When Dutch Van Der Linde, Micah Bell and Arthur Morgan stumble across Violet Adler after a crisis that robbed her of the last family she had-her dearest brother, Jake Adler, and beloved sister-in-law, Sadie-she's offered a home. A temporary one, unt...
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"What are you reading there?"
I was sipping some coffee by the fire, picking through the pages of another novel I'd borrowed from Mary Beth. Turned out, she's been waiting for someone to eagerly ramble to about the sheer romance that swelled within the pages, so our mutual interest had thrilled her. Even if some of the plots were rather far fetched, I'd seen awful things in reality. I thought I deserved to indulge in an impossible story and hold onto the sweeter things embedded inside.
Hosea had posed the question. He had a book of his own tucked under his arm, though I suspected it wasn't anything to do with forbidden love and kisses in the rain.
"One of Mary Beth's books," I said, smiling shyly. He was another leader in the gang, certainly more prone to reason than Dutch, the man who lived for grandeur. I hadn't spoken with him much, but not from a lack of curiosity.
"The hopeless romantic among us," he commented, but it was laced with fondness, rather than derision. "Glad she kept that quality, even in this life."
He gestured to the spot beside me on the log. "Alright if I join you?"
"Oh, sure."
He sat down, placing his own book in his lap. I peeked at it, noting it seemed to be of the crime genre–The Case of the Shrew in the Fog.
"That any good?" I asked.
"Oh, it's phenomenal. I'll leave it by your bedroll when I'm done with it, if you'd like."
"I'd love that," I said genuinely, pleased with how easy the man was to speak with. I'd been turning Grimshaw's, Tilly's, and most repetitively, Arthur's words over in my head like a broken record. My next steps seemed foggier as the days passed. But perhaps I could take their advice and be a little more present around camp, in the mean time.
He nodded. "If I may say so, you seem well, Miss Adler. I know you've spent some time out with Arthur. Did the trick, I imagine?"
"We were just hunting for Pearson," I said bashfully, unsure why I felt the need to water it down.
"And came back with a horse."
"Arthur thought it could be a good idea, extra space for the meat and all that."
He smiled knowingly, but only nodded. "Well, he's always had good ideas. Even though the boy likes to act like he's dumber than a bag of nails when I ask him for his two cents on the non-killing and robbing matters of the world. You know what he told me once, when I wanted to know his thoughts about the afterlife?"
I leaned in curiously. "What?"
"I don't know 'bout all that, Hosea, just hope damnation comes with some whiskey to stoke the flames and my gut," Hosea repeated, with a rather uncanny impression of Arthur's southern drawl.
