Lily was cleaning the breakfast dishes and watching Allie who was sitting at the table staring down at her hands. Lily wondered what kind of inner battle was going on inside her younger sisters head as she would slide her ring off and then slip it back on over and over.
Every time the ring left Allie's finger Lily would feel her hopes rise and then when the ring would slide back down Lily would feel her heart fall into her stomach. Two days Allie had been distracted and while she hadn't told anyone what she was thinking so hard about it hadn't been too hard to figure out.
Finally after yet another off and then on again motion of the ring Lily blew out an irritated breath and threw down her dish rag.
"Enough already!" she exclaimed. "Either take it off or leave it on." Allie looked up at her with confusion.
"What?" she asked.
"Your ring." Allie sighed and looked back down at the tablecloth.
"I don't love Gavin. Not in the way a woman should love her husband. I don't get butterflies or have trouble breathing when he's around…. And he doesn't want a cabin in the woods. He wants me to live in some fancy house with maids and all those things and that just isn't me."
"Then don't marry him." Lily replied simply.
"But I don't want to hurt him." Allie said helplessly.
"It will hurt him worse if he marries a woman that doesn't love him." Lily replied gently. Allie nodded.
"I'll give him his ring back." Lily breathed a sigh of relief. She had not wanted her sister to marry Gavin. He was a nice enough man but she had known her sister would be miserable as his wife.
"What's wrong with Jack lately?" Allie exclaimed suddenly. Lily gave up on getting the dishes cleaned and sat down at the table across from Allie.
"What do you mean?" Lily asked.
"He won't even talk to me the last two days. He always acts like he's busy."
"He is busy." Lily replied. Allie looked over at her sister and shook her head.
"Not that busy. He's avoiding me. Why would he avoid me?"
"Because he loves you but you are engaged to another man and he is trying to respect that and keep his distance from you." Lily replied firmly.
"Lily, I really need to talk to him. We haven't really talked yet since he got back and there are things I want to say to him." Lily sighed.
"Men don't like to talk about things and will do just about anything to avoid it all together. You need to figure out what you want from Jack before you talk to him though."
"I love him, Lily, but I'm scared." Allie replied and then she stood up and smoothed out her skirt. "I'm going to go into town right now and give Gavin back his ring."
"You can't go alone." Lily replied matter of factly. Allie rolled her eyes.
"I'll be fine. I'll take Janna with me." she promised.
"Oh yes that will make you so much safer." Lily said dryly.
"Please Lily, I want to do this alone."
"Fine. But if Hawke finds out you went alone I am telling him you snuck out."
888
Allie rode into town on her palomino mare Buttercup and hitched her up at the bank. She fought the nerves in her stomach as she walked up the steps and through the wide oak doors.
Just yesterday she and Gavin had shared lunch at the café and Allie had done her best to laugh and smile and hide the battle going on inside her mind. She didn't want to hurt Gavin but she knew she would only hurt him worse if she married him while her heart belonged to another man.
And her heart belonged to Jack. She didn't even have a choice in the matter. Her heart had been his for a long time and no matter what he had done in the past, he was all she could see in her future.
"Hello, Miss Jackson." Gavin's thin birdlike secretary Peggy said as Allie walked inside with Janna beside her.
"Hi Peggy. I need to talk to Gavin. Is he in?" A look of panic came over Peggy's face.
"Um.. Yeah he is in but he is busy right now." she squeaked from behind her desk. Allie looked at Gavin's closed office door suspiciously and then her eyes narrowed when he heard a giggle come from inside.
Giggling? Allie thought. She hadn't giggled since she'd been fourteen. Allie walked over to the door with Peggy stuttering and squawking behind her and jerked it open.
Gavin was sitting on one side of his desk and a pretty blond woman was leaning across it, her dark red, satin dress hugging her body as she pressed her lips against his. At the sound of the door bursting open the two of them jumped apart and when Gavin saw Allie he rose to his feet and came toward her stuttering.
"I.. uh.. I was… that is.. Um… What are you doing here?" he finally spit out.
"What is she doing here?" Allie countered pointing at the blond who had stood up and was smoothing out her dress while looking confused.
"Alice and I were discussing her banking options." Allie crossed her arms over her chest and nodded.
"Yeah, that's what it looked like you were doing." she said. She could feel tears stinging behind her eyes but she held them back. All she could think about was the pain she had felt when she had learned of Jack's betrayal all those years ago. Didn't any man think she was worth being faithful to?
"Gavin, who is this?" the blond asked. Allie laughed harshly.
"His fiancee." she replied. "Or at least I was but I ain't anymore." She pulled her ring off and threw it at Gavin who caught it against his chest.
"Allie, I never wanted to hurt you." he said. Allie threw her hands in the air.
"Do you know how tired I am of hearing those words!" she exclaimed. "If you didn't want to hurt me then you should have taken that ring back before you had secret lunch meetings with her." Allie said pointing at the blond.
"My name is Alice. I had no idea that he was engaged." Alice replied as she folded her hands in front of her and glared over at Gavin. Gavin cleared his throat and tugged at the collar of his suit.
"Allie, I really did love you but you and I just aren't a match." he said. "I fell in love with the you in your letters. I didn't realize that guns, dirt, cursing and frontier life was also such a part of you."
"I understand." Allie replied trying to keep herself from yelling. "I was going to call of our engagement today anyway, but, Gavin, if you didn't want to marry me you should have been man enough to tell me before you went after Alice." Alice's name came out sounding more like a curse.
"You were going to break off our engagement?" Gavin asked and Allie nodded.
"Yes." she said.
"I can't believe that." Gavin said with angry disbelief and Allie felt her temper spark anew.
"Don't act like I'm the bad one here, Gavin. You're the one havin' secret meetings with that damn rich bimbo." Alice gasped and covered her mouth with her gloved hand.
"Such language." she exclaimed. Allie rolled her eyes and was about to just turn and walk away when Gavin spoke up and his words brought her temper back full force.
"Do not try to make me feel guilty, Allie! Just how many times have you shared that mans bed since he came back to town before deciding you did not want to marry me anymore?"
"Did you just call me a whore?" Allie demanded. Gavin stuttered and took a step back when he saw her dark eyes flash and her cheeks flush with anger.
"No of course not…."
"Yes you did!" Allie exclaimed as hot tears of anger ran down her cheeks. She started toward him determined to gouge his eyeballs out when a pair of arms grabbed her from behind.
"Whoa, Allie, let's not do something you'll just regret later." Doc Mason said.
"I won't regret it." Allie promised and he chuckled.
"You will when you're in jail. Now come on. It's over and done with. The man has his ring so lets just get you on home now." Allie nodded and Doc Mason eased his grip on her.
"I thought you were a good man, Gavin, but I was wrong." Allie said and she turned on her heel and ran from the office and out of the bank as hot tears of anger and betrayal ran down her cheeks.
888
"You hit that horseshoe any harder and it might just be so thin it'll be invisible." Richard said with a chuckle as Jack swung his hammer with all his might and the loud clang of metal against metal filled the shop.
"Sorry." he said. Jack had been imagining that the horseshoe was Gavin's face and the hammer was his own fist. All Jack could see when he closed his eyes was the image of Gavin and Allie just the day before laughing and talking quietly over lunch at the café. Every time Allie had smiled or laughed at something Gavin had said it had felt like a knife straight into is heart. He used to be the one that made her laugh like that until he had thrown it all away.
"Why don't you go to lunch, Jack? I think you need a break." Richard said and Jack nodded in agreement. He pulled off his gloves and apron, wiped his dirty sleeve across his dirty face and walked out into the noontime sunlight.
He walked down the road and around the corner to the main street and his eyes were immediately drawn to the bank where he could see Allie's palomino that he had picked out for her when he had first come to Great Valley. An image of Allie and Gavin together came to his mind and he fingered the handle of his gun. How much easier life could be if he could just forget about trying to be a good man.
He squared his shoulders and walked down the road, he had to walk past the bank to get to the café. He was just walking past the stone steps and wide oak doors when the doors burst open and Allie came running out. She tripped over her own feet and fell headfirst down the steps. Jack caught her in his strong arms and pulled her close to him.
He was surprised that she did not try to pull away or slap him after the argument they had had the last time they had spoken. Instead she buried her face against his chest and let him hold her. He had never felt warmer or more at peace than he felt with her in his arms.
"Are you okay, doll?" he asked gently as he ran his hand over her long dark hair. He heard her sniff and then he felt something hot and wet soaking through his thin black shirt. He pulled her away from him and she swiped at her face with her arms trying to hide her tears.
"What's going on?" Jack asked as he felt anger build within him.
"Nothing." Allie said quickly. "Get out of my way, I'm going home." She tried to push past Jack but he stood as still as stone and she couldn't budge him.
"You're crying. You don't cry over nothing."
"They're angry tears." Allie replied. "I'm damned mad."
"What did he do?" Jack asked and Allie was surprised by the anger in his voice.
"Nothing any worse than what you did." Allie spat and again she cursed her temper that made her mouth say things she didn't really want to say. Jack moved around her and took the steps in two long strides.
"What are you doing!" Allie gasped as she followed after him.
"Whoa there, Jack. Leave the man be." Doc Mason said coming in between Jack and the closed office door.
"Excuse me, doc." Jack said and then he put a hand on Doc's shoulders and moved the older man aside. Jack knocked on the office door and he heard the lock snap into place.
"Go away." Gavin's voice came through. Gavin had seen Jack through the office window and he was in no hurry to have the trigger happy man kill him today.
"You gosh damned coward. Open the damn door." Jack growled.
"Jack, come on.. Let's just go." Allie said tugging on his arm. Jack jerked away from her.
"Open the door or I'll break it." Jack warned.
"You can't break that door. It's solid oak."
"I warned ya." Jack said. Allie and Doc both jumped back and the other people in the bank screamed when Jack pulled his gun and fired a shot into the lock before raising his booted foot and kicking the door. It flew open and Jack holstered his gun as he walked into the office.
"I see now." Jack said as he saw the blond woman trying to hide behind Gavin while Gavin started toward an open window.
"Jack, it's not a big deal. I was coming into town to give him back his ring anyway." Allie said from behind him.
"Allie's been hurt enough, you son of a bitch. She didn't deserve to have you do this to her."
"You should be thanking me." Gavin said. "At least now when you're sleeping with her, you won't be using another man's fiancee." Gavin had thought he could say this and then jump out the window but he had underestimated the other mans speed.
Jack was a blur as he crossed the room and grabbed Gavin my his shirt collar and threw him down hard on the desk. Alice screamed and ran for the door while Allie ran toward Jack.
Jack wasn't even sure of what he was doing. His vision had gone red… or black he supposed as the darkness in his soul sprang to life and took over. He brought his fist down hard onto Gavin's face and was about to do it again determined to kill the coward when he felt hands on his arm and then slowly Allie's voice broke through the darkness.
"Jack, stop this! You are not this man!" He let go of Gavin and backed away.
"Do I need to take somebody to jail?" Marshal Yale asked as he walked into the bank. Gavin picked himself up off the desk and wiped his bloody mouth with his jacket sleeve. He wanted to say yes but he had to remind himself that Jack had saved his life not very long ago.
"No. Not if he just leaves here immediately." Gavin replied.
"He's leaving." Doc Mason said as he grabbed Jack by the arm and pulled him out of the office. Allie looked at Gavin and bit her lip.
"I really am sorry, Gavin. I hope that Alice makes you happy and thank you for not pressing charges on Jack. If you knew the things he'd seen and been through in his life then you would see that he actually controlled himself pretty darn good."
"I'm sorry too." Gavin said giving her a guilty smile through his bloody lips. "I suppose I didn't handle myself the way a gentleman should have with you. But I was not unfaithful and I never meant to break your heart."
"You didn't. My heart was never yours to break." Allie turned and walked out of the office and out of the bank. She found Doc Mason and Jack standing outside beside her horse having an argument.
"You can't just go around killing people." Doc Mason scolded.
"Why the hell not?" Jack demanded. "I've killed a lot of men doc, one more ain't really gonna make much of a difference. Besides I figure I saved his life once so I can kill him now and it balances things out."
"Jack, Doc is right. You can't go around killing people just because they say something about you." Allie said walking down the steps.
"I don't give a rats ass what he says about me. He made you cry and then he might as well have called you a whore and there ain't no man gonna say something like that about you." Allie couldn't help but be touched by his words. They weren't sweet and they weren't poetry but they were from Jack himself and he was defending her again and being her hero just like he had been all those years ago.
"I better head back home before Lily gets worried." Allie said. She started to climb up into the saddle but Jack grabbed her arm gently and stopped her. She felt sparks of heat where his calloused fingers were pressed into her soft skin.
"You rode all the way to town by yourself?" he demanded. Those weren't exactly the love words Allie had been hoping for and she jerked her arm away from him and cleared her throat.
"I'm not alone. I have Janna." she replied. Jack looked down at the worthless wolf who was currently busy staring up at a bird sitting on the bank roof with her tongue hanging out of her mouth.
"Ride to the blacksmith shop. I'm gonna make sure you get home safe." Allie nodded as Jack jogged off toward the blacksmith shop. She knew that something was going to happen during this ride she just wasn't sure exactly what that was.