Love and Fury: The Coltrane Saga, Book 4 by Patricia Hagan

would ride down to Mexico.
    But the immediate task was facing Carleton Bowden, and Colt had never dreaded anything more.
    Women!
    Hell, he didn’t like to think of himself as a coldhearted bastard, but more and more he was starting to regard women as something to avoid except when he needed one. Give them pleasure, get his own pleasure, then run like hell.
    He thought of the half sister he hadn’t seen in almost fourteen years. One of these days she was going to come riding in and claim half of everything—after he’d done all the work! But there was nothing he could do about that, nothing he wanted to do about it because that was the way their father wanted it. Since everything had been Travis’s to start with, Colt figured it was not his place to say anything about the way it got divided up now. Best to keep his thoughts to himself, and his mouth shut.
    He was nearing town and could see the houses of Silver Butte. He paused atop a ridge and looked down. It was not the boom town it had once been, but neither was it a ghost town, like so many others that had peaked during the glory days of the Comstock lode. It was alive.
    Colt’s eyes narrowed. Something wasn’t right. He didn’t know what had made him tense up, but even his horse was suddenly standing rigid, alert. An invisible shroud of foreboding had suddenly wrapped around Colt.
    Then he heard the high-pitched scream ringing in the still air.
    He spurred his horse down the incline, taking a quicker path than the road. He moved fast, hard, but the main street was mired with thick mud, forcing him to slow his reckless gait.
    Ahead, a crowd was gathered. As he approached, a murmur rippled through them and people began to step back, making room for Colt.
    Colt dismounted, then he saw it…the body of a woman lying in the mud. Hair, once golden, was matted with blood.
    A man was on his knees beside the body, face burrowed in his hands, sobbing.
    Slowly Carleton Bowden lifted his horror-stricken face and saw Colt. His lips quivered as he struggled to speak.
    “You! God damn you, you killed her! Sure as if you’d shot her yourself!”
    His voice broke. He gasped, chest heaving. Reddened eyes, overflowing with tears, bulged at Colt. He struck at the air with his fists and screamed, “I’m going to kill you, Coltrane! Just like you killed my little girl!”
    Suddenly Bowden caught sight of the holster at eye level, worn by a man standing a few feet away. He lunged for it, but the man caught his hands and wrestled him away from the gun. Other rushed forward to grab Bowden and lift him to his feet. They half carried him out of the street and back inside the bank.
    Colt felt a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t move. Vaguely, through the nightmare enveloping him, Colt noted the star on the man’s chest. The sheriff began to speak in a barely audible whisper, his voice sorrowful.
    “It was a bank robbery, Coltrane. We’re gettin’ a posse together now. Charlene walked right into the shootin’, like she was sleepwalkin’ or something. Damnedest thing I ever saw. Wasn’t my men who shot her, though. They held their fire when they saw her. My deputy says one of the robbers shot her when he was aimin’ at us. She just walked into the bullet.
    “If it’s any comfort,” he added softly, “I don’t think she suffered. Probably never knew what happened to her.”
    The sheriff’s words were slowly penetrating Colt’s consciousness.
    “They got away,” the sheriff continued angrily. “When we saw her go down, we all just sorta froze, and they got away. But we’ll get ’em, by God.”
    Colt shrugged away the consoling hand on his shoulder and made his way forward. The people who were gathered around Charlene moved out of the way as he approached.
    He dropped to one knee beside Charlene, then gently lifted her in his arms. He nearly cried out when her head lolled toward him, so limp…so lifeless. He looked into the sightless blue eyes that had so recently burned