I put a hand up to stop him. “Aiden, if you think for one moment that you are going to leave me here while you go look for him, then you must have lost the plot when I wasn’t looking, because there’s not a chance in hell that I’ll be left behind here to wonder if either of the two people I love in this world won’t be coming back.” His eyes are dark, and he opens his mouth to reply before I add, “I feel it, too, okay? Something’s wrong. But we’ll have a better chance of making it right if we’re together.”
His mouth closes, his jaw tensing, but he finally says, “I’m sorry. Just…if something happened to you too—”
“We’re both going. Make your peace with it,” I tell him, stepping forward and wrapping my arms around him to give him a quick squeeze. “Besides, Cypress did say I’m in charge.”
He snorts and gives me a squeeze back before letting me go and heading back outside. “Since when did that even need saying?”
I follow him, shutting the door to the cabin behind me without letting myself wonder if I’ll see it again. “Will we head toward town?”
“Yes,” he says over his shoulder, walking so fast toward the little lean-to shed where we keep the horses overnight that I practically have to run to keep pace with him. “He likely wouldn’t have taken a straight path there. Wouldn’t have wanted to make it easy for someone to follow him, so we’ll have to track him as best we can. See if he got held up by something on the trail, then try for town and see what we find.”
“Aiden.” He’s already reaching for Helios’s tack when I stop him with a hand on his arm. “Wewillfind him.” His gaze meetsmine, a look of surprise passing over his face that prompts me to ask, “What is it?”
He shakes his head, a torrent of emotion swirling in his brown eyes. “Nothing, just…history fucking repeats.”
II’m the one who sees the wanted poster this time from what seems like a quarter mile away. Seems that way because it takes me forever to walk up to it. To pull the knife free along with my hat and the note hidden beneath it over Cypress’s sketch, both my and Cora’s portraits serving as witness to the way their real-life counterparts stand together to read its contents.
“The twelfth?” Cora repeats, taking the note from me as I stand over her and keep my eyes on our surroundings, watching to see if anyone is lying in wait for us to take it. “What day is it today?”
“It’s the ninth of December,” I mutter. “Fuck, it’s…it’s three days from now.”
“Threedays?Why would they make us wait so long?”
“Because they weren’t sure how long it’d be before we’d come looking, and because they want us to bring the money, and they think we might need time to go get it,” I assume, giving Cora a nudge in Tess’s direction as I try to stave off my growing sense of dread. “C’mon, we can’t stay here.”
“But where even is the money?” she asks, swinging up into her saddle, so I can do the same. “I’ve never seen it.”
“It’s gone,” I tell her as we move away from town back toward the cover of the treeline. “Apart from what’s in Cypress’s pocketbook and mine.”
“Gone?” I know she’s thinking of the large pile she saw Cypress win at the saloon in Last Chance, about how she hasn’t seen him spend a dollar of it since. “Where does it all go?”
“Usually? He burns it.”
“Heburnsit?” She comes nearly level with me as I urge Helios into a brisk trot, the understandable shock evident on her face. “Cypressburnsthe money he wins?”
“Well, he keeps some for us to get by, some for…clerical errors,and some for amusement, but the majority…” I look at her to gauge her reaction. “It’s never been about the money for him. It’s about—”
“Making them pay,” she finishes, and I nod before she looks away, keeping her eyes on what’s ahead until I cut us off into the first pocket of trees, weaving back deeper and deeper until we won’t be easily spotted.
“We need to talk about a few things,” I say as we dismount again and lead the horses farther into the woods. “Things we should’ve talked about a while ago. So that you know everything.”
“Everything about what?”
I pause and face her, wanting her to see that I mean it when I say, “There are things I should have told you sooner. Was planning on it, but then with everything that’s happened…didn’tseem like there was much we could do about it at present. And…you’ve seemed happy.”
“I have been happy,” she says, her brows drawing together. “What things haven’t you told me?”
I frown, feeling deserved guilt as I tell her, “I learned some information about the man who I believe shot your father. Before we left Last Chance.”
“You did?” she asks, clearly caught off guard.
“My contacts there said he’s a bounty hunter by the name of Frank Clancy. He doesn’t exactly play nice with others, so they didn’t know much more, but they were pretty certain it was him based on the description.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would a bounty hunter have gone after my father? He wasn’t guilty of anything.”
“Not all criminals have wanted posters.” I cross my arms against my chest, hating to ask but needing to anyway. “You’resureyour father wasn’t mixed up in anything he shouldn’t have been? Maybe he wasn’t who you thought?”
“No, he wasn’t the type of man to get caught on the wrong side of the law.” She looks at me, then chews on her bottom lip. “Well, not to say… You understand what I mean. He wasn’t one to be on the wrong side of the law so much as he was one to be taken advantage of by those who are.”