Page 55 of At Love’s Command

“A head wound?” Preach stretched his neck up in an effort to get a better view, clipping Matt’s chin as he moved. “I don’t see any blood.”

Matt groaned. “That’s because the bullet creased my side. A rolling mammoth hit my face.”

A half-grin sprouted on Luke’s face. “‘Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved . . . they have made their faces harder than a rock.’ Jeremiah 5:3.”

“A rock sounds about right.” Matt grumbled and groaned, but in his soul, he thanked God. Not only for sparing his life just now, but for giving him men—no, friends—he could count on to have his back. Or his front, in this case.

Luke grew serious. “You sure it’s just a crease, Matt?” He tried to look for himself, but with his arms bound behind him and his shoulder lodged near Matt’s throat, he had practically no leverage.

“There’s blood,” Jonah confirmed, his knees bumping into Matt’s feet. His kneeling shuffle might have been slower than Preach’s roll technique, but he’d managed to keep his head upright. “It ain’t pooling, though. Just soaking his shirt along the bottom of his rib cage. Might be deeper than a crease, but it don’t look life-threatening. It’s a good thing you dove when you did. I thought you mighta been too lock-eyed with the doc to notice Taggart’s draw.”

“Nah,” Preach denied on Matt’s behalf. “The captain’s reflexes still work, even if his brain has gone soft.” Another nudge with that overlarge shoulder, this time in the windpipe.

Matt scooted backward to create a much-needed buffer from Preach’s shoulder and his assessment. He wasn’t wrong. Matt’s dodging lunge had been born purely of instinct. All he’d been thinking about in that moment was Josephine and what it would take to find her.

“If you ask me,” Wallace said, having inched his way over to the group with some kind of sideways crawl on his good shoulder, “Matt had nothing to do with it. My money’s on a guardian angel. Same one that steered bullets away from him in that canyon saved him again by shoving his face into the dirt. Somebody upstairs is keeping you alive for a reason, Captain. Best not disappoint him.”

“I don’t know about angels, but Wallace is right about one thing.” Matt eyed his men. “We still have a mission to accomplish, and the first order of business is to get free of these ropes. I managed to preserve a bit of slack in mine.” He began working his wrists back and forth. “I might be able to—”

“Save your skin, Cap,” Preach said as he tucked his knees to his chest. “I buried my pocketknife in the creek bed over yonder. Gimme a minute, and I’ll fetch it.”

Suddenly Preach’s frustrated kicking and slow rise during their surrender made a lot more sense. Matt grinned. “You wily old coot.”

Preach winked, then set off on a bone-jarring, lopsided roll that made Matt wince. It must be killing Luke’s shoulders to have his arms trapped behind him as he rolled, not to mention that he had no way to protect his face.

Yet in less than five minutes, Preach had retrieved the knife and returned. He smiled through the dirt coating him from hair to heel like a boy who’d just uncovered buried treasure, then squirmed around until he got his knees under him. He backed up to meet Jonah hand to hand. As the two non-injured members of the team, it made sense that they worked the problem together, but waiting was excruciating, and not just because the wound in Matt’s side had started to throb more noticeably now that he had nothing active to do.

He could deal with the pain. It was the thought of what could be happening to Josie that tortured him.

Taggart yanked Josephine off his horse with all the finesse of a farmhand grabbing a ham sandwich off a platter. Fitting, she supposed, since they’d stopped at an abandoned farmhouse about as far off the beaten path as one could get. She hadn’t seen a single house, homestead, or hovel in the last hour. Whoever had settled here had either foolishly believed more settlers would come or had prized his privacy more than was healthy. Whatever its origins, the place had not fared well since its abandonment. The house looked large enough to hold three rooms, maybe four. The size a man with a family would build. Yet with its weathered siding and leaning walls, an enthusiastic knock on the front door would probably topple the entire building.

“I’ll take over her care now, Taggart,” Charlie said as he swung down from his horse. He took a step toward Josephine, but Taggart’s grip on her arm only tightened.

“Dawson!” Taggart barked.

The man with the red beard who’d ridden next to Charlie the entire way lunged at her brother from behind. He wrapped his arm around Charlie’s throat while sliding Matt’s gun from Charlie’s holster.

“Charlie!” Josephine struggled against Taggart’s hold, trying to get to her brother, to help him before they killed him right in front of her. “Let him go!”

Surprisingly enough, Dawson did just that. Once he had the gun in his possession, he released his choke hold and shoved Charlie onto the ground.

Charlie sputtered and gasped, but once he caught his breath, he surged to his feet, his face mottled in anger. “How dare you! You work for me. I won’t stand for this.”

“You won’t stand at all, rich boy.” Dawson twisted sideways, his leg kicking out, his foot smashing into Charlie’s knee.

Charlie howled in pain and fell back to the ground, grabbing his right knee.

Taggart dragged Josephine a step closer, close enough for him to lean over Charlie and gloat but not so close that she could reach her brother as he writhed.

“Time to get something straight, Burkett. You’ve never been in charge. Your ransom scheme was clever, I’ll give you that much. Paying back what you owe me with your father’s money? Brilliant! Using your sister as insurance in case your daddy didn’t feel like paying for you? Even more brilliant! In fact, I gotta admit that when I saw your hat come sailing into the canyon, signaling the move to the second plan, I considered offering you a permanent place in my gang. After all, a man who’d betray his sister to gain his own reward is a man who wouldn’t care about casualities during a bank robbery or train heist. But then I remembered you were just a snotty-nosed rich kid used to getting his own way, and the urge passed. Knowing your sister was nearby, though, and that you would lead us to her—well, that perked me right up.” Taggart wagged his brows at Josephine. “Bigger paydays always put me in a good mood. And your brother arranged it perfectly. He only forgot one thing.”

Taggart turned back to Charlie, his smile twisting into a sneer. “You forgot who you were dealing with. Consider this a renegotiation of our deal, Burkett. I’m no longer satisfied with half the ransom money. Me and my boys are going to take it all. And if you want to live to learn from your mistakes, you’ll accept my terms without complaint.” He waved Dawson forward again. “Shackle him to the chuck wagon and let Cookie put him to work. If he gets out of line, shoot him.”

Dawson yanked Charlie off the ground, locking his arms behind his back. Charlie’s right leg buckled when he tried to stand on it.

“Wait. He’s hurt.” Josephine tried to go to her brother, her healing instincts punching through the horrified numbness freezing her insides at the story she’d just heard. “Let me help him.”

“Nope. Got other plans for you, darlin’.” He pulled her in the opposite direction.