White Lightning Read Online Free Page A

and met his brother’s fiancée while searching for the killers.
    Faith Connover had surprised him. Not so much for her beauty and resilient spirit in the face of tragedy, but for the feelings she had stirred in Slade. Guilt followed close behind desire, the image of his brother and betrayal constantly before Slade’s eyes, a struggle that took time to reconcile.
    But first, Faith had been kidnapped by the same men Slade was hunting, and his quest for justice had become a race to save her life. Maybe she would have been endangered if he’d never got the telegram or come to Enid, but he couldn’t say that. Not for certain.
    Slade had rescued Faith that time, and she had warmed to him over the months that followed. He’d surprised himselfby sticking with the marshal’s job, wondering why each morning when he pinned the badge on, slowly realizing that he stayed for Faith. If it turned out she wouldn’t have him, that the idea made her skin crawl, it all would have been wasted time. Slade was having trouble with it, too, but edging closer to the notion that there might be something more between them than a void left by his twin.
    And it had worked…up to a point. But Slade’s work had endangered Faith again, when some fanatics with religious murder on their minds had trailed him back to Faith’s ranch, outside Enid. Slade was shepherding a family marked for slaughter, and the showdown had imperiled Faith again—forced her to fight beside him for her life, in fact. To kill in the defense of strangers and her property.
    More strain and ugly memories.
    The last time hadn’t actually been Slade’s fault, as it turned out. Faith had dismissed one of her ranch hands when the others caught him stealing and peering at Faith through her windows at night. The slug had nursed a grudge, teamed up with brutal border trash somewhere along the way, and sold the gang on the idea of looting Faith’s ranch. Faith and Slade were at the altar, on their wedding day, when the banditos struck. And when the smoke cleared, both of them had been unconscious, gravely wounded.
    Rotten luck or Fate?
    Slade had bounced back from the shooting faster than his lady love. She’d still been comatose when Slade began the vengeance ride that carried him from Enid, south through Texas, into Mexico, and more than halfway to the gates of Hell. On his return, leading the scum who’d set it all in motion to a trial before Judge Dennison and hanging in the courtyard, he’d found Faith awake—and finallydetermined that she’d seen enough of him and the violence that had marred their life together.
    She was selling up and heading out. They hadn’t spoken since the day she’d told Slade her decision, though he ached to plead with her, beg for another chance. The thing that held him back was knowing that the ugly memories would always stand between them, coupled with the fear of some fresh trouble waiting down the road.
    Now, as he prepared for another manhunt, Slade found himself wondering if Faith would still be there when he returned.
If
he returned. Would she take off without a parting word? And would it matter either way?
    Slade had half an hour left to kill when he was finished packing, so he walked the long block west to Mattson’s funeral parlor. It felt morbid, but he wanted to examine Tanner’s body, see what had been done to him and what they might be up against. Whether a viewing could determine
who
had murdered Bill, red men or white, Slade wasn’t sure. If nothing else, he thought that it would put him in the proper mood for hunting.
    Holland Mattson was a tall, thin man with a shock of gray hair that pomade could barely tame. His long face and chin curtain beard brought Abe Lincoln to mind, the impression enhanced when Mattson opened his mouth to speak in a sonorous baritone voice.
    He met Slade in the front room of the
home
, a euphemism Slade had never understood, since no one living occupied the place. Mattson, his pallid wife, and