didn’t kill those sheep. Not last week, not a month ago. Not today. Besides—” Ham’s voice rose in volume and acidity. “This is cattle county.”
Joshua didn’t miss the muted rasp, although Ham pitched his voice high enough to try to hide it. Ham was sneaky, but Joshua had learned long ago how to deal with sneaky varmints. And he knew exactly what Ham planned to do next.
As the blackness closed around them, thunder cracked overhead. Joshua let the rolling crash from above hide the snap as he sent the whip snaking through the darkness. It struck with a vengeance before Hamilton could draw.
Victory. Joshua tasted it as Ham cursed in pain and the gun thudded to the earth.
“I need three things from you, Hamilton.” He aimed his .45 at the drunk’s chest. “Restitution for the sheep you killed—”
“That’s what happens when those worthless varmints are too stupid to stay where they belong.”
“I leased the grazing lands fair and square. They’re mine, and they belong there—” Joshua paused as the woman moaned. He waited. “Ma’am, are you all right?”
“She’s about as dumb as one of your lambs. Too stupid to live. I—”
“Shut up, Ham. This is a matter for the law.”
I’m not dead. Claire tried to concentrate, but the voices faded and then returned. The pain in her head boomed like a firing cannon inside her skull. She tried to move, but pain paralyzed her and she realized that something warm was trickling down her face.
Blood. She also realized Ham towered over her, jerking and trembling like he did in a rage, right before he became lethally violent.
Her thoughts were fragments. What had happened? Was the baby safe? Who was shouting at Ham? She couldn’t recognize the man’s voice. Couldn’t he understand the danger? Ham had to be talked to quietly, steadily until he calmed. It was the only way. She had to get up and intervene. Groggy, she tried to sit up.
I can’t move.
Panic crowded into her throat and she shoved at something hard. Something wooden. A piece of the broken wagon pinned her hips to the ground. Her fingers gripped the broken edge of board and she gritted her teeth, heaving. She felt as if a razor blade sliced through her low abdomen.
The baby. She collapsed onto the ground, dizzy as the heated voices rose in volume and threats. What was going on? She could only see an upward slash from the ground to the sky until lightning blinded her.
Ham’s furious bellow. It was going to be even worse for her as soon as Ham got her home. “I ain’t takin’ this from a sheep man!”
“The deputy is your good buddy, I know, but listen up good—”
Claire caught a glimpse of the intruder as the rolling thunder drowned out their argument. He sat on horseback, a big bold cut of a man as dark as the night, as powerful as the thunder, and as lethal as the fierce lightning that pounded overhead.
Ham’s fingers inched to his revolvers, ever present in their holsters, strapped to his thighs within easy reach. How many times had he threatened her with those guns?
Claire closed her eyes, trying to find strength where there was none. Hope when she’d given up. Whatever tiny drop of relative safety she’d been able to forge for herself in her marriage was about to be gone, but she couldn’t let Ham hurt this man, she couldn’t—
Ham’s fingers curved around a beloved revolver. She could smell his glee—he loved to cause harm, or worse. And the mounted man, he didn’t see the danger, Claire realized as she tried to shout a warning, but there was no voice. Something was wrong with her throat.
Hell exploded. Thunder merged with bullets, lightning with gunfire, and the pummeling ice that fell like hunks of granite from the vengeful sky beat so loudly she could not hear or see, only feel the danger as violence and murder rose on the heartless wind.
Ham fell to the ground beside her, cursing in pain and clutching his shoulder. It wasn’t over, she knew with chilling certainty as Joshua Gable kicked the fallen revolvers out of harm’s way and consciousness faded. She heard Ham’s threat to kill Gable come from very far away, and then steeled arms lifted her from the ground and carried her away.
She woke up later in her own bed, alone. She heard the echoing sound of a single gunshot, and knew by the silence that followed that someone was dead.
Chapter One
Eight Days later
It was a bad day for a funeral.
Joshua Gable swiped snowflakes from his eyelashes so he could see into the heavy gale, then jammed his gloved fist back into his coat pocket.
It had taken the grave diggers most of the week to cut through the frozen ground. As if the Fates had done everything in their power to hold back this death. There would be no peaceful passing for Halbert Hamilton, Jr. Instead, a fury of cutting north wind and vicious iced snow made it feel as if hell had frozen over, had burst up from the new grave in the ground to welcome a like soul.
For a man few could stand and most despised, a lot of the local folks on this sparse corner of the county had come. Some attended out of relief, Joshua suspected, that the hard man was gone. A few grieved his passing. But most were here out of curiosity, for no one knew what had befallen the rancher—if one could call him that—and what had rendered him dead.
Well, some knew.
Joshua swallowed hard, glad he stood back from the bulk of the crowd. It took all his self-control to fight down the tight grip guilt had on his stomach. If he’d had his way, he wouldn’t have come. He had no respects to pay the man who’d been his sworn enemy. He had not an ounce of grief or sorrow to express.
He was damn glad the man was gone—not glad that he was dead, but relieved that Ham was no longer a thorn in his side and a drain on the family’s income. He hadn’t killed the man—just left him lying in the road with a flesh wound, although he’d have been in his rights to have killed the man in self-defense that night. But knowing the woman would never forget seeing her husband killed before her eyes stopped him.
I shouldn’t have left like that. But the woman, half-unconscious, had begged him to go. His conscience had told him not to listen, but she’d been so desperate. He wondered if she remembered that time now. And if she’d been the one to pull the trigger later that night in self-defense.
No, I never should have left her.
Across the crowd spread out on either side of the grave came the curious probe of the deputy’s gaze. Coop Logan, his badge obscured by the thick snow covering the front of his fur coat, seemed one of the genuine mourners. He and Ham had been friends as far back as any could remember. And now the lawman studied the crowd as if looking for vengeance.
Yep, it sure would have been good if he’d had his way, Joshua thought, wishing he’d been able to stay at home and far away from the deputy’s measuring stare. Home, where he had fencing to replace and a troublesome cougar to track. The bitter winter weather wouldn’t have kept him from it, not on this one day.
