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drive.”
Elijah’s gut hardened. A spread this size would need a team of at least one hundred men to be efficient. A sharp whistle pierced the air as they were detected. His horse jerked when one of the men raised his pistol in the air and fired a single shot.
“Easy,” Sheridan murmured, rubbing his stallion’s neck with soothing motions.
Elijah scanned the prairie, looking for who they signaled. He saw no one. He kept their pace slow and steady as they met the men coming towards them. Those that approached them were killers, with flat cold eyes, easy rolling strides. Three mounted their horses, but the one she had identified as Bartley continued on foot.
She exhaled a nervous breath. “Mr. Sullivan plans to return with the preacher.”
Elijah summed up the situation with cold calculating thoughts. A fifth man strode from the main house and Elijah recognized Sullivan.
“Beth!”
Sheridan urged the horse forward and Elijah grabbed the reins, slowing his horse.
“Easy. Let them come to us,” he murmured, watching the tall man stride toward them. Sullivan’s walk was arrogant, and assured. Not the assurance of a man who hired those with power, but one that wielded power himself. The three approaching men flanked Elijah, and he assessed them carefully.
Sheridan tried to hide her fear, but her knuckles were clenched in a tight grip.
“Sheridan.”
Her eyes were a wide pool of fear when she glanced up at him.
“Why do you fear, Sullivan?”
At her silence he grew cold. “Did he attack you?”
She inhaled shakily. “No, not in the way you mean. He kissed me rather forcefully, but nothing beyond that. But he means to have me…at any cost it seems. I don’t want him, Elijah. Don’t let him take me, please.”
It infuriated him that she would believe that he would allow anyone to take her against her will. His thoughts stilled as he remembered what he had said to her. “When I said I did not care who you went with, Sheridan, I meant willingly. I would never stand by and watch harm come to you. I would kill them before I allow them to take you forcefully,” he said calmly.
She searched his face and whatever she saw reassured her. Some of the tension seeped from her shoulders. He did not say anything when she pressed her back firmer into his chest. Easing her forward slightly, he reached in his carpet bag, and handed her a colt dragoon.
He could see that one of men fancied himself a gunfighter. A Mexican, tall and slim, he had two guns strapped onto him. He strutted over with a cocky jaunt and sneer on his lips. Elijah dismissed him as the least dangerous. He scanned them, probing and seeking. Then he found him, the one he had to watch the most. Slim, more a boy than a man, with pale sandy hair and silver grey eyes. The boy had a look in his eyes that Elijah did not like. They were the eyes of an accomplished killer, empty, distant and they were glued to Sheridan. The other man beside Jericho Sullivan, large and swarthy, also stared at Sheridan, and only a blind man would miss the lust that poured off him. He licked his lips as he observed the pants which clung to her curves.
“Slowly dismount,” Elijah murmured.
Without hesitation she obeyed, and he aided her without removing his attention from the vermin polluting their ranch. Steadying herself, she gripped the gun in a confident hold, and Elijah got the feeling she would do anything not to be taken. And he would be there with her, come hell or high water. He would be damned several ways in hell if she got hurt today.
He pulled the rifle from the gun scabbard, resting it against his pommel as they came closer. With deceptive ease he cradled his Spencer .56 on his saddle, and pointed it in line with Sullivan’s belt buckle, Elijah kept his right finger over the trigger guard.
They halted in their tracks at his slow deliberate movements. Elijah had to hand it to Jericho. He neither twitched nor appeared ruffled. Not every man would face down the power of a Spencer with such ease, especially knowing the damage it could do. Jericho had a strong boned face with a square jaw and a pair of the cruelest eyes Elijah had ever seen, and he had seen plenty. Jericho stared at Elijah, his blue eyes unblinking.
“I see you have found my fiancée. Who might you be so that I can reward you?” Jericho drawled coolly, ignoring the rifle and stepping a mite closer.
“Reward?”
“Are you not responding to the poster in town?”
Sheridan inhaled sharply. “You had posters of me drawn?”
Elijah’s lips twisted in a slight smile, noting how the three men fanned out. They were all strapped with six shooters and bowie knives. Two eased their horses wide, walking toward him, hoping to get behind him. He had seen many men boxed in before, and killed before they could comprehend what was happening. He shifted the rifle sight to the boy with the dead eyes, ignoring the one that fancied himself as an outlaw.
“My horse is mighty skittish. He doesn’t like other horses positioned behind him. He could shy, and my hand could press the trigger.” As if to emphasize his point he stroked the trigger guard almost sensually.
Jericho raised his hand slightly and they halted. A flash of something came and went in his expression before Elijah could decipher it.
“We do not want any trouble, stranger. I will happily compensate you for the return of my fiancée. A reward of five hundred dollars had been posted for her safe return.”
