The Sextet Presents… By Male Order [In Days of Olde] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Elizabeth Raines

Hooper’s back and riding straight for the marshal.
    Abe Driscoll had to be stopped before someone got killed, and she had no doubt he was behind this disaster.
    Killed . The thought of Alec or Thomas being harmed spurred her on.
    The barn was quickly being consumed, and by the time she dug the shotgun out from behind the straw bales where she’d hidden it, the structure was nearly engulfed. Burning embers floated in the air, stinging her face, arms, and bare legs. Stepping on them was akin to stomping on bumblebees. The thickening smoke was choking her, and she couldn’t even breathe a relieved sigh when her hand found the butt of the gun. She dragged it out and tried to make her way out of the barn, but she was disoriented by the smoke and flames.
    With a loud groan, the loft collapsed in an explosion of flames and timber.
     
    * * * *
     
    “Hope!” Thomas’s heart leapt into his throat. The foolish woman had turned Hooper loose and run right back into the burning barn—probably to save another animal. He reached for the doorknob before Alec knocked his hand away.
    “Ye take one step outside, they’ll kill you.”
    “Hope’s still in the barn!”
    “I know, but we need a plan. We cannae just run outside and get ourselves shot.”
    The panic was making it impossible for Thomas to find any logic. He needed to get to Hope. She couldn’t be in that inferno! She’d never survive!
    How was he supposed to live without her now?
    “Hope’s a survivor, Thomas. She’ll be careful.”
    “The fire—”
    “Isnae enough to stop her.”
    “Alec! Thomas!” Hope shouted. “You can come out now!”
    Both men scrambled to their feet. Thomas flung the door open and ran down the porch stairs. The sight before him was almost too much to believe.
    Hope was standing there, still dressed only in his shirt and holding a shotgun on the two bandits, both of whom had their hands up in surrender. Their weapons lay at their feet.
    “Hope!” Thomas kept running, needing to hold her in his arms to stop the slamming of his heart.
    “That’s my lass,” Alec said. He set his shotgun aside and picked up the discarded guns. Then he threw a nasty glare at the bandits. “Who sent ye?”
    “Ain’t talkin’,” the fatter of the two replied.
    The other just shook his head.
    Hope nudged the silent one with the barrel of her shotgun. “You’re Abe Driscoll’s men, aren’t you?”
    Thomas moved behind Hope, setting his hands on her shoulders. While he wanted to hold her, he couldn’t. She was in total control right now, and he wouldn’t take that away from her. He gave her shoulders a bolstering squeeze.
    “Tell me who sent you,” she demanded. “Tell me it was Driscoll!”
    Alec wasn’t as subtle. He cocked both guns and pointed them at the men’s chests. “Ye best answer the lady’s questions or ye will be bleeding your life away on this parched ground.”
    Neither spoke, but the chubby one started to tremble. Alec saw it too because he stepped close enough to press the barrel of the gun against the man’s forehead. “Ye have something to say?”
    “Y–yes.”
    “Then speak.”
    “It was Driscoll.”
    The second man slammed his shoulder into the first and ran toward the road.
    Hope took a shot to his left, hitting the logs lining the path to the farm.
    The man yelped and kept running.
    Alec’s shot hit to his right, close enough to the bandit’s feet that he jumped and tumbled into the dust.
    “You get up,” Hope warned, “and the next one will be through your back.”
    He rolled to his back and held his hands in the air.
    “Finish yer tale,” Alec said, pointing his weapon at the fat bandit again.
    “Driscoll wants this land.”
    “I know that ,” Hope said, her patience clearly spent. “What I don’t know is why .”
    “G–gold. There’s gold in—” A shot rang out, hitting the side of the man’s head before he could say another word. He fell to the ground like a discarded doll.
    “Driscoll!”