Caught completely off guard, Mitch groaned and doubled over, clutching himself. Andrea wrestled the gun from his hand and stumbled backward with it, as surprised as Mitch at the turn of events.
Mitch coughed, and dropped to his knees, his dark eyes furious. "Damn you, woman. You'll regret that. That's... the... last time you'll ever do that... to me."
Andrea's breath came hard and fast. She lifted the gun in his direction. "I don't think I'll regret it." She pulled back the hammer with both hands.
Mitch's eyes met hers in pained confusion. "Give me that gun, Andrea," he choked out.
"No." She lifted the barrel toward his face. Andrea cradled the heavy gun in her hands, feeling the real power of it for the first time. Within her grasp was the means of ridding herself and the world of Mitch Lodray.
He shook his head. "You don't know what you're doing."
"Jesse?" she called with her eyes on Mitch and her back to Jesse. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah," he answered weakly. "Good girl. Now... give me the gun."
"No." The years of harassment, she thought, the months of pain; the days and nights he'd stolen from her... never to be recovered. It had taken her months to feel clean after he'd touched her the first time. Now, he'd touched her again and even worse, he'd shot Jesse.
Mitch's eyes widened as he grasped her intent.
"Andi, don't—" Jesse called.
"He deserves to die," she announced with a quiet certainty that belied the tearing emotion behind the thought.
"Yes, he does," Jesse told her, "but not by your hand."
"Andrea," Mitch pleaded, "you couldn't shoot me."
"Couldn't I?" She smiled grimly through the tears that clouded her eyes. His taunt hardened her resolve. "This gun can't be much different from the one you taught me to shoot, is it, Jesse? You just pull the hammer back and tighten your finger around this little piece of metal here."
Her finger coiled around the trigger. The spring creaked ominously. "I suppose this gun is just as touchy as Jesse's. Remember how it went off in my hands before I was even ready to shoot? That could happen here, couldn't it? One little touch and I could blow your head off, Mitch. And who would blame me? No one."
The house door slammed and Captain Steele staggered out the door, his nightshirt hastily tucked into a pair of soldier blues, his gun in hand. He raised it immediately at Mitch, trying to take in the circumstance. "What the hell's going on?"
"Andi, give me the gun," Jesse told her, getting to his feet. "We'll let the law take care of him."
Her laugh was angry. "The law? You mean the same law that scoffs women like me into silence and allows men like him to roam free? You mean the law who's here protecting us now? I don't think I trust them to take care of him. I don't think I trust anyone to make him leave me alone." Tears leaked down her cheeks. "I'll never let him m-make me feel helpless again."
"Mrs. Winslow—" Steele called, walking closer. "Let me take him. He'll hang for treason if nothing else."
"Will they make him suffer the way he has me?" she asked.
Mitch squeezed his eyes shut like a doomed man.
"No," Steele answered, curling his lip in Mitch's direction. "But he'll die just the same. I'll see to it."
"That's not good enough." Andrea tightened her finger around the trigger. The gun leapt in her hand with an explosive roar. The shot went intentionally wide, tearing a furrow in the ground a few feet behind Lodray.
Mitch gasped, then glared, ashen faced at Andrea.
"Damn, I missed," she said shakily. "I'm not a very good shot, Mitch. Jesse will tell you. This could take a while." She pulled back the hammer again with trembling hands and fired again. This time, the gravel at his feet jumped and sprayed him in the face.
He blinked hard and wiped his face on his sleeve. Mitch shook his head. "You don't understand. I would have taken care of you."
From out of the darkness, Silas and Deeds appeared. Deeds's thigh was covered with blood and he leaned on the colored man.
Jesse tossed them a look, then, clutching his shoulder, walked closer to her. "Andi, give me the gun."
"No."
Jesse shook his head slowly. "It's not worth it. He's unarmed. It would be murder."
"That's... that's what he tried to do to you," she said, arms straight, gun trembling.
"Andi." He covered her hand gently with his. "I love you." She turned her head slightly as his words sank in. "He's not worth the price," he went on. "Give me the gun. Give us a chance. I'll never let him hurt you again. I swear it."
A tremor went through her body, starting at her toes and ending in her fingertips. She wanted so much to do as he said, but her hand seemed frozen around the gun. If she didn't kill him, would she ever feel safe again? Would she if she did?
Then through her tears, she saw Silas walk directly into the path of her gun and haul Mitch to his feet with one burly arm.
"Boss?" Silas looked questioningly at Jesse's shoulder.
Jesse nodded as Steele stepped forward and took Lodray's other arm. "Where are the others?"
"Dead," Silas answered.
"Get him out of here," Jesse told them. Turning back to her, he eased the hammer down on the pistol in Andrea's hands and pried it from her stiff fingers. He tossed it to the ground behind him and hauled her hard against him with his good arm. "Andi—"
She wrapped her arms around his waist. "Oh, Jesse, Jesse... I'm sorry."
"For what?" he murmured against her hair.
"F-For everything."
"Shh-hh. It's all over. It's going to be all right now. We'll never see Lodray again."
She leaned back in his arms. "Your shoulder—"
"It's not bad, a flesh wound. Thank God he's a bad shot."
"Oh, God, Jesse, when I saw him fire at you, I thought—"
"That bastard," he muttered under his breath. "I wanted to kill him myself. Did he hurt you, Andi?"
She shook her head. "He wanted to take me away with him. He thought... he'd convinced himself I was in love with him."
"He's sick, Andi. His mind's twisted. He won't hurt you or anyone else again."
She pressed her face against his shirt absorbing his strength. He'd taken a bullet for her, stood up for her against hopeless odds. How could she have ever doubted his love for her?
She suddenly remembered. "Mahkwi?"
Jesse nodded. "Doc said she's gonna be fine."
"Thank God." She tugged at his hand, indicating his bleeding shoulder. "Come inside. Let me tend to that."
"It's nothing." But his eyes met hers starkly with a question it seemed he dared not ask.
Wordlessly, she shook her head, brooking no argument and Jesse followed her into the house. Behind them, lay the remains of the men who'd done their best to destroy everything what she'd come to love. How close they'd both come to losing it all.
* * *
With the bandage on his shoulder, white against his tanned skin, Jesse stood on the porch, looking out over the yard. The Sheriff and his men had removed the bodies and it seemed almost as if it had never happened, except for the ache in his shoulder and the haunted look that clung to Andi's expression. She sat in the swing watching him.
"I'm so sorry, Andi. I never knew about him," Jesse began haltingly. "I hope you know I'd never have allowed him to come here if—"
"I know."
He turned to her. She sat in the swing, rocking gently as night fell around them. Above them, stars began to twinkle in the dusky dome that faded, even as they watched, from a deep blue to black. Her expression was inscrutable. It occurred to him, just then, that despite everything that had happened here today, despite the ugliness he knew she'd endured, she looked completely at peace, watching him. She belonged right here. In that swing, under the eave of this very porch.
God help him. How could he have ever imagined anything else for her?
A smile curved her lips as if she'd just found something about him that amused her.
"What?
" he said.
Andi got up slowly and walked toward him. No longer the young girl he'd left behind, but the woman who'd somehow made him forget all his reasons for wanting to be alone. The woman who'd unfrozen his heart and made him feel again. Jesse tensed, watching her move closer, as if whatever was about to happen, he'd been waiting for his whole life.
Andi stopped inches from him. She reached for his hand and brushed the top of it with her slender fingers. "I was just thinking that I love seeing you standing here on the porch with the moon behind you."
Jesse swallowed thickly.
"I was just thinking," she continued, "of all the mistakes I've made along the way. Mistakes that have"—her fingers slipped between his and curled around them—"still brought me right here. Standing here beside you."
Jesse started to speak, but she pressed her finger against his lips.
"Let me say this, Jesse, because I may never have another chance. I've loved you my whole life. You broke my heart that day you rode off for Montana. I never really understood why you hated this place, or why you left, but I do now. And I can't blame you for it. I almost killed Mit—" She stopped and shook her head slightly—"him, tonight. So, I'm not the one to judge you for your feelings about... anything. But I want to thank you for what you did tonight. For stopping me from..." She squeezed her eyes shut. "And for risking your life for me."
Jesse closed his hand over hers.
"Sometimes," she said, "we think we know exactly how things should go, how life should unfold, the words that should be spoken to... to fit the picture we have in our minds. But tonight, I realized that I've had that all wrong, Jesse. It's not the words. Or the place. Or even picture we have in our minds. And even though this day has been anything but daily, it is the dailyness of our lives that proves who we are to each other. It's the cradle you made for Zachary, the way you stayed here for me, the way you love that wolf."
Something hopeful tugged at him.
"What I'm trying to say, Jesse, is I've been wrong and prideful and stubborn. And if you'll consider again what you asked me weeks ago, I'll... well I'll go wherever you want. If it's to Montana, then we all go there. I love you, Jess. So much and I... I can't bear to lose you again."
Jesse's throat tightened and for a moment, he wasn't sure he could speak. He dragged her up against him and held her close. "Andi. Andi." Dropping his mouth down against hers, he kissed her he was half starved. Like a man who'd put off living for too long. Like Montana had been some dream, some other life.
God, he loved this woman. Slowly, he pulled away from the kiss and dropped his forehead against hers. "I was wrong, too, Andi. Wrong about this place and how I felt about it. I'd given it more power over me than it had ever demanded. Silas was right when he said Willow Banks was just a piece of dirt. But it's not the Old Man's piece of dirt any more. It'll be ours. We'll make it ours. And little Zachary's, too. And all our other children I'll have the pleasure of catching as they come into this world."
Her throat tightened with tears. "Really? But what about Montana? It's become such a part of you. Won't you miss it?"
A smile warmed his eyes. "I'll take you there someday. But it's not my home. It never was. I've spent the last six years of my life running: from the old man, from myself, from you. I'm tired of running." He tightened his arms around her. "I need you, Andi. I realized after I'd made an ass out of myself that I could never let you marry another man. But I thought it was too late."
She shook her head. "I never could have married anyone else. I told you once, I'd never marry again for anything but love. It's you. It's always been you." She hugged him tightly, her throat tight. "Ah, Jesse, promise you won't ever leave me again."
He dropped his mouth on hers again and kissed her hard and deep. Andrea felt her body go warm as candle dip as she leaned into his kiss. Meeting him with a need as old as time, she cherished the joining, knowing at last the utter rightness of it.
Love, that most delicate and tenacious of emotions, welled between them again like the gentle breeze stirring the ripening stalks of corn on Winslow land. Their land. Their future.
Jesse lifted his head, his mouth curving into a grin. "Does that feel like I'm going anywhere?"
A smile warmed her eyes. "That felt kinda permanent to me." She threaded her arm around his waist and pulled him toward their front door. "Come, my love. Let's go home."
The End
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Want more from Barbara Ankrum?
Here's an excerpt from
CHASE THE FIRE
Wild Western Hearts Series
Book Four
~
"Take it easy, Libby," he said. "I'm only gonna kiss you."
"I'm not afraid, if that's what you think."
"Aren't you?" His fingers circled her wrists and he pulled them to his chest. The rest of her body followed, until she was as flush against him as moss on a tree.
"Holding me this close wasn't part of the bargain."
"I don't remember discussing any ground rules on holding," he retorted in a low voice.
She was close enough to see the beginnings of stubble on his cheeks, inhale his scent—woodsmoke and saddle leather and the particular masculine fragrance that was his alone. Lord, Libby, now you've thrown kerosene on the fire. "This was a bad idea...."
His eyes told her he thought she was wrong. His hands slid slowly up her arms to her shoulders, setting off waves of heat in their wakes. Deliberately, he lowered his gaze to her mouth.
"It's been a long time since a man's kissed you proper, hasn't it, Libby?"
Libby swallowed hard. Proper? Was there anything proper about what they were doing? "I told you, my... my husband, died two years ago in the—"
His arms tightened around her. "I know. Shhhh," Chase's whisper implored, while his thumb lightly traced her lips. "No ghosts allowed in this kiss. This one's just between you"—his knuckle trailed a path of heat down her cheek—"and me."
His voice was low and smooth as fine whiskey and went straight to her head. Thoughts of Lee, guilty, useless thoughts, spun away with Chase's caress of her cheek. She kept her hands curled tightly against his chest, as if she could keep him from doing to her heart what he was doing to her body. Oh, why had she agreed to this foolish bet?
Because Chase is right, a quiet voice answered. It had been a long time. Too dangerously long. And his tender touch was reminding her of how many years she'd done without that.
Cupping her face with his hand, Chase dipped his head down toward her. Like the whisper of a breeze that surrounded them, his lips brushed hers—once, twice—before claiming them fully. A sinking feeling of pleasure curled through her. His mouth on hers was firm, yet achingly gentle; at once, demanding and entreating.
Beneath her fingertips she could feel the quickening beat of his heart, whose tempo seemed to match her own. Her hands explored the taut, well-defined wall of muscle on his chest. She knew in that instant how capable he was of both tenderness and great violence. But it didn't make her afraid. It made her want him more.
Somewhere in the dim recesses of her mind, while her body turned to molten liquid, she knew this wasn't the friendly kiss they'd agreed on. But as his tongue urged her lips apart, and he explored the dark, long-untouched recesses of her, she ceased to care. Like a skein of wool, too tightly spun, Libby felt herself unraveling as his kiss deepened and changed.
Chase hadn't meant to kiss her like this, but as he'd felt her body give in to his, the flame that had sprung t
o life inside him had trebled. She was sweet, so sweet, just as he'd known she would be. She smelled of fresh mountain air, pinon smoke and... wild lilacs?
He forgot, for a moment, to think; to remember who he was, or to wish she wasn't the wife of that Reb soldier. For the moment, she belonged to him. Every fiber, every inch of her. He felt it in her surrender, in the way her hands let loose of the folds of his shirt and spread across his chest like fingers of fire. He felt it in the slow mindless dance her tongue was doing with his and in the way his blood pounded in his veins, washing away all thought and caution—and every shred of his common sense.
~
To purchase
Chase the Fire
from your favorite eBook Retailer,
visit Barbara Ankrum's eBook Discovery Author Page
www.ebookdiscovery.com/BarbaraAnkrum
~
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In another life, Barbara Ankrum was a successful commercial actress in Hollywood, going on auditions while she and her husband raised their two children. At some point, on the way to an audition apparently, it occurred to her that in order to get her creative life in hand, she ought to write a novel. This epiphany sprang directly from her love of romance novels and an obsession with all things Western. After selling the first book, a Western historical, she left casting directors behind and never looked back.
Barbara's bestselling books have been twice nominated for Romance Writers of America's prestigious RITA award and have won numerous other awards. She also writes contemporaries for Harlequin Intrigue under her own name and for Harlequin Blaze under the pseudonym, Carrie Hudson. After all these years, she still believes in happy endings and feels very lucky to be able to do what she does. The kids are grown now, but Barbara and her husband still live in Southern California with their two cats and a scruffy, unrepentant dog who will, no doubt, find her way into one of Barbara's books soon.
Table of Contents
Cover
Renegade's Kiss Page 32
