Page 53 of Jake

“Sure, what do you have in mind?” She lifted one brow, sure from the glint in his eye that he had something else he wanted her to do.

“Let’s do this, I want you to go for both accuracy and speed, but you’re not going to aim for just the one target. I want you to switch targets with every shot.” Aaron paused.

Heather scowled at him, then looked toward the targets then over at Matt, who watched them, but didn’t say anything.

“I can do that. Which pistol do you want me to use?”

“How about you start with yours, we mark those holes, then you do it again with mine?”

“Okay.” She finished loading her magazine, glanced at the guys to make sure they were behind the firing line, then loaded the magazine into the pistol and prepared to start shooting. “Do you care what order I do them in or just a different target each shot?”

“Any order you want, but remember you’re going for both accuracy and speed.”

She started on the left, drew a bead on that target fired, then twisted her body just enough to line up her sights with the center target, then the one on the right. Instead of going back to the one on the left, she went to the center next, then the one on the left. By the time she’d emptied her pistol the targets on either side had been hit twice, but the one in the center had three holes in the paper.

Heather looked from one target to another as they approached, thinking she’d done pretty well. There weren’t as many holes to judge the grouping as when she’d been aiming at a single target, but she’d been within three inches of center on every shot.

“How do you plan to mark them?” Matt asked as they approached.

“With this.” Aaron pulled a black marker from the back pocket of his jeans and drew a line through each hole on the paper, then went to the next target and did the same. When he was finished with the third target, they walked together back to the firing line. Heather still wasn’t sure why they were doing this, but she was enjoying herself, so she decided to just go with it and have fun.

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Jakehandedherhispistol. “Try again with this one.” He’d reloaded it while she’d taken the shots with her own pistol. Her pistol was nice, but he’d rest easier if she had more than just seven rounds. What if she needed more than that?

She shot well enough that with her pistol she could take out three or even four men if that was what she needed to do, but what if they sent eight or ten? Would she have time to take out that many, even if she had enough rounds?

He watched as Lynnie took aim and moved through the targets the same way she had with her pistol.

“How did that feel?” he asked once she’d emptied the weapon, removed the magazine, and set it on the bench.

“Good. Better than I thought it would.”

“In what way?”

She closed her eyes and scrubbed both hands down her face, as if she was trying to clear her mind.

“This is going to sound stupid.”

“Don’t worry about that. Everyone expresses things differently, tell me why it was better than you anticipated.”

“There wasn’t as much build up. You know with each shot there’s vibrations that echo up your arms and through you. After a while it builds up until you’re just done, you can’t take it anymore. I expected the build up from this one to be worse, because there are so many more rounds in it, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

Jake nodded, then tilted his head toward the targets. “Let’s go see how you did.”

As the three of them made their way downrange to the targets, he wondered what it would take to get her to switch pistols. Even if it was just to start carrying his until they got this threat taken care of.

“Wow,” Iceman said, his eyes going wide. “She did even better with your pistol than her own.”

Her cousin wasn’t saying anything he hadn’t noticed himself, and while she’d still been shooting.

They spent another hour or so practicing, burning through the two boxed of ammo he’d brought for each of the pistols, as well as what Iceman had brought for his. Lynnie had shot all three pistols, and had done well with them all.

“Now that you’ve handled and shot the different pistols, if all things were equal, there was no sentimentality about any of them. Which would you choose to keep?” Jake asked as he started the truck to head back to the ranch house.

“Matt’s is too big and too heavy. It doesn’t fit my hand well, so it’s out. I like my little pistol, but I’m thinking it may be because it’s so much like the one Dad gave it to me when I moved out. If I just look at how well they shoot, how they fit in my hand, all that, I’d have to say I liked yours.”

He fought the urge to pump his fist in the air like a teenager. This was only a small victory, he still needed to convince her to take it… and carry it. “If your dad gave you one, why did Matt have to give you this one?”

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