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Rowie couldn’t keep from looking up when he howled in pain. “Ouch! What was that for?”

From the way he was rubbing the side of his head, the other bandit, who now stood beside him, had clouted him.

“How many times do I hafta tell you, shit-fer-brains? No names while we’re doing a job.”Older, unkempt, and heavily bearded, he spoke with a lisp, hisSsmaking him sound like a slithering snake. Or, it could have been from the massive wad of tobacco bulging his cheek.

Just then, with a wet, stomach-turning sound, he spat a dark-brown stream onto the floor.

It spattered his shirt, adding to the stains already discoloring the once-white linen.

A more disgusting human being she’d never seen in her life; his greasy hair and the grime-covered bandana around his neck were equally filthy.

“Right. Emm—er—uh…”the younger man stammered, almost repeating his error.

While he aimed an unpleasant sneer at his lackey, Emmett didn’t berate him further. Instead, he demanded in the same sibilant, surly voice, “What’s taking so long here?”

“She’s got a ring she don’t wanna part with.”

Before anyone said anything else, Carson spit on the ring, twisted it, and pulled hard. It hurt coming off, but she was too terrified to complain, swallowing a whimper of sorrow in her throat when her husband dropped her mother’s ring into the sack. “Take it,” he muttered. “We don’t want trouble.”

“I want the cape, too, don’t forget,”the outlaw insisted.

“What the hell?”Emmett exploded, hitting him again, this time in the back of his head. When it snapped forward, he staggered but didn’t go down. “We didn’t come here to shop for ladies’ clothes, you dumb fuck.”

“I ain’t shopping,”the younger man, who looked not much older than her, protested with a distinctive whine. “I messed up and forgot Lydia’s birthday. This will help put me back in her good graces.”

“Lydia from Madam Heloise’s?”the bandit in charge questioned. “She’s a whore, kid. Her good graces come when you pay her. If you’re lucky, you do too.”Amused by his perceived cleverness, he guffawed. “Get what you want, but hurry. We ain’t got all damn day.”

With another hard poke in the arm, the kid snarled, “Hand over the cape. I ain’t gonna ask again.”

“Give it to him, Rowie,”her husband urged.

Except for her ring, they’d sold everything of value to finance their trip west. Now, she was supposed to give up the clothes on her back. It wasn’t fair. But that’s how she could sum up the past month—no, the past three years—since her papa died.

The bandit, waving a gun in her face, left her few options. Blinking back tears, she pushed back the hood and reached for the ribbons at her throat with trembling fingers. As Carson had feared, her hair tumbled down her back, the butterfly clips unable to hold the thick waves.

Emmett let out a low whistle. “Well, well. What do we have here?”

“Lydia will fancy those hairpins. I want them, too.”

“Are you really that stupid? Or is there something wrong with your eyes?”the outlaw leader asked, his words belying his tone, which sounded positively giddy. “Can’t you see the hidden treasure we’ve unearthed?”

He slid two of his rough, dirt-stained fingers down her cheek. She endured his repulsive touch by gritting her teeth, but it was too much for Carson.

“Get your filthy hands off my wife,”he growled.

“I don’t think so. She’s too pretty for you to hog all to yourself.”Hard fingers encircled her upper arm, and he hauled her to her feet.

She struggled, twisting and pulling, but he only dug in farther, and she cried out in pain.

“I said get your hands off her.”Carson’s demand came as he leaped to his feet in a fighting stance.

“When we started this, we said cooperate, and no one gets hurt,” he snapped. “Seems like you failed. Too bad.”

A thunderous bang erupted next to her ear.

It coincided with a spatter of something warm and wet across her face and throat, making her flinch.

Her hand came up to wipe it away as she turned to Carson, but he no longer stood where he had just moments ago.

Confusion and shock washed over her as she stared at the window, spattered with blood.

A buzzing started in her ears as she struggled to comprehend the horrifying sight. It was loud but not enough to drown out the thud that drew her gaze to the floor, where Carson landed and then lay motionless in an ever-widening pool of crimson, a gaping hole in the center of his chest.

“No one ever listens,”Emmett complained drily. “I don’t know why I bother wasting my breath.”

His callous words released her from her momentary paralysis. “No!”she screamed, her anguished wail piercing the air as she fought frantically to get free of his hold.

“Let me go to him,”she cried, using her nails and the pointed toes of her boots. Although, at an inch left of center, Rowie didn’t have to be a doctor to know the wound was fatal and there was nothing she could do.

“This was supposed to be a simple robbery where no one got hurt,”the younger outlaw croaked, obviously horrified. “With this, if we get caught, you’ve raised our sentence to the hangman’s noose.”

“Then we best get going so that doesn’t happen.” Emmett started for the door at the front of the car, dragging Rowie along. Abruptly, he stopped and turned back, asking, “Still want the cloak for your whore?”

The look of revulsion on the other man’s face as he eyed the bloodstained garment spoke volumes.

The vile leader smirked, “I didn’t think so. Collect what you can from the rest of ’em and be quick. We’ve got two more cars to go through.”

“Carson,”she wept, still struggling in the outlaw leader’s grip. All she wanted to do was hold him, as much for her as for him, one last time. But the bastard wouldn’t allow it and yanked her away.

“What are you doing with her?”the kid asked even while he moved across the train and held out his bag to the next couple, who couldn’t move fast enough to dump everything from their pockets inside it.

“You mentioned Heloise,”Emmett grunted as he fought her clawing hands. “She’s still in the market for unique acquisitions, right?”

“I guess so. I’m only interested in Lydia when I get a chance to go. But I hear she pays top dollar.”

Rowie didn’t know what they were talking about.

Raw agony, like she hadn’t experienced since her father’s sudden passing, ripped through her chest, as did her sobs.

She couldn’t take her eyes off her husband’s boots, which was all she could see of him as the outlaw dragged her away.

The dark stream of his blood—there was so much of it—slowly seeped into the center aisle.

Staringat the gruesome, heart-wrenching sight, the world tilted on end, and her legs turned to jelly.

“Stand up,”Carson’s murderer demanded.

She couldn’t, and her knees buckled.

“Shit,”he exclaimed as she crumpled. With considerable effort and a lot of grunting, he hefted her over his shoulder. “You’re a damn sight heavier than you look.”

That’s because she’d gone limp, her body no longer in control.

He should have let her fall for many reasons.

Because knowing the hands touching her belonged to the man who pulled the trigger and ended her husband’s life made her skin crawl.

Without Carson, she was alone, at a vicious outlaw’s mercy, and consumed with fear.

And mostly because she couldn’t bear the pressure of his shoulder digging into her belly and promptly vomited down his back and all over his boots.