Boot Hill Bride (35 page)

reopened them to line the sights up. The shoulder would

work. She didn't want to kill him, not because he claimed to

be her father, but because if she resorted to murder she'd be

no better than him.

"You've really messed it up this time." Belinda paced

beside the fire.

"Me?" Thurston half sat against a large boulder. "What are

you talking about? A fire is perfect. We should be able to see

the smoke over the trees any minute. I can already smell it."

He crossed one leg over the other at the ankles. "Sit down.

You're making me nervous."

"Nervous?" Belinda screeched.

A protruding branch from the cluster of buck brush

separating her from the camp interfered with the sights.

Randi eased the barrel just a touch to the left.

"Yes, nervous. And quit yelling. Christ, they can probably

hear you in Dodge. You want to blow our cover?"

Belinda plopped on the ground. "I wanted to go to that

party tonight."

He let out a long sigh. "I already told you that's

impossible. We can't be seen anywhere near that party

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tonight." He twisted to glare at Belinda. "You didn't go down

there while I was gone, did you?"

She shook her head.

"Good. Tomorrow, while the hotel is nothing more than a

smoldering heap of ashes, we'll make our arrival. And of

course, I'll have to tell Hog Quinter how my daughter is a

terrible firebug."

"He won't believe you. Randi has him tied around her little

finger," Belinda huffed.

"You forget. I'm the one with proof that she started that

fire under his back porch. You see the little candle she lit and

slipped under the steps was in a metal box, engraved with

her name. I'll tell him it was a gift from her mother and me.

The box was lined with just enough gun powder so when the

candle melted and the wick, moments before it fluttered out,

went... Poof!" He thrust both hands in the air. "The powder

then caught fire with enough dancing sparks to set the

carefully placed straw around it on fire. The rest was

sequential of course. The straw caught the stairs on fire, the

stairs the porch, the porch the kitchen...Well, you know." He

folded both arms behind his head. "The engraved, metal box

is one of the few things to survive. It's a fail-proof plan. And

everyone will believe she did it."

Randi had heard enough. Fear, anger, hatred, as well as a

slew of other hot and torturing emotions made the want to

scream almost uncontrollable. She squeezed the trigger, and

as the blast sliced the air, so did her scream. But it was a yell

of marksmanship, that prideful exclamation one makes when

they hit the target dead center.

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Not that she'd hit him dead, or center, but exactly where

she'd been aiming. With his arms raised, Thurston Fulton had

taken the full blast of buckshot into his right armpit.

Squealing like a stuck pig, he rolled onto his side. "I've

been shot. I've been shot," he moaned over and over again,

as if he didn't believe the words.

Belinda stood near the fire, screaming at the top of her

lungs.

Randi stepped out from behind the brush. "Shut up,

Belinda. I got one more barrel full and won't mind using it on

you."

Belinda swirled around, her black dress and hair flaying in

a quick twirl.

"Randilynn Fulton, don't you dare speak to me like that."

Randi leveled the gun. "I said shut up."

When Belinda, lips pursed, but silent, remained that way

for several seconds, Randi un-looped the coil of rope hanging

over one shoulder and threw it. Still wound, it landed at

Belinda's feet.

"Tie him up," Randi ordered.

"She will not!" Thurston said, still flapping on the ground

like a fish out of water.

Randi, catching site of the pistol he was squirming to

acquire, leaped sideways and snatched it seconds before he

did. She threw it off to the side and was pleased at the splash

it made.

They were camped no more than two miles from the hotel.

Instinct had told her, after she swiped Ma's gun and rope, to

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follow the river and she'd find them. At this moment she

knew without hesitation her 'instinct' was her mother's spirit.

"Tie him up," she repeated.

Belinda hefted the rope and stomped toward Thurston.

Randi used the gun to nudge his side.

"Sit up."

"I can't!" he proclaimed.

She poked harder. "Sit up or I kill you."

"You won't—" he started.

"Oh, yes, I will," she interrupted. "You have no idea how

much I hate you right now." Her glare went to Belinda for a

moment. "How much I've always hated both of you for the

way you treated my mother." Tears stung her eyes, but she

held strong, refused to let them spring into life. "For all the

nasty, awful things you've done."

Thurston scrambled onto his hind end. "Randi, you're my

daughter."

"Shut up," she said, not wanting to hear anymore. "Put

your arms down."

"I can't put my arm down," he shouted. "You shot my

armpit. It's on fire." He huffed in a breath as she'd heard him

do countless times while gaining control of his anger. A

second later and more calmly, he continued, "Randi, as your

father—"

"You're no more her father than I'm her mother," Belinda

snapped.

"Belinda!" he barked, warningly.

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An unimaginable sense of relief washed over Randi. She

turned it into determination and shoved Belinda aside with

the gun barrel.

"Give me that rope." Belinda released it, and Randi

gestured with the gun. "Get over by that rock and don't

move."

Quick and efficiently, she flopped the end lasso over

Thurston and once it settled on his chest, pulled the slack

tight. He fought, thrashing about, making it impossible for her

to loop the rope around him again.

After several tries, she'd had enough. Without any real

regret, she lifted the gun and smacked the butt end to his

temple. He collapsed into a silent heap, and Belinda, eyes

agog, screamed again.

Randi had him trussed tighter than Aunt Corrine's corset in

no time and wielding the gun, moved on Belinda.

"I," Belinda started, "had nothing to do with that fire."

"You kidnapped Winifred."

"I did not! Do you see a baby here?"

"You threw her in the pond."

Belinda's eyes grew wild, like a beast who was about to be

trapped.

"No, I didn't," she challenged.

"I saw you," Randi sneered.

Belinda dove. The movement was too fast for Randi to get

off the shot. Her legs were ripped out from beneath her as

Belinda's head-first attack drove her to the ground.

Scratching, biting, kicking, and slapping they rolled over

the ground. Belinda's teeth painfully sunk into one of Randi's

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shoulders, and one of her hands held a handful of hair so

tight Randi thought her scalp was separating from her skull.

The pains ripping her body were strong enough to make

rational thinking close to impossible.

Then for some reason, Lila's words re-entered Randi's

mind.
Men jump in to fight the fire, women go to the root.

With a thrust of newfound power, Randi arched her back,

planting both feet on the ground. There were two things she

knew—one, Belinda couldn't swim, and two, Randi could swim

like a fish.

Thrusting with every muscle in her legs, she flung her

body upwards, and twisting while they were both in the air,

she heaved them both over the riverbank. Still clinging onto

one another they flew through the air.

The water was shallow, little more than a couple of feet

deep, not nearly enough to cushion the landing of their

entwined bodies. Jointly, they slammed into the riverbed. The

shock was enough to separate them, and Belinda flew into full

panic mode.

Splashing, splaying, and gasping for air like she was

caught in raging rapids, Belinda cried, "I'm drowning! Save

me! Someone please save me!"

Randi stood, the water barely covering her knees, and

stretched out a hand to grasp a full handful of Belinda's hair.

She overrode the want of thrusting the women's head below

the surface, telling herself,
no, not just once even.

After dragging Belinda, still pathetically weeping, up the

short bank, she tied her with the other end of the rope

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circling Thurston Fulton. She'd never, ever consider him her

father again.

It took two coffeepots full of water dowsed across his face

before Thurston regained consciousness. While he moaned

and Belinda sobbed, Randi hitched the single horse tethered

near the river to the rented buggy and stomped out the camp

fire.

Whether the two were too beset with their injuries or had

finally decided not to struggle with her any longer, she didn't

take time to contemplate. Meekly, and somewhat comically,

trying to balance tied together as they were, Belinda and

Thurston Fulton climbed aboard the springy seat. Gathering

the reins with one hand and hoisting Ma's gun over her other

shoulder, Randi set about leading the horse, buggy, and

outlaws back to Dodge.

They hadn't gone far, no more than a quarter mile, when a

group of riders formed in the pale moonlight. Randi lowered

the gun, and for a split second, wished she hadn't thrown

Thurston's pistol into the river. But then, the lead rider

charging across the ground grew familiar.

Ted skidded to a halt, and Howard didn't even take the

time to leap from his back. Instead, he leaned down, grabbed

his wife, and hoisted her onto his lap where he could kiss the

hell out of her.

Once that was complete, and his hands had inspected her

for injuries, he drew back his head. Upon seeing the big

brown eyes, gazing up at him as if he were an angel cast

down from the heavens, his mind went blank. Completely

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vacant of any of the questions he'd formed while searching

for her.

Kid, his horse prancing about, said, "Got yourself a couple

criminals, there, Randi?"

She turned, and Howard could have sworn he saw a smile

form as she said, "Yeah, I do, Kid."

Kid glanced over his shoulder, to the posse of men still

riding across the way. "The Sheriff's on his way."

"Thanks," she said, turning her head back.

Howard had to tighten the muscles in his chin to keep his

mouth from falling open. There was a smile on her face, the

biggest, brightest one he'd ever seen. All night, even before

Winifred was taken and the fire, he'd been trying to figure out

how he was going to tell her her father was a criminal. And

not just any criminal, but one of Quantrill's raiders.

As if she read his mind, she reached up, cupped his jaw

with a warm and tender palm. Her fingers, soft and gentle

massaged his cheek.

"He's not my father."

Howard felt as if he was just snapped out of some kind of

hazy dream. "What?"

"Thurston Fulton is not my father."

The sheriff arrived, but before the man could question

Randi, Kid thrust the reins of the buggy in the man's hands.

"You can talk to her tomorrow," he said.

Surrounding the buggy carrying Thurston and Belinda

Fulton, the sheriff, along with the posse of family, friends,

and even a few strangers, rode away.

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"He's not?" Howard asked, once they were alone, not really

knowing why.

"Nope," she said, as confident as the sun in July.

"Then who is?" The instant the words left his mouth he

wished he could pull them back in.

She shrugged. "I don't know."

He shifted in the saddle, made a bit more room for her to

settle onto his lap. "And it really doesn't matter, does it?" he

asked.

Without hesitation, she said, "I hope not. I-ah," she

paused, and it reminded him of that first morning, when he'd

found her in his bed, this little, unsure woman on his lap. "I'm

hoping the Quinters are all the family I'll ever need."

His eyes never left her. "I hope so, too." A frog had

inhabited his throat. He cleared it away. "You and me and the

babies we'll make." He smiled, a full-blown, all out, from head

to toe smile. "I promise, as a Quinter, you have all the family

you'll ever need."

Her eyes glimmered in the moonlight, or maybe it was an

inner light shining somewhere inside her. "Once a Quinter,

always a Quinter," she said.

Heart bursting with pride, he nodded. "I like that."

"So do I," she said.

It was during that next kiss, while his hands roamed where