Chapter 39
I’m quiet as I let myself inside, passing Dolly’s bedroom and allowing myself a glance down the hall toward Aiden’s room in the back before heading up the stairs. My intention not to wake either of them, though perhaps Aiden more so.
I’d been so set on finding him, knowing he faced far more of a risk dealing with Tom than I did dealing with a dead body. Though he had insisted on being the one to do so, it hadn’t sat right, giving him another mess to clean up on my account. Bringing more complications to his door…
How many more times will he tolerate it before he decides he’s had enough? Cuts his losses and moves on as he’d been planning to do with Maddock? If I’d been able to find him, would he have already told me as much?
When I reach the bedroom at the top of the stairs, I close the door behind me before grabbing the bedroll at the foot of the bed and a few blankets, putting both over my shoulder before walking to the window and pushing it up.
It squeaks loudly, and I pause for a moment, wishing I’d remembered to put some oil on it earlier today as I listen for the sound of stirring downstairs.
Grateful that I hear none, I finally ease myself out onto the window ledge, turn to grab the lip of the roof, and pull myself up, crawling along the gentle pitch to reach the flat expanse at the top.
There’s not a ton of room up here, but I have no trouble unfurling my bedroll and the blankets before stretching myself out and staring at the clear sky.
Looking to the stars for answers that they don’t have.
What if he tells me in the morning that he’s done? Worse, what if he leaves without even bothering to let me know? What if—
I hear the distinctive sound of the window squeaking again as it’s pushed farther up, the creak of the ledge as someone puts weight on it, a low grunt of exertion, and then… “Jesus Christ.”
I sit up, staring at the edge of the roof, and I’m still not sure I trust my eyes when I see Aiden’s hat appear, shortly followed by the rest of him as he scrambles more than climbs to the top.
“You need a hand?” I ask him, biting the inside of my cheek when he glances over his shoulder toward the ground below. “I could—”
“No,” he says, holding up a hand to stop me before smacking it back down on the roof. “You try to help and I’m liable to end up going over.”
“I’d go after you,” I offer. “If that’s any comfort.”
He takes his eyes briefly off the shingles to look at me. “Sort of is, I suppose.” He huffs. “I’ll be there. Just give me a minute.”
Of course I do. Several, in fact, though he finally reaches me after feeling the need to crawl the rest of the journey on all fours, breathing fast and shaking a little as he peers back in the direction he came from.
“Can’t honestly tell me…” he says, studying the flat square of roof we’re sharing and scooting a bit closer to me. “You actually prefer this to a bed?”
I shrug. “Better view.”
“Yeah.” His eyes flick toward the stars before he slowly surveys the ever-evolving Texas landscape rolling out all around us, plains giving way to pockets of trees, to rock formations and to a well-known canyon in the distance. “Suppose it is.”
He tucks his knees up near his chest before cautiously putting his hands behind him, bracing himself as he leans back in what must be an attempt at relaxation.
“You don’t have to stay,” I offer, trying not to laugh at his expense. “I can come down.”
“No,” he says quickly. “No, I’m not sure I want to think about how we get back down. Not yet. Getting down at Dolly’s place was bad enough.”
“All right,” I say, leaning back in an imitation of his own posture, except I leave my legs sprawled out in front of me. After another moment, he notices and does the same.
“Did you…” I start to ask, worried about what could have possibly brought him up here. “Did everything go as planned?”
He nods, seeming to grow a bit more at ease now that he can look out instead of down. “Left him rolled up a good way out there. Suspect it’ll take him a bit to get free but he should be able to if he wants it bad enough. Hopefully will give him plenty of time to do some thinking.”
“And if he thinks to come back?” I ask.
Aiden sighs. “Then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. He said he’s got other friends. Should stay here a few more days in case he really does. Don’t want Dolly dealing with it on her own.”
If he were looking at me, he would see the affection on my face, but since he isn’t, I’m able to cover slightly better when I tell him, “Thank you.”
Now, he does glance my way. “Nothing to thank me for. It was my call not to kill him.”
“But I was the one who got myself involved. Got you involved and…” I take a deep breath.
“And I am sorry for it. You told me that you wouldn’t kill anyone for me, and I want you to know it wasn’t my intention to try to force your hand.
I would’ve taken care of it. It’s only…I couldn’t just let them go. And if that changes things for you—”
“It doesn’t,” Aiden replies, and I feel my pulse skip then full-on race once he corrects, “Well, it does, but not in that way…I should have explained before. I haven’t been fair to you, asking you not to lie to me and then not giving you the same courtesy.”
“You’ve lied?” I ask. “You really do play poker then?”
“No,” he says, laughing slightly as I hoped he would, breaking some of the increasing tension in the air. “We should definitely leave the gambling to you.”
We. It’s the third time he’s said we since he climbed up here, and I’m beginning to hope it’s intentional.
“I’ve omitted things,” he continues, peering briefly over the roof again before deciding better of it. “About my past. About who I was before, and there’s things you ought to know if we’re really going to be partners.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I remind him. “If you don’t want to.”
“I do. Want to,” he replies, tone firm. “I think maybe it would help if I did.”
“All right.” I stay very still on the off chance that one wrong move might spook him into either falling or changing his mind. “I’d like to hear it then.”
“I was a gunslinger,” he says after a few more moments pass, his eyes back out on the midnight horizon. “And I was…good. Very good. Enough that I made the newspaper headlines more than once.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” I tell him, hoping he doesn’t mind me saying it. “You have a steady hand. And a quick draw.”
“Not like I did,” he says with a slight smile. “I’m not sure I’m the fastest out there anymore. Maybe not even the fastest on this roof.”
I grin, undeniably pleased he’d noticed. “I’ve had a lot of time on my hands.”
“So have I,” he agrees, his expression shifting into a frown before he picks up his story again.
“I ran away from the orphanage when I was thirteen and I suppose, when you’re that young and that scared, you tend to latch on to whatever it is that lets you survive.
For me, that was shootin’ well. Shows, marksmanship contests…
anything that would give me enough to get by.
Wasn’t until I was older that my targets started becoming people. ”
“How much older were you?” I ask, wondering how similar our stories are but also wondering when he’ll decide I’m prying too far. “The first time you killed someone?”
“Sixteen,” he says after a long pause. “You?”
“Fourteen,” I admit, making Aiden one of two people in this world that I’ve told.
Maybe the only one left. “He was… My father died before I could even walk, and my mother worked hard to make up for it. I…I wish I could say I always made things easier on her.” I clear my throat, glancing at Aiden to see if this will make his opinion of me even worse than it was before.
“When I was eleven, she started thinking I needed someone to look up to, and when a wealthy gentleman took an interest in her, she really believed our prayers had been answered. That he would make our lives easier. But he didn’t.
He…he started to hit her right after they were married.
Then one day, I made it so he couldn’t anymore. ”
Beside me, I see Aiden hang his head before he nods. “Then you did right.”
As soon as he says the words, it’s as if a burden has been lifted from my shoulders, one I hadn’t even realized I was still carrying. My understanding for why he could be, perhaps, the only one to absolve it coming to me a moment later when he keeps going.
“Mine was…a thief. Someone my father had caught stealing on the farm and let go. I was supposed to be helping fill in, but I lost track of time playin’ with my friends.
I’d just come back when the man showed up, and he…
” Aiden’s eyes find mine in the dark as I think back to the first time he’d followed me into the alley, to how angry he’d seemed when he’d called me a thief.
“Your parents?” I venture. “He took them?”
“When I was nine,” Aiden mutters. “Spent years thinking I might never find him. But I did.”
I hesitate only for a second before shifting closer, my shoulder lightly brushing against his as I tell him that I’m sorry, and I feel him brush mine back when he repeats the words a moment later. Both of us holding each other up for a while in the dark.
“My parents were good people,” he says when he eventually starts speaking again, his voice even lower than usual.
“Honest, hard-working. They didn’t deserve…
I tried to run for help, but I wasn’t a particularly good rider at the time.
Law eventually found me. Sent me off to an orphanage without letting me go home.
Probably wouldn’t have wanted to with everything already sold or gone, but…
after a while, I started thinking that if I killed the man who did it… maybe I’d get something back.”
“But you didn’t.”