“Are you planning to storm down there like that?” He dropped his gaze pointedly between their bodies, indicating her state of undress. One brow lifted along with one corner of his lips as he brought his attention back to her face. There should have been amusement in that quirk of brow and mouth. Instead, Lara saw a cocky derision that got her back up further.
She shot her chin higher in the air. “What if I am? What care is it of yours?”
“None, I suppose. I knew you gave your body to Adam, and you sure didn’t waste any time letting me in on a piece. I expect I shouldn’t be surprised you are willing to spread your legs for the rest of the Stonewell gang.”
Lara slapped him. Her eyes widened as she gaped at him. Her mind whirled with the disbelief of what he said to her and her reflex reaction to the insult. A red welt, the perfect shape of her palm, colored his cheek. She expected to see a matching fury flaming in his eyes. Instead, she saw disgust. Not with her, but with himself. His tone, wrought with apology when he spoke again, proved that.
“The old gang is down in the saloon, Lara.”
“Which is exactly where you should be.” Her palm still stinging from the slap, she curled her fingers into fists before letting her hand fall to rest on his shoulder. “They’re down there waiting for you.”
“They’ll be waiting a long time.” He released his hold on her upper arm. He took a full step back, putting a cold distance between them. “I shouldn’t even be in this town.”
Lara breathed deeply for patience. “You didn’t murder Jeb.”
“Yes, well, the jury said I did.”
A humorless laugh rolled from Lara’s lips. “What jury? You were the only jury. You dealt your own sentence on the spot and wouldn’t hear anything against it.” She stopped and closed her eyes. She quickly opened them again when images of her brother sprawled on the saloon floor, bleeding out from a gunshot to the chest filled her vision. “You didn’t mean to shoot Jeb. Accidents happen, Luke.” She reached for him, needing to touch, needing to feel his warmth. She cupped the cheek she slapped, her thumb lightly caressing the smarting red mark. “You want to redeem my brother’s death and your actions, uphold the true justice you both believed in. That’s why you came back in the first place, isn’t it? Adam got that one right, didn’t he?”
Luke answered with a slow nod. His gaze locked with hers. The torment she saw in his incredible blue eyes tore at her heart.
“Then do what you came here to do,” she urged. “Get downstairs where you belong. Don’t leave it to Adam, Luke. He isn’t as strong as you, and he’s never been as tough.” She took a breath and played her trump card. “Your pa can’t take losing both his sons. He already feels he lost you. Seeing Adam dead will send your pa to his own grave. And the ranch,” she shook her head, “it won’t survive. Adam is the only one keeping the ranch going now.”
“Lara, I’m going to ask you one last time and, damn it, I want a fucking answer. What happened to Pa?”
“He lost a leg.” Lara bowed her head, unable to stand the pain and shock that moved through Luke’s expression.
“How?” Luke’s voice grew tight and dangerously quiet.
“Infection. He went out to drive the cattle to another part of the ranch. A coyote spooked his horse, and he took a fall. He landed on a rusted piece of tin. It stabbed into his thigh.” She lifted her head to find Luke staring down at her. His eyes glistened with tears. She could remember seeing tears in this man’s eyes only once, the night he stood over his best friend’s body. They ripped her apart now as much as they had then. Because she didn’t miss the plea behind the tears, she continued. “He took care of it best he could and thought nothing more about it. Days later he fell sick. Doc Spivey tried to heal the wound, to rid it of the infection that spread through your pa, but it was too far gone. He had two choices.”
“Amputate or dig Pa a grave,” Luke finished for her in a tone barely above a whisper.
Lara nodded. “Adam tried to get word to you. He sent one of the ranch hands riding west. We, well, everyone figured you’d ridden that way.”
“I knew they would. That’s why I went north.”
And never intended to return. The words hung unspoken in the air between them. He didn’t have to put them to voice. Lara already knew he’d never meant to come back. He obviously did what he could, too, to make sure no one ever found him.
She wanted to ask him about the lands to the north. She’d heard stories of others who made the travel and all but drank up the images they painted of mountains and frigidly beautiful snow. Instead, she bottled her questions for another time, praying even as she plugged the lid that there would be another time.
“Tell me about the sheriff.”
Lara’s heart leapt to her throat, swelling with such hope she could barely manage to breathe around it. “His name is Wood Baird.”
“An outsider.” Luke turned, putting another few steps between them, and started to pace.
Lara watched him, afraid to hope, terrified not to. “Not anymore. He rode into town a few short months after you left. The Stonewell gang, the rest of the gang,” she amended when he shot her an indecipherable look, “found the guy you meant to shoot that night.”
“The one I mistook Jeb for,” Luke whispered and kept on pacing. His long steps moved him across the short distance of the small room in four strides. He stared at his booted feet. Lara could’ve sworn she saw the thought wheels turning in his head. “What did they do to him?”
To him. Not with him. Interesting choice of words, Lara mused. “Shot him down.” Though his shoulders flinched, she got the distinct impression he expected exactly what she told him. “No one challenged their action. No one even knows exactly who pulled the trigger. The gang’s been very close-lipped about that ever since.”
“No one challenged them, but they took in some stranger as sheriff.”
“You weren’t here anymore. Without you, the gang went their own ways, did their own things. Sheriff Baird rode in, heard what went down, planted the idea of an organized law in the minds of the townsfolk, and then took up the spot himself.”
“That nice and tidy, huh?” Luke grumbled.
“It should’ve been you. Taking up the office of sheriff, it would’ve been you if you hadn’t run.”
Luke’s pacing drew to an abrupt halt. He leveled a look at her that made her squirm beneath her skin. “I didn’t run,” he ground through gritted teeth. “I dealt myself the same justice I would’ve given any other who did what I did. I expelled myself from these parts.”
Lara met his intense anger with a penetrating calmness. She might be pushing her luck, but she saw no other way to handle this ornery man. “Perhaps, though accident-doers in the past generally got forgiven rather than banished. I expect it might have been easier though, leaving like that instead of facing the fact that you’re as human as everyone else around.”
Her breath caught in the next instant when Luke closed the short distance between them so quickly she hardly saw him move. He stopped, his face so close to hers that she smelled his breath, felt the heat of it as it fanned her nose.
“You’ve got a real smart mouth on you, Miss Franklin. It’s not fitting of a woman to pick fights with a man twice her size. I have half a mind to spank that disrespect right out of you.”
Lara’s pussy flamed at the threat. The muscles in her butt cheeks gave an involuntary flex at the idea of his large, callused hand smacking her bared flesh. She locked her gaze with his and knew by the echoing embers in his eyes, the threat excited him just as much as it did her.
“Be my guest if you think you’re man enough, Mr. Stonewell.”
A low growl rumbled from his chest, an animalistic sound that told her she just might have pushed too far. “Challenging a cowboy’s manhood will get that smart mouth in even deeper trouble.” His arm roped around her waist, and he yanked her hard against him. His hand dropped to cup her ass, and he squeezed her butt cheek with no semblance of nicety.
Lara couldn’t stop the tormented moan that left her throat. Her pussy throbbed. Her ass pulsed, wanting to feel the deliverance of his threat. If she dropped the blanket she still held covering her nakedness, his palm's pressure would be directly on her flesh.
“But that’s what you’re after, isn’t it, Lara?” He dipped his head, roughly nipping her jaw. “You’re after a good teaching on how to talk to a man. Well, darlin’, I aim to give it to you just as soon as I find the time.”
Before Lara could utter a response, he smashed his mouth to hers. His tongue dove between her lips in a kiss of vicious promise. When he abruptly released her seconds later, the promise and the dominant spark in his eyes made her head spin.
He moved away from her, fastening his denim pants then strapping on his gun belt. He scooped up his shirt from the floor and stomped to the door. “Stay here,” he shot over his shoulder on his way out.
Lara flinched as the door slammed, but allowed herself a small smile. Luke Stonewell had it all wrong. Her smart mouth just accomplished the two things she wanted most. It got him downstairs with the rest of his gang, and it got her a devilish promise of what would surely be more amazing sex in her near future.
Pleased with herself, she dropped the blanket where she stood. Naked, she crawled onto the bed and ran her hands over her flesh, imagining Luke’s touch and anticipating exactly how many ways he might use to teach her.
Chapter Four
Adam hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and surveyed the small crowd gathered in the saloon. So much for a slow Monday night, he mused.
The news of the impending visit from the Desert Riders spread fast though their little town. The bulletin of Luke’s return reached the ears of townsfolk faster still. His gaze landed on the table of three a few feet from where he stood. They represented what remained of the original Stonewell gang minus Jesse Dillinger who Adam expected to show in short order with news of his own.
A clatter at the bar momentarily drew Adam’s attention away from the men looking to him for answers and, God help him, leadership. John Franklin came out of the backroom. His poker game came to an abrupt halt in favor of serving the slew of other cowboys that followed the Stonewell gang into the saloon. A quick count rendered ten of them armed and ready, their eyes primed for a glimpse of Luke. Adam knew each waited for a chance to draw on any man looking to raise hell in their town.
Four more men, counting the deputy sheriff, seemed hell bent on restoring a vigilante gang. Couple that with a leader bound to a sentence of justice only he believed and a band of outlaws intent on robbing and brutalizing their town, and Adam figured they had a hell of a mess on their hands.
Walt Stubeck cleared his throat. He thumped the brim of his Stetson to send it sitting back farther on his head and lifted a brow at Adam.
Adam gave the man a small nod.
Next to Walt, Hiram McCain sat with his hands on his waistband. His chair teetered on two legs. He let the chair fall to all fours with a smack that sounded enough like a shot to have half the saloon reaching for their gun before quiet fell over them.
Adam waited for that moment to speak. “We figure to have about two days time before the Desert Riders reach our town.” He spoke loud enough for all in the saloon to hear him, but his gaze fixed on the three men of the Stonewell gang in front of him. “Might take them longer, but I wouldn’t want to take the chance on them showing up and us unprepared.”
Dirk Yates puffed on a tobacco stick, his gaze on Adam speculative. “Are you looking to take Luke’s place with the gang?”
Adam stared back at the other man, unwilling to let the doubt and fear he felt show in his expression. He expected the question. He figured the men set to follow Luke’s lead might not look so keenly on direction from the younger Stonewell brother. The bitter truth lay in the fact that he couldn’t say he felt too keen on being point man. He would do it, though, if it meant seeing the gang organized and set to take care of the Desert Riders when the sons of bitches hit town.
A flash of Lara tied and screaming with a bruised cheek and blood streaming from her nose smacked him like a physical blow. If the Desert Riders got a hold of her, and all the town's women, that’s exactly what they would do to her. The stories that followed the Desert Riders were legendary. They told tales of destruction to property, murder among men, and brutality toward women so horrid few men wished to face off with the outlaws. No, the Desert Riders weren’t merely bank robbers but some of the meanest, soulless, foulest men in the West.
“I'll take Luke's place if that’s what it takes,” Adam finally answered, his tone as stern as he could make it. “If news is right, there are better than a dozen of them. The sheriff is the law in these parts. The townsfolk saw to that.”
Walt chuckled dryly. “He ain’t got enough guts in his big toe to go against more than a dozen gun-wielding bastards like the Desert Riders.”
“Maybe,” Adam slowly nodded, “and maybe not. It’s not our place to pass judgment on our lawman, at least not tonight.”
“I’ll pass judgment.” Walt muttered soft enough only the other two men at the table and Adam heard him. “Sheriff is a yella-belly coward.”
Adam slanted Walt a look but kept his mouth shut. He didn’t necessarily agree, though he recollected seeing the sheriff back down in several situations fitting for a lawman to take a stand. Adam figured the man to possess some guts seeing as he convinced the townsfolk of it enough to appoint him as their first sheriff.
“Fact is, the sheriff and one deputy aren’t enough manpower to go against outlaws like the Desert Riders.” Adam shifted his gaze back to Walt and said the words that would likely seal his fate. “I can’t take Luke’s place with the gang, but if you want a Stonewell to lead you, then I guess you’ve got one.”
“This I’ve got to see.”
Adam didn’t have to recognize Luke’s voice to know when his brother hit the bottom of the stairs. The gaped mouths, straightened postures, and wide eyes of the men in the saloon before him proved a dead giveaway. He shot a look over his shoulder and felt a wash of relief that made him feel like the “yella-belly coward” Walt accused the sheriff of being. Luke stood fully clothed, his gun belt riding low on his hips and an expression fit to kill on his face.
Adam leveled his glare as Luke walked closer. He watched his brother take in the scene, and the scowl on his lips deepened.
“That is unless you’ve got a better idea.”
Luke’s attention snapped to Adam. Challenge sparked in the blue depths of his eyes. “I might have a few. Why are all these men here? Are you looking to set up a mob or something?”
“News travels.” Adam shrugged, but a familiar unspoken communication passed between the two of them. Only three of the men before them mattered. Four, if they brought Lara’s father into the count.
“So I hear,” Luke muttered. He snagged a chair from a nearby table and used it as a prop for one booted foot. He slapped a hand to his thigh, pursed his lips, and addressed the room of men. “Go home. Keep your women and children close until you hear it’s safe to let them out.”
“But what about the Desert Riders?” a cowboy near the door asked.
“We’re aiming to shoot those sons of bitches down before they harm a speck of dust in our town,” another cowboy declared and spat on the floor by his boot.
Nods of agreement and mutters of oaths and swears followed the outbursts.
“Yes, I expect you are, but gunning a man down in the middle of the street without just cause isn’t fitting with the law around here these days,” Luke countered calmly.
“What do you mean without just cause? They’re robbers, vandals, and murderers. What more cause do you need?” A yellow-toothed rancher at the bar shouted his objections.
“By reputation and rumor only,” Luke countered sternly. “You’ve never seen them do any of that stuff with your own eyes.”
“I’m not meaning to see it either,” the yellow-toothed rancher spat back. �
��What happened to you, boy? You go soft when you rode out of here two years back?”
“No, but I didn’t go stupid either,” Luke answered calmly. “The Stonewell gang never stood behind anyone going off half-cocked on any man, and we aren’t about to start now. Deputy Dillinger and Sheriff Baird are the law in charge in these parts now. You want to find yourself at the end of a rope for shooting down a man on sight? That’s what will happen if you draw that gun on your hip and fire at these boys as soon as they hit town.”
The first cowboy by the door spoke up again. “So we’re supposed to sit by and wait for them to draw on us first, rape our women, or steal our money?”
“No.” Luke shook his head. “You’re supposed to go home like I told you. Make sure you don't let your women come into town. If you live here in town, keep your women indoors and out of harm’s way. Leave the Desert Riders to the lawmen.”
“And the Stonewell gang, right?” The anger in the yellow-toothed rancher’s tone lessened as he stared down Luke from across the saloon.
Adam watched Luke. He saw when true realization of how many of the townsfolk still looked to him for protection set in his brother’s expression. None of the townspeople ever blamed Luke for gunning down Jeb. They all knew then as they did now that it had been an accident. Even John Franklin and their Lara never thought to blame him. If Luke had stuck around long enough back then, he would’ve come to see that. Perhaps the time he spent upstairs with Lara coupled with the steady gazes of the men staring at him now would bring him to see it tonight.
Luke finally nodded. “And the Stonewell gang.” Adam swore he heard a collective sigh of relief throughout the saloon. “Now, for the third time, go home, every last one of you.” His gaze fell on the men of the Stonewell gang, and a hint of a smile tilted his lips. “You three stay put.”
They gave a low chuckle, but said nothing until the saloon emptied of everyone else except Lara’s pa who remained behind the bar.
“You were really going to lead this bunch of hotheads?” Luke turned a questioning gaze on Adam, tipping his head slightly at Walt, Hiram, and Dirk.
Her Vigilante Passion Page 5