Blood & Dust (Lonesome Ridge Book 2) Read Free

feeling of devastation. Two days ago, he wanted to die. He wanted to join his sister wherever she ended up. He wanted to be done with it and let someone else take the burden he carried.
    “Boss?”
    The sheriff blinked rapidly and looked up at his deputy. “Yeah,” he said.
    “Yeah what?” Jasper’s blue eyes narrowed with concern for the billionth time in the last two days. He’d found Connor sitting in the corner of his bedroom with a gun in his hands. After relieving the sheriff of the weapon, he went to find Robert Zane, the butcher and one of Connor’s closest friends. Robert and Jasper had been the only people Connor was willing to see.
    “Yeah, I know. I’ve let them down. I walked away when they needed me most.” His eyes were locked on Cora’s picture.
    “You didn’t, Connor. We’re all right. But we do need you to come back. Pull out of this rut you’re in.” The young man leaned forward and fixed the sheriff with a look that said more than he could possibly convey with words, but he still tried. “We’ve all lost people, Connor. People we loved and cared for. It sucks and it’s hard, but none of us are alone in that. Every single person in this town has been affected by this. No one walked away unscathed. We’re all suffering.”
    The older man chewed on his lip for a moment. “How are we with defenses?”
    “We have a rough wall built up most of the way around the town. Everything else has pretty much been put on hold while that happens. It’s not much, but they’ll be able to reinforce it better once it’s complete.”
    “Good, good. What about patrols?”
    “Doubled. Teams of at least four, no less. We don’t want anyone to be caught unawares.”
    Connor nodded. “Smart. Any sign of…” He paused, searching for the right words. “Any sign of those things?”
    Jasper’s blond hair danced as he nodded. “Not them, but we’ve found some tracks. Tracks that lead away from the town. None have tried to hit us, or attack anyone that we’ve heard of, but it looks like some did get away. We have to hunt them down, take them out.”
    The sheriff took a deep breath. “And we have to go back to the Crawford farm. We have to make sure it’s clear, that none of them are still there.”
    Jasper’s jaw worked as he clenched his teeth together, but he nodded. “Yep.”
    “When are you leaving?”
    Both men jumped at the voice in the doorway. Connor almost cursed Cora’s name out of sheer habit. Sneaking up on him was one of her best tricks. But as before, it wasn’t Cora in the doorway. It was Abigail Crawford, one of the two survivors of the attack on the Crawford farm.
    “Abby, how’s your arm?” Connor asked as he nodded in her direction.
    She walked into the jail house and lifted her left arm. It ended just below the elbow and she had wrapped the long sleeve of the dress she wore into a knot to cover it. “I’ll live. When are you leaving?” she asked again.
    Connor smiled at her tenacity. Abby was a strong woman of twenty. She managed to save one sister from the undead attack on her family’s farm, and she had fought and survived against one of the toughest undead to attack Lonesome Ridge. She lost her arm in the process, but she still survived.
    Connor glanced at the clock on the wall. It was still only mid-morning. “We should head out soon. Take a posse with us and clear it out.”
    Jasper shifted in his chair. “Amos had a posse,” he observed.
    “Amos didn’t know what he was facing.” Abby answered for Connor. She crossed her arms as best she could, wincing a little at the pain still in her arm, and looked down at the deputy. “We do. We know what those things are and we know what they’re capable of. If we’re careful, we’ll be fine.”
    “We?” Connor raised an eyebrow at the young woman and cocked his head.
    Her jaw was set and her eyes were hard. “Yes, we. Don’t even think about leaving me behind, Connor McClane. That’s my home. My family. I need