Free Steel Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #2, Chloe and Matthew's story) by Amelia Rose Page A

grinned.  "Not fair to him, but no one could convince him of that.  The mine's played out, Chloe."
                  I waved a hand.  "Jason Seth will take years to become convinced what you had isn't going to produce for him."
                  "Fine by me."
                  I ignored him, still frowning.  "He shot you," I said.
                  Matthew raised a brow.  "I do remember."
                  "He shot you because you escorted his sister."
                  Matthew looked a little more sharply at me.  "I remember that too."
                  I didn't hold up a hand to make him stop agreeing or disagreeing; sometimes, indicating you're pursuing a train of thought just challenges the Longren boys to interrupt it.
                  "Jason Seth hated you because you had a mine he wanted.  Now he has the mine."
                  Matthew was listening now.
                  "He hated you because you were with his sister."
                  The hotel had gone quiet again.  I could hear horses on the street.
                  "But he shot you to make up for that."
                  Matthew gave me a sardonic glance.  "Someone who shoots you to feel he's gotten his own back never really will feel that he has."
                  I nodded as if I understood that.
                  "He spent time in jail because of that.  Could he still hold a grudge?"
                  Matthew laid both hands flat on the table and spoke earnestly.  "I don't pretend to know anything about what Jason Seth might do."
                  Now I wanted to hold up my hand to shush him.  "But the fact that you didn't marry Elizabeth.  That you were seeing her and that you stopped."
                  Matthew contradicted himself.  "He got that out of his system."
                  And there was the point I'd been circling, hoping it would become clear not only for Matthew but for me.
                  "Did she?"
                  In the silence, the crow song outside and the horses moving up the street sounded loud.  When one of the carpenters dropped something in the other room, we both jumped. 
                  "Do you think she put someone up to it?"
                  But my eyes fluttered closed again and there, in memory, was the figure running from the back of the hotel, the curious gait, the graceful movements.  There was the face I couldn't make out at the far end of the alley, and the figure raising the bottle, face hidden under layers of scarf.
                  There were the bruises on my ribs, my legs and arms from being dragged by someone taller than me—everyone was—but not necessarily stronger.  There was the reason someone would set fire to the Faro Queen, when the Longrens shouldn't have enemies anymore in Gold Hill or in Virginia City.  Hutch and Maggie legally married, Maggie had saved more than one mother and child with her midwifery and Hutch and Matthew had sold the mine.
                  Elizabeth Seth.  Because when Matthew had stopped seeing her the previous summer, just before Maggie came to town, just before Elizabeth's overprotective brother shot Matthew, she hadn't let go easily.  She'd cried and clung and followed him everywhere, her face drawn and eyes red and Matthew had told me it was a small town and I was imagining it, that of course she might frequent the same plays or the same shops. 
                  "Someone pushed me in front of a carriage yesterday," I said. 
                  "What?"  He reached for me.  I was fine, but also more than willing to let him hold my hand on the table top.
                  "I went into Gold Hill to fetch groceries for my mother.  Coming out of the shop, I stepped into the