Page 34 of The Widow and the Wanted

I oughtn’t preen at his compliment, but I cannot help it. I breathe in so deep my chest feels as though it may burst.

The rhythm settles after that.

Four clicks. Breath. Crack.

The cans tumble one by one until my palms sting and my ears ring, but the flinch no longer owns me. It still waits nearby, crouched in the snow with all its teeth. But it does not have its hands around my throat.

By the time I line up the last one, Boone has gone suddenly, suspiciously silent.

The can gleams dull and small at the far end of the rail. My fingers are stiff with cold.

The world goes narrow and sharp.

Press.

The recoil slams back into my arms, and the can leaps straight up like it has been yanked before disappearing into the snow.

My answering laugh tears out of me, half wild, half disbelieving. I jump up, arms in the air.

Okee’s grin breaks bright and boyish, gone again almost at once, like sunlight between clouds.

“There it is,” he says. “Three in a row.”

I turn, pulse hammering, breath puffing white.

Boone is staring as if he has seen something unnatural. Then his gaze cuts to Okee, to me, to the empty stretch of fence.

Slowly, he drags a hand down his face.

“Son of a⁠—”

Okee clears his throat, sharp as a snapped twig. “Ah-ah. Hush now, my boy.”

Boone clamps his jaw shut so hard I hear his teeth click. Then he glares at me, lifts his hands in a helpless little gesture, and mimes buttoning his lips.

I arch a brow. “Thank goodness for an hour of peace.”

He flips me a rude gesture with his finger and then—truly astonishingly—keeps quiet.

We shoot until the sun drops low and the light thins blue. My shoulders ache. My fingers go numb. Each crack of the revolver leaves a metallic taste at the back of my throat. The cans tumble one by one, until the rail is bare and we have run out of objects to kill.

When the last round is spent, Okee takes the Colt from my hands and checks it with calm efficiency.

“You done good, wild,” Boone says simply, dropping a heavy hand on my shoulder with a light squeeze.

By the time we go inside, my hands still smell faintly of smoke, and I am shamefully buoyant.

November 18, 1870

Strange how quickly one adjusts to lawbreakers when the snow stacks past the windowpanes and there is no one else to talk to. Supplies and whiskey are dwindling. The question is not who will be brave enough to venture out, but who will grow desperate enough first⁠—

Boone lets out a strangled breath as he pulls himself up by his arms, his head rising above the beam.

Then he drops.

His boots crash against the floorboards so hard the table shakes.

Ink jumps from my pen.