Rode Hard, Put Up Wet: Cowboy Romance (Rebels & Outlaws 2)

It couldn't possibly have been what it sounded like. Perhaps she had heard someone startled by an animal, and they'd fired the shot for their own safety.

The idea didn't calm her down one bit, and she was off and running before she knew what she was doing. That wasn't the sound of someone being spooked and then shooting a snake, she knew.

Someone was hurt, and they were hurt bad, and if she didn't do anything then she'd have no right to complain about anyone else, either. Now she just had to hope she got there in time.

Thirty

Chris's mood hadn't improved. He didn't expect it to, but he had hoped in spite of himself. No such luck, it would seem. He took in a deep breath and rubbed a little more.

Nobody would see the stain. In all likelihood, few people would have seen it before. That was the happy fact. But Chris would have seen it every time he looked down, and that was reason enough to clean the mess up. Now even he couldn't see it, even if he looked for it quite hard.

That should have been a small victory all by itself, but it wasn't. There were good reasons he didn't talk about his past. Very good reasons indeed. But somehow, none of them mattered enough to make him feel better about snapping at Marie, the way that she'd sulked out of the bar sticking in his mind like a bit of food stuck between his teeth.

And just like that, every few moments he would run into it again, and he'd be stuck trying to rub it clean, the same way that he'd rubbed the counter. Unlike the counter, the only way to fix it was to forget about it, but in spite of himself he couldn't.

Then the shout. It was out back, and shouts weren't unheard of. In fact, a day without any shouting was much more worthy of comment, with Sarah's girls working as much as they did, and the sort of people who see those girls being who they are.

The shot afterward, though–that was what pulled Chris out of his stupor. His hand went automatically to his pistol and slipped it free, and waved Jim to follow along. The broad-chested bouncer pulled himself out of the seat like a man half his size and twice as energetic. He was like a whole new person, Chris thought with a sour wryness.

He didn't wait to see how close the bouncer would follow behind him, though. He was out the door in a second and moving down the street. It didn't take long to find where the commotion had come from, because there were already people beginning to gather around.

Chris slipped his pistol back home into its holster and shouldered his way through the crowd.

"What happened here?"

Someone Chris didn't immediately recognize turned to regard him. "He's shot," the man said, as if it were some kind of revelation.

A young man lay on the ground, blood coming out of a hole in his belly in kicks and spurts, his eyes glassing over even as he groaned in pain, holding his hand over the wound as if his life depended on it.

If the doctor were a skilled surgeon, maybe it would have, but Chris's expectations were grim. He leaned in and pressed his own hand down on the wound. Mickey groaned in pain and then sucked in a sharp breath as if he would only have one last chance.

"What happened?"

The man blinked hard, like it was a struggle, and kept his eyes shut a second. Then he opened them again.

"I don't rightly–he just asked me for the time, and then he shot."

Chris cursed. "Did you get a look at him?"

"Tall," the guy said. "Wore a hat. Uh. Dark eyes. Dark hair."

He laid his head back on the ground, his eyes looking around wildly as his body finally started to realize that the jig was up and delirium started to take over.

Chris cursed again. "You're going to be fine, Mick. Don't panic. Just give it a minute, the doc will be here any time."

There was no chance. It had been too long already. He might be able to survive the initial shot, if they hurried. If the doc got there in the next few minutes. The odds of infection were nearly a hundred percent, though, and there wasn't much they could do at that point. Cutting out the rot would be like carving the man in half, with a wound this size and all the dirt and grit on the ground.

People started to stand back. Chris didn't bother looking up. Sheriff Roberts stood over him and the bartender kept his weight down on the wound, trying in vain to keep the blood from spilling out around his fingers.

"Help me get him up. He's got to get to a doctor."

The Sheriff crossed to the other side wordlessly and between the two of them, they managed to get Mickey on his feet. Chris tried to take as much of the weight as he could while keeping pressure on the wound, in spite of his doubts, forcing himself to hope.

The doc wasn't far. When the doc and a nurse met them halfway with a thick stack of bandages, Chris allowed himself just a little genuine hope, in spite of the fact that Mick had passed out from the pain and blood loss. The four of them lifted the unconscious man onto a table. With a long look back, Chris left as the doctor started calling out orders and rooting around to clean the wound out.

He settled himself into a seat and leaned his head back. The Sheriff settled into a seat opposite.

"He'll be alright," Roberts offered. Chris let him think so. He couldn't afford to jinx it, not knowing who'd done the job.