Jake sat on the huge wooden porch of the Dirty Stirrup bar with his boots up on a railing, drinking a beer. Jessie sat next to him with her legs tucked under her, leaning her head on his shoulder.
“Are you sorry we couldn’t get married at that goldurned gorgeous castle like some fairy-tale prince and princess, Jake?”
“Nah,” Jake smiled wanly and took a sip of his beer. “Your Papa will do a bang-up job of it tomorrow. T’won’t be as pretty as it would have been over there – but it don’t matter.” He smiled at her and took her hand and kissed it. “As long as we got each other. That’s what matters.”
Jessie put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “All that matters,” she whispered. She sighed. “I just wonder what’s a going to happen to Mara and Brent now. She said she ain’t going to marry that Lord Wortherington no more.”
Jake laughed. “Yeah. She were a mite peeved when he tucked tail and run off to find the police ‘stead of going off to find her.”
“I don’t blame her none. They didn’t love each other no how.”
They sat silently for a while in the darkening sky just after sunset. The stars were brighter now than they were just a few minutes before and the night birds were calling out to each other in the juniper trees.
“So, we done lost your land and the $15,000 by this time tomorrow ain’t we?”
“Yup.” Jake nodded and looked down at his belt buckle. “I reckon so – unless you got some news on where Jesse James done hid that heap of gold he stole from that train shipment around here abouts.”
“No. I reckon not. So – what we going to do with them there cattle we got up on my neighbor’s lot?”
“I don’t know. Sell ‘em I suppose.” Jake took a long drink from his beer.
“Sell ‘em?” Jessie grimaced in the dark. “Why would you want to go and do a dumb-fool thing like that for?”
“Well, your neighbor won’t want to keep ‘em there forever and without no land to put ‘em on – I don’t know what else we can do.”
Jessie leaned back in the porch bench and pouted. “I suppose you’re right,” she mumbled. “They’s awful good stock though for starting a cattle herd. Shame to lose ‘em.” She was silent for a moment, but then snuggled up again to Jake’s shoulder. “But like you done said – we got each other.”
“We do, honey.” Jake smiled and put his arm around her. “We do at that and that’s worth a heap lot more than all the cattle, land, storybook castle weddings and gold from train robberies all in one pile.”
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