Chapter Eleven
The gunshots came inthe dead of night.
Wade sat straight up in bed at the first one. By the time the second one sounded, he was shoving his feet into his boots, and by the third, he had a pistol in hand and was headed for the stairs.
“Wade!” Hazel stood in the doorway to the other bedroom, her white nightgown billowing around her as she wrapped her arms around herself. “Is that—”
“Yes. Stay here.”
“Please be careful.” She watched him with eyes rounder than a frightened deer’s, and Wade nodded, some protective part of him not wishing to scare her more that she already was.
He raced down the stairs and slipped carefully out the front door. Pressing himself against the side of the house, he searched the darkness for any movement. Figures appeared outside the bunkhouse, also pausing to assess the situation. Wade’s blood thumped in his ears as he strained to hear anything out of the ordinary.
There were no more gunshots, but that didn’t mean everything was well.
Satisfied there was no one who didn’t belong in his immediate vicinity, he moved silently down the porch steps, pistol at the ready.
Kristiansen met him as he approached the bunkhouse. “They came from the south. I’ve got a few men to ride down there.”
Wade nodded, trying to remember how many men Kristiansen had posted as night guards around the south pastures. He followed Kristiansen and the others to the stables, saddled a horse faster than he ever had in his life, and rode south.
Stephen Tyree met them first, two other men on his heels.
“We heard gunshots,” Kristiansen said, his eyes on the fields around them rather than on Tyree.
“Came from this direction. Three of them,” Wade added.
“It was a bobcat, most likely.” Tyree’s eyes glowed with a wild sort of pride. “We chased it off. It didn’t get near the cattle.”
Wade’s shoulders slumped in relief. A bobcat. As serious as that was, it made him want to laugh. There were no rustlers, at least not tonight. “Good work. It’ll be back. You’ll have to be alert.”
Tyree nodded gravely. “Yes, sir.”
The mood was lighter on the short ride back. Kristiansen offered to unsaddle Wade’s horse, and Wade took him up on it.
“Go reassure the missus,” Kristiansen said with a wink.
Hazel. She was likely scared out of her mind. He walked quickly back to the house. Taking the porch steps two at a time, he rushed inside to find her waiting on the stairs, an old pistol in her hand.
Wade paused at the bottom of the stairs, trying to make sense of the sight before him. She’d wrapped herself in a quilt, and the look on her face before she realized it was him and not an intruder was one of furious determination.
She lowered the gun and said, “Oh, thank goodness it’s you!”
