Chapter Twenty-Four
Hope picked up another sheet and flicked it over the clothesline. Spring was growing warmer, and she fell more in love with Madison Valley with each day that passed. All the remaining cows had pulled through the night, and Simon’s ranch had not been the target of any further attacks.
Though there was a ball of worry that gnawed at her stomach, Hope calmed herself knowing that Jackson was handling things.
For the first time in her life, she was beginning to relax under pressure rather than react to it immediately out of fear, and that was because she was no longer alone. She had Jackson to lean on.
Hope thought of how he’d glowed when she’d told him she was proud of him, and how he’d gently pressed his lips to her forehead. Hope pegged the sheet down, feeling like she was floating through a dream, not quite stepping on solid earth.
“Good morning, my dear,” an eerily smooth voice said from a distance.
Hope turned around, getting twisted in the sheet, and froze when her eyes spotted Victor Langford walking towards her.
His piercing blue eyes watched her from beneath his hat, a stark contrast against the paleness of his skin. It was as though he was a rancher who never spent any time outdoors, likely preferring to order other people around instead.
“Mr. Langford,” Hope stammered, her eyes darting around the yard for any sign of Jackson or Daniel. “What are you doing here?”
“Is that any way to welcome a friend?” Victor asked smoothly. His lips formed a smile, but his eyes were cold blue pinpricks. He reached for her hand and raised it to his lips.
“Mr. Langford!” Hope stated loudly, hoping her voice would carry.
She tried to pull her hand away, but his grip was too tight.
She felt her stomach turn with revulsion as he pressed his lips to the back of her fingers.
“That’s not appropriate,” she complained once she had her hand back.
“Why are you here?” she asked a second time.
Victor seemed annoyed by her resistance to his advances. A coolness set into his eyes that chilled her to the core. Hope refused to show her fear, though, shoving back her shoulders and lifting her chin in the air as she looked at him.
“You have more fire in you than most ladies,” Victor observed, his gaze lingering on her. “I came to offer a friendly warning, Mrs. Hale, since your husband appears unwilling to heed good advice.”
“And what might that be?” Hope asked, careful to mind her manners. Needlessly offending a man like Victor would only make things worse for Jackson.
“Your husband is something of a rebel,” Victor said. “He refuses to cooperate, and that is making him some powerful enemies.”
Hope tried not to glare at the man as she spoke. “And might you be one of those enemies, Mr. Langford?”
“Please, Hope, I’d much prefer we call each other by our first names! And despite what your husband might’ve told you, I’ve never been his enemy,” Victor informed her.
She could tell he did not like to be contradicted.
Victor Langford seemed the type of man who would slight others to advance himself, yet he still wanted everybody to believe he was a gentleman.
A man like Jackson, who seemed to effortlessly gain people’s respect and favor, would no doubt drive a man like Victor mad.
Hope felt her patience waning. “If you want to deliver a warning, Mr. Langford, I think it better you speak with my husband. I trust his judgement.”
To her surprise, Victor seemed more amused than deterred by her response. He snorted quietly to himself, his derision for Jackson written in the hard lines around his mouth and the icy pools of his eyes.
“Oh, my dear Hope,” he said with a forced chuckle, “I don’t believe you know all there is to know about Jackson Hale, now do you? His poor judgement is the very reason he no longer serves as a local lawman.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t know, Mr. Langford,” Hope replied, hating how her name sounded as it came out of his mouth.
She knew precisely what he was trying to do.
He was obviously trying to intimidate her so her fear would force Jackson to cooperate.
She would not be so easily threatened. Even if Victor was more powerful than she was, she believed Jackson was stronger than him, and she would support him through it.
She let out a breath of relief as Jackson appeared from the barn, arriving where they stood just as Victor resumed speaking.
“Ah, Jackson, I’m surprised you never told your new wife about the two innocent boys you had put to death for stealing cattle,” Victor said breezily, though his expression was hard.
He smiled suddenly, seemingly realizing he had achieved success when Hope touched her fingers to her lips in shock.
“Ah, I see, dear Hope, that your husband didn’t tell you all the details. ”
Her immediate reaction was to deny everything Victor had said, but the hollow, haunted look in Jackson’s eyes made her realize there was truth to Victor’s accusation.
Hope felt her heart sink into the bottom of her stomach, as if it was being sucked into a swampy pit and she couldn’t pull it back out.
“Well now, Jackson,” Victor said, turning his attention to her husband. “I suppose you wouldn’t have. “That was such a long time ago, after all.”
“You know very well you fed me misinformation,” Jackson said to him through gritted teeth.
“And yet you were the one who called for their deaths,” Victor said, feigning sadness. “How tragic to live with their blood on your hands every day.”
“Enough,” Jackson said, stepping in front of Hope. “You are not welcome here, Victor, and you’d be wise not speak to my wife again.”
Hope felt her breath catch in her chest as Jackson bravely stood between them. She didn’t feel the same resistance to being protected as she had in the past. Despite always relying on herself, Hope had really started to believe that she could trust Jackson, no matter what Victor said.
“Well now, I’m not so sure,” Victor said with a light chuckle. “She seems to enjoy talking to me. At least I’m honest with her, as a gentleman should be.”
“Get off my ranch!” Jackson snapped, and Hope watched his hands curl into fists at his sides.
“Careful, Jackson,” Victor cautioned as he pulled his riding gloves back on. “You’ve already set yourself up against me. I’d hate for you to suffer more because of that.”
“Get to the house, Hope,” Jackson ordered.
She wished she hadn’t been outside the house when Victor had arrived, because her presence had only aggravated things. She hated seeing how Victor enjoyed antagonizing Jackson, as if hoping to goad him into acting rashly.
“There goes that hasty temper of yours,” Victor said with a disapproving click of his tongue.
“Set foot on this ranch again and I’ll have the sheriff after you,” Jackson warned.
Victor laughed coldly. “Sadly, I don’t think you’ll find Sheriff Grady as sympathetic to your cause as you might imagine.”
Jackson refused to say another word, and Hope knew it was because he didn’t want his temper to lead him into making a mistake with Victor. She hurried to the house, glancing over her shoulder once to make sure Victor was on his way off the ranch.
Jackson’s face looked like a storm cloud as he marched back to the barn.
Hope bit down on her lip while she paced back and forth across the porch.
She wanted to speak to Jackson, but she worried she’d disturb him while he was trying to calm down after the confrontation.
She also fretted that Victor may have made him doubt her loyalty. As if she could so easily be swayed!
Finally, she turned on her heel and started walking towards the barn. At the same time, Jackson burst out of the barn, picking up his pace when he saw her.
“Hope,” he said, dropping his head. “I don’t know what to say. I’m too ashamed to look at you.”
Hope lifted his head with her hands and looked at him with sympathy. “Don’t be ashamed. I don’t believe a word of it.”
Jackson shrunk from her and he drifted back into the barn, gesturing for Hope to follow. The cats instantly ran over, darting in between Jackson’s legs as he walked.
“Sit a while,” he invited Hope, pointing at a hay bale.
She obeyed, looking up at him and waiting for him to speak.
“Victor spoke the truth. I was a lawman, as you know,” he recalled, his voice lacking emotion. “He told me there were cattle thieves stealing from him, and he gave me their names.”
Hope nodded, encouraging him to go on.
“I investigated,” Jackson said, “but Victor presented me with false information, and because he was new to the area, I believed him. I didn’t know what he was like at the time.”
“Anyone would have,” Hope said, trying to relieve the agony she saw written across Jackson’s face.
“You wouldn’t have,” Jackson said dejectedly, blowing his hair out of his eyes. “Victor framed the boys with some of his stolen cattle, and I pursued with two other lawmen. They ran from me out of fear. Then one of the boys pulled a gun on us.”
Hope’s eyes widened in shock. She could see that it caused Jackson physical pain to speak of the event, as though he was being forced to relive every moment.
When she had confronted Daniel about his crimes, he had always found a way to hide the truth from her, even when telling her what happened.
Not Jackson. He wore all the emotions he felt like an open book for her to read.
“I had a split-second decision to make,” Jackson continued, “and I hesitated. Something had felt off from the very beginning and I’d ignored it, but another lawman fired without hesitation. Both boys were killed.”
“Jackson, I’m so sorry,” Hope said, her voice faint. “But you were acting under false information. And you weren’t the one who pulled the trigger.”
Jackson shook his head. “Don’t try to comfort me Hope. As a lawman, it was my duty to be sure of the truth. I believed Victor because he was rich and powerful.”
Hope felt Jackson’s pain in her own heart as she watched him speak.
She so desperately wanted to alleviate the guilt he had clearly carried for years.
She finally understood why he had been reluctant to grow close to her: he didn’t trust himself to make the right decision when the time called for it.
“Why did Victor do it?” Hope asked. “Why did he frame them?”
“They were the sons of a neighboring ranch owner,” Jackson explained, his face so grey he looked sickened by what he had to say. “The old man wouldn’t be able to run his ranch if his sons were both dead.”
Hope’s eyes widened with realization. Murdering the sons meant Victor could swoop in and buy the land at a low price.
“Victor secured the sale of the land within a month,” Jackson explained, his expression numb and the light in his eyes fading.
“Wasn’t there anything you could-”
“I had no proof against Victor,” Jackson said, giving her a dejected look. “He’d made sure of that. I was a fool, Hope,” he said with a dismissive shake of his head. He sighed. ”And it led to the death of two innocent people.”
Jackson slumped down on the hay bale next to her and dropped his head into his hands.
It tore at her to think Jackson blamed himself for Victor’s schemes.
It also explained why he was so desperate to protect the ranches around him.
He believed he’d failed them once before, and he wasn’t going to do so again.
“I’m a murderer, Hope,” he said, his voice cracking.
“I don’t see a murderer,” Hope said quietly, her hand holding his. Hope had seen the love Jackson had for people, for animals, even at times…for her, she felt. It broke her heart to think that he believed that of himself.
He tried to pull away from her, but she wouldn’t let him.
“I still see the look on Benjamin’s face before he died. I’ll never forget the betrayal, the pain in Emmett’s eyes-” Jackson broke off as his voice became ragged.
Hope draped an arm around his shoulders and rested her cheek on the closest one.
“Oh, Jackson,” Hope said. “I can’t take that memory from you, and I can’t lift the guilt you feel, but I can assure you that I believe you were a victim, just as much as Benjamin and Emmett were.”
“What do you mean?” Jackson asked, his eyebrows scrunching together with confusion.
“Victor used you,” Hope said emphatically.
“You’re a good man, Jackson, but even a good man can be poorly used in the hands of an evil man.
Yet here you are standing up to him. You protected me, you saved Simon’s herd, and you spoke up for those men to Sheriff Grady.
Your courage, Jackson, is something I love about you.
I’ll never doubt you, Jackson, and I want you to know that I’ll fight with you and for you. ”
Jackson looked at her, blinking back tears. She’d never seen him so vulnerable before. In fact, he’d always appeared invincible to her. She felt as though she, too, could be a support in their marriage instead of just the one to be taken care of.
He rested his head on hers and they held each other in silence for a few minutes. Kitten curled up in Jackson’s lap and began purring contentedly.
“I want to tell you something, but I don’t want it to be tainted by the memory of today,” Jackson said quietly. “So I’ll have to tell you another time.”
Hope tensed slightly at these words, wondering what he could mean. What more could there be to say? When Black Cat curled up in her lap as well, she knew they’d both be trapped there for a while. Jackson’s hand folded around hers, and Hope leaned into him.
Though they were both deeply unsettled by Victor Langford’s threats, especially upon realizing that even murder wasn’t too far for him, Hope knew that at least they wouldn’t have to face it alone.