Page 86 of The Widow and the Wanted

After we’re clothed and we’ve tidied our sleeping area, Okee puts coffee on.

Boone and I sit at the table. His gaze has gone distant and he stares off beyond the table, beyond the cabin. The man has just bared his heart and been met with near hysteria. He is entitled to a little injured pride. But then his brow furrows, not wounded but intent, and he turns his head slightly, as if listening.

“What?” I ask.

“You hear that?” he says.

Then—

—CRACK!

Glass shatters and something sharp whizzes by my ear.

What on earth was that?

I can barely complete my thought before Okee is on top of me, pressing me down with the full weight of his body. His chest flush against my back, one arm curled over my head. I feel the thud of his heart.

My ears ring.

Overhead, wood splinters. Smoke curls from the stove.

“Are you hit?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “I’m fine.”

He inspects me—my face, my neck—then exhales, tight and quiet through his nose. The room stills.

“Boone,” Okee calls.

“I’m all right,” Boone replies, already moving—rolling across the floor, grabbing the rifles from beneath the bed, checking the bolt. He’s up, pressed to the wall, eyes scanning the snow beyond the shattered glass.

Okee shifts off me, slow and careful, crawling toward the wall for cover.

Boone’s at the doorframe, rifle raised, steady hands.

A man shouts—harsh and clear, “Come on out, boys! You owe for what you done to Hollister’s crew!”

Another joins in, closer, “You got one chance to show your faces and settle this straight! Otherwise we’ll smoke you out like hogs in a pit! Ain’t nothin’ worse than dyin’ by burnin’.”

Okee turns to me, sharp and urgent. He guides me toward the side wall, tucks me low into the corner behind the stove.

“Don’t you move,” he says, brushing my hair back once. “Not unless this place starts to burn, you hear me?”

I nod, heart thudding.

“Two men,” Boone mutters, peering out the window. “Too close for a shot like that. That came up high and straight. From a distance.”

“Wasn’t that Jessup fellow a sharpshooter?” Okee asks.

“He was. You think they’re tryin’ to draw us out so he can pick us off?”

“That’s my bet,” Okee says. “The window in the loft. I’ll see if I can get a sightline.”

Okee’s already halfway up the ladder. He disappears into the loft above.

Boone’s eyes flick to me. No grin now. Only that hard, measuring focus. “Stay low.”

Okee’s rifle cracks from the loft almost at once. A grunt answers from outside, followed by a body hitting snow.