Untamed by Kathleen Lawless

Author:Kathleen Lawless [Lawless, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Telegraph Bay Publishing
Published: 2020-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Brand asked Warren.

“Saving your sorry hide one more time.”

“Didn’t know you thought it was even worth saving.”

“You’ve overlooked one rather important detail: you haven’t completed the little task I assigned you.”

“Get out of here before you get hurt.” Brand’s tone said that the real threat was not the two lunatics they were faced off against.

A threat Warren chose to disregard. “There’s safety in numbers. Those clowns are unlikely to do anything stupid now that there’s two of us.”

Where the hell were you when we were growing up? Brand wondered.

More men arrived, clearly following Warren’s example, creating a human blockade between the original two hotheads. Before long the duo gave up in disgust, holstered their weapons, and stomped off in opposite directions.

A collective sigh ran through the onlookers, followed by a buzz of conversation. Cynically, Brand figured most of them were disappointed by the anti-climactic conclusion.

At least Barnes and Roper hadn’t needed to blow their cover, if that had indeed been the reason for the set-to.

The tension at the back of his neck begin to subside as Barnes and Roper melted into the shadows. Brand glanced toward the hotel. Best collect Paris and head back there; he didn’t like leaving the journal lying around. It wouldn’t be long before the Lamoys discovered it had been reclaimed, along with the tape he’d delivered earlier to Barnes and Roper. The Lamoys had a nice little extortion racket going, which Warren would be mighty pissed about. He considered Forked Creek his town, and pure as the fresh-driven snow.

“Think they’ll try it again?” Warren asked.

“Nah. They’ll more than likely forget all about it by morning.”

Slowly the crowd began to disperse. Brand left, and Warren watched him make his way back to Paris’s side.

“To what do we owe that foolish show of bravado?”

The scorn in Warren’s mother’s voice was an ever-present part of her. Nothing he ever did was good enough, fast enough, smart enough. And never would be.

“I couldn’t let Brand look like a hero all by himself, now, could I?”

“I warned you before about allying yourself with those Brands.”

She seemed to forget that she was the one who had connected them both with the Brand family in the first place. “Yes, Mother. You’ve spent a lifetime telling me what to do and how to act.”

“Then get on with it,” the old lady hissed.

She turned about smartly and left him standing in the middle of the now-deserted, dark street. This town, his legacy, was proving to be both a curse and a blessing. He was proud to be part of a dream first realized by his father and his grandfather, but his mother’s constant interference, along with the shareholders’ continual harpings about expansion and profit-and-loss statements, were enough to exhaust even the most resilient of men.

Time was running out. Was he wrong to count on Brand to come up with the missing deed to the bordello? His stepbrother was well known for always having his own agenda.

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