by Kristin Holt
With a practiced, swift move, Gus retrieved the derringer from his braces holster. So smoothly, so easily, he doubted Jed’s men noticed.
Noelle shifted in the saddle, twisted as if she intended to throw her leg over the horse’s neck and sit sidesaddle—
He risked pulling his attention away from Jed long enough to glare at her—just as she did exactly as he feared. What was the woman thinking?
He’d best let her in on his plan, now, before she did something stupid and got them both killed.
Done hiding his weapon, Gus clicked the hammer back. The audible sound couldn’t have reached the men hiding in the darkness beyond the fallen boulder and through the pass. But Jed’s gaze fastened on the tiny pistol.
“Call your men off.” Gus kept his voice deliberately low. Only Jed and Noelle would have heard him.
In his periphery, Noelle stiffened as she sat awkwardly sidesaddle and, thank goodness, held still.
His attention remained focused on Jed who simply drew a lazy smile, tipped his head back and chuckled.
“Do it.” Gus eased a bit closer. At less than twelve inches, a shot to the chest would spell the end for Jedediah. Laughter seemed the most irrational response.
“Now, Marshal, what you don’t seem to comprehend is you’re outgunned. Outnumbered.” He glanced back over his shoulder, and the red of his beard caught the firelight turning it brilliant. “No one believed you’d walk in here, unarmed. We took…precautions.”
Gus’s heart tripped sideways. He knew they had a rifle trained on Noelle’s father…but he had the most unwelcome suspicion they’d taken the upper hand in more ways than that. “As did I.”
“That so?” Jed clucked, as if verbal sparring was his primary goal. “Shame, shame.” He clucked his tongue. “You sent five good men to their deaths. Rather a nasty habit of yours.”
Five: Phil, Timothy, Dallas, Deputies Dillinger and Murphy. Was it possible even one of them had evaded the outlaws’ notice?
“Five seconds,” Gus countered. “Call them off, or I shoot to kill.”
Jed held Gus’s gaze, without a glimmer of fear or doubt.
“Four.” Gus swallowed. He hated this sensation of running into a dark alley, outgunned, without a chance in a million of coming out alive. He’d done that. Once. And lived to tell the tale. “Three.”
“You assume I wish to live, Marshal. That would be your first mistake.”
“Evidently you wish to live long enough to slip a shiv between my ribs, as you said. You can’t watch me bleed out if you’re dead.”
Push had come to shove. Without concern who in the shadows might see his weapon or his intent to strike, Gus took aim. The time for discussion was over. He’d put one bullet neatly through Jed’s heart and end this standoff. He gripped the nervous horse’s bridle ever tighter. No way would he sacrifice Noelle’s life this close to—
Light caught on a flash of metal, an arc sweeping toward his ribs, his unprotected side beneath his gun arm.
He took a hit in the ribs, blunt force that felt far more like a left-hook than the slash of a blade, even through the thick layers of his coat, two shirts, and union suit.
He danced back, a reflex, just as a flash of petticoats blocked his view. He would have fired, but somehow, Noelle had put herself between him and his target.
The fool horse backed up, whipped its head, attempting to evade Gus’s grip. Noelle leaped from the saddle and Gus’s heart nearly exploded.
Gunfire erupted. From behind him, on the mountainside, from behind and above the boulder.
The fool horse reared, wrenching free and Gus let it go. He slapped it on the rump as it cantered past, desperate to get to Noelle. He lunged, ready to forfeit the kill to relieve the pressure on her neck. He’d lift her and pray her father somehow released the other end of the rope.
The horse charged past, Gus bolted, prepared to lift Noelle—
The rope lay coiled in the mud, and Noelle had toppled in a heap. He reached for her, desperate to shield her with his body. Gunfire echoed. A horse screamed in pain.
A man’s body tumbled down the near side of the great boulder, the torch falling with him.
Gus dove for Noelle, only to find Jed had wrested his way free of her insignificant weight. The lunatic clamped one arm around her middle and pressed his blade to her throat.
Around them, the fight continued, but Gus’s world narrowed into the finest point: one woman and her single captor.
“You don’t want to do this.” Gus’s breaths came hard and fast, puffs of white in the frigid air.
“You’re wrong, Marshal.”
He thought about dropping the derringer. He considered taking aim at the very little of Jed not shielded by Noelle’s body. He considered pouncing, and beating the life out of the man who dared threaten Noelle’s life… and dismissed every one of them just as quick as the ideas struck.
Crimson welled and dribbled from a line on her throat. She winced. Her eyes locked with his, pleading—communicating something he couldn’t decipher.
“You want to free her, Marshal?” Jed’s voice had hardened, reeking with fury and anger. His pitch rose until he’d nearly screamed. “Put that derringer to your head and pull the trigger.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Gus put the barrel to his temple.
Noelle’s cry, muffled by her gag, was barely discernible above the cacophony. Another rifle blast, this one close.
He stumbled forward a step, as if struck from behind, a great fist to his shoulder. The blow spun him halfway about, but the derringer remained pressed to the tender flesh at his skull.
He staggered, turned back toward her. Just one more glimpse of her face, just one more fleeting grasp
One more peek at what should have been.
She fought against Jed’s hold. The knife bit deeper into her flesh. Blood dripped down her neck, streaming in earnest.
Cords stood out in Jed’s neck, fury stark on his snarled face. “Do it! Pull the trigger, Marshal, or she dies before your eyes, you filthy coward.”
Never had he felt so helpless, so emasculated. He’d intentionally walked into Jedediah’s grasp, as prepared as he’d known how to be.
He’d failed her.
He’d failed this town, brought the first lawlessness to her peaceable valley.
He regretted all of that.
Most of all, he regretted failing Noelle.
This beautiful, vivacious, talented woman who drew likenesses with ease and made him laugh.
He hadn’t been able to save her.
The weight of defeat knocked him to his knees. His head swam. He shook it off, forcing the dizziness away.
He drew one last labored breath and prepared to pull the trigger. If this was the only way he had of proving his devotion, his ownership of the doom he’d brought upon Noelle Finlay and her family, he’d do it.
Icy wind cut through him, chilling him to the core. Fear? Maybe, but he figured it was simply the result of staring death in the face while so many regrets remained.
His work wasn’t finished.
He might not be able to wrench her free of this madman before he thrust his knife so deep into her throat, he sliced her windpipe and the arteries and she bled out in Gus’s arms, but he had to try.
The sounds of gunfire dimmed, and he had the vague sense of a man running through the narrow pass, his rifle drawn. But none of that mattered now. The battle faded.
With the last vestiges of his strength, fighting to stay alert, Gus whipped the pistol from his temple and drew a bead on Jed’s forehead. Mere inches from Noelle, but that couldn’t be helped. He must stop the madman. This was his only choice.
He trembled, shaking, from cold or from terror, he couldn’t determine. Praying for an aim true and direct, he pulled the trigger.
Noelle had watched with horror as a bullet had struck Gus in the shoulder. He’d spun like a toy top, the blow nearly knocking him off his feet. She’d screamed and all but blacked out
for want of air.
He’d held on, kept going.
Noelle’s fingers, numb with cold and deprived of circulation from the ropes binding her wrists, closed around the pistol tucked into Jed’s belt. She flinched as the knife he held at her throat cut deeper. Her heart raced and bright spots of light shimmered before her eyes.
She must remain conscious.
Her only hope lay with the pistol.
Jed wrenched her closer, his arm locked about her ribs and pinned her hands between their bodies.
The pistol grip stabbed the back of her hand. She’d never get to it now.
Jed’s hot breath rasped in her ear. “Do it! Pull the trigger, Marshal, or she dies before your eyes, you filthy coward.”
Her heart slammed against her ribs. If only she could scream at Gus to lower that fool derringer, she’d do it. That man deserved a severe talking to.
How could he consider taking his own life?
White hot pain seared from the wound in her neck from Boss’s blade. She bit back the urge to cry and twisted, trying for the pistol grip. Jed didn’t seem to take notice.
Please, let this be a weapon and not something utterly useless.
She locked her left hand—why couldn’t it have been her right?—around the butt.
Jed rocked her body forward.
She grabbed the opportunity and yanked his pistol free of his waistband.
Jed slammed her back against his chest, the knife biting deeper. He’d planted her squarely before him. The monster used her as a shield!
She knew the likelihood of aiming a pistol, behind her back, with her hands bound and wedged so fully between herself and her captor, had very little probability of hitting its mark. She’d likely shoot herself in the spine before she disabled Jed.
But she had to try. And must do it now.
Gus stumbled, dropped to one knee, and in so doing, brought the bloodstain from Jed’s knife on his side into the firelight. Through all those layers of winter clothing, he bled bright and red and copious in quantity.
He’d lost so much blood! How did he remain conscious?
Still, that pistol pressed to his temple.
If he pulled that trigger, whether intentionally or by accident, she’d kill him herself.
Real fear made her lightheaded. Lights flickered before her eyes.
If Gus shot himself before she managed to disable Boss—how would she live? Did she want to live in a world without Gus?
Bitter cold chilled the hot blood at her neck, and a savage ferocity overtook her person. No outlaw, driven by revenge, would steal her future, take one more life, terrorize her family and her neighbors and her town.
Never again.
She wrestled the pistol, fighting to point the barrel toward Jed. But with him locking her body against his with such unyielding strength, and with the bulk of his coat between them, she couldn’t do it. The leverage was off. She hadn’t a chance of doing more than grazing his skin.
Frustration welled, spiking her anger.
Her life could not end this way.
She would not allow Gus to die in vain.
She was supposed to marry August Rose. They were supposed to live in his house and together, make it a home. She had plans, and those plans didn’t include dying for decades to come.
With one last longing glance at the man she loved, wishing she could explain that she’d gladly pass over into death if it meant he’d survive this, she leveraged the pistol the best she could in the cramped space, wrested her body away from Jed’s, and pulled the trigger.
The pistol recoiled in Noelle’s hand. She felt the slam of the bullet and at her back, Jed spasmed. A spray of warmth and wet something—surely blood and body—misted the air at her face.
Had her bullet carved a path from gut to neck?
She would’ve screamed, had she had breath enough.
As it was, all she could do was fight for air and sift through myriad signals her terrorized brain sent in a tangle.
Had she been shot?
Had she succeeded in shooting Jed?
Her left hand clenched tighter around the pistol. Her ears rang.
She should attempt to fire again.
Her heart galloped at such a dizzying speed, she fought to stay conscious.
Shoot him! She ordered her numb hand to do her bidding.
Jed’s fierce lock about her middle lessened, giving her just enough room to shove the barrel of his pistol deeper into his coat.
She pulled the trigger.
This time, the recoil of the pistol slammed against her back. Pain erupted in her spine and tears flooded her eyes.
Maybe it wasn’t the pistol grip… Had she shot herself?
The wash of agony, so intense, told her the bullet meant for her enemy had ricocheted, sliced through her spine and ribs and lungs.
I’m sorry, Gus. So sorry.
Her numb hands fumbled the weapon. She lost her grip. It fell, somewhere, lost if she didn’t scramble and relocate it.
Jed seemed stunned. His arm slowly released her and she shimmied away as best she could.
Movement had to mean she’d escaped wounding, didn’t it?
Gus dived for her, grabbed her about the arms and hauled her to her feet. Bless him, he fought with the gag until he’d freed her. She gulped air and sobbed.
Shielding her with his wounded body, he hurried her out of the melee, away from waning battle.
“How could you?” she demanded of Gus, the moment she could speak.
“How could I what?” he spun her about, and must’ve sliced through the ropes at her wrists, for the bonds fell away all at once.
“How could you,” she still couldn’t slow her breathing, “consider—”
He crushed her to him, his lips finding hers and kissing her with the intensity of a man who’d been prepared to die.
She shoved against his chest. The man infuriated her. She wanted to clobber him and kiss him—and clobber him once more for good measure. Had he no comprehension what he’d put her through? “You nearly died!”
He ignored her, pressed a hankie to the bloody wound at her neck with such gentleness that tears threatened—again.
Jed. Boss. Her captor, the man who’d tried to slice her neck clean through. She’d killed him. Bile rose in her throat, singeing and burning in its path.
“Is he—dead?” She pulled away from Gus, desperate to ensure this was truly over, that the man behind so many weeks of terror was well and truly dead.
“Yes.”
“We should make sure. Before he gets away.”
Gus cupped her face, gently turning her attention from the muddy patch of road and squarely upon his face. “He’s dead. No question.”
“You’re sure? I couldn’t aim—” she gasped, fighting to draw air and hating herself for panicking, “—not with him holding me so tight.”
“I’m sure.” He smoothed a stray lock of hair away from her eye. Tenderness and love shone on his face.
She could barely take it all in.
“Don’t look.”
“How can you be so sure? Plenty of gut-shot men live for days afterward, have more than enough fight left in them to pull a trigger.”
“He’s dead.”
“Oh, for the love of—”
“I shot him, same as you.”
Her vehemence trailed off, a puddle of rapidly melting snow. She flashed back, that spray of hot, wet matter. The shudder of Jed’s big, hard body. “You shot him—in the head?”
Of all the unconscionable, risky, brave and wonderful… her head had been pinned in close proximity to Jed’s. If Gus’s aim hadn’t been straight and true…
Gus stroked her cheek with a tenderness that dissolved her panic, the near miss she’d survived. “You could’ve killed me.”
“Never.”
“My head was wedged against his. You took aim, Sheriff Rose, and could have killed me.” But the surge of dissatisfaction lasted so brief a moment, her accusation
held little heat.
He merely lowered his head and kissed her. A sweet, tender, feather-light touch of his warm mouth to hers. A chaste, reverent kiss that nearly undid her.
“Never.” The fervency of his whisper seared straight to her heart.
“You’d better tell me, Sheriff, that turning your derringer on yourself was only to buy a few minutes, because if you tell me you intended to shoot yourself, I’m going to—”
Gus pressed a gentle fingertip to her lips. “You can lecture me all you want to, later. For now, I need to see you’re safe, then check on the wounded.”
Her stomach dropped, as if from a great height.
Luke and Hunter. Gerald, Timothy and Dallas. The deputies. Had hired hands joined them?
“I love you.” His whispered pledge, filled with certainty and devotion banished the frigid temperatures and penetrated her heart.
She believed him.
Love welled, overflowed, and presented as tears on her cheeks. “I’ve loved you, Gus, for a full year.”
The grin she loved kicked up the corner of his mouth, and he kissed her once more, quickly. “I think I could get used to hearing that from you, lady.”
He tried to seclude her at the far edge of the bend in the road, upon his own mount, but she wouldn’t have any of that. “Every time I let you out of my sight, Sheriff, you end up almost dead. Don’t argue with me. You need someone to look after you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Two days later, the bodies of the dead gang members were displayed. Among them, the traitorous Clifford Cox—if that was the name his mama had given him.
Seven open caskets reclined against the front wall of the Sheriff’s Office.
A morbid tradition, but tradition it was, and served a few significant purposes.
First, positive proof their reign of terror had come to an abrupt end.
Second, the grizzly sight discouraged young men from romanticizing a life of crime.
Third, townsfolk could see for themselves that the law had, indeed, done something.
Gus still found the practice distasteful.
