She swallowed before she answered. "Why do you think?"
"Other than the fact that you're as loco as a three-tailed cat in a rocking chair factory, I'm as clueless as a newborn colt."
Abigail's stomach churned at his words. "Oh I forgot. You think it's all right to kill innocent Apollites and humans and prey on them. Well, I have news for you, buster. We're not taking it anymore. Your days of killing us are over, and we're hunting you now."
Frowning, he snapped his head back with a baffled expression. "Come again?"
"Are you deaf?"
"No, ma'am. But I know you didn't just accuse me of killing the very things I protect."
His denial shot a fresh bomb of rage through her. Grinding her teeth, she lunged at him.
Jess caught her against his chest. She stomped his instep. Cursing, he bent over and stumbled back. Big mistake. She slammed her hands across his ears. Pain splintered his skull. She would have kneed him in the face had he not put a little more distance between them.
Sick of being beat on, he cursed himself for declining the handcuffs.
His only course of action was to wrap himself around her and brace her flat against the wall so that she couldn't continue to hurt him. "Stop fighting," he snarled in her ear.
"No! You took everything from me, and I'm going to kill you for it."
That only confused him more. "What are you talking about?"
"You murdered my parents. You bastard!"
For a few heartbeats, he couldn't breathe as he flashed back to his life as a human. Change out the word parents with father and make her a man, and he remembered the day when someone else had leveled that accusation. After it was said, the man drew his gun and shot him.
The bullet had gone into his shoulder. Acting on pure instinct honed by countless gunfights, Jess had pulled his own Colt out and returned the favor. Only his bullet went straight through the man's head. It wasn't until Jess checked him that he realized that man was a sixteen-year-old boy who'd stared up at him in agony while the light drained out of his eyes. The father he'd mentioned had been a cardsharp who'd tried to gun Jess down outside a saloon a few weeks before that. Stupid fool had pulled a derringer on him. Jess had disarmed him, and when the gambler went to stab him, he'd shot him at point-blank range.
Justified.
But the kid's death ...
That was one of dozens of such memories he wished to God he could purge out of his mind.
"I haven't killed a human being in over a hundred and forty years, and I damned sure didn't kill your parents."
She shrieked at him, then thrashed about with enough force to free herself from his hold. "You don't even remember? You worthless, rotten-"
He caught her hand before she slapped him. "Honey, I haven't shot a human since I was one. Only piece of loco around here would be you."
She shoved him back and tried to kick him. "I saw you with my own eyes. You gunned them down in cold blood."
That set fire to his temper. He might have been a lot of things, but that ... that ... "Oh, like hell. I have never in my life killed anyone in cold blood."
She curled her lip. "Right ... You're a hired killer. It's all you've ever known. You've never cared who and what you put down so long as you got paid for it."
"Was"-he stressed the word-"and those I killed, I did so in a fair duel. They had as much a chance of living as I did." While he was the first to admit he'd been a cold-blooded criminal, unlike Bart, he'd had lines he wouldn't cross. Things no amount of money could make him do. "I swear to God that I did not kill your parents."
Abigail hesitated. He meant what he was saying. She could see it in his eyes and hear it in his indignant tone. "How could you forget that night? I heard you fighting with my father. You left and then came back and broke into our house."
He held his hands up to emphasize his point. "I have never broken into a house. A bank, most definitely. A train a time or two to rob payrolls, but never someone's home."
"You're lying."
He shook his head. "I don't lie. I've got no need to."
"Bullshit. I was there. I saw you."