Counterfeit Cowboy

by Lacy Williams

  He jumped up from the chair. “I’m going to talk to her.”

  “Good,” Pete said with a matter-of-fact grin.

  But Jesse wasn’t sure it was good at all.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A soft knock on her door brought Erin’s head up from where she’d collapsed on the hotel bed. She rose, wiping her tears away. When she cracked open the door, she saw the last person she’d expected.

  “Jesse.”

  What was he doing here? Aware that her hair was mussed and her eyes puffy and red from the tears she’d barely held off until she’d reached her room, she mostly hid behind the cracked door.

  “Will you take a walk with me?” he asked. His voice was so serious and the look in his eyes told her this—whatever this was—was a matter of grave importance to him.

  And her own pain didn’t matter in the face of his.

  She nodded, holding his gaze. “Let me find my coat.”

  Closing the door momentarily, she scrambled to pin up her hair. She donned her coat and grabbed her scarf, winding it around her neck even as she reopened the door and joined him.

  He didn’t look any happier. In fact, his expression showed enough apprehension that she might’ve thought he was going to the gallows instead of going for a walk with her.

  He remained silent as they went down the stairs, although his hand came beneath her elbow to steady her. At the outer door, he took a moment to turn up the collar of his coat before he held the door for her.

  They walked out into a world of white. Snow covered the ground and gently fell straight down. It was hours past supper, dark and quiet with no one else visible on the streets. Only the two of them. Jesse’s hand supported her elbow again and Erin allowed him to assist her off the boardwalk into the street.

  “Should be less slick than those planks covered with ice and snow,” he explained.

  With no wind blowing, and a layer of snow on the ground and still falling softly from the sky, every sound seemed muted. Lamplight shone out of windows in business establishments and upper rooms which were probably the homes of their proprietors, lighting the way for Erin and Jesse.

  They were in no hurry. Erin was content just to be with Jesse. She wanted to know what was causing such a heavy burden on his heart, but she had no desire to rush him. She wanted him to trust her enough to tell her, but he seemed hesitant to begin speaking.

  They reached the end of the block, crossed the silent street, and kept walking. And still she waited.

  * * *

  Jesse couldn’t figure out how to start. The words hovered at the tip of his tongue, waiting to be said, but he couldn’t say them.

  He loved her more every moment. In the hallway upstairs when they’d said their first goodbye, she’d offered him comfort with her touch. Even though he knew she’d been hurting.

  And when he’d asked her to walk with him, she hadn’t hesitated, only responded to his need.

  Oh, how he loved her.

  But would her love for him stand the test?

  When they’d passed another block and he remained tongue-tied, she turned to face him and clasped both his gloved hands in hers.

  “Whatever you have to say, I’m listening.” Those blue eyes that he could fall into were open and curious.

  “You think I’m good, and kind, and noble, but I’m not,” he blurted. “When I bumped into you at the train station in Boston, I was looking for a lemon—a target.” He could see by her puzzled expression she didn’t understand the vernacular. “Someone I could swindle. I’m a... I was a confidence man.”

  He took a deep breath, and looked away, over her shoulder, though he didn’t relinquish his hold on her gloved hands.

  “When we met, I had been out of prison for two days.”

  He heard her soft intake of air, felt the grip of her hands tighten minutely on his. He couldn’t bear to look in her eyes again, but he also couldn’t resist. She searched his face as if asking whether he was telling the truth.

  He closed his eyes, everything inside him freezing and shriveling.

  “Maybe you’d better start at the beginning,” she said softly.

  “You know about my stepfather, and about Daniel. For a long while after Daniel died, I didn’t care about anything. Didn’t eat regularly, nearly froze to death a couple of times. Then I met a boy a bit older than me, maybe nineteen, dressed real nice.

  “He started telling me that I could have fine things and get off the streets and it was easy money. He taught me to run a con about a lost wallet and I had a full belly for the first time in months.

  “The next night I had a roof over my head. Then some new clothes. And as I got better at it, I set my sights higher.

  “I was a good liar. People believed me easily. I told myself they were giving me their money. I told myself they were wealthy enough to afford it. I thought if they were gullible enough to fall for one of my tricks, then they deserved it. Let’s keep walking, all right? I don’t want you to get chilled.”

  He didn’t particularly want her to see his face, to see his shame. If they walked side-by-side, she’d only get a profile view and perhaps the shadows and darkness would hide the rest.

  “How did you come to be incarcerated?” She allowed him to pull her along, taking a right turn with the intention of looping back to their hotel.

  “I met a girl,” he said simply. “She was a friend of the man I thought of as a friend—the same one who’d taught me how to gain someone’s trust in the first place. She was just like me, shortly off the streets and wanted a better life for herself.

  “Turned out she was using me—she betrayed me. Talked me into running a con that required partners, only we got caught. When the dust settled, I took the blame and she got off scot-free. I was in prison five years.”

  “Prison.” She wasn’t looking at him and the word was quiet.

  “Yes.”

  She inhaled again, sharply this time, and Jesse knew that the way she saw him was changing. How could she help seeing him differently? And he wasn’t even close to finished yet.

  “Prison was where I met Jim Kenner. We were cell mates.”

  This earned him a turn of her head; she gazed at him questioningly.

  “I didn’t particularly like him,” Jesse went on. “He’d had a conversion experience before we met and he preached at me all the time. I admire a person with convictions—like you—but Jim never let it rest. He knew I didn’t want to hear what he had to say, but he was stubborn, thought I’d come around to his way of thinking eventually.

  “And I started to, but then... I’d made an enemy of one of the other inmates. Mostly I tried to stay away from trouble, but he held a grudge from when I’d first arrived in prison. Three days before I was going to be released, he came after me with a knife. And Jim threw himself in between me and the knife. He died because of his wounds.”

  “And you felt guilty,” she surmised correctly.

  “I still feel guilty. He died, I didn’t. And I don’t understand why he did it.” Maybe he would never understand.

  “After I got out of prison, I went to check on Jim’s family. I found his mother real sick and his sister ill-equipped to deal with it and I promised them I’d find his brother if I could. So I needed a way to get to Chicago.

  “And I ended up at the train station. And bumped into you.”

  He took a deep breath. He was getting to the part of the story that he didn’t particularly want to tell.

  “The moment we met on the platform, I started to feel something for you.”

  She looked down, and in the darkness he couldn’t see her expression well enough to decipher it. “I felt it, too,” she said softly.

  This was it. This last thing he had to tell her would destroy any vestiges of feeling she m
ight have left for him.

  “Then Pete approached me and we allowed you to think we were brothers. It worked to our advantage...”

  Her lips pinched at the reminder of their deception. He stopped walking, as they’d approached the hotel and it was only a few paces off.

  He faced Erin again, counting on being able to read her open expression in the faint light given off by the hotel. He had to know if there was any chance of her love surviving this confession.

  “Erin, once you’d changed your clothes and I knew you came from a wealthy family, I planned to trick you into giving me your money. All the cash you had on you. I was going to take it from you.”

  * * *

  She heard the words, had been listening intently, but it took a moment for their meaning to sink in.

  When she realized that he meant he’d planned to make her the victim of a swindle, she felt as if she’d received a physical blow, and drew away from him.

  His face crumpled, but he didn’t reach for her, didn’t do anything other than let his hands drop to his sides. His jaw was tight and that muscle that she hadn’t seen ticking at all yesterday or today had gone wild, jumping in his cheek.

  But it was his eyes that affected her most. They seemed bottomless with pain. Pain that matched hers.

  “You—you were going to steal from me?”

  “Erin—” Her name sounded ripped from his lips, but she had no excuse for his behavior. She was shaking.

  “Answer me,” she demanded.

  “Yes,” he said in a strangled voice. “But you have to realize—I thought I had no other choice. Being a con man is all I’ve known since I was a teenager. I thought I needed cash to have a fresh start, but I changed my mind when I’d gotten to know you. When I saw how you were with Pete, taking care of him in that hotel in Chicago—and you didn’t even know him. You were taking care of this little boy who was a stranger to you. I’ve never known anybody—not one person who would do that.”

  She shook her head, his words and explanations whirling in her brain like the violent snowstorm they’d witnessed last night.

  She’d known Jesse had been holding something back, but this? Lies, and manipulations...just like her father.

  She couldn’t abide the deception.

  * * *

  Jesse watched the life leach out of her eyes, powerless to stop it and wishing he’d done anything but what he’d done—lie and try to trick her.

  But if she’d known about his time in prison from the get-go, she’d never have shared her friendship with him.

  His arms ached to hold her as hurt filled her expression, but when he finally got the courage to reach for her, she stepped back from him, and his hands fell back to his sides, empty.

  “May-maybe it’s better that we part ways now,” she said quietly, eyes downcast.

  He swallowed the last of his pride. So be it. He could beg. He just couldn’t leave things as they were now, not if there was a chance, however small. “I’d changed my mind—thought Pete and I should accompany you to Calvin in the morning. It will only take part of the day and I’ll still be able to look for a job when we get back.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” she said, again in that subdued voice. She still wouldn’t look at him.

  Her gloved hands shook where she clasped them in front of her.

  “Erin, c’mere. You’re trembling.” He didn’t want her to go inside, didn’t want this moment to end, afraid he’d never see her again.

  She shook her head, refusing his embrace, the comfort he offered her. “I’m just— I’m cold.”

  He recognized in her words that she only wanted away from him, and didn’t argue with her as she backed farther away, turning for the door.

  He caught up to her, steadied her with a hand on her elbow when her slender boot slipped on the wooden plank. She jerked away as though his touch burned her.

  The irony stung. Now he’d won Pete’s trust and the boy allowed a hand on his shoulder or his hair to be ruffled, Erin could no longer stand his touch.

  Heart in his throat, he followed a step behind as she climbed the stairs to their hallway. She veered toward her door; this was it, his last moment with her unless he could convince her to give him another chance.

  “Please,” he begged, voice hoarse. “Let the two of us ride along with you. I won’t even say anything to you if that’s what you want.”

  Just being with her for those last precious hours would be enough. It would have to be, if that was all she could give him.

  “Fine,” she said shortly. “Good night.”

  And she closed the door behind her with a final-sounding snick.

  Jesse ran one hand down his face, and found that it was shaking. It had been just as he’d thought. He’d lost everything—her regard, her admiration. He’d seen the light in her eyes dim.

  He didn’t know what he hoped to gain on the train tomorrow, only knew that he couldn’t leave things as they were, not if he had any choice about it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The morning dawned overcast and dreary, the same way Erin felt. A glimpse out the window in her hotel room revealed that snow still fell, but this time it wasn’t the gentle downfall it had been last night; instead, it blew in from all sides. Sort of like how her heart felt bombarded and battered.

  She resolved to make it through the last leg of the journey as best she could, without saying much to Jesse.

  It was her own fault for letting her heart become involved with a total stranger. She’d known even as she’d fallen for him that he’d been keeping something back from her.

  She just hadn’t expected it to be the revelation that the only reason he’d approached her, and stayed with her, was because he’d been planning to steal from her.

  Jesse’s betrayal was worse than her father’s. Possibly because it seemed to validate her father’s view that she wasn’t mature enough to make her own decisions. She’d wanted to take a trip, make it to her brother’s for the holiday on her own to prove she was an adult and could take care of herself. Instead, she’d proved that she allowed the wrong kind of person into her life and had become far more involved than she should’ve.

  Perhaps her father was right and she should allow him to dictate her schedule and decide who she should be involved with.

  “Morning, Miss Erin.” Pete strode out of the dining room, wiping across his mouth with one sleeve.

  “Good morning. I see you’ve found your breakfast.”

  “Of course,” Jesse said, exiting the dining room and joining them, laying a hand on Pete’s shoulder. For once, the boy didn’t shake off his touch. She witnessed the progress between the two and was glad Pete had found someone to be his family.

  And she never would have met Pete if she hadn’t taken this trip. What if he’d gotten sick with the food poisoning and hadn’t had anyone to care for him? Possibly he could’ve died. She couldn’t regret meeting Pete, even if it resulted in hurt for herself.

  “Now that he’s found a cash cow, I doubt this young man will be missing many more meals,” Jesse teased. When their eyes met, she could see the strain it was for him to keep things light. The pain in the depths of his eyes mirrored the rend in her heart.

  She nodded a greeting to Jesse and watched his smile fade.

  “I’ll understand if you’ve changed your mind about accompanying me to Calvin.” She looked down, unable to keep meeting his gaze, and fiddled with one of the ties on her satchel.

  Jesse cleared his throat. “We’d like to go with you, but we won’t force our company on you. I’d understand—”

  He broke off and looked away. Beneath the brim of his Stetson, he squinted at something distant. To hide his emotions? He swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed.

  As much as she was h
urt by his actions and what he’d told her last night, she didn’t want him to feel it, too. They didn’t belong together, it was obvious now, but how did one convince their heart to break the connection it had made?

  “How can I turn down the escort of two handsome gentlemen? Especially when it means I don’t have to carry my luggage to the depot.”

  She pushed her satchel into Pete’s arms, causing him to grunt, but he took it from her. Jesse cleared his throat again as she passed through the door ahead of him.

  She braced herself for him to speak, but he remained silent, following at her side without further comment.

  This last leg of the journey would be the most painful, but she would make it through. Somehow.

  * * *

  She’s leaving. She’s leaving. Jesse’s heart seemed to surge the words with each clack of the train’s wheels on the tracks.

  He’d taken the seat across from Erin and Pete, because he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable by sitting next to her, but being across was proving more difficult. His gaze kept straying to her, and seeing the tight lines around her mouth and how she couldn’t quite meet his eye just twisted his gut into a tighter and tighter knot.

  Everyone around them seemed to be celebrating the holiday, with festive wrapped parcels, and he’d even seen one man carting a cut tree. Only their little group seemed to be mired in sadness.

  Because he’d messed everything up. From the very beginning, but he’d never planned on hurting her this much. He’d told her the truth in an effort to keep her from thinking it was her fault for putting a wedge between them, but he hadn’t wanted this deep chasm between them, either.

  Was he destined to heap guilt after guilt upon himself throughout his life? Would he never find freedom, only keep disappointing those who cared about him?

  All throughout his sleepless night he’d heard his stepfather’s voice, berating him and telling him he would never be good for anything. And then he would remember Erin’s joy falling away when he’d told her the truth about himself. He hadn’t wanted his stepfather to be right, had promised himself he wouldn’t end up like the man’s predictions.