Page 95 of The Outlaw and the Heir

Blood trickled down the side of his face, and it looked bad, but I bit back the fear that threatened to rise and take over. I knew how ugly a head wound could look from the smallest scrape. As far as head wounds were concerned, this one wasn't that much to worry about...I hoped. It looked like instead of getting him in the back of the head like they'd done with me, they'd got him near his temple. He’d get a new scar I could trace with my fingers, and I would have a lump on my head until it went down.

"And our numbers continue to grow," I said with a sigh. "You boys are really building a collection."

"If you don't shut your…" one of them began, reaching for his gun and stepping toward me.

"Now, now, if you shoot me, what's going to stop anyone within earshot…ha, earshot, get it?" I snorted and cleared my throat. "Anyway, you boys have a lot more to worry about than my big mouth. There's not a whole lot of you, and, uh...there's still plenty of men out there. Men loyal to the Isaiahs. Men whoare armed. Men who spent the last hour or so trying to save their home from the fireyoustarted. Now, how do you think they'll take it if they find out you're in here shooting up people?"

The other man rolled his eyes, grabbing his friend by the elbow and dragging him backward. "C'mon. Boss said leave this one be. He wants to talk to 'em later."

Well, that was news to me and it promptly shut me up as I wondered what their boss could possibly want from me. I'd suspected they kept me away from Elizabeth because it had been reported that I'd been with her a week before. Ambrose had also thought they’d been watching the ranch to get information about how things worked. So either my original assumption was wrong, and they didn't care who they put next to one another, or they didn't know that much because Ambrose being close to me was hopefully an advantage.

He gave a heavy groan, his face twitching, and then his legs kicked out. His eyes snapped open, and his head jerked, looking around frantically, taking everything in. When his gaze fell on me, I gave him a wry smile. “Welcome home. As you can see, the house is under new management. Hopefully, it's temporary because, honestly, the whole group is a bunch of brutes."

"Samuel?" he asked in a hoarse voice. "What?"

"Le Garou, congratulations, you were correct about who was causing trouble," I told him with a snort. "Though perhaps now isn't the time forI told you so. There's still plenty of time for that after."

That seemed to get his attention, and he began to really look around. His eyes fell on his sister, who gave him a nod to show she was okay. After a few seconds, he looked at me. “My brother? Father? The kids?"

"All somewhere else, I'm afraid," I told him with an apologetic wince. "I'm banking on them being alive and okay, though."

"Thank God for small favors," he said with a grunt. "Guess the fire was them."

"That was my thought too."

"Ugh. That’s just the kind of thing they would've done in the past. Bastards."

"Well, if they didn't do it before, they've done it now. Maybe they've learned some new tricks."

"Samuel."

"Shush, this is how I deal with things when I'm stressed and worried."

"This is how you deal with everything. When you're happy, when you're upset, when you're bored."

"If it works, then it works. What's the point trying to change it?"

"Lord above, I don't know what to do with you."

"I'll give you some ideas later."

"Lord."

"I'm sure I could get you to?—"

"Sam-u-el."

I snorted. “If it makes you feel any better, they're clearly running out of time. That's two people who’ve come looking in the past twenty minutes, which means others are going to."

"That will just make 'em speed things up, includin' the shooting people part."

"If they just wanted to shoot people, they would have already. We would have come back to a bunch of bodies."

"That's not helpin'."

"It means they plan on using us for something, or they want something from someone here. And if I were to guess, they're going to get it from your father."

"No, they won't."

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