Page 39 of In Want of a Wife
“Move, or I’ll leave you bleedin’ out on the side of the road and take her with me.” The man jabbed the gun into his back.
He would never allow it. Rafe would never allow the man to touch so much as a hair on her precious head.
Rafe quickly climbed out, held up his hands, and approached Lily. “Do as he says, love. Don’t move.”
“What do we do?” she whispered harshly.
Rafe surveyed the area, not a single house around. And he didn’t hear anyone else close by. He had escaped far worse on the open sea, but the difference was Lily hadn’t been there.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “We don’t want any trouble. Stay calm.”
“I will not?—”
“Lily,please.”
He placed his hands on the tree trunk and cursed as the man turned toward the carriage, and Lily bolted forward, racing around him to try to climb onto the carriage seat.
The highwayman grabbed Lily by the wrist and whipped her around, causing her to slip. She screamed, flying through the air and landing with a thud on the ground.
“Ho!” The man waved the gun in the air and fired before diving to thrust the gun against Lily’s gut. “If you move again, I’ll put a bloody bullet in your gut.”
Rafe remained stark still, waiting. He had to time this perfectly, or they would both end up dead.
“Remove the gun from her person. She didn’t mean anything by it.”
“She sure as hell did. No trouble, I said.”
Lily turned her head and glanced at Rafe as she lay pressed to the ground, her eyes filled with terror.
Damn it.
Everything within him went cold before he bounded forward and wrestled the highwayman to the ground. Rafe tossed away the gun into the tall grass, and Lily scrambled backward on her hands and feet.
“Rafe!”
The man’s meaty fist connected with his jaw, and he swore for a moment he only saw black before his vision returned, and he punched the highwayman in the nose.
“Lily, stay there, love.” Rafe wrestled with the man for a few moreminutes before he spotted a second man sprinting down the road toward the carriage with a gun.
This would be how he died.
He remembered having the same thought on that sailboat as the waves grew high and higher, and the sky became black as night.
No, not only him. They both would.
“Lily,” he softly cautioned. That same cold shiver chased up his spine.
The second man rushed forward and kicked Rafe in the stomach with his boot. He doubled over before the second man snickered, yanked him upright by the cravat, and punched him under the jaw.
“You bloody idiot. You could have lived if you hadn’t…”
Rafe struggled to keep the world straight around him.
He swore the ocean was close by the roar rising in his ears. Or perhaps it was…
He blinked, spitting out a mouthful of blood.
“We don’t want any trouble,” he said again. But Rafe’s voice broke, and he swore he was falling, though he was quite certain he was already on the ground. He tried pushing up to his elbows to make sure Lily was safe. He heard her crying.
