Devil in Texas (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 1) (41 page)

Poppy's voice broke.

Sadie tasted bile as she guessed the outcome of that confrontation. "He hit you, didn't he?" she prompted more gently. "And you miscarried."

Poppy made a small inhuman sound, like the whimper of a whipped puppy. "He never shared my bed again... "

The more agitated Poppy got, the more her gun hand quaked.

"...He wouldn't let me have another baby."

Now the six-shooter's muzzle was bobbing erratically in her fist.

"He didn't want my babies, because
you
gave him one, strumpet! It's all
your
fault that Baron doesn't love me anymore!"

Holy crap,
Sadie thought.
She's going to fire!

"Poppy Westerfield!"
It was Randie's voice, pitched high in nigh hysteria. She'd emerged from the woods and was waving her white sleeves like a windmill. The tactic was a crazy, brazen,
courageous
thing to do—the best diversion she could possibly create while her .38 was out of firing range. "Satan himself couldn't keep me from you!"

Sadie took full advantage of the distraction. She threw the smoke bomb at Poppy's feet and drilled a bullet into Hank's right arm—hopefully, his gun arm.

"Run, Sadie!" she shouted at Randie in an effort to confuse Poppy further.

Poppy staggered backwards, blinded by black, sulfurous plumes. "Hank!" she screamed between coughs. "
Hank,
there are two of them!"

Above the outlaw's blood-curdling howls of pain, a gunshot rang out. Sadie had barely taken three steps when Poppy's bullet hit her in the back. She "
oomphed,"
pitching forward onto rock-hard earth. Her momentum sent her somersaulting down the hill. She crashed hip-first into a tombstone, her temples pounding, her face pointed at the sky. For an endless moment, she couldn't move. She couldn't breathe.

That's when all hell broke loose.

"Randie!"
The cry of anguish was masculine.

Sadie's ears were ringing. A full moon was spinning through the storm over her head. As if she were peering through a fuzzy telescope, she watched horses gallop past. She heard bullets whining through the air. A man with waxed mustachios was wrestling a woman with a black hood and poppy-colored hair for a gun. Further away, like a tiny speck on rippled glass, she saw a blond man in a pitch-colored Stetson charging up the hill.

Then some helpful person was hauling her to her feet. Dragging her up by her collar. Clamping an arm as bendable as steel over her breasts.

Still too winded to speak, she wheezed in protest as iron fingers bit into her scalp, yanking her head backwards against a granite shoulder. Pinpricks of light danced inside her brain. She thought she might pass out. Then the stench of sulfur jolted her senses. A red-hot gun muzzle jammed into the tender flesh beneath her chin. She yelped.

"Think you can beat me, Cassidy?" a sneering, Midwestern accent panted in her ear.

An ominous click reverberated through the bones of her jaw.

"Let's see how fast you can
really
draw, Lucifire."

Chapter 23

Cass forced himself to halt his charge up the hill, his muscles screaming, his heart in an uproar.

When a gunman used a woman as a shield, it was worse than a crime. It was an abomination. But the stakes in this showdown had risen astronomically the moment Cass realized the gunman was The Ventilator.

And the woman was Sadie.

Kill or be killed.
That was the law of the gun. No one knew that law better than Cass. Over the years, he'd been accused of being a showboater. A braggart. A pretty-boy with a fancy set of pistols. Because he talked nice and acted polite, tough characters often mistook him for a mealy-mouthed weakling.

Hank had been one of those tough characters. For seven long years, Cass had been haunted by his choice to flee the Rocking W rather than face Hank at high noon. To make the guilt worse, Hank had used those years to terrorize decent folks. His Wanted Posters accused him of extortion, rustling, arson, smuggling, armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, manslaughter, and capital murder. But thanks to Poppy, the charges never stuck. Hank always got paroled.

Cass's breaths shuddered from barely controlled rage. He gazed into the glazing, tawny eyes of the woman he loved. The woman who was the reason he still aspired to do good deeds in the world. Her temple was bruised. Her throat had blistered from the gun metal. Cass reasoned that if he'd shot Hank seven years ago, Sadie would be safe.

The thought made something inside Cass go dangerously dark and cold.

So help me God, if Hank spills a single drop of her blood, all the torments of hell won't keep me from doling out my own brand of justice.

Hank's right sleeve was soaked with blood. Sadie had tried to disable him rather than kill him. Cass knew this because he'd watched her do it while he'd been running up the hill and his .38 had been out of firing range. In Hank's adrenalized state, his pain wasn't great enough to drop the six-shooter he'd cocked under her chin.

"Let Randie go." Cass didn't know why Sadie was pretending to be Randie, but the matter was moot. He played along. "Your quarrel's with me."

"Always the ladies' man," the outlaw jeered. "You know she's screwing Baron, right?"

Sadie whimpered.

Cass's jaw hardened. "Relax, sweetheart. This will all be over in a minute. I promise."

Hank laughed. "Rebel Rutter, my ass. You're more like Cuckold Cass."

"Yeah. You got me there, pal. You're superior in every way. You want me to stroke your dick, too?"

"Naw. I think I'll let your woman do it. After you're dead."

Cass smiled pleasantly. Hank had no idea what type of vengeance he'd just bargained for at Sadie's hands. "Now that would be a sight to watch from hell."

"Your sass ain't helping her, smartass."

"Aw, c'mon, Hank. You don't want to kill a woman. You want to test me. See how fast I can really draw."

"Well now, let's see. Since I'm already wearing your gun belt—" Hank's lip curled "—it looks like you've failed that test, grasshopper. Toss aside the piece."

Cass was holding Collie's gun in his right hand. His
weak
hand.

So he obeyed.

Not even Lynx knew Cass was a southpaw. He'd perfected the ruse by the age of 12, practicing long and hard to become proficient with both hands. He picked up his fork with his right hand. He brushed his teeth with his right hand. He even pumped bullets into his six-shooter with his right hand.

But when it came to close encounters, Cass's salvation, an 18-ounce Smith & Wesson, was strapped to his left forearm.

"Spread 'em," Hank snapped.

The magic words,
Cass thought darkly.

Now Sadie's life—and his, too—relied on split-second timing. He raised his hands over his head. He puckered his brow. He made sure he looked worried enough to keep Hank from getting suspicious.

On the inside, Cass was iced steel.

"This isn't going to go well for you, Hank. You'll never leave Lampasas County alive."

Hank laughed at the warning, as Cass knew he would. Guns had a way of inflating a coward's confidence.

"That's brave talk for a dead man. Or maybe I should say, a dead
boy
. S'long, sucker."

Hank leered. He started to turn his gun muzzle away from Sadie's throat.

With the speed of a striking rattler, Cass triggered his .38 and fired. The bullet drilled through the center of Hank's forehead.

The outlaw blinked.

His jaw went slack.

A heartbeat later, he was toppling like felled timber.

"S'long, Hank." Cass flexed his wrist to hide his pistol beneath his sleeve once more. "See ya in hell."

Sadie hit the dirt. Now she was flailing in her mantle, which had tangled around her legs. Cass stepped forward, extending a hand to help her up.

"Are you all right?"

"No!" she snapped, slapping his hand away.

"Well, let me—"

"Don't you
dare
touch me!"

"Good God, woman, what's eating you now?"

"I'm not
Randie
, you insufferable, pig-headed—"

"I knew that!"

"You did not!"

"C'mere," he growled, grabbing her left arm and hauling her to her feet.

"I hate you!"

"No, you don't—"

Her right fist plowed into his gut, and he
oomphed,
doubling over.
Okay. Maybe she does.

"I just saved your life," he wheezed.

"You just saved
Randie's
life. And you called her
sweetheart!"

He refused to release the wrist she kept twisting in his fist. "That was for show!"

"Like crooning
Destiny
in my ear was for show!" She tried to punch him again.

He caught her other arm and spun her against his chest. "You need a paddling something fierce!"

"And you need a restraining order for your pecker!"

Suddenly, a gunshot drowned out the thunder. They gasped, hugging each other tight. Hearts hammered in syncopated rhythms; lungs wheezed like squeezeboxes.

A wail of grief shattered the night.

"Baron," Cass choked, shoving Sadie toward the tombstone. He lunged for his fallen six-shooter. "Take cover!"

"Like hell!" She grabbed the .32 from her waistband. "I'm going with you!"

Together, they sprinted through lightning and shadow, around the corner of the house, toward the dirt mound by the grave. Sadie ignored the pounding in her head and the pain in her chest every time she dragged air into her lungs. She thought she might have bruised a rib when she'd rolled down the hill. But she couldn't worry about that—she
wouldn't
worry about that—as long as Jazi was in danger.

Beneath a ghostly moon, she spied Randie wrapping her mantle around her child's slender shoulders. Jazi was hugging a raccoon that was trying to eat her
gris-gris.
Sadie figured all must be right again in the Reynolds's world.

Near the lip of the pit, Sadie noticed Collie, covered with dirt. He stood with a Winchester at the side of a grim-faced Sid Wright, whose kneecaps were stained with grass. Younger and more agile than the other members of the posse, Collie and Sid had undoubtedly been the heroes who'd hauled Jazi from her grave.

The third man on the scene was Rex. Still pretending to be retired as a Ranger, he sported a Lampasas deputy badge, which suggested he'd been spontaneously sworn-in by Sid. At any other time, Sadie might have ribbed Rex about his demotion. But today, his wolfish features were grim and his gun-metal gray eyes were stark. He was gazing at the tragedy that had transpired some 10 feet away.

"What happened?" Sadie whispered, halting at his side.

A muscle ticked in Rex's jaw. "When Baron heard about the posse, nothing short of leather straps could keep him in that hospital bed. He begged us to let him reason with Poppy.

"But when we arrived, she was like a woman possessed. She told him if she couldn't have his babies, no woman would. She tried to shoot Randie. Baron struggled with her for the gun, and it went off."

Jesus.
Sadie sickened to see the senator convulsed with grief. He was cradling a limp, black-robed figure against his heart.

Sadie turned her head away. She knew it wasn't her fault that Poppy had mistaken her strand of red hair for Randie's. Poppy had declared war on Miranda Reynolds long before Sadie had ever searched Baron's underwear drawer. Even so, it was hard to take satisfaction in solving a case that had closed so tragically.

When Sadie forced herself to look once more, she saw Cass squatting to clasp his weeping boss's shoulder. Jazi had wrapped her arms around Baron's neck. Randie, who was kneeling beside Cass, clutched the handsome young gunslinger's arm.

Pain lanced Sadie's heart. She drew a bolstering breath.

"You all right?" Rex demanded, darting a much too perceptive glance her way.

"Sure. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, for one thing, you're bleeding."