There was Jesse . . .
standing
! In his hands were the remnants of a glass vase that had sat on a table near the foot of the stairs. On the floor before him lay Reuben, his unconscious body littered with shards of glass, water, and a few crumpled flowers.
“Jesse!” she managed, her voice little more than a whisper.
He stood unsteadily for a moment longer, his legs quivering and shaking, before he lost his balance and fell back into the wheelchair from which he had risen to protect her. The chair rolled slightly before coming to rest against the wall.
In a flash, she was up and to him, throwing her arms around him in a tight hug. The tears that had refused to come when she had been in Reuben’s grasp now flowed freely; the difference was that these were tears of happiness.
“Oh, Jesse!” she cried. “Thank you!”
“I told you I’d save you.” He smiled broadly. “The sheriff always rescues the girl!”
“’T
WAS ONE OF
the best sing-alongs ever, I done do swear!”
Quinn smiled gently as he shooed Roy Long off the stool and toward the door. Even so long after the last paying customer had left, it wasn’t unusual for Roy still to be at the bar. Quinn often let the older man hang around after the tavern was closed; it was always nice to have another voice as he tidied up the place, and besides, Roy spent nearly as much time there as he did at home.
“I think you might be on to something there,” he nodded.
“That gal’s one mighty fine pian’r player!” Roy remarked, trying to steady himself on shaky legs. For a moment, it looked as if he might tip over, but he held his balance. “If Gabe don’t watch hisself, he ain’t gonna have no job to come back to when that busted mitt is healed!”
“He still pours beer better than I do, so maybe I’ll be the one out of a job.”
Roy laughed at Quinn’s joke before tottering out the door and into the darkness, waving over his shoulder as he went. Quinn watched him until he was out of sight.
No doubt about it, I have a soft spot for the old drunk.
Back inside the Whipsaw, Quinn spent the next forty-five minutes shutting the tavern down for the night. There was still much to be done; he cleared the empty beer bottles off the tables, tidied up the liquor bottles on the shelf, wiped down the bar counter, and counted the night’s take before putting it in the office safe. All the while he worked, his mind was elsewhere. There was only one thing, one name that held a grip on his thoughts.
Adrianna
.
Since they had lain together as man and woman, she had left a mark on him that would be there forever. Everywhere he went, in everything that he did, he thought about her. Tonight at the Whipsaw had been especially difficult; whenever he caught her eye as he moved around the bar, he had a hard time breaking his loving gaze. If he didn’t hear her voice soon or feel her touch, he felt he might burst!
As he swept up a small pile of broken glass, Quinn’s mind was so focused on Adrianna that he didn’t hear the Whipsaw’s door open, nor did he hear the intruder’s footsteps tap lightly across the wooden floor toward him. He became aware that he was not alone only when a man’s voice spoke from behind him.
“I told you that you won’t have her, and I meant it.”
Without needing to turn, Quinn knew that Richard Pope stood behind him; that nasal voice was unmistakable. Anger flared in Quinn’s breast at the man’s gall in returning. He’d thought that he’d made it clear that Richard was never to show his face again. This time, he’d make certain that the man from Shreveport would
never
return!
As Quinn spun around, his fists were clenched tightly. He was determined to cause pain. He didn’t realize that Richard held a pistol until a split second before the man fired. The noise was deafening. Even had Quinn been as quick as a jackrabbit, it wouldn’t have made a difference.
The bullet slammed into the soft flesh of Quinn’s thigh before crashing into bone. The force of the blow knocked him off his feet, and he fell to the floor with a thud. The pain was excruciating! The edges of his vision blackened, but agony seemed to prevent him from losing consciousness. Burning heat coursed through him as if he had been stuck with a branding iron. As his hand instinctively covered the wound, it became wet and sticky with his own deep crimson blood.
“You son of a bitch!” he hissed through clenched teeth.
“Do you think I’d really simply leave town with my tail between my legs?” Richard asked, ignoring Quinn’s curse. He waved the gun about as he talked, the barrel swinging this way and that. “You’ve laid your hands upon me twice, and that is two times too many!”
Quinn’s breath came in ragged fits; the pain, like sharp daggers, pierced his leg. For a moment, he had to rest his head on the floor and close his eyes to try desperately to regain his bearings. He would have to have his wits about him if he were going to survive this madman’s attack.
“You have confused my dear Adrianna,” the older man continued. “You and this pissant little town have managed to cast a spell on her, clouding her judgment and poisoning her thoughts against me, her intended husband.”
“She . . . she doesn’t want you,” Quinn managed to say through the pain. “She—”
“Shut your mouth!” Richard shouted, cutting off Quinn’s halting words. For a moment, he looked angry enough to raise the pistol and finish the job he had started, but instead he did something that curdled Quinn’s stomach; he smiled and laughed heartily.
“What’s so damn funny?”
“I find it amusing that you think you’ll be alive long enough for Adrianna to be able to make choice between us,” the man explained. As he spoke, Richard went behind the long bar and began to line up bottles of liquor on the wooden countertop. “The only choice that will be made this evening will be when I decide which way I wish to kill you.”
Panic began to work its way through Quinn as quickly as the pain from his gunshot wound. He had to act, and he had to do it quickly! Suddenly, a flame of hope lit in his heart at the thought that Roy Long might have heard the gunshot. But that hope quickly turned to dread; if Roy
had
heard the shot, he was just as likely to come back to the Whipsaw, in which case Richard would shoot him as well. Quinn knew that if he wanted to get out of here alive, he would have to depend on himself.
The only weapon in the Whipsaw was a small pistol he kept in the office, but in order to use it to protect himself, he would have to get to it first. Simply getting to his feet was going to prove a challenge, let alone getting out of the room alive. Richard had shown no remorse shooting him once; if he were to try to run for it, he had no doubt that the lawyer would shoot him in the back like a dog.
Quinn was pulled from his frantic thoughts by the sound of shattering glass. He looked up to see Richard flinging full liquor bottles to the far corners of the tavern, their contents spilling out onto the floor, tables, chairs, and even the walls. Bottle after bottle hurtled through the air before meeting the same fate as all the rest. One landed near him, soaking his shirt with whiskey. The room was soon filled with the sharp, strong smell of alcohol.
“What . . . what the hell are you doing?” Quinn managed to ask.
Richard’s arm stopped abruptly, sparing a bottle of rum. “Isn’t it obvious, my dear man?” he answered incredulously. He grinned before explaining. “I’m going to burn you alive.”
“Ohhh . . . my head aches,
c’est la vérité
!” Gabe moaned as Adrianna helped him into a chair. His legs were rubbery and spots continued to dance before his eyes, but at least the ringing in his ears was subsiding.
“Take it easy,” Adrianna explained.
“That is about all I
can
do.” Gabe placed one hand gingerly on the knot growing ever larger on the back of his head. He winced as he touched it.
Adrianna’s brow was still furrowed with worry. With Gabe’s meager help, she’d tied up Lola and Reuben with rope she’d found in the pantry. Even though neither of them had yet to gain consciousness, the tightest knots held them. When Adrianna and Gabe were able, they’d fetch the sheriff; their attackers would pay for what they had done. Still, even with the immediate threat passed, a feeling of dread gnawed at Adrianna’s gut. It was as if she somehow knew that the night’s calamities were not yet over.
“I’m worried about Quinn. He should be home by now,” she said aloud, rubbing her hands that were bruised from striking Lola.
“Quinn will be surprised about what’s happened here,” Jesse said as he rolled into the room in his wheelchair. Trotting along beside him, still a touch the worse for wear, was Cowboy. “We’ve got the bad guys all tied up. Even if they got loose, I’d just bust ’em on the head again!” he said proudly.
“Thank you for dispatching Reuben,
mon ami,
” Gabe nodded.
“T’weren’t nothin’,” Jesse drawled with a wink.
Even with all of this, Adrianna couldn’t get the thought out of her head that something bad was detaining Quinn. The skin on the back of her neck was crawling with fear. The more that she thought of it, she knew that it wasn’t her own well-being that was giving her worry.
It was Quinn’s
.
“I have to go to the Whipsaw,” she said decidedly.
“What for?” Jesse asked.
“
Mademoiselle,
let’s not be too hasty,” Gabe cautioned. “We have no way of knowing if that ape was the only person Lola was using to try to do you harm. After all that has happened, I don’t know if there is anything she would
not
be capable of. I wouldn’t put it past that witch to have a couple more waiting outside the house right now,
n’est-ce pas
?”
“I don’t care,” Adrianna insisted. “Don’t ask me how, but I just know that Quinn is in trouble. If I don’t go to him right now, I’m afraid something terrible is going to happen to him. Reuben may have set thugs on him.”
“On Quinn?” Jesse asked. “It would take a good-sized bunch to take him down!”
“I wouldn’t put it quite the same way as he did,” Gabe said, nodding at Jesse, “but Quinn is someone who knows how to take care of himself. I think it is far safer for us all to remain here and wait for him to come home.”
As she weighed Gabe’s words, Adrianna’s mind was filled with memories of Quinn. It was as if she were at a motion picture. Moment followed moment with rapid precision, one more powerful than the next. As clearly as in a photograph, she could see his face as he slept beside her the morning after they had made love. A lone tear slid down her cheek. Angrily, she wiped it away with her thumb; she didn’t have time to cry!
“I’m going,” she declared and headed toward the door.
“Annie!” Gabe hollered. “Please, wait . . . !” was all she heard before she left the Baxter house, and Gabe and Jesse.
In seconds, she was out on the porch, rushing down the steps, and hurrying out to the street. She had pulled a sweater over her torn blouse, but her body was still battered and bruised from her encounter with Lola. She forced herself to run as fast as her legs would carry her. Even though she worried that someone lurked in the bushes, waiting to pounce on her at Lola’s bidding, she had no time to be afraid.
She had to get to Quinn!
Quinn could only grit his teeth as Richard threw the rest of the bottles of liquor onto the Whipsaw’s floor. The man truly seemed to be enjoying himself as he finished his destructive task. It would only be a matter of minutes before he set the whole thing ablaze.
Time was running out!
“Doing this isn’t going to change how Adrianna feels about you,” Quinn said, desperate to keep the man talking. If he could only bide his time, and prevent Richard from lighting the fire, he might devise some means to survive. “Killing me won’t make any difference. After all, the reason she’s here is because she was running away from you.”
“That was my fault,” Richard answered somberly. “I’ve not made many mistakes in my life, but that was one of them. Believe me, young man, I am the type of fellow who learns from his errors.”
While his enemy talked, Quinn tried to lift himself up onto his elbows. Blood still oozed from his gunshot wound, and the pain still throbbed in time with his speeding heart, but he knew that he would have to overcome the discomfort if he wanted to live.
“I should have known better,” Richard continued. He tossed one last bottle, smiled when it shattered, then wiped his hands against his suit coat. “Grief is such a powerful emotion. When someone has suffered a loss, say of a loved one, she is likely to look for a shoulder to lean on.”
Quinn let the man ramble. Pushing with all his strength, he managed to move to a sitting position. Sweat covered his brow. Now, if he could just get to his feet . . .
“Unfortunately, grief can also be overwhelming. It can make even the most beautiful minds make ugly decisions. Take poor Adrianna, for example. With the death of her father, she became unbalanced and fearful. She ran away from me and ended up in this pathetic town with you.”
Gritting his teeth, Quinn managed to roll gently onto his side and slide his good leg beneath him. A wave of pain washed over him, threatening to keep him from making his way, but he fought on. The next step was to drive himself upward, to gain balance on his one good leg, and then to get to the office as quickly as he could. He was about to make his move when Richard next spoke.