Chapter 5 #3
“I dunno, Jeb,” the rounded, shorter one replied. “Could it be one of those sick brothers?” He cackled as if he’d told a hilarious joke and slapped his knee.
“Seems a might scrawny for a man, don’t you think?” Jeb drawled, his eyes roving up and down her body. “Then again, maybe the trots done took it all out of him.” He chuckled at his own insanity.
Whitney cursed herself for being foolish enough to leave the house without her shotgun or rifle.
She did have a knife in her boot, as usual, but she’d never get the chance to use it against the two of them.
They both held rifles in the crooks of their arms. At least she was dressed like a man.
Mac had insisted on it when she went outside.
It looked like he’d been right to be cautious.
“Thought you two were long gone with your cougar,” she snarled in her fake low voice.
Jeb turned his head to the side and spat from a wad of chew in his jaw, then his shifty dark eyes returned to her face. “We decided we liked this area and we plan to stay around,” he replied with a big grin.
Whitney grimaced in distaste as his open mouth revealed dark spaces where teeth used to be.
The tobacco juice had stained what bits of teeth he had left.
Her danger meter soared higher. These two were up to no good, whether she was a male or a female.
“What do you want?” she growled, trying to sound menacing.
“We tried to be neighborly the other day,” Clem complained, but your brother wouldn’t even get so much as a canteen of coffee for a poor traveler.”
Whitney snorted in disbelief. “Like he said, there’s been sickness in the house. There aren’t any homes for sale in this area, so you might as well head back to wherever you came from before the snows come,” she tried to bluff.
Jeb spat again, this time right on Whitney’s rock. “We decided we liked your place. Once the snows hit, won’t no one be looking for us and we can spend the winter here, then move on next spring.”
“We don’t have enough for ourselves, let alone two big oafs like you,” she snapped, her heart racing.
They looked at each other with knowing grins. “There’s a right nice ranch not too far from here. A steer or a hog going missing once or twice won’t cause anybody any upset. They’ll think it got lost or taken by a cougar or a wolf,” Clem drawled.
They were talking about Mac’s place, she realized.
Her eyes narrowed at them. Who were these men?
“Are you running from the law or something?” she asked, not sure if she wanted to know the answer, but stalling for time.
Her hands were clammy, and she wiped them down her jeans.
Why wasn’t Mac here yet? Her dad had said they needed to talk, so she figured he’d have found her by now.
Jeb stared at her. “He’s smarter than he looks, Clem.”
Clem’s grin was pure evil. “Yeah, but it won’t do him any good six feet under. He and his brothers.”
Whitney could feel the blood draining from her face. They planned to kill all of them and take over their homestead? “You’re crazy,” she whispered.
“Crazy like a fox,” Jeb agreed. “Except we won’t kill you right away, honey.” Another toothless grin spread across his face. “We’ll keep you alive all winter.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off Jeb’s face. They knew! Her skin crawled at the thought of why they wanted to keep her alive.
“That’s enough now, put your hands in the air and turn around.”
Whitney tore her gaze from Jeb’s evil face and saw Mac stepping out from behind one of the giant oaks, his rifle trained on the two men.
Both men slowly turned around, their rifles still on their arms, and Jeb spoke. “There are two of us against one of you. You can’t get us both at the same time. Especially with your woman right behind us.”
Clem cackled. “He’s right. Even if you hit one of us first, the bullet might still hit her. Or if you miss, same difference. Either way, you’re dead.”
Whitney leaned down and pulled her knife out of her boot. She raised it to show Mac and pointed towards Clem.
He gave her an imperceptible nod; then she expertly threw the knife over the rock and into the back of Clem’s upper thigh. He howled and dropped to the ground at the same time Mac put a bullet directly into Jeb’s shoulder. Clem grunted and pulled the knife from his leg.
Whitney leaped across the rock and kicked Clem’s gun away, but he came back up with a roar, the knife in his hand. Whitney quickly rolled away from him, and Mac fired again. Clem fell forward, groaning as he hit the ground.
She rolled over and sat up, her hands on the ground behind her, chest heaving to catch her breath. Shaking all over, she tried to get to her feet, but her strength seemed to leave her, and she couldn’t quite make it up.
Then Mac was there.
The next thing she knew, he was holding her tightly against his big body, murmuring in her ear. His strength seemed to flow into her, and she was able to stand on trembling knees.
“Are you alright, honey? I can’t believe what you did. You were amazing. I thought I’d lost you. You shouldn’t have come out without your gun, though,” he scolded gently.
Whitney was overwrought and couldn’t seem to figure out how she felt.
She was slightly dizzy, horribly shaken, and mad as hell all rolled into one.
She pushed herself out of his arms and glared up at him.
She could hear her father and Luke crashing through the woods and coming up behind them, but all she could think about was almost dying, and then being the laughingstock of Bolton for the rest of her life.
“I might have to marry you, Mac Wainright, but you’re not getting in my bed for the first three months,” she announced through gritted teeth.
“There’ll be no baby right out of the chute, so get that through your thick head.
” She pointed to the spittle on her rock.
“And... and...that criminal spat on my favorite rock. Clean it up or the wedding is really off, no matter what my father says,” she yelled.
Then she turned and ran, tears leaking down her face, to her hidey hole in the barn hayloft where she promptly burst into hoarse sobs.