“Shit!” He held his jaw and glared at Levi. “Let’s not forget whose town you’re in, boy!”
He heard the clicking sound of a gun and froze before he rose up again. He looked over his shoulder but Clay wasn’t the one who had him. He looked around to his right and as luck would have it, the whore-in-question had him in her sights.
Luke sat down on a chair near the bathtub. He propped his elbow on the side and glared at Marshall Davis. “Now what do we do? Looks like you done went and made our woman angry. That doesn’t sit well with me, Marshall.”
“Me either,” Levi said still brooding.
“Clay, come on now.” He glanced at Emily and back at Clay. “Ask her to put the gun down.”
“Ask her yourself.”
“Miss Masterson….”
“It was whore a minute ago and now the formalities. Hell, from what I understand, you want to fuck me so might as well call me Emily. Let’s get it out of the way so you can go on your way.”
“You’re gonna fuck me with a gun in hand?” he asked.
Luke grinned. “Appears that’s what she’s offering.”
“It is,” she grunted. “Only way I fuck some sorry bastard like you is if I can do it to save these fellas and if I can keep a gun on you on the same time.”
Marshall Davis put his hands up in the air. “Hold on there a minute. Truth is, I don’t have a way with the ladies. Can I tell you what brought me inside here tonight?”
“You dropped the tough act awful quick. I always thought you might be a weasel,” she said.
“I know what brought you inside here tonight,” Clay said. “I saw you peeking in the window.”
Emily’s lips formed a tight line. “What the hell, Clay?”
“Shit, Emily. Do you wanna know when I saw him?”
She narrowed her eyes on him and then glanced back at her intended target. “When did you see him? Tell me when.”
Luke chuckled. “I know when. Hell, I can’t blame him. If I was coming, I wouldn’t stop for a peeping Tom.”
“I ain’t a peeping Tom,” he told them.
“The hell you ain’t, Marshall,” she said.
Clays studied him. “We used to be friends,” he informed.
“As far as I’m concerned, we still are.” He grinned. “That is as long as you’re still living.”
“See, you didn’t come here for no other reason but to bully us,” she shook her gun at him. “You ain’t hard to look at either. If you’d approached us a bit differently, then who knows, maybe I’d considered it but not now. No way in hell.”
“Then your men are gonna hang at sunset tomorrow,” he told her without one inch of regret.
She looked at Luke and then Clay. “Well?”
Clay shrugged. “I never knew with one hundred percent assurance that he wouldn’t turn on me. I’m not surprised.”
“Marshall Coe and his men are riding hard trying to make it here by sunrise. If you leave and head their direction, they’ll catch you on the way out. If you head the opposite direction, I’ll have my men follow you and either way, I’m still interested in pursuing Emily.”
“And if we stay and fight?” Clay asked.
“You’ll die this time, Clay. You know me. I don’t lie to you. There are enough men coming for you that the only way to change things for you now is to swear you’re gone and have the townspeople support the story too.”
Emily glared at them. “Is this true?”
Levi walked away from them shaking his head. He turned back before he walked out the door. “Surely to hell and back again you ain’t thinking about taking him up on the offer.”
“It’s up to Emily,” Luke said before he looked at her dead-on. “But I say no. I’d rather die knowing you’re our woman than watch him take you and try to…”
Emily dropped the gun.
“Good choice,” Marshall Davis said.
“There’ll be some rules,” she said. “I don’t want you kissing me. I don’t want you sucking on my breasts. Just fuck me and go.”
Luke rose and walked over to her. “Emily—”
“He’s gonna follow his word or, Marshall Davis, you won’t have to worry none about these boys killing you. I’ll kill you. Do we understand each other?”
Clay shook his head. “The only way you’re doing this is if you want to do it, Emily. We’ve fought our way away from posses before and –”
“No.” She stopped him. “I’ve lost one home this week because of a crooked Marshall and I’m not letting another one run us out of town. Now, I’ll fuck you, Marshall Davis, and I won’t have a hard time with it. Like I said, you’re not hard to look at but you will convince that posse that we’ve already moved on and then we’re going to make Cripple Creek our home.
“That means, you’d better get what you want from me the first time because you’re gonna see me again around town and this here thing is only gonna happen once. Understand?”
Clay gritted his teeth and Levi walked the hell on out.
“I don’t like it,” Luke said. “We got no guarantees here.”
“You have my word,” Marshall Davis said. “I don’t want to see you boys hang but I have to tell you, I’ve got a fancy for your woman.”
“You wouldn’t have had a notion like this at all if you hadn’t been peeking in windows when you should’ve been up there at the jail guarding your town.”
“I suppose you’re right but I had suspicions. I happened by when I heard the woman yell so I moved closer.”
“You moved closer to see if I was yelling out in pain?”
“That’s right,” he said.
“I highly doubt it because if anything, I was screaming out in pleasure.”
“I hope to hear it again,” he said.
“You won’t,” she told him flatly. “At least not while your dick is the one stroking me.”
Chapter Ten
Marshall Coe and his men stopped at a steady stream to take a nap and let their horses rest. One of the farmers was disturbed by the whole posse business and he let Coe know it.
“We never did see signs of a struggle along the trail, Marshall,” he said. “We’ve all been looking for the woman’s body or her bloody clothing, maybe even a corpse. We haven’t seen anything.”
Marshall Coe studied the blatant idiot. “No, probably not. Those fellas may have left her body and the buzzards got it or maybe because she was cut up so bad, the people in Cripple Creek took pity and gave her a proper burial. I hope so, don’t you?”
“She was a good girl, Marshall.”
“How the hell would you know?” Marshall Coe inquired.
“When my Martha Ann was dying, she brought her soup and hot coffee every day when I was in the fields. I’d come in and find it on the table. Poor thing couldn’t cook much but what she had to do with, she helped us out in our time of need.”
“Yeah, well them Justice boys are gonna pay now, aren’t they?”
The farmer nodded. “I don’t believe in killin’ but understand, if they hurt Emily Masterson, then I believe it’s time for somebody to teach them a lesson.”
Marshall Coe listened to the old farmer ramble. “Charlie, have you ever shot a man before?”
“No, sireee. I lived by keeping my hands busy and my mind occupied. I don’t believe in killing but this here with Emily Masterson has really disturbed me. We gotta make them pay for what they did to her.”
“You’re right,” Marshall Coe tugged the brim of his hat over his eyes. “And when the Marshall there tells you how bad they cut her up, you’re gonna see their blood spill. You’ll help them shed some of it won’t you, Charlie?”
“Yes, Marshall. I will.”
Emily had a sheet snug over her chest. Clay watched her from the corner of the room.
“You’re sure, you’re okay with this?”
“Yes, but I wish he’d hurry,” she said.
“What’s the rush?” he asked.
“I want to get this over with so we can get back to doing what the four of us were doing.” She folded her hands over her breasts and that’s when Clay noticed she was trembling. He went to her then and took her hands in his.