“So this is Biggley Falls.” Joe said with a frown as she looked around the tiny frontier town.

“Guess so.” Jonah replied. “I pictured her living somewhere a bit more….”

“Fancy, thieving, bank robbing, whore of a bitch friendly?” Bart offered and Jonah nodded.

“Yeah that.”

“How are we going to figure out where she and her man live?” Bart wondered as he glanced around at the townsfolk milling about the tiny town.

“Ask I reckon.” Joe replied with a shrug. She had been dreading this for the last three weeks it had taken them to reach Biggley Falls.

Jonah still hadn’t mentioned a future with her. No mention of love. No mention that what they shared meant anything more to him than friendship and rutting.

It meant oh so much more to Joe. Jonah wasn’t her friend, he was her best friend. She wondered if he realized that he knew more about her than anyone, even her father, ever had.

She had shared more than just her body with Jonah, she had shared her heart and soul. He knew about her mother, about her fear to appear weak. He knew the truth about how her father had died and the loneliness, desperation and fear that had consumed her as the man had lie there dying and then those weeks after he was first gone.

Would Jonah really be able to just pack up and leave her once this was over? Would it be that easy for him to walk away? Should she ask him to stay? What if he refused? What if he laughed at her? Jonah had awakened her feminine side and taught her how to let her guard down but could she let it down so completely? Could she put her entire future into his hands that way?

She wasn’t sure.

“Boy if Scarlett sees you, Jonah, she’d shit some bricks fer sure! As far as that woman knows you died back in Barbadine!” Reb exclaimed with a chuckle. Jonah snorted in response and Joe glanced at him.

It was obvious that the man was on edge. “Bart, why don’t you go see if’n ya can get somebody to tell ya where they live at.” she ordered the skinny man.

“Why me?” Bart asked, throwing a longing glance at what Joe knew had to be a whorehouse given the fact that a half naked woman was brushing out her dark hair in the window.

“Cuz it’s too personal fer Jonah and he’ll probably come off a bit too intense, Reb is still drunk from last night and folks don’t like talkin’ to a one eyed bastard that smells of a whiskey vat, and most folks would find it a bit odd if’n I start askin’ ‘bout where they’re at since folks tend to think I’m odd anyway.”

“Where’m I gonna ask at?” Bart grumbled.

“Mercantile seems to be busy this morning.” Jonah replied with a tip of his head. “Go start there.”

“Fine.” Bart spat. He jumped from his horse and began to lead the beast down the road.

“Bossy. Bossy.” Jonah accused with a half smile as he looked over at Joe. Joe winked at him.

“Some men like a take charge kinda woman.”

“Is that right?” Jonah asked, his smile growing a little.

Joe nodded. “Least that’s what I’ve been told.”

“And who told you that?” Jonah questioned, his gray eyes twinkling with amusement.

“Some randy stud lookin’ fer lovin’.”

Jonah threw his head back and laughed and Joe smiled in response. She loved that sound.

“See that’s your problem.” Jonah stated, forcing a seriousness in his tone that didn’t match the laughter on his face. “A man will say just about anything when he’s looking for loving.”

“Would y’all just get married already?” Reb asked with a scowl as he spit a stream of tobacco into the dirt. “That way you’ll get back to hatin’ each other and I won’t have to listen to all this back and forth lovey dovey bullshit.” Joe’s eyes lit up at the comment but Jonah quickly doused her good mood.

“Ya sound a bit mad this morning, Reb.” Jonah replied. “And why the devil would we get married? That’s something for them foolish folks who fancy themselves in love. We ain’t the types to do something so stupid.”

Joe swallowed back the anger those words stirred inside of her. She wanted to marry Jonah. Hell she would marry him just this second if the stubborn man would ask her.

It was becoming increasingly obvious to her that Jonah didn’t love her. He had said so more than once and Joe had somehow managed to hold out hope that that was just his stubbornness talking. She was starting to think it was simply his truthful side talking….. Now what was she supposed to do about that?

“That’s right. Only a fool would fancy herself in love with Jonah.” Joe added, forcing a teasing tone to her voice. Though she was beginning to think that she was a fool. Jonah’s fool. Hanging on his shirt tails and hopelessly in love with a man who didn’t feel the same while Reb and Bart looked on with a mixture of sympathy and pity.

That thought caused a sour rock to drop into her stomach. Joe Redding didn’t want to be any mans fool.

Silence fell over the group of them and Joe could feel Reb’s blue eye watching her with pity. Damn Jonah for making her look so foolish.

“What the hell’s taking Bart so damned long to ask a question?” she snapped before beginning to chew on her fingernail.

As if on cue, Bart came back out of the mercantile with a grin on his face.

“So where is she?” Jonah all but growled, his hands tightening and his knuckles turning white as he gripped Coppers reins.

“It seems she and her husband have a cabin about three miles east of town. They’ve been gone about a week but are expected back home today.” Bart replied and then he grinned as he jumped up in the saddle of his horse. “And apparently I got a pretty smile and Miss Sara Miller would love to have dinner with me.”

“This town must be hard up for good lookin’ robust men. Maybe I’’ll just go on down and introduce myself to Miss Sara Miller. She’ll forget all about your scrawny Mexican ass.” Reb stated with a grin.

“Half Mexican ass.” Bart shot back. “And I ain’t scrawny.. I just got a hard physique cuz of all the loving I get.”

“Yeah and I lost my damn eye saving a baby from a pack of wolves.”

Joe laughed. “Gotta love their lovers quarrels.” she said, turning toward Jonah, but the man wasn’t there. Joe glanced around her quickly and then caught sight of him heading out of town.

“He’s gone.” she muttered.

“Have you told the man you love him yet?” Bart asked. “Or even asked him what he wants to do once we take care of Scarlett and Harmon?”

“No, I haven’t.” Joe snapped. “And what business is it of your’n?”

“So you do love him?” Reb asked with a grin and Joe grumbled under her breath, before swinging her leg out and kicking him solidly in the chest.

She felt a bit of satisfaction when he nearly tumbled out of the saddle and began coughing. Without saying a word she quickly took off after Jonah, hoping she could figure out what was going on in the mans mind. She just had to make sure she helped him catch Scarlett and Harmon and managed to stay alive as he did so.

***

Jonah rode straight up to the cabin without stopping to think of what he might do if he got there and Scarlett and Harmon were home.

He wanted revenge. They had lied to him. Used him. Played him for a fool. Then they had left him for dead and he would have died if not for Joe, Reb and Bart. And to think that back before Barbadine, Jonah had been hoping he could get rid of Joe because she had driven him crazy…. How foolish he’d been.

Joe had become the one and only person he trusted one hundred percent with his life. He was more fond of her than he had ever been of anyone else. He knew her secrets, she knew his. She didn’t push words like love and forever on him and for that he was glad.

He would never love again and there wasn’t another woman in the world that was going to get him to promise her forever. The minute you started talking about a future with a woman they found the fastest way they could to make a complete and utter fool out of you.

No matter how much he might like, maybe even need Joe around, he wasn’t about to fall in love with her or be turned into her fool. He’d learned his lesson well and no woman was worth that.

Jonah was pulled from his thoughts when Joe’s voice came from beside him.

“I reckon nobodies here.”

Jonah realized that she was right and he cursed under his breath.

“I guess I’ll just stay here and wait.” he said. “I’ll hide Copper out in the woods behind the cabin.”

“I’ll stay here with you.” Joe assured him. Jonah looked down at her. Honestly he wanted her far away from danger but he knew that she would knock his teeth out if he dared to say so. Besides Joe was the toughest person he knew and he knew for a fact that she could kick his ass if she ever took the notion to.

“What about us? You want us to stay here too?” Bart asked as he looked around.

“No.” Jonah replied. “I’d rather y’all go keep an eye out in town. That way if somebody tips them off that we’re here you can grab them.” Bart and Reb nodded.

“Jonah, keep your cool when they show up, okay? Don’t make us keep you out of trouble again.” Bart warned. Jonah glared at him.

“I didn’t ask for your damn help the first time. If you’d rather just go on then you can.”

“Jonah, don’t be sore at Bart.” Reb pleaded. “He just worries ‘bout ya cuz he’s yer friend.”

“I know.” Jonah admitted with a sigh as he rubbed his face. “I promised the sheriff that I wouldn’t kill either of them unless they left me no choice and y’all know damn well that I’m a man of my word.”

“And if’n an accident were to happen, Canada and Mexico are both nice this time of year.” Joe cut in with a smile and Jonah found himself chuckling as his mood lightened a little.

He found it amazing that the woman was able to do that. Jonah had always struggled with a darkness inside of him. A sadness. It tended to pull him down and make him moody and miserable. It didn’t matter how hard he had tried to fight it in the past, the darkness had always won… . But Joe seemed to have a talent for pushing that darkness back.

Jonah could never remember laughing as much as he laughed with her. Her friendship was truly the best part of his life.

“Alright then, Jonah. We’ll head back into town now that we know how to get here and if they try to make a run for it, we’ll get ‘em.” Bart promised.

Jonah tipped his hat to his friends and watched the two men ride away.

“This place sure ain’t what I thought Scarlett would live in.” Joe said thoughtfully as she glanced around. Jonah nodded in agreement as he looked at the tiny cabin and drafy, hole filled barn.

“It just don’t fit that high class image of hers, does it?” he offered.

“No. But then again, I guess if yer a bank robber ya don’t wanna flaunt yer money ‘round too much.”

“She’ll be singing a different tune when we get her back to Barbadine.”

“Barbadine?!” Joe demanded. “We’re cartin’ her hoity toity ass all the way back to Barbadine?”

“Yes. This is personal for me and I want her dealt with by the law in Barbadine. I don’t give a rats ass where we drop that man of hers off at but Scarlett is going to Barbadine.” Jonah replied with a no nonsense nod.

Joe sighed and patted her horse on the neck. “I won’t be so nice to her this time.”
Jonah raised his brow. “And you would consider the way you treated her the last time to be nice?”

“Sure was!” Joe replied before spitting out her thumbnail. “Why I was damn near cheery and chipper with that stick-up-her-ass, little tramp.”

Jonah found himself laughing again as he threw his head back. When he looked back at Joe her green gray eyes were full of fondness as she gazed at him.

“Guess I’ll be building her shelters again.” he teased and Joe snorted.

“I don’t reckon ya will. You’ll be too busy building ’em fer me.”

“Is that right?” Jonah asked as he began to lead Copper into the woods to hide him.

Joe winked over at him. “Yep. What can I say? Ya got me a bit spoiled.”

***

“It’s getting close to dark, Jonah. Ya reckon they’re coming tonight?” Joe asked as she and Jonah sat inside the tiny cabin. Jonah hadn’t moved from the chair by the window since they’d entered the cabin and he knew that Joe was getting tired of waiting. She’d been pacing and nearly wearing holes in the wooden floor for the last two hours.

“Bart said they were expected back tonight. But I don’t know. Mind reading and future telling are two talents that passed me right up.” Jonah replied as he turned from the window to look at her.

“Yeah but ya got a few other talents that didn’t miss ya.” Joe assured him as she crossed the darkening room toward him.

Jonah felt his heart quicken and desire flared to life for this woman whom he couldn’t seem to get enough of.

Jonah had thought that eventually his longing for her body would begin to fade but instead it was only growing stronger and deeper.

“I know a few things you’re pretty good at too.” he stated.

Joe smiled but then she scowled and her gaze flew out the window.

“I believe speaking of those devils caused ‘em to show up. We got company, Jonah.”

Jonah turned quickly and there, out in the darkness that was quickly swallowing the forests around them, he saw the wagon approaching.

And sitting there just as pretty as you please beside the man that Jonah recognized must be Harmon, was Scarlett.

Jonah felt hate fill him and his fists clenched tightly against his thighs.

He couldn’t wait to wipe that smile clean off her face with the back of his hand.