Jamie's Revenge (3 page)

It sounded odd to her, not having felt any change in the horse’s grate herself. Then again, she hadn’t really been paying much attention. Backing away as he pulled out his knife, she fully expected him to kneel down around whatever hoof needed help. Instead, the grim weight that had settled itself in her gut proved to be true once again.
 

She’d been here before. “Oh, I see.”

Her calm, cool reply had the tips of his lips lifting slightly. “That’s not normally the response I get, but having known you these past two weeks, I’m not surprised.”

That made her sigh. She’d heard that line before and it always amazed her. If these men paid so much attention to her, then they should know what they were about to get themselves into. Not that she expected him to see reason, but as a matter of habit, Jamie offered up a little advice.

“You do know this isn’t a very wise thing to do, don’t you Danny?”

That got her a laugh, not the easy one she’d come to know, but a much colder, jaded sound. “And why’s that?”

“Because Brodie and Caelen ain’t but minutes behind us.” If she’d told him it would end with him carrying one of her bullets off into his bleak future, the boy wouldn’t have believed her.
 

“Now that’s a normal response,” Danny smirked. “Are you going to beg too?”

Jamie gave him one sharp, shake of her head. “Nope.”

“You gonna be a good girl and save me from having to cut you by getting undressed for me?”

Like that would happen.
He about made her laugh, but she checked the impulse and went with another crisp cut of her chin. “Nope.”
 

Danny didn’t look disappointed, despite his sigh. It took practice, unfortunately, for her to stand her ground so well as the boy walked up on her. Settling the sharp, cold edge of the knife right against her throat, Danny’s hot breath washed over her as he leaned in to ask, “Wanna reconsider? ‘Cause you know I kind of like cutting women.”

She didn’t doubt him, but that threat didn’t dip her smile a bit as she leaned forward. Dumbass expected her to say something, and that’s where he made his first mistake. Instead of whispering lewd nothings in his ear, Jamie tucked her chin down in a quick motion and gave him a mouthful of teeth as they clamped right down on the thumb of the hand holding the knife.

Danny hollered in pain. Jerking back, his arm lifted and the knife slid right over her cheek. The slice burned, but the pain got overwhelming as Danny snarled and tackled her. Going down beneath his weight, she still tried to bite whatever she could, scratch wherever she could, reach and kick whatever got in her path.

Once she hit the ground, though, the game turned as the foul man above her began grunting out threats and obscenities while he clawed at her clothes. Jamie didn’t let up with her struggles, but they became a concerted effort to keep him distracted as she bent up her right knee and stretched her arm downward.

Danny didn’t delay like some, and she could feel the pops of the pewter buttons as the waistband around her pants began to loosen. With her left hand she dug her nails in behind the tender curve of his ear and ripped with all the strength she could. Danny howled in pain, twisting in a blind attempt to save his ear.

The slight shift of his body weight gave her the room to reach down with her other hand and grasp at the Derringer tucked into her boot. Even as the cold butt of the gun pressed into her palm, Danny snared the hand clawing his ear.

His fingers tightened down over her wrist, squeezing hard enough to make Jamie bite her lip. She wouldn’t cry out. She’d never give him that satisfaction. Even if he did break her arm.

Jamie didn’t wait for that to happen. Not bothering to aim the gun at him, she folded her fingers around the heavy chunk of metal and used it as fortification for the punch she clipped his other ear with. It jarred him hard enough to have him rolling further off her.

She took that space to jam her knee into his groin, even as she leveled another heavy-handed punch right into his gut. The two-tiered hit doubled him over and he rolled free of her completely, if only temporarily.

Jamie didn’t waste a second and scrambled toward her feet. She’d barely gotten to her knees when Danny’s hand clamped back onto her left arm with a growl. This time his jaw cracked beneath the blow of her punch. She knew it’d broken, even as his head snapped back in a spray of blood that spat from his lips.

Jerking free of the fingers that had gone slack around her arm, Jamie made it to her feet this time as Danny groaned in the dirt. No sympathy, it took all her strength to just splatter his face with dirt as she fired only a warning shot into the ground beside his head. She’d like to take the damn thing clean off, but killing a man always led to more trouble, and she didn’t have Robert out here to deal with the mess.

 
The bullet did its job and got the bastard at her feet to focus through the pain on her, or more specifically on her gun. Either way, it worked for her. Taking a deep breath, she gave him a cold smile, knowing that the game had not wholly been won yet.

“I told you this was unwise, Danny. Now I ain’t gonna tell you again. The next bullet goes to the groin. Don’t doubt I won’t leave you here to die slowly just like that.”

He didn’t. She could tell that in the way he stiffened up. Rolling to a sitting position, he crawled slowly backward.

“I can see in them squirmy little eyes you thinking dumb thoughts, Danny. You done this before, I can tell. Now you know I’ve done it too, so don’t make no mistake. I’ll shoot you, boy.”

“You better, bitch,” Danny snarled back. “’Cause one day, I’m going to pay—”

He should never have told her to do that. The first rule of running a parlor house was to never make a threat you couldn’t deliver. The rule of the west, never pull a gun unless you were willing to pull the trigger. Both had become instinct to her.

“
You fucking bitch
!” Danny screamed as his hands clamped down on his thigh, the blood already starting to seep through his fingers. She’d taken a chunk clean out of his tender skin not inches from where she’d threatened to do him harm.

“I didn’t have to miss.” Jamie shifted her aim ever so slightly. “And I won’t if you call me a bitch one more time, boy.”

That had Danny going real still. He believed her that time, or maybe he realized just how serious the situation was about to become. Echoing into the sudden silence between them came the rumblings of thunder pounding through the forest fast and hard.

Chapter 3

Brodie and Caelen broke over them like a tornado in the middle of a sunny day. All chaos and motion, horses stomping and snorting as frenzied shouts ripped through the air. Danny got clobbered about the same second Jamie felt her feet levitate right off the ground. Two strong hands lifted her clear off the earth and shook her like a twig in the wind.

“
Why don’t you ever listen
?” Brodie’s heated breath washed over her like the crash of a wave. “You are the dumbest woman I ever met and stubborn in your stupidity. All you had to do was listen, but no. You just bound and determine to be difficult in the face of reason, and now look what happened! Don’t you realize you could have been killed?
Killed, Jamie
. Well, I ain’t going to let that happen. I have had enough.”

Before she could level him with a response or even attempt to make sense out of Brodie being the one yelling at her and Caelen giving Danny the beating, she ended up flattened. Jerked into his bear hug, Brodie about squeezed the last puff of air out of her lugs with his massive arms. It outright hurt, but strangely enough made her feel safe at the same time.

Then he went right back to screaming at her, shaking her. Brodie couldn’t seem to make up his damn mind whether he wanted to tan her ass or squeeze the very life out of her. Ending the second round of roaring with yet another bone crushing hug, he started right back up on his tirade a second later.

It about made her dizzy enough to throw up. By the time Brodie had worn himself down enough to let her stand on her own two feet, Jamie could only do so in a daze. Her ears rang with his shouts, her mind raced to make sense of all the many varied threats he made even as her body tried to right itself in a world no longer whirling around her.

Her momentary disorientation gave Brodie all the sense of command he needed to revert back to acting like he owned her. Straightening up, he decreed that they’d finish their conversation at home, with her father. That one went over the line, jarring her from her stupor.

“Conversation?” she shot back. “I hadn’t notice we were having one.”

“Don’t start with me,” Brodie warned.

“Why not?” Not the least bit intimidated, Jamie’s temper had her rushing right into battle without thought of the consequences. “You already started on me.”

Something darkened his eyes as his voice dipped dangerously low. “That’s one, Jamie.”

“One?” Jamie made a show of looking around. “One what?”

He didn’t get the joke. “You don’t want to hear me tell you it’s two. Now get your ass up on my horse.”

“I’d rather walk home barefoot across snake-infested fields than go anywhere with you.”
 

“That ain’t the way you used to feel.”

That small reminder of the type of fool she used to make of herself only had Jamie dig down deep to find a tone worthy of her response. “That’s before I realized men like you were a dime a dozen.”

That got him, bringing his boots right to the tip of her tattered skirt. “That might be true, Jamie, but I don’t see a dozen men standing here. Just me…and one little girl. Who do you think is gonna win?”

 
“Listen here, you putrid pile of puke,” Jamie stepped on his toes as she met him chin to shoulder. “Don’t think for a minute that because I ain’t got a man at my side, I can’t handle the likes of you just fine. Unless you failed to notice, it was the
boy
screaming in pain.”

“Unless you failed to notice, I ain’t a boy, Jamie Traynor.”

Not notice when barely an inch separated her from that hard body? Even this close, she could feel his heat seeping into her skin, infusing her blood with that sparkling rush that made her just about hum. None of that came through in her smile or her tauntingly cheery tone.

“Not so much a man that you don’t need your brother to get the job done.”

 
“And just for that I’m going to keep you too.”

“Keep me?” Jamie laughed at that outrageous claim. “I am not some lost calf you’ve run-up on in a round-up, Brodie. You can’t just keep me.”

“I can.”

Fear. That’s what his solemn tone evoked. He only used that voice right before he delivered on a threat, but this one...he couldn’t keep her. That wasn’t the plan.

“There is no way my brothers would let you do such a thing.”

“All your brothers but Mike have already headed north on a drive. There ain’t nothing that scrawny boy is capable of doing to stand in my way until they get back,
weeks
from now.”

Weeks?
Talk about bad timing. “Your brothers—”

“Are on the drive. Left this morning. Other than Caelen, Linc’s the only one who stayed behind, and he’s got his hands full taking care of your sister, who’s ready to pop his pup out any day now.”

That left her father as her last defense, and they both knew how he folded. “Don’t you even think about talking to my father.”

“Your father has a right to know what kind of coward his daughter is married to. Your husband has neglected his duties, and you’ve nearly gotten raped as a consequence. It is obvious you are in need of a new husband.”

“I don’t need any man, Brodie MacAuley. Least of all, you!”

“You’ll be on your knees, naked and at my mercy, when I accept your apology for that one.”

Jamie swallowed back the full-body pop those words triggered in her. The instant heat had her going wet in places only her hand had ever managed to make feel alive. Those words did it. Just the idea made her grin.

“Naked and at your mercy, Brodie? You sure you’re man enough to take up that challenge now?”

Not bothering to argue it a second longer, Brodie’s only answer was to turn and swagger off toward his horse. In less than a second, his steed began mowing through the field, aimed right for her daddy’s house.

Son of a bitch!
She’d let her hormones run her mouth wild without thinking. Now he’d get to her daddy first. With Brodie talking about keeping her, only disaster could be waiting for her at home. Her daddy would never hand her over to the MacAuley twins just for sex, but marriage…

Already worn through by Danny and Brodie, Jamie rallied what little sanity she had left and turned to confront Caelen as his shadow moved in to consume her. Customary hands on hips and an unusual scowl on his face, he just shook his head sadly.

 
Opening his arms without a word, he offered her the old childhood shelter she’d always sought when life went awry. Old habits may fade, but some never truly died. The urge to find the comfort she knew existed in his hug overwhelmed any greater need to prove some point. With a whimper, she stepped into his embrace and snuggled herself right into her old spot as his arms tightened around her.