Free The Grass Widow by Nanci Little

dishes neglected in the sink. She didn’t trust Slade any deeper than she could have buried him today. He had her Peacemaker, but Ethan’s was handy, and the Winchester (also hair-triggered; her father had come up arthritic, and had taught his steady-handed daughter how to hone the inner workings of his guns) hung just inside the door. She supposed she could kill him with it if she had to, or talk him out of enough shells for Aidan’s instruction with that more deadly weapon. Slade cocked the revolver and handed it to Aidan, and took off his coat and hat. Joss bit her lip, wishing she’d told him to go to hell with his condescending offer to buy the bullets. He slipped his arms around Aidan from behind; Joss jammed her hands into her pockets. “You oily son of a—”
    The revolver roared interruption. Dirt sprayed from the ground at their feet. Slade backpedaled an ungainly dance. Joss vaulted the porch rail and landed running, praying that Aidan hadn’t just relieved herself of part of her own right foot.
    “You idiot!” Slade bellowed; Aidan, who had only flinched at his touch and was more surprised than he was that the gun had gone off, looked up in amazement as he raised his hand. “Stupid woman! I’ll teach you—”
    “It’s the last thing you’ll ever do, Slade!” Joss was still ten steps away; her throat would be sore for a week from the force of her roar. He wheeled as she skidded to a stop between them, shielding Aidan, blazing her rage at him: “You’re the Goddamned idiot! I told you it had a hair trigger! Did you hear me?
    Did you even listen? If your brains was bullets you couldn’t hit a
     
    bull’s ass with a bagful o’ banjos! Aidan, are you hurt?”
    Something feral burned in those dark eyes; Aidan would have looked away had she been able. “No,” she whispered. “No, Joss. He just—startled me.”
    “That you’re unhurt is this imbecile’s extreme good fortune.”
    Joss took the revolver from her. Slade’s hand hovered near his pistol. “Hang your fright, sir; I’d’ve killed you from the porch had I cared to,” she snapped, and yanked a black hair from her head to thread through the trigger guard. She looped the single strand across the trigger and drew back the hammer; she aimed at a bottle on the fence and tightened the fragile loop of hair. The Colt roared. The bottle exploded. She cocked it and pulled again; another bottle blew glittering shards into the sunlight, and another; on the next one the hair broke and Joss squeezed off the round with her finger. “That, you skirt-chasin’
    son of a bitch, is a hair trigger by definition. Startle her again an’
    I’ll define it a right smart o’ closer to you.”
    “Are you threatening an officer of the Cavalry?”
    “I’m tellin’ you how it is.”
    “The round remaining in your weapon makes it sound a threat, Miss Bodett.”
    She opened the loading gate to eject five spent casings and show the tip of the ejector rod through a sixth, empty chamber, the one she always left clear under the hammer. She offered the Colt. “Your turn to buy the bullets.”
    He shook his head, and deliberately dropped six rounds into the revolver. He dangled it at Aidan by its trigger guard from his longest finger. “Does perchawnce” —it was a smirking drawl; Aidan was heartily weary of his damnable smirk— “the lady so desire?”
    Her look made him seem like a neophyte in the unpleasantsmile business. “Mais oui,” she purred, accepting the Peacemaker.
    “But my dear Captain Slade” —her voice was like honey, her meaning clear as the morning sky as she held the revolver casually aimed at his belly— “do please remember how easily I’m startled.”
    0
    Joss turned, barely stifling a laugh. Slade watched her stroll to the house; she settled into a rocker on the porch, her feet on the rail, her hat on her knee, a picture of arrogant disrespect for him and his position. He didn’t know she sat because she couldn’t stand,