Page 85 of Mail-Order Lady

She gripped her rifle with both hands and ducked low as she sprinted. Bea didn’t move as fast as the others, and Clara slowed a little to stay with her.

“Go. Don’t wait.” Bea breathed hard with every step.

But Clara stayed at her side. “We’re almost there.”

The tree line was close. Fifteen steps. Then ten. The other women reached the darkness of the trees and faded into it. Safe.

A figure emerged from the shadows to the right of them, moving fast. Too fast.

Her pulse hammered against her throat. One of the gunmen? Had they been waiting in the shadows after all?

But the moonlight caught on dark hair. Broad shoulders she’d know anywhere.

Robert!

He was alive. And running to meet her.

The relief that flooded through her chest nearly buckled her knees.

He veered away though, sprinting past her and Bea. He didn’t even glance their way, as though he’d not seen them.

Maybe it wasn’t him.

She spun to see what had captured his focus so fully.

He raced toward the house. Toward the chimney.

What was he doing?

He reached the stone foundation and jumped onto something—a lump in the dirt maybe. His boots came down hard, stomping. Once. Twice. Three times.

Then he spun toward them.

“Run!” He screamed the word as he sprinted forward himself.

She started to turn, to reach for Bea.

Then a boom split the night as the wall of the house exploded outward.

CHAPTER 27

The ringing wouldn’t stop.

Robert blinked against the brightness pressing through his eyelids. He cracked them open, but it wasn’t daylight. Night, but…bright?

Other sounds finally broke through. Muffled though. Like someone had stuffed cotton in his ears. Except for that annoying ringing that wouldn’t stop.

A soft touch brushed his cheek. Gentle. Warm.

Even through the haze clouding his mind, he knew that touch.

Clara.

She leaned over him, her lips moving. Saying something. But the words came muffled, like she spoke from the other side of a thick wall.

He blinked hard to clear the haze from his vision. Her face swam into focus—hazel eyes wide and glassy, tears tracking through the dirt smudged across her cheeks. Honey-colored hair had fallen loose from its pins, hanging in tangles around her face.

He concentrated on her mouth, on the shape her lips made as she spoke.