Rode Hard, Put Up Wet: Cowboy Romance (Rebels & Outlaws 2)

"So is there anything we can do?"

"Sure is," Chris says. "All that happens if nobody claims him."

"So… all we have to do is take him in, then."

He opens an eye. "Looks like you're catching on, then." He closes it again. "That's exactly what we're going to do."

"We?"

Chris nods softly. "I owe him a favor."

She raises an eyebrow, though as she does so she realizes he can't see it in the first place. "A favor?"

"I owe his folks a favor, but I can't pay it back, can I? So I pay them back by sparing their boy."

"That must be a story," Marie offers. How long are they going to be in there?

"Sure," he says, and then shuts his mouth.

"How do you know so much about all this stuff? I don't imagine that they teach you all about it tending bar."

"They don't," he agrees again. But again, he shuts up and doesn't expand on it.

She doesn't push him. There are some things that are private, no matter how curious she might be, and curious she certainly is.

"How much longer do you think they'll be?"

He shrugs. "It's hard to say. For the formal parts? They'd already be back. But if Sheriff Roberts decided to give the kid a talk, or they wanted to give the kid some ice cream to help him get over the shock, or he didn't handle it all that well so they let him walk away, then it could take longer."

"But they know we're out here," Marie insists. They wouldn't make a big delay, not for no reason, right?

"Then you know better'n me, I guess. Me, I'm just waiting until he comes back out. Then I'll think about what to do next, I guess."

"So you mean to say…"

"What?"

Marie's mind raced, but in the end she fell silent. He didn't press her to finish her thought.

The door opens, finally. It might have been an hour, but it felt like she'd been waiting for days. Somehow, Marie had expected Jamie to come bursting out, like he'd been waiting impatiently and finally was allowed to leave. That wasn't how it happened.

The door swung open and Jamie trudged out, like every step was one more than he thought he could take. Chris rose quickly and grabbed the door from him. The silence, though, was a surprise. She'd expected that at some point, he'd say something again. That he would try to step in and insist that the boy toughen up, like he had on the way inside.

But he didn't. He walked beside him a little ways, until finally Jamie came to the bench outside the Sheriff's station. The boy pulled himself up onto the seat and leaned back against the wall.

"Y'alright?"

Jamie blinked and looked up at Chris. "Mr. Broadmoor," he said. Almost surprised. Marie was almost surprised as well.

"Everything's going to be fine," Marie chimed in. It wasn't going to be fine, she knew. His parents were dead, and they weren't going to come back. But she couldn't bring herself to say it.

"Miss Bainbridge? I don't… um…" Whatever he was going to say, his lower lip started to tremble and he tightened up his jaw, his little muscles twitching as he tried to hold himself in. If Chris weren't there, he might have been bawling already.

The bartender knelt down in front of him and laid a big hand on the boy's shoulder. "It's alright, kiddo. You got every right to be upset, and nobody expects anything else from you right now. You need to let it out, let it out."

Jamie leaned forward and pressed his face into the bartender's shoulder. The sound of soft crying was almost audible over the sound of the town continuing to move around them. She waited there for a long time, until finally the boy leaned

himself back. Chris spoke again.