The Outcast

by Rosalyn West

  This time, Reeve got mulish. “I won’t hide behind your skirts.”

  Her grin dazzled. “But you don’t mind getting under them so much, do you?”

  He cursed, then his arms wrapped convulsively about her waist to yank her up to him. He kissed her hard, snapping her head back, bringing her hands up to clasp his head. Not to push him away, but to tangle in his hair, making fists at his temple. His mouth softened to a tender seeking, then he pulled back, to lean his forehead against hers. His eyes shut, his breathing labored. Turmoil ravaged his voice.

  “I don’t want you here, Patrice.”

  Her reply was strangely hushed.

  “I don’t think that choice is mine to make anymore.”

  He lifted up, following her somber gaze out into the night, where approaching torches bobbed like fireflies. He ducked back instinctively, though there was no backlighting inside the house to give him away. To Patrice, his order was crisp, meant to be followed without hesitation.

  “Get over there and stay down.”

  Wordlessly, Patrice obeyed. She knelt by the open window, rifle ready, as she watched the night riders form a semicircle in the drive. Firelight cast an eerie illumination over the faceless men, making them shimmer like ghosts … or demons. She wasn’t able to identify any of them by their borrowed horses, but she was sure Tyler Fairfax was among them. Was Deacon? But neither of them called out. She recognized the booming voice as Ray Dermont’s, Delyce’s eldest brother.

  “Reeve Garrett, show yerself!”

  She caught movement from the corner of her eye and turned to see Reeve step out into the frame of the doorway.

  “Reeve, no!” But he ignored her hissed warning.

  “ ‘Evening, gentlemen.” Even though he appeared unarmed, his bold stance set his visitors back in wary surprise. Being cowards themselves, they hadn’t expected such a direct challenge. “If you all would care to leave your hoods at the door, I’d invite you in for some of Tyler’s daddy’s fine bourbon.”

  “This ain’t no social call, Garrett,” Dermont snarled.

  “Too bad.” Reeve brought his rifle up into plain view. “Then state your business and get off my property.”

  “Your property?” That was Poteet, the next eldest Dermont, as truculent as his older brother. “You stole this land by killing two good men. We got no tolerance for that sort of thing.”

  “If you believe that, go fetch the law.”

  “We’re the law in Pride.” Tyler’s slurring drawl was unmistakable. He sat his horse, not out in front as leader, but on the periphery, behind the rest. “Put down your arms and we won’t have to get ugly.”

  “Men like you all were born mean and ugly. I don’t recognize the kind of law that sneaks out at night and hides under sheets. I know who each and every one of you is. You and your folks have been guests in this house and friends to my father and brother. You may not like that I’m living here now, and that don’t much matter to me. But nobody’s tellin’ me I have to leave. Any of you think you’re man enough, come up here and move me.”

  Horses milled about as the raiders murmured amongst themselves. Patrice prayed they would just ride out now that their identities were exposed and Reeve made it clear he meant to put up a fight. He wasn’t some simple farmer who kept an old muzzle-loader for hunting squirrel. He was a military man, armed, dangerous, and trained in his own defense. She hoped the realization that not all of them were going to ride away alive would deter them from this madness. But stirred up by liquor and hate, they were single-minded in their purpose.

  “You got to the count a five to get on outta there, Yank, before we light it up.” Then Ray Dermont spilled his venomous character. “I hope you don’t. I been wantin’ to put a bullet in you for a long time, you arrogant bastard.”

  Reeve didn’t acknowledge the slur. Instead, he directed his attention to one man. “Tyler, Patrice is in here with me.”

  One of the riders reined in abruptly, going still.

  “I want your word that if she comes out, you’ll see to her safety.”

  “No,” Patrice cried out. He didn’t look at her.

  The riders circled, their rumbling growing louder.

  “I say if the bitch is in there with the likes a him, let her roast,” came one angry voice. Others took up the cry. A sudden upward blast from Tyler’s rifle silenced them all.

  “This ain’t up to any a you.” Tyler pulled off the feared mask of anonymity so he could face his friend, letting Reeve see his earnest. “I give you my oath, Reeve. Send her out now, and I promise I’ll see she gets home.”

  Patrice saw Reeve’s shoulders slump with relief, then he turned to her, his expression carefully veiled. “You’ve got to go, ‘Trice. I’m carrying too many sacrificed souls already. I won’t add yours.”

  Tears sprang bright and glittery into her angry eyes. She rose slowly, and she could tell he was hoping for a sign of her agreeability. He would be disappointed.

  She whirled toward the open window and shouted, “I’m staying right here, Tyler Fairfax. You be sure and tell your sister that you helped burn a house down on top of her best friend. Then you and those yellow-cur, hood-wearing bullies can go straight to hell.” She fired off a shot, placing it right between the forefeet of his mount. The animal reared back, nearly unseating its rider. She couldn’t hear the oath he spoke but was fairly certain it was a close echo to the one Reeve spat out. She ducked back from sight and returned Reeve’s fierce glare with her own. “I’m staying, I told you.”

  He didn’t smile. “So you did.”

  She jerked her gun up. “They’re coming!”

  Reeve faded back into the shadows of the house just as one of the mob separated to charge up the front walk, his torch swinging in wild loops. Reeve took his time, sighting and squeezing off one round. It caught the rider high in the shoulder, sending him rolling off the back of his horse. The torch fell from his hand to spark harmlessly on the ground. The frightened animal clattered up onto the porch, bugling in panic as it circled and finally found its way back down to gallop, riderless, across the lawn. The distraction gave the other raiders time to fan out, some dismounting to take cover and aim, others still intent upon setting the house ablaze.

  Tyler restored his hood, blending in with the others. As she crouched down, resting her barrel on the sill, Patrice searched the shadowed group anxiously. She didn’t know which of the night riders was him. How could she shoot Starla’s brother, who was so much a part of her happy memories? She remembered the green-eyed boy who’d taught her to swim by starlight while she wore only her combination drawers. The sly, smiling youngster who’d taken her deferentially into his arms to show her the steps of the scandalous waltz. Resting her brow against the cool wood-grain stock, she fought down a moment of shivery sickness. What if her own brother was out there? Reeve was right. It was no game. People she knew and loved might die in the next minutes.

  She never stopped to consider her own danger.

  “ ‘Trice, on your left!”

  Reeve’s sharp cry snapped her to attention. She swiveled automatically to track one of the masked men galloping out of Reeve’s line of sight in an attempt to circle around back. She pulled the trigger, smacked breathless by the gun’s recoil as wood splintered on the sill next to her. She didn’t see the rider fall, but the horse cantered away with an empty saddle.

  She’d shot someone.

  She had no time for that numbing fact to settle. A barrage of bullets peppered the front of a house spared from the scarring of war. The assault felt as personal as the attack upon Sinclair Manor. Hundreds of Pride County’s best had gone to fight a neighboring enemy over the same feelings starching up inside her. Pride and property. Enough to tear a country apart. Enough to prompt her well-timed shots at men she’d known all her life.

  Ray Dermont had been with the infantry—at least until his rumored desertion. At his precise direction, the chaotic siege took on a military tone. While several of the men la
id down a fierce covering fire, the rest began swift flanking maneuvers. In the confusion of darkness and the distorting glare of torchlight, there was no keeping track of all of them. Patrice did as Reeve told her, disregarding the shooters stationed in front to concentrate her shots on the shadows veering off to the sides. She closed her ears to the sound of a wailing shriek. While her mind hung on to a steely calm, her body reacted of its own accord, seized by a fitful trembling that wouldn’t be stilled. Her breath came in hoarse sobs, tearing up from the fright and horror packed down in her soul. She risked a fleeting glance at Reeve, needing to see that he was all right.

  He was positioned by the bullet-chewed doorframe, wielding his weapon with an emotionless efficiency. He might well have been picking off rats in a grain crib so little showed in his expression. He was a man possessed by the need to protect what was his; his home, his birthright, his woman. A dangerous, disciplined warrior born of bloodshed and sorrow. And for the first time, she truly understood the pain he’d carried for four years while forced to confront his own kind on the battlefield.

  A flicker of movement by the inside stairs distracted her. Pressing her back to the wall, she jerked up her rifle, aiming it dead center on the figure rising up like a copperhead from the coil to launch a deadly strike at Reeve’s unprotected back. She pulled the trigger. Nothing. Again. Only an impotent click as the chamber jammed. Paralyzed, knowing she couldn’t stop the fatal round from firing, she screamed out Reeve’s name. The sound was swallowed by the roar of gunfire.

  And amazingly, the assailant fell back upon the stairs, his unused pistol bouncing down the steps.

  Reeve whirled, ready to face this new danger when he caught of whiff of good cigar over the acrid bite of gunpowder.

  “Starting the party without me?”

  A glowing circle announced Hamilton Dodge as he stepped into the foyer.

  “Dodge this isn’t your fight.”

  The lieutenant-cum-banker stared at his friend in affront. “That’s a hell of a thing to say to me.” He bent to relieve the dead man of his sidearms, tucking them into his trouser band. “Followed this fellow in the back. Suppose you wanted me to just let him ventilate you. Excuse me all to hell for interfering.”

  “Dodge.”

  “What?”

  “Thanks.”

  Dodge’s grin broke wide. “Seem to recall you stopping a similar bullet for me. Just glad not to have to step in front of it. ‘Evening, ma’am.”

  While Reeve sent several shots whining toward shadowy targets, Dodge knelt beside Patrice and took the rifle from her. After a little tinkering, he ejected the fouled casing to clear the chamber. “There you go, pretty girl. Always have a backup piece, just in case. These things are about as dependable as Confederate currency.” Then he looked surprised to be on the receiving end of her quick hug and her whisper of, “Not as dependable as you are, Mr. Dodge.”

  “How’d you get here so fast? Jericho fly to town in that buggy?” Reeve scanned the darkness for sign of movement.

  “Met him on the way here and sent him packing for the Sinclairs. He doesn’t need this kind of trouble.”

  Patrice leaned back, perplexed. “So who—?”

  “That little gal from Sadie’s. Guess she heard her brothers talking and didn’t like what she heard.”

  Amazed and grateful for meek Delyce Dermont’s sudden flash of courage, Patrice scooted over, letting Dodge share her window.

  An ominous quiet had the defenders of the house growing restless. Patrice gave up hope that the sheeted vigilantes would give up and slink home. Their names were known. Several were wounded or dead. The time to back down was past. They were up to something else, something new and potentially deadly.

  Patrice cried out, seeing the first bright tongues of fire. “They’ve set fire to the stables! Reeve, the horses!”

  The raw fury in his face told he knew the consequences of prize breeding mares bolted into box stalls with combustible feed and straw and the suffocating roil of smoke. Then came the sounds, the awful animal squeals of terror and pain.

  Through the daze of her fear, Patrice had a moment of clear insight. Reeve meant to rush out, risking his life for the salvation of the Glade. She couldn’t let him do it.

  Dropping her rifle, she surged up from the floor, tearing out the door before either man thought to stop her. The glare of torchlight illuminated the loose whip of her bright hair and flutter of her gown. They couldn’t mistake her for Reeve or Dodge or perceive her empty hands as a threat. Counting on that, knowing Tyler would never allow any harm to come to her, Patrice gambled all in a frantic race toward the flaming barn. She heard Reeve shouting after her but trained all her energy on the open stable door. A horrible red flare shone from inside. Stumbling in the twist of her heavy unhooped skirts, she almost fell. That’s when she felt a stinging slap to the side of her face, the shock of it making her stagger. Hearing Zeus’s maddened whinnies, she struggled onward, dragging her hem and petticoat up off the ground so they wouldn’t slow her.

  “The sons of bitches are shooting at her,” Reeve cried out in dismay. The picture of his own mother’s death defending those stables shot through his mind. He stuffed rounds into his rifle’s hot chamber, readying to go to her aid, bringing hellfire with him. Dodge pushed by him, shouting, “I’ll get her. Cover me.”

  “Dodge, wait!” Frantically, he crammed in the shells as he watched his friend duck and weave through what was left of the ornamental shrubbery, knowing the bastards would be waiting, watching for such a brazen move.

  Patrice reached the stables, disappearing inside the blaze, out of the line of fire but darting headlong into a new danger.

  Dodge was almost there, running hard, sending off a scattering of shots from pistols in both hands.

  Reeve never knew who was responsible for the single bullet that plowed into Hamilton Dodge’s back, knocking him forward and off his feet. The guns went flying from his hands as he fell unchecked, skidding face first in the dirt to a motionless stop.

  The sight took Reeve square in the chest with the force of a DuPont load. He stumbled back, wobbling on boneless legs until the solid support of the wall braced behind him. He leaned into the heated barrel of his Spencer, eyes squeezing out the horror as a name formed soundlessly on his lips. Dodge … No!

  Crouching low, Ray Dermont ran to where the fallen man lay, ruthlessly kicking him over onto his back. Dodge’s head lolled loosely as Dermont’s shotgun barrel pressed against his throat.

  “He’s still breathin’, Garrett! Step out or he’s finished!”

  Reeve hesitated. He’d seen the bullet rip into Dodge’s lower back. But if there was a chance, even a thread of one …

  He threw his rifle out the open door and strode onto the porch, hands lifted, as the hooded devils swarmed him.

  Patrice heard nothing but the roar of flames consuming roof timbers and the agonizing scream of the horses. Her eyes teared into an immediate blur and breath clogged up in her lungs from searing smoke. She plunged ahead, feeling for the first in a row of stalls. Shoving open the panel, she charged on, coughing, gasping, throwing open the bolts and swinging the gates wide. Many of the animals were too terrified to flee, forcing her into the stall with the mass of churning muscle and hooves to wave and slap the mares in the right direction. One of the crazed beasts swung about in the small space, catching her a glancing blow to the chest with its powerful hindquarters. Winded, she felt herself going down in a swoon, sure she would be pulped beneath the stomping feet. Then, miraculously, the mare bolted out of the stall, galloping after the others to freedom. She found her balance clinging to a rail as hot ash filtered down on her face and scorched through her lungs. That left only Zeus.

  A tremendous rush of sound exploded from the rear of the flaming building as the hay went up with the velocity of a steam train. Patrice fell to her knees, blackness swirling over her senses. From some distant spot in the roar of confusion, she heard Zeus’s trumpeting call. Reeve
’s pride and joy. Trapped in its stall while the fires of hell caved in all around.

  Crawling, scrambling, she managed to find the main aisleway. She heard wood splintering, not from above but from straight ahead, as the stallion’s hooves shattered through the slats of its stall door. She felt the huge animal bump past her and flailed out with her hands, grasping, twisting them in a hank of mane. One of the red-hot ceiling joists came crashing down, landing on the hem of her dress, threatening her precarious hold.

  “Zeus, go!” The words croaked up through her charred throat, enough to send the big horse surging forward, dragging her, her skirt in flames, out into the cool evening. The last thing she remembered was a streak of heat boiling up the back of her calves before darkness swallowed her.

  Chapter 26

  The chill of water sluicing over her face and trickling into her mouth, brought Patrice up with a sputtering cough.

  “Easy, darlin’. Jus’ lie back now. You’ll be all right.”

  Recognizing the thick drawl, she tried to drag her eyelids open, but they were too burned by smoke to focus. The dredging of a wet cloth across them granted some relief. She could make out Tyler’s smiling face, but the concern in his dark jade gaze confused her. So did the fact that it was evening and she was on the ground, propped up against his knees. He continued to bathe her face and neck with gentle strokes, never looking away from her even as some commotion played out behind them.

  “Ty-ler?” His name clawed up through the pain in her throat, wrenching out another spasm of coughing. He caught her uplifted hand in his to press a firm kiss upon it.

  “It’s all right, darlin’. Don’t fret. I’m here.”

  Patrice looked at his hand, puzzled by the blistering redness of his palm and forearm. Burns? “What—?”

  “Your dress was on fire, darlin’.”

  And he’d smothered the flames with his hands.

  Awareness sucked the fragile breath from her. She struggled to sit up within the protective curl of Tyler’s arms, panic stealing her air and almost her consciousness.