Chapter 43
However lively the atmosphere had been in Dolly’s place before, it’s far more now. Far past celebratory after a standoff was successfully diverted.
It’s hard not to be taken in by it. Or by Cypress, who like me was relieved enough to actually indulge in a couple of shots of whiskey from Sammy. But who, unlike me, is not able to hold his liquor.
“You’re so…” he’s saying as he leans against the bar next to me, one arm braced on top to hold himself up. “So handsome.”
I laugh, thoroughly entertained by his good mood and by the hum in my blood that I’m grinning almost as wide as he is. “You’re handsome, too, Cy.”
His eyes widen a bit. “You think so?”
I cock my head, genuinely confused that he seems confused. “Of course I do.”
He smiles at first but then it falters. “Maybe you won’t. After.”
“After what?”
He looks away, but comes back wearing a sly smile. “After…I let you have your way with me.”
“After you let me?”
He nods, suddenly very serious now. “I would let you do unspeakable—”
“All right.” I reach forward and clamp my hand over his mouth before shouting, “Dolly.”
She turns, making her way down the bar. “Aiden.”
“I think I’m going to take him home,” I tell her, keeping my hand on Cypress’s mouth and able to feel him grinning again beneath my palm. “Seems safest.”
She laughs, giving Cypress a knowing look. “You need me to come with you?”
“No,” I say, about to stand. “I’ve got him.”
She smiles, reaching out a hand to pat my cheek much as she’d done the night before. “I’d say you do, wolf. Let me know when you find the little bird.”
I pause, half off my barstool as other things from the night before begin falling into place. However, before I can get the words out to ask her, someone else is calling for her and she’s turning away while Cypress is using the distraction to make a break for it.
“Where are you going?” I ask, quickly following him as he heads for the stairs. “The door is that way.” I tilt my head in the direction of the front entrance.
“Ah, yes, but there are rooms that way,” he replies, tilting his own head the opposite way. “They have doors and everything.”
“Cypress.” I grab him by the arm and give him my best stern voice while trying not to laugh again. “There are rooms at Dolly’s house, too. Ones we haven’t already committed crimes in, might I add.”
He frowns, pouting. “But those are so far away.”
“They’re also far more private,” I suggest, leaning in close to his ear and trying not to get taken in by his proximity to where I’ll end up leading us upstairs. “Might come in handy? With all the unspeakable things you’re going to let me do.”
His eyebrows shoot up as he rears back to give me an appraising look. “You know, wolf, I’m really starting to think maybe you’re not so repressed after all. Next thing I know, you’re going to tell me about a time you took part in an orgy or—”
“Not sure I would call it an orgy, but I suppose, there’s been a time or two where it was more than just two…” I say innocently, waiting for his reaction, and, God, if there is one memory I could keep…
“A time or two?” Cypress repeats, eyes wide. “With more than two?”
I shrug, enjoying every bit of this. “I’m not sure if you know this, but I was once a very famous gunslinger.”
Cypress stares at me for so long that I worry he’s going to pass out before he shouts, “Dolly, we’re leaving!”
“I already told…” I trail off, not seeing the point since he’s already escaped back to the bar. I shake my head, laughing as I follow after him.
“Dolly, we’re heading out,” he says again, in case she didn’t get the message the first time while he leans against the bar directly in front of her. “Aiden and I are going.”
Dolly is laughing now, too, neither of us able to contain it in his current state. “I know you are.”
“Good,” Cypress says, boosting himself up to reach across the bar, give her a kiss on the cheek, and steal a bottle of whiskey in a surprising display of dexterity for his drunken state. “You know I love you?”
She smiles, her eyes soft. “I do. You know I love you, too?”
He nods, and she says, “Good. Go on then.”
Cypress gives me barely any time to say my own goodbye before I’m after him again, both of us spilling out into the night with much less care than we had a few hours ago. Fortunately, however, there also does not appear to be fifteen men waiting on horseback to kill us this time.
“You know, Aiden,” Cypress is saying as we walk down the stairs, heading for the horses. “I think this is my very favorite day.”
I glance at him, smiling. “Oh, since when?”
“Since always,” he says, as if such an admission didn’t just crack my chest in two.
“Mine, too,” I murmur, though I’m not sure he hears me, already too busy making a dash for Cerberus at the hitching post.
“Hold on,” I tell him, grabbing him around the waist and pulling him back just as he’s about to swing up. “Let’s stay on the ground for a while.”
Rather than break out of my hold, he sinks into it, his head falling against my shoulder, and he smells so fucking good. Like mint and pine and something so uniquely him that it would be so fucking easy to give in. So fucking easy to kiss him right now, but once I do, I’m not going to want to stop.
“You think I won’t stay on my horse?” he asks when I let him go, looking almost wounded as I take the whiskey from him and stash it in my saddlebag, but he rallies quickly, his expression turning suggestive again. “I’m an excellent rider.”
“Cypress,” I warn, moving around him and giving my hands something else to do other than grabbing him by collecting both horses’ reins and setting off in the direction of Dolly’s house, hoping he will follow. He does.
“Never been unseated,” he’s going on. “Not once.”
I laugh again, not sure I’ve ever done it so much in my life even if I am sure now what Dolly meant when she said just because we were going in the same direction didn’t mean we were doing it together. But I think we’re starting to…
A half hour later, Cypress is still talking away, and I don’t even know what all he’s talking about, only that I like the sound of it. I think I like everything about him, even the parts that make me crazy. Maybe especially the parts that make me crazy.
“Cypress,” I start to say, despite the rest of the words feeling stuck. “I wanted to…”
He stops to listen, and I stop, too. Those blue eyes on mine the way they have been since the first time I really saw him. “Cypress,” I try again. “I’m…”
I want to tell him. Want to apologize for not telling him sooner. I believe I would have.
Only, that’s when we hear them.
Eleven men on horseback this time, and while it’s not the full fifteen like before, this does not feel much better.
I pull my gun, moving myself in front of Cypress as best I can when they form a circle around us. At the same time, I feel him turn behind me, his back lining up to mine as he pulls one of his own revolvers.
Before I can wonder why he kept the other hidden, one of the men dismounts, the bright moon revealing the now-familiar face of the man I should have left dead.
“Drop your weapons,” he orders, cocking his gun, his men doing the same when we hesitate. “Drop them. Both of you.”
Currently not seeing another choice, I let my gun fall, then Cypress does, too.
They’re quickly collected them along with our horses, but I at least get to hear the other man yell out in pain when Helios tries to take his arm in return.
Unfortunately, however, the moment of satisfaction is fleeting.
“Tom,” Cypress greets warmly, as if we’re not participants in a standoff for the second time tonight. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I was actually hoping we’d seen the last of one another.”
Tom glares at both of us in turn. “Change of plans.”
“I’ll say,” Cypress mutters, and it’s a terrible time for me to laugh, but I still struggle.
“Pretty certain you were all told to get gone,” I tell Tom once I’ve put myself back in check. “Something about long, painful deaths sounding familiar?”
Tom snorts, rolling his eyes. “The old lady’s scare tactics might have worked on Jim, but they won’t work on me.”
“Ah, I think you’re going to find those tactics work just fine when you’re begging for your life,” Cypress replies, tone still conversational. “Jim can likely tell you some stories—”
“Jim is dead,” Tom says shortly. “We are under new leadership.”
Cypress and I both look around for someone else to step forward.
“Me,” Tom snaps. “I’m the new leadership.”
I glance at one of the men with him. “You mutinied for him? Really?”
“Enough,” Tom snaps, taking a step forward with his gun still raised. “Start telling me where my money is or our painful deaths are not the ones you’re going to have to worry about.”
Behind me, I can practically hear Cypress thinking, hopefully the same as I am.
Hopefully understanding that if we tell them where the money is stashed, it’ll lead them to Dolly’s house, where she—as far as I’m aware—does not have a rifle ready at every window like she does at the bar.
She could get hurt. Although, so will we if we tell them nothing.
I reach back with my hand, subtly grabbing Cypress’s and squeezing, willing him to realize that he needs to stay quiet. That he needs to let me handle this. In answer, I feel Cypress’s hand turn, his palm to mine when he squeezes back, and I breathe a little easier through the next part.
“Your money is with your buddy,” I say to Tom, deciding to make a slight but important change to what I’d told Cypress he should’ve done with it earlier. “Buried it with him.”
“I don’t believe you,” Tom replies, looking as doubtful as he sounds. “Why would you leave it with John?”
I shrug. “So the buzzards can help us find it later. Suppose buried may have been overstating things.”