Hannah Howell by Stolen Ecstasy

rechecked his guns. “Just has a knack.”
    “Send out the woman and the rest of you can ride off,” bellowed the man in front of them.
    “Good idea,” muttered Luke.
    “Shut up, Luke.” Tom quickly checked his gun, then started to move away. “I’ll get that one in the scrub.”
    “Can he get over there without being seen?” Leanne whispered.
    Hunter, unsure of that himself, kept an eye on Tom only to see the man suddenly disappear from sight. “Reckon he can.”
    “Hand the woman over, cowboys, and we’ll let you ride off.”
    “And then you’ll shoot us in the back,” Hunter answered. “No deal.”
    “I give you my word, I’ll let you men go.”
    “Your word ain’t worth spit, bounty hunter,” Luke yelled, then fired, shooting somewhat blindly in the direction of the small ravine Charlie had pinpointed.
    “Don’t waste your bullets, Luke,” Hunter advised. “You can’t hit him.”
    “So let’s ride for Mexico.”
    “With him at our backs? No thanks.”
    “Fine. Then just what’re we going to do, smart boy? Wait him out? I’ve got no stomach for that.” .
    “We wait to see if Tom accomplishes what he set out to do.” Hunter wished there was some alternative, because he did not like the idea of killing a man, not even a bounty hunter.
    “If anybody can do it, Tom can,” murmured Charlie, and Jed nodded.
    “And you think that’ll be enough?”
    “Yeah, I do, Luke. That man in front of us isn’t going to take on all of us once he knows he’s alone.”
    Luke apparently saw the sense of that, for Leanne saw him relax a little, although his gaze remained malevolent. She lay half beneath Hunter and heartily wished she were elsewhere. This was a part of outlawry she could not condone. Tom was going to kill a man, and all four outlaws accepted that calmly. No one had been killed yet, not even seriously wounded. Flight had been the main strategy of the outlaws. Now she was forcefully recalled to a fact she had blithely ignored. Outlawry was a violent business. Worse, the violence was often done, by necessity, against those working for the law.
    This was how it would be if she tried to make a future with Hunter. This was the future that stretched out before him. The only way around it was if he turned himself in and served his time in jail. Leanne doubted she could stir the sort of emotion in him that would prompt him to make that sacrifice. For a moment her fear was pushed aside by sadness.
    A burst of gunfire broke in on her thoughts. For a while, the man to their left shot at them as well. Then, abruptly, the firing from their left stopped. A moment later the man in front of them halted his firing too. Leanne caught a brief glimpse of a hat just as Luke neatly shot it off, causing the bounty hunter to disappear into the shallow ravine again.
    “Dooley?” the man in front bellowed. “Dooley!”
    “Dooley ain’t able to answer.”
    Leanne shivered as Tom’s cool voice cut through the sudden stillness. She felt Hunter heave a sigh, but the soft sound held no relief. Hunter clearly regretted the need to kill anyone. She realized the tactic of retreat was his. She felt comforted by that thought.
    “He did it,” she whispered and, although she had no love of bounty hunters, felt sickened.
    “Yeah, he did. The man has talents I didn’t suspect.” Hunter could not help wondering why a man with such skills was trailing along with them, working for another and not for himself.
    “You sonuvabitch, what’ve you done to Dooley?” screamed the bounty hunter.
    “I’d start worrying about myself if I was you,” Tom drawled, his voice raised only enough to carry the distance.
    The bounty hunter did not take long to heed that advice. It was less than a minute before Leanne caught a glimpse of the man as he scrambled out of his hiding place and ran. Luke tried to shoot him down despite Hunter’s hissed order to hold his fire. A horse’s rapidly retreating hoofbeats could be heard an