Their Reckless Bride (Bridgewater Ménage 11)

He was filthy through to the bone.

When I looked at Grace, I didn’t see that hardness. It wasn’t something easily faked. What the fuck was going on here? There was no question this asshole was robbing the bank. There was no question Grace was robbing it with him. But she didn’t seem to be with him.

If she really was Grace Grove, then she was taking her father’s and brother’s place in the gang. But why? Money? Why had she shot them in the first place the other day?

She had everything with us. Two men who loved her. Yes, love. A home. Friends at Bridgewater. Even a fucking copper tub.

Why did she leave it all for him? And why did she leave us a note to come here?

If she wanted to claim a rightful spot on the Grove gang, it didn’t make sense to tell the sheriff where and when she was going to commit her next crime.

But it all came down to one thing. One bullet.

She hadn’t shot me.

“I told you earlier, I’m a terrible shot,” she said, pleading with the fucker. Who the hell was he anyway?

A terrible shot? Grace?

“You’re a worthless bitch. Good for nothing but spreading your legs. But you’re uppity and frigid. Worthless.” He spit a wad of tobacco onto the bank’s wood floor.

Grace wasn’t a danger to us. She wasn’t going to do us any harm. It was the man, the asshole who was talking shit about her, disrespecting her, who was my sole focus.

“That’s my wife you’re talking about,” I growled.

He tipped his head back and laughed. “It must stick in your craw you’ve married a Grove. That you fucked a Grove. I’ve got the money, it’s time to get gone,” he said, the full satchel in one hand, waving his gun about with the other.

I knew what was coming. He wasn’t letting us leave this bank alive.

“Clearly Grace is useless for shooting people. It’s you or me, Sheriff, and I think it’s going to be you who’s dying today.”

Instead of being shot… again, a weapon fired. Again, it was Grace’s. She’d spun lightning fast, when the fucker’s attention had been on me and Charlie. His gun flew across the room as she’d shot his hand, right through the palm.

He screamed, clutched the wounded hand as he bent over. Blood dripped onto the floor. “You bitch! You shot me.”

Grace walked over to him. Slow and easy. Her false fear was now gone. “The only person dying today, Barton Finch, is you.”

“You set me up,” he growled. Sweat dotted his brow, his skin becoming pale from pain.

“I’m just a worthless bitch, remember? How could I do something like that?”

“You’re going to jail. You’ll hang! Your own husband is going to put a fucking noose about your neck,” the fucker she called Finch, snarled.

Grace smiled coldly. “Maybe, but I’ll die knowing you’re in hell while the men I love are safe. Just like my pa and Travis learned, no one fucks with my family.”

Her voice was flat, even. Cold. I knew that look, the feeling coursing through her. Justice. Retribution.

Did she say love?

“You shot your own father and brother? They’re your fucking family!” he shouted, grimacing in pain.

“No. They’re not family. They didn’t give a shit about me. Made me cook, clean. Beat me. Gave me to you as payment.”

Fuck. I saw red then. If I didn’t have a star pinned to my chest, and we weren’t standing in a bank with witnesses, I’d have shot him through the head and left him for the coyotes to find. He wasn’t worth digging a grave.

Finch actually grinned. “A man’s dick doesn’t get hard for anything in pants. I doubt you even have a pussy.”

Grace raised her gun, pointed it at Finch’s head, ready to do exactly what I wanted.