"What is this?"
The boy pulled the hammer back on his gun with two hands. A brilliant, white-toothed smile broke over the lower half of his face. The voice that came from that ragamuffin, however, rose an octave with his next words. "This here's a jailbreak, and I'd like to ask you for your keys, Deputy, if you'd be so kind."
Reese grinned, almost laughed out loud, and gripped the bars of the cell until his hands hurt. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! It was Grace the Graceful! It was almost beyond reckoning that she'd think of something so clever as this. Relief speared through him as Smith's dawning gaze slid back toward his cell.
"You won't get away with it," Smith snapped.
"That remains to be seen," Grace allowed, keeping her hat tugged down over those memorable eyes. "The keys?"
Smith reached for his vest pocket and the old man jammed the gun harder against his temple.
"Careful."
"They're in my pocket." With two fingers, Smith reached into his vest and withdrew a circle of iron with one lone skeleton key dangling from it.
Grace held out her hand, palm up. "Much obliged," she murmured as he handed it over. Smith's incredulous gaze went from the slender hand with dirt-encrusted fingernails to her smooth, all-too-feminine jawline.
The deputy's mouth went slack. "You're a girl!"
Her hand curled into a tight fist around the keys. "Hold him," she told her cohort and headed for the cell where Reese waited.
Grace tilted her head back and winked at him as she approached. The gesture stirred him unexpectedly; a flash of gratitude, or desire, or both turned inside him.
"I never thought you'd come." The words, spoken in a whisper, came over the knocking sound of metal on metal as she tried to force the key into the lock. She stabbed at the opening again, her hand trembling with a palsy of nerves. Reese reached around the bars, closing his hand over hers. Despite the balmy night, her shaking hand felt icy beneath his.
For an instant, she froze, head bowed, chest heaving. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to meet his gaze. Her look told it all. Everything. Her fear, her fierce determination, her innocence. Reese knew a moment of regret at dragging a girl like her into his tangled life.
Yet he could no more free her from her promise to help him than he could ignore the sharp tug of desire that pulled at him when she looked into his eyes. Common sense told him it was lust, pure and simple, that Grace Turner inspired, despite the dirt-covered jaw. Nothing so noble as compassion.
"Help me," she whispered. "My hand's shaking too much to get the key in."
Reese tore his gaze from hers, focusing on the slender hand beneath his. Steadily, he guided the key she held into the lock and with a twist opened it. The metal grated loudly as the door swung out, and with two steps, Reese was free. He gulped air, steering Grace with one hand beneath her elbow toward the outer office.
Still pinioned in the old man's grip, Smith stared at them expressionlessly. Only the rapid rise and fall of his chest betrayed the emotion he kept from his eyes.
"So, Smith," Reese said blandly, "it looks as if you won't have to lose sleep after all."
"It's not my sleep I'd be worrying about if I was you," Smith retorted. "Sanders will be after you in a heartbeat. And he won't rest until he's got you by the throat."
"Of that I've no doubt." Reese tossed an assessing look at Brewster, then stooped to retrieve Smith's gun from the floor. He opened it to half-cock, checking the load. Snapping the gun shut, he nudged the revolver into Smith's ribs. "Get into the cell. And don't waste your life or your future with lovely Lilah on any warning shouts. I'll kill you, Smith. Count on that."
"Damn you," Smith muttered as Brewster loosed his pinioning arm.
"Aye, that's already been accomplished, I'd wager."
Reese shoved him forward across the threshold of the cell. Grasping him by the collar, Reese pressed the gun's barrel into the deputy's back. "Are ya ready, Connell?"
Smith half turned in time for the butt-end of the gun to skitter against his skull, missing a full blow, but having the desired effect anyway. With a groan of pain, Smith sank bonelessly to the hard dirt floor, sprawling at Reese's feet.
Reese cursed at his aim, and nudged the fallen man with the toe of his boot, assuring himself the deputy was out cold.
Stepping away from Smith's limp form, he shoved the door shut with a clatter of iron. "Where's the key?" he demanded of Grace. "Give me the bloody key!"
She thrust it at him and he wrenched it into the lock with a vicious twist.
"Is he dead?" she asked, her voice a quiet tremor. She stared at Smith's still form with dread.
Reese shook his head, shoving the key into his pocket. "No. But he'll have a headache he won't soon forget."
Brewster gathered up a rifle from the gun rack on the wall, pocketed several boxes of ammunition, and tossed one to Reese.
"Brew!" Grace admonished, catching him stuffing the boxes in his canvas greatcoat. "That's stealing!"
"It's a bit late to be worryin' about ethics, isn't it, princess?" Reese asked.
Grace swung an accusing look back at him.
"He's right," Brew reminded her. "We'll need the guns once the marshal gets wind of this. And if we don't hurry, it won't matter what we steal." He gestured toward the door with a solemn flick of his gray head. "The horses are outside. And don't try nothin' funny, Donovan. These guns are as much for you as for Sanders if you're thinkin' of parting company once yer out the door."
Reese grinned amiably. "I wouldn't think of it, old man."
"It's Brewster to you."
"Let's save the formalities until we're away from here, all right?" Grabbing his gun belt off a peg near the door, Donovan fastened it around his hips with a gunman's ease. He shrugged on a dirt-colored oiled canvas duster hanging beside it, then lifted his black felt hat with its band of silver conchos off the peg and fitted it on his head. He pulled the heavy door open and swept a mock-gallant arm across the threshold. "After you."
Grace slipped out into the darkness, followed by Brewster and Donovan. They hurried through the shadows around the corner of the jail, beneath the overhang of thick pine beams protruding from the adobe. In the distance, the faint sounds from the cantinas up the street drifted to them, punctuated by laughter closer by.
As one, they pressed into the shadows of the building at the sound. The moon darted in and out from behind the high, fast-moving clouds, mocking their attempts at invisibility. The sound of laughter drew closer, distinguishing itself from the ramshackle buildings across the wide span of road separating the north and south sides of Pair-a-Dice. Several men were coming their way.
Reese cursed under his breath, gripping his gun harder and drawing Grace roughly closer to him. Not fifteen feet away, he could hear the soft snorting of the horses Brewster and Grace must have left tied there. Fifteen feet of open ground, more than enough to be caught cold.
Seconds dragged by. The pounding of his heart echoed the thud of hers against his ribs. She hadn't stopped shaking. They heard the drunken voices of two men somewhere in the lengthening darkness. Too close to judge, too far to see. Of all the times to run into company, he thought. But they had to go. Every second they delayed could mean disaster.
He looked up at the moon, which was suddenly and frustratingly clear of the very clouds they needed to obscure their escape.
"Let's go," Reese urged, shoving Grace forward. She balked, stumbling to a halt two steps away.
"Wait. What if they see us?" she whispered urgently.
"We have to take that chance. One at a time—go!" he ordered in a hoarse whisper.
She lunged forward into the dappled spill of moonlight, feeling utterly exposed. Covering the ground between the wall and the horses at a dead run, she collided with the hitching rail in the darkness with a grunt of pain. Donovan appeared beside her like an apparition in the darkness.
"You all right?" he demanded in a harsh whisper.
She nodded. With shaking hands, she un
tied the reins of all three horses, the warm, steamy breath of the black brushing the back of her neck. Her knuckles whitened around the whipcord leather.
"Mount up," Donovan ordered.
Brew relieved her of the reins of his horse and launched himself aboard the black-stockinged bay. "C'mon, Gracie, dad-blame it!" he called. His breath came in rattling puffs, and Grace feared a coughing spell coming on.
Indeed, only seconds later, Brew hacked hard and loud, his breath a wheezing rattle that echoed across the dusty street like a warning shot.
"Hey!" came a shout from the street behind them. "Hey, you there!"
Hands locked around her mount's saddle horn, Grace froze. "Oh no."
"It's Donovan!" came another voice from the darkness. "He's gettin' away! Ree-ward's mine, if I nail 'im first!"
Grace cried out as gunshots exploded nearby, tearing into the adobe wall of the building beside them. Beside her, Reese's gun thundered with a deafening roar, the shot sending a plume of water gushing upward from the trough the man had crouched behind.
The man cursed, ducking back into the curtain of darkness.
For a moment, Grace lost sight of Donovan in the dark. His black clothes made him seem part of the night. She grabbed the saddle horn of the sixteen-hand gray gelding she'd bought from that flimflam liveryman down the street. As she crow-hopped with one booted foot locked in the stirrup, and the reins of both her and Donovan's horses clamped in her hand, it occurred to her that only an idiot would have chosen Mt. Everest for a getaway steed. Not only could she not haul herself into the saddle of the dapple gray behemoth, she was in serious danger of being trampled under the hooves as it scrambled, white-eyed, away from her.
"Whoa! Whoo-hoahh!" Grace cried, hanging on for dear life. Without warning, a large hand planted itself firmly on her backside and shoved her upward and nearly over the other side!
Grace shrieked, clawing for purchase on the horse's wide neck. Donovan cursed again and caught her by the leg before she could fall. He righted her halfway onto the saddle before he reached for the reins of his horse.
A bullet plowed into the dirt at their feet, and the horses gave a unanimous, squealing cry of terror, sidestepping frantically. Donovan's horse backed into the hitching rail, splintering it with the force of the blow. Jerking its reins from Grace's hands, the black went down in a tangle of shattered wood and flaying hooves. Before she or Donovan or anyone could do anything to stop it, the downed horse found its legs and bolted into the darkness, dragging its loose reins behind it.
Reese swore, diving into the shadows to evade the oncoming bullets. Another shot slammed Donovan against the wall, and he dropped to one knee behind a water barrel.
"Mr. Donovan! Are you all right?"
"I'm bloody fine!" He pulled off another shot at the pair across the street. Wood splintered from the edge of the watering trough. "Get out of here!"
"Not without you!"
Brew raised the rifle he'd stolen from the marshal's wall and fired at the two men emerging from behind the trough. One of them dropped his gun and grabbed for his wounded arm. Donovan fired again and the other one cried out, flattened himself to the ground, then rolled back into the shadows. The hammer of Donovan's gun struck an empty chamber.
He broke cover, running toward Grace's horse. "Go!" he shouted to Brew.
"Not without her!" he shouted back, reaching for the reins of Grace's horse.
Without hesitation, Donovan took hold of her saddle horn and vaulted up behind her, colliding with her back. He shoved her down hard against the neck of the horse and reached for the reins.
"Donovan!"
The deep voice came from the window of the jail, not ten feet away. Donovan yanked the reins around. Grace's heart sunk at the sight of Connell Smith pointing a small-caliber revolver at them through the bars of the window.
Grace felt Donovan's whole body go tense behind her.
Smith looked a little woozy, but held his gun steady. "You forgot to check my boot."
Donovan cursed behind her, reining the prancing gray around so his body shielded hers. "Go ahead," he told the deputy breathlessly, his empty gun resting on his thigh. "Shoot. I'm a dead man anyway."
"No!" Grace cried, but Donovan pressed a hand down hard against her back. She winced at the stab of the saddle horn against her belly.
For a dozen beats of her heart, Grace waited for the inevitable explosion. Numb, blind fear coiled around her throat, making breathing and rational thought impossible. Smith stared at Donovan, indecision clouding his eyes. Maddeningly, Donovan held the horse in check, refusing to run, and faced Smith head-on, daring him to shoot. Was he insane, making a target of himself for Smith's gun? Why didn't he run?
An eternity passed in mere seconds. Then, the unbelievable happened. Smith pulled his aim wide to the left and fired two shots into the dirt beside them.
Grace blinked back at Donovan, who held the nervous horse firm. There wasn't a shred of gratitude in the look he sent to Smith, only a savage kind of vindication.
"He'll be right behind you, Donovan," Smith warned. "And I'll be with him."
"I'll look forward to it."
Without another second's hesitation, Donovan spurred their horse forward with a savage nudge of his heels toward the freedom of the dark abyss before them.
* * *
The bright April moon hung high over the Texas prairie, darting in and out of thick banks of swift-moving clouds. The same Gulf-borne wind that for eons had scoured the soil, sculpted the rock, and driven less hardy creatures from the desolate sand plain now urged them on in the darkness. Shadows traversed the land like restless spirits, making their progress not only erratic, but dangerous as well.
The only sound, save the sough of wind and the occasional distant yip of coyotes, was a feminine voice—one that was beginning to sorely test the already-frayed nerves of Reese Donovan.
"I've never been so scared in my life," Grace exclaimed for the fourth time in the last half hour—which was, he noted grimly, when she'd found her voice.
Reese gritted his teeth and steered the gray horse carefully around a thirty-foot-high saguaro. He stared at the ground, trying to make out hidden obstacles in the inky darkness ahead and tried to dodge her elbow as she gestured with enthusiasm at the night sky.
"Bullets whizzing right and left! I thought we were goners for certain. You were... well, you were magnificent! It was straight out of the pages of a true western novel. And in the end it all worked out just the way we'd planned, didn't it, Mr. Donovan? Wasn't it thrilling?"
Thrilling?
Balls.
Blinking back the sting of sweat in his eyes, Reese merely grunted, knowing that sound would suffice. It did.
"Well, thrilling might be a poor choice of words," she allowed. "After all, you're used to this sort of thing, being a gunslinger and all."
Reese groaned inwardly. Where the devil did she get this claptrap?
"But, well, nothing like this has ever happened to me before." She paused, catching her breath. "It's, well, it's invaluable research, you know? Watch out for the rock on the left. Why, you couldn't buy this kind of firsthand knowledge in any scholarly library back East. The pungent scent of the gunsmoke, the way your heart goes to your throat at the sight of guns aiming directly at you." She flicked an uncertain glance back at him. "Well, actually, Ned Buntline did come rather close in Riders on..."
Saints help him. He should have known she'd be a talker. Must be why the old man had been riding a full three rods behind them for the past five miles.
Reese ceased listening, focusing instead on the dark landscape ahead. The miles they'd covered at a ground-eating pace had passed by in a dark blur. The moon cooperated only inasmuch as it peeked out from behind the clouds for protracted periods before disappearing once more, casting them into forbidding darkness. Then, as now, they'd slowed their pace to a crawl, picking their way over rocky outcroppings and saguaro-choked coulees.
In the profound
darkness of the desert night, one misstep could spell disaster. To Reese, however, it mattered little whether the pace was fast or slow.
Each jarring step was an agony.
He pressed his right forearm against the hole in his side and bit back a groan as the rawboned gray navigated over a particularly troublesome piece of footing. A warm wetness oozed against the wadded-up bandanna beneath his elbow.
The dark landscape ahead blurred momentarily, and Reese blinked it back into focus. His head pounded like a smith's hammer and he wished he had a drink. He wondered how much blood he could lose before passing out? Pitching headlong down the wall of some trailside ravine wasn't high on his list of ways to go. In fact, it was right up there with hanging.
Neither did he consider stopping, with Sanders only hours behind them, if the bastard was fool enough to send a posse out after them in the dark. Reese cursed silently. The loss of the horse had already set them back. Doubling up on the gray would slow them up by hours.
It wasn't as if the idea of tossing Miss Grace Turner off into the darkness on her pretty little behind and leaving her in his dust hadn't occurred to him. It had. However, he wasn't fool enough to believe he'd get far bleeding the way he was. When they caught up with him, as they inevitably would, the old man would probably finish the job that tejano on the street had begun.
No, he had no choice but to stay with them until he got the bleeding under control. Until Brownsville. He could lose them there. Here, the darkness remained their sole advantage. For that reason, he'd kept the injury to himself. Dawn would come soon enough. If he lived that long, he'd stop to patch himself up. Meanwhile, his bandanna would have to do.
She was still jabbering away, he realized, having moved on to an oral history about that brother of hers who had landed himself in some kind of trouble in Querétaro.
"...by then, you see, Luke's letter had found us in Virginia," she was saying, "but no one in Washington or Army Intelligence would lift a finger to help him. In fact, they denied knowledge of his even being there! Can you imagine? Luke, who'd devoted his life to the Army, and they were trying to tell us he'd deserted for Mexico!"
The Lady Takes A Gunslinger (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 1) Page 7