“He’ll come around. He doesn’t have a choice,” I told them. Not that having him resigned to our marriage was what any of us wanted. Even though Abel had sounded like an arrogant prick, he and Jonah got on well. I hoped that would continue.
“I overheard some of the conversation and became… upset. I thought… I thought Jonah had married me solely because he had to.”
Jonah grunted as a reply and took Tennessee’s hand.
My leg throbbed and my head ached from the liquor, but I grasped her words.
“Oh, you mean because of your first marriage.”
Jonah nodded. “I’d been trapped. Twice, but I made it very clear, didn’t I, Tennessee? I was pleased to be caught by her.”
I looked between them, saw something different. Their glances were more open, more intimate. I felt… left out. “It could have been you instead of Jonah.”
“What? Caught with my cock in your mouth?” I remembered the wet velvet feel of her tongue licking me, the sweet suction that had emptied my balls.
She blushed, but nodded.
“Kitten, I was caught the second I saw you,” I added. “I admit, I wished I was the one who’d said the vows in church, but it doesn’t matter. You’re mine and you’re not getting rid of me.” I meant those words, now especially. I wasn’t going to die. Well, not any sooner than anyone else.
She tilted her head to the side and offered me the prettiest smile. Leaning in, she kissed me gently, as if my lips had been broken, not my leg.
“Her sisters are here,” Jonah said and Tennessee pulled away.
I looked over her shoulder as if they’d been hiding.
“At my house,” Jonah clarified. “We were in Travis Point, and they had just arrived on the stage from Butte.”
Her eyes lit up with excitement. “They are! Ginny is married, and the three of them—Ginny, Tom and Georgia, wish to settle here. They’ll stay at Jonah’s house until they find a place of their own.”
“I’m sure Mrs. Tunbridge is in heaven.” With Abel grown and no longer in need of a mother-figure, she was surely a touch bored taking care of two bachelors.
“I’m sure. We didn’t even make it to the house when Abel met us with the news of your injury,” Jonah offered. “We came directly here.”
“That is exciting about your sisters,” I said, happy she would have some family with her, especially with her father being a fucking bastard. And dead. “But why were you in Travis Point?”
They were to go to Jonah’s ranch, meet Abel and Mrs. Tunbridge, perhaps stay for lunch and return.
“Tell him everything, Kitten,” Jonah added. “About Grimsby.”
“Grimsby?” I snarled.
Tennessee took a deep breath, let it out. So did I, for I had hoped to never hear that name again. I adjusted the pillow behind my head and she began, telling me about the man sent to harm her sisters, how she’d intended to save th
em. By the time she was done, I wanted to head to Butte, yank Grimsby from the jail cell and beat the life out of him.
“They are safe then,” I said. “Whoever was sent to Fargo will give up and return and find he no longer has an employer. He has no reason to continue the search if he won’t be paid.”
Jonah nodded. “My thoughts exactly. And Virginia Bennett now takes her husband’s last name. None of them favored Butte, so I doubt Georgia will ever be known to the man.”
To know what she’d been carrying about and realize we’d misunderstood her, it was clear. She wasn’t rebellious; she was brave. Fierce, even.
“I won the money I’d wanted. I played poker in a saloon! Don’t worry, Jonah was beside me,” she added, patting my chest.
She was so eager about it, and I glanced to Jonah. He nodded, but said nothing about it. I would get the details from him later.
I looked to her. “We made assumptions about you, didn’t we, Kitten?”
She bit her lip, met my gaze. “I didn’t make it easy for you.”