To Love an Outlaw (Into the West #1) (A Wattpad Reading List Choice)

Chapter 10

“Turn the wagon around, Noah. We won’t know till we get there.”

Noah sat still, his opinion warring with his boss’s. Finally he spoke.

“I think I should take you home and come back myself, Ma’am. Mr. McQuade asked me to take care of you, Miz Ca—“

Of course Callie rounded on him like a spitting cat.

“He is not in charge of my well-being, Noah Lawson! Now, turn this wagon around or I’ll just jump out and walk!”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Glad to have the decision-making taken out of his hands, though still puffed up with responsibility, Noah gee’d the horse around and whipped it into a trot. They covered ground quickly and silently, neither person wanting to hazard a guess as to what they might find over the next hillock. But already buzzards had gathered in the sky ahead, wheeling and circling. Callie shivered, even in the midday heat. Everyone knew what buzzards meant.

“Hurry up, Noah,” she urged, though the boy didn’t need encouragement to do so. He clucked to the horse to speed it up.

And then they topped the rise and there was no more guesswork involved. At the bottom of the hill, in the middle of the road, stood Sonny McQuade’s horse, placidly chewing scrub grass next to a lump in the dirt. A body-size lump.

“Oh, my Lord! It’s him!” Callie gasped, trying to rise from the bouncing seat to see better, holding onto the side of the wagon as she did so.

“Stay put, Ma’am!” Noah barked, leaning forward to coax more speed from the gelding in the traces. He pulled the horse up sharply in the road, close enough that McQuade’s mount snorted and tossed its head, though it remained by its fallen master.

Callie was out of the wagon like a shot, clambering down and darting over to the gunfighter’s body where it lay so still. A spreading bloom of blood covered his shirt front, causing the widow to cry out in alarm as she dropped to her knees beside the man.

“Oh, no! No, no, no! Please Lord, don’t do this to him! Not him; not after the changes he’s tried to make! He deserves a second chance!” On her knees in the dirt, with the noonday sun glaring down on them, Callie reached out a shaking hand to touch Sonny’s face oh, so gently. All the while she prayed aloud to a God who’d ignored her pleas during her marriage, but who had seen fit to release her from the monster she’d married in a very final way. For that reason alone, Callie had made her peace with the good Lord some time ago. But she found herself calling on His intervention once again, in the middle of this south Texas dirt road, at the behest of one of His lowliest: a killer by trade.

Sonny’s face was hot to the touch, tilted up to the sun as it was and his hat tumbled beside him, but he did not move. Callie couldn’t tell if he was alive or not. Apparently the vultures were hopeful he wasn’t, for they continued to circle and wheel above, with more in their midst. Noah knelt beside Callie, bending over the gunfighter’s face and putting an ear close to the fallen man’s lips. He and the widow each held their breath. Seconds ticked by. At last Noah looked up at Callie, eyes bright.

“He’s breathing, Ma’am! He’s alive!”

They hugged each other briefly over the unconscious McQuade, and then Callie reached for the gunfighter’s shirt, intent on seeing the bloody wound. As she attempted to pull it away from his body, the gunslinger’s hand rose from the dirt swiftly and manacled itself around her wrist, grasping tight enough to cause Callie to cry out in surprise. Her first reaction was to pull back, but common sense warned the widow not to do anything that might harm McQuade, so she remained in his grip. As Callie stared down into the gunfighter’s face, with Noah waiting in shock as well, they both noticed when Sonny slowly raised his eyelids, revealing pain-filled, glassy eyes. Those hypnotizing eyes, now foggy with torment, latched onto Callie’s countenance, as his parched lips begin to move in a whisper. The widow leaned in closer in order to hear.