Devil's Dare by Laurie Grant

Author:Laurie Grant [Laurie Grant]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459275133
Publisher: Harlequin

The rain had stopped. He couldn’t believe his luck when he found the obviously deserted soddy. “Ain’t no one likely to find ya in there, ‘least not until the varmints have eaten most of ya,” Tom said after hauling the body out of the wagon with his arms underneath Devlin’s shoulders.

As he was dragging Devlin under the low entrance of the rude dwelling, a pair of bats, disturbed by the unexpected human company, flapped out right over Tom’s head. In his fear that the bats would fly into his hair, he dropped Devlin and waved his arms above his head.

As Devlin’s head hit the dirt floor, he suddenly moaned, and the shock of it nearly stopped Tom’s heart.

It gave wings to his feet, though. Tom ran a good hundred yards out on the prairie, as if he feared Devlin’s vengeful ghost was about to rise and punish him. Then, realizing how foolish that was, he slowly returned, watching the crumpled body still lying half outside for any further movement.

It didn’t move as he came near. “Ain’t dead yet, huh?” he said, his voice sounding preternaturally loud in the stillness. Gingerly he reached trembling fingers to Devlin’s neck.

A pulse still fluttered there, but it was faint, very faint and rapid. The trail boss’s shirt was drenched with darkened, still-moist blood, while his face was waxy pale. Tom gave him a poke with the toe of his boot, but Devlin moaned no more.

“Well, if you ain’t dead yet, you will be b’fore long,” he muttered, dragging Devlin the rest of the way into the deserted, cobwebbed interior of the soddy. He heard the squeaks of mice rustling overhead in the sod roof of the rude dwelling, and the sound further gnawed on his nerves.

He knew he should put another bullet into the trail boss, just to make things sure, but he was still too spooked by the bats flying right over his head and Devlin’s unlooked-for signs of life. He just wanted to get out of there. Devlin was going to bleed to death anyway, and if his heart was still beating when he left him, Tom could say with perfect honesty that he hadn’t killed him.

Then, as he exited the soddy into the dusk, he noticed his shirt was bloody from contact with Devlin’s blood-soaked shirt when he had been carrying the body with his arms under the shoulders.

“Shee-it,” he muttered in disgust. He’d just bought that danged shirt two days ago when they’d struck Abilene, but he couldn’t very well ride into town with Devlin’s blood covering his chest like a brand.

He glanced back at the soddy, wishing it hadn’t rained. The prairie had been tinder-dry before the rain today, and if he could have set a match to the soddy, tossed the shirt inside it to burn up along with Devlin and then backed the buckboard against the flaming dwelling so that it would burn, too, then all of the evidence would be ashes and charred bones.

But there was

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