Page 66 of A Dangerous Heart
By the time Isaac reached Cody’s side, it was too late.
Cody was gone.
There was blood everywhere. But it was Cody’s sightless eyes that knocked Isaac onto his knees as despair rushed over him like a wave.
“Isaac!” Clare’s frantic hiss drove the memories away for the moment.
Victor fired off another round, this one rattling the branches of an elm a few feet to Isaac’s left. The outlaw was getting closer.
Isaac shifted around so he could peer over the log. His movements jostled Clare. She inhaled sharply, and he remembered that her ribs were likely bruised. He tried to send an unspoken apology with his eyes, not wanting to alert Victor to their location.
Victor was a dozen yards away to the west, half hidden behind a sturdy oak. He had one hand clamped around Eli’s neck in a punishing grip. Eli was out in the open, exposed.
“Barlow,” Isaac shouted. “Let the boy go.”
“Eli’s my boy. He’s stayin’ with me,” Victor barked. “Ranch foreman told me there was a U.S. marshal livin’ up here. But you ain’t shootin’ like a marshal. You turn yeller?”
“He’s using Eli for cover,” Isaac whispered.
Clare, already pale, went white, the fear in her eyes raw. “Eli, run! Get away!” she shouted.
“Shut your mouth, Clare!” Victor bellowed and fired another shot, hitting their fallen log with a heavy thump.
“Did she charm you, McGraw? She’s got a way with men. Can weave a tale better than a snake-oil salesman. Ain’t that a hoot? My best inside man…is a woman.”
Isaac’s eyes tracked to Clare’s face. His thoughts went back to the times she’d lied. Victor was lying. Isaac knew it. But part of him—just for the briefest second—wondered if Victor was telling the truth. He swallowed back the bile that burned in the back of his throat.
Clare tensed.
She read it on his face, that moment of doubt. He saw the hurt etched across her face and the moisture in her eyes before she blinked and looked away.
“We have to get Eli away from Victor,” she whispered urgently.
“How?” he ground out. “We can’t risk hitting Eli.”
She stared at him, both hands fisted in her lap. His mind raced through several options, but he couldn’t figure a way out of this without bloodshed.
“We have to do something,” she said.
He didn’t like the stubborn jut of her chin. “Clare?—”
Before he could react, she’d slipped the second revolver from its holster and leaped over the log.
“Don’t!”
But it was too late. Clare fired a shot that went a few inches above Victor’s head. Isaac watched in horror as Victor aimed his gun at her. She rushed toward him and Eli.
Isaac crawled over the log after her, feeling as if he was moving through molasses.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
Before Victor could fire, a wail erupted from Eli, and he knocked his father’s gun hand so that the shot went wild. Victor swatted Eli back, but Eli roared and threw himself against Victor’s gun hand. The gun dropped to the ground.
Victor’s face was red with rage.
Isaac scrambled over the log, running several paces behind Clare. Victor backhanded Eli, who nearly fell to the ground before his father grabbed him around the waist and hauled him onto his horse.
“Isaac!” Eli shouted. He struggled against his father’s hold to no avail.
