seeking a target, but just as he connected sidelong with what felt like an arm, something heavy and forceful hit him in the middle of his chest.
He fell backward through the open door. He managed to grab the stair rail, but it didn’t hold. Nails screeched as the wood gave way. He heard a scream. Mindy?
His butt bumped down a couple of stairs before he managed to stop himself.
He still couldn’t see, but over the years he’d honed all his senses. Now they came to his aid as he reacted instinctively, like an animal.
He heard a heavy step on the hollow stairs, felt the swish of air that indicated movement close to him.
He scrabbled to get his feet under him and prepared to launch himself at his attacker. Before he could do more than tense his thighs to spring, a dark figure loomed in his blurry vision and swung something shiny at his head.
MINDY KNEW SCALP WOUNDS BLED a lot. That was Nursing 101, but she’d been an administrator for so long she’d forgotten a lot of the everyday side of nursing, like how bad a little bit of blood could appear.
The cut on Deke’s forehead wasn’t little. An inch-long diagonal slice was laid open above his right eyebrow, and he looked like he’d lost a fistfight with a heavyweight.
The guy standing over him wouldn’t have made middleweight soaking wet. He was medium height and skinny, and dressed as if he’d stepped out of a B Western, down to the curled-brim black hat and the red bandanna tied over his nose and mouth. He still clutched the big six-gun he’d used to coldcock Deke.
As she watched, he cautiously nudged Deke’s ribs with a silver-toed cowboy boot.
Deke stirred and groaned.
The man jerked his foot away.
Mindy held her breath, trying her best to stay still. She’d almost given herself away by jumping up when Deke tumbled down the stairs. She had screamed at him.
He’d rounded on her and warned her in a gruff, fake Texas drawl that if she didn’t shut up he’d stuff a rag in her mouth and blindfold her. She’d nodded meekly and stayed as still as her worry and agitation would let her.
“Get up, Cunningham,” the gunman growled. He stood over Deke, watching him warily, one hand pointing his gun and the other resting on what looked like a stubby billy club. “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you? Getting yourself untied. How come you didn’t untie your girlfriend? Oh, wait. She’s your wife, ain’t she? Or is that your ex-wife?”
Deke pushed himself up to his hands and knees and shook his head, slinging droplets of blood in a semicircle around him.
“Min?” he rasped.
At that instant the cowboy reared back and kicked him in the gut. He dropped with a pained grunt.
Despite her resolve, Mindy gasped aloud.
Deke’s grunt stretched out into a growl. He bowed his back and dropped his head.
She watched in stunned awe as he got his feet under him and sprang up like a big cat. He hurled himself at the gunman.
The gunman barely sidestepped in time to avoid being bowled over. Deke checked his lunge, twisting and falling on his shoulder.
The man turned toward Mindy, pressing the barrel of the gun into her temple. “Don’t make another move,” he yelled. “I’ll kill her. She’s disposable now that I’ve got you.”
“Stop!” Deke shouted, as he rolled and shot to his feet. His hands spread in a gesture of surrender. “What do you want? Just tell me what you want.”
Don’t, Mindy wanted to cry. Don’t give in to his scare tactics. But even if she could have spoken, she was too terrified to put up a brave front. She was terrified—for herself, yes, but more for the baby.
She closed her fist around the piece of rope in her hand, wishing she could figure out a way to surprise the gunman.
Something of what she was thinking must have shown in her face, because Deke shook his head, a subtle movement worthy of a major league pitcher refusing his catcher’s signal.
Meanwhile, the gunman thumbed his ridiculous hat up onto his forehead. His little beady eyes crinkled. The red bandanna tied around his nose and mouth stretched, suggesting a grin.
“Whadda I want?” he growled in his silly Texas accent. “I want answers—”
“Fine,” Deke broke in, spreading his hands wider. “Let Mindy go, and I’ll give you all the answers you could possibly want. Fire away.”
The man shook his head slowly from side to side. “Not yet. If I ask you now, you’ll just lie to me. I figure it’ll take a couple days to wear you down,” he drawled. “By then you’ll have tried everything you can think of to escape or get the drop on me, and you’ll fail every time. You’ll be hungry and thirsty and tired. Even better, your gal there’ll be pretty darn sick from hunger and exhaustion, seeing as how she’s that close to whelpin’ that pup. It yours?”
“That’s none of your damn business. Who the hell are you anyhow?”
“So it ain’t yours.” He chuckled nasally. “She been sleeping around on you, ain’t she?”
Deke went still. Mindy knew he was about two seconds from a firestorm.
“Deke—” she said quietly.
He shushed her with a wave of his hand and lowered his head. His dark eyes glowed dangerously. “Who are you?” he growled.
Mindy watched his fingers curl—not into fists. They curved like claws, ready to sink into the soft flesh of the man’s neck. His knees bent slightly, like a cat about to spring.
The gunman took a half step closer to Mindy’s side and pressed the gun barrel into her flesh. “I’m asking the questions here, Cunningham. You’ll find out who I am soon enough. Meanwhile, you can call me Frank James.” He chuckled. “Now it’s time for you to get a taste of what’s to come.”
“You come near me again, you’ll regret it for a long time.”
The bandanna stretched again, and the black eyes crinkled. “Don’t worry, Cunningham. I’m not planning to come near you. Not right now.”
He cocked his weapon slowly, drawing out the snick-snick of metal against metal. Mindy felt the end of the barrel scrape against her skin.
Deke’s head jerked slightly and his face drained of color. “Wait!” he snapped.
She closed her eyes involuntarily, and her shoulders tensed.
“Wanna play a game? How about Russian roulette? How about you Mrs. Ex-Cunningham?”
“Put the gun down,” Deke warned. He stepped forward, his hands still out, and still curved like claws.
Mindy pulled the end of the rope Deke had left in her hand. Just as he’d promised her, the ropes immediately
