Chapter 32

“Doggone it?”

“Naw, it doesn’t have the right punch,” Mick said as they started walking again.

“Dagnabit.”

Mick snorted. “This may be a small western town but that’s carrying it a bit too far, don’t you think?”

“Hell fire and…”

“Damnation. That’s just a fancy way of saying ‘damn’.”

They began rattling off other words they knew and in the end decided, laughing hard, that Mick should count to four before saying ‘damn’.

“At least that way you might cut down on it,” Wynn pointed out.

“Like hell,” Mick muttered as they continued on down the lane. Mick stopped before they got to the end, leaning against a tree to catch his breath. “I hate this,” he growled. “We haven’t even gotten to the road and I feel like I just ran a mile dead out.”

“Considering you were shot then spent two weeks pretty much flat on your back, it’s not surprising and you know it. Let’s get back to the house, you can rest a bit, and we’ll walk again this afternoon.”