Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 165476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 827(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 827(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Ned wanted to run into the woods and never come back, but he stood still, with icy ants running down his back while Cole picked himself up and rubbed his cheek as if the slap could have seriously hurt him.
“Clearly I’ve misunderstood.” He tried to touch Mary’s hand, but she shoved him back and walked off in a whirr of skirts.
“I won’t let you make a fool of me, Cole Flores!”
Their audience seemed divided in terms of which party they agreed with, but all the jokes and hooting were good-natured, even if they embarrassed Ned to no end.
Ned had declined the perverted offer, but while he wasn’t a religious man anymore, he had to agree with one of the sermons by the Beaver Springs’ priest. It was best to avoid temptation altogether, because once planted, the seed of sin was difficult to weed out.
Sorry, he mouthed to Cole, surely beet-red in the face, and turned away, longing for a deep breath of cool air.
As he sped away from the bonfire and between the tents, his eyes didn’t get enough time to adjust, but the need to flee Cole, Mary, and all the laughing heads was so great he ran blind.
His lungs refused to cooperate, and as he struggled for breath, itching for solitude where nobody could find him, his foot hit something that lay in the way, and he stumbled forward, capturing a wooden crate to save himself from the fall.
He yelped at the same time as someone else. Ned barely got to mumble an apology, his mind still hazy, when the man yelled with a drunken slur.
“Watch where you’re goin’!”
Ned didn’t dare move as the stranger pulled himself up, presenting his swollen face in the glow of the faraway fire. His flesh was so scabrous and red against messy gray curls of hair and beard that for a moment Ned thought the bastard had been skinned and left to rot. The man took a long, wheezing breath and squinted, resting his hand on the edge of the crate. He tried to pull himself up but failed and ended up resting his back against it instead.
“And who is you I’m askin’?” he mumbled, and produced a revolver that had Ned raising his hands up like clockwork.
A warm hand on his shoulder made Ned think of Cole, but the scent wasn’t right, nor was the height, and Butcher Tom spoke to the gun-wielding drunk. “I see you’ve met the new addition to our little family, Scotch.”
Ned groaned, but was happy to see the bastard put his six-shooter away. Family. He could vomit. And yet all his senses were on high alert despite the alcohol in his own stomach, because Tom’s presence meant the man had been watching and following him.
“Ned O’Leary,” he mumbled. “Pleased to meet you.”
Scotch had visited his family’s homestead too, though he’d been too busy emptying the liquor cabinet to do much damage to anything else at the time. He might have shot Ned moments ago, just because he was too intoxicated to know friend from foe, but the man who had come to Ned’s rescue was the true predator here, and his hand on Ned’s shoulder weighed more than two buckets of icy water.
He smelled of tobacco and blood, and behind the benevolent smile were teeth that wouldn’t hesitate to bite Ned’s throat open if Tom got the slightest whiff of rat fur. Still, Ned didn’t fight it when Tom guided him away from Scotch and closer to the bushes and trees Mary had presented as the perfect place for an illicit encounter between three.
“Why don’t you tell me more about yourself Ned? You said you lived at your uncle’s. What happened to your father?” Tom asked, his eyes filled with curiosity, but the cleaver resting in a sheath at his hip glinted in warning.
Nausea rose in Ned’s throat, but this was his moment to become better acquainted with his foe. Maybe even sell him the bank robbery idea. They walked a bit farther, to the very edge of the clearing that housed the camp under the stars.
“Fell asleep in the snow,” Ned lied. “We never know when life will end, so might as well make the most of it, right?”
Tom’s gaze settled on him for a tad too long, and Ned struggled against his survival instincts telling him that the Butcher knew who he really was.
And he might have followed their guidance if Cole hadn’t emerged from behind a tent and patted his shoulder. Why was he not with Mary?
“What’s this? Communal piss time?”
“Nah, I was just…” Ned glanced at Tom, who might have been shorter than him but had the eyes of a hawk. “Tom wanted to learn a thing or two about me.”
“Did he now?” Cole asked, sending his leader a glance Ned found hard to decipher.