Texas Outlaw (Rory Yates #2)(91)

My eyes close, and I feel a mixture of relief and sadness.

Relief because both of the women I love are safe.

Sadness because I’ll never see either one of them again.





Chapter 114



ARIANA STANDS AT the edge of the Rio Lobo cemetery, watching Tom Aaron out among the gravestones. He is kneeling.

Weeping.

She’s been dreading this moment, but she feels she needs to face it. She walks along the pathway, passing several new grave markers. One for Dale. One for Skip. One each for the other bodies they found on McCormack’s ranch. They were all given big funerals. Practically everyone in town came out to see them laid to rest.

But no one came to the funeral today.

No one came to see Jessica Aaron interred.

Except for Tom, of course.

Even their kids, in finding out what Mom did, wouldn’t attend. They drove back from their colleges to take care of their father and mourn. But they refused to honor her passing.

Ariana finds Tom hunched over the fresh dirt, his back heaving. He is shaking all over, shaking more than when she was staring down the barrel of the gun that Jessica aimed at her.

“Tom,” she says softly, and his body stops convulsing. “I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”

She wants to say that if there had been any other way, she wouldn’t have squeezed the trigger. But now she’s crying, too, and she’s afraid she won’t be able to speak. Tom rises and turns around to face her, his eyes red. The splint on his nose is gone, but some of his skin is still black and blue, which makes his bloodshot eyes even more menacing. He takes a deep breath.

“I don’t blame you,” he says to Ariana.

She sobs in relief.

They hug and cry, and then, afterward, they walk back through the cemetery, talking. It’s a beautiful morning. The heat will be unbearable later, but now, walking among the freshly cut grass, the temperature is pleasant.

“You know,” he says, “when I was looking through the old yearbooks, I told Rory about the picture I saw of you and Gareth. But I found an even older one, from when Jessica and Carson were in high school, that made me suspicious. She’d never talked about him, but there they were, standing in front of a line of lockers, smiling like they were the best of friends. Carson was a senior and Jessica was only a freshman, but they looked as thick as thieves.”

He says the picture gave him a bad feeling, but he pushed it away. Then, after his nose was broken, Jessica rushed to the medical center, and when she saw him, she said, “I can’t believe they did this to you.”

“It was the way she said it,” Tom explains. “Like she felt betrayed by someone she’d had a deal with. I pushed it out of my mind then, too.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Ariana says. “She fooled us all. And if it’s any consolation, she did everything for you. I think she really did love you.”

“It’s not a consolation. It actually makes it worse. I feel like I’m to blame somehow.”

Tom explains that all his life he’d fancied himself a good journalist, but he’d been blind to what his own wife was hiding. When he and Jessica had the opportunity to purchase the pharmacy, she suddenly inherited a big chunk of money. Now he realizes that money came from Carson—as did a lot of the advertising revenue that kept the newspaper in the black all these years.

Ariana says, “You’re not to blame at all. In fact, if it wasn’t for your help, this case never would have been solved.”

She doesn’t mention that if Tom hadn’t helped, he likely could have gone on forever under the illusion that his wife was who he thought she was.

“I never kept a secret from her,” Tom says. “It turns out that all she did was keep secrets from me.”

They arrive at Tom’s Land Cruiser, which is a little more scratched up than it used to be, thanks to Ariana stealing it and taking it out into the open space.

After they hug good-bye and Tom drives away, Ariana climbs aboard her motorcycle. She rumbles into town and heads straight to what has been quickly renamed the Rio Lobo Medical Center. As she enters, one of the nurses at the front desk intercepts her and says, “Miss Dawes checked out this morning. She wanted me to give you this.”

She hands Ariana a handwritten note.

Dear Ariana,

I can’t thank you enough for everything.

You have a friend for life.

Willow



Ariana smiles. She unfolds the page farther and sees there’s a postscript.

P.S. He’s all yours.



Ariana laughs.

When she pushes through the door into his hospital room, she finds Rory sitting up in bed, reading a John Grisham book. He looks pale, a little on the thin side, but still handsome as hell.

“How’re you holding up?” Ariana asks.

“The doctors say they’re not ready to release me,” Rory says, “but I’ll tell you what: I’m ready to get the hell out of here and get back to work.”

She can tell it’s taking all of his willpower not to yank out the IV and strap on his gun belt. One of the reasons he hasn’t is because Ariana keeps assuring him that everything is under control. In a few days there will be a big memorial for Kyle Hendricks in Waco, and she knows Rory won’t miss that no matter what the doctors say.