The Outlaw Jesse James by Cindy Gerard

Author:Cindy Gerard [Gerard, Cindy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises
Published: 2011-07-15T07:00:00+00:00

It was over in seconds. Seconds that seemed like an eternity as a stunned crowd watched in a helpless, breathless horror.

One second D.U. had been nding tight, his free hand jerking in the air for balance, his inside leg clamped and steady. The next, he’d lost his grip on his bull rope.

He’d fallen into the well, and kept on falling until he’d hit the ground like a javelin hurled at ninety miles an hour. The impact had knocked him out cold. He’d bounced off the arena floor then lay limp and defenseless as Thunder Cloud spun his hips around, lowered his great homed head and charged D.U.’s lifeless form.

The clowns worked frantically to distract the rampaging bull away from the helpless cowboy lying unconscious on the arena floor. The announcer muffled the mike and yelled for someone to call the ambulance—fast!

Jesse watched it all as if it were a bad dream, held in check by three bull riders who had grabbed him when they’d seen he was about to scale the fence to try to drag D.U. out of harm’s way.

Intellectually, he knew they were right to stop him. The clowns knew their business and his intervention would jeopardize rather than improve D.U.’s position. They were, by design, a rag-tag crew who looked as though they were only there for fun and games. But underneath the clown paint and baggy clothes, these men were the bull rider’s lifeline. They would be the ones who could get D.U. to safety.

Yeah Intellectually, he knew that. Emotionally, though, he felt as though he was being ripped apart as the outraged bull ground D.U. into the dust like a rag doll until the clowns finally managed to waylay him from D.U.’s mangled body and herd him out of the arena.

The crowd held its collective breath as the Justin Healers raced to D.U.’s side with a medical kit and a stretcher. Jesse was fast on their heels. He was aware of gates clanging, of the interminably long creep of time until blue lights flashed and a path was cleared for the ambulance to drive into the arena.

Carefully, they administered triage. Solemnly, they lifted D.U.’s unconscious, broken and bloody form onto the stretcher and loaded him into the ambulance.

“He got any kin?” one of the attendants asked grimly just before they shut the doors.

Jesse swallowed hard. There was blood everywhere. D.U.’s leg was twisted at an odd angle. His flack vest was gouged by a huge cloven hoof and ripped by a piercing horn.

“I’m as close as he’s got here,” he said, and climbed in behind the stretcher. The look he shot the attendant said there would not be an argument about him going along. There wasn’t.

He tried not to think on the ride to the hospital. Couldn’t feel past the nauseous knot of fear that clogged his throat and stalled his breath.

The siren wailed. The ambulance careened around a corner. The paramedics worked frantically at stemming the blood flow and aiding D.U.’s breathing.

For the first

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