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Eden closed her eyes.

Jesse could hardly believe it. For days, Rusk had seemed to exist everywhere the family was frightened, and nowhere a sheriff could reach. Now they had caught him because a bell had rung and men had kept their places.

“Both of them?” Eden asked.

Jesse understood without asking who she meant.

“Pike and Rusk,” he said. “Both.”

She nodded, but she did not smile. Her brother still deserved answers, and the courts would have to decide what they could prove. Today had not given back what Josiah had lost.

It had given them a beginning.

Eden brushed a loose strand of hair away from Jesse’s forehead. “You kept him talking.”

“Had plenty to say.”

“You usually do.”

“I was hoping you hadn’t noticed.”

She leaned close enough he could see the small freckles across her nose.

“I noticed,” she said, and kissed him.

It was brief and gentle, and Jesse forgot the noise outside the clinic. When she drew back, he wished she would do it again, though Nate stood near enough to disapprove loudly.

“You all right?” she asked.

He looked at her, at the morning light slipping past the curtain, at the doorway beyond which his brothers were finally breathing easier.

“For the first time in a while,” he said, “I reckon I might be.”

He still could not stand. He had a long way to go before he could ride Buck or take Eden to the river bend as he had promised, but he had helped put the men who hurt him in the hands of the law. Eden was here, beside him, because she wanted to be.

He reached for her hand again.

“About that riding lesson,” he said.

Her smile came easily now. “You haven’t forgotten?”

“Not a chance.”

He held on as the church bell rang again. This time, no one had ordered it to ring.

Chapter Twenty

Three days after Samuel Pike’s arrest, Jesse took his first step.

Nate and Bass held him between them, one on either side. His right leg had a mind of its own, and the floor looked a considerable distance away. Eden waited near the window, where he could see her if he lifted his head.

“Ready?” Nate asked.

“No.”

“Good. Put your weight on the left first.”

Jesse did. His boots were on, though Nate had objected to them as unnecessary. A man ought to be able to put his feet on the floor in his own boots. Particularly when the entire household had gathered outside the door to listen for news.