A chuckle filled the air. “They won’t find us.”
“That wager’s going to cost you.” Sam steeled himself, wondering how long it took a man to die this way. He prayed it would be quick. He wondered if his mother would be waiting in heaven to soothe the pain.
“Say hello to the devil, Ranger.”
With those words, he slapped the horse’s flank. Trooper bolted, leaving Sam dangling in the air. The rope violently yanked his neck back and to the side as his body jerked.
Choking and fighting to breathe, Sam Legend counted his heartbeats until blackness claimed him. As he whirled away into nothingness, only one thing filled his mind—the vivid tattoo of a black widow spider on his killer’s hand.
Two
A month after Texas Ranger Sam Legend almost died, an ear-splitting crash of thunder rattled the windows and each unpainted board of the J. R. Simmons Mercantile. The ominous skies burst open, and rain pelted the ground in great sheets. A handful of people scattered like buckshot along the Waco boardwalk in an effort to escape the thorough drenching of a spring gully washer.
Sam paid the rain no mind. The storm barely registered—few things did, these days. The feeling of the rope around his neck was still overpowering. He reached to see if it was there, thankful not to find it.
The nightmare had him in its grip, refusing to let go. More dead than alive, he moved toward his destination. When he reached the alley separating the two sections of boardwalk, he collided with a woman covered in a hooded cloak.
“Apologies, ma’am.” He glanced down by rote, then blinked. All at once, the world and its color came rushing back as Sam stared into blue eyes so vivid they stole his breath.
A pocket of fog drifted between them. Was she just a dream? He could barely see her.
She nodded and gave him a smile for only a brief second. He reached out to touch her, to see if she was real, but only cold damp air met his fingertips.
The man beside her took her arm and jerked her into the alleyway.
“Hey there!” Sam called, startled. He’d been so focused on those blue eyes he hadn’t realized anyone else was there. “Ma’am, do you need help?”
He received no answer. Through the dense fog, he watched her companion force her toward a horse at the other end of the alley where a group of mounted riders waited. The hair on the back of his neck rose.
Intent on stopping whatever was happening, Sam lengthened his strides. Before he could reach them, the man threw her onto a horse, then swung up behind her. Within seconds, they disappeared, ghostly riders in the mist.
Sam stood in the driving rain, staring at the empty alley. It had all happened so fast he could hardly believe it.
Hell, maybe he’d imagined the whole thing. Maybe she’d never existed. Maybe the heavy downpour and gray gloom had messed with his mind…again. Ever since the hanging, he’d been seeing things that weren’t there. Twice now he’d yanked men around and grabbed for their hands, thinking he saw a black widow spider between their thumbs and forefingers. The last time almost got Sam shot. Folks claimed he was missing the top rung of his ladder and now, his captain was sending him home to find it.
Crippled. The word clanked around in his head, refusing to settle. But even though he had full use of his legs, that’s what he was at present. The cold fear washing over him had nothing to do with the air temperature or rain. What if he never recovered? Some never did.
His hand clenched. He’d fight like hell to be the whole man he once was. He had things to do—an outlaw to hunt down, a wrong to right—a promise to keep.
Sam squared his jaw and drew his coat tight against the wet chill, forcing himself to move on down the street toward the face-to-face with Captain O’Reilly. Again. It stuck in his craw that they thought him too crazed to do his job. The captain thought him a liability, a danger to the other rangers. Wanted him to take a break.
His heart couldn’t hurt any worse than if someone had stomped on it with a pair of hobnail boots. Maybe the captain was right. If he’d imagined that woman just now—and he really couldn’t be certain he hadn’t—then maybe he needed the break. Sam Legend, who had brought in notorious killers, bank robbers, prison escapees, and the like, had become a liability.
But one thing he knew he hadn’t imagined, and that was the blurred figure of Luke Weston standing over him when he’d regained consciousness that fateful day. There had been no mistaking those pale green eyes above the mask. They belonged to the outlaw he’d chased for over a year—he’d have staked his life on it.
When his fellow rangers had ridden up, Weston disappeared into the brush, leaving Sam with questions. Had Weston cut him down from the tree? Was he with the rustlers? And why had the outlaws left Trooper behind? Awful considerate of them.