Chapter 20
There are three mouths to feed now. And it’s a burden, no mistake. But what did I survive all this time for if not for this? At least now I have them.
—Austin Wilder’s journal, August 10, 1862
S he stayed all night at his place, and he didn’t worry about his siblings seeing her car there. Didn’t even worry when she sat at his table, sipping coffee, wearing the same clothes she’d been in the night before.
It was a Sunday, and the library wasn’t open, which meant that he could have her all day if he wanted to.
“Care to ride along while I do my chores?” he asked.
“Sure.”
The ranch was a cocoon. He wasn’t foolish enough to think otherwise. There was an element of fantasy about it. Here there were no consequences to the two of them being openly together as there would be in town.
Together. Was that what this was?
He took her out in the truck and drove all over the property. Eventually, he met up with his brothers, and they tried to show her how to mend fence.
He smiled at her determination.
He couldn’t say for sure whether he simply hadn’t seen her accurately before, or whether she had changed in these last few days.
Maybe it was a little bit of both.
Maybe he could take a little bit of credit for her spark.
He pushed back at that.
Since when had he ever done anything positive for someone else?
Cassidy. Carson. Flynn. Are you really going to claim you did nothing for your own siblings?
That was weird. That internal voice insisting he take credit for something that anybody would do.
How could you ignore family who needed you?
Not even his dad had done that. He had tried. He had just been bad at it.
He hadn’t sent them out to fend for themselves. Hadn’t abandoned them outright the way their mother had. She had seen so little in each of them that she had just . . . given them up.
Millie had Carson’s hat on and was pulling out a stubborn nail that was embedded deeply into a fence post. She yanked so hard that when it gave, she stumbled backward and fell on her rear. He was moving before he could even think about it, lifting her to her feet. “Careful now,” he said, looking at her.
He understood now how an outlaw could find himself falling for a sweet little thing.
Could find himself wanting to rearrange himself, his life, to make space for this . . . breath of hope. It filled his lungs now.
What he wished he understood was how a woman like Millie could fall for an outlaw.
It didn’t matter that he had done a lot of good with his life. He was trying. He was alive. And hell, that was several steps better than most of his fucking family. But it didn’t change the way he felt inside, and that was the thing he didn’t know how to fix. How to handle.
“Why don’t we go drive some cattle?”
Her eyes brightened. “That sounds extremely Western.”
“Yeehaw.”
The day passed quickly, and once they were finished, they were all hot and dusty, Millie included.
Cassidy offered to loan her some clothes, which was how she ended up freshly showered, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, and making his heart do things he didn’t know it could do.
“We need to go down to the bar,” Cassidy said. “Celebrate Millie’s first day as a cowgirl.”
“I don’t know if I passed for a cowgirl,” Millie said, but she looked so pleased that she obviously wanted to.
“Sure you did,” he said, lifting her up and pulling her to him. “Let’s do this.”
He knew what he was suggesting. He was suggesting that they take this relationship and bring it down to town. He didn’t know where in the hell that was going to lead, didn’t think it was smart at all, frankly. In fact, he would say it was a god-awful idea.
But he wanted it.
With a ferocity that surprised him. He couldn’t remember ever wanting anything so much, and hell, there was just enough bad in his blood that he didn’t know how to resist the urge either.
“Okay,” she said. “I’d like that.”
His siblings drove in one vehicle, he took his truck, and Millie drove in her car. Once she took the car back to her place, he had her get into his truck, and he drove them both to the bar.
When they walked inside, it was already packed.
Live music was playing, and there was dancing and several rowdy games of darts. The lighting was just dim enough to disguise the grime in the place, and as always, there was that hint of danger hanging in the air, that little edge that made the distinction between this bar and the one down the road where the tourists would feel welcome.
Jessie Jane Hancock was down at the end of the bar, pointing at people and filling out sheets of paper. Flynn bristled. “Oh, good. The bad element’s here.”
“We are all the bad element,” said Carson.
“Hey, Wilders,” Jessie said. “I’m taking bets.”
“Gus,” Austin shouted. “You’re letting her be a bookie in here?”
“Like I’m in a position to play morality police,” said Gus.
“Who do you like for the fight?” Jessie asked.
“What fight?” Millie whispered.
“Librarian,” Jessie said. “You want to bet?”
“Oh.” Millie shook her head. “No, thank you.”
Austin put his arm around her and began to guide her confidently through the bar. Jessie Jane’s eyebrows winged up. “Interesting choice, Wilder.”
“Since when were you ever in a position to comment on someone else’s choices,” Flynn said as he walked by Jessie.
“A big fuck-you to you too, Flynn,” she said. “I can comment on whatever I want. Even a hot mess is allowed to have opinions.”
“Keep them to yourself,” Flynn said.
The rest of his siblings ignored their banter.
“I’m kind of surprised she recognized me,” said Millie.
“You don’t look that different in jeans,” said Austin.
“Well, it’s not like she frequents the library.”
Flynn snorted. “Unsurprising. I think she only learned to read so she could hustle people like this.”
“Careful,” Carson said. “It’s beginning to sound like you’re protesting too much, little brother.”
“Please,” he said. “There’re plenty of good-looking women around. I have no need to get involved with one bearing the name of Hancock. Or, with her attitude, quite frankly.”
“Right on,” Carson said.
Carson was distracted, on his phone.
“Just go to Perry’s place,” Austin said.
“See you,” said Carson, getting up and walking straight out of the bar.
“Are they... ? Is he... ?” Millie started.
“No,” said Cassidy. “It’s not like that.”
“When his wife died it . . . it changed him,” Flynn said. “And he was never an easygoing guy. He’s military. Through and through. He can say whatever he wants about joining up to try to change the perception of him, but it was more than that. He met her, and he could finally see a way to some kind of life. Finally he’d found someone who wasn’t all bound up in this outlaw thing. Someone who didn’t know us. He brought her back here, and he was determined they’d have a happily ever after. And then she died.”
“How?”
“It was a brain aneurysm. Fast and unexpected. Had no idea there were any issues.”
Millie looked down. “I’m so sorry for him.”
“We all are,” said Austin. He couldn’t say that he had ever felt close to his sister-in-law, but she had made Carson a certain kind of happy. Had given him the kind of life he had wanted. She had been what he needed.
“It just about broke him,” Cassidy said.
There were unshed tears in her eyes. And Austin knew exactly why. Because they knew just how bad it was. Because they understood just how dark it had been.
“You don’t think he could love anyone else?”
Austin shook his head slowly. “I don’t think it’s that. I think he won’t. I think he took her death as the ultimate sign that it was never supposed to be in the first place.”
He understood that despair deeply. The idea that somehow, by doing well, they were cheating fate. And it was going to come to collect eventually.
“Well, I’m glad he has Perry, anyway.”
“We all are.”
He wished they had Carson a little bit more sometimes. He was there, but Austin often felt he wasn’t all there.
Flynn went to the bar with Cassidy, and they ordered a round, brought it to the tables.
Millie looked askance at the beer.
“I’m driving,” Austin said.
She wrinkled her nose. “It’s not a concern about inebriation.”
“You don’t like beer?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Have you never had a beer?” Cassidy asked, her eyes round.
“No,” said Millie. “I don’t think it smells very good.”
“It doesn’t!” Cassidy laughed. “It smells like horse piss. We’re supposed to drink it anyway.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You could acquire a taste for it,” said Flynn.
Millie blinked. “But why would I?”
“Take a sip,” said Austin. “If you don’t like it, I’ll finish it.”
“ You are driving,” she said.
“Two beers aren’t going to put me under the table,” he said.
She leaned close to the bottle, and picked it up slowly, very gingerly lifting it to her lips and tilting it ever so slightly.
She blanched and set it down on the table.
Flynn laughed uproariously. “Hang tight, I’ll get you a soda.”
He went back to the bar and returned a minute later with a tall, clear glass with a straw in it.
“Thank you,” Millie said.
The live band, the same one that had been playing when they were there last, started playing “Friends in Low Places.” He remembered dancing with that redhead. He couldn’t even remember her name anymore.
He couldn’t remember why the hell he had danced with anybody but Millie.
“Care to dance?”
She looked up at him with an expression on her face he didn’t think he deserved. “I’d love to.”
He extended his hand and brought her out onto the dance floor. It was easy to make a spectacle with her here. Nobody here would judge her.
They might think it was funny, like Jessie Jane, but these people were like him.
Millie was the outsider. What would it be like if he stepped into one of the cute little boutiques in town with her? Or had coffee sitting across one of the pink tables at Scallywag’s? Yeah. That was the question.
But he chose not to think about it as they moved together on the dance floor. Because this felt right. It felt good. When they were finished dancing, he pulled her close. “Would it be all right if I spent the night tonight?”
He knew what he was asking.
He was asking to leave his truck in her driveway again.
He was pushing things.
After he had told her it couldn’t be forever.
But there was part of him that wondered now. Part of him that . . . wanted to cement their relationship, even though he wasn’t sure if it was good for her.
She lowered her gaze, and he could see she was thinking. “Yes,” she said, and then she looked up at him, her eyes certain. “Yes. I do want you to come back to my place.”
“Great,” he said.
They stayed a little while longer, to be polite. And then he bid Flynn and Cassidy farewell. “I’m going to take Millie home.”
“Will you be back tonight?” Flynn asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m staying in town.”
And with that, he swept Millie out of the bar and onto the street.
And beneath the neon of the bar sign, he kissed her. Because it just felt like the right thing to do.