Although he didn’t release his hold on Callie, he seemed to be pondering his options, and Faith was thinking as well. Her gun was hidden in the folds of her nightdress. If he’d seen it, he would have ordered her to toss it. With him holding Callie as he was, she couldn’t ensure she wouldn’t hit her daughter. And even if she could hit him with unerring accuracy, did she want Callie to see a man shot before her eyes, to have his blood spraying over her? Did she want Callie to grow up with those images locked in her memory? If there was no other choice—
Cole finally nodded. “On your knees.”
“Release her first,” Rawley insisted.
“After you’re on your knees. And put your hands up.”
With little more than a glance back at her that reflected all the love he held for her—as though he knew it might be the final time he looked at her—Rawley did as ordered. Faith wanted to stop him but needed Callie out of danger. Everything within her wanted to scream, rant, and rave, but she held her silence as she continually evaluated the situation.
When Rawley’s knees hit the dirt, Cole released Callie and gave her a little shove. “Go to your mama.”
Callie raced to her, hugged her legs. Rufus saw that as his signal to no longer play dead and loped over to the steps. Without taking her eyes off Cole, Faith placed her hand on Callie’s head. “Go into the house. Uncle Rawley’s shirt is in my bedroom. There’s a sarsaparilla stick in the pocket. It’s yours. The whole thing.” That would keep her occupied for a while. “I want you to stay in my bedroom with the door closed until Uncle Rawley or I come for you—no matter what you hear, you don’t come out. Take Rufus with you.”
“Come on, Rufus!” her little girl yelled before dashing into the house.
Faith heard a distant door slam shut and breathed a sigh of relief. For a little while her daughter was safe. “All right, Cole, now that you’ve got our attention, what is it you want?”
“Ten thousand dollars.”
“I don’t have ten thousand dollars.”
“Your father does. You see what he did to my face? Beat it to a pulp. I can’t even get a woman to look at me, much less fuck me.”
Knowing her father, she had suspected he’d delivered a blow or two when he told her he’d taken care of Cole.
“Your lack of success with the ladies might have more to do with the way you treat them,” she said, not bothering to tamp down her disgust for him.
“You were playing hard to get and always talking about him.” He waved his gun at Rawley. “His stupid postcards, his letters, all the places he went, the things he saw.”
“I didn’t deserve what you did.”
“I never had a woman complain.”
Her stomach roiled. “I wasn’t the first you forced?”
“You were the first to go to her daddy. Taking his fists to me and kicking me out of town wasn’t enough for him. Somehow he managed to arrange it so I can’t get any loans or any investors. Even my family won’t help.”
“He’s a powerful man,” Rawley said, “with a lot of influence in this state.”
“Am I talking to you?” Then Cole jerked his attention back Faith. “I haven’t been able to drill a single well since I left here. I’m ruined. So I want that money. You can go and get it, but if you bring anyone back here, he’s dead.”
“She’s not getting you the money. She’s not going anywhere. But you are. You’re going straight to hell.” Rawley lunged to the side, reaching back for his gun as he did so—
Cole fired. Faith screamed as Rawley went still. She rushed over to him, lifted his head into her lap, pressed her hand to his shoulder where the blood was oozing.
“You get him?” Rawley whispered.
She looked over at Cole. He barked out a laugh. “Looks like I’m just as good at killing rattlesnakes.”
Then Cole’s gaze went to his shirt where the red blossomed out. Blinking in disbelief, he stared at her. She’d been so worried about Rawley that she barely registered firing her Colt. His gun slipped from his fingers as though he no longer had control over them. Slowly he crumpled to the ground.
Faith turned her attention back to Rawley. “Yeah. I got him.”
He grinned. “That’s my girl.”
“He could have killed you. I don’t know what you were thinking,” Faith said as she paced.
Rawley was sitting on the back veranda of her parents’ house, his arm in a sling. She’d bandaged his shoulder as tightly as she could to stop the bleeding, helped him into a shirt, and tossed a quilt over Cole so Callie wouldn’t see him. Her daughter had accepted Faith’s tale that the man had decided to take a nap.
