Swept Away (32 page)

“Get down.” Glynna barely made a sound as she hissed the warning.

The children hit the ground flat.

She saw Paul pick up a rock, and although he stayed back, she saw the furious determination on his face.

His inability to protect her from Flint had almost destroyed her son. Glynna dropped to her knees and hunted for a spot in the tightly woven trees that would allow her
to keep watch. As long as she was kneeling anyway, she prayed as she poked her nose between two slender trees and came face-to-face with . . .

“What are you doing here?” Glynna leapt to her feet and rushed out of the shielded overhang, gun in hand.

Dare Riker. She watched him fall to his knees, his head hanging low.

“I’ve . . . I’ve come to . . . to protect you . . .” Then he collapsed to the ground.

Glynna ran to him. Glancing back at Paul and Janet as they emerged from cover, she said, “Quick! Help me drag him into the shelter.”

He wasn’t all the way unconscious, so he helped a bit, and they had him inside their hideout within moments.

“What happened?” Glynna dropped to her knees at his side. “Is Ruthy all right? Has Luke regained possession of the ranch? Is my husband—?”

“Hold up.” The doctor grabbed her wrist so hard it hurt. “Can we wait on the questions? I’ll tell you everything. Soon. I need water.”

“Oh yes. Of course. I’m sorry.” Glynna was tired of telling people she was sorry, especially since she wasn’t all that sorry honestly—unless she counted being sorry about nearly everyone she’d met in the last few years. In fact, with the exception of her children, she was sorry for most everyone she’d ever met, including her pathetic spineless rat of a first husband.

Well, she liked Ruthy. But if Glynna’s life wasn’t messed up beyond repair, she would’ve never met Ruthy. All in all, she’d trade her spunky new friend for a little peace and quiet.

“Get the canteen, Paul. Let’s see how bad his injuries
are.” He had some cuts, but his main injury seemed to be an ugly lump on his forehead. “We’ll get him bandaged up and then we’ll get some answers.”

Dare let go of her wrist and slumped flat onto his back, as if grabbing her had used up the last remaining bit of his strength. “Thank you.”

Glynna opened the canteen lid, slid her arm under Dare’s shoulders, and lifted him. He drank deeply, rested, then drank more.

Every swallow was a vibration that Glynna could feel. It felt good to hold a man. She thought of the men she’d held in the past and how they’d betrayed her, and that helped her to ignore Dare’s weight and strength and his blasted vibrations.

“Enough.” He turned away from the canteen.

Glynna stopped tipping instantly, which only proved how closely she’d been watching him. She lowered his head, glad to be done with cradling him in her arms.

His eyes closed and his muscles went slack. He still might not be unconscious, but Glynna had the unsettling feeling that he’d like to be.

The welt on his head looked like a terrible blow that accounted for his addled state.

She tore off a strip of her petticoat, soaked it in water, and rested it on the ugly goose egg. Dare blinked. His eyes focused on her.

“Here’s more water.” Glynna slid her arm under his shoulders again and lifted. This time he used his elbows to prop himself up. She needed to stay close to support him; she had no choice, although it was disturbing.

When he’d finished drinking, she eased him back to the ground. Then she remembered how kindly he’d tended her
and she was glad for a chance to return the favor. “Your only serious injury is that lump on your head. Did you get hit by someone or—?”

“An explosion.” His eyes narrowed as if he were thinking hard. “I . . . I must’ve been hit by flying debris. Not sure. Ruthy found me. I don’t know how long I’d been lying there. She got me on my feet, reminded me of where you were hiding and aimed me here.”

The doctor reached up and touched the cloth on his forehead and flinched. “That’s a real lump. Ruthy said I needed to get out of the fight, that I was useless. Reckon she was right considering I’ve slept a good chunk of the day away.”

“I wonder how things are going back in town.” Glynna didn’t want to wish her husband would die. That was all wrong.

She caught herself doing just that on occasion, but she shut down the thoughts as soon as they came.

“I’ve got to get back. They need me.” Dare surged up until he was sitting. He wavered, then caught himself by bracing both hands on the ground. “More water, please.”

Glynna wanted him to go back. She wanted every man possible in the fight. But unless Dare got a lot steadier, he was worse than useless. He’d make his friends step back from the fight to protect him.

Yet with him in good fighting shape, they would have a much better chance to win and that would set her free of her husband.

Except of course their marriage vows bound them for life.

“What I’m doing here is I came to save you. And yes, you’re very welcome.” Rosie’s eyes narrowed as she flipped the gun so it was in her hand as a firearm, not a club.

Luke saw the evidence of her talent with a pistol in the easy way she slid the gun around.

She reached in her pocket and came up empty-handed. “Blast it! I gave my handkerchief to Dare.” Looking around, she went for a stack of rags that’d been thrown to the floor.

A lot of this mess had happened when Jesse Ray was searching the house, with more being added during the fight.

“You’re bleeding.” Rosie got a rag and gently dabbed at his face. She sounded gruff, all business, but her hand shook as she cleaned him up. “There’s a cut on your head that could p-probably use some threads. If only Dare were here.”

“There’s no time now,” Luke said.

“And your lip is split and you’ve got a nosebleed.” Her eyes were a little damp, like maybe she was going to cry.

Luke didn’t like it because he needed to yell at her for being here in the middle of a fight when he’d done everything he could think of to make sure she was well away from it. Now, quick before he dragged her into his arms, was the time to scare her into going back to the hideout. “You saved my life. I thank you for that. But you endangered yours.”

Luke wasn’t yelling. He was finding it pretty hard not to. “Let’s get you headed for where you were
supposed
to hide with Glynna.” It occurred to him that she’d done her job. Done it well. Gotten Glynna hidden. Rosie was doing better than he was.

“Dare’s with her now. He’s protecting her.” Rosie quickly explained the condition Dare had been in. “He said he and Vince got two of Greer’s men under control. Now you and I”—Rosie arched a brow as if challenging him to deny her help—“have taken care of a third one. That leaves how many?”

“We’ve got four men to face: Greer, Bullard, and two gunslicks.”

Rosie swallowed hard. “Where did Big John get to?”

Luke shook his head. “We’ll set out hunting for him as soon as we finish with Greer. For now, I saw a man go into the livery. Let’s see if we can’t do some dividing and conquering. So far we’ve managed to do it quietly, without firing a shot. I’m hoping we can end this thing without bloodshed.”

Rosie touched another rag to his lip and drew it away, crimson. “Too late.”

“Okay, without too much bloodshed anyway.”

“Unless you count Dare having a building explode onto him.”

“I do count that. I wonder if Glynna can patch him up and get him back into the fight. He’s a tough man. I’ll get this varmint hidden. Let’s get over to the livery and try to get the man that went in there. That’ll cut Greer’s men down by one more.” Luke turned Jesse Ray onto his belly. He bound the unconscious man hand and foot, gagged him, and dragged him into the storeroom.

“Let’s go.” Rosie rushed out of the room. Luke chased after her. He decided then to tell her this wasn’t her fight, making it clear he wasn’t going to let her get any more involved.

But he felt the pain in his throat and thought of the ugly
bruises that would be there tomorrow, and wondered if she wasn’t a better man than he was.

They circled until they were behind the livery. He turned to Rosie. “Let me go in alone, please.”

He sounded like he was begging when he should have been issuing orders. The more he got to know his wife, the more begging seemed like the better choice.

“I’ll stay here. I don’t want to be in the way if there’s going to be gunfire. But I’ll be listening. If I decide you need help, I’ll come in.”

Luke kissed her. This was the strangest fight of his life. No kissing in war, not even a speck of it.

He turned to watch the back of the livery and the large window of the hayloft. He edged closer, ready to break from cover and race across the open space.

When no one showed himself, he sprinted, keeping low until he got to the barn. Pressing his back to the wall beside the door, he leaned in, an inch at a time, and saw no sign of movement. Had the man gone back to Greer?

He drew a steadying breath and leaned in again. Seeing a mound of hay close to the door, he darted in and ducked behind it.

Listening, he thought he made out a rustling sound overhead. How was he supposed to get up there and get the drop on this ruffian? No one could miss the sound of a man climbing a wooden ladder, and this one looked none too sturdy. It was bound to creak loudly.

He had to wait for the man to come down. Crouched there, each second seemed to take a minute. He’d left Rosie outside, hiding, but the little woman didn’t seem to have a lick of sense. By having to take care of everything for those no-account Reinhardts for so long, she’d just plain gotten
the bit in her teeth and was used to doing everything and thinking herself capable of any task—which she probably was. But that didn’t mean Luke wanted her to accompany him to a gunfight.

The noise changed overhead, and Luke braced himself as footsteps moved with catlike silence, barely audible, and only that because Luke was listening with every ounce of concentration.

The quiet steps reached the ladder. He saw a man’s boot appear on the top rung, then another. Luke felt like a coiled rattler waiting to strike as the man’s back appeared from overhead, then his shoulders, then . . . bright red hair.

“Jonas?”

The kindly pastor whipped his Colt out, dropped the last six feet of his climb down, and aimed the muzzle straight at Luke’s chest. They made eye contact as Jonas landed, and immediately he relaxed and lowered his gun.

“Good to see you, Luke. I got one up there and another in the general store. So who’s left?”

“I’m left.” Bullard stepped through the big front door of the livery, two guns drawn and pointed at Luke and Jonas. “Greer’s left too.”

Luke had a moment of hope that Greer would step in behind Bullard, giving Vince a chance to get the drop on them. Instead, Bullard stood there alone. No idea where Greer had gotten to.

“I got ’em, Greer!” Bullard’s triumph gleamed in his eyes.

Gunfire erupted across the street. Right about where Luke thought Vince would be.

Luke braced himself to draw the second Bullard reacted to the gunfire, only he never did. His guns never wavered.

“You’re Luke Stone. I’ve never seen you, but I’d recognize you anywhere. You’re the image of your pa. Did you come home to try and steal back his ranch?”

“I can’t
steal back
something I own. I’ve got proof that’ll hold up before a judge, and I’ve made a will so that if I die, Greer loses the ranch anyway.”

“Whoever comes to get it will have as much trouble taking it back as you did. Your pa picked a likely site for his house. It was good thinking.”

“Greer killed my pa, and I don’t aim to let him get away with it.” With a flash of insight, Luke added, “I always figured Greer was too yellow to have shot Pa, and it’s said he had a solid alibi. He had you do it, didn’t he?”

The cold smile on Bullard’s face was as good as a confession.

“Are all my men gone? Did you manage to kill every one of those drifters Greer hired? I told him there was a difference between a backstabbing snake and a hard man with a gun who’d face danger. I reckon I was right. Maybe Greer will ask me to do his hiring from now on.”

As if he’d been summoned, Flint Greer stepped into the barn beside Bullard. “I caught that lawyer trying to come up behind me and shot him.”