Promises Linger (Promise Series) Read Free

lying on the table. “Could someone count two hundred and twenty dollars out of that pile?”
    “Hey,” Brent protested as a young cowpoke hastened to help out. “You said two hundred before.”
    “That was before I had to reimburse the owner of this fine establishment for a chair.”
    “Here’s your money, ma’am.”
    “As my hands are occupied, could you put it in my pocket? Without stepping between me and my almost-husband,” she tacked on as the young man made to step in front of her.
    For a few minutes, everyone watched as the kid fumbled in the vicinity of Elizabeth’s right side, too shy to actually touch her skirt.
    “Whatever are you doing?” Her question was sharper than she intended, betraying her nervousness. She took a breath and mentally counted to ten, maintaining her composure through sheer force of will as, with an embarrassed mumble, the red-faced kid shoved the money hard enough into her skirt pocket to tip her sideways. The guffaws following her small teeter set her nerves to screaming again. The only reason this crowd hadn’t turned on her was they were enjoying the show, but that could change any second. She needed to finish what she started and get out of here fast if she intended to get out of here at all
    Elizabeth took two cautious steps back. “Good riddance, Brent.”
    “I’ll see you back at the ranch, Elly,” Brent retorted. His confidence in his rights was supposed to scare her, she knew. Snap her back in line like a cur who’d forgotten its place. It just went to show how little Brent knew her that he actually thought it would work.
    As the warning hung in the air, floating on the smoke-filled haze, Elizabeth knew all eyes were upon her. She could feel them, like hands reaching out of the murk. Some laughing, some goading, but all of them waiting for her to flinch or back down. She wasn’t doing either. She’d been expecting the threat. Someone as blindly selfish as Brent would never take a woman seriously. The knowledge didn’t prevent a shiver of fear from snaking down her spine when she thought of what would happen if Brent ever got his hands on her again. Her finger tightened on the trigger. The only thing that kept the bullet in the chamber was the scorn-laced memory of her father’s voice saying, “You lose control, Elly, you lose everything.”
    She had no intention of losing ever again.
    When her face muscles felt rigid from the effort to appear unconcerned, she pushed conviction into her voice. “If you set one foot on Rocking C land, you’ll get a bullet between your eyes.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    The confidence in his voice started a quiver of uncertainty deep inside. She took a breath and immediately regretted it. The smoke that had collected in the musty interior burned her lungs. She suppressed a cough and regrouped. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t show weakness. She would, however, tighten her grip on the gun and finish what she’d started; undoing the mistake of the day before. “Stay off my land, Brent.”
    She wrapped each word in precise enunciation for maximum effect. She might as well have saved her breath. Not by a flicker of an eyelash did Brent let on she’d so much as scratched his arrogance. Instead, he wiped a fresh trickle of blood from his lip with the back of his hand. His teeth bared in a savage, confident smile. “You won’t shoot me, Elly.”
    Why did men continually believe that because she was female, she was as inconsequential as dandelion fluff?
    “You’re wrong,” she informed him. She was close, so damned close to pulling the trigger that her fingers ached with the effort not to squeeze. She hated him for turning her wedding night from anticipation to terror. She hated him for being weak when she needed someone strong, but mostly she hated him for betraying her faith in her own judgment.
    “If you kill me, Elly,” he went on, dabbing at the blood on his shirt, “then you’re back where you started, the ranch