Ecstasy in Elk's Crossing (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (19 page)

David stepped on the accelerator, and the tires spun on the gravel road. Within minutes he was on the two-lane highway. It was time to celebrate, he decided. He’d have a good meal somewhere then find a hotel he could afford. A man of his importance deserved a luxury suite, not some Super 8 out in the country, but luxury suites with in-room Jacuzzis would have to wait for now, but not for long.

David smiled as he drove down the highway. He’d never killed a man before, and he hadn’t really been sure how he would handle it emotionally. Now he knew how it felt to kill, and he smiled. It felt good. And the next time he sensed the exhilaration of having taken a life, it would be Katie’s life that would be extinguished.

* * * *

Garrett pushed himself up a bit in the bed. He grimaced when pain lanced through his body from the gunshot wound to his shoulder. The county doctor who had bandaged him up had given him pills for the pain, but Garrett didn’t much like taking them, even if they worked. Garrett was an ardent fan of professional football, and he’d read too many stories of athletes getting addicted to painkillers for him to not have a skeptical attitude toward their use.

He looked around the bedroom, and despite the dull throbbing in his left shoulder, he smiled. This was Katie’s room. She had transformed it into her own, and in doing so, had made it feminine. On the bureau were her perfumes and lotions. In the open closet were her clothes.

A soft knock at the door preceded it opening by only a second. Katie stuck her head into the room.

“Oh, good,” she said. “You’re awake. Do you mind if I come in?”

“Of course not,” Garrett answered. “It’s your room, after all.”

“Until you recover completely, this is your room.”

Garrett felt a surge of emotion go through him when Katie stepped into the room. She wore a white cotton blouse and a pair of blue jeans, and though the attire was simple enough and certainly not unusual for Elk’s Crossing, in Garrett’s eyes and judgment, she was the most beautiful and sexiest woman in the world. In her hands was an aluminum serving tray, and on it was a can of beer with a glass.

“At last, a beer,” Garrett said happily.

“A
single
beer. That’s all you’re allowed. Doctor’s orders.”

Garrett watched as she poured the beer into the glass then handed it to him. He patted the mattress near his hip, and she sat on the bed.

“I feel better about things just looking at you,” he said.

“You gave us all a frightful scare.” She shivered visibly at the memory. “Fortunately, the bullet only hit you in the shoulder and passed clean through. It hurts because you tore up a lot of muscle tissue, but the bullet didn’t hit any bones. And the bullet was a small something-or-other. I can’t remember what the doctor said.”

“Small caliber?” Garrett asked. Katie nodded. “The bullet seemed to come out of nowhere.”

“No, it didn’t,” Katie said sharply. “I know who is behind all of our troubles. I know who jimmied the tire on my car, and I know who shot you. It’s David.”

“That old boyfriend of yours?”

Katie nodded.

“Just give me time to heal up this shoulder, and I’ll beat that man to a pulp.” He put the glass to his lips and drained half the beer in several big gulps. “He knows you’re here with us. That’s why he shot me.”

“I can’t begin to tell you how guilty I feel.”

“Don’t. You didn’t do anything wrong. He’s a psycho, and that’s just not your fault.”

“You’re feeling better now?”

Garrett gave her a smile. “I’m feeling better, but I know how you could make me feel much, much, much better.”

Katie grinned and slapped his knee through the blankets. “Don’t even think about that now. First you rest and get better, and then I’ll show you the kind of loving you deserve. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Garrett said, pretending to pout. “But let the record state that I’m only grudgingly agreeing.”

* * * *

“I was real sorry to hear about your brother,” Paulie said, his elbows on the glass counter of his gun shop. “And I’ve got to tell you, when I heard about it, I got a queer feeling inside me like something hinky was going on.”

When Aaron had gotten the call from Paulie to say he wanted to talk about the ambush shooting of Garrett, he’d gotten in his pickup and driven into town immediately. Paulie wasn’t the kind of man to talk unless he had something to say, unless the subject was hunting, which he could prattle on about endlessly.

“So why was it you called me?”

“A man came in here the other day. Smooth-talking fella that sounded like he’d been educated proper. Said he wanted to buy a handgun, but when I said I’d need the state to do a background check on him, and that he’d have to wait a couple days, he didn’t like that at all. Then, all of a sudden like, he says he wants to do some deer or elk hunting, and do I have any guns for him. He said he knew about hunting, and that he’d done a passel of it when he was a single man, but then he got married and couldn’t hunt no more. Well, he said he’s single again, and he wants to get back to it.”

Aaron shrugged his shoulders. “So far, that doesn’t sound all that unusual.”

“But like I say, there was something hinky about this fella. The more I looked at him, the more hinky he got, and I just couldn’t see myself putting a high-powered rifle in his hands all the while thinking that he ain’t got no more hunting sense than I’ve got knowledge of the dark side of the moon.”

Aaron smiled. “So what did you do?”

“I showed him an old, used twenty-two rifle that nobody’s wanted, and told him it was an elk rifle. Now any damned fool would know you don’t hunt elk with a twenty-two, but he didn’t know that. And when he didn’t know, that’s when I knew real certain-like that he wasn’t no hunter. Not now and not ever.” Paulie tapped his head with a forefinger. “So I got to using my noggin, I did. I got to sell him a rifle because he asks for one, and I just can’t say no to him because my noggin tells me he’s not a right sort, but that doesn’t mean I got to be real honest about everything.”

Aaron’s brow furrowed. “Don’t string me along, Paulie. What did you do?”

“Before I gave him the rifle, I said I needed to tighten down the scope and that sort of thing. Well, I adjusted the scope so that it would shoot way off to the right. Unless he sighted in that rifle himself after he left here, and I’m certain he didn’t, he doesn’t stand a chance of hitting what he’s aiming at.”

The cleverness of what Paulie had done impressed Aaron, but then, like a sledgehammer, reality hit him in the solar plexus. He felt a physical pain even though he hadn’t been touched.

Paulie had altered the telescopic sight so that the bullet went far to the right of the shooter’s intended target. Garrett had been sitting on his horse, to the right of Aaron, when he’d been shot.

“Say, you okay there?” Paulie asked quietly. “Did I say something?”

“No, it’s not your fault,” Aaron replied, fighting against the urge to run out of the gun shop to hunt down David. He thought of what Katie had told him of her ex. “This hinky man who bought the gun, was he a little paunchy in the middle, and does he stand about five and a half feet?”

“That about fits him.” Paulie wore a pained expression. “Had a hairline that was going south on him. He was one of those fellas you just know in your gut you never want to turn your back on.”

“I know the type, Paulie. I know the type all too well.” He extended his hand, and Paulie took and shook it. “Anything else about this man you can tell me?”

“Had license plates from a different state. I noticed that, though I can’t tell you where they were from.” He held Aaron’s hand a bit longer than what was polite. “You coming here for your hunting supplies? Elk season’s just around the corner, and I hear the ducks in Canada are thick as fleas on a mangy dog.”

“Yes, yes,” Aaron said, extricating his hand and turning toward the door. “My brothers and I will get everything we need here. Trust me, you’re going to make money from the McGowan brothers this year. Money like you’ve never made before.”

Paulie was smiling happily as Aaron left the gun shop.

* * * *

“I can’t begin to tell you how dreadful I feel about all this,” Katie said, standing in her bedroom, which would be Garrett’s until his shoulder fully recovered.

“It’s not your fault,” Aaron said. “But you’ve got to be honest with us from now on. Honest from the beginning. If there’s someone out there who wants to hurt you, you’ve got to let us know.” He felt the urge to take her into his arms, but this wasn’t the time for passion. Not when the man who had shot his brother was still on the loose. “Now, brothers, I want you to listen carefully. I spoke with the sheriff, and he’s got the major thoroughfares out of the territory covered. But we all know there are lots of gravel roads to get from here to there, if you know where you’re going.”

“You figure that little bastard is sticking around?”

“He tried to kill Katie by taking off the lug nuts on her wheel, and he probably tried to kill me with a bullet in the back. If it wasn’t for Paulie messing up the scope on his rifle, I’d probably have taken one smack in the back. And thank God he’s an idiot about weapons. Garrett getting hit by a twenty-two in the shoulder is unfortunate, but if that had been a thirty-odd-six or something like that, just imagine how bad the wound would have been.”

He watched all his brothers react to his statement. When he looked at Garrett, who was reclining against the headboard of Katie’s bed, he gave his kid brother a wink.

“Too bad for you, I suppose, but Paulie misaligning that scope probably saved my life.”

“That means you owe me a beer,” Garrett replied, grinning. “And a steak at the Mountain View Saloon that’s the size of Nebraska.”

Katie raised her hand to get the attention of the men in the room. “No, Aaron doesn’t have to pay for that. I do. The only reason David’s angry with you men is because you’ve been protecting me.” She combed fingers through her hair, shaking her head slowly. “I should have told you everything from the very beginning. I’ll never completely forgive myself for not trusting you men with everything.”

Aaron began unfolding the enormous map of the territory that he’d brought with him to the impromptu meeting. He put the map on the bed near the bulge in the blankets where Garrett’s feet were.

“The sheriff’s on the north side, and the highway patrol’s looking to our east. If David’s sticking around, he’s going to make at least one more try for Katie. If he doesn’t try for her, then he’s got to get out of the territory. Maybe he’ll take some of the gravel roads, and maybe he’ll take the highways. Trouble is, there’s just not a lot of highway patrol on duty at any given time in these parts. And the sheriff, he can’t spend all his time sitting in one place hoping David will drive by.”

“So that means it’s got to be us McGowans that patrol the country roads,” Blair said, correctly interpreting his brother’s plan. “But we’ve got to keep someone here to keep an eye on Katie.”

“I’ve got a dinged-up wing, but if you give me one of the revolvers, I’ll be all the protection Katie needs,” Garrett said, pushing himself up a little straighter in bed. He tried to hide the pain he felt, but Aaron saw it showing in his eyes. “Give me the forty-four magnum.”

“You can have the thirty-eight with the six-inch barrel,” Aaron replied. “You don’t need a cannon. Besides, the way our luck’s been running, you’ll shoot David with the magnum and it’ll go clean through him and into one of us.”

“I’ve got to tell you,” Katie said quietly, “how disturbing I find this talk. I hate guns. I hate violence of any sort.”

“We didn’t start this fight,” Aaron said, keeping his voice low. “But we do intend to finish it.”

* * * *

Aaron leaned back on the barstool, took a sip of beer, looked at Katie, and said, “If we’re going to have any chance at all of anticipating David’s next move, you’ve got to teach me how to think like him.”

Katie smiled ruefully and replied, “I don’t think it’s possible for a good man like you to think like David. It’s just not in your makeup.”

Aaron and his brothers were at the Mountain View Saloon after a hard day’s work. What had become clear over the past days was that despite the dragnet that the Sheriff and the McGowans had hastily set out to catch David, he had evaded them. And since they really had no concrete evidence whatsoever that David was at all responsible for any of the mayhem that had occurred, the Sheriff couldn’t put out an all-points bulletin to have the man arrested. All they had were suspicions, and the law doesn’t apply on someone’s gut instincts.

“I don’t want to act like him. I just need to think like him for a little while.” He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the bar, and Katie saw the intensity and seriousness in his eyes. “I can’t really relax until I know that he’s out of your life forever. Now can you think of anything that you haven’t told me already? Any little quirk or personality trait that might help me?”

Though she hadn’t taken Aaron entirely serious before, she did now. After a few moments she said, “As much as I hate to say it, I don’t think he’s gone for good. He’s not the type of man to let anyone slander him or thwart him in any way, and not seek revenge. He…he takes the slightest thing and can blow it all out of proportion. Say a joke goes bad. Well, the person doing the joking really didn’t want to start a blood feud. He just was going for a laugh or two. But that’s not the way David will see it.” Needing a moment to collect herself, since she was now venturing into very uncomfortable emotional territory, she picked up Aaron’s beer glass and topped it off from the draft dispenser. “David will see a dumb joke as a personal affront.”

Aaron nodded, scratching his chin, his gaze distant.

“He’ll think on it and dwell on it and brood on it until he sees some grand plan to make him look bad. It’s almost never just one person, either. He needs a conspiracy, and that requires several people.” He smiled but did not make eye contact with Katie. “When your ego is as oversized as his, it’s not enough to have a single enemy. There’s got to be superior numbers to his enemy. Only then can he justify losing. He can look in the mirror and tell himself he would have won if it had been a fair fight.”