| |
CLIVE WANTED TO KILL the bastard right in front of him. Just put a hole in the center of the man’s chest and get it over with. Do something about how dead he felt inside.
He could do it.
Clive had shot three men while he’d been the sheriff; one had lived. He knew how to do it to ensure Masterson didn’t live.
It would be so simple.
Red caught the corner of his eye. The girl was moving away from him.
Toward Masterson.
Leaving him all alone again.
Clive reached down and grabbed her, dragging her up to her feet.
Masterson was an amateur in gun standoffs. The younger man almost broke cover to get to his girl.
“Don’t move, Masterson, or I’ll shoot her now.”
“What do you think is going to happen?” Masterson yelled back. “Just let her go. She has never hurt you. Not even once.”
“No?” Hell, he knew that. This girl hadn’t even been the one Jay had wanted.
He just wanted to talk to her. See if she was as full of the life he remembered from all those nights ago.
Life.
He didn’t see much of one for himself any longer.
“No. She hasn’t.”
He had to give the boy credit. Most people when faced with a man holding a gun to them, and to their girl, would fold. Do whatever he was told, putting himself straight in the control of the gunman.
Not Masterson. Guy was calm and collected—except the one time he looked down at the girl.
Damn it, he hadn’t had a woman look at him like that in decades.
Masterson was a damned lucky sonofabitch. That was for sure.
To have a woman with that kind of life in her...
“Get over here, girl.”
He didn’t give her a chance to protest. He lifted her by the shirt. Clive tucked her up tight against his side.
If Masterson got trigger-happy, it wouldn’t be Clive he hit.
He imagined it for a half second. The devastation it would cause.
If the girl died.
Like Jay had.
Two entire families would feel the pain he felt right then. They’d feel it. All of it. The questions, the hurts, the what-ifs. The knowledge that maybe they could have done something differently and it would have all worked out better.
Masterson especially. “Did you let my son die?”
“No. After stabilizing him that day, I put my best burn trauma staff on him until we could get him to Colorado. It’s the best hospital in this region. We did not cause him to die. Burn infections are risky from the very beginning. I did not let him die.”
“But he’s still dead, isn’t he? Why?”
“Because of his choices!” the girl hissed at him. Her nails clawed at the arm he now had around her neck. Clive ignored it. He’d been scratched before. He tightened that arm until she gasped.
“Hold still. I’m not finished with him, yet.”
Clive heard the chopper headed toward them in the distance.
“Just shut up. I need to think. I just want to know why Jay wanted your sister so bad he’d die for her. I just want to understand.”
There had to be some meaning in Jay dying and those damned Tyler twins living. There had to be.