© 2012 by Mary Connealy
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-7108-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Dan Pitts
Cover photography by Mike Habermann Photography, LLC
Author is represented by Natasha Kern Literary Agency
In many ways I mark my writing life by my youngest daughter, Katy. I started writing my first book when she went to kindergarten. I held my first published book in my hands the year she graduated from high school. When I look at how she’s grown up I take pride in her at the same time I know it’s mostly coming from inside her and I have no right to pride. All that talent and charm and intelligence are her own, gifts given to her by God that she uses so well. I love you, Katy.
I also dedicate this book to Luke Hinrichs, my editor at Bethany House. He’s worked so hard and contributed so much to my books. Luke and Charlene Patterson have this great eye for weaknesses in the plot and how to make the book stronger. It’s a privilege to work with both of them and all the people at Bethany House.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
About the Author
Books by Mary Connealy
Back Cover
Chapter
1
OCTOBER 30, 1866
A bullet slammed through the door of the stagecoach, threading a needle to miss all four passengers.
“It’s a holdup!” Callie grabbed her rifle. “Get down!”
The stage driver yelled and cracked his whip. More flying lead hit, higher on the stagecoach. The man riding shotgun got his rifle into action.
“Get on the floor!” The woman sitting across from Callie was frozen with fear. That endangered Connor and it made Callie furious.
The bullets came fast. The stage was moving slow on a long uphill slope. With the driver’s shout they picked up speed. From the roof, she heard a steady volley of deafening return fire.
Reaching across, Callie grabbed the woman by the ruffled front of her pink gingham dress and dragged her off the seat. The woman shrieked but didn’t put up a fight, which was smart of her. Callie would’ve won that fight.
Somewhat more gently, Callie picked Connor up from the seat beside her and set him on the woman’s lap. Eight-month-old Connor yelped, more a shout of anger than a cry. But crying would come soon enough. Her little wild man didn’t do anything quietly.
“Can you shoot?” she shouted at the young man, hoping he’d snap out of whatever panic had seized him. He shook his head frantically. “Get on the floor, then.”
Callie used her whiplash voice and hoped it got the man moving. She threw herself across to the woman’s seat to face backward. With her Colt in her left hand and her Winchester in her right, she shoved the curtain aside. The flare of the orange and yellow aspen lining the road blocked any sign of the gunmen.
Callie didn’t bother to push the man to the floor. Let the idiot figure that out himself. She got a glimpse of the robbers riding around a curve. Bullets hailed on the coach. Callie held back, waiting for a clear shot.
Connor’s yelling turned to a cry. Callie was enraged that her son was in such terrible danger when he should have been safe on her father’s ranch in Texas.
The noise overhead said the driver’d slid off his high seat to use the stage as cover. She heard the man riding shotgun land flat on his belly on the roof. The driver’s shouting and the gunfire slashed like a sharp knife through the cool October morning.
“Try and calm Connor down.” Not much chance of that. Connor had been a whirlwind since birth. And the two caring for him were more upset than he was.
She counted four outlaws. The varmints had picked this uphill slope a few miles outside of Colorado City because the stage had slowed to a crawl.
Callie had plenty of bullets, but she was a conservative woman, and she didn’t intend to fire blind and waste lead. She was mighty low on money and she needed ammunition for when she finally tracked down that worthless Seth Kincaid.
The stagecoach yawed past a curve and it put them out of the line of fire until the outlaws could round it.
The young woman was hugging Connor. The man had wedged himself onto the floor, putting his body between Connor, his wife, and the gunfire. Maybe he wasn’t completely worthless.
A bullet cut through the stage door. Splinters exploded and slashed Callie’s left hand. She flinched and got her hand right back on the trigger of her Colt.
Callie braced her rifle against her shoulder and took careful aim; the whole world slowed down, the noise fading into the background. She felt pulled away, out of the action. Her mind was working clearly, her nerves steady. The bleeding hand didn’t hurt. As she looked at the trail behind, the colors were so vivid and her vision so sharp it was almost painful.
The pulsing hooves gave away the attackers’ exact location. And the slow-moving coach gave her a chance at a steady shot.
A glance over her shoulder told her the trail would twist just ahead. Their pursuers would be swallowed up by the heavy forest lining the road. They appeared and disappeared in the thick plumes of dust.
Callie saw shining silver on the band of a flat-topped black hat. The man was a fool to wear silver if he wanted to make his living sneaking around.
Callie inhaled slowly, then exhaled halfway to relax her chest, waited for the glint of silver, and fired.
A bright splash of red marked the desperado’s shirt as he fell backward and was gone. Another outlaw took his place at the front of the pack.
Connor shrieked at the loud sound of shooting so close. Callie separated herself from her mother’s need to comfort, because the real comfort came from a ma who would protect him. She’d dry his tears later.
With the cool ruthlessness of a m
ama wolf defending her young—a mama wolf with a fire iron—Callie drew a bead and fired. Her target kept coming. Bullets shattered the door just above her head. They’d aimed at the roof mostly, but now they knew someone inside the stage was in the fight.
Hating that she’d drawn their guns and further endangered Connor, she kept on firing. From overhead she heard the same. A steady man guarded the stage. The driver kept shouting, cracking his whip. Another steady man was at the reins.
A second outlaw went down. A third pressed forward. She’d counted four, so they were close to finishing this nonsense.
They crested the hill. A few more yards and they’d pick up speed. Colorado City was at the base of this rattlesnake of a trail.
Hold them off. A few more seconds.
Callie fired. A bullet whizzed so close she felt the heat.
A sudden snap under the stagecoach lurched them to the side. They tipped, lifting Callie’s side of the bench seat up, up, up. She saw the woman wrap her body around Connor and the man wrap his arms around both of them. Her son surrounded by a flesh-and-blood shield. A sickening crunch told her the stage had hit the rocky outcropping on the side of the trail. A chunk of wood bounced into the dust behind them. Part of one wheel.
The brake came on hard as the driver tried to stop them from rolling out of control. Another thud shook Callie so hard she was thrown backward on the bench seat and smacked her shoulder into the side of the stage. The stage, slow anyway because of the climb, slued sideways, tipped so Callie was nearly lying on her back, then shuddered to a halt.
Callie heard the coach’s team of four horses go pounding away, broken free from their burden.
The guard overhead shouted, “Stay inside!” He fired and now the driver’s gun came into action. Callie spun on the seat now tipped upward at a steep angle. She lay on her side, shoved her feet against the downhill side of the stage, and got back up to the window.
A bullet whistled past her face.
There were two left. They’d taken cover and were trying to pick the men off the roof. Callie focused her eagle-sharp eyes on the pair attacking them. The tip of one gun was visible. In the motionless stage she could now aim with real precision. She fired. A cry of pain sounded as the muzzle vanished.
Return fire hailed on them from one remaining outlaw.
A sudden shout from overhead told her one of the stagecoach men was hit. She watched for the last remaining gun and saw it just as another shot came from farther up the trail. The bullet hit the window frame. Shards of wood slashed her face.
A second bullet was just as close, and she dived low to give them less of a target.
“You’re hit!”
She looked down at the young man, who was using his body as a shield to protect her son. “Just wood. The bullet missed.”
“Give me the gun.”
“Can you shoot? Can you hit what you aim at?”
The man’s jaw went rigid, then stiffly he shook his head no.
“Then stay down there, city boy. Let us handle this.”
Bullets came now from three guns. She knew three of the four men were hit but apparently not bad enough to stop them from shooting.
Another cry of pain came from overhead and the gunfire from the stage stopped. Callie swiped at the blood flowing, blocking the vision in one eye, which wrecked her aim and put her at a distinct disadvantage in a gunfight.
“Throw out your guns or we’ll shoot until every man aboard is dead.” The voice was chilling, ugly. Callie heard fury in it. And pain. The man wanted vengeance. The people on the stage had drawn blood, and the man yelling didn’t sound like the type to let them go on their way.
“I hear a child on that stage.” The voice sent a chill through her veins. “You want him to live, throw out your guns.”
Connor’s wailing made it hard for her to think.
Protect him, save him. God, please save my son.
Callie gripped her pistol. Soon they’d be in close-quarters fighting. It was going to come to that and when that happened it was hard to tell the winners from the losers because everyone got bloody.
No matter how young.
“Just surrender. Let them take what we have,” the young man whispered.
Callie looked at him. These men might let a woman go on her way with a child, but they’d blame this city man for the shooting from inside the stage, no matter how fast he talked. He was very close to death and it was her fault, at least to the extent that it was anyone’s fault but these outlaws.
“Stay down. They won’t let you walk away from this.” Connor’s cries kept building. His blue eyes were drenched with tears.
“I’m a man of God. Many bandits won’t shoot a parson.”
She refused to pull her attention away from the outlaws to try and persuade the parson of the long chance he’d be taking. Instead, with her pistol in her left hand and her rifle in her right, she waited, watched, prayed. Careful not to let the muzzle of her rifle protrude from the window, she hoped to get a shot at the unwounded man. It might be enough to break off the attack.
They came in a rush.
Three men erupted from behind bushes and boulders. Callie fired at the one running fastest and he went down and rolled out of sight along the edge of the trail. The men fired back, but she kept up the assault with both rifle and pistol. The outlaws ducked behind boulders. The stage was tipped nearly sideways on the trail. Held up from being flat on its side by a boulder that poked through the door she wasn’t using.
Callie got an idea. When she was praying this hard and she got an idea, she always thanked the Lord, even if He hadn’t carved it with a fiery fingertip into a slab of stone. They’d wheeled around until the trapdoor in the roof was facing downhill. With a quick twist of her body, she kicked the trapdoor on the stagecoach roof open.
“Get out of here.” She turned blazing eyes on the parson. “Take your wife and my son and go. The wagon blocks their vision of the downhill side of the trail. They won’t see you leaving. Run for Colorado City and get help. We’re not more than a mile or two out. All downhill. I can hold them off.”
“No, I won’t run like a coward and leave a woman to defend me.”
She respected that; she really did. She was also tempted to lay a butt stroke across his skull. “You can’t shoot. I can. Get away and get help. With my shooting, we all have a chance to survive this. But with your shooting, all of us are going to die.”
The parson’s jaw went so tight she thought his teeth might crack.
“Go, you’re wasting time. I think one of them is down and the other three are wounded, but not seriously.”
A bullet slammed into the stage. Callie ducked and faced uphill again. “Go, please. With your help my son has a chance to live.” Her tone had changed from issuing orders to begging.
She glanced at the parson and saw him nod.
“Hurry, you’re wasting time. Cover Connor’s mouth so they won’t hear you.” The cruelty of that made her sick, yet it was the only way the baby wouldn’t bring these men down on all of them.
The parson helped his wife slip through the trapdoor, handed her Connor. Callie tore her eyes away from her son and it felt as if she tore her own flesh. Connor’s cries cut off, and Callie blocked the parson’s exit with her rifle. His deadly serious eyes met hers.
“When you get to Colorado City, if . . . if I don’t make it, Parson, find Rafe Kincaid. He’s got a ranch near Rawhide, a little mining town to the west. He’s Connor’s uncle and he’ll look out for the boy.” Callie hoped it was true.
The parson nodded, clawed his way through the trapdoor out into the crisp fall air. Callie saw him slip his arm around his wife, who carried Connor. They ran. Another bullet fired and Callie had to turn away from her child. Just like Seth had turned away from both of them. The urge to cry shocked her. She wasn’t a crying kind of woman, but saying goodbye to her son, well, that was worth a few tears.
She wondered if this goodbye would be forever.
Another bullet smashed through the stage wall and made her forget everything but the fight.
Callie returned fire. The outlaws poured lead into the stage. She was forced to duck. Peeking out, she saw three men slip closer and she let loose with her rifle. They vanished again. Closer, closer every time.
She couldn’t cover three men, and that meant she couldn’t keep them pinned down. But she could make their advances slow. Give the parson every possible second. Make these thieving coyotes pay a high price for every step.
The gunfire stopped. The outlaws were out of sight. Waiting. She could only hope and pray they’d wait long enough. She searched the scrub pines and blazing aspens and boulders along the trail.
The men started shooting again. Callie returned fire. The sharp smell of sulfur and blood stung her nose. Splinters sprayed her hands and bloodied them, making her grip on the trigger slippery.
The men ducked out of sight and silence reigned.
Were the stage driver and the man riding shotgun dead? If they weren’t, if they’d just been wounded, maybe knocked out, maybe they’d come around and get back into the fight. Even one more gun and she’d have a chance.
The men fired, rushed forward, and dropped. Callie reloaded while the men hid. Time inched forward. She could almost hear the parson’s running steps. Down toward town. Help would come.
The coach was so shredded it was little protection anymore. She’d like to shout a threat to the men, let them know help might well be on the way; maybe they’d cut and run. But then they’d know she was a woman and that might make them even more brazen.
Callie noticed the seat across from her had been blasted loose from the frame of the stage. She grabbed at it and moved the thick slab of wood into place in front of her like a shield.
Mary Connealy - [Kincaid Brides 03] Page 1
