Page 123 of Cowboy Heat

Instead, he kept it simple and nice.

“Sometimes, life can be good too.”

The silence that settled after was all of us agreeing, and I guess I can see now that it’s my favorite memory of my family. Just the six of us, choosing every day to love one another no matter what.

The memory is heavy but fast.

I wait for Sarah Tate to come next in my last moment, reminding me of what I didn’t do for her when I should have. The Girl Beneath the Floornever is gone long.

Yet there’s only one woman who flashes across my mind.

She has big hair, soft lips, and bangles thatclinkas she walks.

I sure would love to kiss Kissy again before I go.

The truck is almost on me, and I note that Guidry and the sheriff have already cleared the area.

I don’t want to go, but there’s not a thing in the world I can do to change where I’m standing.

So I guess it’s just plain ol’ luck that I know a good woman who’ll do it for me.

I catch a glimpse of Kissy grabbing the steering wheel from between the front seats just before the truck and her jerk away to the left.

What comes next is a scene and a half.

They skid as the driver must have regained control and self-corrected. I turn as the truck hits a dip in the road and see the truck do something I hate.

It flips right toward Low Low.

“Kissy!” I’m thinking it, but I hear Guidry yelling it.

He’s farther behind me but faster with his leg that hasn’t taken a shrapnel beating. The truck does a 360-flip and lands upright, metal whining, glass hitting the ground.

I can’t see from my angle how Kissy landed or whoever else is in the car.

Someone throws the driver’s side door open before either Guidry or I can make it there.

To say I’m confused and surprised as Alice Dean stumbles out of the truck compares nothing to the fact that she’s pulling a gun out.

And aiming it at Guidry.

Both of us stop in our tracks.

The sheriff, and his zip-tied hands and gunshot wound to the shoulder, keeps to his new spot closer to the water-covered land to our back and left.

I pull his gun in my hand up and aim at Alice. I’m not sure why she’s here or why she’s mad at Guidry, but I’m lost on why she just tried to run me over. That doesn’t move her focus at all.

“Whoa,” Guidry yells, hands up in defense just as I yell out Alice’s name.

For someone who took a bullet not more than a few weeks ago, she sure is holding herself well. And angry.

“You-You did this,” she yells at Guidry. “You’re a killer.”

“Alice, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Guidry is a few feet in front of me. I can see his whole body breathing double. He waves his hands up in defense again. “Put the gun down, and let’s talk about it.”

Alice is bleeding across her arm, the one that must have been next to the driver side window that blew out. There’s no movement I can see coming from the truck behind her. The focus she has on Guidry is singular.

“Jon is dead,” she yells.