The Man Who Hated Ned O'Leary (Dig Two Graves 2)

And now he couldn’t take it back.

Chapter 7

They rode toward the mountains until Carol lost steam from carrying two men. A clearing by a creek was the perfect spot for a moment of respite, and Lars slid from Galahad’s back, gasping loudly. He’d removed the wolf skull mask the moment they deemed it safe, but only now would he get the chance to take off the heavy fur coat.

“We gotta… rest the horses,” he rasped between one deep breath and another, flushed a dark red from the heat of his costume.

Cole wanted to dismount too, but Ned sat behind him, uncomfortably close. Neither of them had made a peep since leaving Beaver Springs, but they both knew what had been said when they’d both believed that this day would be their last.

The truth had been carved on Cole’s heart a long time ago, and feelings his stupid heart still harbored for the deceitful bastard couldn’t change the simple truth that actions spoke louder than words. If Ned betrayed him once and lied to him still, then Cole needed to establish that nothing had changed.

“Off,” he growled.

“I’ve got my hands tied. Am I supposed to just fall off?” Ned mumbled from under the sack sitting on his head. At least Cole didn’t have to face him for as long as it was on.

Lars snickered, washing his face with the water from the creek. “Sounds good to me. I stink of him after wearing that mangy fur.”

Cole stalled, for a moment imagining what it would be like to lie down with Lars, close his eyes and smell Ned when they rubbed off on one another. But Ned no longer smelled like soap and rosemary, and Lars would never yield to Cole’s touch the way Ned used to. The illusion he craved could never satisfy him.

“Just get him off. I need to stretch my legs,” Cole said, halting a shiver when Ned shifted behind him and pressed his knee to the back of Cole’s thigh in the process of leaving Carol’s back.

“Gotta say I didn’t much appreciate you stayin’ behind for him with everything that was going on, but now I figure it wasn’t such a bad idea. You might not differentiate between your As and Es, but I can always trust you to smell the money,” Lars said and squeezed Cole’s thigh as soon as Ned was off.

Cole exhaled and dismounted too, surprised how solid the ground felt under his feet. Now that they weren’t hurrying away from town, for fear of a posse following their tracks, a strange sense of calm sank into his muscles while the trees whispered under heavy clouds that hadn’t yet produced any rain. His lungs filled with fresh air, and were he still that young man from seven years back, he’d have shouted with joy. Instead, he shut his eyes and let himself feel the faint touch of wind on his cheeks, welcoming him back to the world of the living.

“We need to think. Folk are gonna care for the wounded first, but sooner rather than later we’ll have a chase on us.”

“Is this sack still necessary?” Ned complained and sat down in the snow.

Lars threw a pebble at him, his skin pink like that of a suckling pig. “Shut your damn mouth or we’ll gag you again. If it wasn’t for you trying to flee, Cole wouldn’t have lost his bandana in the first place!”

The tiny rock wouldn’t hurt Ned, but seeing it hurled at him made Cole’s blood simmer. His hands squeezed into fists, and he took a step toward Lars in case he dared pick up another. But Lars was too busy getting rid of the uncomfortably hot fur. He exhaled with relief the moment it was off and peeled the sweaty front of his shirt away from skin with a scowl of distaste.

Cole rolled his shoulders to loosen the tension in them to no result. “It don’t matter anymore.”

“Doesn't it? Now I can't come back to these parts. They’ll know it was me under that stupid costume!”

“Maybe you should have planned it better,” Ned said.

Violence flickered in Lars’s deceptively blue gaze, and he stomped on Ned’s chest, kicking him over. “I’ll make sure you regret I haven’t left you to hang!”

Cole grabbed Lars from behind and pulled him off Ned, twisting back his forearms to the point where his elbows were on the brink of dislocating. Heat gathered in his skull, but despite the sudden desire to apply yet more pressure and mess up Lars’s limbs for what he’d just done, he let go. “He’s not worth it!”

Lars huffed and shook his head, rubbing his aching joints with a glare. “I’d bring him to Craig dead, but the premium for alive is too high, and by the time we reached Denver the corpse would stink worse than he does now.”