His mouth tightening, he glanced over his shoulder. Yarby had rolled over on his side and was reaching slowly inside his frock coat.
Abruptly Lance jerked his hand and threw. In a blinding flash of silver the knife went flying to land with a soft snick in Yarby’s right shoulder. With a scream, he dropped the derringer he’d had hidden and clutched at his wounded shoulder.
Unconcerned, Lance drew his six-shooter and held it to Frank’s head.
“You touch her again,” he said softly, his tone lethal in its controlled savagery, “you come within a thousand yards of her, and I’ll gut you, do you understand me? I’ll carve out your innards while you’re still alive and leave them for the buzzards to fight over…just the way the Comanches do. They know how to make death slow and painful. By the time I’m finished, you’ll be begging me to kill you. You got that?”
Frank whimpered and nodded once, twice, while Summer shuddered. She had no doubt Lance meant exactly what he said. His bronze face held absolutely no emotion, but his black eyes smoldered with hate.
“You need some help here, Lance?”
Summer started. She hadn’t even heard Jeb Burkett come up.
Lance nodded. “You could take this scum away and hold them till we ride out of here. And get him a doctor,” he added, gesturing with his head at Yarby, who lay on the ground, moaning.
“The only doc left town four months back,” Burkett replied grimly, reaching down to help Yarby to his feet. “But I’ll see he gets patched up.”
“Just a minute, Jeb,” Lance drawled. “I’m a mite fond of that knife.”
Bending over the wounded man, he grasped the knife handle and drew it out swiftly, ignoring Yarby’s gasp of pain as he wiped the bloody blade on the sleeve of the man’s fancy frock coat.
His own pulse was still pounding in his ears, the need for vengeance still surging through his body. Yet grim satisfaction had begun to calm him. He was no longer seven years old, watching with impotent rage as those stinking bastards raped his mother. This time he had handled it. This time he had protected his woman.
When Burkett had led the two wounded men away, Lance looked uncertainly at Summer, who was scrubbing her lip furiously with the back of her hand, trying to obliterate the suffocating taste of Frank’s sweaty palm.
“I’ve got some soap in my saddlebags, if that’ll help.”
She wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“Or I could hold your head under the pump for a while. Drowning’s a good way of getting clean.”
She began to laugh, the sound caught somewhere between a giggle and delirium. Lance was trying to make her feel better, she realized. Her voice catching on a sob, Summer closed her eyes and leaned weakly against the wall.
For the span of several heartbeats, while she tried to compose herself, Lance didn’t move. Remembering the last time he’d tried to comfort her, he kept his fists clenched tightly at his sides, not daring to touch her. It had cut him like a knife last night when she’d pushed him away; he wasn’t going to bare himself to that kind of hurt again, or give her another chance to spurn him. And yet, as if possessing a will of its own, his hand came up to tenderly brush her cheek.
Summer flinched, an involuntary reaction to her recent assault, yet her action shattered the fragile moment; Lance went completely still.
Awkwardly aware of the fresh constraint between them, Summer tearfully fumbled in her skirt pocket for a handkerchief. Lance stepped back, as if withdrawing from her physically, distancing himself emotionally, putting his own defenses back in place.
And yet as he raised an eyebrow at her, his tone remained gentle—and even held an edge of humor. “It must be hard, going through life being the object of so much admiration. We haven’t even saddled up yet, and already you have fellows fighting over you.”
She sent him a startled glance as she wiped her damp eyes. It was the closest she’d ever seen Lance come to teasing. Usually his sarcasm held a bite that stung even the toughest hide.
Drawing a breath, Summer gave a shaky, watery laugh. “I suppose we should go.”
“You sure you’re okay?” His mouth was unsmiling, but his dark features had softened; the smoldering fire in his eyes had eased.
“Yes, I’ll be fine.”
r /> It might be a lie, Summer thought, but it was a lie they both needed to hear.
Covertly Lance watched Summer as they rode north through the hills toward the Truesdale farm. Outwardly she had recovered from the assault; she looked as lovely and poised as usual. But although she mostly avoided his gaze, he saw the wariness, the fear, in those emerald eyes of hers whenever she happened to glance his way.
For the dozenth time, Lance cursed himself. He still felt a violent rage at seeing that scum put their filthy hands on her, but much of that rage was directed at himself. He should have known better than to leave Summer even for an instant. He’d known those two bastards were hovering around like buzzards. A man with any brains or experience didn’t let down his guard for a second. A man who deserved to be called a man protected his woman.
That was a big part of the trouble. He had made Summer his woman, his wife. As such, she was the target of the hatred and bigotry that had always been directed at him, that he’d always been helpless to prevent. Goddamn, but he’d wanted to spare her that. He’d never expected it to be so bad. He’d thought her breeding, her background, would shield her from the worst.
He wished like hell he could stop it. Maybe he’d made a mistake, forcing her to marry him. Would he do it differently if he had the chance? Would he give up his dream?