—from Dead-Eye Dan and the Outlaws of Devil’s Canyon
The tree! Marietta twisted away from the window and crouched down, throwing her arms up to shield her head. A scream tore from her throat. Thick limbs stabbed through the already-punctured window glass and pinned her to the floor. The blow knocked her forward. She twisted away from the limbs as she fell and tried to brace herself, only to have a shard of glass slice into her right palm. The house wall held against the rest of the tree, but its firmness caused the intruding limbs to retract slightly after the initial surge. Broken branches dragged across Marietta’s back, cutting into her skin. She cried out, but then bit her lip.
This was no time to lie around like a helpless female, weeping her eyes out. Dead-Eye Dan wouldn’t weep. He’d gather his courage and find a way out. She would do no less.
She had just lowered herself to her belly to attempt to slither out from beneath the branches when a pounding from inside the house registered in her mind. It was a deeper sound than the pinging of the hail against the wall.
“Etta!”
Daniel? She swiveled her face toward the door in time to see an incredibly soggy and gloriously handsome Daniel Barrett burst into her room with his shirt unbuttoned.
Had the fool man run through the storm? A tiny smile curved her lips. Of course he had. He was Dead-Eye Dan, after all. Not even hailstones the size of sugar bowls would slow him down.
“Etta!” He shoved her iron bedstead aside as if it weighed no more than a spindly-legged tea table and cleared a wider path to where she lay beneath the tree’s branches. He snatched the coverlet from her bed as he hurried to her side and laid it flat on the floor directly in front of her. The thick quilt would protect them both from the broken window glass.
Marietta tried to nod her thanks, but her hair snagged on the tree. She hissed in a breath instead.
Dan immediately knelt by her head. “Thank God you’re alive.” He reached a hand through the branches and stroked her cheek. His finger was icy cold, but it sent warm shivers through her anyway. “Are you hurt, sweetheart?”
Sweetheart? The way his gaze ran over her, searching for injuries, told her he hadn’t realized he’d used the endearment, but that didn’t stop her from cradling it to her heart. It never would have slipped past his lips if he didn’t mean it somewhere deep inside.
“Etta?” His blue eyes sharpened on her, the panic in them jarring her into speaking.
“I’m all right,” she hurried to assure him. “A few cuts and scrapes, but I’ll be fine as soon as I get out from under this tree.”
She smiled. He scowled. Though to be fair, the scowl was aimed more at the tree than at her.
“I’ll get you out. Don’t worry.” And he immediately straightened away from her to assess the situation. She sighed over the loss of his tenderness, but she was more than ready to get these limbs off her.
“I think I can crawl out if you can lift it just a bit and help me untangle my braid,” she said. “It’s caught on the branches.”
He hunkered back down and worked her hair free. “There. Give me a second to find a good leverage spot, and I’ll take some of this weight off you.”
“All right.”
When he pushed back to his feet, Marietta turned her attention to her throbbing palm. Crawling with a piece of glass embedded in her hand would not be pleasant. Better to pull the thing out now before she started.
Bracing herself on her elbows, she twisted her right wrist until her hand lay palm up. Pressing her lips together to keep from whimpering, she tugged the piece of glass free and flung it aside. Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them back. No weepy females here, she reminded herself. Only strong women with backbone. Women worthy of a man like Daniel Barrett.
Blood oozed bright red from the gash. Her stomach churned, and her head grew a tad dizzy at the sight, but she gritted her teeth against the reaction and drew down the edge of her nightgown sleeve until white cotton covered the wound. She pressed it tight by bending her fingers into a fist and holding the fabric in place. Then she took a few slow breaths to clear her head.
The tree jostled on top of her. She glanced back under her arm to find Daniel wedging himself beneath the fattest part of the fallen limb.
“Ready?” he grunted.
She returned her attention in front of her and leaned forward on her forearms. “Yes.”
“One. Two. Three.” The last count came out on a groan as Daniel lifted the tree with his legs and back.
Knowing how heavy the thing was, Marietta crawled as fast as she could, ignoring the debris digging into her knees and keeping her right hand fisted around her sore palm. Once her upper body was fully on the quilt, she flipped over and pulled her legs free.
“I’m out,” she called.
The tree thudded back down to the floor. The sound sent tremors shooting through her. She had no idea why. The danger was over. She was free. Yet she couldn’t stop shaking.
“Etta?” Daniel came up beside her, his blue eyes filled with concern. He moved as if to touch her but then stopped himself. “What can I do?”
She smiled at him—well, if one could call twitching one’s lips slightly upward in the midst of uncontrollable tremors a smile. The poor man looked about as out of his element as a bull in a flower garden. And she was apparently too caught up in the aftereffects of being flattened by a tree to adequately ease his discomfort.
“I . . . I’ll . . . be . . . all right in a . . . minute.” She wrapped her arms about her middle and ordered her limbs to quit their shaking. The stubborn things didn’t listen to her, of course. They just kept right on quivering. Then her eyes started watering.
No. She would not cry in front of him again. She would not! A tear escaped the corner of her left eye. Another dripped out from the right. Marietta turned her face away from him and bit her lip. “I don’t know w-why I’m reacting like s-such a . . . ninny.” She started scooting backward toward the far wall. If she could just prop herself against something solid, maybe she’d regain her control.
Unfortunately, he was following her. Watching her. Frowning down at her.
“I-I’m sorry.” What else could she say? She was a blubbering mess. Stupid tears, ruining the perfect opportunity to prove herself strong and capable. Which she was, doggone it. At least on the inside. If she could just get her limbs to cease their ridiculous shaking . . .
Suddenly, a pair of strong arms scooped her up from the floor and held her tight against a damp yet wonderfully warm chest. Without a word, Daniel whisked her over to the wall she’d been scooting toward, far enough from the windows that the rain and hail couldn’t reach them. Still holding her, he lowered himself to the floor and pressed his own back to the wall. Only when he loosened his grip and let her slide to the floor in front of him did she realize that he was shaking, too.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about, Etta,” he grumbled even as he rubbed her arms to help calm her. “It’s just the aftermath. It’ll pass.”
His big hands felt so good on her arms. Warm. Gentle. It wasn’t long at all before her tremors completely abated.
Neither of them spoke, yet the silence wasn’t awkward. In fact, Marietta relaxed so far that her head fell back against his shoulder and her eyes slid closed.
“Thank you for coming for me,” she finally whispered.
He didn’t say anything. But he didn’t set her aside and leave, either. He just circled his arms around hers and held her, his jaw nudging the side of her head. She felt as if she were in heaven.
He felt as if he were being tortured in purgatory, having her so close yet not being able to kiss away her tears or give voice to what was in his heart. Dan clenched his jaw and tried not to notice how good she felt in his arms. Impossible task, that. He’d recognized the perfect way she fit against him the instant he picked her up. He should probably let go of her, but somehow, holding her with her back against him made it seem permissible. A friendly offer of comfort. Even if it
meant more to him—a thousand times more—she needn’t know that. She couldn’t see his face to gauge his emotions. As long as he kept his mouth shut, his secret would be safe.
And then she leaned her head back against him. He nearly moaned aloud at that. Heaven help him, he wanted to hold her like this for the rest of his days, her head cradled in the hollow of his shoulder, his arms around her. ’Course, he could do without the sodden clothes and the bruises all over his body from the hail and the tree.
How was she holding up? He quickly scanned what he could see of her. She wasn’t favoring a wrist or leg as if something was broken. She’d obviously been awake for a while before the tree fell. A robe covered most of her nightgown, and she even had shoes on her feet to protect her from the glass. Smart girl—but then he’d always known she possessed her fair share of common sense. It was one of the things he loved about her.
She wasn’t whimpering in pain, either, which he took as a good sign, although the woman had never been one to complain. At least not about pain. She’d flayed his hide on several occasions when he’d done something to get her dander up—usually when he tried to keep her from doing something dangerous—but she wasn’t one to turn on the waterworks to manipulate a man. That’s why seeing her tears a moment ago had undone him so completely. He’d only ever seen her cry—really cry—once before. The night the wolves attacked.
It’d been the winter before last. His blood still ran cold when he thought of it. Her mare had come back to the ranch later than expected, spooked and riderless. He’d immediately saddled Ranger and begun his search, leaving others to tend her frightened horse and the mule he’d been working with in the paddock. There had been a light snowfall earlier in the day, making it easy to follow the mare’s tracks back the way she had come. A godsend, that snow. He might not have reached Etta in time without it.
He found her backed up against a tree, favoring her right ankle, leaves in her hair, her riding skirt torn. And a pack of seven wolves circling her. He’d slid from Ranger’s back, silently tugged his Remington from the saddle boot, and crept around to the side so Etta wouldn’t be in his line of fire. But before he could get fully into position, the lead wolf sprang. He’d had no time to think. All he could do was shoot. Again. And again. And again. Until each of the animals threatening her lay unmoving in the snow.
Etta had run to him then and hugged him tight, her face buried in his shirt as the tears fell. It had been the only other time he’d held her. Yet the urge to protect her, to cherish her, to claim her as his own, had only grown stronger since that day.
Dan shook off the memory and continued his examination of the woman in his arms. A red stain on the edge of her right sleeve caught his notice. He cupped her hand and held it up so he could get a better look at it, gently peeling back the ruffled cuff to reveal a nasty gash in the pad of her palm beneath her smallest finger.
“You’re hurt.”
“Hmmm?”
She sounded sleepy, though how the woman could drowse when there was a storm raging and a tree . . . Wait. Had the tree hit her head? Was she losing consciousness?
Dan released her hand, took her by the shoulders, and twisted her to face him. “Etta?” He dipped his head to look into her eyes, alarm building as he noted they were closed and apparently reluctant to open.
He gave her a gentle shake. “Etta. Answer me.”
Her lashes lifted, and a smile—one that looked far too content for a woman who’d had a tree pinning her to the floor moments ago—unfurled in a slow curve that wreaked havoc with his pulse. “What do you want to know?”
What did he want to know? Shoot, he didn’t have a clue. When those soft brown eyes of hers focused on him with such unguarded intensity, all he could think about was kissing her.
Dan cleared his throat and scrambled to find a question that wouldn’t make him look like a complete idiot.
“Uh . . . what happened? With the tree, I mean.” He scooted out from behind her and stood. He needed some distance. Some sanity.
He started to pace, but as he turned, he caught the disgruntled expression on her face. As if she wanted to chastise him for leaving her side. Warmth seeped through his chest. Could she want to be with him as much as he did her? Judging by their past interactions, he’d thought she might hold him in some esteem, but he’d never let himself imagine more. It would have made keeping his vow to her father impossible.
“. . . then the hail broke the window,” she was saying. How long had she been talking? “And I thought to try to cover it with something. I only made it as far as stepping into my shoes before the tree crashed in.”
Now he remembered what he’d wanted to know. He stopped his pacing and peered closely at her. “Did the limb strike your head?”
“No.” She reached behind her back and grimaced a little. “It scraped my back up pretty good, but nothing too deep. My hand is the worst of it, but I don’t think even that will require stitches. I’ll just put some of Cook’s salve on it and keep it bandaged for a few days. It’ll be fine.”
Dan scowled. He wanted to examine her back, make sure those scrapes were as minor as she wanted him to think, but he couldn’t. She’d have to disrobe, and that was—he swallowed hard—out of the question.
“I’ll fix you a bath,” he said instead. “And I want you to scrub those scrapes with plenty of soap. If you can’t reach them, I’ll leave a bottle of whiskey out so you can pour it over your shoulder and douse them in one fell swoop. You don’t want them to get infected.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to smell like a saloon, either.”
“That’s what the bath’s for,” he said. He really needed to turn this conversation in a different direction. His gaze shot around the room, searching for inspiration. “Do you have a . . . a handkerchief or something I could get for you to bind that hand?”
“Top drawer on the left side of the bureau.” She waved him in the direction of the dresser on the other side of the bed.
Dan made a beeline for the bureau, pausing only to push the bed farther out of the way so he could have a clear path around the tree. That’s when he saw them: five, no, six dime novels, each with a man holding a rifle on the cover, his outrageously red hair blowing in the wind as if he’d never had the sense to put on a hat.
Dead-Eye Dan.
His gut clenched. He’d thought she was different. Thought she appreciated the man he was, not the out-of-all-proportion legend the sensationalists depicted.
Was that what she wanted? Some larger-than-life hero? If so, he didn’t stand a chance. She’d never be satisfied with a humble mule trainer. He’d worked hard to put life as a bounty hunter behind him. He wouldn’t be that man again. Not even for her.
Chapter Six
Outlaws liked to boast that there was only one way into Devil’s Canyon and no way out. But Dead-Eye Dan had scouted too many years to swallow that hogwash. There was always a back door.
On his stomach at the edge of the bluff that overlooked the mouth of the canyon, Dan set aside his field glasses and dragged his Henry repeater beneath him. He usually preferred the accuracy of his long-range Remington, but for his plan to work, he needed a speed that would deceive the outlaws into believing they were under attack from more than one man.
He had fifteen shots. Better make them count.
Dan set his eye to the target, fingered the trigger, and took aim at the first sentry. Setting his jaw, he fired. Before the first man had fallen, Dan shot again, taking the second man down. He rolled to his right to fire from a new position, blasting the mouth of the canyon where men began to swarm.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted down. “Texas Rangers! Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands up!”
His blatant lie met with the expected results—a torrent of gunfire. Dust shot up around him, but Dan paid it no heed. He fired three more times in rapid succession, hitting three more outlaws. So many had rushed to the entrance, it would have been harder
not to hit someone. He rolled back to his left, shot twice, then picked up his field glasses. He fired at random intervals as he scanned the surrounding area, no longer caring where his bullets landed.
As the last shot left the muzzle of his repeater, his patience finally paid off. A small line of men leading horses appeared out of a patch of scrub brush to the north. They immediately disappeared behind a rocky outcropping onto a hidden path, blocked from his view. But their visibility didn’t matter. He wasn’t after them. He was after the back door.
And they’d just pointed him right to it.
—from Dead-Eye Dan and the Outlaws of Devil’s Canyon
“It’s not what it looks like,” Marietta stammered even as Dan stomped past the books and jerked the top drawer of her dresser open.
Mercy. What must he be thinking? That she huddled beneath her covers at night with those books and dreamt of Dead-Eye Dan like some foolish schoolgirl who didn’t know the difference between fiction and reality? A blush heated her cheeks, and she immediately dropped her gaze to her lap. She had curled up with those books on more than one occasion, and yes, she had dreamt of a handsome, red-haired man of action, but it hadn’t been Dead-Eye Dan, drat it all. She’d dreamt of Daniel Barrett, the man who worked her father’s cattle, who trained the finest mules in the county, and whose sky-blue eyes could melt her heart with a single glance. Daniel Barrett had stolen her heart before she’d ever even heard of Dead-Eye Dan.
“I know you don’t approve—”
“What you read in the privacy of your own room is none of my business, Miss Hawkins,” he ground out.
Miss Hawkins? The name impaled her as if he had thrown her down upon the jagged edges of her shattered window. Was she no longer Etta to him?
With This Ring? Page 4
