CHAPTER16
Before they left the house the next day, Jesse arranged for a man to be outside watching and guarding the house.
Still, he felt nervous. Their wife was in danger and he wasn’t certain how to protect her. How did you protect someone from the unknown?
“What are we going to do?” Andrew asked. “If she’s hurt or killed, I’ll be devastated. I know I’m falling in love with our woman.”
“I know, me too,” Jesse said. “I just haven’t wanted to admit it and now I’m frightened. I couldn’t stand to lose her.”
Jesse had been trying not to let his heart get involved, but it was hard. Mary was everything he wanted in a woman. He couldn’t be happier, and he had to agree with Andrew, he’d kill the son of a bitch who harmed her.
And yet they needed to be at the mine.
“I wish we knew what this man looked like,” he said. “Traveling from Charleston is a long way to get revenge.”
“We didn’t ask her about his family. What if it’s not him, but a brother or father or someone else. And why in the hell didn’t anyone hear them in that house and protect her sister? What kind of servants let a woman be beat up?”
“Scared ones,” Andrew said. “Ones that knew if they said anything, they were either dead of fired or probably both.”
They were riding to the mine, which was about a thirty-minute trip. Jesse didn’t like being this far from Mary, and tonight he would ask his Aunt Grace and Uncle Owen to keep an eye on her. Maybe even let her stay with them while he and Andrew were working.
“Whoever he is, I hope he makes his move soon, so we can kill his ass and get on with our life with our bride,” Andrew said and Jesse could hear the fear in his friend’s voice.
Jesse grinned. “You were right. You knew instantly which woman was for us.”
Andrew was good at spotting decent and bad people, and Jesse determined that must’ve been from living with different people in the orphanage. Very seldom did Andrew mention what had happened to him there, but Jesse knew it wasn’t an easy time.
“Yep,” he said, smiling. “I’m a smart man. The way she appeared so frightened like she needed someone to protect her. And I’ll give up my life to keep her safe.”
They both would. There was no way someone was going to kill Mary and get away with it.
“Tonight, let’s set up some ground rules, make certain she understands that in order to protect her, she needs to stay home. Her and that friend Daisy were talking about getting together the other day. That’s not going to happen right now.”
It wasn’t that he didn’t like Daisy, he did. But two women alone at the cafe would be an open invitation for trouble. Especially if this Frank Thompson was in town.
“We need to ask more questions and see what we can learn from Mary about her brother-in-law. Why don’t you talk to her tonight while I go to my aunt and uncle’s house to see if they will let her stay with them while we work.”
Andrew nodded. “If I’m alone with her, I’m probably going to be fucking her.”
Jesse laughed. “You can do that later. Just talk to her and find out all the information you can without upsetting her. I hate to see her cry.”
“Me too,” Andrew said. “It makes me feel so uncomfortable.”
When they arrived at the mine, they slid off their horses and put them in the paddock for the day.
They walked into the mine office and their secretary was sitting behind his desk mumbling to himself.
“What’s wrong,” Jesse asked.
“Someone tore up the elevator in the shaft,” he said.
The two men glanced at one another.
“It didn’t break?” Andrew asked.