Planning to defeat a rift creature with Sabina would make Charming scream. She had stressed over and over how her team couldn’t be placed in jeopardy with the Governors. Earl had promised a thousand times.
He took the utmost care in the words he chose with Sabina. When reunited with his girl, he wanted her to be pleased about what he’d done, not disappointed like his wife and daughters. This time would be different.
“The outlaw can’t stay.” Sabina tugged at Earl’s collar. “Neither one. Once you send the other packing, the other has to go too. I’m sure you understand me.”
When had she figured out who he had been? He wouldn’t own up to it, like he wouldn’t own up to another name when arrested in 1883. This version of his bones was Earl Blacke, but not much longer. The things from the other worlds would keep coming to get to Charming and Dante. Earl would have to give up this world to spend the rest of his life in that damned closet.
“I’ll be your bait, then I’ll go because I choose to.” Earl scrunched his brow, mirroring her leer. She needed a good deep look at his notorious side.
She shook a lithe finger at his nose, filling his nostrils with her lilac perfume. “Earl Blacke can stay if he’s your true nature.”
No one knew his true nature. He had tried to show Charming, but couldn’t do it. His nature was to keep himself to himself. “And how many times will you threaten to out me if I stay? Plenty of people heard Hawley call me another name. How do I explain it?”
Her brows rose, getting lost in the ebony frames of her eyeglasses, which encircled a pair of startling green eyes. “Who can take him seriously? If you run off, it’s your doing not Settler’s, not mine, and not Hawley’s. Who would believe you’re a man from the 1880s anyway?”
“I don’t want to talk about him. I’m not him. Not anymore.” He shrugged his shoulders, shoving his past aside. “What do you intend for Daelin? Answer me honestly, and I’ll be your sacrificial lamb for Haw Shot.”
“You’re no innocent. Don’t try that on me, and you know what I intend for the new librarian. She’ll join her sister and surpass her. Look at her. Undeniably, she’ll become one of my best if she sets her mind to it.”
To save her sister, Daelin would put every ounce of determination she had into excelling as Sabina’s minion. Daelin and the rift were meant to be. “Take good care with her and vow you won’t come searching for me.”
The corners of her eyes crinkled upwards. “One of these days, you’ll sit down in my parlor, and I’ll know all of your secrets. Every last one of them.”
His jaw stiffened. “Don’t be so sure.” Her fire and steel would either save this world or doom it.
“When this world is done with me, you’ll come.” She brushed her snow white curls behind her ears. “See you at sundown. Right here.”
“Fine. Bring Daelin one of your Rifter gadgets to get the gem out of Haw Shot’s throat. We’re guaranteed a victory if she can remove it.”
“I’ll send something over.”
He watched her walk away then went back inside the library. “Sabina says we’ll meet here tonight.” Two books sat on the librarian’s desk. The top one snagged Earl’s attention. The Notorious of the Wild West. An old photo of him graced the cover. “No way in this era or the next.” He slid the tome off the surface and behind his back, slipping it under his shirt.
Beneath the book on outlaws laid a leather-bound journal, aged, cracked, the robin’s egg blue fading to bland. Earl grabbed it as well. It could destroy Daelin’s innocence and the only shot at vanquishing the pesky Haw Shot.
“What are you doing?” She reached for the journal before he could hide it away. “I have to log books before you check them out. Library policy.”
Having no choice, he handed over the journal so she wouldn’t notice the other he hid. His past had no place here. What good would it do? It’d do nothing but cause him grief and get in the way of helping his girl. “Sorry.”
Her fingers brushed over the cracked leather, then she checked the spine. “There’s no title.” The cover wouldn’t open. “It’s stuck. Hmm.” Her brows furrowed. Her fingers pulled at the pages. They didn’t budge. “How odd. I’ll have to research how to unstick it. What’s the title? What’s it about?”
How much longer until she accepted odd as routine? Settler had heaped it on since her arrival. “Sabina left it.”
“Oh, I’ll ask her later.” Daelin sat down at her desk, opened the top drawer, and dropped in the book. “Now the deal we discussed earlier, are you ready to promise?”
No. Not even if stagecoaches raced around the west again. “When the time is right. It’s not now, Daelin. Honest. In the meantime, I’ll tell you something to insure your victory against Haw Shot. Did you notice the jewel in its throat?”
“The bright green patch?” She pointed to her neck. “About there?”
“That’s it. It’s the key to defeating Hawley. You have to take it from him.”
“By sticking my hand down his throat and grabbing it?” She crossed her arms, snickering. “Right.”
The library door swung open. Culver strode in, waving. His wrist glowed purple. He reached into his mail pouch. “Sabina sent me. I’ve just the thing for dislodging jewels from ghosts.”
hapter 