Whirlwind Groom

He chuckled. “You’ll hit the target sooner if you keep your eyes open.”

“Oh.” She smiled sheepishly. “I didn’t realize I’d closed them.”

“It’s okay. You have to get the feel of it. That’s why it’s a good idea to practice.”

She nodded, biting her lip as she aimed again at the can. The slight breeze cooled her nape. The flutter of grasshoppers in the calf-high grass and the call of a hawk circling overhead shifted to the distant part of her mind.

She fired all six bullets and hit only air.

“Do it again,” Davis Lee said.

She loaded the gun as he’d shown her then brought it up and sighted the middle can. She didn’t flinch this time. At least she thought she hadn’t.

“You gotta stop flinching.” He pushed his hat back then resettled it on his head. “It’s no wonder you can’t see the target.”

She tried again. She had to learn to do this. Ian McDougal wasn’t getting away from her again. Still, she hit nothing.

Davis Lee patiently watched her reload and fire, over and over. “Don’t quit,” he said when she dropped her arms to rest them.

Her forearms throbbed. Who knew it took such strength to shoot a gun?

“You’ll get it,” he murmured. But half an hour later, he looked at her, looked at the cans sitting exactly where he’d placed them. “Can you see the targets?”

“Yes.” A blush heated her face. Why couldn’t she learn this?

He looked genuinely puzzled. “Are you concentrating?”

“Yes.”

“I guess this is gonna take a while,” he muttered.

She loaded the gun again, anger at herself growing in the place of her earlier determination. Maybe the lanky man beside her was the reason she was doing so poorly.

When he stood so close to her, she could smell the strong fresh scent of lye soap and a faint whiff of leather and horse. She didn’t know why he affected her so, but the man could make a painted lady nervous.

Josie tried to push away the overwhelming sense of his presence and focus. She fired, pausing between each shot to take aim. She hit nothing. “I see why it takes a lot of practice to become good with one of these things.”

“I’m assuming you’ve got better aim with that blade you carry.”

He offered more ammunition and she pushed the bullets into the chamber.

“Those are my last bullets,” he said.

“I need more!”

“I didn’t think it was gonna take this many.” He grinned.

She smiled up at him then looked away when she saw the smoldering interest in his eyes. Was he watching her with such fascination because he suspected her real reason for coming to Whirlwind? Or because he felt the same unsettling awareness she felt?

Gripping the revolver with damp hands, she fired until it was empty. She risked a glance at him, catching a pained look on his face.

“That’s enough for today.” He walked to the rocks and began gathering up the cans. The cans she hadn’t come close to hitting.

She waited in a patch of buffalo grass, unwillingly admiring the fluid way he moved, the broad hands that completely covered the cans. “Are you ready to give up on me?”

She held her breath. If he said yes, what would she do? Her skirt caught on a clump of grass and she tugged it loose.

Davis Lee started back toward her, holding the burlap sack full of cans. “It’s all in the practice—” He froze midstep. “Don’t move.”

“What are you—”

“Don’t. Move.”

She frowned at the hard command in his voice, freezing as he’d ordered.

“Snake. I must’ve stirred him up by moving those rocks.”

“Where?” A sudden crackling noise caused her to involuntarily flinch.

Davis Lee cried out, “No!” The bag fell to the ground, cans clanging together.

She recoiled against a sharp blistering stab above her ankle that felt as if a needle had been jabbed into her flesh. A burning shot up her leg.

He whipped out his own gun and fired twice in rapid succession, aiming between her feet. It happened too fast for Josie to react at all.

She stumbled back a step, hardly able to make herself look down, but she did.

A blackish-brown snake with dark, indistinct-shaped markings protruded from beneath her skirts. Even she could identify the alternating black and white rings on its tail, and the rattle at the end. Nausea rolled over her. “Oh, dear.”

She wobbled.

“Are you bit?” Davis Lee rushed up. When he saw that the snake lay unmoving, he holstered his weapon. “Rattlesnake.”

Josie stared hard at the reptile as if she could will it to remain motionless.

“Josie, are you bit?”

“Yes.” She lifted her gaze to his, feeling detached from her body.

He cursed and scooped her unceremoniously into his arms, carrying her a safe distance away. “I’ve got to get the venom out of your leg.”

He reached their horses and tugged a rolled-up trail blanket from behind his saddle, snapping it open and wrapping it around her before carefully depositing her on the ground. He went to his knees beside her. “Is your vision blurring? Are you nauseous?”

“No.” She dragged in air, trying to calm her racing pulse and recall what her father had told her about treating snakebites. “It may be ten minutes or so before that happens. We need to work fast though.”

She already felt short of breath, but maybe that was because she was close to panic. A rattler. She had been bitten by a rattler. She had never even seen a snake, but thanks to her father she knew how to treat a bite. She had to stay as calm as possible.

Pulling the blanket around her to keep warm and try to combat the shock she knew would come, she reached for the hem of her skirt the same time Davis Lee did.