Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(110)

“Yeah. You would. Listen, Sheriff. I could’ve hidden from you. But the bottom line is, I’m in love. With a woman. And I need to clear all these decks if I’m going to have a hope in hell at a future with her. If that ends in prison... Then so be it. But I’m not consigning her to a life with a man on the run. I’m not making it so that she’s looking over her shoulder all the time. When it was just me, that was fine. But I want everything with her. A real future. I don’t expect you to believe everything I’m going to tell you. But trust me when I say I haven’t been involved with the Everett family business for more than a decade. I was raised in it. And I’ve done some shit. I’m not going to lie to you.”

“You’re in love, huh?”

He nodded. “With a better woman than I deserve. But I want... I want to be the best I can be. For her.”

Eli appraised him, slowly. “Well,” he said. “I’m betting that we can make some kind of a deal.”





CHAPTER TEN


IT WAS A COUPLE DAYS before she could bring herself to investigate the address that Clayton had left for her.

When she finally did drive her car over to the little cabin, she was surprised by what she saw. It was small but well-kept. Cleaner than she might have thought.

His bolt-hole, clearly.

She pushed the front door open and walked in. And she followed his directions over to the floorboards.

She lifted the boards as the instructions said, and inside was a black duffel bag.

“Clayton... What exactly have you done?”

She unzipped it, and her stomach went tight. Because inside of it was... Cash. A hell of a lot of cash.

He wanted her to have it. Why?

And then it hit her, with total understanding.

He wanted her to be free. Free of him, free of financial burdens. Of considerations for anything but what she wanted.

He cared about her. And he had turned himself in and left this to her as a demonstration of that. This had been for him. For him to keep running on. For him to keep living on while he stayed a step ahead of the law and kept himself anonymous. Of course, a man on the lam couldn’t have a bank account.

She wanted to weep. Wanted to weep because this had clearly been his insurance for himself, and he was giving it all up for her.

And she didn’t want it. She just wanted him. Because here she was staring down at a wild sort of giddy freedom that she had never once envisioned being hers. And all she wanted was the man who had given it to her.

She knew that she would stay at Four Corners. And that if he ended up in prison, she would visit. He might’ve wanted to walk away from her, but she wasn’t going to let him.

She wasn’t going to let him.

Because she loved him. And she understood love for the first time because of him.

Understood it for real.

What it meant when someone accepted all of the parts of you. When they wanted to see you grow, not shrink down. And maybe there were sacrifices that had to be made for that kind of love. But in her heart and her soul, where it mattered, she would be free. And she would be herself. Because he was the only person who had ever loved her in quite that way.

And she knew that he was the only one that she wanted.



* * *



HE’D BEEN IN the holding cell for a couple of nights, but things were looking more promising than he’d imagined they could. He was in the process of negotiating a deal with the DA. He was more than willing to give all the information that he had on his brother, on his family, and in exchange... Well, he was looking at the possibility of a pretty reduced sentence for his own involvement years ago.

He was expecting the lawyer to turn up, but he was not expecting to hear a familiar voice.

“I can’t believe you’re keeping him in a prison cell.”

The officer who was escorting Tala back to him stopped and looked at her. “He’s a prisoner.”

“He shouldn’t be,” she said.

“That’s what they all think, lady.”

She shrugged. “Well, it’s what I know.”

He walked over to the bars. “What the hell are you doing here? You were never supposed to set foot in a place like this.”

“I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you either. But here we are.” Her eyes went glassy with tears.

“Oh. Yeah. Here we are,” he said.

“I found what you left me. I appreciate it, but I don’t need it. I’m staying here. Unless they move you somewhere, and then I’m following you there. I’ll get a teaching job wherever you’re at. I’m in this with you. For the long haul.”

“No,” he said, reaching out and touching her cheek. “Honey, I burst into your life. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t ask for me. And you deserve better. So damned much better.”

“No,” she whispered. “I deserve love. And so do you. We deserve it. It isn’t our fault that we started out with so much hurt. But it’s our choice what we do with it now. You were brave enough to face this head-on so that we wouldn’t spend the rest of our lives hiding. And I’m brave enough to face these consequences, whatever they are.”

“I didn’t want you to.”

“I know. But it’s not your decision. Not only your decision. It’s mine too. And you have to respect that. You have to respect me. My strength. Enough to know that I can make this decision for myself. You bring together all these pieces inside of me... I love you.”