Chapter Five
Damn that man.
Gray was right, even if she didn’t want to admit it. If she turned him and his brother in to John, she would get a huge reward for bringing them in, but he would probably kill them outright instead of seeing if they were innocent. Especially given the strange feeling that she’d gotten about John when they’d met. Something about him seemed sinister. She hated private hires. She made a mental note not to accept another one.
As she’d told Gray, she’d always made it a point not to judge if someone was innocent or guilty, but if she was going to be giving over these two brothers to an angry man who wanted revenge, maybe she should take the time to find out herself if they were guilty or not. If they weren’t, there was a possibility she’d get them both killed, and she didn’t want to be responsible for the death of two innocent men.
She looked out at the horizon, where the sun was setting against the mountains. The sky was a breathtaking bright blue, with giant white clouds that stood out starkly against the valley. The setting sun cast rays of sunlight against the untamed land, and a peaceful quiet overtook her as animals retreated into their homes for the night. She heard the distant sound of an owl, the sound echoing off the trees of the nearby woods.
She sighed, wishing that she was alone so she could enjoy her nightly routine. But with Gray here, she couldn’t remove the vest that hid her gender, or comb out her long hair that she kept hidden in her hat. By the time this was all over and she had enough privacy to do it, it would be a tangled mess. She missed drinking whiskey by the fire and listening to the sounds of the crickets. Nighttime was one of the few moments she felt truly able to be herself. She didn’t have to worry about anyone finding her.
Hours had passed since they’d left the river, and they’d made good progress toward Bozeman. It was a good time to make camp, so the horses didn’t hurt themselves trying to travel in the dark. By tomorrow, they’d be back in Bozeman, and she could turn in Gray.
That gave her tonight to decide if he was guilty or innocent.
But after traveling all day, she didn’t have the mental energy to think about it. After spending so long tracking them down, staying any longer in campsites than she had to sounded unappealing. She was tired of traveling and would rather be in town. It was starting to get cooler as the sun set, but the heat from the day had made her sweat, and it soaked her vest. Everything itched from the sweat.
“Time to make camp.” She brought the two of them to a halt.
Gray’s eyes turned toward her, and he looked her over. “Stopping a little early, aren’t we? Don’t you want to get into town as quickly as possible to turn me in?”
His tone was sarcastic, and she felt her temper start to rise. She swore he took pleasure in being rude and insufferable. He knew that he’d gotten under her skin with his comments about how Luke hadn’t committed murder, and it aggravated her that he took pleasure in it.
“If we stop now, maybe I’ll get lucky and your brother will join us so I can take him in too,” she quipped back as she removed his restraints. She wasn’t going to set up camp alone—she’d just be sure to keep a gun on him at all times.
Gray chuckled, but it didn’t sound like he believed her bravado.
She unpacked her saddlebags, taking solace in knowing that soon it would be night and the heat would subside. While Gray had gotten to enjoy himself by taking a dip in the river, she had not been able to enjoy that luxury.
Gray had already shed his vest and had a few buttons opened on his shirt. She couldn’t help but notice the sweat rolling down his chest, and the way his shirt clung to his body, revealing his muscular form.
She averted her eyes from his chest and handed him a canteen of water. He brought it to his lips and drank quickly. The sight of his throat working was oddly captivating, and she had to look away from him again.
What was wrong with her? Watching a man drinking water shouldn’t intrigue her.
“I’m sure that’s exactly what would happen. He’d get caught instead of setting me free,” he said dryly.
Her attention snapped back to him, trying to figure out what he meant since she had been lost in thought.
Suddenly remembering, she sputtered, “To set you free, he’d have to get past me first.”
It was lame, and she knew it. But it was all she could think to say in that moment. He grinned, and the smug disbelief on his face had her blood boiling.
Jessie had a bigger problem than an appearance by Luke on her hands right now. She had to go to the bathroom, badly. She’d been holding it in all day, not wanting to leave him alone. And she couldn’t take him with her either. She was going to have to find some other creative way to relieve herself without raising suspicion.
They set up camp in silence, preparing an area for a fire. Next she prepared a sleeping area, set up in such a way that she could keep her eyes on him and also have some privacy. But not so much privacy that he’d be suspicious of anything.
After setting up camp, she announced, “I’m going to collect wood for the fire.”
He allowed her to tie him up again with no arguments, and she left to go to the bathroom.
When she returned, she felt his eyes burning into her as she set the firewood in the center of the camp to create a fire for the night. It made her uncomfortable, but not in the same way John’s gaze had.
Gray was an intelligent person, attractive and dangerous. He seemed to look at her more out of curiosity than anything else, but he was trying to figure her out, and he was smart enough to do it if they stayed around each other long enough. The sooner she got to Bozeman, the better.
While stoking the fire, she glanced up at him and found he was still looking at her across the fire, and it caused her face to heat up in embarrassment. She wasn’t sure why he affected her in such a powerful way. Usually she found men boring, or they didn’t hold her interest for long.
“If your brother didn’t kill someone, why do you think he’s wanted for murder?” she asked.
He cocked his blond head to one side and smiled. She shouldn’t have asked.
“Don’t think for one second I’m rethinking bringing you in,” she snapped.
The grin left his face slowly, but the amusement never left his eyes.
“My brother has a habit of getting into messes. If you meet him, you’ll figure that out soon enough. But our line of work comes with some challenges. One of them being that everyone wants to prove they are better than you, faster than you in a gun draw.”
Gray’s eyes met hers over the crackling fire as he told the story, and she felt like he was telling the truth.
“My brother is one of the fastest gunslingers around. This man had run into Luke at a tavern one night, and figured out who he was. The guy was wanted for murder, and bank robbery as well. My best guess is that when they showed up to draw that next day, before the count was over, he dropped dead from a gunshot. But it wasn’t Luke who shot him.”
Jessie bent her head and studied her hands. Shooting someone before the draw officially ended was a crime. If Luke had shot the man before the duel began, the man wouldn’t have stood a chance, and it would be murder.
“That’s a shame,” she said. “Maybe it’s time you two find a new profession. If people are trying to kill you for sport.”
Gray gave her a grudging nod. “I’ve wanted to get out of it for a while. But my brother wants to stay in it. So I have to protect him.”
What would it be like to have someone in your life that loved you so much they put their life at risk to keep you safe? Jessie had never had anything close to something like that in her life, and she found herself getting jealous. Her mother had died when she was young, and her father had hated her from before she could even remember, which was why she’d left home at such a young age. She didn’t have any siblings either. She was alone.
“Why does he want to stay in it, if it’s so dangerous?” she asked.
Gray was silent for a moment, and his eyes shifted to the ground and then back to her. He grimaced before saying, “There’s someone we are after, and once we find him, Luke will probably be good with retiring.”
She wanted to know more but felt he wasn’t going to share anything else with her. Hurt had passed over his face before being replaced by his nonchalant facial expression again.
She allowed the moment to pass, and a heavy silence filled the camp, broken only by the sounds of the fire crackling.
“My brother didn’t shoot that man.” Gray leaned in closer and pinned her gaze down with his intense stare. “Luke would never draw on someone before the count was up. It had to have been someone else. He doesn’t need to cheat to win.”
Either Gray was a damn good liar, or maybe he believed what he was saying—even if it wasn’t true.
“So you are basing this all off of what your brother has told you?”
“And on what I know of Luke. He’s one of the fastest, certainly faster than some bank robbers and murderers. He wouldn”t need to cheat. I think he’s alive and well out there. We just have to find him to prove Luke didn’t do it.”
Jessie chewed on the inside of her cheek as she gave his words some thought. This conversation didn’t make her decision any easier. She wished he had some concrete evidence that Luke was innocent or guilty, and some way to prove it to her.
“You can’t expect me to believe what you’re saying based only on your word and how well you know your brother,” she said. “Especially when I’ve never met him. And of course you’d be a little biased toward his innocence, even if he was guilty.”
“Maybe. But he has no reason to lie.”
She absently rubbed her arms, trying to get warm as the night chill settled in. Surely this man knew that Luke had every reason to lie if he’d done it. “If I’ve learned anything in my job, it’s that criminals don’t like to pay for what they’ve done. If that man dropped dead from a gunshot, and it wasn’t your brother, who was it, and why did they do it?”
“That’s what we are trying to figure out,” Gray said. “We’ve been looking for him ever since that day. All I can do is guess what his motives were. It could be that he paid someone off to pretend to shoot him, and he’s been alive and well to this day.”
Jessie laughed loudly. “Rather elaborate plan. He paid someone to shoot him? Sounds like you’re stretching, out of desperation.”
His theory wasn’t completely out of the question, however. She’d heard of men faking their deaths to escape punishment for the crimes they’d committed. She’d just never met someone claiming to have been accused of performing the murder. Usually the stories she heard involved men being killed in a train robbery or something like that. Never in a duel.
Gray leaned forward and spoke with a controlled voice. “He paid someone to pretend to shoot him, and then he could fake his death and get out of the draw. He could get away with all his crimes. The robberies, the murders. He was wanted for all those things. Might have been easier to leave it all behind.”
She did admit that while it was absurd to think someone would pay someone else off to pretend to shoot them, the outcome would be a nice benefit. Men had done crazier things to avoid facing the repercussions of their actions.
“Or,” Gray continued, “he was shot dead. One of his enemies easily could have done it. He’d created a few along the way. But one thing I am certain of—my brother didn’t do it.”
Jessie sighed. This conversation was going nowhere fast. Nothing he said was going to prove that his brother didn’t do it. Unless there was some evidence proving this man was alive. She just needed to decide what to do tomorrow. Turn him in … or not.
And it wasn’t an easy decision.
“Well. That’s a problem for tomorrow.”
She got onto her bedroll and closed her eyes, ready for sleep. He took his cue from her and stopped talking.