Page 81 of Rough Stock
“But you ruined everything. I was going to propose toyoutonight when you got out of here and we could go back to the trailer. And you ruined it all! I swear, cowboy, you’re irritating as hell sometimes,” she said with a laugh and ruffled his hair.
“Does that mean you’ll meet my demands?” he said with a wink and a grin.
“Looks like you’ve given me no choice, seeing as how you stole my thunder,” she said, pretending to be angry.
“Can I ask you something?” She nodded. “Out there on the side of that road, did you tell me you love me?”
He could tell she was fighting tears when she sat up straight and, in her most authoritative tone, said, “Why, yes, JensenStrader, I did.”
“Good. I was afraid I’d hallucinated that,” he said and snickered.
“Nope. You heard right. I love you. I was terrified I’d lost you. And I never, never believed for a minute that you’d just walked away and left me.”
He side-eyed her. “Never?”
“Well, okay,” she singsonged, “maybe for a half second, but that was it. Let’s just say it passed through my mind, but it kept on a-going and didn’t squat for the night.”
“Good. Because I didn’t. And I wouldn’t. And I never, ever will. Ever.” His eyes went round. “Oh, shit! Who’s taking care of the horses?”
“Relax. Amber and Amos are. SammyJo and Gretchen are helping them. It’s all under control.”
“The girls have to get back to school soon,” Jensen reminded her.
“Yeah, but I don’t know how Amber’s going to finish. Seems there’s this cowboy we know, and she’s kinda head over heels for him, and he’s kinda head over heels for her, and?”
“Yeah, yeah. That was hard to miss. And SammyJo?”
“She and Gretchen are going to make it, I do believe. Gretchen wants to go back to school, so I think they’ll wind up together on campus.”
“Very nice. I like it,” Jensen said. He was smiling so widely that his face hurt, and he didn’t even care. He had something to smile about.
He had a lot of things to smile about.
“Wasthat who I think it was?”
Jensen nodded. “Yep. District attorney. My name is clear.”
Shyanna blew out a huge sigh of relief. “Thank god.”
“There’s something else I need to talk to you about,” he said and reached for her hand. As soon as she was seated, he leveled his gaze with hers. “Shy, while all this was going on, I talked to the district attorney about your conviction.”
“Why?”
“Because it seemed to me that you didn’t get a fair shake. He has a buddy who’s a defense attorney in western Kentucky, and the guy pulled all the records and looked them over. There’s a real problem.”
“What kind of trouble am I innow?” Shyanna asked, her face falling.
“None. At all. Thing is, most of the evidence that would’ve exonerated you in your ex’s assault wasn’t even presented to the court. There are stacks and stacks of police reports you’d asked to have filed, hospital records, dental records from your injuries, and the public defender they assigned to you didn’t bother with any of them. He just hung you out to dry and called it a day.”
“Yeah? So?”
Jensen wanted to cross his fingers. It wouldn’t surprise him if Shyanna exploded when he told her what he’d been discussing with the attorneys. “So he says he can have a friend of his over in CapeGirardeau go in and have this reopened. They’ll charge the public defender with negligence and it’ll all come to light. He thinks there’s a good chance he can get your convictionoverturned and have your record expunged.” Afraid to even breathe, he waited, wondering what she’d say.
Her eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
Jensen nodded with relief. “Yeah. Dead serious. There’s a very good chance you could get all that off your record.”
To his surprise, her eyes filled with tears. “Why, babe? What made you even think to ask anybody about all of that?”
