Their Reckless Bride by Vanessa Vale

Author:Vanessa Vale [Vale, Vanessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vanessa Vale

8

HANK

* * *

I’d been so driven, so focused on capturing my father’s killers. Ever since I received news he’d been shot, point blank and in cold blood, I’d wanted justice. I’d even taken the drastic step of taking over as sheriff. It had meant time away from Bridgewater, staying in town and sleeping at my father’s house, the one I’d grown up in. Without him there, it had felt empty, and it had made me realize my life was empty, only filled with the justice I wanted so fucking badly.

I hadn’t appreciated my father’s interest in defending the vulnerable until he was gone. Only when we lowered the pine box in the ground had I felt vulnerable myself. My mother had died birthing me, leaving my father to care for a newborn alone. It had been just the two of us ever since and he’d done a good job. But one bullet and I’d become alone. I’d become victim to men who ruthlessly and without any morals killed a lawman.

I wanted retribution and revenge. I wanted the Grove gang caught.

And now, we had two in custody. I should have felt elation. Felt that justice was a little closer to being served. I did. Fuck, yes. But it wasn’t bringing Father back. He was still dead. Still gone. I was satisfied to know they wouldn’t be hurting anyone else.

Marcus and Travis Grove would have been dragged back to Simms by now, sitting in the jail cell. The doc would have patched them up enough to live until they were sentenced and hanged, probably gave them each a bottle of whiskey to dull the pain.

They had a week, I guessed, until they were dead. As sheriff, it was my job to see it done.

I’d follow through, but without the judge in the area, there was nothing to do but wait for him to stop at Simms on his circuit. I had no interest in waiting in town, sleeping in my father’s house. No fucking way. I had something else to fill my time. Someone.

Grace.

Perhaps it was Father looking down on me and laughing. Just when I’d gotten exactly what I’d wanted, the long-awaited justice, I got something else I wanted more. Was I a kid deciding which sucker candy to choose at the mercantile? Could I be greedy and want both?

Fuck, yes.

The Grove men would hang, not because it was what I wanted to avenge what they did to my father. It was because it was what they deserved. Did that mean I deserved Grace, too?

Our paths had crossed when she saved us, and in that instant, she became mine.

Ours. There was no question. No doubt on my part. Or Charlie’s. We had completely different backgrounds, growing up on two different sides of the world. And yet here we were in the same place together. Wanting the same thing.

Grace.

I still didn’t know her reasoning behind shooting those men. There was a story there, and we hadn’t given her much opportunity to share it.

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