"Y-yes. Oh, God, yes!"
"Good. Now, get the hell out of here." With a shove, Jake sent Fat Cal stumbling clumsily down the hall. The man's tattered boots collided with his friend's prone body, but that didn't stop the fat man from hurrying toward the stairwell.
Jake plowed his hand through his hair and watched the man's meaty back disappear around the corner. Then he turned, his gaze fixing on the door. Or, more accurately, on the woman who stood framed in it. He was just in time to see Amanda tuck the pistol into the pocket of her skirt.
He'd sensed her presence there for a while now. In fact, Amanda Lennox was the only reason he'd spared Fat Cal's life. He would rather have killed the slimy bastard, but he didn't want Amanda to see him kill a man. He didn't want her to think any worse of him than she all ready did. And he didn't want to know why that was so.
His gaze slid upward, locking with shock-widened green. Her cheeks were pasty. Her lower lip trembled. So did the arms she'd wrapped tightly around her waist.
"Jake?"
"Don't say it," he sneered, slashing the hand wielding the knife through dead air. "Just... Jesus, lady, don't say it."
"But—"
With jerky motions, Jake wiped the blade down his thigh. A thread of blood marred the denim when he returned the knife to its sheath. His gaze was trained on the unconscious Thin Billy. "Pack your gear. We're leaving Junction. Now. Tonight."
He expected a fight, yet he wasn't entirely surprised when Amanda turned and walked back into the room. He heard the shuffling sounds of her doing what he'd ordered her to do.
What Jake hadn't expected, hadn't prepared for, was the after-shock of vibrations now shivering through his body. Fury had burned away all residue of the bourbon. His mind was working now, and it was working overtime. He was capable of thinking only one thought, and he thought it over and over. Like a chant he didn't know how to stop, he thought, My woman... my woman... my woman.
The hell of it was, that was exactly what Amanda Lennox was. His. Jake may have been able to deny it before, but he couldn't deny it any longer. Whether Amanda realized it or not, whether she wanted it or not, she was his. Body and soul.
And Jacob Blackhawk Chandler kept what was his, even if he had to pay for it with his life.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Amanda bending over her saddlebag, stuffing something inside of it. Yeah, Jake thought, it just might kill him to keep her by his side. But it was a price he was seriously considering paying.
Chapter 18
Jake's words echoed in Amanda's mind as she crammed her belongings into the saddlebag. There wasn't much to pack. If she'd been in the mood to reflect, she would have thought it sad that a woman who'd once had so much, now had so little.
My woman...
Amanda drew in a shaky breath as she rolled up her only other dress and shoved it into the saddlebag. Had Jake meant to say that, she wondered, or had they been meaningless words, said to scare off her would-be attackers? Did he even realize what he'd called her, or that she'd heard him? Did he know how very much hearing those words on his lips had meant to her? How deeply it had affected her? Even now her reaction was staggering.
She'd placed the gun atop the bed. It wasn't until she reached for it that something else occurred to Amanda. Something every bit as shocking. Something even more alarming.
The butt of the gun felt cool in her hand, hard and deadly. Knowing that there were five fresh bullets inside made her handle it with extra care. She lifted the pistol slowly, letting it lay on her open palm, her gaze riveted on the blue-cast barrel.
Stunned, her heart racing madly, she thought, I would have killed for him. If it had come down to it, I wouldn't have hesitated. I would have killed for him!
Her hand trembled as the impact of that realization hit her. Her fingers curled around the gun before it could tumble onto the bed. She felt Jake's gaze on her, and her spine stiffened. Slowly, her head came around.
He was standing in the doorway, his left shoulder leaning negligently against the frame. His arms were laced over his chest, his ankles were crossed. His lazy stance in no way suggested he was a man who had just come dangerously close to ending two lives.
The orange lamplight danced off his head, making his long, sleek hair glisten a rich shade of blue-black. Shadows played over his face, sculpting the hollows beneath his cheeks, making the already hard line of his jaw look even harder.
Their gazes met and held. Neither spoke, yet volumes of unspoken words hovered in the air between them.
Amanda was the first to glance away. She looked down at the gun. Then, with trembling fingers, she tucked it into her saddlebag.
And that was when it hit her.
Her saddlebag!
It had been lying in the corner of Little Bear and Gail's cabin when she and Jake had made love. When she'd awoke—no, when Jake had woken her—it had not been in the corner where she'd left it. Scowling, Amanda forced her mind to pick out frayed memories that were now three days old.
She distinctly remembered picking the saddlebag up off the chair. She remembered thinking at the time that something wasn't quite right about that. But Jake had been so furious with her... and all she'd been able to concentrate on was stilling her panic and finding out what had caused his anger.