sakes, Jed,” cried Delilah. “Who stomped on yer tail?”
He spun around just as Rachell began to button the roomy waistcoat. With two strides he was in front of her. He flicked his cheroot into an ashtray and reached out, brushing her shaky hands aside.
“Woman, I don’t have all night.” He quickly fastened the row of small black buttons, all the while wondering what in the hell he was doing. Finishing, he looked up at her stunned expression. “Just so you know, there’s bound to be gunfire. I prefer not to have you shrieking in my ear. Hold still and keep quiet and we might get out of here lead-free.”
“We’re not leaving through the window?”
Her face lit with fear, and Jed grimaced. “To flush out the vermin you’ve got on your tail, I have to leave a good trail of bait. Sneaking out the back like a coward ain’t gonna get that done.”
Turning away from her, he pulled a pouch of coins from his britches pocket. “Delilah, I’m obliged for all your help. You take care of yourself,” he said as he stuffed the money into the top of her corset.
“I always do, Jed. If you ever get back this way, be sure to stop in for a visit. It’s always a pleasure. That is, if you’re still an unclaimed man,” she added, glancing at Rachell.
“Since when has that ever mattered to you?” he asked. He pulled her against him and planted a firm kiss on her mouth.
She laughed and pushed him away. “Sugar, you know it don’t, but it would matter to you.”
As he turned toward Rachell, she cast him a look of pure fire, hot as her flaming hair.
Without warning, he grabbed Rachell and strode toward the door. She shrieked as he hoisted her dainty frame over his shoulder. “I said no screaming,” he reminded her as he pulled the door open then slammed it shut behind him.
“I can walk on my own two legs!” She twisted in his grip and jabbed her pointed elbows into his back.
“I won’t have you running off or stepping in front of a bullet.” Keeping his arm wrapped tightly around her backside, he descended the stairs.
As expected, the four men sitting at the poker table near the staircase spotted Rachell and jumped to their feet. Hopefully their speed with a side iron matched the meager mentalities he’d witnessed earlier. He hadn’t had a chance to assess the skinny blond kid now standing at the table. He’d been tending their horses when Jed had first entered the saloon.
“Mister, jus’ what the hell do you think yer doin’?” shouted the man who’d been tagged by Rachell’s sharp claws.
Sumner. “Takin’ the lady back to her family, where she belongs,” Jed said as he reached the bottom step.
“The hell you are!” Sumner drew his gun. Jed was faster, dropping Sumner and firing two more consecutive shots. The men on either side of him fell to the floor, their guns clattering on the ground beside them.
Surrounded by silence and the scent of gun smoke, Jed stared at the thin kid left standing at the table.
Every bit Jed’s height of six foot three, the kid couldn’t be older than fifteen. Yet he’d been the only one with enough sense not to draw his guns.
Rachell straightened, forcing Jed to ease her a little down his chest. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his skin. Jed remained motionless at the base of the stairs, holding the kid’s steady gaze.
“Shuck those guns, son, and hit the floor. Unless you plan to join those sorry bastards in hell.”
The kid didn’t flinch, looking him straight in the eyes without a trace of fear. Don’t make me shoot you, kid, Jed silently pleaded, certain the lanky lad could be a lethal adversary if he chose to be.
“You really takin’ Miss Nightingale to her family?” the boy asked, his pale-blue eyes flickering at Rachell.
“I am.”
Relief rushed through Jed as the boy tossed his guns onto the table then stretched out on the floor as ordered. Jed’s gaze swept the silent, smoke-filled room. In what he figured to be a routine drill for a town like Weaver, all had dropped for cover at the first sound of gunfire. His gaze settled on the bartender standing behind the bar, his shotgun in hand. “Sam. You plan to use that against me?”
“Hell, no, Jed. I’s makin’ sure no one else took a mind to join the fight. Yer still fast as a snakebite.”
“A snake headed straight to hell,” he mumbled.
Rachell tightened her grip, keeping her face pressed against his neck, clearly not about to give up her hold until she was out of the saloon. “You got a name, boy?” Jed asked, kicking the kid’s boot.
“Juniper Barns, sir,” the kid called out, keeping all four limbs stretched wide and his nose to the floor.
“Tell your boss Miss Nightingale is no longer in his possession. If he has a problem with that, he’s welcome to come and protest the matter in Shadow Canyon. Sam’ll even give him directions. Ain’t that right, Sam?”
“Sure thing, Jed. I’ll be glad to point the way to any man fool enough to go chasing shadows.”
More than a dozen pairs of eyes snapped up in his direction. Jed’s jaw flexed with tension. Folks sure had a knack for remembering tragedy.
His gaze dropped back to the kid. “Juniper, if you plan to live long enough to see hair grow on your chin, I suggest you use better judgment when choosing who you ride with.” He holstered his gun then grabbed a pair of red leather boots from the pile of scarlet silks on the table. “Sorry about the mess, Sam,” he said, backing toward the door.
Stepping out into the cool night air, Jed eased his hold on Rachell and released a hard sigh of relief. Rachell’s tight grip didn’t relax one bit as he carried her toward his horse.
“Loosen your grip, lady. I need air.”
Rachell pulled in a deep breath and eased away from the bend of his neck, the sound of gunfire still ringing in her ears.
“You killed them?” she asked, her voice shaking from the fear still ripping through her body.
“I wasn’t shootin’ daisies.”
He lifted her back over his shoulder like a sack of oats and swung into the saddle atop a large tan horse. Before she could protest his manhandling, he grabbed her waist and brought her down hard on his lap with her bare feet hanging to one side. A sharp cry escaped her throat as her hip hit against the saddle horn.
“Ah, hell. I plain forgot about that bruise,” he said in a shockingly gentle tone. She gasped as an even gentler hand smoothed across her aching hip. “I’ve got a coat.”
He took a dark range coat from behind his saddle and placed it between her hip and the hard leather.
A blush burned beneath Rachell’s skin. Lord above! He’d seen her entire body.
“You all right?” he asked a moment later as he guided his horse down the dusty, moonlit
