Chapter 6 #2
“We always were more alike than you wanted to admit,” he sneered, and Elizabeth could see the clouds from his breath misting in the cold air as he spoke directly into her ear, his voice so eerily similar to Cole’s it made her skin crawl.
“You’ve got a dark side, Cole. I saw that firsthand during the war.
The things you did when you thought no one was watching.
The men you killed who’d already surrendered.
I wonder, did you ever feel me tracking you like the Sioux taught you to track?
Did you ever sense me watching while you buried your sins in unmarked graves? ”
“I knew you were following me,” Cole said. “You could’ve tried to kill me then.”
“Wrong time, wrong place. The Sioux were rather protective of you. Besides, I had things to do before I could come back for you, brother.”
“What things?” Cole asked.
“I’m a very wealthy man.”
“There’s a lot of blood on that money.”
“There’s a price for everything,” Riley said. “But like you said, this is between you and me. Call your men off. Because once I kill you I’m going to borrow your wife as insurance until I get to where I’m going. I don’t want her dying too soon because one of them got trigger happy.”
“It’s not my men you’ll have to worry about if you kill me,” Cole said.
Elizabeth could see the half smile on his lips and found herself wondering why he’d pick now to taunt his brother. But then she saw the subtle movement of his hand, and a frisson of fear skittered down her spine.
He couldn’t be serious. She shook her head to tell him no, but Riley squeezed his arm tighter around her neck.
Cole made the movement with his hand again, and she realized he was dead serious.
The smile left his face and he stood squared off against his brother.
And then she realized what he was trying to tell her.
She felt the movement to Riley’s right side, where he pushed his coat back so he could get to his pistol.
Riley had no intention of letting her go.
He planned to draw on Cole while he was holding her captive, in hopes that Cole wouldn’t draw on him in fear of hitting her.
Riley had no honor, and if she didn’t do as Cole asked and give him a fighting chance, then they’d both end up dead.
All she could do was trust Cole. With her life.
“I’m warning you, Riley,” Cole said. “Let her go. You’ll never know if you can beat me unless we face off. Nothing between us but our guns.”
“Yeah,” Riley said, and she could feel his body tense as he shifted his weight slightly. The lying, cheating scoundrel. She’d be darned if she let him get away with this. She didn’t care if she had to throw her body in front of his gun.
She kept her eyes on Cole’s hands, waiting for the signal.
Just the slightest twitch of his fingers and she went limp.
Two guns fired and she was jerked backward.
She waited for the searing pain of a bullet wound to bring life to her numb body, but she felt nothing but the cold as she hit the ground.
“Cole,” she tried to scream, but her voice was hoarse, nothing more than a rasp that barely carried past her own lips.
She’d heard two shots—two distinct cracks that echoed off the barn and the house and seemed to reverberate in her chest. And she’d felt Riley draw, had felt the shift of his body as he pulled his gun and fired. He’d shot at Cole. Which meant—
No. No, no, no.
Elizabeth rolled to her hands and knees and tried to scramble to her feet, but her legs had turned to jelly, boneless and useless.
The snow was deep here where it had drifted against the barn, and she floundered in it like a drowning woman, her hands sinking to her elbows, her knees finding no solid ground.
She couldn’t see Cole through the swirling snow and the smoke from the burning barn.
She couldn’t catch her breath, her lungs burning with cold and fear and the iron tang of her own blood where she’d bitten her tongue when she fell.
And she couldn’t imagine a life without her husband in it.
Couldn’t conceive of waking up tomorrow in their bed alone, of running the ranch without him, of growing old without his hand in hers.
The thought was so huge, so terrible, that her mind simply rejected it. He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be.
Tears clouded her vision, hot against her frozen cheeks, and she was completely blind as she felt her way through the snow like a wounded animal searching for its den.
Her gloves were soaked through and her hands were going numb, but she kept crawling, kept searching.
She touched a leg—solid, real—and worked her way up the prone body that was already cooling in the frigid air, and her hands shook so badly she could barely wipe her eyes clear enough to see.
She leaned closer, and a sob tore from her throat—raw and animal and broken—as she saw her husband’s face. The same strong jaw. The same straight nose. The same dark hair matted with snow and blood.
But then she realized the man she was staring at—the man whose skin was as ashen as the sooty snow that swirled around them—wasn’t her husband after all.
She’d never seen Riley O’Hara in person, other than the likeness Cole had shown her in those wanted posters.
Their similarities were remarkable, almost supernatural in their completeness.
But there were slight differences when you looked closely enough.
A small scar above the left eyebrow that Cole didn’t have.
A hardness around the mouth that came from years of cruelty.
And the eyes—even in death, even staring sightless at the sky—were different. Colder. Emptier.
This man was not her husband. But her husband could still be as dead as Riley.
A strength she didn’t know she possessed rose up inside of her, and she came to her feet with a roar. And then she ran face-first into a hard chest.
“My goodness, Elizabeth,” Cole said, wrapping his arms around her. “You scared me to death.”
“I can’t believe you shot at me,” she said. And then she broke down sobbing in his arms.
“I shot around you, darling. That’s entirely different.”
“That’s all of them, boss,” one of the men called out. “The Silver Creek Bandits are dead.”
“Everyone head to the house and get warm. Nothing we can do about the barn. We can get the animals settled in a bit.”
“Lester’s already taking care of it,” Calhoun said. “Better get your woman inside before she gets frostbite from all those tears. I got to hand it to you, son. That takes courage to shoot at a man who’s holding your wife. One wrong move…”
Elizabeth pulled back from Cole’s arms, but he scooped her up and started walking toward the house. The barn was still in full flame, but it was far enough away from their other buildings as to not be a danger. Cole was right. There was nothing they could do about the barn but watch it burn.
She looked up at her husband and her breath caught in her chest. He was so big and strong. And so hers. And most importantly, he loved her.
They had tough days ahead. They had friends to bury and rebuilding to do. But as long as they had each other, they could get through anything.
“Cole,” she said, touching a hand to his face. He stopped and looked down at her. His eyes were tired and his face drawn. Killing his brother had more of an impact than he was letting on, and there would be grief and healing to tend to in the coming days and weeks.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.
“Because I love you. Because you make me proud. Because this is a moment that will be passed down in story to our children and grandchildren, and I want to remember exactly how I felt as you held me in your arms.”
“There is no greater love,” he said, his voice husky with emotion.