“He would never believe you. I would tell him that you were Edward’s friend and are trying to frame me to get out of having to pay for your crimes. Besides, if you did decide to try and tell the sheriff, we would make sure that Elise paid for that decision.”
“Where is Elise? Why didn’t you give her back to me? She’s done nothing to either of you?”
Hank crossed his arms in front of him. “There was a moment when I considered giving her back, but the Indians made a much better offer. Besides, even if we decide not to give her to the Indians, I am sure I could think of something better to do with her than returning her. You will never see her again. That is the price you will pay for what you did to me in the past, for what you did to my brother, and for your ongoing mission to put me behind bars.” Hank grinned as if his plan was brilliant.
“If I don’t have Elise, I have no reason not to go after you two, not to follow you and do everything I can to put all three of you behind bars where you belong.”
“Let me say this clearly. If you go after us, Elise will not have a happy ending. If you do not, her fate will be agreeable.” Hank watched him carefully, and Ronan knew he was looking for a reaction. Ronan had to push down every emotion fighting his natural response.
“You can’t do this!”
“We actually can, and we have.” Hank grinned. “You should not have underestimated me, Ronan.”
Ronan swallowed hard. He felt the despair and the loss tumbling over him. He had failed Elise. He was the worst thing that could have happened to her. He had put her directly in harm's way.
Chapter 38
Hank watched as Ronan’s face crumbled. It was the best feeling and even better than he’d thought it would be. He could tell that Ronan was trying to keep his composure.
The worst thing was, Hank had been torn on whether to turn in Elise to the Indians or whether he should give her back to Ronan in exchange for Edward. But now he could see how much he was damaging Ronan by keeping Elise, he knew he had made the right choice.
Now, he, Edward, and Benjamin needed to search the woods until they found Elise. He didn’t think it would be too hard. The camp she’d escaped from was deep in the woods. It was hard to get back to town, even if you knew the way. Elise most certainly didn’t know the way, and Hank was certain that she would have gotten lost by now.
A sound off to the side made Hank tense. He looked up just in time to see four men riding into the clearing. They were all brandishing pistols and had angry looks.
Hank took a step backward. “Run!” he barked out. He didn’t know what was happening. One of the men was the sheriff. How had the sheriff found them? What was going on?
Hank turned and ran into the woods. He didn’t stop to see if Benjamin or Edward were with him. He didn’t care if any of them were there. Every man for himself was the rule in this situation.
He looked back briefly as he ran to see Edward go to the ground. Another man tackled Benjamin, and then from the side, Ronan came tumbling at him. He had no idea how Ronan had managed to catch up to him from the side, but he was there, pushing him to the ground.
Hank wasn’t about to go down without a fight. He threw his fists at Ronan, connecting with his jaw and shoulder, feeling brief satisfaction.
Ronan didn’t give up, and then he had help. When it was two against one, Hank knew it was over. He’d lost, and there was nothing he could do about it.
“Would you look at that? It appears that I am going to be collecting my bounty after all,” Ronan said grimly as he stood.
“I still have Elise. She will die alone.” Hank inserted as much venom as he could into his words.
“Maybe so, but I will find her before she dies. I will not give up even if I have to search every single inch of these woods. Now, I believe it is time you see your new home.” Ronan pulled Hank to his feet and pushed him in front until they reached the clearing.
Hank refused to meet Benjamin or Edward’s eyes. This plan was to get Edward out of jail and to resume their previous activity. Now all he had done was put an end to it all. He’d messed up terribly, and he knew that Ronan was right. He might never see the light of day or feel freedom again, and it was all his fault for not being more careful.
Ronan gave him a shove in the direction of Benjamin and Edward. Hank wished Ronan had taken him somewhere else.
“You ruined it. Who did you tell? What did you do?” Benjamin demanded. “Do you know how long I will go to jail because I helped you? No one had to know I was involved, but you got so caught up in your personal revenge, you didn’t even see the danger.”
“You’re blaming this on me?” Hank forced himself not to show how much Benjamin’s words affected him. “How do I know this isn’t because of you? Did you tell someone? Did you make sure no one followed you here? The sheriff clearly knew where we were.”
“I didn’t get followed!” Benjamin was defensive, but there was a sliver of doubt in his eyes.
“Maybe not, but one of us told someone something, and here we are. There is no point in spreading blame. We just keep an eye out for our next opportunity.” Hank surveyed Ronan, how he moved and how he spoke with the sheriff. He had failed this time, but there would be a next time. He would find a way to escape jail, and when he did, he would come back for his oldest and most challenging rival.
It was only a matter of time, and the next time, Ronan would not walk away as the winner.
Chapter 39
“I don’t understand. How did you know where we were? How did you know that any of this was happening in the first place? Benjamin said that he made everything look like it was my fault.” Ronan was completely perplexed by how the sheriff had found him and Hank, Benjamin, and Edward.
“Elise, she came into the sheriff’s office in tears about some sort of trap.” The sheriff grinned. “You have one special woman who cares about you.”
“Elise? She’s – she’s okay? Where is she? I have to see her.” Everything else the sheriff said melted away. All that Ronan could think about was Elise and the lies that he’d believed from Hank.
They weren’t true; she wasn’t tied up somewhere.
“She’s back at the sheriff’s office. She wanted to come with us, but I didn’t think it was a good idea for her to get mixed up in everything.” The sheriff shook his head. “I told her she should see a doctor. Her wrists need attention, and she looks like she has been through a lot.”
“Can you handle this?” Ronan asked, glancing in the direction of the criminals who were all scowling at each other. Ronan didn’t even have time to talk to Hank and let him know that he’d been beaten again. He just wanted to see with his own eyes that Elise was alive and well.
“Yes, go and talk to Elise. She will be happy to see you.”
Ronan didn’t need to be asked twice. He nearly ran back to his horse and mounted. Slapping the reins, he galloped down the main street toward the sheriff’s office.
When he got there, he leaped off the horse as soon as it was going slow enough for him to do so, looped the reins over the hitching post, and ran up the steps of the sheriff’s office.
True to the sheriff’s word, Elise was sitting there. Her hands were in her lap, wringing together with nervousness. Her hair was all over the place, and worry was etched into every single part of her face. When she looked up, she leaped from her chair.
“Ronan!”
Ronan couldn’t contain himself. He closed the space between them and pulled her against him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his cheek to the top of her head as she nestled against his chest.
“Thank God you are all right. I thought I’d lost you. Thank God.” Ronan held her like that for a good while. He didn’t want to let her go, he didn’t want the moment to end, but he knew that it had to.
He waited until she pulled back. “I was so worried about you,” she said softly.
“You were worried about me? I was worried about you. When I went to the diner, and you weren’t
there, I knew something was wrong. I ran into Hank, and he told me … he told me that he had you.” Ronan remembered the moment vividly. He also remembered the terrible emotions that nearly tore his heart in two. “What happened? How did you get to the sheriff, and what is going on? I have to say, I am curious.”
Elise giggled. “Hank took me to a hideout in the woods. I waited until I had a moment. He was having a conversation with the deputy. I recognized his badge, the way he was dressed. I knew he was a deputy. They were talking about you and their plan.” Elise shivered, and Ronan pulled his coat off, even though he suspected her shivers weren’t because of the cold.
He wrapped his coat around her slender shoulders and led her to a chair. “Here, sit down.”
“Anyway, I escaped, just like you taught me. Then I came back here. It was hard to figure out how to get back here. I kept getting lost. But I didn’t fall off the horse, and we made it. I told the sheriff everything, and he made me stay here while he went to help you.”
“You are so brave. Do you know that?” Ronan asked.
“I’m not brave. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t get hurt.” Elise looked at him with those big eyes of hers, and he felt as if his heart would melt. He didn’t know if she would reject him or not, but he knew he needed to tell her what his feelings were about her. She deserved to know.
Chapter 40
Elise fidgeted under Ronan’s gaze. She was almost certain he hadn’t looked away since he’d hugged her. He took her hands into his and rubbed his thumbs gently over her wrists.
“The sheriff was right; you do need to see a doctor.”
Elise nodded. “What happened? Were you going to trade a criminal for me?”
“Yes. I would have done anything to get you back. I had a plan, though.” Ronan grinned, looking sheepish.
Elise’s heart leaped in her chest. “Do you really mean that?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Thank you, thank you for trying to rescue me,” Elise whispered. She hated that she had been so ungrateful to Ronan in the beginning when he’d offered to help her. He had been there in so many situations when she needed him, and now, he had been willing to do anything to save her yet again.
“No, thank you for saving me. If you hadn’t done what you did with the sheriff, all three of those men would have gotten away. I don’t know what I would have done …”
Elise smiled. She was glad that she had been able to do something for Ronan for once.
“Elise, there is something I need to tell you. It isn’t easy, but you need to know.”
“What is it?” Elise asked, worry tugging at her chest.
“I love you. I don’t know if you feel the same about me, but the truth is, I love you more than I have loved anyone before. I love your smile, the way you laugh, how kind and caring you are and how you make my life brighter. I want you to marry me. I want you to be my wife. I want to have a homestead together; I want to start a family together.”
Ronan stopped talking, and Elise took a deep breath. His words shocked and excited her. He loved her.
“I- I wanted to talk to you too,” Elise started timidly. She wanted to laugh and cry all at once. Ronan had said everything she’d wanted him to and more.
“What is it?” Concern filled Ronan’s face where pure adoration had been a moment before.
“I love you too. At first, I didn’t trust you. I didn’t want to get close to you, and I didn’t want to like you. But then, as we spent time together, I fell in love with the real you. I would be honored to be your wife.”
Rona stood and pulled her to her feet. He wrapped his arms around her waist and spun her in a small circle. “You, Elise Herrin, have made me the happiest man alive.”
Elise giggled. When he set her back down, she looked up at him with worry.
“What are we going to do? Do we still go to California?”
“Yes. We do. We have a bounty now; we can use that to buy what we need. We should go to California, and if you decide you don’t want to live there after you’ve seen it, that is all right.”
Elise felt her smile widen. She liked that idea.
“Can I ask you something?” Ronan asked.
“Of course.”
“Can we get married before we go to California? I don’t want to risk you being swept off your feet by anyone else.”
Elise nodded through the happy tears that clouded her eyes. She was ready to marry Ronan. She was more than ready.
***
Elise walked away from the small chapel with a smile on her face. She was a married woman. She looked down at her hand, which was being held firmly in Ronan’s. They had arranged everything very quickly. Her eyes landed on the covered wagon. It was a sturdy wagon, much sturdier than the one she’d purchased at the beginning of their journey.
They had it packed with all their necessities and were going to start on the rest of their trip right after the wedding ended. It was a simple affair. Only a few people they knew and were close to had come.
“I’m sad you are leaving. I am going to miss you at the diner,” Meg’s sad voice interrupted her thoughts.
“I know, I’m sorry that we have to leave so soon, but I know my aunt is expecting us. I’ve written her a letter to explain the delay, but we really can’t stay much longer. It is still going to take us a long while to reach my aunt’s home in California.”
Meg nodded. “I know; I know. You have valid reasons, but I will still miss you.”
Elise grinned. “I will write you as often as I can. We can still stay in touch, and who knows? Maybe Ronan will want to travel, and we will come back for a visit.”
“Maybe.” Meg’s face lit up a bit. “I have to get back to the diner. I was only able to ask for half of the day away.”
Elise nodded in understanding. She pulled her friend in for a hug. “I know we haven’t known each other for long, but I consider you a close friend, Meg.”
When Meg pulled back, she was wiping tears from her eyes.
Elise wiped away a few of her own tears as she watched Meg leave.
“It’s always hard to say goodbye, isn’t it?” Anita said from nearby.
Elise nodded, turning toward Anita.
“It really is. Part of me wishes we could stay.”
“I understand, my dear.” Anita smiled, reaching over and patting her hand. “But everyone has their own path to take, and yours is taking you away from her for now. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
Elise nodded and glanced over to where Ronan was saying goodbye to Jorge.
“I hope that we see you again soon. Will you write?”
“Of course I will. You couldn’t stop me if you wanted to.” Anita’s smile was watery, but it was genuine.
Elise forced a smile, even though her heart was filled with sadness. Ronan was at her side, leading her toward the wagon. Elise paused, giving Anita one last tight hug. She was going to miss everyone she’d met in Las Cruces. Well, everyone except for Hank, Benjamin, and Edward. Those were three names she never wanted to hear again and three faces she never wanted to see again.
“Come on, I know it’s hard, but one day, we’ll be back,” Ronan said the words softly against Elise’s hair so that only she could hear.
Elise nodded and climbed up into the wagon. She waved at Jorge and Anita until they disappeared from view. They were going to California.
A Long Way to Love: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 27