Booted

by Pam Godwin

Any second, someone’s going to shoot. It could be me. From this distance, maybe I can land a kill shot. Or maybe I’d miss and hit Raina. Either way, John will react and pull his trigger. I can’t take that risk.

  “And you.” Jake swings his stony gaze to Fletcher. “You were there when our moms died.” The tendons in his forearms strain beneath the skin. “You covered the whole thing up. Always wiping John’s ass and cleaning up his shit.”

  “Calm down.” Fletcher moves closer to Mary’s chair and grips her shoulder. “Lower the gun, Jake. I’m not the enemy here.”

  No, he’s worse. People trust him. The town loves him. There’s no indication of evil intent, no hint of corruption. He wears his badge and deals death by way of a knife in the back.

  There’s a special place in hell for Sheriff Fletcher.

  “I want to hear you say it.” Jake inches away from me, putting Fletcher and Mary in his line of sight. “Admit you covered up their deaths.”

  The sheriff blinks rapidly and rubs a hand down his pants near the hip holster, his gaze darting between Mary and the exits.

  Nervous energy pulses and tugs at the air. Quickening breaths, dilated pupils, erratic eye contact, facial tics—it strangles every expression in the room.

  We’re reaching the breaking point.

  The tension in the room is strung so tightly it wraps my chest in rubber bands and restricts my breathing.

  The only thing holding me together is the ever-present caress of Lorne’s gaze. It touches me continuously, always watchful, always protecting.

  He has an innate way of loving me with his eyes. As he stares at me, the guns and chaos fuzz into the backdrop until all I feel is his intense, dominating presence.

  He came for me.

  He saved me from a fate worse than death.

  He risked his life and his freedom. For me.

  I don’t know how he knew to go to Fletcher for my location. It’s clear Fletcher isn’t here by choice. He seems only intent on keeping himself and Mary alive.

  Jake continues to roar at him, poking the already edgy and unpredictable man, who also happens to be professionally trained in apprehending violent threats.

  But I understand Jake’s need for closure. He deserves answers about his mother.

  Lorne, on the other hand, hasn’t spoken or moved. I’m not sure he’s breathing behind that pointed gun.

  I’ve experienced the full spectrum of his moods, but this is the coldest I’ve ever seen him. He’s chillingly quiet and detached, as if he shut down all parts of himself except the imperative to get me out of here.

  Is he waiting for a clear shot to take down John? I don’t know how he can do that without John pulling the trigger.

  Paralyzing fear shivers through my body. My feet tremble, and I clench my fists, fighting back the burning wetness in my eyes.

  John wants me alive, but he’d kill me to save himself. He would shoot Lorne in a heartbeat. His loyalty to Fletcher is questionable. If he’s capable of love at all, Jake is the only one in this room safe from his gun.

  If only I could disarm John without starting a gunfight.

  His thumb slithers along my arm, making my flesh crawl. I jerk my shoulder and knock away his hand. The movement loosens the bracelet from my bicep and sends it sliding to my wrist.

  “Don’t move.” His thumb returns to my arm.

  I curl my fingers around the guitar strings and meet Lorne’s eyes.

  His gaze lowers to the bracelet and comes back, his face smooth and unreadable.

  If you loosen the coil, the strings will unravel and return to their original shape.

  I heard that Hitler used piano strings to hang people. Would guitar strings work the same way?

  Across the room, Fletcher gives Jake vague answers about the car accident, his tone biting and nervous.

  I hold my hand against my stomach and discreetly unravel the bracelet. It only takes a little bending of the fastening and the strings instantly spill out of their circular shape. As they straighten, I switch them to one hand and lower them out of view at my side.

  Lorne watches it all. His gun doesn’t waver, his eyes giving nothing away.

  “Put down your weapons.” John digs the gun against my ribs, his arm clenching around my back. “We can discuss this without killing one another.”

  There are too many guns with too many flaring emotions. My heart thumps wildly. I’m trying to remain calm, but every second lasts an eternity as I stand perfectly still, terrified I’ll set off the first bullet.

  “You killed two innocent women!” Jake’s temper spirals out of control, seemingly fueled by years of harbored resentment.

  “Jake.” John’s voice booms through the room. “Put down the goddamn gun and let’s talk.”

  “I’ve already decided your fate, John,” Jake snarls. “I’m just trying to determine whether the sheriff will go with you.”

  I hold my breath, heart hammering.

  Mary snaps out of the chair, her broken arm forgotten as she whirls on Jake.

  “This hasn’t been easy for my husband.” Her chest rises and falls with vehemence.

  I tighten my fingers around the guitar strings, my heart in my throat as I wait for the right moment.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart.” Fletcher reaches for her. “You need to sit—”

  She swats him away with her good arm while scowling at Jake. “Have you even tried to put yourself in Fletcher’s shoes? He risked everything for your family. His job. His freedom. Our lives. When he fixed things with the car accident, we were supposed to get a piece of the land. Do you know how much we’ve been compensated? Nothing. We haven’t seen a God dern inch of that property because you sniveling brats keep interfering.”

  She knew the whole time. She fucking knew what John put his family through and expected to profit from it?

  Lorne doesn’t blink, but his shock glows in the whites of his eyes.

  Jake goes unnaturally still, his gun aimed at Fletcher as the force of his scowl targets Mary.

  “Jake.” John’s fingers bite into my arm.

  “You know what I think about that, Mary?” Jake swings the gun, trains it on her chest, and shoots.

  The blast ricochets through my skull, and I jump. John flinches with me, but his gun doesn’t move from my ribs.

  Mary slumps to the floor, her shirt blotched red with the blood pooling around the hole in her chest.

  The room falls silent.

  A breathless, stunned, half-second of silence.

  Then Fletcher roars.

  While the high-pitched sound of agony is still echoing off the walls, he grabs the gun on his hip and fires at Jake.

  My heart stops as Jake stumbles backward, mouth hanging open and a hand over his chest. He aims his gun at Fletcher, but the sheriff is already firing again. One round after another, the bullets keep coming.

  Jake jerks with each shot and crashes to the floor behind the couch.

  I choke, and my entire body turns to ice.

  Oh fuck, oh fuck, no! This isn’t real.

  A scream tears from my throat. Paralysis locks my joints, and everything around me moves in a jarring fog.

  Fletcher continues to fire in the direction of Jake’s fall, filling the room with deafening reverberation.

  “Noooo!” John buckles over, taking me with him and grinding the gun against my ribs. “Please, God, no! Not my son!”

  Lorne seems to be in shock, with his pistol frozen on John and head turned toward Jake’s body.

  When Fletcher’s clip empties, I feel the shift in the air, the creeping arrival of anguish, and the scratch of lines being drawn through the room.

  Fletcher killed Jake. The agony of that lands in my stomach with a weight I can’t carry.

  He must die.

  John straightens, and his arm falls from my back.

  The gun digs into me, and my pulse tears through my veins, beating so viciously I feel like I’ve been thrust from my body. I’m overcome with shoc
k and inconsolable loss, but there’s something else.

  Something’s off.

  Lorne’s too calm, too unaffected, his posture rigid and sharp like a blade.

  He’s twenty feet away, separated by the couch and chairs. He doesn’t look down at Jake’s body. His eyes and pistol are fixed on John when they should be pointed at Fletcher.

  “You son of a bitch.” John turns the gun away from me and levels it on Fletcher. “You killed my son.”

  Fletcher pivots toward Mary’s lifeless body as John opens fire. The kill shot takes him down with a bullet through the heart.

  “You fucking killed him.” John bellows and squeezes off another shot with his back to me.

  I wrap the ends of the guitar strings around my shaking hands and wait for him to empty the magazine.

  But he doesn’t.

  He turns the gun on Lorne.

  My heart explodes as I spring. The guitar strings loop over his head like a noose, and I yank the ends with all my strength, twisting, cinching, twisting, cinching. The wires are wrapped in copper and silk, but they still dig into my hands. It hurts, but not nearly as bad as it’s hurting the tender skin on John’s neck.

  “Raina!” Lorne edges around the couch. “Hold on. Just hold tight.”

  John’s hand goes to his throat, and he fires off a shot at Lorne. My breath stalls and restarts as the bullet veers off wildly, missing him.

  My sweaty hands slip along the strings, but I’ve twisted and knotted the garrote enough to keep it in place. The wire noose is so tight it cuts into John’s skin and draws blood.

  He crashes to his knees, shooting at Lorne to keep him back. Every time the gun fires, I die inside. Any of those bullets could hit their target, and Lorne can’t shoot back because John’s thrashing keeps knocking me in the way.

  I don’t know how much longer I can hang on. I can’t see John’s face, but there’s no gasping, no voice. This has to be working.

  How long does it take to strangle a man? How many bullets does John have left? How is he still moving and shooting and dragging me around when he can’t breathe?

  An eternity of bucking and choking and gunfire passes before the gun clicks.

  Empty.

  John falls to his side, dropping the gun and wrapping both hands around his throat. Crimson tinges his face. His legs kick beneath me, and his mouth gulps for air.

  “Raina.” Lorne drops to his knees beside me, tense and panting. “We’ll do this together, okay?”

  My voice hides beneath an overload of adrenaline, fear, and hours of nerve-wringing stress, but I manage a nod.

  He places a hand over mine, where I white-knuckle the knot of guitar strings. His other hand angles his hunting knife over John’s heart.

  “This is the knife that cut Jarret and me out of the rope in the ravine.” He stares into John’s bulging, dying eyes, his voice a blade of ice. “It’s the knife that scarred our hands and sealed our blood oath to end Levi Tibbs. And it’s the knife that will end you.”

  He looks at me, and my skin tingles with horror and urgency. I wrap my fingers around his on the handle, and together, we drive it between John’s ribs.

  The blade sinks hard and fast, and John’s body falls still, his eyes open and unseeing.

  I drop back on my butt, and my gaze darts across the room.

  “Jake.” The sob that’s been waiting in my throat bursts free, followed by a torrent of tears.

  I crawl on hands and knees toward the couch, defeated by exhaustion and driven by grief. I just need to see him, to make sure.

  “Raina. Shhh.” Lorne tackles me and hauls my body onto his lap.

  His arms come around me as movement sounds near the kitchen.

  My breath freezes, and my fingers curl into Lorne’s shoulders.

  A hand emerges from behind the couch, followed by the man who was shot multiple times in the chest.

  “What?” My heart races, and a wave of dizziness washes over me. “How?”

  Jake strides around the furniture, his expression taut as he glances at his dead father.

  “I took Fletcher’s gun before we came here.” He kneels beside us and rests a warm hand on my arm. “He assumed I returned it with live ammunition.”

  “Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups.” Lorne brushes the hair away from my face.

  It takes a moment for reality to sink in, even though it’s right in front of me, larger than life. “They were blanks.”

  Jake nods. “If Fletcher hadn’t been under duress, he might’ve noticed the difference in the sound.”

  Jake’s alive. Lorne’s unharmed. John’s gone, and he’s never coming back.

  It’s finished.

  In the seconds that follow, I feel Lorne’s arms squeezing around me and mine reciprocating. No longer will we be hiding behind security alarms or looking over our shoulders.

  We can finally put everything behind us and live.

  Jake stares blankly at his father’s body, his voice flat. “John died under the belief that I’m dead.”

  “That was the plan.” Lorne removes his hat and scrapes a hand over his head, his eyes tired and bloodshot.

  “I’m glad.” Jake stands, removes his phone, and makes a call. “It’s over.” He ambles toward the kitchen. “Yeah, we’re all fine…”

  Lorne lowers his face to mine, sharing his breaths as easily as he shares his heart. “Are you okay?”

  That’s a loaded question, one I’m not emotionally stable enough to answer, but… “I’m alive, thanks to you.”

  “You saved my life, Raina.” He cups my face. “If you hadn’t used the guitar strings the way you did, I would’ve lost that gunfight. I counted on John shooting Fletcher, but I thought he would continue firing until he ran out of ammo. I should’ve known he’d save bullets for me.”

  “That whole thing was planned? Jake turning on Mary, Fletcher shooting Jake, then John killing Fletcher?”

  “Yeah. We improvised a little along the way, but it was all planned, starting with Jake picking a fight with Fletcher and Mary about our mothers.”

  “You didn’t know about Mary’s involvement.”

  “No.” A muscle tics in his jaw.

  “You were going to kill her anyway?”

  “No mercy. No survivors.”

  Ruthless.

  I don’t care. He was ruthless when I met him, and I fell in love. His hard edges and vicious heart lures me in and lulls me to peace. His complexities captivate me, and his proximity owns me.

  I drift toward him, slowly, needfully, until my mouth absorbs the raw, rich, masculine flavor of his power.

  Loving Lorne is like loving a sharply-honed, meticulously-crafted blade. He’s so pretty to look at he should be put on display. But a true sword lover would never do that. I’ll always keep him at my side, like an extension of myself. His lethal danger will obliterate anyone who threatens me, and I’ll sharpen those edges and take care of him.

  Jake goes into the garage, and a few seconds later, he steps back into the house. “Erin’s body is in the trunk of the car.”

  My chest constricts. “How are we going to get away with this?”

  Lorne grazes his lips over mine. “We’ll explain it away as self-defense.”

  “No.” I jump to my feet and scan the room. “There are six dead bodies, and one of them is a sheriff. You won’t get away with this. Not with your criminal history.”

  “Lorne won’t be involved.” Jake walks through the room, collecting bullet casings from the floor. He holds up one and studies it. “A forensic analyst can tell a blank from a live round just by the residue left behind.” He pockets it and continues his task.

  “Was that the plan?” I turn back to Lorne. “You’re going to leave before we call the cops?”

  “I never agreed to that.” He unravels the guitar strings from John’s throat and tucks them in his boot with his bloody knife.

  Neither he nor Jake need to be involved in this. I have a reason for being
here. I was abducted. I can play into that, put all blame on John, and make it appear like John and Fletcher killed each other in a gunfight.

  The evidence doesn’t support that, but I can take care of that, too.

  “Are there security cameras here?” I ask.

  “No.” Jake wipes down a handgun. “Fletcher doesn’t have recording equipment. Nothing that could be used as evidence against him.”

  I scrutinize the room, and my attention lands on the half-burned candles sitting on pedestals on the side tables. Stepping toward them, I rifle through the drawers until I find a lighter.

  “What are you doing?” Lorne stands over me, exuding an intensity that churns the air.

  “I was kidnapped and brought here.” I light the candles. “A rape kit will validate my story.”

  His fists squeeze at his sides, and his breathing surges into a seething whirlwind.

  I grip his hands, then his face. Leaning up, I touch my brow to his. “We’ll work through it. I promise.”

  He wraps his arms around me in a hug that constricts my ribs. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

  “Lorne, don’t.” I push against him. “You came for me. I love you. Now I need you to go.”

  I sweep an arm out and knock the candles over, sending them rolling across the couch and armchairs. A couple of them burn out. The others catch on fabric upholstery and flicker to life.

  “There was a fight.” I stride toward the front door. “I escaped.”

  “Goddammit, Raina.” Lorne chases after me, followed by the tread of Jake’s boots. “What if they pin this on you?”

  “They won’t.” I step into the blackness of night, cross the front lawn, and turn to face two scowling cowboys. “There won’t be any evidence if the house burns down before someone arrives. How far is the closest neighbor?”

  “Miles.” Jake rests his hands on his hips and surveys the surrounding fields of nothingness.

  “You’ll both be called in for questioning,” I say, “because I live with you and because of your relationships with John.”

  They stare at me, as if they’re not going to go along with this.

  “You’ve risked everything to protect those you love.” I move into Lorne’s space and slide my hands around the back of his neck. “My risk here is minimal, and my love is huge. Let me do this.”