“What if you get caught?”
“We won’t get caught.” My voice carries more confidence than I feel, but she needs to hear it. “We’ve been doing this for years without so much as a close call. We know what we’re doing.”
I don’t mention the situation with Noah last night. She doesn’t need to know about that.
“And if something goes wrong anyway?”
I release her throat, letting my hand slide up to cup her face instead. “Then at least we went down fighting instead of just rolling over and accepting defeat.”
She leans into my touch, closing her eyes briefly. When she opens them again, there’s a resolution there that wasn’t there before.
“How much do you need? From this one job?”
“Enough to make our land sales work. Enough to pay off the immediate debts and give us breathing room to build something legitimate.” I pause, studying her face. “Why?”
“Because if this is really the last time, if this really gets us out of this hole we’re in, then I need to know what we’re risking everything for. I need to know the exact number that stands between us and freedom.”
The fact that she’s asking, that she’s thinking in terms ofusandwe, sends something warm through my chest. Despite everything I’ve just told her, despite the moral complexity of what we’ve been doing, she’s still here. Still willing to stand with me.
“Thirty thousand. That’s what we need to clear our debts and have enough left over to make the land sales work without going under in the meantime.”
She nods slowly, like she’s doing calculations in her head. “And you think you can get that from one job?”
“The Morrison herd is big enough. If we’re selective, take only the best cattle, we can make thirty thousand easy. Maybe more.”
“When?”
The simple question hangs between us, loaded with implication. She’s not trying to talk me out of it anymore. She’s asking when, which means she’s accepting it. Maybe not liking it, but accepting it.
“Soon. Within the next couple of days. Tonight, if we can make it work. We need to move while the conditions are right, before they change their security protocols or move the herd again.”
She’s quiet again, and I can see her processing everything, weighing the risks against the potential rewards. It’s the same calculation Truett and I have been making for months, but somehow having her go through it too makes it feel more real, more significant.
“I don’t want to know the details,” she finally says. “I don’t want to know when exactly, or how, or any of it. But Jesse?” She looks directly into my eyes. “If this goes wrong, if something happens to you or Truett, I’ll never forgive either of you for leaving me to pick up the pieces alone.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to us.”
“You can’t promise that.”
She’s right, and we both know it. But I can promise something else.
“I can promise that everything we’re doing, every risk we’re taking…it’s all for this. For us. For the chance to build something together that nobody can take away from us.”
She leans forward, pressing her forehead against mine. “Just promise me that after this job, that’s it. No more. Whatever happens, we find another way.”
“I promise.”
And I mean it. This one job, and then we go clean. We sell the land, pay off the debts, and start over with whatever we have left. It might not be much, but it’ll be honest, and it’ll be ours.
She kisses me then, soft and sweet, and for a moment I can almost believe that everything is going to work out exactly the way we’ve planned. That in a few weeks we’ll be free and clear, building a legitimate future together.
But as I pull her closer, as she melts against me in the morning light, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re balanced on a knife’s edge. One wrong move, one piece of bad luck, and everything we’re fighting for could disappear in an instant.
Still, as her hands slide up my chest and her lips find mine again, I know I’d make the same choice. Because sometimes the only way forward is through the darkness, and sometimes you have to be willing to risk everything to gain anything at all.
SEVENTEEN
AUBREE
