Chapter 2
“Stay down,” he whispered, his voice low, steady, and razor-sharp. “Under the bed. Back against the wall, Ruthie. Don’t make a sound, no matter what you hear.”
The girl didn’t question him. She slid off the mattress, dragging Abigail’s quilt with her, and disappeared into the shadows beneath the heavy pine frame. Her small hands clamped over her mouth, her eyes wide pools of liquid blue gleaming in the faint moonlight.
Emmett stepped silently into the hallway. The floorboards were old, but he knew every creak in the house. He moved past the iron stove, where the embers still glowed a faint, dull crimson, and reached for the double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun leaning behind the door. He thumbed back both hammers with two distinct, metallic clicks that sounded unnaturally loud in the frozen dark.
Another knock shook the cedar planking. Heavier this time. Impatient.
“Cade!” a rough voice called through the seams of the timber. “Open up. Wind’s fixing to freeze a man’s blood out here. We know she’s inside.”
Emmett leveled the barrels at chest height, right through the center panel of the door. He did not unlock it.
“You’ve got five seconds to turn around, mount your horse, and ride off my land,” Emmett said, his voice flat and lethal. “After that, buckshot does the talking.”
A dry, rattling laugh answered him from the porch. “Don’t be a fool, rancher. We ain’t looking for trouble with you. Just hand over the Brennan brat. Her uncle sent us to fetch her.”
“Her uncle’s dead,” Emmett replied without missing a beat. “Her father was an only child, and Vernon Prather is lying cold somewhere with a hole in him. Now step off my porch.”
Silence hung thick outside. Then came the sudden scrape of boot leather across frost.
Emmett didn’t wait. He shifted half a step and fired the right barrel straight through the wooden door.
The blast tore through the wood in an eruption of splinters and black powder smoke. A muffled curse roared from the porch, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the deck and scrambling down the steps into the snow. Instantly, a revolver barked from the yard, the bullet chewing through the window frame and showering the parlor rug with shards of shattered glass.
Emmett dropped low, racking the lever of his Winchester rifle, which sat on the sideboard. He knew this ranch; the raiders didn't. The blinding Montana blizzard had picked up again, howling around the eaves, throwing white sheets of snow across the yard.