Badge and a Saddle (Heroes in the Saddle Book 2) by Randi Alexander Page B

glance at Bennet
showed that he had a bead on the dirty cop.
    Rex stood, the cop
looked his way, then hit the floor.
    Rex ducked as a
bullet shattered the window and whizzed by his ear. “Incoming.” The whole thing
brought back flashes of his tour of duty in the Middle East. Rex grabbed his
pistol and crawled to the door. He opened it a few inches and looked out the
screen door.
    The cop was
pulling a gun from his boot.
    “Drop it.” Rex
chambered a bullet as a shot went off.
    The guy slumped
down, blood flowing from his shoulder. Bennet had taken him out.
    The sound of car
doors slamming got Rex moving, back to his window where his shotgun still sat
on the ledge.
    “Last chance,
Tarrow.” A man’s voice came from behind the closest vehicle. “We’ve got some hardware
that’ll tear your house to splinters, and send it up in smoke.”
    “Sheriff’s on his
way. You’d best run.” Bennet yelled it.
    A sour, female
laugh came from behind the other SUV. “We’re cops, stupid. We’re monitoring the
frequency.”
    “Monitor this,
shithead.” Bennet sent rounds of bullets flying at every window of their side
of the SUVs. Bulletproof. Not a scratch.
    Rex looked at
Bennet, who just shrugged. “Old man, are you finished working out your
frustration, now?”
    His mouth curved
in a half-smile. “Guess so.”
    “Tarrow. We’re
gonna count to three. If you don’t send her out, we’re opening fire.” A male
voice.
    “She’s not here.”
Rex hoped to buy them some time.
    “Wrong.” The
woman’s voice called. “Sontag spotted some of her crap in there.”
    “She was here. She
ran last night.”
    Silence for a few
minutes. “Then there’s no reason why we shouldn’t kill you two.”
    Bennet snorted.
“Rookie mistake, son.”
    “Fucking stupid…”
The rest of his words were drowned out as bullets sprayed the side of the
house, breaking every window, ripping into the kitchen walls and furniture and
appliances behind him.
    Rex and Bennet lay
flat, looking at each other every few seconds. His mind worked, coming up with
a plan. He’d slither across the floor to the door on the opposite side of the
house, go out and—
    A siren blasted
from extremely close by.
    The shooting
stopped and one of the gunmen moved around the front of the SUV.
    A second later, a
shot blasted from inside the house, from Bennet’s gun, and the guy who’d
exposed himself was down, not moving.
    “Good one,
sheriff.” Rex found his phone on the floor, still recording, and set it back on
what was left of the windowsill.
    The two remaining
cops, a man and a woman, shouted at each other, and Rex watched as red and blue
lights and a strobe came into view on the rise of the driveway, then the top of
a white vehicle, then…an ambulance? That had to be Clint.
    “Cavalry’s ridin’
in.” Bennet kept his eye on his gunsight, shifting the barrel back and forth
between the SUVs, waiting for his chance.
    Rex did the same,
and in seconds, the ambulance was in the yard. He spotted Clint’s dark glasses
and white hair, and someone in the passenger seat who was braced and hanging on
for all they were worth. The vehicle headed straight for the first truck, and
the woman ran around the back of the SUV, out of range of the ambulance and Rex
and Bennet’s guns.
    Clint swerved and
went right for the other shooter, who skittered around the back of his truck.
    The ambulance
braked, then went into a slide, then spun around, the tail end smacking into the
spot where the shooter had stood just seconds before.
    “Did he just
squash that guy?” Bennet sounded surprised.
    A second later,
the male shooter crawled out from under the truck and stood, gun in hand.
    Rex had this one.
He put a bullet in the fucker’s shoulder, then in his knee.
    The man went down
with a piercing scream.
    Clint’s grin quickly
turned into a shocked expression as the last shooter peppered the ambulance
with bullets.
    Someone ran from
the far side of the house near