Counterfeit Cowboy

by Lacy Williams

  “You mean, the king wanted to kill the baby Jesus?”

  The shock in one of the young twins’ voices brought Jesse out of his doze.

  Jesse listened as she explained the hatred that had led a king to try to kill the Christ child.

  She had the kids completely engaged; Jesse was, too.

  She was so different from Jim. Where he’d preached things like living right, and God’s love, Erin lived those things. Without apology, she lived her beliefs in every moment.

  It made someone like Jesse believe when he never had before.

  But he couldn’t forget the things he’d done, the guilt he carried. How could God?

  Chapter Thirteen

  “That one’s trouble,” Nora cautioned as Erin watched Jesse and Pete head to the washroom for evening ablutions.

  In the melee of getting off the train for dinner and back on, somehow their larger group—Erin, Jesse and Pete, along with Nora’s troop—had gotten seats in the center of the train car. Although farther from the boiler, this area of the car retained more heat because the drafts from outer doors opening was diminished.

  Nora’s little ones had finally worn themselves out and were sprawled across each other, coats and scarves on but askew. Erin held the baby against her midsection, where he’d dozed off.

  “Which one?” asked Erin with a grin. “They’re both a little troublesome.”

  She’d meant the words as a joke but Nora didn’t share her smile. Erin had been attempting to get to know the prickly woman all afternoon without much success.

  “I meant Jesse. I see the way you look at him, and you need to watch out.”

  “How do I look at him?” Erin asked with a half laugh, determined not to be offended at Nora’s abrupt manner.

  “Like a woman falling in love,” Nora said bluntly, and it was clear she thought this was a bad thing.

  Erin started to deny it but the words stuck in her throat. She couldn’t be falling for Jesse, not after the way he’d misled her. Could she?

  “We’re planning to go our separate ways once we get to Wyoming,” she said at last, because that much was true.

  Nora scrutinized her with narrowed eyes. “He’s trouble, I’m telling you. What do you know about him anyway?”

  “Well...” She was going to say he’d proven himself trustworthy on the trip so far, but it wasn’t entirely true, was it?

  “He reminds me of my husband—slick, too slick.” Nora’s mouth firmed into a white line. “Six years together, and he left two weeks before Christmas. Said he wasn’t coming back.”

  And suddenly Erin understood why the other woman seemed so tightly strung.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked softly.

  The other woman’s look of vulnerability was quickly replaced by a glower. “I didn’t tell you so you’d feel sorry for me. I’m trying to warn you off that Jesse—he’s no good—”

  Nora cut herself off as a shadow fell over them. Jesse and Pete returned to their seats.

  “Ladies,” came Jesse’s greeting, though his voice was subdued.

  Nora gave Erin a knowing look as the two males retook their seats. Erin smiled tightly. She could certainly understand the woman’s disappointed dreams and dashed hopes for her life, but it didn’t mean she should look down on Jesse.

  Besides, Erin wasn’t falling for Jesse.

  Their group remained in awkward silence as it grew colder and darker until finally Nora drowsed off, leaving Erin and a tense Jesse awake. Pete had finally succumbed to sleep as well, his head leaning against the corner where the seat and edge of the wall met. Erin still held the baby snugged against her chest, his thumb held loosely between his gums.

  She was afraid Jesse had overheard Nora, but when he spoke, it was with a teasing inflection in his voice.

  “I thought they’d never go to sleep,” he groaned softly, just above a whisper. He rested his head against the back of the seat, exaggerating a yawn.

  “They weren’t that bad.” Erin nudged his elbow, careful not to jostle him. She hadn’t taken off her coat after they’d got back on board the train after the last stop, but even with the baby cuddled against her creating heat, a chill slipped down the back of her neck. “They’re pretty good kids,” she went on. “The boys might be rambunctious, but the girls are darlings.”

  “They reminded me a bit of my brother and I when we were young.”

  Erin barely dared breathe. Jesse was revealing something of his past to her. “You were darlings?” she teased lightly, pretending to misunderstand.

  “No,” he said, more seriously than she would’ve thought. “We were into everything. Drove our mother crazy. Constantly harassing our sister. Getting into scrapes with other neighborhood boys. Playing pranks on our teachers until we were old enough to work in the factories.”

  “You were close?”

  He nodded. “He always followed me, from the time he could crawl.”

  He ran a hand over his mouth, watching the darkened window with vacant eyes. “He followed me when my stepfather kicked me out. And that loyalty cost him his life.”

  “What happened?”

  “My stepfather and I constantly fought. He was nothing like my father. He had a mean streak and was often cruel. I hated him. When I was fifteen, my mother’s birthday arrived... Daniel and I both worked in the factories to help support our family, but our stepfather wouldn’t let us have any money to get our mother a birthday gift. So I...I stole a trinket from one of the shops close to where we lived. When my stepfather found out, he was livid. We got into a screaming match and he...kicked me out.”

  She sensed there was more than that. Why hadn’t the mother intervened?

  “And Daniel sided with me. Followed me. We lived on the streets—like Pete, doing whatever we had to do to survive.”

  “Why didn’t you continue working at the factory?”

  “My stepfather talked to the boss at our factory, all of the foremen at all of the factories within walking distance. He turned them against us. Spread lies about us to ensure we wouldn’t be able to get jobs. I didn’t have any skills to apprentice on—we didn’t have any options.”

  “I suppose you were too old for an orphanage, but what about a church?”

  He looked at her, really looked at her face for a long moment. “Not every churchgoer is like you, Erin.”

  * * *

  She brushed off his words with a wan smile and a small shake of her head before she laid her cheek against the baby’s head. Jesse was starting to think she didn’t see herself in the same way he did—she was amazing, selfless. Erin O’Grady was something else.

  She hadn’t judged him for what he’d just told her about his rebellious youth.

  But his stomach was in knots at what he was about to say, and this wasn’t even all of it. Thinking about his stepfather and the vitriol the man had spewed at him that last night—You’ll never be more than a petty thief!—still wasn’t as bad as thoughts of his beloved brother and what had happened only a few months later.

  The car had grown quiet as they’d talked, most passengers nodding off to sleep. Erin’s gentle, steady gaze, gave him the courage to say it, even if only in a whisper.

  “In the winter, we were always cold. It was hard to get warm. If we stepped into a shop, the shopkeeper would chase us out, afraid we would steal something.”

  He grinned ruefully. “They were probably right. We were so hungry, all the time...”

  He swallowed hard, trying to find the strength to tell her.

  And she reached over and laced her fingers through his, so that their hands were tangled together on top of his knee. The comforting contact made his heart pulse powerfully. He was afraid he was falling in love with her...

  “When we were kids,
Daniel was—” He forced the words out to block thoughts of Erin. “He was this cheerful little person. Always had a smile—sometimes causing mischief—but always happy.”

  He drew a deep, shaky breath. “Those last few weeks, he was like a shadow. It was as if he just faded away, and there was nothing I could do to bring him back...

  “One day he started coughing. A dry, raspy cough at first, then deeper, like it had settled in his chest. He started burning up with fever, and I didn’t have any medicine, no money to take him to a doctor. I even thought about taking him back home—I would’ve begged my stepfather to help him. I would’ve done anything.”

  Jesse’s voice broke. He bowed his head, had to forced out the last words, had to tell her all of it.

  “There wasn’t time to get him back home, because he died a few hours later.”

  Jesse squeezed his eyes shut against the pain of saying the words aloud. He still felt as if his heart had been flayed open and left bleeding. He would never forget holding Daniel’s hand as those last few rattling, ragged breaths took his brother from him.

  But then a new sensation overtook the pain radiating out from his heart. Warmth.

  Jesse lifted his head to acknowledge that Erin had leaned her head and shoulder against him. She still clasped his hand tightly, still held the sleeping babe tucked against her.

  Jesse couldn’t resist, couldn’t stop himself from half turning in his seat and taking her—the both of them—in his arms. She fit there so perfectly, just as he’d guessed she would. She leaned into him with the same abandon the child had shown her—as if she trusted him implicitly. Her face pressed into the juncture of his neck and shoulder, her breath warming his collarbone through his shirt.

  And he realized the neck of his shirt was becoming suspiciously damp. He pushed back enough to see her face, his arms still around her.

  “Are you crying? For me?” His own voice choked up as he stared down at the silver tears on her cheeks.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered. “You were barely older than a child yourself.”

  No one had ever shown him such empathy, such mercy.

  Overwhelmed with emotion, Jesse did what he’d told himself he wouldn’t do again, and kissed her. His hand slid against her damp cheek into her upswept hair, the curls already coming loose from a day manhandled by children and other travelers. He was careful not to jostle the little bundle in her arms—

  She met him fiercely, melding her lips to his as if she could erase his pain by her kiss...and maybe she did, because when they drew apart moments later, ragged breaths mingling, he couldn’t remember pain, could only hear his own heartbeats thundering in his ears, could only see the vibrant blue of her eyes, the teardrops spiking her lashes, the pink of her cheeks.

  She reached up with one hand, the other still holding tightly to the sleeping babe, and put her palm to his jaw. When he thought she would simply gaze at him, she surprised him by tugging him down to meet her kiss, this one sweet and searching and...hopeful.

  He pressed her close to his chest again, holding her as his emotions calmed until one panicked thought crystallized in his thoughts.

  He wasn’t falling in love with Erin O’Grady. He was already in love with Erin O’Grady.

  But he knew he didn’t deserve her—there was no way he could. So the noble thing to do would be to walk away.

  But he didn’t know if he had the strength.

  * * *

  Erin had never felt closer to another human being than she did right now, ensconced in Jesse’s arms, the memory of his kisses lingering on her lips.

  Her mother would be ashamed of Erin’s actions, kissing the man like that in public—or at all, given that they weren’t anything more than friends—but she couldn’t find it in herself to regret it.

  She should probably be worried about opening her heart to a stranger. Part of her sensed there were still things Jesse wasn’t telling her about his past. But she couldn’t help what she felt, and what she felt was drawn to Jesse. Even with his initial deception, even with whatever it was he wasn’t telling her, she couldn’t make herself wish they’d never met. She wanted to find a way to be with him.

  Perhaps if she could convince him to return to Boston, he might find work there and they’d be able to continue in a courtship.

  Or perhaps they could write, if he wanted to stay in Chicago or elsewhere. She’d known of relationships, marriages, built on less.

  But she was getting ahead of herself. Right now she needed to concentrate on getting to her brother’s place in Wyoming and perhaps convincing the man beside her to stay for the holiday.

  Cold air seeped down the back of her neck and she shifted slightly closer to Jesse and his warmth.

  “Will you tell me about your father?” Jesse’s voice rumbled against her ear. “Why you decided to come out and see your brother?”

  She stiffened but forced herself to relax back against his side. She didn’t want to talk about something that would intrude on this place of happiness, but she would because he asked and because he’d shared something obviously very painful to him with her.

  “My father has always been protective of me. You know about my childhood. As a teen, I often rebelled against the strictures my father placed on me.”

  “You rebelled?” he teased gently.

  She turned her face briefly into his shirt, a hot flush rising in her cheeks. “No matter what you think of me, I certainly wasn’t a perfect daughter. I threw tantrums, refused to see my father...”

  “Hmm,” he said, and she tickled his side with her one free hand. He clasped it quickly in his and held it. “Go on.”

  “Recently, my mother became a benefactor for a hospital that helps many underprivileged families. Children whose families can’t afford care otherwise.”

  His chest froze on an inhale, and she imagined he was thinking of Daniel.

  “I visited with my mother and felt... Well, I suppose the truth is, I identified with those children, many of whom were too sick to even sit up in bed. I can remember the loneliness of times like that....”

  He squeezed her shoulders, and she relished the comfort he offered.

  “When my father found I was volunteering my time, he asked me to stop going to the hospital. I think he probably worries I will contract some disease and waste away.” She snorted at that. “I tried to explain to him how much this hospital and the children there mean to me, but he didn’t—wouldn’t understand. He believes the doctors and nurses that we support with our funding should be enough for the children.”

  She bit her lip, ashamed of what she was about to say. “I kept visiting anyway, against his wishes.”

  Again, Jesse squeezed her shoulders. “I wouldn’t expect anything less. You have a heart for helping others, I’ve come to discover.”

  She preened at his praise. “Thank you. I believe you do, too. If I understand the undercurrents that passed between you and Pete earlier, may I assume he attempted to get off the train but you talked him out of it?”

  “Don’t change the subject,” Jesse said. “You were telling me about your father.”

  She lifted one eyebrow at him, so he would know she wasn’t just going to forget about what he’d deftly sidestepped. But she went on.

  “My father began arranging functions for me to attend. It was so subtle, I didn’t notice it at first. My mother would suggest a ladies’ tea she wanted me to accompany her to. Papa would encourage me to attend parties nearly every night of the week, I suppose hoping to make me too tired to attend the hospital the next morning. And a young man began calling.”

  It was Jesse’s turn to stiffen beside her. “You have a beau?”

  “No.”

  The tension in him eased. She explained.

  “I found out that my father had paid hi
m to come courting, to keep me too busy to go to the hospital.”

  Just thinking about it fueled her ire. “My father lied to me—got others involved in his lies. He manipulated me to get what he wanted without regard for my feelings. Or for the poor, unfortunate children I want to help.”

  Jesse was silent, thoughtful beside her.

  “I suppose...running away was a selfish thing to do.” She looked down at the little one sleeping in her arms. “Certainly, it didn’t help the children. I had thought...if I could make the trip on my own successfully, then father might see me as an adult, able to make my own choices. It was a rash thing to do...”

  He touched a finger beneath her chin, drawing her face up to meet his frank gaze. “I don’t think you’re selfish. How could I?”

  “Perhaps not, but I am strong-willed—”

  “Independent,” he corrected.

  “Prone to tantrums—”

  “Passionate.”

  She raised her brows at his second interruption and he quirked a smile and amended, “Irish.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs.

  “I want my own way in things.”

  He grinned. “Now there’s one I can agree with. You are stubborn.”

  She started to elbow him again but he caught her elbow in the cup of his hand.

  “I suppose I’ve only proved myself as immature as my father thinks I am,” she said, sharing the fear she hadn’t dared put into words until now. She couldn’t bear it if Jesse saw her that way, too.

  “C’mon, Erin. You haven’t done too badly on your own.” He gave her an encouraging smile. “Even if you have fallen in with a couple of reprobates.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Another day, and you’ll be in Wyoming with your brother and his family.”

  She shook her head at his teasing. “I meant I should’ve sat down with my father and talked things out instead of running away like a spoiled child. But I was afraid he would twist my actions and words around on me. He can be very persuasive.”