Page 71 of From Rivals to I Do

“You okay?” I ask. “You’re acting strange.”

Without skipping a beat, Mitch looks up to the privacy curtain rail and pulls the curtain around us. “I was at the ranch and Darla showed up.”

“Oh! She was probably just checking up on the boys,” I reply. “She’s been worried about them.”

“She followed me home, Eli,” Mitch says, shaking his head. “She’s accusing me of being Joseph.”

“Her ex?” I ask, instantly confused. “Why would she do that?”

“I know!” Mitch replies, stepping closer. “I told you she’s lost her mind. She’s a complete psycho!”

“That doesn’t seem right. . .” I whisper to myself as he moves closer.

“I don’t understand why you won’t just listen to me, Eli,” Mitch says. “If you had, things wouldn’t be the way they are.”

“I beg your pardon?” I say as he’s closing in, and I see the evil in his eyes when I hear the door behind him slam open. Darla rips the curtain to the side so hard she pulls half of it off of the track.

“Get away from him, Joseph!” Darla yells loudly.

“Darla! Shut your mouth!” Mitch screams back at her, his voice cracking with desperation. “You see? Insane!”

“I’m not crazy!” Darla insists. “Step away from Eli, Joseph. You’re not thinking straight. You need to calm down and back away.”

“Shut up, woman!” Mitch roars as he turns to her for a second, taking his cowboy hat off and tossing it angrily to the ground. “You need to mind your business!”

“Mitch is Joseph, my ex-husband,” Darla says quietly, her voice shaking despite her best attempts to stay cool and even. “And somehow, he changed the records to make you seem like you’d died. I know it’s a lot to take in right now, but I swear on my life, it’s true.”

“What?” I ask, dumbfounded.

“See? She’s cracked!” Mitch insists, but then Darla pushes past him and pushes her phone into my face.

“Look,” she says, and I study the photo. It’s a wedding photo that I’ve never seen before, at least not that I can remember, but two things are true. That’s Darla in that wedding dress, and next to her in a tuxedo with a big grin on his face is Mitch.

No.

Underneath it says. . . Joseph. Doctor Joseph Middleton.

“What the—”

“You just couldn’t die, could you?” Joseph growls, and I feel pain streak through my head as I remember Joseph on the day of the stampede. . . the words he’d said to me as he pushed me off my horse.

It’s really too bad you couldn’t take the hint, cowboy. . . now I’ve got to take you out of the equation.”

Oh my gosh. . . this man is Joseph. . . and he really did try to kill me! I think to myself. I hear a click, and when I look up, I realize I’m looking down the cold barrel of a gun that Joseph has thrusted into my face.

“Put the gun down, Joseph,” I say calmly as I go to stand up.

“Don’t move another muscle,” Joseph says, his face crimson with anger, and his finger wobbling over the trigger.

“I don’t think you really want to do this,” I insist, still slowly moving to a standing position as I feel the EKG nodules pop one by one off my chest, and the machine begins to beep wildly.

“I don’t know about that,” Joseph says. “Seems pretty cut and dry to me, Eli. You’re in my way. You wouldn’t stop seeing my wife, now here we are.”

“Joe, put the gun down,” I repeat again quietly, treating him like a wounded, wound up, unpredictable horse that could kick at any second. It’s obvious he’s lost it, and I need to try to diffuse the situation as best I can to make sure that no one gets hurt. But what I am most worried about is that he’s so far gone he’ll go after Darla.

“And what are you going to do if I don’t, captain brain damage?” Joseph asks with a chuckle.

Suddenly, Darla pulls on his arm, and when he turns to look, I take my opportunity to pounce, side stepping to avoid a bullet if the gun went off. I lock up his wrist, and slam my elbow down into his, causing Joe to lose his grip.

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