Carol Finch - Lady Renegade

She dropped to her knees beside him when he lifted his hand to her.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I didn’t mean to drag you into this. But I do love you. Now run! Get out of here before it’s too late.”

His apology baffled her. Why did she need to escape? Was she considered guilty by association? Escape from whom? Who was after him? A bounty hunter who had discovered Anthony Rogers’s true identity and tracked him down? What had Tony done that earned him a bushwhacking?

“Go…now…” He panted for breath as he clutched his chest.

“No, I want to help you,” she insisted, using his kerchief to stem the flow of blood oozing from his wound.

Almost frantic now, Tony shoved at her hands, but she could tell he was losing strength with each passing second.

“Go, damn it. Get out of here! If you care anything about me at all, you’ll do as I say and flee for your own safety!”

Stumbling to her feet, Lori looked around, wondering if Maggie Burgess, the widowed owner of the station and ranch or one of the hired hands had heard the shots. Where was the help Tony desperately needed?

A moment later, she saw Maggie appear from the corner of the station where stagecoach travelers took their meals.

“Over here!” Lori yelled. “We need help!”

Maggie clutched the front of her skirts and raced across the lawn toward the copse of trees.

“Damn it, get out of here!” Tony mumbled weakly. “Please, sweetheart. It’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you. Go…”

When his lashes fluttered shut and he sagged lifelessly on the ground Lori backed up four paces. Frantic, confused and uncertain where the sniper lurked, she wheeled toward her horse, Tony’s pistol still clutched in her fist.

“Oh, my God!” Maggie Burgess wailed as she raced toward Tony’s unmoving form. She glared at the gun in Lori’s hand and then at Tony. “You killed him! Why? Because you chased after him and he wanted nothing to do with you? You little tramp!”

“I didn’t kill him,” Lori protested as she scanned the darkness, in case the killer was waiting to dispose of all of them. “We need to take cover before more shots are fired.”

“You’re a liar!” the brunette railed as she dropped down beside Tony. “Now what am I to do? I’ve lost my husband and now you’ve murdered my foreman. Who will help me run my business? How will I survive?”

When Maggie grabbed the spare pistol, Lori was certain the grief-crazed widow intended to shoot her for the crime she falsely presumed Lori had committed. As Maggie clutched the pistol in both hands and raised it to fire, Lori darted behind the nearest tree. The shot zinged past her, compelling her to run for her life.

“Whore!” Maggie screeched, then fired off another shot. “Murderess! Sonny! Teddy! Come quickly. The killer is trying to get away! Hurry!”

Lori sprinted toward her horse, grateful she was wearing her usual attire of breeches and shirt so she could move swiftly and agilely.

On her best days, Lori couldn’t compete with Maggie Burgess’s stylish clothing. But then, Maggie didn’t have to vault onto a horse and race into the night to avoid capture.

“What happened, Mizz Burgess?”

Lori glanced back to see the silhouettes of Sonny Hathaway and Teddy Collins, two of the hired hands, racing uphill toward Maggie.

“Lorelei Russell just killed Tony!” Maggie wailed. “Stop her before she circles back to the trading post to seek her father’s protection!”

Maggie’s command sealed Lori’s escape route, forcing her to ride toward the wild tumble of timbered hills so she wouldn’t drag her father into this horrible misunderstanding. She hoped when Maggie had time to calm down and review the situation she’d realize that Lori hadn’t fired the fatal shot.

Lori nudged Drifter in the flanks and he took off like a shot, zigzagging through the trees to put more distance between her and the two hired hands sent to pursue her. She swore she could still hear Maggie screeching like a banshee, but Lori didn’t look back. She held on to the saddle horn and curled over Drifter’s neck to make certain a low-hanging tree limb didn’t knock her off the galloping horse.

She allowed herself to spill the tears that had clouded her eyes when she’d realized Tony was beyond help. Now she could cry for her lost friend and curse herself for rejecting his marriage proposal. It broke her heart, knowing Tony had offered his love and she’d turned him down—the moment before the fatal gunshot ended his life at the young age of thirty.

In addition, Maggie Burgess was so beside herself with grief and fury that she’d shot at Lori. She felt sorry for the young widow who was only six or seven years older than Lori.

Maggie had married Hubert Burgess who was sixteen years her senior. Two months ago, Hub’s horse had bucked him off while he was chasing cattle rustlers and he’d died instantly. Maggie had yet to recover from her anguish, and now someone had shot and killed her ranch foreman, leaving her grief-stricken, desperate and feeling abandoned and overwhelmed.

Lori’s thoughts scattered in the wind when she heard the thunder of hoofbeats behind her. The report of a rifle shattered the silence. Lori plastered herself against Drifter’s neck and urged the gelding into his fastest pace as he scrambled uphill. The flare from a discharging rifle caught her attention and she frowned, bemused. The shot came from the west, not the south where Sonny and Teddy rode in hot pursuit.

Was the bushwhacker who had killed Tony after her, too? A cold chill slithered down her spine when she remembered Tony had stepped in front of her like a shield to take the fatal shot. By all rights, she should be dead right now. She would have been the innocent victim struck by the killer’s careless shot in the darkness. Whatever Tony had done in his past to draw gunfire, he’d committed a selfless act. He didn’t deserve to die! she thought remorsefully.

Lori muffled a sniff and tried to block out the awful scene that kept replaying itself in her mind. She couldn’t allow herself to be distracted while racing to safety with two hired hands chasing her, as well as the sniper, who evidently had circled to the west to shoot at her.

Guided by the light of the moon, Lori headed toward the wild, broken Osage Hills where deep gulches and rock-and-timber hilltops offered protection. She cringed, knowing the grief-stricken widow and the hired hands believed the worst about her. They planned to take the law into their own hands to see her pay for a crime she didn’t commit.

Glancing uneasily around her, she held on as Drifter scrabbled uphill, weaving his way around oversize boulders and trees. She knew bears and panthers roamed the area, not to mention vagabond outlaws. Not counting the two-man posse and the mysterious sniper who had killed Tony.

She squeezed her eyes shut and choked on a sob. She hoped that wherever Anthony Rogers was—and no matter what he’d done in his secretive past—he could hear her silent apology and he’d forgive her for turning him down. The thought of never seeing Tony again tormented her to no end, especially when she’d sent him off to the Hereafter with her rejection echoing around him.

Five days later

Deputy U.S. Marshal Gideon Fox scrunched down in the bushes, watching the outlaw known as Pecos Clem Murphy build his morning campfire in the valley between two steep embankments in the Osage Hills. Despite the thick fog that cloaked the valley, Gideon hadn’t had trouble tracking Pecos Clem—thanks to the man’s cohorts. They had been all too happy to offer Gideon directions—after he’d applied some unfriendly persuasion.

Clem whistled while he worked. The former Texas cowboy and his brigands had turned to cattle rustling and horse thieving and had been hiding out in Indian Territory for several months. But very soon, Clem would rejoin his two friends, who were sitting in the jail wagon at marshal headquarters.