Page 75 of Cutter’s Lady

“Okay. Is there anyone else in the house?”

Blake shook his head. “The servants have gone home. Moreno—that’s LeFevre’s goon—went with him.”

“Good. Where’s a flashlight?”

“I don’t know.” Blake looked dazed.

Cutter searched the study but found no flashlight. He went to the kitchen and finally discovered one in a pantry cabinet. He motioned for Leslie and Blake to follow him and moved cautiously out the front door. They walked to the carport, Cutter constantly looking around, studying the area. He led them behind the carport to a spreading jacaranda bush, heavy with purple flowers.

“We’ll wait here.” He fixed Leslie with a firm look. “If anything goes wrong, you take off.” He pointed into the dense undergrowth. “And don’t hesitate to use that gun. Understand?” He turned to Blake. “You make sure she gets away. You owe her at least that much.”

“You mean, if LeFevre shoots you, I’m supposed to run off and leave you here?” Leslie asked, crossing her arms and studying Cutter with disfavor. “No way.”

“Leslie…”

“I won’t leave you.”

His face was filled with a blend of frustration and love. “Why is it that I never win an argument with you?”

“Because you’re always trying to make me do stupid things.”

Cutter couldn’t help but smile, and he leaned over and kissed her briefly. “Okay. Then I guess I better make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“That’s right.”

They sat down behind the concealing shrub and waited. Cutter held the shotgun across his lap, utterly still except for his eyes, which flickered over the area every few minutes, often resting on Blake. Blake shifted nervously under Cutter’s cool appraisal. Leslie waited, her mouth dry and her stomach in knots. She was scared and not at all eager to face LeFevre again, but she had complete faith in Cutter. He would get them out.

There was a putter of an engine in the distance. “Thank God he has a diesel,” Cutter remarked, coming up lithely to a crouch.

Leslie and Blake followed his lead, rising from where they sat to hide behind the jacaranda shrub. The nose of the Mercedes appeared beyond the bushes, and the car turned into the carport. Leslie’s heart hammered so loudly she was afraid everyone could hear it. She watched as LeFevre and three men stepped out of the car. Icy fear rushed through her. Cutter against four men? It was awful odds. She had a sudden vision of Cutter lying on the ground bleeding before her. Her hand trembled on the pistol.

The three men joined LeFevre on the other side of the car, deferentially following behind him as he started for the house. Cutter slipped out from behind the bush, moving so quietly that if she hadn’t seen him, Leslie wouldn’t have known he was gone. He darted in swift, deadly silence to the rear of the car and stopped, using the car as a shield. The shotgun was up at his shoulder. His voice cracked through the somnolent night. “Alto!”

The men stopped, stunned. “I have one of your guns on you, LeFevre,” Cutter went on. “Turn around slowly, hands in the air.” He repeated his command in Spanish. The four men obeyed, slowly pivoting to face him. “By the way, Leslie’s over there with a gun, too.” His head nodded slightly in a direction that was nowhere near Leslie’s hiding place. “She’s pretty, but she’s also a good shot and as ruthless a woman as I’ve ever met.”

LeFevre glared at Cutter, his face stony and cold. “Westfield,” he said bitterly, followed by a spate of angry Spanish.

“Yeah, I don’t like the guy, either,” Cutter agreed. “Now, take off your jackets and throw them on the ground.” They obeyed him. “Next, all your weapons, very slowly.”

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Leslie muttered to Blake, who had dropped into a crouch behind her legs—much like a child scared to leave their mother on the first day of kindergarten.

As soon as the men divested themselves of their weapons, Cutter went on, “Now take off your belts and lie face down on the ground. LeFevre, pick up the belts and tie their hands together.”

LeFevre knelt and fastened the first belt around his employee’s hands, then started to rise, putting his right hand down to push up from the ground. Cutter could not see that side of LeFevre’s ankle, but Leslie saw the man’s hand sneak into the top of his boot.

LeFevre whipped a small gun out of his ankle holster as he stood up and turned. Leslie raised her pistol and fired, hitting LeFevre in his gun arm before he could aim at Cutter.

“Leslie! You shot him!” Blake squeaked, crouching even lower so that he was practically crawling behind Leslie as she came forward from her hiding spot.

“Shut up, Blake.” Leslie kept her gun trained on LeFevre, who had dropped his gun and now clutched his arm with his other hand, rattling off a string of words in Spanish that even Leslie could tell were ninety percent curses.

“Wow.” Cutter looked at Leslie in amazement. “I guess I was being more truthful than I realized.”

Leslie shrugged. “I don’t know guns, but I can aim. That fancy girl’s school I went to had archery. And I always excel in all my classes.”

“Thank God for the hobbies of the idle rich.” Cutter laughed. “Come here and hold the shotgun on them.”

Leslie went to him, skirting the men carefully, and exchanged guns with Cutter. Cutter tucked his handgun in the small of his back and went forward to tie up the men. He started with LeFevre, ignoring the other man’s shout of pain when Cutter yanked his arms behind his back with greater force than was probably necessary.