Chapter Twenty-Five
By the time Gray arrived in Billings, his irritation was at an all-time high.
The town buzzed with movement and anticipation. Ever since the railroad had been built to take people to Yellowstone, the population had boomed.
He made his way to the closest saloon—a wooden building with a sign outside the door that read, Bighorn Saloon. He entered the building full of chatter, made his way to the back of the room, and ordered whiskey.
The barkeep brought it to him and scurried away, leaving Gray to assume he didn’t want to be around someone who was obviously a gunfighter.
He kept replaying the conversation with Jessie over and over in his head. He knew he shouldn’t let it bother him, but he was failing. He shouldn’t have let his bad attitude get the best of him and lash out at her like he had. He had been angry that she’d rejected his marriage proposal, but he should have stayed calm. She would have come around eventually.
He drank the whiskey slowly, the burning sensation calming his spiraling thoughts as Luke walked up and sat across from him, holding his own whiskey.
He wasn’t surprised that Luke had followed him to Billings. After the gunfight where he’d saved Jessie, he figured Luke would show up.
“You don’t listen for shit,” he said flatly to Luke.
The beginnings of a smile tipped the corners of Luke’s mouth and he shrugged. “Never was good at following orders,” he admitted. “But I bet you’ll forgive me. Seeing as how I saved your girl’s life. Where is she, by the way?”
Luke looked around the saloon, searching for Jessie.
“We split,” Gray said in a low voice.
Luke’s eyes returned to Gray’s face, searching for something. “Pity,” he said after a moment of silence. “What are you going to do about that?”
Gray chuckled. “Nothing. What’s there to do?”
Luke chuffed, the disbelief evident in his body language. “Please, you can fool anyone else, and maybe even fool yourself.” He gestured between the two of them. “But you can’t fool me, brother. I saw the look on your face when you thought she’d been shot. I’ve never seen that look of terror on your face before.”
Gray shrugged before sighing deeply. He was tired of pretending not to care for Jessie, and Luke could see right through it. “I fucked up,” he said, speaking slowly. “I asked her to marry me, but she refused. Said she didn’t want to marry unless it was for love.”
Luke nodded, understanding what Gray meant. There was only one reason Gray would ask a woman to marry him.
He could have acted so many different ways. She had been surprised by the proposal, but given enough time, she’d reconsider. There was a chance she’d find a man in the West willing to forgive her for sleeping with another man, but it would be hard, if not impossible. He would marry her.
“So, what’s the problem?” Luke asked with a shrug, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He didn’t seem surprised by Gray’s admission that he’d asked Jessie to marry him.
A few men laughed loudly in the corner, and Luke’s eyes followed the sound, instinctively looking out for danger. Sensing none, his attention turned back to Gray.
Luke stared at his brother.
“The problem is, we don’t love each other.” He tapped a quiet rhythm on the wood of the table between them, trying to keep busy.
He had enjoyed their nights together. They had been more fun than when he was with other women. The times with other women had felt more transactional, and it had been about satisfying a basic need. Jessie was someone he liked to be around. He enjoyed her company and wanted to be with her more. Even if she was a pain in the ass.
Luke snorted. “Right. That’s why you were so terrified when you thought she was shot. Because you don’t love her.”
Gray downed the rest of his whiskey in one swallow, hissing his breath out at the sting that accompanied the drink. Did he love her?
To be honest, he wasn’t sure what true love even was. His parents had loved each other deeply before they were murdered, but he hadn’t grown up with great role models in that area after their death. Nor did he have anyone in his life to compare love to. He knew he liked Jessie, and he was worried about her when things went wrong or if they weren’t with each other.
Wasn’t that enough for a marriage?
At first, he’d proposed to help settle the wrong he had done by taking her innocence. His mother had raised him to be respectful, and he wanted to uphold that, even if his mother wasn’t around anymore.
Then he’d thought that it could be a good way to help her solve her problem. They didn’t have to be man and wife in every way—just in some ways. He could come to her when he needed a woman, and he liked her enough to enjoy her company.
What more did a man need?
He signaled to the barkeep to bring him another whiskey; the first one had given his stomach a nice warmth.
“I’ll take your silence as ‘I do love her, but I just don’t wanna admit it’,” Luke said, finishing his own whiskey and signaling the barkeep for a second.
“It doesn’t matter, we separated. I’m here in Billings, looking for Casey. She went to Helena to look for Casey. We will never see each other again.” His voice was resigned, accepting his fate.
When she had suggested they separate, he had been shocked. He’d thought that if he gave her enough time, she’d make the right decision, but splitting up was something he hadn”t expected her to consider. It made sense, logically. But he didn’t want it to. Even though she had bruised his ego, now that he had been away from her for hours, he missed her.
Luke’s face turned into a sneer. “So you just give up? Come on, if you love her, which you do,” he emphasized, “you should go after her. It’s as easy as that.”
It’s as easy as that.
The barkeep brought them their whiskeys, and they sat in silence.
Damn it. He wasn’t ready to let her go just yet. Even if she had refused his marriage proposal, he could live with that. He didn’t want to be away from her. He needed to apologize and see if he could make it right.
He wasn’t sure how to make things right with her, but as long as they were together, that was a start. Guilt started to creep in as he realized that in his desire to go after Jessie, he’d be slowing down the process of proving Luke innocent.
After so many years of looking out for Luke, maybe it was finally time to go after what he wanted and not what was best for his brother.
Drinking the entire second whiskey in one swallow, he slammed the glass down on the table. “Let’s go,” he said.
A devilish look appeared in Luke’s eyes as he drank his entire drink in one shot and slammed the glass onto the table as well. “Let’s go,” he echoed.
By the next day, unease had crept its way into Gray’s bones. They should have caught up with her by now, but they hadn’t.
They’d stopped a few hours outside of Helena and spotted an area that must have been her camp. The fire still contained burning coals, and items were flung about, almost as if there had been a struggle. His instincts kicked in as he looked around, taking note of all the contents of her saddlebag strewn across the dirt.
Something had happened here. There was a fight.
Luke dismounted, surveying the ground for tracks. His eyes were intense as he studied the area. Gray was relieved that Luke was with him. Luke was a better tracker than he was, and if anyone could find Jessie, it was him.
“There are two sets of horse tracks on the ground, not one,” Luke said, following the tracks with his eyes as he pointed into the distance.
The tracks went away from Helena, and an eerie feeling of dread sunk into Gray.
“Someone must have taken her,” Luke said, looking at the chaos of the camp.
The air felt heavy, making it difficult to breathe. Gray grabbed the items lying on the ground and shoved them in her saddlebag without care for keeping them in order.
“Butch,” Gray clenched his jaw tight. “I saw him in Bozeman. Got a shot at him, but he got away.”
They shouldn’t have separated.
If they had been together, this would not have happened.
His gut said it was Butch who had her, but there were any number of people who could have taken her, and none of them were good news. She could have been found by Casey. Or it could be someone after the bounty on her head. Or any one of the numerous bounty hunters who were after Luke and him.
By this time, there was a strong chance that Jessie and Gray had been spotted together, and if so, she was a known associate of his, and someone might try to use that to find him or Luke.
Luke swore under his breath, mounting his horse quickly. “If it’s Butch, she’s in trouble. They can’t be too far ahead; the coals are still pretty fresh. We have to go now.”
Gray spurred his horse ahead to follow the tracks.
It didn’t matter how many people had taken her, or who had taken her.
He was going to kill whoever he had to, to save her.