Page 23 of Hard Bounty

Maybe she was just being smart and keeping as hidden as possible.

Or maybe she’d taken off.

That shouldn’t surprise him, he realized. She wasn’t his friend. She sure wasn’t the little girl he’d longed for, the one he’d dreamed about all those lonely nights on the trail.

No, she’d been a fugitive from justice. And now she was his prisoner.

At least, he hoped she still was.

For all he knew, she was getting the hell out of there and would go so far, no one from those parts would ever see her again.

Part of him hoped that was the case.

Go Mary, he thought. Be free.

Suddenly, he felt the wind-rip of a bullet as it soared a mere inch from his ear. Damn. That one had been too close.

And…it had come frombehindhim!

He spun around and realized one of the bounty hunters must had snuck through the trees down the trail a bit and was now closing in from that direction. That meant they had John in a crossfire!

It looked like he was done for, he realized. But maybe he could take at least one—or more—out with him. He needed to do enough damage so that the trio couldn’t get their grubby hands on Mary!

Or, at the very least, maybe he could distract them long enough to give her time to get away.

Ironic, he thought. Now he was hoping she had escaped!

The bullets were flying from both directions. He leveled his Winchester rifle at the man coming up from behind and squeezed off a few shots, working the lever as fast as he could. Unfortunately, the guy was able to duck away behind the cover of a tall tree before he was actually hit.

They sure had John pinned in a bad spot.

He didn’t have much time left. All he could do was make a fight of it. For Mary.

But the snickering of horses and thundering hooves reached his ears in between the gunfire. He sent a few more shots to keep the guy behind him at bay, then quickly moved to another tree and turned to see his two horses racing around the trail’s bend up ahead.

Mary sat atop one, leading the other behind her, riding hell for leather toward John.

He worked the lever on his rifle some more and sent lead toward the boulders, keeping those men pinned down, too. One of his shots went high and plowed into a collection of smaller rocks that were resting atop the big ones.

That hadn’t been his intention, but it worked out perfectly. The rocks tumbled down. The shooting from behind the boulders stopped and cursing and screams told him the mini avalanche had done some damage.

Mary brought the animals to a skidding stop right in front of John. He grabbed the reins of his horse, put a foot in the stirrup, and swung up onto the magnificent beast.

“Head the way you came!” he called to Mary. “There’s another guy back there.” He jerked his head toward the bounty hunter who was still seeking refuge in the trees.

They rode around the bend and when they passed the boulders, sure enough, John saw Butch and one of his friends knocked out cold. At least, he thought they were only knocked out. It was possible those rocks stove their heads in, though.

He hoped not. Killing brought him no satisfaction, though there was nothing else he could have done in this situation. Protecting Mary was all that mattered.

Mary—the one who’d come back for him.

A smile turned his lips upward.

Damn. That little cutie had surprised him.

Something else surprised him now, too. A group of five men were riding hard toward them, dust kicking up behind their horses as the hooves pounded the trail.

Did Butch have friends in the area?

---