weight her skull showed through her face.
The clutch of breathless men swarmed all over them. They separated the two kids, surrounded each one, and took the boy from Blue. Gordon parted the crowd as he brought Andie Lee to her son.
With her face pale as milk, she took the boy’s arm in both her hands as if to pull it away from the lawman who was cuffing his wrists behind his back. She was saying something to him but Shane ignored her completely.
“Thanks a lot, man!”
It took a second for Blue to realize that he was the target of the sarcastic remark, shouted over the buzz of voices and the girl’s loud sobs. The hateful, fearful look in the kid’s eyes was fixed on him.
“You’re right to thank me,” Blue said. “Kidnapping might be a charge even your grandpa can’t fix.”
“He’s not my grandpa! And I don’t want him to fix anything—I want him to throw me out. Then Andie Lee couldn’t keep me here.”
He turned the poison glare onto his mother. She stared back, anger tightening her face over the worry. She let go of him. Then he lifted his chin defiantly and moved his eyes to Gordon.
“You stupid little shit,” Gordon said. “You ought to be horsewhipped.”
Shane, even though he was trembling, didn’t look away from Gordon’s piercing blue glare.
“I’ll take that weapon,” one of the lawmen said, as he stepped up to Blue.
Blue took the gun in his hand, broke it open, and tilted it, but no rounds fell out into his palm. He spun the chamber. Nothing. The old gun was well oiled and in good condition but it wasn’t loaded.
Blue offered it and the lawman took it to perform the same ritual all over again.
“Empty!” Andie Lee cried. “Shane, you mean you used an empty gun to make Jason call out the highway patrol?”
“You want me to kill somebody? Shoot up the place?”
He looked away from Gordon to sneer at her. His curled lip reminded Blue of the roan colt.
“You don’t want me to embarrass Gordon, right? That’s more important than Jason listening to lies about me and me being falsely accused and deserted by my girl, right?”
He turned his malevolent stare on the weeping girl, who lifted her face from her hands to stare back.
“You’re an asshole, Shane Hart,” she screamed. “I hate you. In your dreams I’m your girl—and don’t you ever say that again!”
That hurt him but he covered it quickly.
“Shut up, stupid Lisa,” he said. “All I wanted you for was a hostage, don’t you know that?”
“Fine. And now you don’t have one anymore.”
“It’s all your fault, anyhow,” he said. “You started this with your lies.”
“They weren’t lies! I saw you, I heard you, I bought from you!”
“Lisa the liar,” he said scornfully.
It came out weak, though, because his voice broke on the last word. He was so young, Blue thought. Fifteen, maybe.
“What were you thinking, son? Where were you headed when you ran out of there?”
It was the lawman who had hold of his arm.
“To find my dad.”
He’d managed to recover his hateful tone, but it was sheer bravado. He wouldn’t even turn to see who had hold of him. His eyes filled with the panic of knowing he was trapped.
He lifted his head and stared his challenge at Blue again.
“It’s all your fault,” he said. “If you’d minded your own business I’d be on the road, headed to my dad right now.”
The look in Shane’s gray eyes was so raw Blue couldn’t look away. The wings of his collarbone stuck up through his T-shirt, sharp enough to poke through his skin.
“My dad would b-break your face if he was here,” he said to Blue.
“You don’t have a dad to do jack for you, boy,” Gordon boomed, scornful of Shane’s fantasy. “You haven’t noticed that yet?”
Andie Lee gasped. Shane flinched as if from a blow.
Gordon held him with a terrible glare.
“If you did have a daddy you’d be nothing but a disgrace to his name,” Gordon said. “It’s your mother who’s killing herself trying to help you.”
“Shut up!” Shane yelled, his voice panicky.
But Gordon was relentless.
“You haven’t got the sense God gave a wooden goose. Look at you—fooling with that stinking dope again, stealing guns and kidnapping girls like some little outlaw wanna-be.”
Gordon took a threatening step toward the boy.
“And telling me to shut up is another piece of stupidity. If you ever show disrespect like that to me again, I’ll hang your hide on the fence just like any other coyote’s.”
That took the sand out of Shane. His jaw sagged and tears sprang into his eyes. Helpless, he pulled at his hands anyway, but all he could do was stand there with his face naked in front of the world.
Blue stepped up closer, set himself between the kid and Gordon and all the rest of them. Gordon was one cold bastard.
The boy held his own, kept on trying to stare Blue down until his eyes were so full of tears he had to blink them away.
He was tough enough, though, that he never let them fall.
That gave him strength. He got a handle on himself and the tears went away but his gaze stayed on Blue’s.
Don’t get in my way again. I hate you. You can’t stop me next time. Nobody can stop me next time.
Those eyes held another message, too, though.
I’m scared. I’m caught and I’m handcuffed and I’m scared.
Not half as scared as he would be at the end of the road he was taking.
Gordon pushed in between them.
“You could be in jail for weeks—for years, maybe,” he said. “I’m gonna leave you there. I’m gonna decide when you get out. I’m gonna decide when and if you come back here. Think about it.”
“You think about this,” Shane said, his voice strengthening with each word. “Chase Lomax is my dad and he’d do anything for me. Insult him again and it’ll be the last time you insult anybody.”
Andie Lee cried out and grabbed his arm again. She talked to him some more. In a low tone that held a whole world of fury and sorrow.
Blue stepped away. He couldn’t bear to hear it.
Gordon made a gesture to the highway patrolman, who took Shane and started toward the patrol car. Andie Lee stuck right with them and so did Gordon, talking in a low voice to the lawman.
Shane’s shoulders sagged and he hung his head so far down he couldn’t see ahead of him while he walked. The guy in the slacks and silk shirt followed and touched Shane’s shoulder.
Shane threw his head up like a spooked deer and twisted toward him. “Jason,” he said, his voice louder than before. “Thanks for nothing, dude.”
“Get back,” the lawman said, motioning Jason away, keeping Shane moving.
Andie Lee kept her shoulders straight and her spine stiff, yet the way she looked at her wayward son reminded Blue of Rose again. Money didn’t always