“An’ I’m givin’ you a choice, Kincaid.”
Ty stilled as the chill metal of a gun barrel tickled the back of his neck. He knew the voice, even if now it sounded like sand was all the kid had had to drink for days.
“Cobie.”
“You got that in one, Kincaid. Now, I got me a score to settle with Thorne—”
“No! He’s mine.” Ty couldn’t swallow as Cobie pressed the gun barrel harder against the back of his neck.
“I ain’t gonna jaw this over with you, Kincaid. That slimy bastard stole my horse an’ left me to die up in ’em mountains. Ain’t no man gonna get away with that. An’ seein’ as how I got the last gun in the line, I gets to go first.”
Ty’s body screamed with tension. He saw laughter in Thorne’s eyes as Cobie ordered him to toss his gun across the floor. There was no way for him to get a shot off and disarm Cobie without risking getting shot by Thorne. His gun clattered against the planked floor.
“That’s good, Kincaid. Now take hold of that army pistol this slime-bag here is so damn—”
“Now, boy—”
“Shut the hell up, Thorne! Ain’t got no use for you. Worms ain’t got use for the likes of you. I ain’t no boy.”
“Tell me the man’s name, Thorne,” Ty demanded. “Cobie isn’t gonna let you live. No reason for you to keep protecting who hired you.”
“Tell him, Thorne,” Cobie ordered. “You’re dead meat any way you look at it. Maybe this hombre’ll hire me in your place.”
“Go to hell, boy.” He looked back at Ty. “Kill him,” he whispered. “Kill Cobie an’ I’ll tell you.”
“I ain’t got all day, Kincaid. Take his pistol an’ toss it across the room.”
Cobie prodded the barrel against Ty’s neck twice before he forced himself to move. Hate consumed him as he wrenched the pistol away from Thorne and threw it out of reach. Cobie was going to cheat him of making Thorne pay. And he was as helpless as a babe in a cactus patch with that gun Cobie rubbed against his neck.
“Cobie, I’ll make a deal with you. Let me have at him just long enough to get the name. It’s all I want. You can have Thorne.”
“Well, I already got him. You’re a real accommodatin’ fella, Kincaid. I’ll remember that when it’s your turn. Now, I don’t wanna repeat myself, so listen good. You get yourself over to the other side of this bloated carcass. Do it nice an’ easy, real slow like. That way I won’t blow a hole clean through you, too.”
“Cobie! It was rainin’ so hard. I saw you go down. Can’t blame me for thinkin’ you was gone. I grabbed hold of that horse an…”
Ty shut out the sound of Thorne’s whining. He put no faith in Cobie stopping himself from shooting him, too.
He considered spinning around and taking the kid down by the knees. Ty lifted his leg to move. He looked down at Thorne, his gaze focusing on his lips. Ty thought of Dixie. He had come after Thorne because he didn’t want her to have Thorne’s blood on her hands. Would it be any better for Ty to go to her with the stench of Thorne on him?
He had told Thorne that he was the only law the man would know. But providence had sent Cobie here. What the hell difference did it make how justice was served?
“Kincaid?” Thorne mouthed. “Charles—” A shot splintered the planked flooring near Thorne’s face.
“The only warning you get, Kincaid. Move off him.”
Ty came down hard on his knee and rolled to the other side of Thorne. His move was fast. Cobie wouldn’t fire at him when he had Thorne dead to rights. That was Ty’s gamble.
As his dive took him within reach of his gun, Ty stretched his fingers out and touched his gun just as two shots and a thud sounded behind him. Another shot roared through the room, followed by another.
The smell of gunpowder filled every breath Ty inhaled. A bullet tore up the wood floor near his hand. He jerked the gun toward him, came up on his knees, spun and fired.
His shot was wasted. Cobie was already down, clutching his stomach. In Thorne’s hand was a small over and under double-barrel derringer. It was only good at close range. God knew, Cobie had been close enough.
Ty came up out of his crouch carefully, keeping his gun aimed at Cobie. He walked the few steps to where the two bodies lay and stared down at them. The only regret he had was that he didn’t get the man who hired Thorne. Charles was all he had for a name.
He holstered his gun and tossed a few gold pieces toward the barkeep who peered over the edge. “Make sure they get buried.”
He was going home.
Home to Dixie.
Epilogue
Ty found Dixie right where Conner said she would be, right where she had been waiting each day for him to return. She sat beneath the shade of the lone, aged cottonwood tree, with her back toward him, the folds of a pale blue gown billowing around her. Sunlight threw glints of gold into her single long braid that fell dead center of her rigid back.
He could move with the same silence of a ripple of water when he wanted to, or had to, but he made no effort to hide his approach. Stepping down, he slapped the rump of his horse and left the reins to trail loose as a nickered greeting from hers beckoned.
Dixie didn’t turn around, did not make any acknowledgment of his presence at all.
Ty had figured she would be angry with him, and when he stood in front of her and looked at the blaze of fury in her eyes, there was no doubt about her mood. The lady was in a tearing fury.
Ty wasn’t about to apologize.
Dixie looked up at him. With the sun behind him, Ty was a tall, lithe shadow. Instinct warned her that he wasn’t about to offer any reasons or explanations for his actions. He certainly wouldn’t bother to apologize.
She wasn’t about to let him even if he wanted to.
She pulled a gun from the billowing folds of her gown. “Sit down, Kincaid. I’m going to talk. You are going to listen.”
“A gun? You’re pulling a gun on me?”
Dixie didn’t even blink. “Sure looks that way, doesn’t it?”
“I’m unarmed. Haven’t got a weapon on me.”
“Pity. But we’ll get to that later. Now, sit.”
“Anything for the lady with the shootin’ iron.”
“Just remember that.”
Ty noted the way she leveled the gun at him. He’d been the first to admit that Dixie knew which was the business end of a gun. He sat.
She raised her knees and wrapped her arms around them with the gun still pointed at him. It was the only way she could hide the fine trembling of her limbs as relief flooded her that he was unharmed.
“You had no right to go after Thorne by yourself.”
“By your way of reckoning, I guess that’s right. But he’s dead, Dixie. Leave it be.”
“You killed him?” She could barely get the words out.
“No. But I intended to. I went after him to kill him. Cobie beat me to it.”
“Tell me.”
Without embellishment, Ty told her what had happened. He left out his reasons for not telling her, just as he left out that he had learned the first name of the man who had hired Thorne to kill her father. She was silent as he spoke, so tensely silent, that he feared she was reliving every vile thing that had happened.
“Dixie?” Her eyes closed and he could have taken the gun away from her, but he had caught the glitter of tears. “Angel, it’s all over. You’ll never have to fear him again.” Or anyone else, he silently vowed. If and when he found out who Charles was, Dixie wouldn’t have to know anything about him.
“I know it’s not the way you wanted or the way I intended to finish it, but Thorne’s dead. Justice, or what passes for it out here, is served.”
“I was so afraid that they would kill you.”
Her whisper tore through him. Ty moved to take the gun from her, but she opened her eyes and motioned him back.
“Not so fast, Kincaid. You still have a lot to answer for.”
“Yeah. I sure do. I tried to save your li
fe. I tried to keep you from living with the nightmares that—”
“I know all that! For a man who didn’t want any trouble, any complications in his life, you did foul things up. You had no right, none, Kincaid, to make decisions for me.”
“I had no right?” Ty threw himself prone on the grass, locking his hands behind his head before he shook sense into her. “No rights, you say? The hell with that. I love you. That gives me one hell of a big right to do what I think best for you and for me. I offered you my land, along with giving you my love, and now I’m offering you marriage.”
“Now?” Dixie nearly dropped the gun. “Now you offer…I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you.”
He rolled to his side and propped his head up with one hand. The other hand reached out toward her. “Are you gonna shoot me?”
“I’m still thinking about it.”
Their gazes clashed. Ty felt as if his heart turned over. She was so proud, so hurt, that all he wanted to do was gather her up into his arms and keep her safe from the world. A foolish notion. Dixie wouldn’t let him. But he had to try to make her understand.
“Angel, just listen to me with an open heart. I have never told another woman I loved her. I have never offered marriage to anyone. I never wanted to settle down and I—”
“Then why now? Why me, Ty?”
“I never met a woman who carried dreams in her eyes,” he whispered softly, his voice husky with all the emotions churning inside him.
“I hated you for that. For making me remember what it was like to have dreams of love and a home.”
“I know. It didn’t sit easy with me to know that a woman could fill the empty places inside me that I didn’t even know were there.”
Dixie lowered the gun.
Ty moved closer.
“All I thought about these last four days away from you, Angel, was being able to hold you in my arms.” He stared at her. There were no secrets in her eyes. He just longed to hear her speak the love that he saw within them.
“Your mother had quite a lot to say about a woman’s place.”
“Thank the Lord you are not my mother. I’m real good at avoiding shackles. I’ve had a marriage noose waiting—”
“I know. She told me. So did everyone else. Ty hates shackles. Now Ty wants marriage. Forgive me for finding it hard to believe.”
“Let’s get rid of this,” he said, taking the gun and tossing it aside. “Believe me, you’ve got more powerful weapons to keep me in line.” He came up to his knees and leaned forward to brush his lips against hers. “I’d kill for one of your kisses.”
“Don’t! Never say that, Ty. No more killing.”
He leaned closer and nuzzled her cheek. He neither agreed nor disagreed with her. If the stranger whose camp fire he had shared on his way home was to be believed, he might not have a choice. Not if what the man said about Logan was true. But much as he loved his brother, and wanted answers about what had happened to him, he loved Dixie more. And he feared losing her.
The way she tilted her head invited his lips to trail kisses down her neck. The scooped, lace-edged neckline of her gown offered the enticement of more sun-warmed skin for him to taste.
Her voice stopped him. Her words made him back off.
“I want to believe you, Ty. With my heart I know that you love me. But I fear that marriage would only make you restless and one morning I’ll wake to find you gone.”
“Like I left you this time?” Regret laced his voice. “I don’t know what to say to convince you. I’ve never wanted to watch a woman grow round with my child. But I’ve dreamed that about you. I’ve never thought about finding a woman with your spirit, strength and pride and wanting to have her beside me.”
He used one hand to urge her knees down; with the other he caressed the curve of her belly. “You could already be carrying our child. I did nothing to prevent it.”
“You could have—”
“Prevented it? Sure.” His grin was pure devil. “I guess that even while I was fighting the rope that was wrapping itself around me, I knew I wasn’t going to let you go out of my life.”
“You are an arrogant, ordering kind of man, Kincaid.” She slipped her hands around the back of his neck and barely touched his lips with hers. “I know you did what you thought was right about Thorne. I didn’t want to have you carry the burden of his death—”
“It’s over, done and gone. I’ll give you so many happy thoughts you won’t have room for him in your mind.” He slid his hand around to the small of her back and stretched her out beneath him. “If loving you is what being shackled means, then lead me to the nearest blacksmith.”
“You’ve got that mixed up, Kincaid. The preacher comes—”
“First,” he finished for her. “But I’m a man who likes to stack the odds in his favor when he can. A pair of leg irons with you attached at the other end means you wouldn’t be getting away anytime soon.”
She cradled his cheeks and stared up into his dark blue eyes. Love waited there for her. “I don’t know if I should throttle you or kiss you.”
“Kiss me first. Then love me, Dixie. Love me an’ I’ll wear your brand for the rest of my life.”
“High stakes, Ty.”
“The highest. This man’s heart,” he murmured between ever-deepening kisses, “has been lost to the winner. And all the lady has to do is say three little words to collect her winnings.”
“Just three?” she teased, holding his head for a soul-burning kiss.
When it ended, he braced himself above her. “Say the words. Say I love you, say you’ll marry me, say you’ll have my children and say you’ll obey me.”
Her eyes snapped open. “Obey you?”
“Aw hell, Dixie. You can’t blame a man for trying.”
“No, I won’t do that. And I’ll give you three of the four. I love you, Tyrel Kincaid. I will marry you and I will cherish bearing your children.”
“Like I said, the lady holds the winning hand.”
Held within his arms, dreamily feeding on cherishing kisses, Dixie felt she did indeed hold the winning hand. Her father’s death had been avenged, peace would come. She had Ty’s love and the home they would build and share. Her Kincaid had once been a maverick, but love, unconditional love, had placed a brand on him.
Her maverick, her love.
More from Raine Cantrell
The Kincaid Series
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