Chapter Twenty-Eight
They rode toward Bozeman in silence, the gentle swaying of her body in the saddle helped to calm Jessie’s racing mind.
He loved her.
She couldn’t believe that he loved her. But when she was about to tell him she loved him back, Casey had interrupted her with his announcement that he knew who killed Luke and Gray’s father.
Casey and Luke were riding slightly ahead of her and Gray, Casey’s hands tied up in front of him while Luke held the reins. She wanted to make sure Casey was taken care of and didn’t escape. If he managed to slip away after everything they’d all been through, she would never forgive herself.
Before they got into Bozeman, they stopped to plan how to clear Luke’s name. They needed to have a solid plan in place for what they were going to do.
“You’ll go and turn in Casey as Kid Aaron,” Gray said. “Collect the money and make sure they book him. Once we know the announcement of his capture is made, it will be in the newspapers, so it’ll spread quickly that Casey is alive. You’ll mention that Luke was wanted for murdering Casey and his name is to be cleared. If all goes well, it’ll be over soon.”
She nodded. “I know Sheriff Williams pretty well. We won’t have any problems with him. It’ll be fine.”
She laid a comforting hand on his arm, and she felt the tension slowly leave his body at her touch. They were coming to the end of their journey, and she knew that he was feeling even more stress than she was.
Luke nodded, his jaw tight. He’d been awfully quiet since they left the cabin, and Jessie had a feeling he was up to something, but she didn’t know what. He wasn’t typically quiet or so easy to work with. He was normally a pain in the ass.
It should all be easy from this point forward, though. She just had to make sure Casey didn’t get away again.
Luke stayed behind outside of town, not wanting to risk getting spotted right before they cleared his name. Tipping his hat to them, he rode off in the opposite direction of Bozeman to lay low for a few weeks until the bounty hunters got word there wasn’t a reward offered on him anymore.
Gray helped her bring Casey most of the way to the sheriff’s office and then told her he’d go rent a room at the inn, also not wanting to be seen.
“I’ll be waiting for you in there. Good luck,” he said.
She could see the hope and fear in his eyes. It had to be hard for him to trust this to someone else, but it was a part of the deal they had struck in the beginning. She would turn Casey in and get the money to make up for not getting the bounty on Luke.
“Don’t worry,” she said, her eyes softening as she looked at him. “I’ve dealt with worse. I can get him twenty feet to the sheriff’s office.”
He gave her a small smile and turned his horse toward the inn.
Casey was off his horse now, a rope tied to his hands and waist to prevent him from escaping. If he tried to run, she’d bolt on her horse and cause Casey major damage. Hopefully it was enough to make him think twice before trying to run away.
With a nod, they separated so she could turn him in.
Less than thirty minutes later, she walked up to the hotel and saw Gray in one of the top-floor windows. He’d been waiting for her to come out of the sheriff’s office. His hair was rumpled, like he’d been running his hand through it from worry.
She opened the door to their room. He sat at the table, his hat resting on the tabletop. He turned and faced her and she gave him a big smile—the biggest grin she’d had in weeks. For the first time in months, she felt completely and utterly free. It was over, and Casey was in jail.
When he saw her smile, he matched hers with equal enthusiasm.
“Judging by the crowd gathered in front of the sheriff’s office, I take it they believe it is indeed Casey.”
“Hard to argue when he has such a distinguishing feature across his face that matches his wanted poster,” she said.
She held up a sizable envelope that held the bounty and stuck it in her saddlebag. “I got the reward. The papers are going to publish a story about Casey, and everyone will know Luke’s name has been cleared. All the towns will remove his wanted poster once they get word he’s innocent. It won’t happen overnight, but when it does, everything will die down and he’ll be free.”
She could see the tension leave Gray’s body as he let out a huge sigh of relief. She couldn’t even imagine how he must feel after worrying about Luke’s life for months, and now it was finally over. Her feelings for Gray must have been like the ones Gray had for his brother. They were a little different, of course, but Gray was the only person she’d ever felt a strong connection to.
“So now that just leaves your situation.”
She smiled and sat down in the chair next to his. “We can take one night to celebrate.”
She didn’t want the feeling of accomplishment and joy to be overshadowed by her situation. Gray was all business all the time, it seemed. Solve one problem, move on to the next. But she wanted to savor the moment.
“With the amount of money I got from turning in Casey, I can finally retire from bounty hunting.”
“Must be a nice feeling.”
She felt a pang of guilt, knowing if they hadn’t made their deal, the money would have gone to Gray instead of her.
“We should split it,” she said to him, knowing she wouldn’t have found Casey if not for him.
“It doesn’t matter to me. It matters more that my brother is going to be safe. I don’t care about the reward.” He reached out and covered her hand with his own on the table. She smiled at the touch.
“Okay then. Now I just need to figure out where I’m going to retire.” She laughed at the thought. Just a few weeks ago, she’d been so far away from her goal she had thought it more of a dream than something she could realistically achieve. But now she could get a real start somewhere. She had enough to buy a little bit of land, get a small cabin and a few cattle. The rest would come in time, once she got to where she could sell and breed cattle and make a good profit. It was all she needed. She didn’t need a lot of money or a big empire, just enough to take care of herself.
She felt emboldened knowing that she could finally achieve her dream after all these years despite the obstacles she’d faced along the way. She was finally free, like she always wanted.
“You know how we could celebrate?” she said to him, giving him a suggestive glance.
He grinned back at her. “I know one way.”
He grabbed her hand and walked to the bed, and her laughter followed them all the way there.
They lay together after making love, and she felt more complete than she ever had in her life. She used his muscular chest as a pillow and ran her index finger in circles across his chest hair. His breathing was deep and comforting, and she heard his heart beating under her ear.
She looked up at him and took a moment to soak it all in again. His eyes were closed, his long lashes falling gently over his closed eyes. She was struck by how amazingly handsome he was, and how lucky she felt to have gotten to know him so well.
His arm was around her waist, and he drew her up against him, causing her to be pulled farther onto his chest. Then he turned over onto his side and pulled her naked body up against his, and she giggled. Guess he didn’t want her looking at him for too long.
“Marry me,” he said.
Her heart skipped a beat, and she turned to look at him. She thought that after he had proposed last time, he wouldn’t do it again.
“I don’t care if I have to ask you a hundred times,” he said, as if reading her mind. “I love you, and I want to spend my life with you.”
She smiled at him. “Tempting to make you ask a hundred times,” she said mischievously. He swatted her on the butt, and she yelped in surprise. “Okay, okay, okay!” she said with a laugh. “I love you too. I’ll marry you!”
His grin covered his whole face, and he leapt out of bed, surprising her with his speed. “What are you—” She couldn”t get the full sentence out because he started throwing her clothing at her.
“Marrying you before you change your mind!”
She laughed and stood up to get dressed. Instead of putting on her usual attire as Kid Aaron, she went to her saddlebag and got the purple dress that Gray had bought her back in the beginning of their time together. She had once fought the idea of wearing this dress, but now she was happy to wear it in front of him. She ran her hand down the soft fabric and put it on. She then brushed her hair again, since it had been knotted up due to their bedroom activities.
She knew he’d wonder why she wasn’t wearing her usual clothes. When she saw him look at her in confusion, she explained before he could ask. “Can’t very well have you marrying a teenage boy, now can we?”
He laughed hard. “No, definitely not doing that.”
Gray made quick work of finding a priest, and they got married that day. The ceremony was small and everything she ever could have hoped for. People in the West loved weddings, and when the townsfolk heard there was going to be one, several of them attended. One woman even let her borrow a white wedding dress that she’d worn many years ago when she’d gotten married.
Jessie teared up when Gray presented her with the ring again. It was beautiful and exactly what she wanted, with its simple band and etched roses. She didn’t have a ring for Gray, but someone let them borrow one for the ceremony, and the next day they went out and found a simple band to symbolize their marriage to one another.
Luke was able to attend, since Casey was in jail and his name was mostly cleared. Nobody would try to do anything at a wedding, especially when the groom was a gunslinger.
The sheriff even threw them a celebration that almost everyone attended, congratulating the couple on the marriage, and wishing them luck.
After a few hours of celebrating, Gray and Jessie slipped out of the party and made their way to their room, blissfully happy that they had found one another.
The day couldn’t have been any better.