Free Deadly Descent by Charlotte Hinger

bulk.
    “Keith, do you think it’s wrong to kill people?”
    “What?” He shot up, clicked on the lamp on his night stand, and turned to me, his head braced in the palm of his hand. “Do you have anyone in particular in mind?”
    “You’re safe,” I laughed. I propped my pillow up against the headboard and sat up.
    “What’s bothering you, Lottie?” he asked, gently stroking my hair.
    “Nothing. Nothing, really. Well Zelda’s murder, I guess. Do you think it’s right to kill someone? I really want to know.”
    “Not murder. But self defense? Of course. Why would you ask? You have to know how I feel about that, from my service in Vietnam. I trained for it, even though I was in the medics.”
    “If someone came to this house and you thought he was going to kill us, you wouldn’t think twice?”
    “I’d do it in a heartbeat,” he said flatly.
    He turned out the light and reached for me, pulled me closer, closer. I clung to his warmth. His sure sense of right and wrong. Hearing him talk like this, there was no other possible conclusion. It was my own personal hurdle. There could be no room for hesitation. That much I did know. If I did carry a gun, I would have to be ready to use it.
    Western Kansas was an arsenal already, I reasoned. Morally, what was the difference between owning a handgun or a shotgun or rifle, if you really would never be called on to use it anyway? I realized the same rationale could be used to justify a nuclear bomb.
    By morning, at some tortured level between dreams and nightmares, I had decided. I was capable of killing another human being.
    I couldn’t, wouldn’t kill a rabbit. But I could kill a person to protect someone’s life. Besides, how often would I ever have to draw a gun? Some peace officers went their whole career and never did.
    We had a gun dealer in town. I selected a Smith and Wesson Ladysmith. I walked into Sam’s office with it two days later.
    “Now, about my firearm training,” I said.
    ***
    I pushed through the kitchen door lugging a storage box containing my new uniforms, booklets, files, nightstick, badge, and gun.
    Keith sat at the island shuffling a deck of cards. He lifted his head, looked at me, looked away, rapidly shot the cards into a horizontal solitaire layout. When he flipped over the third card in the row, he turned up a joker.
    “Figures,” he said bleakly. He scooped up the cards, scanned the deck, removed the other joker and re-dealt.
    I had expected temper, prepared myself. Keith’s one bad habit. Farmers don’t bother to control it. Who’s to hear when they let ‘er rip under acres of sky? Keeps them happy and ulcerless. However, gentlemen cuss things, not ladies, and Keith never used cruel words. Nevertheless, I expected him to tell me how he felt, loud and clear. Thrown by his gloom, I set my box on the floor.
    “How did you hear?”
    “Coffee shop.”
    “Oh Keith, I’m so sorry.” I closed my eyes. “I wanted you to hear it from me.”
    “That’s big of you,” he snapped. “Did it ever occur to you to talk it over with me first?”
    “Yes,” I stammered. “But I thought…”
    “You didn’t think, you knew, knew it was an ignorant, short-sighted move. You knew I would hit the ceiling.”
    “I knew you’d try to stop me and this was my decision. It’s about
my
life.”
    “No it isn’t. This has to do with
our
marriage, not just your life.”
    The veins in his neck throbbed. He unclenched his fists, rubbed his palms together, studied his fingers.
    “I feel by-passed, Lottie. Scuttled. Like you don’t trust me.”
    Stricken with guilt, I could not think of one word to say in my defense.
    He rose and started toward me. I expected him to enfold me and reassure me that we could work it out. Instead, he walked past me and didn’t speak again until he was half-way up the stairs.
    Turning, looking like an old man, his gaze was unwavering. “My life with Regina was miserable, you know that. You’re a gift from God. A