Page 60 of The Widow and the Wanted

“You a soldier?”

Christ. Old man ain’t got nobody else to talk to in this settlement?

“Yeah, I was,” I say, eyeing a can of peaches. Lula’d probably like something sweet.

She’s got a way about her—soft in the right places, strong where it counts. Smells like wild honeysuckle after rain. Makes a man notice things he shouldn’t: the way her skirt brushes her ankles when she walks, how her lips part just a touch when she’s thinking. The way her breasts rise and fall when she’s breathing quick after lifting something heavy, or how her hips shift when she bends to tend the fire—round and full and made for a man’s hands to grip while he’s buried deep. Damn if she don’t make a body ache just looking. But I seen the way Okee got all lathered up over her. Ain’t no good can come of courting trouble.

“Boone Maddox,” the man says. I jerk my head, the sound of my name a surprise.

“Huh?”

The moment the sound leaves my mouth, the world snaps sideways. A gun comes up—derringer—so close I see the dark hollow of the barrel and the small tremor in his hand.

“Thought you looked familiar,” he says. No warmth now. His voice turns dark with something mean. “You’re one of the bastards that killed all them women.”

Half a heartbeat and I’m plumb lost. Mind wipes clean, white and blank.

Women?

“You and that Indian. Pair of aces, huh?”

Damn that Colonel Shit-Heel. I’m sick to death of that fool name. None of this makes any damn sense. My hand drops for my iron on instinct and⁠—

CRACK.

His shot snaps through the air. White pain blooms in my shoulder, and the force drives me backward into a shelf. Tins of fish clatter and roll. Glass shatters. The air fills with sharp metal and spilled brine. “Stay where you are, you murdering son of a bitch!” the shopkeep shouts.

I draw and fire without aiming proper—close enough. Recoil hammers my whole arm and sends lightning down my side, but I see his head snap back like a tin cup jerked by a string. He folds behind the counter and goes still.

Silence suffocates me.

The kind that makes your ears ring and your skin prickle.

The bastard shot me. The goddamn shopkeep.

I swallow copper.

How in hellfire did he know my name?

My sleeve is already dark to the elbow in the thin sunlight cracking through the windows. Blood runs warm at first, then turns slick and cold where it meets the air. It pulses down my forearm in slow, stubborn surges. I clamp my left hand over the wound and press hard—hard enough to turn my stomach. When I lift my fingers to check, they’re near black and shining.

“Damnation,” I breathe.

I tear my glove off with my teeth, yank my coat open one-handed, and fumble for my bandanna. The moment my shoulder shifts, pain flashes so bright it washes the room white. I ride it, jaw locked, and wrap the cloth tight around my upper arm, winding it until my fingers go clumsy and the fabric bites into flesh. I tie it with my teeth, because my right hand won’t do anything but tremble.

The bleeding slows enough.

Behind the counter, the owner lies half under the shelving like a broken marionette—mouth open, eyes open, looking at nothing. One hand stays curled in the shape of the last reach he made toward me.

Outside, winter frosts the glass.

If anyone heard them shots—if anyone is already coming⁠—

My gut turns sick.

I freeze and listen.

Can’t hear shit but a high-pitched ringing.