The Man Who Loved Cole Flores (Dig Two Graves 1)

“I can go,” Scotch said, but it must have been a continuation of an earlier conversation, because Ned didn’t know what he was going on about.

Tom waved all six of his bloodstained fingers in dismissal. “I’m not letting you go alone. Zeb, can you go with him?”

Zeb groaned. “I’m promised to my woman tonight.”

Tom’s gaze was on Ned before he could have sensed danger. “O’Leary. You’ll go with Scotch and check out the town. We’ve been here a few years ago, but things change and I want to know what they have there now. New stores? How the saloon looks, if there’s a railway expansion planned, that kind of thing.”

Ned shrugged and sipped some coffee. “I’ll go.”

He sure as hell needed the distraction.

Tom tapped his cup with his additional finger, smiling as if he knew something others did not. The longer it lasted the more lead poured into Ned’s guts, weighing him down. The coffee was too hot, but he swallowed it, curling his toes as heat spread through his insides.

“Maybe I should go too? I know Three Stones better than most.”

Cole. Couldn’t the bastard give it a rest?

Tom squinted, the earlier smile gone. “That’s the problem, Cole.” He tapped against his cheek, where Cole had the star-shaped scar. “I’m not letting you anywhere near there until we see what it’s like there now.”

Zeb smirked into his coffee, but as curious as that made Ned, he wouldn’t be asking any questions. He needed time to himself, and going into town with Scotch would have to do, even though the man was a worthless sack of empty talk and boozy piss. Scotch’s intentions were always self-serving, and he’d undoubtedly waste time at the saloon, leaving Ned free to visit a telegraph office and understand their location better.

Ned feared Cole might follow him to the clothes line where his spare shirt had been hung to dry, and was glad when it didn’t happen. The scent of meat was prominent in the air by the time Ned had changed, but when he stepped from behind a boulder he’d used for decency’s sake, Cole was within sight, sitting in front of the tent they shared, his face grim.

Enough was enough. What gave him the right to demand things Ned had refused? They were not married and in need of enlarging their family!

Ned’s blood boiled as he passed him on the way to Nugget. “Didn’t know it was such a big deal, since you seemed fine without it for weeks. Stop sulking like a child without its doll. You don’t need one!”

Cole shot up and charged after Ned like a bull ready to trample everything and everyone to reach the cow he wanted. Ned squeezed his buttocks, even though there was no way Cole would try anything with everyone else present, but worry held him by the throat still. What if being denied that one thing made Cole lose interest in him altogether?

“I said no such thing,” Cole growled, showing Ned his bottom teeth as he poked Ned’s chest with the tip of his finger. The power behind it stung as if Cole’s intention was to pierce right through the bone and plant a seed of guilt that would eventually make Ned succumb. “I need your ear.”

“It won’t fit in my ear either,” Ned whispered, close to butting his forehead against Cole’s when a small hand pulled on his wrist, wedging itself between them.

The tension that would have made them clash was gone, their feet unsteady on the ice brought upon them by Pearl’s sudden presence. Had she come only seconds later, she might have overheard things not meant for her ears, and the weight of that fact tugged on Ned’s nape, making him hunch.

“Make yourself scarce, love,” Pearl told Cole in the sweetest and gentlest of dismissals. Even her smile, while polite, promised him a quick, painful death if he didn’t listen.

Cole stalled, his throat working as he glanced between her and Ned. “I… what?”

Ned shook his head. “You heard the lady. What is it?” he let her guide him away. Cole must have understood it was of no use to follow them, but Ned still sensed the dark gaze burning his back like a candle held far too close to the hair at the back of his neck.

He didn’t get to ask Pearl what this was about before he spotted Lotta just out of camp. In the elegant blue gown adorned with black ribbons and velvet buttons, she looked like a city socialite who’d lost her way in the desert, but determination was etched in her gaze the moment she spotted Ned. Seeing her like this, all elegant and with a fierce glint in her eye, it was difficult to imagine that she’d really grown up on a farm, plucking chickens and baking bread. But she’d been through a lot at the hands of her own family, and anyone could start anew in the West.