Blood Blade Sisters Series by Michelle McLean Page A

to look up to maintain their eye contact. “Is that what happened to my brother? He went along with you on one of your little raids and got himself captured or killed? Or worse, he wouldn’t go along with you, maybe wanted to turn you in, so you shut him up for good, is that it?”
    Cilla’s mouth dropped open in shock. The accusation was so harsh she wasn’t sure how to respond to it for a second. “Is that what you really believe? That I, that any of us, would be capable of that?”
    Leo took a deep breath and released it slowly. He closed his eyes. “I don’t know. No.” He opened them and stared at her for a moment before shaking his head. “No. But damn it, Priscilla, I don’t know what to think of all this now. Two girls, roaming the countryside. Bandit sisters, ha! And Brynne too. I’m sure she would be here if it weren’t for…”
    “Right. If it weren’t for the fact that she’s carrying your brother’s child. The brother who ran off and left her alone, without protection or a way to support herself. With Frank breathing down our necks! Don’t you dare judge what we are doing. We are keeping our family safe and fed, keeping our roof over our heads. And helping out as many people as we can along the way.” Cilla was close to hyperventilating. She tried to calm her breathing.
    “You already knew all this. Why the sudden hissy fit?”
    Leo looked at her. Cilla relaxed a bit when she saw the tension drain out of him.
    “I apologize. I have no right to judge. I just…don’t want to see anything happen to you.”
    Cilla opened her mouth to reply but under the pressure from Leo’s gaze suddenly couldn’t think of a single thing to say. He was worried about her? That was sort of…sweet. The way he was staring at her, his eyes burning into hers as if he’d never truly seen her before, set loose a swarm of butterflies in her gut that had nothing to do with the upcoming raid. She was flattered really—and she refused to acknowledge it might be more than that—but she had no time for that right now.
    But Leo spoke again before she could say anything else. “For what it’s worth,” he continued, “though I know you have no cause to believe me, I don’t believe my brother would’ve just run off and left his pregnant wife. If he’s gone, something happened to him.”
    Leo rubbed his hand over his eyes, releasing Cilla from the intensity of his gaze. She sucked in a lungful of cold air, her chest screaming like she’d been holding her breath for far too long. Had she?
    She shook her head and answered him. “I don’t believe so, either. Jake was—is—a good man.”
    They stared at each other a moment, settling into their renewed truce.
    “So, you want to tell me why you are out here?” Leo said.
    Cilla sighed. “I thought you’d already figured that out for yourself.”
    Leo continued to stare at her. Fine. Time was ticking along and Cilla had precious little to spare. Maybe if she told him what he wanted to know, he’d go away and let her do her job.
    She pointed to the men by the fire. “A jeweled dagger was taken from our client, supposedly to be turned into the sheriff’s office. Jackson and Jed, Frank’s goons, claimed it was used against them without provocation. More like one of them saw it and wanted it. When my client went to Frank to complain, he claimed he’d never seen it and the man who took it had been with him at the time everything supposedly happened.
    “Frank even let our client search the premises, but he didn’t find anything. So he hired us to get it back for him. We got word that a rancher by the name of Ted Lurkett, an associate of Frank’s, was in possession of said dagger.”
    “Really. And who did you get this information from? Frank?”
    “No,” Cilla snapped. “Bobby Green at the general store keeps his ears open for us. He saw the dagger on Lurkett the other day when Lurkett went into the store for supplies.”
    “And why is Bobby so keen on helping