i***t girl, don’t just stand there!” Jeremiah barked. He dragged her away from the bloody scene, but her feet barely responded. “Stupid, arrogant, hay-brained, ungrateful whelp you are,” he muttered, “leaving an old man to die on the prairie like some mangy coyote. I should turn you over to the Pinks.” He snatched the revolver from her, yelped, and dropped it as he clutched his wrist. “Hell’s horns!” He grabbed her hands and studied them wide-eyed. “Dammit, Hettie, you bonded?”
She stared at the blood staining her fingers, saw the puncture wound where she’d impaled her trigger finger on the thorn. Bonded?
Something at the far end of the thoroughfare caught her attention. The air rippled. A spot about eight feet from the ground darkened, as if a shadow had been cast against an invisible w
