Johanna Lindsey - Savage Thunder

She didn't understand why they just stood there. Surely they had horses waiting behind the buildings to take her away. All they were doing was giving her time to decide she wouldn't go with them. If she didn't get her throat slit immediately, she might be able to fight free, or at least to scream.

She was just about to kick backward when the other man said, ^'He's comin', Dewane."

Who was? Not Colt. He should still be at the train getting his horse, or even on his way home already.

But she knew it was Colt, and knew they wouldn't be waiting on him unless they meant to kill him. Panic immobilized her, stole her warmth and color. And then he was there, coming around the corner, and brought up short by a gun shoved in his face.

"Don't even breathe," he was told.

Colt didn't, because the rage came up to nearly choke him. How stupid could he get, not to wonder why the duchess had suddenly changed direction to duck between two buildings? He thought she was just trying to lose him, but that was no excuse. One look at her revealed she was so frightened she was even crying. That did it, brought on his killing instinct as nothing else could. Neither of these two bastards was going to walk away if he could help it.

"Ya can relax, Clint. He ain't gonna do nuthin' long's I got this purdy neck in jeppaardy. Ain't that right, Injun Thunder?" Dewane chuckled. "Don"member me, do ya? 'Spect ya*ve outdrawn so many men, ya cain't keep track, huh?"

"Owen, isn't it?"

"Well, now, I'm purely flattered. An' the shoe's on t'other foot now, ain't it? Betcha thought ya'd pulled one over on us, didn' ya, takin' off with the li'l lady? Butcha see, ol' Miles, he tol' us whar the gal was aheadin'. Weren' no need ta go follerin' after a breed when we could jes' sit tight here an' wait."

"So the Englishman's here in town?"

"Ya oughta be askin' how pissed off he is, not whar he is, since the one don' matter, but t'other shore do."

Clint was the one to laugh at that, since he hadn't been with them then, but had heard all about their last encounter with the girl. Dewane didn't share his humor at that point, though. He had been there.

"He like ta kill us all chasin' after Angel, only ta find he done give 'er back," Dewane continued. "An' then he were even more mad when my stupid brother an' Saunders caught gold fever in Colirada an' snuck off fer the goldfields." He grinned now. "Ya can bet yer last few breaths he'll be seein' she pays fer every aggervation he's ever knowed. Ya ready ta pay fer yer part in it?"

"My part?"

"Think we don' know it were yer gun holdin' us off, Thunder?"

"That is your Injun name, ain't it?" Clint was bold enough to ask. "You got something else goes with it, best spit it out now." And then he snickered. "We wanna make sure we got your whole name for the grave marker."

"The first name's White," Colt replied calmly.

"White Thunder," Dewane sneered. "Figures."

"How's that?" Clint wanted to know. "It ain't as fancy as Mad Dog or Crazy Horse."

"Yer fergettin' he's a breed, dummy," Dewane said with some disgust. "It's fer his white half."

"No, it's for the lightning that strikes with the thunder," Colt said quietly as he drew and put a bul-let right in the center of Dewane's forehead.

Clint was staring in shock, forgetting he even had his gun drawn. The duchess started screaming when she went down with Dewane, and that was when Clint looked at Colt — and received the bullet reserved for him. He got off a shot in reflex, but it hit the dirt only moments before he did.

Colt made sure he was dead — there was no doubt about Owen — before he helped Jocelyn to her feet.

She immediately took a swing at him, which he just narrowly sidestepped. Her fury he couldn't avoid, though.

"You could have killed me! He could have killed me!"

He caught her second swing and yanked her tightly into his arms. "It's over, Duchess," he said gently.

"And I don't shoot unless I know exactly what I'm going to hit."

He felt the shudder pass through her before she sagged against him. "I think I've seen one too many bodies drop around me lately. Take me away from here, Colt."

There was nothing he would have liked better, but as he watched the townsfolk running toward them to investigate the gunshots, he knew it'd have to wait. Among the crowd was Deputy Smith, whom fortu-nately he knew, so at least they wouldn't be detained too long answering questions.

"I'll take you out to the Rocky Valley as soon as I get this mess explained, Duchess. I'll come back to see if any of your guard got here ahead of us, but as long as the Englishman might be about too — and who knows what new men he's had a chance to hire, like that Clint — you'll be safer at the ranch."

She didn't give him an argument. All that mattered was that he wasn't deserting her just yet.

The first thing the woman said to him was, "Unless he's changed gender, Colt, that isn't Billy you've brought home." And then he was embraced, and looked over, and finally frowned at. "I never thought it'd take this long. Couldn't you find the peabrain?"

Jocelyn did no more than stand back and listen to the brief explanation Colt offered, then the barrage of questions he answered. She didn't think she'd ever heard him talk so much, certainly not at one time. Of course she didn't doubt for a minute that the black-haired beauty with the magnificent turquoise eyes was his sister Jessie, the one who'd named him, the one who'd taught him English — there was no doubt of that either, listening to the two of them talk.

She eventually got introduced, but, typical of Colt, he just called her puchess. She wondered if he even remembered her name by now, but she didn't bother to correct his sister when she assumed Duchess was her name.

Then she met Jessie's husband, Chase, a simply gor-geous man with eyes so dark they appeared black.

Al-though Jessie didn't look more than twenty-one, she had to be a bit older than that with a seven-year-old son the image of his father, a five-year-old daughter, and another boy who was only four, beautiful children who gave Jocelyn a tight feeling in her chest when she watched them crawl all over their "Uncle Colt."

Having arrived at the Rocky Valley Ranch shortly after dark, Jocelyn excused herself early to allow Colt a private reunion with his family. In the morning, however, she found out that he had gone back to town last night. And when she joined his sister in the din-ing room of the large ranch house, it was to be met with a certain amount of hostility.

"What'd you do to my brother?" were the very first words said to her.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Don't take that haughty tone with me, Duchess, and don't pretend you don't know what I mean. The Colt who came home last night wasn't the same one who left here all those months ago to find Billy."

It dawned on Jocelyn that here, at last, she might learn something about Colt Thunder. She saw Jessie Summers' hostility for what it was, upset and concern over someone she loved, so Jocelyn didn't take of-fense, didn't even acknowledge it.

"Just how was he when he left here?" she ven-tured.

"Happy, content, and it took me a helluva long time to manage that. Here he can be himself, and let me tell you, Duchess, a more generous, thoughtful man you'll never meet. But last night, hell, he was reserved, he was on edge, he was closed up tight, and damned if he didn't light out of here just as soon as you went to bed. Now I want to know what's going on!"

"I'm afraid I haven't the vaguest notion. The only Colt I've known is the abrupt, surly fellow I first met when he saved my life. No, I take that back. He was more. relaxed, shall we say, this past week — up until yesterday, that is."