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

"You think I'm going to take a whore's word for it?"
    Maria raised her chin. "Es verdad. It ees the truth."
    "You whores wouldn't know the truth if it came up and bit you on the tit."
    Grace's mouth fell open in disbelief. "What kind of a lawman are you?"
    The marshal swung an appraising look at Grace that sent shivers up her spine. "The only kind in these parts. And who are you?"
    She swallowed hard. "I'm Grace Turner, and that woman is absolutely right. Your brother started it by accosting me, then he picked a fight with Mr. Donovan. Donovan was simply defending himself."
    Sanders's eyes narrowed with threat. "And you saw Deke draw on him?"
    Her gaze darted to Donovan. His mouth was set in a grim line and his eyes were bleak. Because, of course, she hadn't actually seen it. Still, there was no real doubt in her mind....
    "Well?" Sanders demanded. "Did you or didn't you?"
    "I saw everything, that is, up until that moment, but I didn't exactly see him draw his gun. I-I tripped over that... that horrible thing down there, you see, and—"
    "Thinkin' and seein' ain't the same thing," Sanders snapped, his face flushed with anger. "I got a roomful of men who say Deke didn't draw, and I got a holstered gun on a dead man."
    One man stepped forward, a thin rail of a fellow with worn-out clothes and a back bent by hard labor. "The woman's right. It was self-defense, Ephram."
    Sanders turned a furious look on the man. He stared at him hard for a full thirty seconds before he spoke. The tip of his revolver moved in an ever-so-subtle threat toward the man. "You willin' to go up against me on this, Peterson? You willing to take this potato-lover's word over everybody else's? Against me? Against my brother?"
    Peterson's Adam's apple bobbed in his throat, and he took a step backward. He squinted at Donovan, then back at the marshal, a muscle working in his jaw. "I... uh, I reckon not."
    Grace's mouth fell open at the injustice of it all. She looked at Donovan. His inscrutable gaze was pinned on the wall above Peterson's head, as if he'd already removed himself from the discussion of his future.
    Withdrawing a pair of metal handcuffs from his pocket, Sanders shoved Donovan up against the bar and yanked his hands behind his back. He slid the handcuffs closed with a vicious twist of a key, and Donovan sucked in a breath.
    Sanders barked orders for three of the onlookers to carry his brother's body to his office—carefully—and several others to carry Shelby's corpse to Manuello Cabrilla's Undertaking Shop down the street. Grumbling, several men stooped to lift Deke Sanders's limp form and carried him out.
    Grace could hardly believe how fast everything was happening. She felt dizzy and disoriented and sick to her stomach, and she wished, more than anything, that she'd never come here tonight.
    Sanders pressed the barrel of his gun up against his prisoner's back. "Move. I got a special place all ready for you. You're gonna finally get your due at the end of a rope."
    A rope! Grace sucked in a breath. They were going to hang him?
    "Wait!" she called as Sanders nudged an unresisting Donovan toward the door. "You can't just mean to hang him! Without a trial? That's... why, that's unconstitutional!"
    Sanders didn't even acknowledge her as he jerked Donovan around toward the exit. Donovan's face was eerily devoid of any emotion—almost resigned to his fate. Sanders shoved him through the louvered doorway and they disappeared into the darkened street.
    "Estupido!" Maria spat on the floor beside her, and glaring at the doorway, she hissed, "Ah, he will have a trial. Sanders ees the marshal, but also, he ees the... what ees the word—? Judge. Reese will hang for the killing of his brother. Of that, you can be sure." Her angry gaze turned on Grace. "And eet will be on your head."
    * * *
    Reese's face collided hard with the iron bars of the jail cell. Pain shot through his cheek, but he barely had time to feel it before Sanders's knee connected with