“No one would believe it,” she said.
Chapter Six
It took little time to inform the others of the change in plans, and there was an anticipation—an eagerness—that hadn’t been there before. There was a hope that they might all come out of this alive.
Two of the men had gone to intercept Calhoun and the others and let them know what was happening. More than likely, once the chaos started anyone holed up in the house would come out to see what was going on. That’s when they’d be taken down. And all without shooting holes in her house. Hopefully.
Elizabeth’s traitorous heart felt lighter than it had been since before her father’s death. Cole loved her. They could iron out all the other details later.
There were two entrances to the barn, one on each end to get the animals in and out as efficiently as possible, depending on where they were being taken. But order was the last thing they wanted.
They’d divided the men into two groups for each end of the barn. The horses were restless, the anticipation thick in the air as the swirling snow blew around them. She knew what her job was. It was to eliminate as many threats as possible so the men could accomplish their task.
She dismounted from her horse and carried her rifle easily in her right hand. She sank to her knees in the snow, but was long past feeling the cold. Anger was fueling her warmth. This was her life and her property that were being threatened, and it was her husband that Riley O’Hara was targeting.
Her pistols were within easy reach in her holsters, and she watched as Cole dismounted from Goliath. Both of their horses were smart enough to get out of the way. They could feel the unrest in the air.
Cole studied her and she nodded, and then he lifted the latch for the barn doors and swung them wide. They swooped in with shouts and gunfire, shooting their pistols in the air to get the animals moving. The doors from the other side were opened and a bitter wind blew through the main corridor, sending bits of hay flying along with the snow.
The animals panicked, braying and bucking against their stalls. The horses Riley and his gang had left loose took off like a shot, and other horses soon followed as their gates were opened. They’d left the lanterns lit, hanging from hooks inside the barn, and the yellowish hue cast shadows over the confusion.
It would’ve been easy to be distracted by the chaos, but she kept her eyes on the ladder up to the loft. It was wide with wooden slats, and it led into a large square hole in the upper floor—large enough to bring hay up or down when needed. It was there, right at the corner, that the light from the lanterns reflected off the barrel of a gun.
Cole was across from her, hidden beneath the rafters, and he wouldn’t see what she could see from his angle. Her father had enjoyed quoting Benjamin Franklin’s saying about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, and this seemed as good a time as any to take matters into her own hands.
She cocked the shotgun and took a brief moment to sight before pulling the trigger. Wood exploded at the entrance to the loft and a body tumbled straight down to the base of the ladder. She heard a shout and realized the animals had all been evacuated, then there was more gunfire as one of the men shot at the lantern in the far corner. It exploded into pieces of glass and sparks, and the embers fell into the hay on the ground, causing a small smolder before the embers caught flame.
It wasn’t long before the flames grew, and she felt a small pang at the loss of the barn she’d helped to build with her own two hands, right alongside her father.
“Everyone out,” Cole yelled.
Smoke filled the air and she backed out of the barn with the others, catching her husband’s eye as he exited the opposite end. They closed the barn doors and then moved with deliberate purpose back out of the way as the flames licked the walls and started burning in earnest. Black smoke curls snuck through the cracks in the doors and wood.
She heard gunshots from over toward the house, but she ignored them, instead running around the barn to where Cole was. Cole was the target. Wherever he was, Riley would search him out.
It hadn’t taken long for the fire to consume the barn. It was a readymade tinderbox, and the flames lit the sky, even in the midst of the blizzard. As she turned the corner to find Cole, her boots crunching through snow that had drifted knee deep against the barn wall, she felt something heavy land behind her with a soft thump—too soft, too deliberate, like a predator dropping from a tree onto unsuspecting prey.
But before she could turn, before her body could react with the training her father had drilled into her since childhood, an arm was around her neck like an iron band, cutting off her air, cutting off her scream. She was dragged backward with such force that her feet left the ground, her heels scraping uselessly through the snow as she tried to find purchase, tried to dig in, tried to do anything to stop the inexorable pull.
Panic flooded her system, hot and electric despite the freezing cold. This was wrong—every instinct screamed that this was wrong. Her father’s voice echoed in her head: If someone grabs you from behind, go for the eyes, the throat, the groin. Whatever you can reach, you hurt them bad enough to break free. But her arms were pinned at awkward angles, and when she tried to reach back, tried to claw at the face she couldn’t see, her gloves just slid uselessly across fabric.
She fought against her captor with everything she had, throwing her weight forward, then back, twisting like a caught fish on a line. But her heels slid as she tried to dig them in, finding no traction in the deep snow. His arm tightened around her neck in response to her struggles, the pressure increasing until spots danced at the edges of her vision and she could hear her own pulse thundering in her ears.
And then she realized with a sinking horror that she’d dropped the shotgun somewhere in the snow during her run around the barn. It was gone—her weapon, her equalizer, the thing that made her a match for any man. Without it, she was just a woman being held by someone much stronger, much bigger, much more willing to kill.
“Elizabeth!” she heard Cole yell, and the raw terror in his voice was worse than her own fear.
But her gaze was transfixed on the hayloft door. Black smoke billowed out, but she saw the outline of the man standing in the doorway. And then he was gone as he jumped straight down into the snowdrift below.
He was dead before he hit the ground.
Cole didn’t waste any time taking the extra man out. The danger was Riley, and it would do no good to have a showdown with his brother only to have someone else shoot him in the back. There was no honor among these thieves.
“Let her go, Riley,” Cole called out. “This is between you and me. You want to be the best? Then it’s time to show me what you’ve got.”
“Or I could just kill her and you too.”
His voice was so much like Cole’s it sent a chill down her spine.
