Chapter 18 #3
“Maybe if we read them together, it won’t be so boring.”
“What if I read them to you?”
He smirked. “I suggested that.”
“I suppose you did. But now it’s my idea, so I like it better.”
He snorted. “You’re a pill. Has anybody ever told you that?”
“Oh, a lot of times.”
Mugs of cider in hand, they sat down on the couch, and Cassidy started to scan the first few entries. “He really did have a diary.”
“I guess so. My mom didn’t see fit to tell me about this until recently.”
“Why?”
“She’s kind of unknowable, my mom. Things make sense to her, but they don’t always make sense to the rest of us.”
Cassidy laughed. “That’s all of us, isn’t it?”
“I guess so. She’s just gloriously unburdened with ever feeling she has to explain herself.”
Cassidy laughed. “Well, I like that.”
“Yeah, I envy it sometimes.”
She flipped to the first page and began to read the first entry.
“‘There is no honor among thieves. There is only loot, and whoever gets the most of it. I’m living my life nearly a free man because of my deal with Sheriff Talbot.’” She looked up at him. “He really did do all that.”
West nodded, gravely. “I guess so. We were the real bad guys all along.”
“Well. And Lee Talbot. We knew Butch Hancock was a bad guy. But this just confirms that Millie’s great-grandfather wasn’t any better.”
“True.”
“Butch wasn’t even sorry about it,” she said.
“I bet if Austin saw this, he would come and challenge me to a gunfight.”
“It’s entirely possible.”
The picture that Butch’s entries painted was a grim one. He was a loner. A man who had decided that bad was all he would ever be. That money was the only companion he needed.
He was a villain by any standard.
“This is so cheering,” West said, stretching and leaning back on the couch. “My family was as bad as I always thought.”
“Well. You’re pretty solid evidence that villainy isn’t inherited. Your whole family is. Jessie Jane is amazing, and I think your parents seem great.”
“Glorified carnies,” he said. “But yeah. They are pretty great.”
“You were never bad, you know,” she said.
“Hey. Don’t damage my street cred.”
“You swore off relationships because you hurt someone. You hated that so much, you never wanted to do it again. Is that the act of a villain?”
“I don’t know. Could be.”
“Couldn’t be,” she said. “It really couldn’t be, West. I don’t know why you’re so wedded to the idea that you’re a bad guy.”
“I don’t know. Feels comfortable. Like a pair of old boots.”
In a weird way, she could understand that.
Because there was something about hanging onto old stories that could make you feel safe.
Because as long as she was Cassidy Wilder, the kid who was abandoned on Christmas, she didn’t have to be anything else.
She didn’t have to push herself. She didn’t have to be in any kind of emotional danger.
She’d made her own vulnerability into a blanket.
One that kept out all the elements. In that way, reputation could be a help and a hindrance.
Of course, it was more than a reputation for Butch Hancock. He had actually been a bad guy. But maybe at a certain point, even that had been comforting.
“He didn’t even have to try anymore,” she said. “He made himself the worst villain. I always believed that even villains think they are heroes. But he doesn’t think that.”
West shook his head. “No. He doesn’t.”
“He just thinks there’s no way back. And if there’s no way back, then what’s the point of changing?”
West shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“There must be something comforting in that. Being the worst. Because then you never have to try to be anything else.”
He brought her up against his body and wrapped his arm around her waist. They sat in silence in front of the Christmas tree. They were supposed to be finished by Christmas. Was she really going to let that happen? Was she going to let this end without saying anything?
She didn’t know, but she needed to figure it out. Because not knowing was part of being in the snow globe. That was part of floating. That wasn’t who she was anymore.
She lifted her hand and rested it on his forearm, where it crossed her body and held her secure.
“This would really damage your reputation,” she whispered, gesturing around them.
“What?”
“You have little woodland animals on your Christmas tree. You are sitting in front of that Christmas tree. With a girl.”
“God. I’m domesticated.”
She looked up at him, and he smiled down at her.
She couldn’t see if he meant his horrified tone or not.
Maybe that was the problem. She wasn’t going to get certainty.
She was going to have to decide if she wanted to take a risk.
She might be a coward, but she wasn’t going to do it now.
Because she didn’t want to lose any of the time she still had with him.
Then maybe at the end of it, on Christmas, she would have to …
Yeah. Maybe then.
But for now, she would take all the happiness she could.
“I am still edgy,” he said.
“Prove it,” she said.
Which was when he pulled her close and proceeded to show her just how edgy he was.