Ruby laughed. “Perhaps. But it truly is just a door that reopens intimacy.”
“Thank you.” She exhaled. “I’ve been floundering. Wallowing. Replaying the past instead of forging a new future. Now I feel ready to fight for what I want with him, based on what we had.”
“Exactly.”
“Now let’s talk about whatever plan you’ve concocted to get your McKay back.”
Ruby fussed with her heart necklace. “My plans will take more time to implement than just riding my horse over to his place and getting on my knees.”
“But you are going after him.”
“Yes.” She squared her shoulders. “He—we—deserve the life we were denied here.”
“Amen, sister.”
They stared at each other. Then they both started to speak at the same time.
Dinah laughed. “Sorry. You go ahead.”
“No. You first,” Ruby said.
“I would’ve liked to have you for my sister,” Dinah said shyly.
“Same goes.” She reached for her hand and squeezed. “But in our hearts, we’ll always be connected by the men we love. Even if they have different names. Even if they’re unaware that through them we’ve created this bond.”
“Agreed.” She gave Ruby another hard hug. “When will you go?”
“Soon. Change is in the air and I had a good run here. But I’m ready to move on.”
“Please try and get word to me. It doesn’t matter if it’s next year or in ten years, but I need to know that you’re all right.”
Ruby frowned. “I’ll try. But won’t it be obvious—”
“No. Like you said, he won’t have the same name and I doubt you will either.” She smirked. “Jimmy told me about your secret codes. Ours will be you mentioning being my friend from Cheyenne, and I’ll know it’s you.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, because I haven’t kept in contact with anyone from Cheyenne.”
She laughed. “Done.”
“Take care, sister.”
“You too.”
Ruby felt lighter on the walk back to the boardinghouse. She kept her head held high as she bypassed the deputy’s office. Neither Big Jim nor the weaselly looking man leaning in the doorjamb, wearing a shiny new tin star, acknowledged her.
No matter.
Madam Ruby was about to disappear for good.
Chapter Twenty-Three
May 1898
Sundance, Wyoming
“As registrar in the city of Sundance, in Crook County, in the great state of Wyoming, this union is officially recognized as legal and binding. Jonas McKay, kiss your bride.”
Jonas curled his rough-skinned hands around Dinah’s face, the metal from his wedding band cool on her cheek. He whispered, “Finally,” before his lips connected with hers in a kiss that lingered just enough to be improper.
Some things never changed with her man.
Dinah turned and accepted a hug from Bea Talbot, although hugging her these days was difficult, given the size of Bea’s pregnant belly. Then she hugged Doc and Martha.
Next to her, her husband accepted congratulations from Andrew Talbot and Ulysses Gilbert of the Wyoming Brand board, who’d become Jonas’s closest friends after Jonas joined the Wyoming Cattleman’s Association.
After former deputy Jonas McKay learned that his outlaw brother had left him as one of the largest landowners in Crook County, he’d become involved in the community. He also sat on several state licensing boards to ensure that landowners’ and cattlemen’s rights were being served. Dinah was proud that not only had Jonas embraced that “new” part of his persona, he’d actually enjoyed it.
“So what now?” Bea teased.
“Now, I take my wife home,” Jonas said, slipping his arm around Dinah’s waist. “We’ll see you all tomorrow night.”
Bea and Andrew had moved into their new house just last month and Bea had begged to host their wedding reception. Jonas had agreed—provided the reception wasn’t the same day as their wedding. Because tonight was just for them. They’d finally forge that final intimacy as husband and wife.
Dinah switched her bouquet of wildflowers to her free hand as they exited City Hall.
Jimmy waited with the horse and buggy, grinning like a loon because he’d tied tin cans to the back of it below the sign JUST HITCHED. Points for her former student that he’d spelled everything right.
“Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. McKay! Everything you asked is done,” he told Jonas. “Buttercup was milked, chickens were fed, I put Daisy out with Beauty and Beast. You don’t gotta worry about nothin’—livestock wise—until late tomorrow mornin.”
Jonas said, “Thanks, Jimmy,” and passed him a few folded bills. Then he offered Dinah a hand up. “Let’s go home, Mrs. McKay.”
While they rode along the familiar path, Dinah’s thoughts veered to all the changes the last year had wrought.
After Dinah’s conversation with Ruby, she’d immediately gone to sort things out with her McKay. It’d been a difficult