Give My All to Jessie (Third in Outlaw Series)

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-One

"What in the world is wrong with you?" Kaitlyn demanded when she stepped into the gun shop at only a couple hours after dawn to find Langley already hard at work on his forge.

"I'm a little tired," he replied without looking up. "Other than that I'm just fine." Truth was he had run from the house that morning before his mama had been up and around because he knew she was going to corner him soon for a heart to heart and he just wasn't ready to deal with that yet.

"Langley stop!" Kaitlyn exclaimed when he lifted his hammer.

Langley frowned at her sudden and out of character display of temper. He sat the hammer down and pulled off his gloves. "What do you want?"

"Jessie is staying at my house," she blurted.

Langley glared at her and fought the urge to grab his sister by her shoulders and shake sense into her. "Why would you do that to me?"

Kaitlyn shook her head. "It had nothing at all to do with you. The woman had just traveled for weeks in the cold to get here and she needed a warm place to stay."

"It's the beginning of winter, not the middle, and you could have sent her to the hotel," Langley grumbled.

Kaitlyn snorted. "You know me better than that. And I know you pretty well also. Why were you so mean yesterday? The woman came to apologize and you treated her terribly."

"I did not," Langley countered, ignoring the glare in Kaitlyn's eyes. "You don't understand, Kaitlyn. You have Pete and Pete would walk across burning coals barefoot before he'd hurt you. Jessie hurt me more than once and she did it without batting an eye each time."

"Langley, you have a chance to be happy. Why are you fighting it so hard?" Kaitlyn demanded passionately. Then her hand went to her brow and she swooned, nearly falling backward.

Langley caught her by the elbow and steadied her. "Are you okay?" he asked gently, smoothing a strand of hair from her pale face.

She waved her hand. "Yes. I've been having dizzy spells but it's nothing serious."

Langley frowned. "Are you sure?"

"I'm a doctor, Langley," she snapped irritably. "Of course I'm sure!"

Langley's eyes widened as he released her and took a step back in surrender. "You're getting moodier than mama."

He turned his attention to a rifle that needed cleaning. Kaitlyn was quiet a moment before whispering. "What did you say?"

"I said you're getting moodier than mama," he repeated. "And you're wasting your time trying to talk me into running to Jessie with open arms. A man has to have some pride. You don't understand. You don't know what it is to have someone you trust hurt you."

"You're more stubborn than mama and pa put together," Kaitlyn grumbled. "I need to go talk to Pete but please think about at least talking to Jessie. I know her apology yesterday didn't seem all that sincere but from what I've seen of her she's a lot like several men in our family. You would have accepted that kind of apology from them because you would have known it was the best they could do."

"Thanks for the advice, doc," Langley replied, refusing to admit out loud that Kaitlyn was right. For Jessie that apology last night had been a decent one but Langley wasn't satisfied. He wanted more than a 'sorry I broke your heart but I'm here now so smile'.

***

"Pete, we need to talk," Kaitlyn said, stepping into their bedroom and finding him pulling on his pants.