Wild Enough For Willa

6

“I’m going to kill me a bastard.”

Willa’s eyes slitted open. Blearily, she fought to focus on the blaze of pink splashed on the far wall. Through the screen of her dense lashes, she saw that the fake leather chair beside the bed was empty.

McKade. He was gone. He’d left her. But her fuzzy thoughts were brain chatter, delivering no emotional punch. Then she heard more chatter. No, raised voices from the next room!

“You can’t tell me what to do, you bastard. You’re nothing to me. Nothing.”

“Ditto, you histrionic, self-destructive…punk.”

“You’d give anything to be me, to be his real son.…”

“You’re wrong.” But McKade’s voice was soft, and strangely hoarse.

“You don’t like being our bastard, do you?”

“If you shot him, you sorry sonofabitch, and talked to the press about me, my name might get in the papers.”

“Your precious name? What a laugh.”

For an instant, Willa was back in the shack. The redheaded man, no boy, the redheaded boy with the scary eyes was waving his gun and acting crazy. He was here, threatening McKade of all people.

No. She was dreaming.

“You’re going home, Little Red,” McKade said in that firm, irritating, grimly condescending tone she resented every bit as much as this kid did—at least when Mr. Macho directed it at her. “Home to New Mexico.” McKade paused. “You’re going to behave and keep your filthy mouth shut.”

“Save your high-and-mighty act for someone who doesn’t know about your mother—”

You tell him, kid, Willa thought.

McKade must have launched his big body at the brat. Willa heard the rumble of heavy furniture, the crack of bone and sinew and then what sounded like both men rolling and fighting on the floor.

The kid had a gun.

Don’t shoot the big lug. Please, don’t shoot him.

Was that her or Mrs. Connor, pleading for Mc-Kade’s life?

“Hold your tongue, you sonofabitch!”

Despite the life-and-death drama in the next room as well as the squabble in her own heart, Willa awoke slowly, the way she liked to, drifting through pink clouds.

“Don’t shoot me.” The kid’s voice this time.

Oh, goody, McKade had the gun. He wasn’t going to get all shot to pieces this nice pink morning. Not that she cared.

Then a lamp crashed.

Oh, please don’t do murder.

Muffled male curses and scuffling sounds broke through her muzzy consciousness, and she began to fret about McKade again. Oh, dear. Why couldn’t they just cool it? Men were so difficult, such attention-getters. And they were making a horrendous mess that some poor woman would have to clean up.

“Bastard.”

“You crazy, sonofa…”

She knew that tone. McKade was getting mad. Really mad. A fearsome, yet thrilling vision of a huge powerful street warrior, holding a broken beer bottle, towering over her, ready to do battle for her, rose in her mind’s eye.

“What the hell did you think you were doing? A gun? In Mexico?”

Shrill hysterical laughter. The boy’s. Then his whining voice. “What do I have to lose?” He sounded desperate.

There was a great clump. They must’ve hurled each other to the floor again. Bodies rolled. She heard grunts, fists slugging flesh again.

And then silence.

McKade? Was he hurt?

More likely, the boy was dead.

They’d put McKade behind bars.

Curiosity, not concern for McKade, got the best of her. She pulled sheets and blankets around her and rushed into the living room. McKade was sprawled on top of the skinny redhead. The two men’s entwined bodies lay beside a toppled chair, a fallen lamp and shards of glittering glass. Not that either of them were cut. McKade, his silver eyes wild with the lust of battle, was stretching a hand toward the gun that lay six inches beyond his reach.

No man in such a mood could be trusted with a gun. Certainly not McKade. Quick as a flash, she stepped on his wrist and reached down and snatched the weapon away.

He yowled. “Give me that!”

She jumped to safety. “Get off him, you big bully.” Then she scooted backward toward the bedroom. Not that she stopped her bossy scolding. “You’re twice his size! You’ll kill him!”

“Give me the gun and get back in the bedroom where you belong.”

“And let you blow that poor child’s brains out?”

“For the last time! Mind your own business, Willa!”

“You saved me last night from my own stupidity. I’m returning the favor.”

McKade lunged. She raced for the bedroom and locked the door behind her. The gun dangled from her fingers and she opened a narrow glass door that led out onto the balcony.

Where to hide this awful instrument of death?

Where? There were four stories down to bushes, dirt and cactus, where it could be buried.

Where? Nowhere!

Besides, if she dropped the gun, it might explode or something. Like men, loaded guns were not to be trusted.