The Lady Takes A Gunslinger (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

cantina, Sanders and Shelby would have found no cause to fight with Reese Donovan.
    And if she hadn't tripped, distracting them, would they have actually fired?
    Grace flattened a hand to her stomach. No, it hadn't been intentional, but that mattered little now. Two men were dead. For what? And if there was any blame to be pinned, she thought, looking at Donovan's whiskey-soaked shirt, she had little doubt where it should be affixed.
    Donovan's furious gaze left hers and he looked challengingly at the men who'd taken cover behind tables. "Anyone else?"
    A few shook their heads, seeking only a quick exit. They were stopped there by a man blocking the double doors. Tall and stocky, with a full graying mustache slashing across his pale face, he stared disbelievingly at the bodies on the cantina floor. A thick silence shrouded the room as he pushed through the doorway, a revolver pointed at the ex-Ranger. He pulled the hammer back with an ominous click. The tip bucked in the man's shaking hand; his face was red with fury.
    Unbelievably, Donovan made no move to raise his own gun in self-defense. He let it simply dangle at his side, his gaze trained on the other man's weapon.
    "Drop your gun, Donovan," the stranger demanded in a voice rough as gravel and mean as a Texas windstorm. "Put it on that table and slide it across."
    Grace squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself for more gunfire. When it didn't come, she opened her eyes to find the older man reaching for the gun Donovan had eased onto the table. He tucked it in his back waistband, then, with a pistol still trained on Donovan, he knelt near Sanders, who lay dead on the floor.
    It took her several beats to realize that the marshal was merely an older version of Deke Sanders. As he knelt down to feel for a pulse in the man's lifeless body, her gaze fell to the flash of silver on the man's chest and she knew who he was.
    Swallowing back a lump of fury, he looked up at Donovan. "I ought to kill you where you stand."
    Donovan's jaw went tight. "Pity all these witnesses are around, eh, Sanders? But that would be murder and that just might put you out of a steady job. Your brother and his friend drew on me first."
    "Good try," the marshal retorted, pointing at the revolver still nestled in his brother's holster. "But he didn't even clear leather."
    To her horror, Grace realized that, indeed, Sanders's gun was still lodged in its holster. Her disbelieving gaze flew to Donovan.
    "He went for it. I was faster. Ask 'em," Donovan said, gesturing at the men holding up the walls of the cantina. "They all saw it."
    The elder Sanders looked around at the motley bunch of witnesses who shuffled their feet against the floor. Clearly, they were all afraid of him, and none dared venture an opinion.
    "Well? Speak up! Any of you boys see this back-shootin' son of a bitch give my brother a fair chance?"
    Silence thundered through the room as Sanders drilled each man with a murderous look. "Anybody here willing to say that my brother was drawin' on him?"
    Grace stared wide-eyed at the roomful of men, unable to believe not one of them was willing to step forward in Donovan's defense. She looked from face to face of each man as he studiously avoided eye contact with the marshal. Finally, one particularly rough-looking character, a longhaired Mexican, wearing bandoliers across his chest and a distinctive bandanna around his forehead, laughed and sat down at his table, picking up his cards.
    "No vi nada. I seen nothing. Nobody did, eh, amigos?" His black eyes flicked to Donovan and he grinned as he fanned open his cards.
    Donovan's lips thinned as the tide turned against him.
    Angrily, hands on her hips, Maria stepped forward. "I saw."
    Sanders sent her an ugly look. "You?"
    "Donovan ees right," she told him. "Your brother, he began it."
    Grace bit her lip, shamed for ever thinking of Maria as a Black Widow anything. She was the only one with the nerve to speak up for an innocent man.
    Sanders snorted.