When Lightning Strikes

Now there was nothing.

Suddenly a sound cracked through the quiet, splitting it, echoing off the canyon. A bullet whizzed past her head, so close she felt a whisper through her hair. The sharp scent of gunpowder filtered through the air.

"Christ! They're closer than I thought. Hold on."

The black took off at a gallop.

Lainie threw herself forward and clutched the saddle horn just as her horse lurched. The four horses raced across the sandy desert and crashed into the trees.

She saw in horror that Killian was leading them up the mountain. She wanted to scream, but she couldn't do anything except hold on as her horse strained to make it up the slick, rocky face.

Sticks and branches clawed at her, yanked on her clothing, and tried to pull her out of the saddle. Lainie gritted her teeth and hung on, her eyes squeezed tight against the dust churned up by the horses' hooves. Her mount wheezed and snorted, surging up the slick face.

More shots rang out, cracked into trunks, and split branches. A bullet blasted through Lainie's sleeve. There was the wrenching hiss of torn fabric.

"Killian!" a male voice boomed up at them.

Relief poured through Lainie. Finally this horror was

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over. She'd imagined that voice a million times. Joe. Any minute now she'd be rescued... .

But it didn't happen. They clambered up the sheer hillside, horses straining, for what felt like hours. Then, suddenly, they stopped. It took Lainie a moment to realize that her saddle was no longer pitched at a ninety-degree angle. The horses were on level ground again. She drew back slowly, shaking, and opened her eyes.

They were on the crest of the hill, clustered together on a narrow ridge.

She looked around, searching for the towering rock walls and stone spires. "Where's the gorge?"

He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her sideways, carrying her to a small lip of a clearing along the path, where he stopped abruptly and dropped her.

Before she could even grunt in pain, he was gone again, racing back to her horse.

"What are you doing?" she asked, watching as he wrenched the saddle off her horse and threw it aside.

From far below, Lainie could hear the muffled sound of raised voices, men arguing. The merchants and farmers who made up the posse didn't want to risk actually getting hurt. They didn't want to get too close to Killian. In the end, they would turn around and go home to their families, to safety.

All except Joe. Any minute, he was going to follow them. And he'd do it alone.

Killian grabbed a rope from his saddlebags and cracked a huge, splayed limb from a pine tree. Dragging the limb, he tied a knot around its branches, th

en tied the other end of the rope around the horse's tail.

He whooped and smacked the horse on the butt.

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The roan took off like a shot, sliding down the loose-rocked hill in a dusty cloud. The branch crashed along behind him, breaking off trees and starting a thousand tiny avalanches. It sounded as if a dozen horses were careening down the mountain out of control. Gunfire exploded through the air in panicked bursts.

Killian bolted back to the saddle and flung it over his shoulder, then threw it on The Bitch, tightening the girth-strap in a matter of seconds. "That'll buy us some time. Get on."

Lainie groaned. "No . . . please . . . leave me here."

He lurched toward her and scooped her into his arms. She fought to be free, clawing, scratching, slapping at him. "Let me go. Damn it, let me go! I want to wait for Joe."

He threw her into the saddle and tossed her the reins, then leapt onto the black. He made a quiet clucking sound with his tongue and urged his mount off the narrow path. The huge stallion stood at the rim for a second, snorting and pawing at the loose earth.

"Come on, boy," Killian said quietly, glancing back down the hill.