Wrangler Dragon

by Terry Bolryder

  “Wait until you see some of the other things I’ve got up my sleeve,” he replied, winking. “Then you can decide.”

  He stared at her, holding her gaze, drinking in every little expression on her face and daring her to look away, but she didn’t. She just stared right back at him, returning the same heated glance.

  Tension rose in the room as he leaned in the doorway, watching her, and she sat on the bed, staring back at him.

  Damn, she was really something.

  Feisty and fiery and beautiful and passionate and not willing to give up an inch to him. It made him want her all the more.

  Finally, after a minute or two, he cleared his throat, and she looked away, blushing.

  “Well then, good night,” Clancy said awkwardly.

  “Good night, Clancy.”

  Before he could do something stupid, Clancy closed the door and stopped, looking up the ceiling and cursing himself. He wished that he didn’t have to leave. He wished they weren’t in separate rooms, that he could be closer to her perfect curvy body.

  But even as he walked back down the hall to his room, he realized it was strangely comforting to not be alone. It was kind of nice to share his space with someone after so long.

  Even if he had to keep reminding himself that this was all just about getting the coin from her. The sooner the coin was in his hands, the sooner she’d be safe. And though he’d protected a lot of people in his life, and saved a lot of lives, hers was, for some reason, the most important to him.

  Even though they had just barely met.

  7

  Billie’s excitement woke her up early the next morning, and she called to check in with her dad to make sure everything would be fine at the store before Clancy came to get her. After a quick, delicious breakfast cooked by him, they rode out to a small hill where he’d set up a huge array of cans, bottles, and targets for them to practice on.

  “After all,” he’d said, “the most important skill in the Wild West after ridin’ a horse? Shootin’ a gun.”

  After some time familiarizing her with everything and making sure she was comfortable, she and Clancy were standing in front of the range, ready to finally put his teaching to good use.

  He’d told her the most important rules of the range.

  Treat every gun like it’s loaded. Never point it at anything you don’t want to destroy. Be sure of your target and what might be past it. Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you’re ready to fire.

  He’d told her some rules might be broken during any trick shots he made, but she should be sure not to break any of them.

  She appreciated how much he cared about her safety, even if she knew her dad kept a firearm around the store, and he’d had her shoot it at practice targets a few times.

  Clancy looked devastating today in a work shirt that was cuffed up to his elbows with a leather vest, blue jeans, and brown cowboy boots. His Stetson was a dark tan, and it contrasted with his green eyes and golden hair that seemed to almost shimmer wherever the sun hit it.

  “You sure about learning how to quick draw?” he asked her. “After all, it’s not about how fast you draw, but how accurate your shot is.”

  “Of course I am! Tucker Thompson was the fastest shot in the West.” He probably practiced like this all the time, and the thought that the Wild West legend used revolvers like the one in her hand right now was more than a little awesome.

  Almost as awesome as the sight of Clancy watching her carefully.

  “I thought that was Wild Bill Hickok,” he said, folding his arms and making the taut muscles in his forearms and biceps bunch up.

  “No, it definitely wasn’t. Not if the stories are true, at least. After all, Tucker was the Quickdraw Dragon. He was faster than any other human alive, based on the feats that have been detailed in journals and first-person accounts that I’ve read.”

  Clancy’s emerald eyes gave her a suspicious look, then turned away toward the range, and Billie wondered why he always got that expression when she brought up Thompson. Particularly whenever she called Thompson by his gunslinger name.

  Maybe just bringing up Clancy’s past, or at least someone from his past, was uncomfortable for him. After all, he had secrets of his own, secrets she desperately wanted to know but would never push him on.

  Then again, he was the one offering all of this in the hopes of getting the coin back.

  “People can’t always be trusted. That’s all I know,” he said in response to her comment before walking over to the table and picking up a medium-size revolver along with a worn leather holster.

  “Maybe. But I like to believe at least some of the stories are true, even if a few sound like tall tales.”

  He came over and handed her the belt holster, which she strapped around her waist. Then the pistol, which hung low past her hip. She almost wanted to dance with excitement at how cool and western-y she felt right now.

  She’d had some experience with guns but nothing the likes of which Clancy had brought.

  “Here, your holster’s a bit low. Let me get it just right for you,” Clancy said, examining her position.

  Even though his hands only barely brushed her skin as he undid the buckle, she felt like she’d been shocked by electricity as he redid the buckle so the holster hung level with her right hand.

  “Much better.” He stepped back, then smiled at her, and she felt flushed, though it was probably just the blazing Texas sun above them. “If you walked into a saloon looking like this, you might’ve convinced more than a few people you were a proper gunman.”

  She giggled. “Not true at all.”

  “Maybe. But it suits you all the same.”

  Before he could pay another compliment, which would give her more ideas than the ones she was already having, Clancy came up beside her. With his dual holsters, one on each hip, Clancy could have passed for the Quickdraw Dragon himself, only even better-looking and dangerously charming.

  “Okay, first off, hips square…” She listened as he taught her the basics of drawing from a side holster. “Keep your hands light, nice and easy. Too tense, you’ll miss your shot by a mile. But too loosey-goosey, and you’ll drop your gun into the dirt before you can get a single shot off.”

  For a few minutes, they practiced without bullets in her gun. And each time she reached for her revolver and brought it up, she imagined she was someone famous, a gunslinger taking part in one of the epic tales that framed the history of the Wild West, like the fight at the OK Corral.

  “Well, I’ll be darned. You sure you don’t have some gunslinger in you?” Clancy said, watching her with a grin.

  She laughed. “Oh no, definitely not. Just farmers and ranchers as far back as my family history goes.”

  “Now make sure when you bring the gun up that you’ve got both eyes open and that you’re watching the target, not the gun.” He came behind her and put his hand on hers, which was holding the ivory-inlaid grip of the revolver. Where he touched her, little sparks went off like an exposed wire on her skin. “Also, make sure to keep your hips square, with your dominant foot the tiniest bit behind the other so you can stay on balance.” He put a hand gently on her side, moving her left foot forward just slightly

  Was the sun getting hotter out here? Or was Clancy’s touch warming her up from the inside out?

  Either way, he didn’t say more as he came around to face her directly. “Perfect,” he said, looking her up and down, and just the way his eyes raked over her sent a shiver down Billie’s arms.

  “What about firing from the hip? Thompson was legendary at quickdraw hip-firing,” she said, trying to distract herself from the heat of his touch.

  He shook his head. “Oh, no, that’s for a different day, darlin’. Don’t want you putting a bullet through your pretty foot by accident. Besides, that’s really only useful for quickdraw competitions and duels. But I’d say we’re ready to have you put some rounds downrange.”

  But as he took her pistol and sl
id bullets into the chamber with expert ease, she couldn’t help looking up and down his long, muscular body as well.

  She got a lump in her throat as she looked lower, toward his hips. He had a large, shiny pistol in a holster on each hip, and it made her throat dry wondering about something that looked even bigger pressed against his Wrangler jeans.

  Stop it, silly!

  Billie looked away, praying he didn’t see her blushing as he gave her the pistol handle first. Then a pair of earplugs and a headset something like earphones.

  “You’re all set. Just put those plugs in, put that headset on, and give it a go.” She noted that his gaze didn’t linger on hers for long either, though maybe he was just being polite by not making too much eye contact.

  For a while, she just got comfortable firing the weighty, front-heavy revolver. It was certainly nothing like the more modern pistol she’d shot at the local range with her dad, but emptying the chamber and refilling it with bullets was oddly satisfying.

  “Okay, you hit some targets. Now draw and shoot. Show me what you got, Billie,” he said with a confident smile, watching her eagerly.

  It was much harder than it looked, though, pulling a gun from the holster, zeroing in on the target, and trying to hit it, all in one smooth motion. Then, on her third reload, she was able to draw, shoot, and finally hit the small soda can that she’d been aiming for, and it toppled over with a perfect hole through the middle.

  Clancy clapped eagerly. “Amazing. You sure you aren’t Thompson’s descendant? Maybe you could show me a thing or two about shooting.”

  She giggled, knowing he was flattering her but pleased by it all the same.

  Even after only a short time knowing him, she felt a strong connection with Clancy. A connection she’d never had with a man before.

  There was an easy energy between them as they talked and joked together. One that threatened to ignite like a powder keg into something explosive whenever she got too close to him.

  The rest of the late morning and early afternoon, he showed her more things from his collection. She got to try out a double-action revolver, which was even harder to use than Clancy had said it would be. The trigger was so much heavier because it had to pull the hammer back as well. Afterward, he had her try out some lever-action rifles like ones she’d seen in John Wayne movies since she was a kid.

  All the while, they talked about Tucker Thompson stories as they spent time together. There wasn’t one she could bring up that Clancy didn’t also know about, and often, he had his own little details to add to them. Ones she hadn’t read or heard about before.

  But even though she knew she was supposed to be here because of the coin and her personal interest in the legend, Billie got the distinct impression that spending time with Clancy was even more involved than learning about the Quickdraw Dragon. More involved and perhaps more dangerous than any stories about a person who passed away long ago.

  “He actually did that to the sheriff? I mean, he wasn’t hurt, was he?”

  “Of course not. Just a good laugh. After all, the sheriff was in the Burnside Gang’s pocket.” He ahemed, then shrugged. “At least, that’s how the story was told.”

  But for all his talking, and for how obviously experienced Clancy was with all these guns, she had yet to actually see him shoot.

  And there was just something about his beautiful hands and the deft way he used them that made her curious to see what he was capable of.

  “So is it true Thompson could shoot six targets in under a second, blindfolded?” She wriggled her eyebrows at him, eager to know what his response would be.

  Clancy smiled. “Now that’s just tall tales and tomfoolery. Nobody could do that.”

  She sighed dramatically. “Pity. That was always one of my favorite feats of his. I wondered if anyone alive could come even close to that, let alone live up to all that hype.”

  The way Clancy’s gaze lowered, making his bright-green eyes go dark, made the hairs on her arms stand on end. She and he both knew that her statement was kind of a challenge and more about Clancy than Thompson. And the way his big body seemed to tense almost imperceptibly at her words made her wonder if the attraction she was feeling was mutual.

  After all, a man as handsome and well-built as Clancy could have any woman.

  So why did he keep looking at her like that?

  He was in front of her and off to the side while she leaned against the table, resting a bit.

  “I can’t say I’ve heard that one in particular.” He dropped his hands and walked a few paces away from her, acting disinterested while she watched.

  Then, in a whirl of motion, Clancy shocked her by turning away from the range. In a movement so fast she could barely track it, he pulled out the pistol on his right hip, and it spun around his trigger finger for the barest second before six pops filled the air, so blisteringly close to each other it sounded like one shot, not six.

  She watched, gaping, as six bottles that had been lined up across an old wooden table fifty feet back and far to the right of her exploded practically in unison. He’d hit them while shooting backward. Then she watched as Clancy spun the pistol several more times and brought the tip of the barrel up in front of his face.

  He was looking directly over at her as he blew the smoke still filtering from the end of it, then spun it again and holstered his pistol.

  Then he raised his hand in a shrug and wore a casual look on his face as he strolled toward her.

  “I don’t know about the blindfold, though. As they say, it’s just stories. But I ain’t handling a gun with a blindfold when you’re around, darlin’.”

  Her mouth was hanging open as he came up and leaned against the table beside her before smirking down at her. “That satisfy your desire for a demonstration, or only whet your appetite, sweetheart?”

  Oh, her appetite was whet all right. It wasn’t the only thing “whet” right now.

  They just stared at each other, and she didn’t even know what to say, when there was a holler from a short distance away.

  The sizzling tension between them broke as she and Clancy looked over to see Dallas approaching, wearing his classic cowboy getup and his beat-up black Stetson.

  Billie didn’t know if she was disappointed or grateful for the sudden distraction.

  Clancy pushed off the table to greet Dallas, and Dallas looked between them with a curious look in his eye before saying that lunch was ready for them at the house in as few words as humanly possible.

  Then, with a nod, Dallas made his way back toward the house.

  “I’m curious. Is everyone here at Dragonclaw a crack shot like you?” she asked.

  Clancy gave her that million-dollar grin. “Oh, no one is like me. But Dallas is pretty handy with a pistol too.”

  “Really?” Any topic was a welcome distraction from the way the air seemed to be boiling around her.

  Clancy reached behind him and grabbed a spare beer bottle from the table. Billie just watched in surprise as he didn’t say a single word, just chucked the bottle high into the air in a long arc toward Dallas, the bottle soaring between the firing range and where Dallas was still walking away from them.

  The only sound was the lightest whistling noise the bottle made as it flew.

  Then, just as it came over Dallas’s shoulder, he looked up, drew the pistol from his own holster, and blasted the bottle out of the sky midflight with a single shot.

  Then he holstered his pistol as glass shards pitter-pattered onto the ground near his feet, and he kept walking like nothing interesting had happened at all.

  “Not bad, huh?” Clancy said with a smile. “Now how about we go get you some supper. Shootin’ is hungry work.”

  But as he took her hand and they made their way back to the ranch, there was something, someone, that she was much hungrier for than just lunch.

  8

  Billie let out a sigh as she sat down at the dining room table in the Dragonclaw main house for lunch. She was sti
ll amazed at what Clancy could do with his gun. His speed had been nearly superhuman, and there was no doubt about it.

  He was definitely related to the Quickdraw Dragon.

  Clancy took off his hat and ran a hand through his wheat-colored hair as he sat down next to her at the table. His big body was close enough to make it feel as though they’d turned up the heat in the room.

  He gave her a curious look. “What’re you thinking about, darlin’?”

  “Nothing much. Y’all just keep finding new ways to surprise me is all.”

  “That’s what we do here at Dragonclaw.” Reno chimed in as he bent over, grabbing what she assumed was lunch from the fridge.

  Dallas just nodded at that, watching from his spot in the corner of the room. She felt much less intimidated by him and Reno now that she had gotten to know them more.

  Reno was definitely the lighthearted trickster of Dragonclaw, with his mischievous smile and polite teasing. He was funny, but there was an innate sincerity to him that she sensed whenever he was talking. He seemed to like to talk.

  Dallas, on the other hand, hadn’t uttered more than a handful of words since initially greeting her the other night. He was quiet and watchful, and it had been a little uncomfortable at first, but she’d gotten used to it.

  One thing she’d noticed was that, while he didn’t speak much, he more than made up for it with his listening ability.

  When someone was talking, his dark eyes never strayed from them, not for a second.

  Both were handsome, rugged men, but they’d turned out to be even more multifaceted than she thought they would be.

  Still, she preferred Clancy. His confidence and gentility were extremely attractive, along with just about everything else about him. The more she saw of him, the hotter he got and the more she found it hard to look into his eyes without feeling tension rise inside her, rumbling like a storm approaching the prairie.

  After a few minutes, Reno set a large plate of freshly made sandwiches on the middle of the table.