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The sound of one lone horse riding off triggered a nagging feeling of foreboding in Gray’s gut. Men like Josiah rarely stuck around to do their own dirty work. So, if he was the only one leaving…things were about to get messy.
Gray squirmed in his chair. It had nothing to do with the strange and irritating desire that suddenly crawled through him to rush to Mercy’s aid. He just needed a cushion for his chair was all. Though, if ever a woman could manage to weasel her way past his carefully laid internal defenses it would probably be her. But she hadn’t. And wouldn’t. Because becoming embroiled in her life wasnotpart of his plan. He just needed a better chair.
Though one could argue he was already embroiled in it, seeing as how they were publicly engaged and all. But that didn’t mean he had to put forth any undue effort. He was supposed to sit there and look pretty. Or scary. Or whatever.
He gave a long-suffering sigh. If he knew Mercy, and he was beginning to think he did, that woman was bound to make the situation worse. He was just about to stand up and see if she needed a hand when the first shot was fired.
Dammit. What does a man have to do to get a nap around here?
He peeked around the post in his line of vision. Jason duck-walked between fence posts and barrels, hiding, and then popping up again to shoot his gun as he tried to make his way closer to Mercy. Though as far as Gray could tell he wasn’t bothering to aim, and he certainly wasn’t managing to hit anything. Gray snorted. “Amateur.”
“We could use some help, you know!” Jason shouted at him.
Gray waved him off. “You’re doin’ fine.” Besides, from what he could tell, Josiah’s men were worse shots than Jason, which likely meant they weren’t there to actually harm anyone. Probably more intent on scaring her off her land than anything else, if he had to venture a guess.
“I don’t need his help,” Mercy argued, before squealing and jumping back behind her post as a shot rang out in her general direction—although if the dirt that flew up was any indication, they’d still missed her by a good twenty feet. Were they closing their eyes when they fired? Missing by that much wasn’t going to scare someone as stubborn as Mercy. Surely Josiah had told them to at least make it look good.
“I’m doing just fine.” She popped out from behind the post and fired her shotgun in the general direction of the men—also in no danger of hitting anyone anytime soon.
“See? She’s doin’ just fine,” Gray said.
The commotion stopped for a few seconds as Josiah’s men must have finally noticed him. He rubbed a hand across his eyes. Maybe they’d keep ignoring him if he kept his mouth shut.
After a minute, they seemed to realize that he had no intentions of joining in the fight because they resumed their attack, keeping their focus on Mercy and Jason. Not a bad decision, since Mercy and Jason were the ones shooting at them.
A bullet grazed the post that Mercy hid behind, and Gray’s feet dropped from the railing.
She peered out from behind the post, her face a masterpiece of righteous anger. “You almost hit me!” she shouted, and Gray chuckled. Only Mercy would berate a man trying to shoot her for daring to get too close to actually hitting her. He sighed. She was startin’ to grow on him.
She aimed her shotgun and fired. And hit nothing. But she had managed to scare the horse of the man who’d fired on her, and it bucked and reared until it unseated its rider and took off at a dead run, leaving him in the dust. Probably not what she’d been aiming to do, but it had the desired result. Good on her.
Gray tried to settle back again. It had been close, but she’d performed admirably. He didn’t need to get involved. He counted six men, plus the one in the dirt, and he sorely hoped they ran out of bullets soon. It would seriously mess with his retirement if he had to start killing people. Gray rubbed at his chest, realizing he’d probably have to leave town if word got round this was where he was hiding out—which it surely would if he laid out four men at once.
Best just keep this a friendly little disagreement for now.
So when one guy started to get a little closer to Mercy than Gray liked, he bent over and selected a nice, large apple from the basket she had left on his porch the day before. She was busy trying to reload her shotgun and hadn’t noticed the man had crept closer and was raising his weapon to fire again.
Gray stood and let the apple fly, hitting the man in the shoulder just as he fired, which caused him to jerk and his shot to go wild. Gray grinned and sat down again, though he pocketed a few more apples, just in case.
The man shouted and grabbed at his shoulder, and Mercy peeked out from behind her post, frowning in confusion. Then she looked at Gray.
“Did you just help me?”
Gray shook his head. “Nope.”
She opened her mouth to say something else, but one of the other men got off a shot, and she ducked back behind her post with a squeak.
“Dammit,” Gray muttered. So far, she was doing just fine, but Banff’s men were being much more persistent than Gray had thought they would. It was growing increasingly obvious they were not there just to scare or intimidate her into complying but might actually be intent on truly harming her. And that was something he just couldn’t—
Before he could finish the thought, a stray bullet shattered the window box next to him. The dirt left in the box dribbled out of the now-broken side, dragging his newly planted daisies with it.
“That’s it,” he said, standing up and brushing off the dirt that had splattered onto him. “I planted those flowers myself!” he shouted to no one in particular.
Dammit, seeing those little flowers thrive under his care had been an almost religious experience for him. And now it was all ruined. No one was going to get away with that. And…maybe Mercy could use a little help. Since he was joining the fight anyway.
He reached for his guns at his hip, belatedly remembering he’d buried them in the garden. Shit. Well, he’d have to do things the old-fashioned way. He sighed. That was so much more effort than he preferred. Ah well. No help for it.
He marched into the fray, swiftly dispatching the first man who rounded on him with a well-placed fist. He shook his hand. Hitting someone in the face hurt a lot more than one would think. He glanced around for some kind of weapon and spied the stool Mercy used while washing clothes.
