“I’m not waiting any longer. My damn arm is fine and now it’s time to go figure out what happened to Bart and Reb.” Jonah declared impatiently a week and a half later. He had taken his arm from the sling that had held it in place for over a month and while it was still sore and Jonah figured it would take a while before he had full use without pain, it was good enough to get him by.

Jonah’s pa had been left handed and had used a cross draw holster so it was perfect for what Jonah needed until his arm was back to one hundred percent. Thankfully Jonah had always been able to use both hands.

“There ain’t no point chasin’ after them, Jonah. We’ll no sooner get down the road and them two will come ridin’ in and we won’t be here.”

“We? You’re riding with me?”

Jonah and Joe had been doing better since their late night talk by the fire and their agreement to be friends. Jonah was pretty good at pretending he didn’t want her for anything more than friendship and Joe didn’t seem the least bit interested in hitting the sheets with him.

“’Course I am.” Joe replied with a shrug as she went about cutting up the last of the potatoes that had been in the cellar. “That bitch of your’n owes me that twenty dollars fer getting her hoity toity ass to Barbadine. That and I had to leave my damn cart behind and I want the money to replace it too.”

“I never said I was going after her.” Jonah replied with a growl, unwilling to say that bitches name out loud. Joe shrugged, and then poured a bowl of cut potatoes onto a heated butter filled skillet and the scent of them sizzling made Jonah’s stomach growl.

“I just figured ya would is all.”

“Yeah I’m going after her.” Jonah admitted, as he moved behind Joe to get a better look at the dinner she was cooking. Joe stiffened a bit and then moved across the kitchen and got two plates off a shelf.

“Well I’ll ride with ya. She owes me.”

“I kinda figured I’d be going alone.” Jonah admitted and Joe slid past him and into the living space before sitting down in one of the chairs by the fire.

“I figured since we both want the same woman we might as well ride together to find her. ‘Course if you’d rather we can chase her separate…”

Jonah shook his head quickly as he stirred the potatoes to keep them from burning.

“No, it’d be good to have someone with me. Kinda hard to play poker alone and we’ll be able to watch each others backs.” Jonah waited for Joe to insist that she didn’t need anyone to watch her back but the words never came.

“We’ll give Reb and Bart a couple a more days and then we’ll go lookin’ for ‘em.” she said instead and Jonah nodded because the plan sounded good to him.

Joe joined him in the kitchen as he scooped their potatoes onto plates and she pulled the last of the pork that had been in the smokehouse from the cook stove.

“I think we’ll have to make a trip to town tomorrow for food to get us through the next couple of days.” Jonah stated as they sat down at the table and Joe grinned.

“Yeah I’d hate to have ya kill over from starvation and be forced to eat ya.”

“I wouldn’t taste good anyhow.” Jonah countered. Joe crinkled up her nose and studied him.

“Yeah, fatty meat ain’t no count fer eatin’.”

Jonah let out a bark of laughter before shoveling a bite of potatoes into his mouth.

“You’ve lost your damned mind. There ain’t a bit of fat on me.” he argued and he was fairly certain he saw a blush beneath the dirt on Joe’s face, though her eyes showed nothing but amusement.

Silence fell over them as they ate their dinner and they both went about cleaning up the dishes afterward.

“I’m goin’ fer a walk.” Joe said once the mess was cleaned.

“Alright. I’m gonna stay here and make out a list of what we’ll need to get at the store tomorrow.”

Joe nodded and slipped out the door and into the encroaching darkness. It was around seven-thirty in the evening but night was already coming to the mountains.

Jonah’s comment at dinner about his body not having an ounce of fat had caused an image of him naked on that bed to flash through her mind. Joe had worked hard to forget that day. To forget the way her body had felt so small and soft pressed up against the rugged hardness of Jonah’s.

She had tried to forget the way she had felt so safe and warm wrapped all up in his arms the way she had been.

Damn him for making her remember.

At least she had finally let him know that she was riding with him when he left. There had been no way she was going to let Jonah go after Scarlett alone. The man seemed to lose good sense around women like her and Joe didn’t want him to wind up dead. She’d put far too much effort into keeping him alive to have all that time and work be wasted.

Joe made her way toward the lake, which was her favorite thinking spot and sat down on the cold rocks, folding her legs beneath her, and staring into the water.

She shared Jonah’s fears about Bart and Reb, though of course Joe would never admit that out loud. She hoped they’d be okay because Jonah was the sensitive type and it would take a giant toll on him if his friends had gotten killed because of his lack of good judgment.

A gust of wind blew and tugged on her hair, blowing several red strands across her face and bringing a scent to her nose. It was faint and Joe couldn’t even identify what it was but it brought an image of her pa to her mind and she felt her heart break as if he had died yesterday instead of nearly two months ago.

She missed her pa. He had been her everything for twelve long years until he’d died. Joe had lied about the cause of his death. Gideon ‘the hawk’ Redding had died after being attacked by some angry critter. Joe had said that simply to maintain the mans tough as nails image.

In truth Gideon had come down with a lung sickness and for nearly three long lonely months of winter Joe had watched her pa waste away. He lost weight, lost all muscle, had grown paler and more frail with every passing day. Then his body had taken fever and he had become bedridden and crazed, delirious from the sickness that had been warring inside of him.

Nothing Joe did seemed to help him and the doctor told her there was nothing that could save her pa. So Joe had simply kept him as comfortable as she could and watched him die…..

She wondered if that was the reason she had worked so hard to save Jonah. If that was why him living had meant so much to her. She had been unable to save her pa so she had used Jonah’s injuries as a way to redeem herself.

Joe decided that sounded like a better explanation than the possibility that she might possibly be coming down with a brain ailment toward the man.

Joe got to her feet and wiped her hands on her buckskin pants. She needed to get back to the cabin because Jonah tended to worry about her when she stayed gone too long after dark. Joe made sure to feign irritation whenever Jonah acted that way but in truth, deep down within her, she was actually enjoying his attention.

Not that she would ever let him know that!

She was starting slowly back up the hill that would allow her a view of the cabin when a gunshot suddenly rang out.

Joe stopped in her tracks and heard a man yell.

“No! Jonah!” Joe screamed and she pulled her gun and ran as fast as her legs could carry her up and over the hill.

“Damnation, Jonah! Ya blew a hole in my hat! That was my favorite hat!” Joe breathed a sigh of relief when she recognized Reb’s voice and then she topped over the hill and saw the three men in the glow of the lantern light at the porch.

Bart was standing to the side looking very amused as Jonah rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and Reb frowned while poking his figure through the new hole in the brim of his hat.

“You should learn to call out to a man before you ride right up on his place in the dark.” Jonah informed the man.

“Your place?” Joe asked with a grin as she joined the men and put her gun away.

“Were you gonna shoot us too?” Bart asked and Joe shrugged.

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

Jonah laughed. “It’s about damn time the two of you showed up.”

Reb looked amused as he stuck his hat back on his head. “Aww, was y’all worried ‘bout us?” he questioned, his blue eye twinkling in the lantern light.

“Getting there.” Jonah replied.

“Not a damn bit.” Joe stated at the same time. Her eyes met Jonah’s and they shared a quiet laugh. Joe turned back to Bart and Reb just in time to see them share an odd look with one another before shaking their heads at Jonah.

“So I take it you escaped the posse?” she asked.

“Why don’t you let us go put these here horses up and then come on in and take a load off our boots and we’ll tell you all about?” Bart offered and then Joe heard Jonah’s intake of breath as Bart moved a third horse out of the darkness and into the circle of light.

“That’s Copper!” he exclaimed and Joe had never seen a grown man light up like a child on Christmas the way Jonah did in that moment at the sight of that big buckskin gelding.

“Well I’ll be damned.” she stated as Jonah went to the horse and the beast threw his head over Jonah’s shoulder as if hugging him.

“How’d you manage to get him?” Jonah questioned as he looked back at Bart and Reb.

“That’s another of them there things we’d be happy to tell ya ‘bout just as soon as we put the horses up and can take a load offa our boots.” Reb replied and Jonah nodded and quickly led Copper toward Joe’s tiny log barn.

***

“So get to talking.” Jonah said later as Bart and Reb finished up the last of the potatoes that he and Joe had eaten for dinner.

“Yer an idiot.” Reb began. “One hundred percent, brain ailment impaired dummy. Fallin’ fer some woman like that….”

Jonah was simply nodding as Reb spoke because he agreed with the man completely and he knew that everyone else in the room would too and so he was surprised when Joe spoke up and cut off Reb’s rant.

“Dammit, Reb, I reckon the man knows he made a mistake in trustin’ that hoity toity bitch. He’s got three bullet holes to show fer it. He don’t need yer two cents.”

Reb blinked several times, his blue eye full of surprise while Bart frowned and looked between Jonah and Joe. Jonah wondered what the man was thinking but didn’t think now would be the time to ask.

“Well alright then.” Reb grumbled as he picked at the rough wood of the table top.

Jonah nodded in thanks at Joe who just shrugged and went back to picking at her dirty fingernails.

“So what happened after Joe and I left Barbadine?” Jonah asked, looking back at Bart, deciding that he’d rather hear the story from the friend that was least likely to try to turn it into a whopping, epic tale.

“Reb and I just held the lawmen off a while and then we got the hell out of there. We had to help ourselves to a couple of saddled horses and we took off. Thankfully those lawmen were the only ones in town and they never did form a posse. They chased us for a while but we know how to hide.”

“We stayed outta town ‘bout a week and a half.” Reb took over the story selling. “Then we made our way back in, ‘course I stayed outta sight since I’m the more recognizable of the two of us.” he adjusted his eye patch as he said this. “So Bart went to the livery in the middle of the night with our stolen horses and got ours out, along with Copper. He hitched up the horses behind the hotel and then went on down to the station and turned himself on in.”

“What?!” Jonah and Joe demanded in unison and Bart chuckled.

“I wasn’t in any danger of being put in jail.” he assured them.

“Nope, I’da busted him out.” Reb agreed with a grin. “Done it a time or two in my life.”

Jonah just shook his head, rubbed his hand over his face and then looked back at Bart.

“Does this story have an end?” he asked.

Bart nodded and laid his hand over his skinny stomach. “Sure does. The sheriff wasn’t in but the deputy listened to my story, how I was just trying to defend my injured friend who’d been falsely accused and seein’ as how I never did shoot anyone I was shooting at, he said I wasn’t under arrest.”

“To beat it all, Jonah, you ain’t wanted either. That old man lived through it all and he, the tellers and the woman that were in the bank admitted that you didn’t have no part in what happened… That you was just as shocked as they was.” Reb added.

Jonah met Reb’s eyes and could see the disapointment in them. Jonah knew where it stemmed from. Reb and Bart had heard about his cowardice inside that bank and they were ashamed of him. Hell Jonah was ashamed of himself for how he had acted.

But he was going to make sure Scarlett paid for the wrong she had done. He was going to make it his mission in life to see her answer for it all.

“Now that y’all are back I don’t’ see any point in waiting. I’m leaving tomorrow to find Scarlett.” Jonah stated as he stood up from the table. He looked down at Joe. “Are you coming?”

“ ‘Course I am. I told you I was.” she said with a nod. Jonah looked at Bart and Reb in turn.

“Are y’all gonna ride with us?”

“Sure will. We found out some interesten’ things ‘bout Scarlett…” Reb informed him and Jonah stiffened.

“What?”

“Well fer starters she’s married.”

“Married?!” Jonah demanded angrily. He had bedded a married woman?! How hadn’t he known?

“Yep.” Bart said with a sad little nod. “To the man that she rode off with. Seems they’ve done things like that more than once. They find a way to lure the men into Scarlett’s little web and then Scarlett robs a bank, blames the poor sap and in the confusion that follows, they ride away. By the time anybody knows the truth, the man they framed is dead and Scarlett and her husband, who’s name don’t seem to be known, are long gone.”

Jonah tried to ignore the fact that Bart had just called him a poor sap and instead focused on thinking of where he had seen the man on the horse with Scarlett before.

Recognition dawned on him and he slammed his fist down on the table with a loud curse.

“What the devil, Jonah?!” Joe exclaimed as she grabbed her tittering tin cup. “Ya just ‘bout made a mess.”

“Sorry.” Jonah replied distractedly. “That bitch wasn’t being taken advantage of in that barn. He wasn’t forcing her. They faked it just to play me for a fool!”

The cabin fell silent for several long moments until reb spoke up.

“Don’t feel bad ‘bout it, Jonah. It weren’t the first time they did that and at least yer still alive to go back after them. That’s more than the last man can say.”

“I’m gonna go get some goddamn sleep.” Jonah grumbled. “We’ll leave in the morning.”