Jed's Sweet Revenge Read Free Page B

echoed. Cendrillon moved away and Rasputin dropped the intruder’s bleeding hand. Jed propped himself on his elbows, his chest heaving with exertion, and stared down the shotgun barrel into her deadly gray eyes. He knew he was trapped.
    “Reckon this is where you’re gonna leave my carcass for the buzzards,” he quipped grimly. “I reckon you’ve got buzzards on this godforsaken heap of sand, don’t you? I sure would hate to be left for those squawkin’ gulls and nasty pelicans. But go ahead and shoot me if you have to.”
    His nonchalant control both impressed and infuriated her. “You idiot,” she hissed. “I wasn’t shooting at you. I was shooting at a rattlesnake. I should have let it strike you, as it was getting ready to do.”
    Jed quickly twisted his head as the background noise of the dogs’ roaring growls took on new meaning. A few feet away they taunted and snapped at a rattler easily six feet long. After giving up on man for lunch, the giant dog that had bruised his hand so easily was now concentrating on snake for lunch.
    Thena looked at the melee too, her brow creased in worry. The rattler slithered into a thick coil and shook its tail viciously. Her heart stopped. “Get back!” she yelled to the dogs.
    Rasputin and Godiva—a shaggy, brindled mongrel—moved away from the snake in bounding leaps. But her old beagle, Cyrano, apparently thought it was threatening her. Growling, he darted forward just as the snake struck.
    “Oh, no, no!” Thena cried in despair. The rattler clung to Cyrano’s throat and the stocky little dog fell down, struggling and whimpering. Thena jumped to her feet and ran forward, ready to shoot the snake. Suddenly the stranger leapt ahead and blocked her way with one outstretched arm.
    “Let me by!” she demanded hoarsely.
    “Ssssh.”
    She glimpsed a flash of silver as he retrieved the pistol from his side holster. Thena gasped at the man’s speed and accuracy as a crisp, loud pop signaled the end of the rattler’s life. It dropped away from Cyrano’s throat and the stranger kicked its limp corpse into the underbrush.
    Thena numbly propped the shotgun against a tree and sank down beside Cyrano’s quivering body. She gathered him into her lap and her stomach twisted in a sick, sinking knot of doom. Trouble had come.
    “Old friend, old friend,” she whispered brokenly, stroking his head. “My dear little Cyrano. Dear little Cyrano. I think … are you … oh, there’s nothing I can do to help but hold you and love you.”
    Jed drew long breaths. His bleeding hand hung limply by his side, the pistol still grasped in his large, work-scarred fingers. Watching Thena Sainte-Colbet bow her head and speak to the old dog, he felt self-rebuke and sadness. He was responsible for this.
    “Go into the light now, old friend,” she said softly. Her heartfelt, simple words touched Jed at the center of his soul and sent shivers through him. He dropped to his heels beside her and fought gruffness in his throat.
    “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I … God, I’m sorry.”
    Jed watched her hold her hand against the little dog’s side, watched the slow movement of his rib cage stop under her fingertips, watched her fingers float in gentle good-bye over the dog’s grayed old head. Her long, dark hair sheltered her face from his scrutiny.
    When she looked up at him, he saw only a glimmer of tears. She didn’t need tears to convey her sorrow. Her eyes, large and expressive and so very gray that they looked like pearls, tore him apart with a store of old grief that couldn’t be expressed in tears.
    “Cyrano belonged to my mother,” she told him.“She’s gone. Now I feel that another part of her has left me.”
    “Oh, gal.” Her unexpected and intimate confession took him into her confidence for a second and made him feel needed. He’d never realized his rough cowboy voice was capable of sounding so tender. Jed reached forward and pushed her hair away from her