Johanna Lindsey - Savage Thunder

"How's that?"

"By sending her people to look for her in the wrong direction, of course. After all, it's to his benefit now, as well as ours, that she isn't found."

"It ain't gonna matter much to him," Pete volun-teered at that point. "Angel killed him."

There was a long pause before Elliot said, "I see," then another long moment before he added, "Well, so much for the additional time element. I assume you at least made good time getting back here?"

"Good enough," Angel drawled. "Now you answer me one. Why is it you never said she was a good-looking woman?"

"Because that fact is quite irrelevant."

"Oh, it's relevant, all right. Very relevant. A pretty thing like this shouldn't ought to be wasted."

Jocelyn slapped his hand away when his finger grazed her cheek to the accompaniment of those words.

So that was what he had meant by saying she wouldn't die today. It was almost dark. No one was going to find her in the dark. These men would have all night long to rape her, and Angel undoubtedly meant to be the first.

Longnose must have thought so too, for he was smiling again. "There's time enough for that, cer-tainly. I would have suggested it myself. Just be care-ful with her. The privilege of killing her is mine, after all."

If Jocelyn were prone to swooning, those words would have had her collapsing. As it was, she was overcome with panic. Sir George was her only chance now. If she could just get to him, she'd earn a swift, merciful bullet in the back, for that would be the only way they could then stop her.

But Angel must have read her thoughts again. His hand clamped on her arm like a vise, keeping her at his side. She would have killed him in that moment if she had the means. She was in fact reaching for one of her hairpins when his quiet voice arrested the movement.

"It don't sound to me like you took my meaning," he was telling Longnose. "I've decided to keep her—

until I get tired of her."

"That's out of the question!"

Angel's voice turned softly menacing. "I wasn't asking your permission, Englishman."

The older man's face mottled with color again. He even raised his cane, which was a mistake.

What ensued was becoming quite familiar to Jocelyn, seeing guns drawn at the blink of an eye. She only jumped slightly when the shot was fired, but to her everlasting disgust, Longnose was still standing there.

Angel's bullet had merely shot the cane out of his hand.

But the man didn't have the sense to calm down even then. "Mr. Owen!" he bellowed.

That gentleman apparently had more sense. "Fer-get it, boss. I ain't tanglin' with the likes o' him."

And when Longnose glanced at the others, he found pretty much the same opinion. One by one, gun belts were slowly being dropped to the ground. It was only when Jocelyn noticed that Angel's gun was pointing from man to man that she realized why. Not one of them cared to try their luck at disarming him, even though they so outnumbered him. Incred-ible. But then she wasn't the only one who had witnessed how swift he was, or how accurate.

"Bring that horse over here, Saunders," Angel ordered, indicating Sir George.

The boy quickly complied. Jocelyn almost smiled, her relief was so great. Until she recalled that she wasn't actually being rescued, but was merely ex-changing one bad situation for another. The odds were better now, though, and her life was no longer in imminent danger, so she supposed she had reason to be grateful to her unexpected savior.

She changed her mind about that, however, at his parting words to Longnose. "For your purposes, man, you can consider her dead. Her people won't find her where I'm taking her, and when I'm done with her…"

"You'll kill her?"

"Why not?" Angel replied with a shrug. "IVe got Dryden's money as payment in advance."

Jocelyn had assumed she would be put on Sir George, even if Angel was to ride behind her again to assure she wouldn't take off with the stallion. There was a need for speed to quit the area, after all. But after walking both horses up the rise so that he could keep his gun trained on the group below, Angel mounted his own horse and pulled her up in front of him again. Her stallion was merely led along, as Saunders had done before.

There was one surprising moment, however, just as they took off, when he asked her, "That rifle you carried, did you know how to use it?" Since she didn't feel like talking to him then, she gave him no more than a curt nod, only to be amazed when he placed his rifle in her hands with the order, "Shoot anything that appears over that rise."

"I'd rather shoot you."

"Really? Well, save that urge for some other time, honey."

She saw the sense in that, and after resting the rifle on his shoulder to steady it, did fire off a few shots.

Whether it was heads or rocks she shot at, though, she didn't know. The deep rose light of the setting sun was too misleading for her to tell. But there had been answering shots that continued long after they were out of range.

She didn't feel that they were safe, however, until Angel took the rifle back. And then he frightened the devil out of her by swinging her around to the back of the horse, without any warning. He rode faster then, forcing her to hold on for dear life. Not once did she consider letting go of the fist-holds she had on his slicker. Even if she could hide with the oncoming dark, with the way her luck had gone today, she likely would break her neck in the fall.

But he did slow up when full dark was upon them, and even when the moon appeared later to give him enough light to avoid shrubs and large rocks, he kept to the slower pace. She had to wonder about that, until it occurred to her that anyone following wouldn't risk a faster pace either, at least not until morning.

She had no idea where they were going. He'd been riding toward the mountains in the east before he changed her position on the horse, but he didn't seem to keep to any direct line. And once the sky blackened, she lost her sense of direction. If there were mountains ahead of them, she could no longer see them.

"How long do you think that guard of yours will look for you tonight?"

Jocelyn was surprised by the question, coming after such a long silence. Was he worried? She certainly hoped so. She certainly wasn't going to volunteer any information that might aid him.

"I'd be more concerned over the Englishman if I were you," she told him. "You don't think he's going to trust you to keep me from escaping, or to kill me when you're done with me, do you? No, he'll be the one to follow, but now to kill us both."

He said nothing to that, nor did he ask his question again, leaving her rather deflated that he didn't give her another opportunity to be uncooperative. But about twenty minutes later he did, when he reached back to try and grab her hands to force them around him. She resisted that quite nicely.

And gained his anger, if his tone was any indica-tion as he snarled over his shoulder, "I'd be nice to me if I were you."

Jocelyn was not impressed. "You don't intimidate me, Mr. Angel. You might as well kill me now, because I will not be your mistress or your whore."

"What about my wife?"

That threw her. "You want to marry me? But money means nothing to you, as I recall."

"What has money got to do with it?"

What an absurd question. "Very well, suppose you tell me why marriage has entered your mind."

"Besides the obvious reasons, a man's got the right to beat his wife."

"That isn't funny!" she snapped, realizing by his sudden laughter that he had only been teasing her.

"Odious man," she muttered to herself.

"Where's that sense of humor you antagonized the Englishman with?"

"Gone to sleep, obviously, which is what I'd like to do. Are you going to ride all night?"

"You want me to stop and wait for my friends to catch up?"

His humor was getting on her nerves. "Don't forget my own people."

"Your guards are probably lost in the hills, honey. There's no trackers among them. 'Course, there's that half-breed guide of yours," he added in a speculative tone. "Would he bother to look for you?"

With the abominable way Colt had been treating her lately? "No," she said without thinking, then re-alized she should have lied. "But I wouldn't discount my guard so easily."

He chuckled in answer, which was really too much. Jocelyn started to give him a serious volley on what she thought of him, when she heard the horse approaching. With a gasp she looked behind her to see a gray blur racing toward them at a breakneck speed. Her heart nearly lodged in her throat.

"We're about to be overtaken!"

"I know."

"You — well, do something!"

He did. He stopped, turning his horse about. He even dismounted and pulled her down with him. But he didn't draw his gun, didn't reach for his rifle. She stared at him as if he were mad. She didn't wait around to see if he was. She started running, and got about fifteen yards before she was yanked oif her feet. Her frightened scream blasted across the countryside, only to be cut short when she was slammed down on another horse.

"Are you all right?"

Jocelyn blinked, doubting her ears, but it really was his voice. She looked up to confirm it, saw his fierce, beautiful face, and wailed, "Oh, Colt!"

She burst into tears for some foolish reason, bury-ing her face against his chest. He came to a stop, and then his arms wrapped more fully around her. For a moment she couldn't breathe, she was squeezed so tightly. The man obviously didn't know his own strength.

"Are you all right?" he repeated.

"Yes."

"Then why are you crying?"

"I don't know!" And she cried louder — until she heard Angel laughing in the distance. She stiffened then and demanded, "Where's your gun?"

"What for?"

"I'm going to shoot that wretched man!"

"No, you're not," Colt said laconically. "I might, but you're not."

With that he jerked his mount around and trotted back to where Angel was waiting — and still chuck-ling. Jocelyn didn't understand the man's humor, but she was infuriated by it. Didn't he realize she had been rescued, and this time really rescued? And then it dawned on her. It truly was over, now that Colt was here. He wouldn't let anything else happen to her. He might not like her anymore. who was she kidding? He had never liked her. So he might like her even less now, but he would still protect her.

And no one could make her feel quite as safe and protected as he could.

She almost felt sorry for Angel, who didn't realize his danger yet. Her annoyance with him dissolved with that thought. After all, he hadn't hurt her, had in fact kept her from harm. Colt might have gotten there in time to prevent Longnose from killing her, but he wouldn't have been in time to prevent the other.

Angel had done that.

She had to tell him, especially after that remark about his possibly shooting Angel. "Ah, Colt—"

"Not now, Duchess."

"But, Colt…"

She was too late. He dropped off his horse before it even stopped and only then, watching him, did she realize that he was furious. Angel must have realized it too. She'd seen both men draw before, and couldn't actually say who was faster.

And then Angel was being lifted off the ground, a good half foot. "If you were a little bigger, you son of a bitch, I'd beat the shit out of you!"

"Ah, come on, Colt, I did what you asked."

"Like hell you did!" That with a shake. "You were supposed to be there to help out if she was brought in, not be the one to bring her in."

"I had it covered!"

"You're damn lucky I had you covered!" Colt growled before he let Angel go with a shove.

"I figured that was you drawing their fire. When'd you get there?"

"Not soon enough to stop you from taking her over that rise," Colt said in disgust, but then sounded almost anguished when he added, "Damn you, Angel. If I'd found out about that stunt afterward, I'd prob-ably kill you now. To put her in danger like that. I still ought to beat the crap out of you."

"All right," Angel said on a conciliatory note. "Maybe it wasn't the smartest move. But it wasn't that dangerous either, Colt. IVe been with that bunch long enough to know what to expect of them. Half are nothing but cowards, and the rest wouldn't know their ass from a hole in the ground."