The Sharpshooter's Secret Son

He vowed that when she was safe, he’d get out of her life and stay out. He grinned as pain stabbed his heart. Leaving her meant leaving his child. Still, she and the baby would be better off if he was out of their lives. And she knew it.

She deserved a chance to make a new life with her baby. The kind of life she’d always wanted but never had with him.

A normal, safe life.

“Ready, Min?” he whispered.

She lifted her chin and her eyes drifted shut. After a second, she opened them again. “I’m ready.”

After one more tug on the lapels of her coat, he left her there and climbed the stairs. At the top, he turned around to check on her. He couldn’t see her. Everything below him was a lake of darkness.

That was good.

He nodded in her direction, knowing she could see him, then reached out toward the doorknob. His hand stilled just millimeters from the knob as qualms assailed him.

“Here we go, Min,” he whispered. “Be ready for anything.” He turned the doorknob carefully, repeating the warning to himself. Then he pushed open the door.

The room in front of him was nearly as shrouded in darkness as the basement below. He took a careful step forward as his eyes sought the source of the faint light he’d seen under the threshold. It seemed to be coming from behind the open door. Probably daylight from the dining room and lobby.

Without moving, he listened. Nothing. Still the uneasy feeling that had prickled his nape—the feeling that someone was watching—wouldn’t leave him.

He took a step forward so he could pull the door shut behind him. A blinding bright light flared in front of his face.

He squeezed his eyes shut and whirled toward the light, swinging his clasped fists like a sledgehammer, hoping to take down whoever was holding it.

Fireworks exploded inside his head, snapping it backward. He grabbed at the doorknob, but his hand barely brushed it.

He managed to get his feet under him, even though the blow still rang in his head and his eyes were still blinded. He swung his fists, seeking a target, but just as he connected sidelong with what felt like an arm, something heavy and forceful hit him in the middle of his chest.

He fell backward through the open door. He managed to grab the stair rail, but it didn’t hold. Nails screeched as the wood gave way. He heard a scream. Mindy?

His butt bumped down a couple of stairs before he managed to stop himself.

He still couldn’t see, but over the years he’d honed all his senses. Now they came to his aid as he reacted instinctively, like an animal.

He heard a heavy step on the hollow stairs, felt the swish of air that indicated movement close to him.

He scrabbled to get his feet under him and prepared to launch himself at his attacker. Before he could do more than tense his thighs to spring, a dark figure loomed in his blurry vision and swung something shiny at his head.

MINDY KNEW SCALP WOUNDS BLED a lot. That was Nursing 101, but she’d been an administrator for so long she’d forgotten a lot of the everyday side of nursing, like how bad a little bit of blood could appear.

The cut on Deke’s forehead wasn’t little. An inch-long diagonal slice was laid open above his right eyebrow, and he looked like he’d lost a fistfight with a heavyweight.

The guy standing over him wouldn’t have made middleweight soaking wet. He was medium height and skinny, and dressed as if he’d stepped out of a B Western, down to the curled-brim black hat and the red bandanna tied over his nose and mouth. He still clutched the big six-gun he’d used to coldcock Deke.

As she watched, he cautiously nudged Deke’s ribs with a silver-toed cowboy boot.

Deke stirred and groaned.

The man jerked his foot away.

Mindy held her breath, trying her best to stay still. She’d almost given herself away by jumping up when Deke tumbled down the stairs. She had screamed at him.

He’d rounded on her and warned her in a gruff, fake Texas drawl that if she didn’t shut up he’d stuff a rag in her mouth and blindfold her. She’d nodded meekly and stayed as still as her worry and agitation would let her.

“Get up, Cunningham,” the gunman growled. He stood over Deke, watching him warily, one hand pointing his gun and the other resting on what looked like a stubby billy club. “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you? Getting yourself untied. How come you didn’t untie your girlfriend? Oh, wait. She’s your wife, ain’t she? Or is that your ex-wife?”

Deke pushed himself up to his hands and knees and shook his head, slinging droplets of blood in a semicircle around him.

“Min?” he rasped.

At that instant the cowboy reared back and kicked him in the gut. He dropped with a pained grunt.

Despite her resolve, Mindy gasped aloud.

Deke’s grunt stretched out into a growl. He bowed his back and dropped his head.

She watched in stunned awe as he got his feet under him and sprang up like a big cat. He hurled himself at the gunman.

The gunman barely sidestepped in time to avoid being bowled over. Deke checked his lunge, twisting and falling on his shoulder.

The man turned toward Mindy, pressing the barrel of the gun into her temple. “Don’t make another move,” he yelled. “I’ll kill her. She’s disposable now that I’ve got you.”

“Stop!” Deke shouted, as he rolled and shot to his feet. His hands spread in a gesture of surrender. “What do you want? Just tell me what you want.”

Don’t, Mindy wanted to cry. Don’t give in to his scare tactics. But even if she could have spoken, she was too terrified to put up a brave front. She was terrified—for herself, yes, but more for the baby.

She closed her fist around the piece of rope in her hand, wishing she could figure out a way to surprise the gunman.

Something of what she was thinking must have shown in her face, because Deke shook his head, a subtle movement worthy of a major league pitcher refusing his catcher’s signal.

Meanwhile, the gunman thumbed his ridiculous hat up onto his forehead. His little beady eyes crinkled. The red bandanna tied around his nose and mouth stretched, suggesting a grin.

“Whadda I want?” he growled in his silly Texas accent. “I want answers—”

“Fine,” Deke broke in, spreading his hands wider. “Let Mindy go, and I’ll give you all the answers you could possibly want. Fire away.”

The man shook his head slowly from side to side. “Not yet. If I ask you now, you’ll just lie to me. I figure it’ll take a couple days to wear you down,” he drawled. “By then you’ll have tried everything you can think of to escape or get the drop on me, and you’ll fail every time. You’ll be hungry and thirsty and tired. Even better, your gal there’ll be pretty darn sick from hunger and exhaustion, seeing as how she’s that close to whelpin’ that pup. It yours?”

“That’s none of your damn business. Who the hell are you anyhow?”

“So it ain’t yours.” He chuckled nasally. “She been sleeping around on you, ain’t she?”

Deke went still. Mindy knew he was about two seconds from a firestorm.

“Deke—” she said quietly.

He shushed her with a wave of his hand and lowered his head. His dark eyes glowed dangerously. “Who are you?” he growled.