Cruel World

Chapter 3

Peach wrapped the leather reins around her hands tighter.

"What did you say your name was again," her voice was cold. Icarus sensed her discomfort and bobbed from foot to foot anxiously. He chomped at the bit in his mouth and pulled his strong neck against the tightening reins.

Levi looked up at her, drunk and dumbfounded. His eyes pierced through the low-hanging fog. He cleared his throat before he dared to speak again. The look on Peach's face was enough to make him contemplate his next words very carefully.

Unsatisfied, and impatient, Peach pulled her revolver from the holster on her thigh. She leveled the barrel at him, at the exact spot in his chest. One bullet through the heart and he would be dead in the mud.

"I won't repeat myself," She did her best to breathe, but with every passing moment, she felt the rage rising in her throat. Any trace of a buzz had immediately diminished with the adrenaline pumping through her veins.

Levi held his hands up in surrender.

"My name is Levi Andrade, perhaps you've seen my wanted posters hanging around?" he dared crack a smile. Sure enough, plastered to a post not five feet away was his face with that same damn grin. A five hundred dollar bounty on his head, for cattle rustling, robbing trains and dueling. How could she have not seen it? She'd spent all night by his side. She'd drank with him. She'd even played cards with him.

"I should shoot you right now," Peach blinked hard. Her green eyes were starting to water over. She shook her head. She would not give him the satisfaction of her tears.

"Then do it," he was serious, "plenty of people would gladly see me go." He watched her. The rage boiling inside her caused the hand holding her gun to shake. She tightened her grip on the white pearl handle. She'd shot plenty of people before, but usually, they were shooting back at her. She didn't like killing, but it had always been easier when she hadn't known the people she was killing. Now, with Icarus shifting angrily beneath her, and those damn blue eyes looking up at her, she honestly didn't know if she could do it. Even if it had only been one night, she knew this man. She knew the way he smelled, what his laugh sounded like.

Peach sucked in a deep breath, pushing those thoughts to the back of her mind. She also knew what he had done. Who knew what else he would be capable of.

"Look, Lady Luck, if you're going to do it, at least tell me what I did to deserve it." He was still leaning comfortably against the post, "that way I know what to tell the demons when I get to where I'm going."

Peach squeezed her gun handle hard, "why did you call me that?" The anger in her voice set the right tone.

He smiled out the side of his mouth. The little white scar above his lip pulled up. The wanted posters had neglected to add that little detail, she noticed.

"You may have just realized who I am, but I knew from the moment I saw you swindle all those sorry saps at the Poker table. I've seen your wanted posters as well."

Thankfully, Rosewood was backwater enough, that Peach hadn't had to face her own crudely drawn portrait. The words Wanted dead or alive in bold hanging over her head. With her bounty rising with every county she crossed through, it wouldn't be long before even the Rosewood bounty hunters took note. If she killed him now, that could add at least 30 dollars to her 300-dollar bounty. Then again, maybe she could cash in his, by bringing in his dead body.