The Gunfighter and the Heiress - By Carol Finch Page 0,86

find me?” she whispered.

“Old Kiowa trick…and a lighted torch to follow the tracks through the dark alley. How did you escape them?”

“Old Kiowa trick,” she said and managed a faint smile. “I used the dagger you gave me to cut the ropes off my wrists. Also, I relied on everything else you taught me.”

Her comment prompted the slightest hint of a smile. It didn’t last long. His expression turned hard as he tucked her behind the boulder for protection.

“Remember how I keep telling you to stay put, and you defy me with one flimsy excuse after another?”

She nodded her tousled head.

“This time I really mean it, sunshine.”

“You and your rules,” she grumbled as she waved around the pistol she extracted from the fold of her makeshift breeches. “Here I am with spare hardware and you’re not letting me use it.”

Smiling faintly, he dropped a kiss to her lips, then crouched so he could spring into action.

“Crow, I—” Natalie clamped her mouth shut before she did the inexcusable and blurted out that she was crazy in love with him, even when she knew she meant nothing special to him.

When he frowned questioningly, she shooed him on his way. He surged between the horses that still tugged at the reins he had clamped in his hand. Natalie shook her head in amazement as he crouched down between the skittish horses. She predicted the Harpers were going to be surprised when they raced across the canyon floor and realized Crow had materialized where she had been a moment before.

Despite Crow’s orders to stay down while he took all the chances with his life and became the target to lure in the Harpers, Natalie came to her knees so she could poke her head over the boulder. Sure enough, the Harpers skidded to a startled halt when Crow expelled a war whoop and rose to his feet, while the horses circled him like a moving shield.

“Well, hell!” Georgie scowled, then took aim to fire.

“Where’d he come from?” Charley muttered sourly.

“I’ll take care of him.” Willy closed his left eye to take Crow’s measure on the sight of the gun barrel.

What was the matter with Crow? she mused in frustration. He didn’t have a pistol with him. And he called her a daredevil? Natalie raised her pistol and aimed at Willy who was trying to get a clear shot at Crow. Willy squawked in surprise when she shot him in the leg before he could fire at Crow. She didn’t dare glance in Crow’s direction since she had disobeyed his direct order—again.

Her mouth dropped open when Crow hooked his left arm around one of the horses’ neck and tossed his left leg over the animal’s back. How he kept from falling off the side of the horse she had no idea—his superior strength and practice was her best guess.

He clamped all four sets of reins between his teeth and urged the horses forward, while George tried to shoot him—twice. George yelped when Crow ran the horses straight at him, knocking him flat and sending his pistol cartwheeling through the air.

Natalie blinked in amazement when Crow maneuvered the four horses so he could kick out with his right foot to land a brain-scrambling blow to Georgie’s chin.

The outlaw collapsed. He lay face up and motionless on the ground.

Natalie darted a glance at Charley who had the good sense to turn tail and run. Not that he escaped Crow’s wrath. The bandit only had time to retreat ten paces before Crow and his horses plowed over him. Charley screamed his head off when Crow struck out with his right foot and slammed the outlaw’s skull into the ground. Natalie winced, certain the hard blow jarred teeth and smashed Charley’s nose into the dirt.

Crow’s unnerving war whoop echoed around the chasm like a death knell as Willy staggered to his feet, still clutching his bloody leg. His eyes were wide as goose eggs as he hobbled back in the direction he’d come, firing his pistol erratically over his shoulder as he went. Crow ran him to ground and sent him skidding in the outwash of loose gravel at the base of an arroyo. Willy whimpered after he received a kick in the back of the head. He yelped, collapsed and lay unmoving.

While Natalie watched, Crow slid off the horse to retrieve leather strips from the pouch secured to his waist. Quick as a wink he lashed the bandits’ hands behind their backs. When he spared a glance at