Her bare bosom bounced wildly, and she did nothing to contain it. Her arms pumped back and forth, one hand empty, the other holding a gun, with her clothes hanging over it.
Adrenaline spiked her heartbeat, and it pounded like a jackhammer as she tried to envision what she wanted to happen. She’d run straight up to the men, as though needing their help—damsel in distress—and just before falling into their arms, she’d shoot them both.
Her vision kept trying to take a left turn and insert her taking a bullet instead, falling at their feet, bloody and embarrassingly naked, but she squashed that image and re-focused.
Smalls and Backfire whipped around, looking for the source of the scream. When their eyes landed on Gabby, headed straight for them, both of their mouths dropped open.
Her plan was working! She pushed harder, crying out in fear, as she made a beeline right for them.
Gabby was no slouch, and with her long locks of dark, wavy hair streaming behind her in the moonlight, her breasts bouncing, and her slender legs pumping, the men couldn’t look away.
They stood stock-still, mesmerized—
—suddenly glass shattered over them from above, breaking Gabby’s spell.
Jake’s head, held by his hair in the grip of a large hand, lurched out the window face down. He reared up, seeing his naked wife running toward him. For a split second, their eyes met. He screamed and bucked backward wildly, disappearing from view again, locked into the fight of his life. The sound of the kitchen being destroyed roared from the window.
Gabby screamed—for real this time—and lost her footing.
She slid across the grass with one leg in front of her.
The shirt and bra slipped off her arm. Her gun was in plain view.
Graysie darted out across the other end of the yard, moving out of the line of fire behind Gabby, and turned and ran straight for the men too. She was a blur of long red hair; just a streak in the night. She held her gun out with both hands, running as fast as she ever had to get close enough to the men that were now raising their guns against her Aunt Gabby.
The two women screamed in unison, one in mid-flight, and one sliding on the ground.
The crash of glass above the men startled them and Smalls ducked, looking up and behind him, but seeing nothing but a broken window. His eyes flashed back to the yard, seeing Graysie now running at them, too, from a different angle. He took aim, and paused, rapidly blinking at the girl, but then lowered his gun, his eyes quickly roving back to Gabby… then to Backfire.
Backfire’s gun raised and Gabby watched it in slow motion, scrambling back up to her feet.
Smalls watched his finger move into the trigger guard…
Gabby fired—
—Smalls watched Backfire’s finger squeeze… and fast as a rattle snake, shoved him to the ground with one meaty arm, throwing off his aim and knocking his gun out of his hand. Then Smalls jerked backward, holding his hand against a plume of scarlet that burst on his own chest.
Backfire climbed to his hands and knees, and spared Smalls a glance. He was furious with him. “You’re killing me here, Smalls,” he said, sarcastically, inching toward his gun.
Smalls slumped against the house, clutching at his shirt with one hand. He dropped his gun.
—Jake and Trunk flew out the dining room window, just yards away from Backfire. The ground shook. They were tangled together, pounding and grunting; a blur of fists, elbows and legs within a tsunami of glass and wood. They rolled across the grass together, locked up tight.
Backfire reached his gun, grabbing it and struggling to his knees. He lifted it and looked around with eyes full of madness for his target, finding her standing directly in front of him.
—BANG
The sound sliced through the night, echoing again and again.
Bang!
Bang!
Everyone stilled; frozen in place.
It wasn’t an echo…
51
Grayson stumbled barefoot out the back door, the screen door slamming behind him, clad only in a pair of sweat pants. He hurried off the porch and swung his rifle around, pointing it from dead body to another, trying to make sense of everything. His face was even more swollen than before. “What in holy hell happened here?” he yelled.
Bloodshot eyes moved in astonishment from his daughter standing in front of one dead man, to Jake laying beneath another, while a third man leaned bloody and broken against the wall.
Olivia slowly crept in from the back of the yard, looking shell-shocked.
But the most shocking thing of all was his sister-in-law standing buck naked under a full moon, with one arm over her chest, and one hand over her—
Jake shoved Trunk’s limp body off of him and hurried to Gabby, holding her tight against his chest, and running his hand over her hair. “You okay?” he panted.
Olivia burst into tears and ran the rest of the way in, grabbing her step-daughter in a tight hug. Graysie swallowed hard, and lowered her gun.
Grayson’s heart fell. Graysie hadn’t yet got over shooting Puck… and now she had actually killed? He moved to stand in front of her. “It’s okay, Graysie, looks like you had to do it,” he reassured her.
Graysie shrugged. “I would have—and I was going to… but it wasn’t me.”
“It was me,” a quiet voice came from the darkened window.
All eyes turned.
Puck squatted down, carefully placing his gun on the floor in the dining room, just inside the broken window. He looked up at Grayson, beaming proudly. “Look at me, GrayMan. I shot like a girl.”
Epilogue
The farm hummed with activity.
Gabby and Olivia were washing the laundry in a pot of hot water. Graysie was running them through the wringer attached to a bucket, and then hanging them up to dry on the clothes-line that the guys had rigged up.
Graysie held up Gabby’s silky red panties, doing a little dance. “How long did it take you to find these in the woods, Aunt Gabby?”
Gabby blushed. “I didn’t. Jake did. Those are his favorite.”
Olivia clucked her tongue and waved her hand at Graysie. “Stop playing, and work.”
At the very back of Grayson’s land, Jake was scooping the last few shovels of dirt onto the two graves, still arguing with Grayson over letting Smalls go.
“He probably didn’t get far, Grayson. The man was bleeding like a sieve. All I gave him was a reprieve. What’d you want me to do, shoot a cop?”
Grayson’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. “Yeah, Jake. That’s exactly what I wanted you to do. He came here slinging guns first. And he wasn’t a cop.” Grayson rolled his eyes in disbelief at Jake’s bleeding heart.
Jake stopped shoveling, and leaned on the shovel. “I already told you, and Gabby told you too. He spared her life. If he hadn’t of shoved the other guy, she’d be dead right now. And Graysie said he had a bead on he, too. But he didn’t take the shot. That man wasn’t a killer,” Jake insisted.
Grayson spit on Trunk’s grave. “They were all killers,” he muttered.
Jake blew out a breath through his nose. He was frustrated. Grayson just wouldn’t stop. “I don’t care if you don’t believe his story about being in deep cover. I do. If he truly was with the ATF Bureau, he had to play along with some bad stuff… that’s what bad biker gangs like that do. But he drew the line at killing. Gabby and Graysie can attest to that. He spared their life… so I spared his. That man was not a killer.”