“Let him take his best shot,” he said. “You won’t live long enough to see if it hits me or not.”
To Abby’s way of thinking Riley was engaged in a dangerous game of one-upmanship. True, he might get off one shot that would fell Higgins, but he’d hardly be able to relish the victory if he was dead, too. She figured more drastic measures were called for before she wound up surrounded by dead bodies.
The one plan that came to mind was an incredibly risky act that would require bold daring, the sort of daring she’d always claimed to have had. It appeared it was time to put her claim to the test.
She didn’t exactly consider herself a femme fatale, but these men had been locked up in jail for days. She’d seen for herself the gleam in Higgins’s eyes whenever he and his brothers looked her over. They’d pretty much gotten an eyeful as it was. There didn’t seem much point in feigning modesty now, when its opposite might get them out of this mess.
Without stopping to consider what Riley’s reaction might be to her scheme, she unbuttoned his shirt as quickly as her trembling fingers would permit, then shrugged it off, allowing it to slither to the ground behind her.
All three men gaped as she stepped into plain view wearing nothing more than her soaking wet drawers. At their avid stares, a blush crept up her neck and she could feel her face turning scarlet, but she pretended she was back on the stage in the Golden Nugget Saloon. She suspected she’d been ogled there just as thoroughly, even if she’d had a mite less on display. She forced herself to consider this just another day’s work.
Counting on Riley to make the most of the distraction, she sashayed straight toward the two duller Higgins brothers and kept on going.
“Holy catfish,” one of them muttered, his eyes growing wide. “Would you look at that?”
She was pretty sure the emphatic curse she heard next came from Riley as she crossed into his line of vision, but she refused to look his way. She swallowed hard at the thought of his displeasure, but kept right on moving in the most provocative stroll she could manage, holding the brothers’ attention on her and drawing it away from Riley.
After that first startled expletive, Riley apparently figured it was pointless to waste her efforts. She heard him moving swiftly behind her, repeating his order to Higgins to toss down his weapon.
“Red, Tommy, damn your hides,” the other man shouted, but Red and the beefier Tommy were too caught up in Abby’s impromptu performance to pay any attention to their brother.
Like loyal pups they trailed her as she went to the spot on the riverbank where she’d left her own clothes. She guessed from the string of oaths and the dull thud she heard behind her that Riley had succeeded in getting the outraged Higgins to toss down his gun. She tried to calculate exactly how long it would take him to get the other man tied up. Three minutes at the outside, she guessed. Riley tended toward coldly efficient movement when he was agitated, and he was definitely agitated right now, mostly by her. There would definitely be hell to pay when this situation cooled down. By then Riley’s temper would no doubt be boiling hot and aimed straight at her.
However, she reminded herself sternly, this was not the time to be worrying about that. She had the performance of her life to give.
With her back to the brothers, she reached slowly for her clothes, starting with her petticoat. She stepped into it, pulled it up amid a few deliberate wiggles of her hips and tied it at the waist. Red and Tommy seemed as enthralled by this reverse striptease as they had been by her initial almost bare-assed appearance. Abby prayed she could hold their attention for just another minute or two, long enough for Riley to turn his gun on them.
“Sing that song,” Tommy ordered, sounding a little hoarse as he waved his gun in her direction for encouragement.
“Which song would that be?” she inquired blandly. She hummed a few notes of a hymn as she reached for her dress.
“Damn you, woman, that’s a church song,” Red said, looking extremely nervous. He seemed to be anticipating a bolt of lightning striking all of them dead on the spot. “That ain’t the kind of song you’re supposed to sing when you’re not wearing any clothes.”
Abby heard a choking sound and realized that Riley was trying to hold back a laugh. She vowed she would slug him if they got out of this mess. She was prancing around, practically naked as the day she was born, just to save his sorry hide, and he found the whole performance amusing. She supposed for the moment, though, the only important thing was that she had Red and Tommy’s undivided attention.
“Boys,” Riley said quietly, once he had that damnable laughter under control. “The show’s over.”
Taken by surprise and clearly furious because of it, both men whirled on him, guns drawn. With her breath in her throat, Abby turned with them. Riley acted as if facing two gunmen was an everyday occurrence.
“Put ‘em down, nice and easy,” he said.
Red and Tommy seemed to notice for the first time that their brother’s hands were tied behind his back. A bandanna cruelly bit into his mouth to keep him silent. Their expressions turned hard and mean.
“If you hurt him, you’ll pay,” Red said. “Tommy, take Walker’s gun.”
“Bad idea,” Abby said softly, pressing the gun she’d retrieved from the folds of her dress into Tommy’s back. That gun was the first thing Riley insisted she have before they’d embarked on this trip. He’d spent an hour a day teaching her to use it, too. Her aim was considerably more accurate than
