere she would rather be than right there with her husband, the love of her life, and her rescuer.
What came next, she wasn’t sure, but it didn’t seem important.
What was important was that she loved Hunter more than anything, and he clearly loved her.
Whatever came their way, they would tackle it together. Always.