Chapter Twenty-six
IT WAS OVER IN AN INSTANT.
Durham hadn’t put up a fight, not with that many guns trained on him. He’d shoved Sophia away, and Matthew caught her as the man tried to run. He got as far as the front door before Gilbert and Marshal Wright grabbed him. He was on his way to the jail now as Miss Timperman crowed to every person who passed by outside that she’d put an end to a bank robbery.
Of course, all she’d done was happen to exit the bank the same moment that the men Gilbert had rounded up after figuring out something was wrong had arrived. But it didn’t matter. Sophia was safe, Miss Timperman seemed to finally understand that Matthew wouldn’t marry her, and the specter of Mr. Durham was finally erased from the shadows.
Matthew walked Sophia home. She held tight to him, her anger at him vanished, and he hadn’t let go of her for a second since Durham had turned her loose. When they reached the house, she asked if they might keep walking to the livery after she dropped off her carpetbag.
“I want to ride to the ranch,” she said.
It was the first time either of them had referred to that empty piece of land as “the ranch,” but he hoped with all his heart it wouldn’t be the last. And so they did, after stopping by the marshal’s office to tell him all that had happened before his arrival at the bank. Sophia had claimed innocence on behalf of Miss Timperman, which was more than the woman deserved.
“She made a terrible mistake,” Sophia told him as they walked to the livery. “I imagine we won’t see her at our doorstep anytime soon.”
At the livery, Mrs. Carlisle made a fuss over Sophia as they waited for horses. She made Sophia promise to come for a visit as soon as she could, to which Sophia readily agreed. Matthew stood back and smiled at the exchange. Sophia had easily made friends with nearly every woman in town. She belonged here. With him.
If she’d forgiven him for not believing her.
They rode out of town, headed north with the mountains on either side of them. Matthew’s stomach grumbled, and he realized it was past noon and neither of them had eaten. But Sophia looked unbothered, her face turned up to the sun and her eyes closed.
“I do love it here,” she finally said.
“As do I.” He waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t. Not until they arrived.
He helped her off her horse and they stood there, on the land where he hoped to build a home.
“Sophia,” he said, breaking the silence around them. “I am sorry for not taking to heart your concerns about Miss Timperman.”
She nodded, not looking at him.
His heart ached, uncertain if she forgave him. Or if she still wished to leave. He couldn’t hold her here if she did. And so he mustered all of his courage and put his thoughts into words. “I never once wished to marry her after I’d met you. I want you to know that. If you want to leave, I understand. But please leave knowing that I love you, and I won’t stop just because you aren’t here with me.”
She turned to him then, tears brimming in her eyes. “Do you mean that?”
“I love you.” He said the words again, even more fervently. “I’ve never known anything more certainly than I know that.”
One tear fell, and he instinctively lifted a hand to brush it away.
She closed her eyes at his touch, and then they fluttered open again. “I love you, too, Matthew. I was afraid . . . well, I thought you hadn’t ever really forgiven me for pretending to be someone else.”
His heart ached that she’d thought such a thing. “I only held that against you for about ten minutes.”
A smile traced her lips then. “That’s a very short amount of time.”
