Traveler trilogy Book 2.
Five years after killing Levi Cornwall, Arthur Morgan is happy. He has a wife who loves him, an honest job he enjoys, and two beautiful children named Sadie and Hiram. All of it is turned on its head, however, when Francis S...
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"So who is this woman?" Mac asked, his eyebrow raised. He sat atop his stallion with a pair of binoculars pressed to his eyes, staring intently at the weathered oaks and marble columns of Braithwaite Manor in the distance.
"Catherine Braithwaite," said Arthur in response. He coughed into the crook of his elbow and continued, "She's about the foulest woman I've ever come across. She's slippery as an eel and cruel as a winter blizzard. But Jenny don't know that. She can't."
Mac raised an eyebrow. "How are you so sure? You never really talked to her much before Blackwater."
Arthur shrugged. "I don't know. I can't explain it. All I know is that I feel like I've known her for a while now, even though I can count on one hand the number of conversations I've had with her. She's quite a woman, but I don't know how I know that."
"Time," answered Francis from Mac's other side. He'd come along as well to spy on the manor house with them, as the resident expert on time and the way with which it turned. "Time is like concrete, remember? Before it sets, it's malleable and can be mixed and poured at will. We're in the mixing pot now, so the fact that this version of Arthur is close to Jenny might have transferred some residual feelings to our Arthur's consciousness. They're not your memories, per se, because you didn't make them in your own timeline, but they can still affect your psychology."
Mac raised an eyebrow at Arthur. "What d'you mean you feel closer with Jenny now? She ain't... you don't think you and her..."
"I don't think it was romantic," said Arthur quietly. "I don't think I touched her in the way you're thinking. Not yet, at least. But I think even if she asked me, knowin' myself, I'd probably turn her down."
"She can do whatever she wants," Mac shrugged. "Me and her was never exclusive. Hell, we weren't nothin'. I've never even kissed her, and yet I'd follow her and love her to the ends of the earth. Explain that to me, why don't you?"
"I don't think I need to," said Arthur. "You already know she felt the same way about you. You wouldn't be alive right now if she didn't." He sighed. "Women like her and Tori? They're our angels. They may not act like angels in the Christian sense of the word, but they keep us cowboys on the straight and narrow nevertheless. We'd be nothing without them."
"Yeah," Mac agreed. "You're right."
"I may not be a cowboy," piped up Francis, "but I agree. We all have our angels. People we can't live without, who we'd do absolutely anything for." He sighed and looked at them both. "It's part of being human. To love is to be human. To protect those you love is to be human. It's why I never judged either of you for the fact that you've both killed more men than I can count. You're humans with flaws, just as I am. The important thing is that you've both changed for the better."
"I don't think I've changed," said Mac honestly. "I never had my redemption like you or John, Arthur. How would I even do it? I don't regret most of the folk I've killed, and I'd fight off an entire army just to hold Jenny in my arms, even if I was the devil the army fought against."
