Blood Blade Sisters Series Read Online Free

her against his chest, pinning her arm behind her back.
    He brought his face so close to hers it blurred in her vision. “Girl, you’re even dumber than you look, and that’s sayin’ somethin’.”
    He trailed his finger down the scar near her eye. “Unless you want another one o’these, you better keep your little hands to yourself.”
    He flung her away. Lucy was there to steady Cilla before she fell, and kept her arms around Cilla’s shaking frame as Frank stalked to the door.
    “Air out Pa’s room for me. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
    The door shut, leaving pure, stunned silence in its wake.
    “What are we gonna do?” Lucy asked.
    Cilla angrily wiped at her nose, grimacing at the metallic smell of her skin. She looked at the blood that stained her hand and sucked in her breath. Maybe…no, it was crazy.
    But it was the only thing she could think of. “I may have an idea.”

Chapter Three
    Leo thrashed his head, rubbing it against the ground, but the blindfold had been tied too tightly across his eyes. He had no idea where he was, though by the smell of it, he’d guess he had been deposited in a stall of some sort.
    His head throbbed where that bastard had hit him. Blood Blade! Well, he’d wanted to find him. Guess he should have been more careful about what he wished for. But what on earth was a bandit doing riding with a woman? Woman…hell, she looked like she was barely more than a baby. Leo had no idea how his plans had gone so horribly wrong. All he had wanted to do was find his brother. He hadn’t heard from Jake in months. The last letter he’d received hadn’t given him much information to go on, either. Jake had heard about Blood Blade and the bounty on his head. And he’d been determined to be the one to bring him in. He’d apprehended other criminals. In fact, Jake had been on his way to being one of the best bounty hunters on the western coast. But something must have gone wrong.
    The last Leo had heard, Jake had given up hunting Blood Blade and taken a job working as a ranch hand for three sisters near some dried-up gold mining town called Bethany Ridge, some thirty miles northeast of Sacramento. It hadn’t made any sense to Leo until Jake had mentioned that he’d fallen in love with one of the sisters: Brynne Richardson.
    Precious little information to go on, but it was all Leo had. The Richardson sisters must have been the last to see Jake alive, though Leo refused to believe his brother was dead. Perhaps he’d just married the Richardson girl and was living in such a state of marital bliss that he’d forgotten to let his family know that he was alive and well. Anything was possible. Unlikely, but possible.
    What was more likely was that Jake had had a run-in with Blood Blade and lost. Though that didn’t fit with what Leo had heard about the notorious bandit. Stories of Blood Blade had filtered down to Sacramento, and from what Leo had heard, the bandit was the one to talk to if you wanted something found.
    He seemed like an interesting fellow. Leo hadn’t heard of many bandits who took cases for hire, but then you didn’t often hear of bandits who gave away most of their ill-gotten gains, either. But apparently Blood Blade was something of a Robin Hood. Leo didn’t know if he worked missing person’s cases, but he figured it didn’t hurt to ask. If Blood Blade hadn’t been the one to cause Jake’s disappearance, maybe he’d be amenable to finding him. And if he had had something to do with it…well, Leo would cross that bridge when he got to it.
    The problem was contacting him. Bandits weren’t known for being easy to find. But the Richardson sisters supposedly served as a sort of go-between for the bandit and his would-be clients.
    Of course, this was all conjecture. The clerk at the general store Leo had passed a few towns back had heard it from his cousin who was a clerk in the general store in Bethany Ridge. Again, thin information to go on, but at this point, Leo was