"Protecting me from what? Do you know what I didn't want to bring you to town? It wasn't that I fear you might actually kill Wyatt or Doc. It's because... now you know the man I really am," he says, staring straight ahead, his hands white knuckled and locked around the leather of the reins until it cut into his skin.

"I'm many things, but I'm not stupid enough not to know that I am a laughing stock to this town. I have devoted my life to them but out here, not being the hard, rough man most of them are, I know they look down on me. I never wanted you to see that," he says, words tight and clipped, reining in emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. "But now you've seen the truth. I don't pretend otherwise, I just have no other life to live. After you move on in the spring, I will likely do the same. If nothing else to ensure that should anyone come looking for you, they look another way," he adds, still putting her first before himself.