She glances between all of us again before she focuses back on me. “I heard some things about the family that used to live here. Heard the father was killed. And the mother took the two little ones back east.” Her gaze never wavers from mine. “Heard the oldest daughter turned outlaw.”
I smile, adjusting my hat before smoothing the green dress with black trim I’m wearing. “People do love to talk.”
“Indeed they do.” She smirks. “You ever see her, you tell her she might want to pass through Preston. The former sheriff might still be a bit sore about his son going missing, but others there are pretty grateful for the way things are going now. Might like to thank her.” She looks at Aiden and Cypress again. “And her outlaws.”
“I’ll tell her,” I say. “Should our paths happen to cross.”
The woman looks down at the bag in her hand. “I shouldn’t accept this. If they really are gone, then you’ve already done enough. And surely you…”
“He actually will burn it,” I reassure her, and that seems to put an end to it as we say one more set of goodbyes, leaving them totheir future as we walk into ours.
“I think I like Cora’s rule the best,” Cypress says after a time, all of us back on horseback as we head farther west toward the setting sun and the spot where we left the wagon. “Makes me feel almost…saintly.”
“Almostbeing the crucial word,” Aiden says. “But I agree. Was a good addition.” He rolls his shoulders, relaxing the farther away we get without being shot. “Not that we need to be in a hurry to use it again anytime soon now that the rest of Zeke’s partners are taken care of.”
Cypress glances my direction, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek when he says, “Cora and I have a differing opinion.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” Aiden replies, letting out a deep sigh. “Which is?”
“We want to go into town,” I say.
Aiden whips his head in my direction. “Why in God’s name—”
“We practically received an invitation just now,” Cypress replies. “The sheriff has been replaced, and you said yourself that the wanted posters are gone. Already buried beneath new criminals that are not nearly as pretty to look at.”
Aiden looks like he wants to argue, but he can’t for more than one reason. One being that, as Cypress mentioned, he himself checked around town for the wanted posters late last night. The other being that he also thinks we’re pretty.
“A quick stop on our way to the Pacific?” Cypress encourages. “Would only be sensible to resupply. Cora is out of chocolate.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Iam out of chocolate?”
Aiden shakes his head. “I’m not listening to this debate again. We can go into town. Cora, I know you want to leave something at the boarding house, but we’re not getting into anything else. We go, do what needs doing, and we leave. No thieving.”
“Why are you only looking at me when you say that?” Cypress asks. “You know, I could win just as easily without any of the…”
“Theatrics?” I pipe in helpfully, and he nods.
“Yes, I could win withouttheatrics. Far less enjoyable that way, though.”
Aiden tilts his head, eyes narrowing. “You’re tellin’ me that you think you can win playin’ it fair?”
“You doubt my abilities as a card player?”
“As a card player? No. As a harbinger of chaos? Yes.”
Cypress grins. “Care to wager on it?”
“What are the stakes?”
“If I play and I win the dull way…”
“Then…?”
“Then you and Cora both have to join me at the table on the next game.”
“Both of us? You want both of us at the table? Don’t you think that will be…distracting for you?”
“As much as it is for you.”
Aiden rolls his eyes and mutters, “Sadist.”
“Masochist,” Cypress replies, grinning. “I said I would win without the games. Not that I wouldn’t have fun.”
I look at Aiden, the corner of my mouth lifting as I see him think it over. “Itwouldbe fun, don’t you think?”
He sighs, and without ever having to sit down at the table, it’s clear Cypress has already won. We all have.
“Okay, Cy,” Aiden says, eyes moving to him rather than the horizon. “Lead the way.”
THE END