Page 25 of Cowboy Mountain Man

Both of us turn. Not wind. A short scrape near the front door.

I rise. Hope’s hand closes around my wrist. I cover it briefly with mine. “Take the tablet. Go to the bedroom.”

She opens her mouth. I shake my head. Something bumps the door. Low. Close to the lock.

Hope lets go. I reach beneath the kitchen counter and take out my pistol. Her gaze follows the movement. I don’t want to use it. But I also don’t want to regret having it close by.

“Lock the bedroom door,” I tell her quietly. “Stay away from the window.”

She picks up the tablet. “And the camera?”

“Leave it.”

I need her moving. She goes down the hall without another word.

I wait until the bedroom door closes before lowering the lantern wick. The room dims. Rain drips from the porch roof. Another scrape. The lock holds.

I move to the side of the entryway, where I can see the front door without standing in line with it.

“Private property,” I call. “Identify yourself.”

Silence.

Then footsteps. Quick, moving off the porch.

I stay where I am. One person at the front doesn’t mean one person outside.

I listen.

The storm has covered too much. Anybody approaching from the trees could have reached the cabin without me hearing a thing.

A horse snorts in the barn. Then glass breaks in the kitchen. I turn. A gloved hand reaches through the narrow pane beside the back door and twists the lock.

The door swings open. A man steps inside, hood up, face covered to the nose. He has a pry bar in one hand.

“Drop it.”

He freezes.

“Hands where I can see them.”

His eyes flick past me. Toward the table. The camera bag. Then he lunges. I could fire, take him down. But I can’t get a clean shot, one that doesn’t put Hope in possible danger. Instead, I decide to do things the old-fashioned way. I holster the gun and step into him before he gets there.

The pry bar swings across my shoulder, catching the wall as I drive him back against the doorframe. Pain flashes down my arm.

I pin his wrist and slam it against the wood. The bar falls.

He brings his knee up. I turn enough to take it against my thigh, then wrench his arm behind him.

He’s strong. Desperate, too.

“Who sent you?”

He twists, his free hand clawing at the frame. Behind me, something crashes. The front door. A second man.

I shove the first onto the porch and turn. The second intruder is already at the table. He grabs the camera bag.

“Put it down.”