what I’m about to tell you will send you into shock.”
That got her butt to connect with the chair.
Dinah dragged another chair across from her, sat and took Ruby’s gloved hands in her own. “Your Jonas is alive as far as I know.”
“As far as you know? Where is he?”
“That, I do not know. What I’m about to tell you…just hear me out until the end, all right?”
“Then you’d better start explaining every single detail right now.”
As Dinah relayed the story, Ruby’s dismay increased. While she genuinely understood Dinah’s panic and fear at the hands of Zeke West, she forced herself not to snap at Dinah to get to the part of the story where Jonas disappeared.
“So I shot Zeke.”
Ruby’s mouth fell open. “You did?”
“Yes. That part is as clear as day. It’s the aftermath that is a complete blur for me.”
“Why?”
“Because Doc dosed me with laudanum. He believed me to be traumatized because I’d watched Silas kill Zeke. Then he’d seen the body trauma Zeke had inflicted on me and kept me sedated to heal. I didn’t witness Jonas hauling Silas off to jail. While I was under sedation, Silas broke out of jail and left town to avoid hanging for Zeke’s murder. When I finally could function again, a week had passed. Zeke was in the ground, Silas was a fugitive, and Jonas had resigned as deputy.”
“Except that’s not really what happened?”
She shook her head. “Mrs. Agnes saw Silas pick up the gun after I’d shot Zeke. She didn’t see what’d happened, but she told everyone she did. Doc wasn’t certain how it’d gone down but he couldn’t call his wife a liar—”
“Even when a man’s life and freedom were at stake?” Ruby demanded.
“Even then. Maybe especially then. Because everyone heard Silas threaten Zeke at the racetrack that day. If I would’ve called Mrs. Agnes a liar and confessed to pulling the trigger, no one would’ve believed me anyway. No one, Ruby. They would’ve accused me of protecting Silas. When the truth was…he took the blame to protect me.” She swallowed hard and looked down at her hands. “I think Doc might’ve known what Silas and Jonas intended to do and if I was unconscious, I couldn’t be a party to it.”
Ruby wanted to yell at her for allowing Doc and his wife their manipulations. “Go on.”
“As soon as I could, I rode out to the ranch to talk to Jonas, because I honestly believed Silas had skipped town. As soon as I saw Silas…I knew what they’d done.”
“Switched places,” Ruby said.
“Yes.”
“So it wasn’t Silas taking the blame to protect you, but Jonas. Jonas, who had to leave town, and remain on the run as an outlaw so his twin brother could pretend to be him for the rest of his life? Christ almighty. How is that fair to Jonas?”
Dinah raised her tear-filled gaze to Ruby’s. “It’s not. I never wanted this. Silas never wanted this. Jonas never wanted this. The only person who wanted to annihilate the McKay family was Zeke West…and he succeeded.” She started to cry in earnest. “I should feel horrible for killing Zeke, but I don’t. Not at all. But I do feel guilty for Silas and Jonas having to say goodbye forever. For Silas having to pretend to be someone else as long as he lives. For Jonas to be all alone and having to start his life over as someone new. I will blame myself for that for the rest of my life, so don’t you dare think this is easy for me.”
Ruby patted Dinah’s shoulder as she cried. Her sympathy was half-hearted at best…but only because the wheels in her mind were churning as fast as a locomotive.
Her Jonas was getting a fresh start. Her thoughts scrolled back to all the times Jonas had spoken of an outlaw’s mistakes. How personal connections were impossible to sever for most people and almost always created a followable trail which would get a man caught.
As far as anyone in Crook County knew, Jonas didn’t have any personal connections besides his brother.
No one besides Dinah knew that she and Jonas had a connection.
For the first time ever, she believed she’d made the right choice to tell Jonas no whenever he’d asked to court her. She’d known nothing would ever change who they were in the eyes of the community: the whore and the lawman.
During their picnic he’d told her about his restlessness. How he’d considered making a change and taking his outlaw-chasing buddy’s offer.