And suddenly he had a very personal interest in this confrontation.
He pointed to one of the front windows. “Crouch there and stay out of sight. Don’t want to risk a bullet putting a hole in anything I’m fond of.”
She smiled. “You do the same.”
His mouth twitched. God, she was infuriating. And gorgeous. And too dang gutsy for her own good or his peace of mind. He gestured into the night. “They’ll come head-on. When they see we’re serious, they’ll try to break off and flank us. Aim at the outside. Hem ’em in so they’re grouped where we can see ’em. The two of us can’t protect the whole house.”
“Dodge is on his way.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“I sent Jericho to get him.”
Reeve bit out a low oath. The last thing he wanted was his friend caught up in a cross fire.
“He wanted to help,” Patrice said, feeling the need to justify her decision. “He’s scared for you—with good reason. We’re not going to let you take on the world alone.”
“I’m not worried about the world … jus’ a couple of damned fools determined to get themselves shot for nothin’.”
“Not for nothing, Reeve,” she corrected quietly.
He thought for minute. Chances were, by the time Dodge reached the Glade, it would be over. Jericho wouldn’t have time to race a fancy carriage to town to issue the call for assistance. Dodge would be safely out of it. And that left Patrice. The heavy press of fear settled back in his chest.
“ ‘Trice, if something happens to me—”
“Nothing will!”
“If something happens, and I can’t protect you, you throw out your gun and yell for Tyler. He’s a sonuvabitch, but I trust him not to let them hurt you.”
Patrice gripped her jaw tight, not answering one way or another.
“Dammit, you do it! Promise me. Patrice, you promise me, or I’ll truss you up like a Sunday turkey and leave you out in the drive for them to take care of.”
Her lips pursed. Her eyes flashed. But she nodded. “All right.” Her mood lifted. “Maybe Tyler won’t let them shoot at all if he knows I’m in here.”
This time, Reeve got mulish. “I won’t hide behind your skirts.”
Her grin dazzled. “But you don’t mind getting under them so much, do you?”
He cursed, then his arms wrapped convulsively about her waist to yank her up to him. He kissed her hard, snapping her head back, bringing her hands up to clasp his head. Not to push him away, but to tangle in his hair, making fists at his temple. His mouth softened to a tender seeking, then he pulled back, to lean his forehead against hers. His eyes shut, his breathing labored. Turmoil ravaged his voice.
“I don’t want you here, Patrice.”
Her reply was strangely hushed.
“I don’t think that choice is mine to make anymore.”
He lifted up, following her somber gaze out into the night, where approaching torches bobbed like fireflies. He ducked back instinctively, though there was no backlighting inside the house to give him away. To Patrice, his order was crisp, meant to be followed without hesitation.
“Get over there and stay down.”
Wordlessly, Patrice obeyed. She knelt by the open window, rifle ready, as she watched the night riders form a semicircle in the drive. Firelight cast an eerie illumination over the faceless men, making them shimmer like ghosts … or demons. She wasn’t able to identify any of them by their borrowed horses, but she was sure Tyler Fairfax was among them. Was Deacon? But neither of them called out. She recognized the booming voice as Ray Dermont’s, Delyce’s eldest brother.
“Reeve Garrett, show yerself!”
She caught movement from the corner of her eye and turned to see Reeve step out into the frame of the doorway.
“Reeve, no!” But he ignored her hissed warning.
“ ‘Evening, gentlemen.” Even though he appeared unarmed, his bold stance set his visitors back in wary surprise. Being cowards themselves, they hadn’t expected such a direct challenge. “If you all would care to leave your hoods at the door, I’d invite you in for some of Tyler’s daddy’s fine bourbon.”
“This ain’t no social call, Garrett,” Dermont snarled.
“Too bad.” Reeve brought his rifle up into plain view. “Then state your business and get off my property.”
“Your property?” That was Poteet, the next eldest Dermont, as truculent as his older brother. “You stole this land by killing two good men. We got no tolerance for that sort of thing.”
“If you believe that, go fetch the law.”
“We’re the law in Pride.” Tyler’s slurring drawl was unmistakable. He sat his horse, not out in front as leader, but on the periphery, behind the rest. “Put down your arms and we won’t have to get ugly.”
“Men like you all were born mean and ugly. I don’t recognize the kind of law that sneaks out at night and hides under sheets. I know who each and every one of you is. You and your folks have been guests in this house and friends to my father and brother. You may not like that I’m living here now, and that don’t much matter to me. But nobody’s tellin’ me I have to leave. Any of you think you’re man enough, come up here and move me.”
Horses milled about as the raiders murmured amongst themselves. Patrice prayed they would just ride out now that their identities were exposed and Reeve made it clear he meant to put up a fight. He wasn’t some simple farmer who kept an old muzzle-loader for hunting squirrel. He was a military man, armed, dangerous, and trained in his own defense. She hoped the realization that not all of them were going to ride away alive would deter them from this madness. But stirred up by liquor and hate, they were single-minded in their purpose.
“You got to the count a five to get on outta there, Yank, before we light it up.” Then Ray Dermont
spilled his venomous character. “I hope you don’t. I been wantin’ to put a bullet in you for a long time, you arrogant bastard.”
Reeve didn’t acknowledge the slur. Instead, he directed his attention to one man. “Tyler, Patrice is in here with me.”
One of the riders reined in abruptly, going still.
“I want your word that if she comes out, you’ll see to her safety.”
“No,” Patrice cried out. He didn’t look at her.
The riders circled, their rumbling growing louder.
“I say if the bitch is in there with the likes a him, let her roast,” came one angry voice. Others took up the cry. A sudden upward blast from Tyler’s rifle silenced them all.
“This ain’t up to any a you.” Tyler pulled off the feared mask of anonymity so he could face his friend, letting Reeve see his earnest. “I give you my oath, Reeve. Send her out now, and I promise I’ll see she gets home.”
Patrice saw Reeve’s shoulders slump with relief, then he turned to her, his expression carefully veiled. “You’ve got to go, ‘Trice. I’m carrying too many sacrificed souls already. I won’t add yours.”
Tears sprang bright and glittery into her angry eyes. She rose slowly, and she could tell he was hoping for a sign of her agreeability. He would be disappointed.
She whirled toward the open window and shouted, “I’m staying right here, Tyler Fairfax. You be sure and tell your sister that you helped burn a house down on top of her best friend. Then you and those yellow-cur, hood-wearing bullies can go straight to hell.” She fired off a shot, placing it right between the forefeet of his mount. The animal
reared back, nearly unseating its rider. She couldn’t hear the oath he spoke but was fairly certain it was a close echo to the one Reeve spat out. She ducked back from sight and returned Reeve’s fierce glare with her own. “I’m staying, I told you.”
He didn’t smile. “So you did.”
She jerked her gun up. “They’re coming!”
Reeve faded back into the shadows of the house just as one of the mob separated to charge up the front walk, his torch swinging in wild loops. Reeve took his time, sighting and squeezing off one round. It caught the rider high in the shoulder, sending him rolling off the back of his horse. The torch fell from his hand to spark harmlessly on the ground. The frightened animal clattered up onto the porch, bugling in panic as it circled and finally found its way back down to gallop, riderless, across the lawn. The distraction gave the other raiders time to fan out, some dismounting to take cover and aim, others still intent upon setting the house ablaze.
Tyler restored his hood, blending in with the others. As she crouched down, resting her barrel on the sill, Patrice searched the shadowed group anxiously. She didn’t know which of the night riders was him. How could she shoot Starla’s brother, who was so much a part of her happy memories? She remembered the green-eyed boy who’d taught her to swim by starlight while she wore only her combination drawers. The sly, smiling youngster who’d taken her deferentially into his arms to show her the steps of the scandalous waltz. Resting her brow against the cool wood-grain stock, she fought down a moment of shivery sickness. What if her own brother was out there? Reeve was right. It was no
game. People she knew and loved might die in the next minutes.
She never stopped to consider her own danger.
“ ‘Trice, on your left!”
Reeve’s sharp cry snapped her to attention. She swiveled automatically to track one of the masked men galloping out of Reeve’s line of sight in an attempt to circle around back. She pulled the trigger, smacked breathless by the gun’s recoil as wood splintered on the sill next to her. She didn’t see the rider fall, but the horse cantered away with an empty saddle.
She’d shot someone.
She had no time for that numbing fact to settle. A barrage of bullets peppered the front of a house spared from the scarring of war. The assault felt as personal as the attack upon Sinclair Manor. Hundreds of Pride County’s best had gone to fight a neighboring enemy over the same feelings starching up inside her. Pride and property. Enough to tear a country apart. Enough to prompt her well-timed shots at men she’d known all her life.
Ray Dermont had been with the infantry—at least until his rumored desertion. At his precise direction, the chaotic siege took on a military tone. While several of the men laid down a fierce covering fire, the rest began swift flanking maneuvers. In the confusion of darkness and the distorting glare of torchlight, there was no keeping track of all of them. Patrice did as Reeve told her, disregarding the shooters stationed in front to concentrate her shots on the shadows veering off to the sides. She closed her ears to the sound of a wailing shriek. While her mind hung on to a steely calm, her body reacted of its own accord, seized by a fitful trembling that
wouldn’t be stilled. Her breath came in hoarse sobs, tearing up from the fright and horror packed down in her soul. She risked a fleeting glance at Reeve, needing to see that he was all right.
He was positioned by the bullet-chewed doorframe, wielding his weapon with an emotionless efficiency. He might well have been picking off rats in a grain crib so little showed in his expression. He was a man possessed by the need to protect what was his; his home, his birthright, his woman. A dangerous, disciplined warrior born of bloodshed and sorrow. And for the first time, she truly understood the pain he’d carried for four years while forced to confront his own kind on the battlefield.
A flicker of movement by the inside stairs distracted her. Pressing her back to the wall, she jerked up her rifle, aiming it dead center on the figure rising up like a copperhead from the coil to launch a deadly strike at Reeve’s unprotected back. She pulled the trigger. Nothing. Again. Only an impotent click as the chamber jammed. Paralyzed, knowing she couldn’t stop the fatal round from firing, she screamed out Reeve’s name. The sound was swallowed by the roar of gunfire.
And amazingly, the assailant fell back upon the stairs, his unused pistol bouncing down the steps.
Reeve whirled, ready to face this new danger when he caught of whiff of good cigar over the acrid bite of gunpowder.
“Starting the party without me?”
A glowing circle announced Hamilton Dodge as he stepped into the foyer.
“Dodge this isn’t your fight.”
The lieutenant-cum-banker stared at his friend in affront. “That’s a hell of a thing to say to me.” He
bent to relieve the dead man of his sidearms, tucking them into his trouser band. “Followed this fellow in the back. Suppose you wanted me to just let him ventilate you. Excuse me all to hell for interfering.”
“Dodge.”
“What?”
“Thanks.”
Dodge’s grin broke wide. “Seem to recall you stopping a similar bullet for me. Just glad not to have to step in front of it. ‘Evening, ma’am.”
While Reeve sent several shots whining toward shadowy targets, Dodge knelt beside Patrice and took the rifle from her. After a little tinkering, he ejected the fouled casing to clear the chamber. “There you go, pretty girl. Always have a backup piece, just in case. These things are about as dependable as Confederate currency.” Then he looked surprised to be on the receiving end of her quick hug and her whisper of, “Not as dependable as you are, Mr. Dodge.”
“How’d you get here so fast? Jericho fly to town in that buggy?” Reeve scanned the darkness for sign of movement.
“Met him on the way here and sent him packing for the Sinclairs. He doesn’t need this kind of trouble.”
Patrice leaned back, perplexed. “So who—?”
“That little gal from Sadie’s. Guess she heard her brothers talking and didn’t like what she heard.”
Amazed and grateful for meek Delyce Dermont’s sudden flash of courage, Patrice scooted over, letting Dodge share her window.
An ominous quiet had the defenders of the house growing restless. Patrice gave up hope that the
sheeted vigilantes would give up and slink home. Their names were known. Several were wounded or dead. The time to back down was past. They were up to something else, something new and potentially deadly.
Patrice cried out, seeing the first bright tongues of fire. “They’ve set fire to the stables! Reeve, the horses!”
The raw fury in his face told he knew the consequences of prize breeding mares bolted into box stalls with combustible feed and straw and the suffocating roil of smoke. Then came the sounds, the awful animal squeals of terror and pain.
Through the daze of her fear, Patrice had a moment of clear insight. Reeve meant to rush out, risking his life for the salvation of the Glade. She couldn’t let him do it.