“Okay,” she said. “You have a reputation as a charmer. A ladies’ man.”
“So, similar to yours.”
“I don’t think people see me as a ladies’ man,” she said.
“You know what I mean.”
“All right. I guess so. So we’re the same, basically, and us getting together is going to seem almost logical, which I find funny.”
“I’m sure you do.” It hit him then that he and Jessie had never really talked. Yes, they exchanged a little banter when they saw each other out at The Watering Hole, but otherwise they didn’t have conversations. They had been forced to start talking over the past couple of days. It was a weird thing to realize that he knew her, but didn’t especiallyknowher. Because yes, he knew her reputation. He knew what people assumed about her. He knew the Jessie Jane of lore and legend, just as she knew that version of him. And now they had talked about family and fairness and Rustler Mountain, and he’d said things to her he otherwise would have only said to Austin or Carson or Cassidy.
“You’re awfully quiet,” she said.
“Just thinking. But yeah, I can help you canvass in four days. It’s just … It feels an awful lot like one of those cheesy made-for-TV movies, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe not enough,” she said. “Maybe we should have cider and cookies. Flynn, we have to have a booth.”
“With … what?”
“I know how to bake,” she said.
“You … you bake?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I like it.”
“I don’t know what to do with that information.”
“Be excited. Because we are going to post signs, and then we’re going to set up at the library.”
“I’m not sure we’re allowed to do that.”
“I’ll talk to Millie.”
That made him feel unaccountably nervous. “You’re going to talk to my sister-in-law.”
“Yes. I am. Don’t even worry about it. I’ll follow up on the details.”
“I’m sure you will.”
When they got off the phone, he wasn’t even entirely sure whathad happened to him. Because she was like a whole herd of wild horses that couldn’t be contained or denied. He was beginning to think that maybe Austin’s concerns were valid. Because he had been so certain that he knew exactly what he was getting himself into. But did he?
He sat down on the edge of his bed and rubbed his hand over his chin, his whiskers scraping his palm. Well, he had made a deal with the devil. Now he was going to have to see it through.
Chapter 6
I had my sixteenth birthday on the trail and by the time I arrived in the Willamette Valley, Ma was dead and my future was decided. The men are not different out West. Men are all the same.
—Belle Martin’s Diary, November 1865
Dalton was leaving the valley for a few weeks for rodeo events, and Cassidy had wheedled him into going out with her and his best friend for drinks tonight—clearly the only way Cassidy was going to get to spend time with Dalton.
Not that he really needed to be coerced into spending time with his best friend, but he was in his head a little bit about everything with Jessie.
“Nice of you to buy me a drink,” Dalton said, clicking his glass against Flynn’s.
“I didn’t say that I was buying.”
“I can pay,” Cassidy said.
