The men down below laughed and shouted happily to one another as they raced around. I made my eyes squinty, trying to make out features through the dirt and dust that caked their faces. Who were they? Why were they here?
I scanned the far hillside, praying the rest of my family was there, on the other side, watching with the same horror I was. A pot of stew Momma had set to cook still hung over the fire and the fresh breeze brought the smell of it to me.
Momma, where are you?
Johnny’s toys lay atop the quilt Momma and I had sewn when he was born and spread out for him to play on when we’d struck camp, but he wasn’t anywhere around it. Beyond that ...
A wave of sickness hit me. Beyond Johnny’s blanket, Grandma’s wheelchair lay on its side, wheels peeking out from behind the crates we’d unloaded when we set camp. I stared, one part of my mind jamming like gears in a windmill as another part spun out of control. Why was Grandma’s wheelchair all tipped over? And where was Grandma?
A rider charged up the hill, and I ducked down.
He shouted out to the others. “Lonnie, Jake, come on. Let’s git.”
“Ain’t done,” one of them hollered back. “Not by far we ain’t. And I’m hungry. I’m going to sit me down and have some of this fine stew Mrs. Beck done cooked up for us.”
The rider muttered something and then reined his horse around.
Lonnie ... Jake ...
I flattened myself to the earth, inhaled the dark scents of dirt and worms, and tried to batten down my fear. Lonnie and Jake ... The Smith brothers. I bit hard on my lip to keep from crying out. The brothers were identical twins, just a year older than my seventeen, and they were murderers. Cold-blooded murderers. Last month my father had stood as the only witness to their thievery and murderousness and convinced a jury to hang the two men.
A movement from the opposite hillside caught my eyes. Daddy and Johnny, running toward the wagon. My daddy held his rifle in one hand, Johnny clung to the other. They’d heard the gunshots, as I had, but from their angle, they couldn’t see the men, now gathered at the fire. I wanted to stand up and shout, wave my arms and warn them, but if I did ...
My daddy’s footsteps slowed as he stared at something out of my sight. What? What did he see? He stilled, Johnny at his side, and stared. Just stared.
Then slowly he pushed Johnny back, pointed at a boulder. Johnny didn’t want to do what Daddy ordered. I could see it in his posture. In the defiant tilt of his head. He was six, but tried to act sixteen. At last he crouched down where he’d been told. Daddy cocked his rifle and advanced on the camp.
“No,” I breathed. “No, Daddy.”
One of the men, maybe Lonnie, maybe Jake, sensed him coming and looked up. He reached for his gun. In my mind I could hear the metal clear the leather. Time seemed to slow down. I felt each beat of my heart, watched paralyzed as my daddy advanced on the gang. What could I do? If I stood, they’d kill me. I knew they would. But if I didn’t, my daddy would certainly die. I tried to make my legs move. Tried to get to my feet. But I was frozen, flattened on the hillside like one of the stones beside me.
The man with the gun stood quiet as a shadow and sidled up to the wagon, peeking around. Daddy saw, took aim, and fired. The shot splintered into the bed and sent wood shards flying in all directions. It made a loud boom that echoed across the open plains and hills. A yelp broke from my lips, but I clapped a hand over my mouth to mute it. The man with the gun howled and grabbed at his eye.
Fast as lightning, the other men reached for their weapons and rounded the wagon. Daddy got off another shot, but that was all. The four men fired with abandon and my scream lodged in my throat as Daddy’s body danced with the impact. They riddled him full of lead, moving forward as they fired like the mindless killers they were. The sloping foothills around me sucked up the sound and threw it back in resounding echoes that seemed to pierce me. I covered my ears and shut my eyes, but I couldn’t block out the sound or the tears squeezing through my tightly closed lids. I couldn’t erase the image of my father’s body jumping in a death jig of gunfire. Suddenly the shots stopped. I opened my eyes. Daddy lay still and broken on the ground, arms and legs askew in angles no arms or legs were ever meant to be. One of the outlaws raised his pistol and put a final shot in his head.
I prayed as hard as I could that Johnny would remain behind his rock. But even as the sobbing plea lodged in my throat, I saw my baby brother emerge from his craggy hiding place, heard his scream, a tormented sound filled with more humiliation, anger, and agony than a child could ever endure.
He charged across the clearing. The sound he made matched the anguish trapped inside my breast, but they didn’t stop what came next. The army of four turned like soldiers and opened fire.
“No,” I cried. Yet the word came dry and silent, a fiery whisper that burned and crackled in my throat. “No,” I tried again, but it was too late. Now both my daddy and brother lay flat on the ground in a twist of blood and gore. The same filthy killer who’d put his gun to Daddy’s head now did the same to my brother. The vibration of the shot traveled through me like a quaking of the earth. Hot tears streamed down my face, but still, I couldn’t move.
The man twirled his pistol like a gunslinger, grinned at his friends, and then joined them back at the fire. They ransacked the kitchen crates for plates and spoons, laughing as they scooped Momma’s stew onto their dishes. They sat in a circle as they fed themselves, ignoring the crumpled, bloody bodies of my daddy and brother.
I scanned the craggy knolls around me, looking for Momma. Where was she? Hiding like me? Or didn’t she know? Maybe she was close to the river? There, she might not have heard the shots. How would I face her when she came back to find her husband and son murdered while I’d done nothing to help?
And why was grandma’s wheelchair turned over?
The horrible men glutted themselves on the stew for interminable minutes, and then one of them moved to the back of the wagon and urinated on Grandma’s wheelchair. This ... this horrible act of disrespect finally loosened my numbed limbs. I stood without thinking, but then another man’s head whipped around, and I dropped to my belly with such force I knocked the breath from my lungs.
Excited voices came and then the sound of horses. They’d seen me.
On all fours I scrambled down the hill, trying at once to keep low and move fast. I looked behind and saw that the grass was flattened where I’d lain on it. In a full panic I stood straight, hiked up my skirts, and tore across the open land. Ahead were bushes and beyond a smattering of pine trees leading into the foothills. I made it to the first of them just as the men crested the hill behind me. My heart hammered against my ribs and my constricted lungs fought to bring in air. I crept back and back until I reached a tree with low branches. I crawled beneath the skirt of its boughs and then up two, three limbs. Overhead the branches grew tight as a cage. I could go no higher. I stayed as still as I could, making myself small as I peered through the pine needles. The wind teased around the trees, disguising my movements.
The riders came down the hill, following the tracks I’d left until they reached the place where I’d stood and run. From that point they worked their way back and forth, bickering as they rode, one calling the other stupid, the other retorting in kind.
They entered the trees and circled among the pines. I crouched still as time, waiting for them to see me. The man with the wagon splinters in his face stopped at the tree next to the one where I hid. The side of his cheek was puffy and bloody, the eyelid swollen nearly shut. Still, if he moved, if he looked straight on ...
My heart thudded, and the terror I’d held down threatened to swoop up and out in a never-ending scream. My eyes streamed with the effort to be silent, to be still. The man coughed and spat, his face coming up and around to where I huddled. I closed my eyes and silently whispered a prayer.
“Jake!” one of the others shouted. “Anything?”
To my left, Jake answered, but I dared not turn my he
ad to look. I dared not move. Someone else called something from beyond the trees.
“She’s gone,” the bloodied man beside me said. “I say let’s git, too. Ain’t nothing she can do out here but die.”
The truth of that added another layer to my horror.
The four of them gathered together and I trembled with the effort to remain motionless. They conferred for a moment that lasted so long my hands ached and my legs felt weak. Finally they rode away, single file. As the last man spun away, I caught one clear look at him.
It was Lonnie Dean Smith all right. I bit hard on my lip, choking back the sob. The bastard.
I stayed where I was until they’d left the cove, until they’d ridden up and over the ridge. They passed my hiding place close enough that I could have reached out and touched them as they went by. The last man towed Daddy’s two horses behind him, the supplies they’d pilfered weighing heavy on their backs.
Unmoving, I stared at their tracks. Is that how they’d found my family? Followed our trail from our front door? But how were they free? I’d seen the brothers taken away in handcuffs to await their execution. How were they here when they should be in jail? Locked up. Ready to hang?
My daddy must have known they’d break free and come for him. That’s why he’d wanted us to leave as we had, in the dead of the night with only a wagon full of possessions. Daddy had known the Smith brothers wouldn’t hang. He’d known they’d hunt for him. He hadn’t known how fast, though, or with what determination.
Branches pulled at my hair and snagged my clothes when I finally scurried down from the tree. My hands were sticky with sap, and my arms were scratched and bleeding. I hit the ground, wiggled out from under the boughs, and raced toward the camp, silent lest my voice carry and bring the outlaws back. Great billowing waves of black smoke rose up from the valley where we’d stopped. From the hilltop, I saw our wagon ablaze and all our things burning like bonfire. I half-ran, half-stumbled down the to the inferno.
“Momma!” I shouted. My daddy and brother still lay where they’d been gunned down. I ran to them, touching their bloodied and broken bodies with shaking hands. Most of Johnny’s face had been blown away, half of Daddy’s head. There would be no miracle survival for either.
I stood, my hands red with their blood. “Momma!” I cried again. “Grandma!”
No one answered. Holding my apron up to my face, I circled the hot flames to the place where I’d seen my grandmother’s wheelchair. Now I saw what had been hidden before, my grandmother’s wasted body, bloody with gunshots, sprawled on the ground. I dropped to my knees beside her, sobbing, my eyes streaming with tears from grief and pain and smoke. The ground near Grandma’s gray hair was wet, and I realized with sickening rage that the man I’d seen had been urinating not on Grandma’s chair, but on her body.
“No!” I screamed at the sky.
I still hadn’t found my mother. I stood and hurried to the far end of the wagon, where the smoke was like a black wall holding me back. I saw a foot sticking out from beside the wheel. Dropping to my hands and knees I crawled under the smoke to where my mother was sprawled in the dirt. Her dress had been ripped down the front, her swollen, pregnant belly sticking up to the sky. Skirts bunched, privates exposed and legs splayed at an awful angle. I wasn’t too young to know what they’d done to her. After they’d finished, they’d shot her in the head and stomach.
Sobbing, I smoothed my mother’s clothes down and collapsed on the ground next to her, curling myself into a tight ball of misery. The wagon, weakened by fire, gave an ominous groan, lilted to the right, and then shuddered in warning. Before I understood what that meant, it collapsed on top of my mother’s body. I scrambled back just in time to avoid being crushed by the burning bed.
They were all dead. Everyone but me, who’d been too cowardly to save them. I wanted to curl up and die beside them, let the fires burn away my anguish, but I was too yellow for even that.
I scooted back as the flames burned hotter and higher, watching with dumb fear as the wind shifted, and the flames moved to the long grasses on the outskirts. In a blink they caught like tinder and exploded into an inferno. In moments I’d be trapped.
Instinct kicked in when the urge to survive did not. Keeping my apron to my face, I moved to the railings at the back of the wagon where my daddy kept one shotgun hidden and loaded for me and my mother. She’d probably been going for it when Smith’s riders attacked. I didn’t have time to search for more bullets. From my father’s dead body, I took his heavy hunting knife. And then my feet were moving away as my mind stayed with my family.
The fire chased me, happily making sport of this run for my life. With each pounding step, I thought of my mother, my brother, my father, my grandmother. Their names alternated in my mind, keeping time with my steps. I raced to the shallow river and splashed across, the wet cold bringing me from shock into the full realization that whether I lived or died depended on what I did next.
CHAPTER 7
Grandma Beck had done away with the sofa and loveseat that once dominated the front room and replaced them with tables, uncomfortable chairs and a bar. A bar. Grandma Beck, who didn’t even drink wine on holidays. That the bar was dry made the situation no less bizarre, and in the grand scheme of the unending night, it fell low on the list of weird.
Arm around Analise’s shoulders, Gracie moved to one of the tables and took a seat beside her daughter. Tinkerbelle and Juliet flopped on the floor behind them, where they could keep their eyes on everyone. Romeo jumped into Analise’s lap and licked her hand. Smiling, Analise cuddled the little dog and took the comfort he offered.
Eddie pulled out the chair opposite them. Reilly stayed where he was against the wall, arms crossed over that broad chest, long legs braced, brooding tension bunching his shoulders.
The strangers he’d brought with him were upstairs finding their rooms, and their footsteps sounded like an elephant stampede from down below. It felt like an invasion on every level. Gracie hoped by some miracle they’d all disappear in the morning, but the storm outside sounded like it was gaining momentum instead of waning. A dreadful pessimistic voice in her head told her they wouldn’t be departing anytime soon.
“Analise,” Eddie said, leaning forward with his arms on the table. “Let’s go over what happened tonight one more time.”
Analise’s lashes were wet and spiky, and her eyes were shiny from tears. She looked so young and vulnerable that Gracie thought her heart might break. She’d spent her life trying to shelter her daughter from pain and fear, yet here she was, captive to both anyway.
“I told you, I don’t remember,” Analise said in a thick voice.
“Why are you here, honey?” Gracie asked. “Start there.”
Analise bit her lip and looked down. “Brendan brought me here as a surprise. For my birthday.”
“When’s your birthday?” Reilly asked, his deep voice abrupt in the surprised silence.
Analise frowned at him. “Next week,” she said, “But I’m going to be in Orange County for the Newspaper Club convention. We get to go to Disneyland.”
“How old are you?”
His sharp tone confused Analise, but Gracie knew exactly why the demand had such an aggressive edge.
“She’s sixteen, Reilly,” Gracie answered flatly. “Any other questions?”
“Give me a minute.”
Stiffening, Gracie turned away and rubbed Analise’s back. “So you lied to me about staying with Karen,” she said.
Analise nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“Why did Brendan think a trip to Diablo Springs would be a good birthday surprise?” Eddie asked.
“He knew I was curious about where my mom came from. Who my dad is.” She glanced at Gracie and quickly away.
Gracie fought the urge to look at Reilly, but the pull was too strong. She didn’t have a clue what he might be thinking. Hell, she didn’t have a clue what she was thinking. Reilly snagged her gaze as soon as she lifted it but he did
n’t give anything away. His features might have been carved from stone, his eyes from ice.
Tears burned Gracie’s eyes, but she didn’t let them go. She’d known that Analise was curious about where her mother came from, who her absent father might be. Gracie had lied and said there’d been several boys and she’d never known which one was the father. The fabrication of her promiscuity had fit nicely with the truth of how Grandma Beck had shipped her pregnant granddaughter off to live with strangers until the baby was born and then never let her come back home.
All the other questions Analise asked, Gracie managed to answer with as much honesty as she could, sharing the bare minimum, glossing over the rest. She’d never guessed that Analise had kept digging, searching for more. In retrospect, that was a big fail on her part. She should’ve known an overachiever like Analise would never settle for half-truths and lies.
“Analise, I didn’t realize how important it was to you.”
“You didn’t think knowing my dad was so important?” Analise shot back, astonished.
Yeah, Gracie deserved that. “So you came here thinking you’d miraculously find him?”
“I thought Grandma would tell me.”
Grandma Beck wouldn’t have given up that secret under torture. She’d have turned Analise around and sent her home so fast, the kid would have been dizzy.
As for Reilly, well he’d packed up and hit the road before she’d even known she was pregnant and by the time she’d learned his whereabouts ... Well, she’d been too hurt and betrayed to hunt him down. He’d promised her a future and left her without a word, her life in ruins. At first, her pride wouldn’t let her ask him for anything, not even help with his child. Later, when maturity and distance had given her perspective, there’d been other reasons not to tell him. That didn’t make it right or fair, but few things in Gracie’s life had ever been right or fair.
Bad Boys of the Night: Eight Sizzling Paranormal Romances: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 171
