CHAPTER EIGHT No Prisoner #2
“He’ll expect us to avoid it.”
“You are both exhausting,” Marisol said.
She kicked the gray mare into motion.
Jude followed.
Gideon mounted the bay bareback and drove it through the stable door.
They entered chaos.
Sundown House burned behind them. Horses ran through the cottonwoods. Smoke and dust hid the number of riders waiting outside.
Gideon saw one man aim at Jude.
He drove the bay between them.
The rifle fired.
The bullet grazed Gideon’s sleeve.
Jude turned in the saddle and shot the rifle from the man’s hands.
Gideon drew alongside him.
“You hit?”
“No.”
“You?”
“No.”
Marisol led them onto the western road.
Three riders pursued.
Jude looked back.
“Company.”
Gideon leaned low over the bay’s neck. “Canyon ahead.”
“What canyon?”
“Trust me.”
Jude smiled despite the smoke streaking his face.
“That phrase has acquired dangerous habits.”
They rode hard.
The road climbed toward a low ridge and divided around an outcropping of red stone. Gideon chose the narrower trail.
Marisol followed for half a mile before pulling her mare alongside him.
“I split east at the next wash,” she said.
“Stay with us.”
“They want you. If I follow, I lead them to the ledger.”
“Where will you go?”
“My sister has a ranch outside San Rosario.”
Jude rode beside her. “Marisol—”
“Do not argue with me.”
“I was going to say I’m sorry.”
She looked back at the smoke rising above Sundown House.
“That place became a grave eight months ago. I was simply sleeping inside it.”
The wash appeared ahead.
Marisol drew the brass key from her pocket and threw it to Jude.
He caught it.
“Bring me Rafael’s ledger,” she said.
“I will.”
“Bring yourself too.”
Jude’s expression tightened.
“I’ll try.”
Marisol slapped his shoulder. “You will do better than try.”
At the wash, she turned east.
The pursuing riders followed Gideon and Jude west.
The canyon narrowed ahead.
Gideon and Jude entered at full speed.
Stone walls rose around them, turning hoofbeats into thunder. Gideon guided the bay toward a split in the trail hidden behind a shelf of rock.
Jude followed.
The first pursuer overshot the turn.
The second saw it too late and collided with the canyon wall. His horse stumbled but remained upright.
The third rider entered the narrow passage behind them.
Jude shifted the revolver to his left hand.
“Take the reins,” he called.
Gideon reached across the space between their horses.
Jude passed him the black gelding’s reins, then twisted backward in the saddle.
The pursuer raised his rifle.
Jude fired once.
The rider’s hat flew from his head. He ducked instinctively, and his horse veered toward the wall.
Jude fired again.
The bullet struck the rifle stock, splitting it near the trigger.
The man abandoned the pursuit.
Gideon released the black gelding’s reins.
They continued until the canyon forked.
Gideon chose the southern branch, then the northern, then doubled back through a dry streambed. When they finally stopped, Sundown House lay several miles behind them.
No hoofbeats followed.
Jude dismounted beneath an overhang of red stone.
His boots hit the ground, and he turned on Gideon before Gideon had slid from the bay.
“You should arrest me again.”
Gideon stared at him.
Jude’s face was blackened with smoke. Blood marked a cut above his right eyebrow. His shirt had torn open during the fight, exposing half his chest and the bandage beneath his ribs.
“What?”
“Put the cuffs back on.”
“No.”
“You can still claim I forced you.”
“No.”
“Tell Cutter I took your weapon at Salt Knife Canyon. Say I threatened you, Marisol, anyone necessary.”
Gideon dismounted.
The ground caught him badly. Pain pulled beneath his stitches, but he straightened.
Jude continued.
“You return alone. Tell them I escaped.”
“You want me to lie.”
“You have spent days asking for evidence. Manufacture some.”
“No.”
“Harrow wants me dead. Cutter wants evidence destroyed. You can survive this if you stop standing beside me.”
“No.”
Jude seized the front of Gideon’s coat.
“Listen to me.”
“I am.”
“You have a career. A name. Authority. Men who trust your badge.”
“Men using that authority tried to murder us.”
“That doesn’t erase everything you built.”
“No.” Gideon’s voice remained quiet. “I am choosing what it becomes.”
Jude’s grip tightened.
“You think this makes you honorable?”
“No.”
“You think Samuel would want you to throw away your life for another man?”
The name struck.
Gideon caught Jude’s wrist.
For a moment, the old instinct returned—restraint, control, steel replacing uncertainty.
Then he opened his hand.
Jude did not move away.
Gideon reached for the badge on his vest.
He removed the pin.
The silver star lay against his palm, scratched from years of use and blackened at one edge by smoke.
He pressed it into Jude’s hand.
Jude looked down.
“What are you doing?”
“You are not my prisoner.”
“I know.”
“You are not my responsibility.”
Jude’s jaw tightened.
“You are not evidence of my corruption, payment for my silence, or an excuse to become the man I should have been fifteen years ago.”
Gideon closed Jude’s fingers around the badge.
“You are my partner, if you choose to be.”
The canyon became silent.
Jude stared at the fist containing Gideon’s badge.
Gideon stepped back.
“As my partner,” he continued, “you may disagree with me.”
“I already do.”
“You may leave.”
“I already chose not to.”
“You may tell me when I’m wrong.”
“That may become a full-time occupation.”
“But you do not get to decide that I must abandon you to protect a life I no longer recognize as mine.”
Jude looked up.
“What if staying gets you killed?”
“Then help me avoid it.”
“That is your plan?”
“It has worked so far.”
Jude laughed once.
The sound broke halfway through.
He looked toward the canyon entrance, then back at the badge in his hand.
When he approached Gideon, he did so slowly.
Gideon did not know whether Jude intended to strike him, embrace him, or argue until both men forgot why they had stopped riding.
Jude pinned the badge back onto Gideon’s vest.
His fingers lingered over it.
“You’re still a marshal,” he said.
“Possibly.”
“My marshal?”
The possessive entered Gideon like a bullet fired slowly.
“Your partner,” he answered.
Jude gripped the badge and dragged him forward.
Their mouths collided.
The kiss contained none of the restraint of Dry Mercy and none of the patient discovery of Sundown House.
It was smoke, dust, teeth, and desperate relief.
Jude drove Gideon backward into the canyon wall. Stone struck Gideon’s shoulders. Jude’s body followed, pressing against him from chest to thigh.
Gideon caught his waist.
Jude kissed him harder.
The healing split in his lip reopened. Gideon tasted blood.
He turned his face away.
“Your mouth.”
“I know.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“So are you.”
“Jude.”
Jude seized Gideon’s jaw and brought their mouths close without touching.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
Jude kissed him again.
Gideon’s hands moved beneath his open shirt. His palms found bare skin, heat, scars, and the hard lines of Jude’s back.
Jude arched into him.
Gideon tightened his hold, then felt Jude’s ribs protest beneath his hand.
He stopped.
Jude breathed against his neck.
“Pain?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want gentleness?”
Jude lifted his face.
His eyes were dark with adrenaline and desire, but clear.
“I want honesty.”
“Tell me what that means.”
“It means don’t treat me like I’ll break.”
“You are injured.”
“So are you.”
“It means ask,” Jude continued. “But believe me when I answer.”
Gideon placed one hand at his hip.
“May I turn you?”
“Yes.”
Gideon reversed their positions.
Jude’s back struck the canyon wall. Gideon’s body covered his, protecting him from the open trail.
Jude smiled against his mouth.
“There he is.”
“Who?”
“The man beneath the badge.”
Gideon kissed his throat.
Jude’s head fell back against the stone.
Gideon’s mouth moved along his neck, over the pulse beating wildly beneath the skin. He opened the remaining buttons of Jude’s shirt and pushed the fabric from his shoulders.
“May I touch your back?”
“Yes.”
His hands traveled over Jude’s scars.
Not delicately.
Honestly.
Jude had asked not to be treated as breakable, and Gideon understood the difference between force and carelessness. He held Jude firmly, allowing him to feel the full strength contained in Gideon’s body without fearing it would be used against him.
Jude pulled Gideon closer by the belt.
Their hips met.
Both men inhaled.
“Still yes?” Gideon asked.
“Yes.”
Jude opened Gideon’s coat. His hands moved over Gideon’s chest, across the badge, beneath the shirt, and around his waist.
The canyon concealed them from the road but not from daylight. Every touch was visible. Every reaction impossible to hide.
Jude pressed his mouth to Gideon’s scarred chest.
Gideon’s hands tightened at his shoulders.
“May I?” Jude asked.
“Yes.”
Jude kissed the scar beneath Gideon’s collarbone.
Then another.
Not reverent.
Not pitying.
Hungry.
Gideon’s head tipped back.
Jude’s teeth grazed his skin.
A sound escaped Gideon before discipline could prevent it.
Jude looked up.
“You make noise.”
“Occasionally.”
“I intend to investigate.”
Gideon caught the back of his neck and kissed him into silence.
Their urgency did not become mindless.
Every movement remained chosen.
Jude guided Gideon’s hand to his hip, then lower, showing what pressure he wanted without shame. Gideon followed. When Gideon’s side pulled beneath his bandage, Jude stopped and changed the angle of their bodies without being asked.
They moved together against the warm stone.
Harder than at Sundown House.
Less carefully arranged.
Clothed enough to run if riders appeared, exposed enough that neither could mistake the encounter for anything but desire.
The scrape of rock, the smell of smoke in their hair, the metallic taste of blood, and the hard rhythm of their breathing became part of it.
At one point Jude laughed because Gideon’s gun belt caught between them.
Gideon cursed and removed it.
“You have now disarmed yourself twice for me,” Jude said.
“Do not make me regret it.”
“Never.”
The word lost its teasing edge.