Fallen-Angels (10 page)
Authors: Ashlynn Monroe
Purity spoke quietly, “I’m sorry that we left you hanging.”
Justice snorted. “No pun intended, but we
couldn’t risk our plan being suspected.
Your fear had to be real.
Forgive
us.”
Justice wiped
at the tears in her eyes. “No forgiveness required.
I can’t believe you all did this for me.”
Jeremiah
pulled her to him and pressed his lips on hers.
He kissed her until she no longer noticed the others in the room.
When he pulled back, she saw something
unmistakable in his beautiful eyes.
“I thought
I lost you,” he told her roughly. He cleared his throat and nodded toward the
back of the cellar. “I have something for you.”
Justice followed
him to the back of the cellar and he handed her one of the bags she had thrown
off the train.
“This is
your share of the heist,” he told her. “You can leave
This is enough money to live a great life if
you keep a low profile.
I’d like you to
make that life with me.
As my wife.”
Sitting in
her jail cell this morning, waiting to be hanged on the gallows she had listened
to the workers build, Justice would never have envisioned this moment as a part
of her day.
When she had woken up this
morning she had made the decision to die with dignity, and now she found
herself asked to make another frightening choice.
She was surprised at how simple a decision it
turned out to be.
“I love you
too, Jeremiah.
Yes.
I’ll marry you.”
Jeremiah
let out a loud whoop that disturbed the card players. They gave the couple a
dirty look as Jeremiah picked Justice up and swung her around.
Tears trickled down her cheeks, and he kissed
them away.
Her sisters rushed over and
hugged her.
Heath walked over to
Jeremiah and extended his hand.
“You’d
better be good to her,” he said with sad, but deadly earnestness, “And whatever
you do—keep her out of trouble.”
“I’ll do
right be her,” Jeremiah responded. “She’s one in a million and I won’t soon
forget.”
“You’d
better not, cause if she ever needs me, I’ll kill you for her in a heartbeat.”
“Don’t
worry friend,” Jeremiah told Heath with a devilish smirk. “You won’t need to
worry about her.
I’m going to make
Justice a very happy woman.” Jeremiah set his hand possessively against her
stomach. Heath’s eyes darkened and despite her happiness, Justice felt a tinge
of regret for her friend’s hurt.
Then Heath
turned to her, hiding his pain with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Justice swatted Jeremiah’s arm away from her,
angry that he could kick her friend when he was down.
Jeremiah rubbed his arm and had the courtesy
to look a tad ashamed for his blatant possessiveness.
“Let me be
the first to kiss the bride then,” Heath said huskily.
He snatched
her up and kissed her with a passion she had always known he held for her. She
had never truly understood how deep it ran until that moment.
Jeremiah growled, but Purity stepped in
before it could come to blows again.
“Boys,
boys, there will be plenty of time for a pissing contest later.
Right now the three of us have a wedding to
plan!”
She pulled Justice away as the men continued to stare each
other down like dogs circling a bone.
Ricardo and Regan walked over to diffuse the situation.
Justice still hadn’t felt so happy in all of her life.
Chapter Eight
Cascade,
small farm-August 1867
The country
was recovering well from the Civil War. Reconstruction was in full swing, and
Grace reported that her husband’s “business” was flourishing because of it.
As much as Justice missed her sisters, she
knew that she could never risk going back to
Every year Purity and Grace arrived at her home to spend two weeks with
her, and this year they were both bringing their new babies.
Shortly after she’d left
announcing that Purity and Regan had married.
It seemed all three of the sisters had a soft spot for bad boys.
Luckily, it seemed that fatherhood and love
had begun to tame their men, if only slightly.
Justice
patted her rounded abdomen, hoping that her first-born would hold off arriving
until after Purity and Grace had left, so that she wouldn’t be bedridden during
the visit.
Modern medicine had come a
long way, but she was still nervous about the birth.
Jeremiah insisted that she would be giving
birth at the town’s new hospital, instead of at home, but she wanted to do this
the traditional way and knew she would win the argument. She didn’t see the
point in wasting good money when both of her sisters had enjoyed reportedly
easy home births. His overprotective spurts annoyed her, but at least he was
cute when he was worried.
Justice
stood on the porch, letting the cool evening breeze refresh her as she watched her
sister’s Zeppelin land far off in the field.
Her brother-in-laws felt that Zeppelin travel was safer than stagecoach
or horseless carriage, and hired a small private Zeppelin for their wives and
children for the annual visit. Despite her personal reservations about the
reported safety of Zeppelins, Justice was glad that the trip was twice as fast
for her sisters and her nephews.
Feeling
her child kick her in the ribs, hard, she wondered if she would soon be
bringing another boy into the family.
She called to her husband, hard at work in the barn.
“Jeremiah,
my sisters are here, could you go and bring them to the house?”
Jeremiah
came out of the barn and waved to his wife with a smile. She watched him hitch
the horses to the wagon, and smiled as he bounced out to the field where her
family waited.
A bright pink, purple, and
golden sunset gave the departing Zeppelin a brilliant backdrop.
She watched her sisters waving to their
brother-in-law, and she felt a sense of contentment she had never expected to
feel.
She had
started out her life going in a very different direction, and even with all the
pain and hardship, it had been worth it to be where she was.
Her family was reunited, loving and
forgiving.
She had a husband that she
adored, who adored her in return, and she was expecting his child.
There had been a time when she had never
thought any this to be possible.
Looking
up at the beautiful sky, she uttered two simple words to the heavens.
“Thank you.”
The End
Evernight Publishing