Amelia hated the dreams that took her back to that night but she bore them anyway. What those men did…and mainly to get back at the ex who'd abandoned her. She woke up drenched in sweat almost every night, her heart racing and her muscles aching as if she'd already run a marathon.
When she left San Francisco with Bella and the other women, she thought she'd seen the last of them but now they were in Paradise working as security men for the likes of Axelrod and Amos who seemed to embrace their work ethic.
Ethan would go to war against them personally if he knew and she didn't want that. Oh she wanted both Burke and Trevor shot dead but she didn't want them to get the jump on Ethan and hurt him or worse. But with Boone joining forces, maybe the two of them…but it'd still be dangerous.
If anything happened to him…well that's why she ran away from him and Paradise wasn't it? She'd learned her time away that she'd been too much in love with him, his life so intertwined with her own she couldn't leave him behind.
So she'd been planning to go back…until the night that changed everything. She tried to go back to sleep but had a difficult time of it. So she got up and tried to make herself some tea so she could take it out on the porch.
Darkness surrounded her, the sky chock filled with stars and everything so peaceful. She sipped her tea remembering how much she enjoyed watching the days and nights pass overhead in Paradise. The sun creeping over the mountain ranges in the morning and lighting up the valley, before the heat of the summer baked everything.
She loved watching the horses graze and the yearlings gallop, kicking up their heels. The pups running behind Carla. All the women looking so happy embracing their new lives after San Francisco what Amelia had been trying to do.
If only the men who had turned her life into a nightmare hadn't followed her back home. Brock had already tried to kill her and Trevor had been the man in the barn that night. She knew they'd killed Boone's brother as surely as they'd killed Warrick in front of her. She figured it had been because they'd crossed paths with Walton in the past maybe back in San Francisco and so he had to die.
Ethan…he had to be careful around those two treacherous men. She knew she had to talk to Boone again and maybe he'd figure out what to do. She just didn't want Ethan taking them on alone without trained guns to back him up.
Ethan got up to check some noises coming from the barn. He'd been seeing and hearing of coyotes hanging around so he might have to go scare them off. Grabbing his gun, he left the cabin and walked slowly towards the barn.
Sure enough he saw some familiar shapes prowling near the barn which was locked up tight. When they saw him approach, they gazed up at him and then padded off into the throng of trees nearby. He watched him go and remembered back to the time one of the men he'd put away had returned to the town as a reverend. The man had come for payback and had slowly began twisting the screws into Ethan through his family and then later Amelia.
The chickens had been slaughtered one morning and he'd told the boys that they'd gone missing. But he'd suspected the reverend of killing them to mess with his head until the ranchers told him coyotes had been making the rounds again…still he'd been right about what Hill had planned for him. It'd been Amelia who'd forced his hand by trying to use money to get rid of him after Ethan had told her his plan for killing him.
There'd been difficult acts to perform in his life but shooting Hill down hadn't been one of them. Grabbing hold of Amelia outside her house and threatening to off another banker in front of him…thinking he'd fold.
Not this time, not to mention his aim had improved so he shot once taking out Hill in his shoulder before he knew what hit him. The coward had run from him then into the church where he took his last breath. Amelia had looked a bit worse for wear when he walked up to her afterward but had been okay, holding tightly onto him more so than usual.
He missed her right now. Since she'd returned he'd felt blessed, thrilled to have a second chance to get it right this time. She might think she wasn't whole because of what she'd been through but he'd help her through it…as long as they were together.
She might need some convincing of that but his path was already set. Suddenly he heard another noise near the barn.
This one didn't sound like coyotes. No, it sounded like a man. He crept towards the barn with his gun out and ready.
Then he looked up and saw Trevor standing there. Now he pointed his gun at the man in earnest.
Amelia headed back to bed, hoping she could sleep this time. God, she needed to get more rest putting in so much time working the horses and the ranch at least partly to forget. But then she saw a man riding towards her on horseback and stayed on the porch.
When he got closer she saw it was Boone who pulled up his horse.
"Amelia…hoped I'd catch you."
"What is it?"
Boone sighed.
"I found something out…we need to head to Ethan's ranch can you get ready?"
She nodded and headed into the cabin to do just that.