Outlaw's Prayer (ch. 7, part two)
Title: Outlaw's Prayer (7/?) part two
Author: honestys_easy
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Skibmann (Neal Tiemann/Andy Skib), Cookson (David Cook/Kelly Clarkson), various others, both slash and het
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own; never happened, never will.
Summary: For his entire life, Kyle Peek always longed for the thrill and adventure in the open lands of the wild West. He gets more than he ever bargained for when he joins up with the legendary outlaw gang known only as The Kings.
Notes: Here's the second part to Chapter 7. I have been working on this story for the past seven months and I am SO excited to finally be posting it :D What started out as a fledgling idea grew to be a huge AU and I'm very grateful to share it with you. A ginormous thank you goes out to dreamerren, for her work as beta and practically as the story's second author. Title credit goes to Nick Gibson for his song "Outlaw's Prayer."
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5, part one
Chapter 5, part two
Chapter 6
Chapter 7, part one
"Here I lay me down to sleep
To wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat,
And everlasting sorrow.
Let come what will, I'll try it on,
My condition can't be worse;
And if there's money in that box
'Tis munny in my purse."
- Black Bart, 1878
Five years ago
They came to David with the plan on the fourth day in Texas, Neal already irritated by their inactivity and Andy unable to switch off his observational skills, naturally gravitating towards town gossip that could be skewed in the outlaws' advantage. David wasn't the only one in Burleson who had been busy.
"The structure's flimsy as fuck," Andy began, scratching out a crude schematic of the building on a discarded napkin with charcoal. The others gathered around it in the small boarding room in the Breakaway Saloon, their voices hushed and the door locked and bolted. "About twenty years old; looks like it was built up real quick to serve its purpose, probably always meant to be renovated and replaced but nothing ever came of it."
Buildings falling into disrepair, once easily solved nuisances now becoming gaping holes in security...these details weren't new to the outlaws' experiences with small-town banks. But this bank, David thought darkly, was the only one he could put a face with its facade, a name to its owner, and thought that perhaps the grief of losing his wife added with the burden of caring for a daughter over the years contributed to the banker never getting around to crucial repairs.
"Weak points are here, here, and all along this wall," Andy pointed to marks of interest on the paper, the oil lamp glowing dimly in the windowless room, the three men opting for a low light so as not to cause suspicion for anyone scrutinizing the cracks below the door. One could never be too careful. "Really a good kick to the right spot could send the whole wall crumbling."
"We wouldn't even have to go in through the door this time," Neal ribbed, playfully poking an elbow in David's side in an attempt to get a rise out of the other man, to no avail. If he could keep his eyes trained to the drawing in Andy's hand, not look either of them in the eye, he might be able to get through this.
Sensing no comment from David, Andy continued, his deep brown eyes noting the repressed look on David's face, knowing from his expertise that he was holding something back. "Security's also a joke," he said, and this time even Neal could tell his eyes were on David's face, gauging his inaudible reactions. "The safe's a bolt lock; it's opened by a key instead of combination. We don't even need the owner for this; hell, a teller could probably do the job for us."
David crossed his arms in front of his chest, appearing in deep thought, though all that could possibly run through his head at the moment was Kelly's sultry voice, the way she tickled at his tattoo and played with the pendant around his neck as they lay in bed, stating casually that her father owned Burleson's bank. He didn't need that moment to contemplate how they could pull off this heist; he needed the time to make excuses why they couldn't. "We've hung around too long," he settled upon, hoping neither man would note that it was because of David and his burgeoning love affair that they had stayed in Burleson for this long. "Someone'll figure out it was us."
It was Neal that spoke up, having gone over the preliminary plans for a heist with Andy in David's amorous absence. "Cowhands and cattle rustlers run through this town every day," he explained; he had watched the daily phenomenon with his own eyes one morning when the boarding room he and Andy shared felt too suffocating and his lungs ached for the open air. Along the outskirts of the town cattle were herded northward like an approaching storm cloud of activity across the horizon, thousands of moving bodies manned by dutiful ranchers and cowboys, though they were never so loyal to their duties to refuse a quick drink at the Breakaway. Neal silently watched them all enter the saloon, wet their throats, dry from the tireless range, then leave, and never did he see the same face twice. "They'll think we just came and went along with them; no one's going to notice."
"We've already blown our cover here," David tried a different approach, pointing in Andy's direction. "They already know we're with you. No one's ever supposed to know that." They had been more than cautious in the towns they planned to hit, making sure Andy could do his job as the unrecognizable shadow by never being seen with him, meeting only to discuss his findings in the dark of night, far on the outskirts and away from prying ears. But in Burleson they had been careless, foolish; their egos still coasted off a rather exceptional heist and they overlooked their typical routine to celebrate. Organizing a heist in town was an afterthought, one that David believed could threaten their lives.
But Andy shook his head, his observations throughout the week stronger and more objective than David's misdirected instincts. "Aside from the travelers here, there are only fifty regulars in town, maybe. No one outside of these streets is going to make a stink about the bank getting robbed. I don't really see some journalist coming here to report on a town no one's going to care about -"
"Some people do care about it," David's protest was louder than he expected it to be, with a sudden, vicious bite to his tone that startled Andy, his body backing away on instinct. "And for someone who pays so much attention to people, you sure don't seem to give a shit about them."
"Hey," came the swift and gruff warning from Neal, stepping in between the two and staring David down carefully. Neal was no peacemaker--he was usually on the other end of the argument with David, and Andy was the one to step in and quickly neutralize the fight--but he wouldn't let this get out of hand, and David knew for all the loyalty Neal had for him in the world, he would always choose Andy's side. He only had to look in those ice blue eyes, Neal's stare solids and unafraid, for his temper to cool, and take a more rational approach to the outlaws' information.
Neal and Andy had made valid points, ones that even David's foolish heart could agree to. The bank would be an easy target, with no other city or town for miles for others to report the crime. And if Andy spoke the truth about the shoddy conditions of the bank--as he always did, David had never found a moment yet where he was wrong--then this would be one of the simplest heists they'd ever had.
The only thing stopping him...was her.
"I for one could use the cash," added Neal, hands in his empty pockets. "I'm cleaned out, between the price of drinks here and your woman running away with our poker games -"
"She's not my -" David blurted out before he stopped himself; he had found it near automatic to deny Kelly was his woman, though deep in his heart it was all he desired. He bit at his lower lip, drawing it in between his teeth and nursing that pain. Regardless of what he felt in his heart, and the kind of love he saw in Kelly's eyes when she looked at him, when she smiled, he still found his first instinct was to deny her; to be the outlaw, not the lover.
He shook his head, trying to will away the doubt seeping in from everywhere, about everything. He had been riding with Andy and Neal for more than a year now, the two men being his only constant companions since taking revenge on the lawman that wronged him, and the only men he had allowed himself to trust with his life. They all looked out for each other on the open plain, shared the joyful, dizzying highs of a heist as well as the terrifying thrill of a gunfight, of the chase. They had become like family to him; they deserved better than churlish insults and feeble protests against a well-organized plan. But she also deserved better from him; perhaps that was why he was protesting in the first place.
"It's a good plan," he conceded, giving them an apologetic look, the tension that had quickly rose among them just as easily departing. "It's better than good, really; the bank's all but gift-wrapped for us. I feel like we should leave a thank-you note." David ran his fingers through his hair nervously, the hand wandering like a fidgety child trying to find a place of comfort; it finally rested on the pendant around his neck, tied with a worn leather cord, the flat, silver disc with a punch the shape of a star feeling cold against his fingertips, a numb kind of pain. His mother had given it to him when he was a boy, a relic from her own father's military uniform; the only thing left of the Cook family besides David's memories. Kelly always seemed to gravitate towards it, fingers idly tracing the edges of the star, warming it with her touch.
David quickly yanked his fingers away, feeling the sting of the cord around his neck. Those kinds of memories weren't helping matters any.
With a look of concern Andy folded up the napkin, a thumb rubbing away the charcoal schematic into an indiscernible, untraceable blur. "We don't have to do this," he offered; the plan itself could dissolve away as easily as the drawing had, if David so wished. "There'll be other towns. There will be easier jobs."
"But if she's not your woman," Neal said, and the words alone shot like a bullet into David's heart. "Then there's no reason not to go along with it. We can't skip out on every town we get a liking to." Neal looked around at their sparse, windowless quarters at the Breakaway, the cramped feeling of the entire small town leaving him ill at ease. Perfect for plotting a heist, yes, or to find a warm, dry alternative to sleeping on the ground, but certainly not a place to stay. "And honestly, I haven't even gotten much of that around here."
Andy and Neal fell silent, their gazes set on David; he was the one who gained a liking for Burleson, for one crucial element of the town, and he was the one who must make the decision whether to rob that cozy town of its fortune.
***
"Those friends of yours are thinking of robbing my daddy's bank."
Kelly already knew before David said a word to her that day. Of course she knew, he figured; bird's got to fly, fish got to swim. Bank robbers have to do what they do best. "I can see it in their movements; they've become more guarded today, like they're hiding something." She raised an eyebrow at David, her brusque observations a stark contrast to the soft curve of her lips. David didn't know which one to fear more. "But they drop that look when they're around you."
She was right, of course; Neal and Andy were hiding the outlaws' plans from the rest of the town, unaccustomed to doing so in the light of day, surrounded by the very happy, unsuspecting townsfolk they intended to rob. In terms of reading people, finding their tells and deciphering more about them, Kelly could teach Andy a thing or two. "What makes you think -" he began, but she cut him off, too wise to be coddled.
"Don't try to fool me," she said coyly, her voice low and sultry. "I knew you and your boys were bank robbers the minute you walked into the Breakaway." She was the slyest he had ever seen her, slinking up to his frame, her lips holding secrets as her fingers found their way to his pendant once again. After only five days of being with David, Kelly thought she knew all there was to discover about him; she even thought she knew how he would respond to her words. "But you're not gonna let them rob this bank, are you," she challenged, confident smile emerging on her face, aiming for his own mouth to confirm her suspicions.
The conversation David had with Neal and Andy earlier burned in his mind, hotter than the touch of Kelly's hand on his chest could warm the worn silver piece. He loved her, this much he knew: he had never felt this way about any other woman, always finding something lacking in others. He felt he could share anything with her, and she would take it in her understanding, compassionate stride, and in turn he wanted to give her the world.
But what kind of world did he have to offer? He had been a fugitive for years, adding crimes and robberies to the tally that no one, not even David himself, could count. Even now, the number of bounty hunters looking for the reward money he would fetch was uncertain, or the lawmen who sought his head for reasons beyond mere cash. He would never want to bring Kelly into that life of danger, or leave her behind to be found and terrorized by a lawman...like his own family had been. He couldn't entertain the thought of staying, for her sake as well as his own; he would have liked to say he could leave before he got too attached, fell too deeply in love with her, but he would be fooling no one.
He focused on his own thoughts in that moment, on the conflict between his desires and his identity that no one else would understand, not Neal and Andy; not even Kelly. Kelly, however, focused on the moment itself, and the silence that met her confident question.
Her face fell, her fingers slipping away from his chest as she backed up. "You hesitated," she said, her voice wavering. David tried to reach for her, retain that physical contact as his mind raced, to formulate some kind of explanation, but she cared for none of it, taking even more steps away from him. If she went any farther her back would have hit the door. "You hesitated," she repeated, her voice stronger this time.
David tried to defend himself, if only to wash away the pained expression on Kelly's face, a look of betrayal. Though his decision on the heist wasn't clear to anyone, including himself, the one thing he could be certain was that he never wanted to hurt her. "Let me explain," he began, trying to keep his own tone calm in the face of Kelly's ever-rising voice.
"Explain this: are you, or are you not, robbing the damn bank?" She was getting louder without even noticing it, her hands curling into frustrated fists at her sides, vision slowly blurring from confusion and hurt. Perhaps five days was not enough to know everything she could about this man; he was surprising her, and not in a particularly good way.
In came that moment of hesitation once more; Kelly had no idea, David thought, how difficult this decision was to make. "I...don't know," he answered; even when facing accusing questions like this, he realized he could never lie to her.
It was certainly not the answer Kelly expected to hear. "How could you not know?!" She felt a tightness in her throat, emotions running fast through her veins; that's what it was with David Cook, she realized, the outlaw who had stolen her heart and now wished to steal even more. Every emotion was at full power with him, whether it be comfort or lust or now, even anger. She felt so strongly for him, all of the time, that all of this feeling was going to make her burst.
"You've said you've killed people before," she recalled their first night together, David's guilty confessions on why he wasn't good enough for her, why she deserved more. But she didn't want more, she wanted only this, only them, together. "Would you do it here?"
Kelly's words hit a nerve; David's tone turned harsh, and more serious than it had been before. "That's not fair," he argued. Killing wasn't something he was in any way proud of. There was only one man he had been pleased to shoot: the lawman who David tracked down and forced a death upon him fitting to his character, and even then the consequences of that haunted him to this day. "I only -"
"Would you kill my father??" She was shouting now, her voice strained, the words burning her throat as they escaped her mouth. Kelly realized her vision blurred not from anger, but from hot tears springing to her eyes.
"No! I wouldn't!" David protested, but as soon as the words left his lips he regretted it; he couldn't bring himself to lie to her. Those other men he had already killed: bankers, bounty hunters...they very easily could have been someone's father, someone's family. They had not been Kelly's family, specifically, but that had never mattered until now, and by the principle of his profession, it still should not. He took in a deep breath, his heart aching at the sight of the woman he loved in such distress, through his own fault. "It usually doesn't get to that point," he reasoned truthfully, already knowing it would never be an acceptable compromise.
Kelly shook her head, refusing to let the tears in her eyes fall. "That's not an answer."
Something in David's eyes turned then, a sadness he hadn't experienced for the past few blissful days, since he had met Kelly. "It usually doesn't get to that point," he repeated, his voice softer, laced with experience beyond his young years in a field no one should have known. "But if your father caused trouble, or if he threatened us in any way..." He had to look away when he said it, couldn't bear to watch the heartbreaking look cross her face. "...I wouldn't hesitate to shoot. Who he is to you wouldn't make a difference."
He expected to hear sobbing from across the room, the bedroom where they first made love; he expected to have a chair or something equally effective hurled at his head from his remark. But he underestimated the woman, as he had vowed never to do after she fairly earned all of his betting cash and identified them as bank robbers: only a deep silence penetrated the air, and when he finally found the courage to look up her arms were crossed at her chest, deep in thought. He should have known Kelly Clarkson would not have handled this argument like some harmless prairie girl.
"You said you were never meant for this life."
When Kelly broke the silence suffocating them both, her voice was low and deliberate, ineffectively trying to hide how she felt. She brought them both back to that first night, when they had revealed more to each other than just their bodies, thoughts and fears that David had never told anyone else. It was a sentiment he assumed Neal and Andy had already guessed, but he had never said it aloud before he met Kelly. "You said you wanted to settle down, live a real life."
"More than anything," he stressed. David felt it in his heart but it felt off somehow; talking and dreaming about living a normal life, having a home of his own, was one thing, but having it dangled in front of him was quite another. He found that life tempting and at the same time terrifying.
"Then stay here!" Like a bullet shot from a revolver Kelly launched herself into David's arms from across the room, imploring him, the warmth of her arms around him and body next to his doing more to convince him than her words. "We could get a place somewhere in town, money wouldn't be a problem at all. I bet Daddy could even get you a job at the bank, a real job. You could finally put me in a skirt," she joked.
All the happy, optimistic ideas that Kelly meant to convince him to turn his back on his life of crime only sent him deeper into a cloud of doubt. What she described was her world, her future; it wasn't his. As much as David wanted the simple life, he couldn't see it agreeing with him, not at this time. Not in Burleson.
"Kelly," he breathed, inhaling her scent, memorizing every inch of her because he feared he soon would not have the luxury to do so. Two hands pressed against his chest, Kelly's fingers curling into his shirt and wrapping themselves around the pendant at his throat as she looked up into his eyes, her own hazel ones earnest, desperate to hold on. He wanted to hold her forever like this, in this one moment; he didn't want to have to decide.
"David," she whispered back; she saw the love in his eyes but there was also something deeper, a darker force clouding the usually bright, clear gray Kelly couldn't get enough of. It was something indecipherable to her, this doubt; perhaps she didn't know David Cook as well as she wanted. "You can stop being an outlaw. You can stop running away."
His body stiffened, Kelly's suggestion turning him cold. He had flung himself into the outlaw life wholeheartedly, riding with Andy and Neal, taking their petty thievery to an entirely new level of risk and reward. He couldn't just as easily pull himself out again, not when so much trust had been built among the three men during their time on the open plain. Although David felt confident that if he left his outlaw life behind tonight his partners in crime would survive without him, he hesitated. He had grown so close to them, almost finding a fraternal replacement for his family with them; David possibly needed Neal and Andy more than they needed him. He couldn't just leave them out of the blue, and he knew they weren't as keen on settling down and forging roots as David had always been.
And yes, he was running away: away from the bounty hunters and lawmen on his tail ever since he exacted his revenge for his family's tragedy, away from the haunting guilt of surviving that never lifted even after he put that lawman into his grave. But he also felt he was running towards something, heading head-first towards a purpose that had died along with his family, a journey towards the man he should and will become instead of the man that he was today. David couldn't be the docile family man Kelly wanted, not now; he wasn't yet the man he wanted to be for her.
"I love you," he said, reassuring the both of them of the one thing he knew in his mind to be true.
Kelly released a relieved sigh at the words as she allowed herself to be pulled closer into David's embrace. "I love you too," the sentence came so naturally, the sentiment all she could think about for the past week, as she rested her head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. They remained in their embrace, the sun setting deep into the Texas clouds and casting imposing shadows throughout the room, neither party wishing to move and break the peace they had found with one another. It would have to end sometime, their argument solidified that in David's mind, but he didn't want it to end now. Please, he thought, kissing the top of her head, don't let it end now.
"Promise me," Kelly's voice was shaky, uncertain that David would comply. "Promise me that you'll stay. That you won't rob the bank, for me." She let out a breath, burying her face in the warm cotton of his shirt, wishing to stay in his arms forever. "Please."
Pulling away only enough to look her in the eye, David lifted Kelly's chin, the worry and emotion pooling in those hazel eyes like rain after a thunderstorm, always threatening a flood. His own eyes felt cloudy and wet, trying to hold back the emotions he had never felt before, the ones that made this decision the hardest he had ever made. David couldn't answer without breaking Kelly's heart, and he had made his own vow never to hurt her, to never be the cause for her tears. But he couldn't lie to Kelly, either; he realized he could never lie to her.
He pressed his lips to hers softly, focusing on the softness of her lips, this moment, instead of what he had to do. They kissed, and they made love, and they fell asleep in each other's arms, the naked night caressing them, but through the entire night David never promised anything Kelly had desired.
***
She had found it the next morning, when the dawn greeted her awakening eyes with cold emptiness in the bed beside her. She almost wished it had all been a dream, a fantasy held onto by little girls awaiting their soulmate, their rugged outlaw to change his thieving ways for an honest life and a passionate love. Kelly let no tears fall as she realized her fist closed around something in her sleep; she opened it slowly, revealing an old soldier's decorative button, the silver worn yet polished and well cared for, threaded around a leather cord, the star pattern cut into its center leaving an impression in the flesh of her outstretched palm.
***
He only noticed it hours after they had left Burleson, before the sun even had time to rise, Andy and Neal's grumbles about leaving the bank's fortune intact keeping his mind occupied for most of the day. It wasn't until they reached Arkansas that he noticed the weight in the front pocket of his shirt, light yet cumbersome, and when he fished out the strange object he came face to face with three playing cards, the faces of kings staring back at him, hidden and stashed away exclusively for David to find.
Chapter 8
Author: honestys_easy
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Skibmann (Neal Tiemann/Andy Skib), Cookson (David Cook/Kelly Clarkson), various others, both slash and het
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own; never happened, never will.
Summary: For his entire life, Kyle Peek always longed for the thrill and adventure in the open lands of the wild West. He gets more than he ever bargained for when he joins up with the legendary outlaw gang known only as The Kings.
Notes: Here's the second part to Chapter 7. I have been working on this story for the past seven months and I am SO excited to finally be posting it :D What started out as a fledgling idea grew to be a huge AU and I'm very grateful to share it with you. A ginormous thank you goes out to dreamerren, for her work as beta and practically as the story's second author. Title credit goes to Nick Gibson for his song "Outlaw's Prayer."
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5, part one
Chapter 5, part two
Chapter 6
Chapter 7, part one
"Here I lay me down to sleep
To wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat,
And everlasting sorrow.
Let come what will, I'll try it on,
My condition can't be worse;
And if there's money in that box
'Tis munny in my purse."
- Black Bart, 1878
Five years ago
They came to David with the plan on the fourth day in Texas, Neal already irritated by their inactivity and Andy unable to switch off his observational skills, naturally gravitating towards town gossip that could be skewed in the outlaws' advantage. David wasn't the only one in Burleson who had been busy.
"The structure's flimsy as fuck," Andy began, scratching out a crude schematic of the building on a discarded napkin with charcoal. The others gathered around it in the small boarding room in the Breakaway Saloon, their voices hushed and the door locked and bolted. "About twenty years old; looks like it was built up real quick to serve its purpose, probably always meant to be renovated and replaced but nothing ever came of it."
Buildings falling into disrepair, once easily solved nuisances now becoming gaping holes in security...these details weren't new to the outlaws' experiences with small-town banks. But this bank, David thought darkly, was the only one he could put a face with its facade, a name to its owner, and thought that perhaps the grief of losing his wife added with the burden of caring for a daughter over the years contributed to the banker never getting around to crucial repairs.
"Weak points are here, here, and all along this wall," Andy pointed to marks of interest on the paper, the oil lamp glowing dimly in the windowless room, the three men opting for a low light so as not to cause suspicion for anyone scrutinizing the cracks below the door. One could never be too careful. "Really a good kick to the right spot could send the whole wall crumbling."
"We wouldn't even have to go in through the door this time," Neal ribbed, playfully poking an elbow in David's side in an attempt to get a rise out of the other man, to no avail. If he could keep his eyes trained to the drawing in Andy's hand, not look either of them in the eye, he might be able to get through this.
Sensing no comment from David, Andy continued, his deep brown eyes noting the repressed look on David's face, knowing from his expertise that he was holding something back. "Security's also a joke," he said, and this time even Neal could tell his eyes were on David's face, gauging his inaudible reactions. "The safe's a bolt lock; it's opened by a key instead of combination. We don't even need the owner for this; hell, a teller could probably do the job for us."
David crossed his arms in front of his chest, appearing in deep thought, though all that could possibly run through his head at the moment was Kelly's sultry voice, the way she tickled at his tattoo and played with the pendant around his neck as they lay in bed, stating casually that her father owned Burleson's bank. He didn't need that moment to contemplate how they could pull off this heist; he needed the time to make excuses why they couldn't. "We've hung around too long," he settled upon, hoping neither man would note that it was because of David and his burgeoning love affair that they had stayed in Burleson for this long. "Someone'll figure out it was us."
It was Neal that spoke up, having gone over the preliminary plans for a heist with Andy in David's amorous absence. "Cowhands and cattle rustlers run through this town every day," he explained; he had watched the daily phenomenon with his own eyes one morning when the boarding room he and Andy shared felt too suffocating and his lungs ached for the open air. Along the outskirts of the town cattle were herded northward like an approaching storm cloud of activity across the horizon, thousands of moving bodies manned by dutiful ranchers and cowboys, though they were never so loyal to their duties to refuse a quick drink at the Breakaway. Neal silently watched them all enter the saloon, wet their throats, dry from the tireless range, then leave, and never did he see the same face twice. "They'll think we just came and went along with them; no one's going to notice."
"We've already blown our cover here," David tried a different approach, pointing in Andy's direction. "They already know we're with you. No one's ever supposed to know that." They had been more than cautious in the towns they planned to hit, making sure Andy could do his job as the unrecognizable shadow by never being seen with him, meeting only to discuss his findings in the dark of night, far on the outskirts and away from prying ears. But in Burleson they had been careless, foolish; their egos still coasted off a rather exceptional heist and they overlooked their typical routine to celebrate. Organizing a heist in town was an afterthought, one that David believed could threaten their lives.
But Andy shook his head, his observations throughout the week stronger and more objective than David's misdirected instincts. "Aside from the travelers here, there are only fifty regulars in town, maybe. No one outside of these streets is going to make a stink about the bank getting robbed. I don't really see some journalist coming here to report on a town no one's going to care about -"
"Some people do care about it," David's protest was louder than he expected it to be, with a sudden, vicious bite to his tone that startled Andy, his body backing away on instinct. "And for someone who pays so much attention to people, you sure don't seem to give a shit about them."
"Hey," came the swift and gruff warning from Neal, stepping in between the two and staring David down carefully. Neal was no peacemaker--he was usually on the other end of the argument with David, and Andy was the one to step in and quickly neutralize the fight--but he wouldn't let this get out of hand, and David knew for all the loyalty Neal had for him in the world, he would always choose Andy's side. He only had to look in those ice blue eyes, Neal's stare solids and unafraid, for his temper to cool, and take a more rational approach to the outlaws' information.
Neal and Andy had made valid points, ones that even David's foolish heart could agree to. The bank would be an easy target, with no other city or town for miles for others to report the crime. And if Andy spoke the truth about the shoddy conditions of the bank--as he always did, David had never found a moment yet where he was wrong--then this would be one of the simplest heists they'd ever had.
The only thing stopping him...was her.
"I for one could use the cash," added Neal, hands in his empty pockets. "I'm cleaned out, between the price of drinks here and your woman running away with our poker games -"
"She's not my -" David blurted out before he stopped himself; he had found it near automatic to deny Kelly was his woman, though deep in his heart it was all he desired. He bit at his lower lip, drawing it in between his teeth and nursing that pain. Regardless of what he felt in his heart, and the kind of love he saw in Kelly's eyes when she looked at him, when she smiled, he still found his first instinct was to deny her; to be the outlaw, not the lover.
He shook his head, trying to will away the doubt seeping in from everywhere, about everything. He had been riding with Andy and Neal for more than a year now, the two men being his only constant companions since taking revenge on the lawman that wronged him, and the only men he had allowed himself to trust with his life. They all looked out for each other on the open plain, shared the joyful, dizzying highs of a heist as well as the terrifying thrill of a gunfight, of the chase. They had become like family to him; they deserved better than churlish insults and feeble protests against a well-organized plan. But she also deserved better from him; perhaps that was why he was protesting in the first place.
"It's a good plan," he conceded, giving them an apologetic look, the tension that had quickly rose among them just as easily departing. "It's better than good, really; the bank's all but gift-wrapped for us. I feel like we should leave a thank-you note." David ran his fingers through his hair nervously, the hand wandering like a fidgety child trying to find a place of comfort; it finally rested on the pendant around his neck, tied with a worn leather cord, the flat, silver disc with a punch the shape of a star feeling cold against his fingertips, a numb kind of pain. His mother had given it to him when he was a boy, a relic from her own father's military uniform; the only thing left of the Cook family besides David's memories. Kelly always seemed to gravitate towards it, fingers idly tracing the edges of the star, warming it with her touch.
David quickly yanked his fingers away, feeling the sting of the cord around his neck. Those kinds of memories weren't helping matters any.
With a look of concern Andy folded up the napkin, a thumb rubbing away the charcoal schematic into an indiscernible, untraceable blur. "We don't have to do this," he offered; the plan itself could dissolve away as easily as the drawing had, if David so wished. "There'll be other towns. There will be easier jobs."
"But if she's not your woman," Neal said, and the words alone shot like a bullet into David's heart. "Then there's no reason not to go along with it. We can't skip out on every town we get a liking to." Neal looked around at their sparse, windowless quarters at the Breakaway, the cramped feeling of the entire small town leaving him ill at ease. Perfect for plotting a heist, yes, or to find a warm, dry alternative to sleeping on the ground, but certainly not a place to stay. "And honestly, I haven't even gotten much of that around here."
Andy and Neal fell silent, their gazes set on David; he was the one who gained a liking for Burleson, for one crucial element of the town, and he was the one who must make the decision whether to rob that cozy town of its fortune.
***
"Those friends of yours are thinking of robbing my daddy's bank."
Kelly already knew before David said a word to her that day. Of course she knew, he figured; bird's got to fly, fish got to swim. Bank robbers have to do what they do best. "I can see it in their movements; they've become more guarded today, like they're hiding something." She raised an eyebrow at David, her brusque observations a stark contrast to the soft curve of her lips. David didn't know which one to fear more. "But they drop that look when they're around you."
She was right, of course; Neal and Andy were hiding the outlaws' plans from the rest of the town, unaccustomed to doing so in the light of day, surrounded by the very happy, unsuspecting townsfolk they intended to rob. In terms of reading people, finding their tells and deciphering more about them, Kelly could teach Andy a thing or two. "What makes you think -" he began, but she cut him off, too wise to be coddled.
"Don't try to fool me," she said coyly, her voice low and sultry. "I knew you and your boys were bank robbers the minute you walked into the Breakaway." She was the slyest he had ever seen her, slinking up to his frame, her lips holding secrets as her fingers found their way to his pendant once again. After only five days of being with David, Kelly thought she knew all there was to discover about him; she even thought she knew how he would respond to her words. "But you're not gonna let them rob this bank, are you," she challenged, confident smile emerging on her face, aiming for his own mouth to confirm her suspicions.
The conversation David had with Neal and Andy earlier burned in his mind, hotter than the touch of Kelly's hand on his chest could warm the worn silver piece. He loved her, this much he knew: he had never felt this way about any other woman, always finding something lacking in others. He felt he could share anything with her, and she would take it in her understanding, compassionate stride, and in turn he wanted to give her the world.
But what kind of world did he have to offer? He had been a fugitive for years, adding crimes and robberies to the tally that no one, not even David himself, could count. Even now, the number of bounty hunters looking for the reward money he would fetch was uncertain, or the lawmen who sought his head for reasons beyond mere cash. He would never want to bring Kelly into that life of danger, or leave her behind to be found and terrorized by a lawman...like his own family had been. He couldn't entertain the thought of staying, for her sake as well as his own; he would have liked to say he could leave before he got too attached, fell too deeply in love with her, but he would be fooling no one.
He focused on his own thoughts in that moment, on the conflict between his desires and his identity that no one else would understand, not Neal and Andy; not even Kelly. Kelly, however, focused on the moment itself, and the silence that met her confident question.
Her face fell, her fingers slipping away from his chest as she backed up. "You hesitated," she said, her voice wavering. David tried to reach for her, retain that physical contact as his mind raced, to formulate some kind of explanation, but she cared for none of it, taking even more steps away from him. If she went any farther her back would have hit the door. "You hesitated," she repeated, her voice stronger this time.
David tried to defend himself, if only to wash away the pained expression on Kelly's face, a look of betrayal. Though his decision on the heist wasn't clear to anyone, including himself, the one thing he could be certain was that he never wanted to hurt her. "Let me explain," he began, trying to keep his own tone calm in the face of Kelly's ever-rising voice.
"Explain this: are you, or are you not, robbing the damn bank?" She was getting louder without even noticing it, her hands curling into frustrated fists at her sides, vision slowly blurring from confusion and hurt. Perhaps five days was not enough to know everything she could about this man; he was surprising her, and not in a particularly good way.
In came that moment of hesitation once more; Kelly had no idea, David thought, how difficult this decision was to make. "I...don't know," he answered; even when facing accusing questions like this, he realized he could never lie to her.
It was certainly not the answer Kelly expected to hear. "How could you not know?!" She felt a tightness in her throat, emotions running fast through her veins; that's what it was with David Cook, she realized, the outlaw who had stolen her heart and now wished to steal even more. Every emotion was at full power with him, whether it be comfort or lust or now, even anger. She felt so strongly for him, all of the time, that all of this feeling was going to make her burst.
"You've said you've killed people before," she recalled their first night together, David's guilty confessions on why he wasn't good enough for her, why she deserved more. But she didn't want more, she wanted only this, only them, together. "Would you do it here?"
Kelly's words hit a nerve; David's tone turned harsh, and more serious than it had been before. "That's not fair," he argued. Killing wasn't something he was in any way proud of. There was only one man he had been pleased to shoot: the lawman who David tracked down and forced a death upon him fitting to his character, and even then the consequences of that haunted him to this day. "I only -"
"Would you kill my father??" She was shouting now, her voice strained, the words burning her throat as they escaped her mouth. Kelly realized her vision blurred not from anger, but from hot tears springing to her eyes.
"No! I wouldn't!" David protested, but as soon as the words left his lips he regretted it; he couldn't bring himself to lie to her. Those other men he had already killed: bankers, bounty hunters...they very easily could have been someone's father, someone's family. They had not been Kelly's family, specifically, but that had never mattered until now, and by the principle of his profession, it still should not. He took in a deep breath, his heart aching at the sight of the woman he loved in such distress, through his own fault. "It usually doesn't get to that point," he reasoned truthfully, already knowing it would never be an acceptable compromise.
Kelly shook her head, refusing to let the tears in her eyes fall. "That's not an answer."
Something in David's eyes turned then, a sadness he hadn't experienced for the past few blissful days, since he had met Kelly. "It usually doesn't get to that point," he repeated, his voice softer, laced with experience beyond his young years in a field no one should have known. "But if your father caused trouble, or if he threatened us in any way..." He had to look away when he said it, couldn't bear to watch the heartbreaking look cross her face. "...I wouldn't hesitate to shoot. Who he is to you wouldn't make a difference."
He expected to hear sobbing from across the room, the bedroom where they first made love; he expected to have a chair or something equally effective hurled at his head from his remark. But he underestimated the woman, as he had vowed never to do after she fairly earned all of his betting cash and identified them as bank robbers: only a deep silence penetrated the air, and when he finally found the courage to look up her arms were crossed at her chest, deep in thought. He should have known Kelly Clarkson would not have handled this argument like some harmless prairie girl.
"You said you were never meant for this life."
When Kelly broke the silence suffocating them both, her voice was low and deliberate, ineffectively trying to hide how she felt. She brought them both back to that first night, when they had revealed more to each other than just their bodies, thoughts and fears that David had never told anyone else. It was a sentiment he assumed Neal and Andy had already guessed, but he had never said it aloud before he met Kelly. "You said you wanted to settle down, live a real life."
"More than anything," he stressed. David felt it in his heart but it felt off somehow; talking and dreaming about living a normal life, having a home of his own, was one thing, but having it dangled in front of him was quite another. He found that life tempting and at the same time terrifying.
"Then stay here!" Like a bullet shot from a revolver Kelly launched herself into David's arms from across the room, imploring him, the warmth of her arms around him and body next to his doing more to convince him than her words. "We could get a place somewhere in town, money wouldn't be a problem at all. I bet Daddy could even get you a job at the bank, a real job. You could finally put me in a skirt," she joked.
All the happy, optimistic ideas that Kelly meant to convince him to turn his back on his life of crime only sent him deeper into a cloud of doubt. What she described was her world, her future; it wasn't his. As much as David wanted the simple life, he couldn't see it agreeing with him, not at this time. Not in Burleson.
"Kelly," he breathed, inhaling her scent, memorizing every inch of her because he feared he soon would not have the luxury to do so. Two hands pressed against his chest, Kelly's fingers curling into his shirt and wrapping themselves around the pendant at his throat as she looked up into his eyes, her own hazel ones earnest, desperate to hold on. He wanted to hold her forever like this, in this one moment; he didn't want to have to decide.
"David," she whispered back; she saw the love in his eyes but there was also something deeper, a darker force clouding the usually bright, clear gray Kelly couldn't get enough of. It was something indecipherable to her, this doubt; perhaps she didn't know David Cook as well as she wanted. "You can stop being an outlaw. You can stop running away."
His body stiffened, Kelly's suggestion turning him cold. He had flung himself into the outlaw life wholeheartedly, riding with Andy and Neal, taking their petty thievery to an entirely new level of risk and reward. He couldn't just as easily pull himself out again, not when so much trust had been built among the three men during their time on the open plain. Although David felt confident that if he left his outlaw life behind tonight his partners in crime would survive without him, he hesitated. He had grown so close to them, almost finding a fraternal replacement for his family with them; David possibly needed Neal and Andy more than they needed him. He couldn't just leave them out of the blue, and he knew they weren't as keen on settling down and forging roots as David had always been.
And yes, he was running away: away from the bounty hunters and lawmen on his tail ever since he exacted his revenge for his family's tragedy, away from the haunting guilt of surviving that never lifted even after he put that lawman into his grave. But he also felt he was running towards something, heading head-first towards a purpose that had died along with his family, a journey towards the man he should and will become instead of the man that he was today. David couldn't be the docile family man Kelly wanted, not now; he wasn't yet the man he wanted to be for her.
"I love you," he said, reassuring the both of them of the one thing he knew in his mind to be true.
Kelly released a relieved sigh at the words as she allowed herself to be pulled closer into David's embrace. "I love you too," the sentence came so naturally, the sentiment all she could think about for the past week, as she rested her head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. They remained in their embrace, the sun setting deep into the Texas clouds and casting imposing shadows throughout the room, neither party wishing to move and break the peace they had found with one another. It would have to end sometime, their argument solidified that in David's mind, but he didn't want it to end now. Please, he thought, kissing the top of her head, don't let it end now.
"Promise me," Kelly's voice was shaky, uncertain that David would comply. "Promise me that you'll stay. That you won't rob the bank, for me." She let out a breath, burying her face in the warm cotton of his shirt, wishing to stay in his arms forever. "Please."
Pulling away only enough to look her in the eye, David lifted Kelly's chin, the worry and emotion pooling in those hazel eyes like rain after a thunderstorm, always threatening a flood. His own eyes felt cloudy and wet, trying to hold back the emotions he had never felt before, the ones that made this decision the hardest he had ever made. David couldn't answer without breaking Kelly's heart, and he had made his own vow never to hurt her, to never be the cause for her tears. But he couldn't lie to Kelly, either; he realized he could never lie to her.
He pressed his lips to hers softly, focusing on the softness of her lips, this moment, instead of what he had to do. They kissed, and they made love, and they fell asleep in each other's arms, the naked night caressing them, but through the entire night David never promised anything Kelly had desired.
***
She had found it the next morning, when the dawn greeted her awakening eyes with cold emptiness in the bed beside her. She almost wished it had all been a dream, a fantasy held onto by little girls awaiting their soulmate, their rugged outlaw to change his thieving ways for an honest life and a passionate love. Kelly let no tears fall as she realized her fist closed around something in her sleep; she opened it slowly, revealing an old soldier's decorative button, the silver worn yet polished and well cared for, threaded around a leather cord, the star pattern cut into its center leaving an impression in the flesh of her outstretched palm.
***
He only noticed it hours after they had left Burleson, before the sun even had time to rise, Andy and Neal's grumbles about leaving the bank's fortune intact keeping his mind occupied for most of the day. It wasn't until they reached Arkansas that he noticed the weight in the front pocket of his shirt, light yet cumbersome, and when he fished out the strange object he came face to face with three playing cards, the faces of kings staring back at him, hidden and stashed away exclusively for David to find.
Chapter 8