to him that Emma Jane believed herself deserving of the censure.
“Any man would be honored to be married to someone like you,” Jasper said gruffly.
Emma Jane finally met his eyes. “You aren’t.”
He’d forgotten how direct she could be. When they first spoke at the church picnic, he’d admired that about her. Even respected the fact that she’d come right out and said that if he married her, it would solve her problems. But that was before she’d tricked him into compromising her. Before she’d demonstrated her lack of trust in him.
“No man wants to be made a fool of.”
He hated the way she shrank back at his words. Emma Jane wanted to be friends and recapture what they’d had before they’d been forced to marry. But how could they get past it, when she had no idea what she’d stolen from him?
A chance to fall in love. To have a loving home. A family of his own. Perhaps he and Emma Jane could get to a place where they could find a way to have children. But there’d never be the same loving glances he saw Will and Mary exchange. He’d never know what it was like to have someone see all the parts of him and love him, really love him, for who he was.
Maybe Jasper had been the fool. This whole mess had started because seeing Will again and meeting Emma Jane had made him want to be a better man. To be known for something other than the wealthy playboy who stole women’s hearts. He’d thought he wanted a life of substance instead of playing to society’s whims.
Yet here he was, stuck in a marriage of convenience because he’d tried to be the man of honor he wanted to be.
Tears rolled down Emma Jane’s cheeks, and he knew he should be sorry for them. Part of him was, but the other part of him still mourned the life he could never have.
When Jasper finally arrived downstairs, he found his mother in her sitting room, sorting through envelopes. She looked up at him and held out several in his direction.
“Do you see these?”
“Yes, Mother.” He tried to sound as accommodating as possible, but he found it more difficult than usual. They often had this conversation about invitations. All the brides she’d hoped to snare for him. Now that he was married, he’d thought these conversations would end.
“All the best families in town, and not one invitation from them. We’re supposed to be the pillars of society, and yet we seem to only be receiving correspondence from the lesser-known families.”
“So what would you have me do? Throw her out on the street?”
Jasper gave his mother an icy look, then turned to go into the dining room. After the sandwich Emma Jane had so thoughtfully provided, he wasn’t all that hungry. His encounter with his mother had stolen the rest of his appetite. But he could put together a few things to take with him on the trail.
Yesterday’s dead end had him wondering. Everything seemed too convenient. The promising lead, and then it suddenly fizzling out. Something was off, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. Trouble was, since this was Jasper’s first foray into law enforcement, no one else in the sheriff’s office took him seriously. Everyone assumed that his desire to take down the rest of the gang was a playboy’s whim.
His father sat at the head of the table, and while he appeared to be reading his paper, as soon as Jasper entered the room, he looked up at him.
“Go easy on your mother. It’s a rough transition.”
“You don’t think it’s rough on me?” Jasper grumbled, pouring himself a cup of coffee as he sat. While he didn’t want his father’s lecture, he could use some advice on the case. Or at least in getting the other men to respect him.
The glare he got in response made Jasper feel about five years old. Henry folded the paper, then stared at his son. “Your mother has had one thing driving her all these years—her son marrying well so she could gain the daughter she never had. Your choice in wife is not exactly what she had imagined.”
“I didn’t choose to marry Emma Jane.”
Silence rocked the room for several minutes before Jasper’s father answered. “You would have left a girl ruined instead?”
Jasper squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself not to say something he’d regret. Finally, he took a deep breath, then opened his eyes. “Nothing untoward happened. I told you. But society and honor dictated that we marry. I didn’t make the rules, I just follow them. Now that we’re married, I have to make the best of it.”
“So why are you running away all the time? That doesn’t sound like making the best of it to me.” His father’s dark eyes bore deep into him, searching for the truth. Henry had been able to make Jasper come clean on even his worst deeds ever since he was a child.
This, however, was not like the entire plate of tea cakes he’d pilfered, eaten, then promptly became so sick he’d never had the urge to touch one of the dainty delicacies again. And yet, telling his father the truth about his intentions was even more important.
“I’m not running away.” Jasper sighed. “If anything, my marriage is a complication getting in the way of what I want to do.”
He took a long sip of the cooling coffee, then continued. “Seeing Will again made me realize how little I’d done with my life. Everyone admires Jasper Jackson. But for what? My good looks, my last name, the money I’ll inherit when you die? I want to do something meaningful with my life.”
With everything that had happened over the past several days, Jasper hadn’t been able to express those things. Finally getting it all out made the load feel so much lighter.
“When I helped Will rescue Mary’s sister, I realized that in fighting for justice for those who can’t fight for themselves, there was so much more to the world than just myself.”
Emma Jane’s image flashed before his eyes. When they’d been forced to marry, she’d told him the only reason she’d agreed to marry him was to protect her younger sister, Gracie. Had Emma Jane not married Jasper, Gracie would have been forced to marry one of the most execrable men in town. As part of their marriage agreement, Jasper’s father had paid off Emma Jane’s father’s gambling debts. One of those debts was to a man who’d told Mr. Logan that he’d take Gracie as a wife in lieu of cash. Had Jasper had a sister, would he have done any differently to spare his loved one a miserable future?
Perhaps he and Emma Jane were not so dissimilar, after all.
He only wished he didn’t feel so conflicted over his marriage.
One piece of his experiences of late continued to ring true, and that was the thing that drove him in his quest. “Even without my desire to be a better man, there’s the fact that a woman gave her life for me. Mel didn’t have to take the bullet meant for me, but she did. How do you ignore her dying wish to find and save her sister?”
All these days later, he could still smell the residue of gunpowder mixed with Mel’s blood. Jasper had foolishly tried intimidating Ben Perry, leader of the gang he was now pursuing, and Ben’s men had opened fire. Jasper should have died, but Mel shielded him. How does a man repay such a sacrifice?
Which was why he’d die before giving up on his quest for Mel. Everything in Mel’s life had been about giving her sister a better life. He owed it to her to save Daisy. Married to Emma Jane, Jasper accepted that his other dreams of home and family would be denied. But he would make something meaningful of his life.
“Sounds like some powerful motivation,” his father said slowly. “Just remember that when a man marries, his life is no longer his own.”
Jasper gave him a long, hard look. He’d already spent time living the life his parents wanted. Just when he thought he’d figured out what he wanted