Authors: Kay Springsteen
He was silent for a long time. "No. There's
no one. But thanks anyway, Angel. And thanks for staying with
me."
"I like talking to you. So get used to me.
I'm sticking."
Sandy pulled off her sweater and balled it
up on the desk, leaning into it and using it as a pillow.
The radio squawked again.
"Mick?" She shoved the sweater aside and sat
up straight, rubbing her eyes.
"Yeah, it's me. Angel? They're not coming
for me, are they?"
"They are, Mick. They are, I promise. But
there's a lot of building to get through."
"It's okay, Angel. We're trained for this.
Have to be realistic here. I smell smoke and it's getting stronger.
I don't think the fire's contained. And I've got no O2 left in my
tank."
"They are working on it, Mick! You have to
hang on. If you give up, you—just don't give up. Hold onto me."
"For long as I can, Angel."
"You stay! And when they get you out, I'll
be waiting for you! I keep my promises, Mick."
"Make one more promise, then. See Wyoming
just once."
"We'll see it together when you take me,"
she said. "You can show me all the best places."
"But if I'm not with you, see it anyway,
okay? I know you'll love it there. And think of me when you see it
the first time, okay? Promise."
"Promise." Tears rolled down her cheeks,
hot, stinging drops plopping onto the fists she pounded into her
balled-up sweater.
****
Sandy came awake with a start. Memories of a
night filled with perplexing secrets and feelings of being
cherished surfaced. For once it wasn’t the man in her dreams
plucking at her emotions. It was something—or rather someone—else;
someone very present in her life.
****
Sean hurled the broken padlock across the
stable yard. Wood splintered when the lock struck the door to the
stable. Beyond the door, several horses called out in protest. One
set of hooves connected with the wall a couple of times as though
answering the call to arms. That would be Domingo, Ryan wagered
with a disapproving shake of his head.
"Trying to finish what someone else
started?" asked Ryan.
"What's the point of dumping all the
feed?"
Gus emerged from the feed shed shaking his
head. "Good and wasted. They wet it down then tossed shovelfuls of
manure from the pit all through it. You'll be lucky to salvage a
handful."
Sean scrubbed a hand over his face. "What's
happening here?"
Ryan leveled a look at his brother. "You
know the answer. This is personal."
"But why after all this time?" Sean kicked
at the dirt beneath his boots.
Ryan blew out a breath, exhaustion catching
up with him. "We'd have to crawl inside Bull's head to figure that
out." He shook his own head. "I don't think I'm ready to do
that."
****
A song on her lips, Sandy dashed down the
stairs ready to hit the day. She had a list of errands and a plan
to take Domingo out for a short ride. And maybe she'd be able to
track Ryan down. The light of day would put a damper on her
insecurities. Something had to.
As she rounded the corner of the building
and headed into the parking lot, her nose began to protest. She
would never understand what it was about being drunk that made a
person decide to take a leak in a parking lot. Now she'd have to
call one of the kids who did landscaping for them to spray down the
sidewalk before lunch. When her suspicions were confirmed by the
sun glinting on the telltale crystalline residue along the side of
her truck, she only rolled her eyes.
"At least they could pee on their own
ride."
She frowned at a whitish substance gunked
across the hood. "What the—is that—? Ew. This is just nasty," she
said to the empty parking lot.
Catching sight of the word carved just below
the door handle, Sandy slumped and rolled her eyes. "Great, we're
back in middle school."
And, why was her truck sitting at such an
angle? If she had a flat again, she was going to have to invest in
new tires all around. She couldn't risk blowing a patch when she
was driving the desolate roads out to the ranch or up to
Jackson.
The deadly black blade sticking out of her
tire was a pretty specific threat, not to mention incredibly
intimidating as threats went.
"Oh, wow." Irritation turned to alarm. Did
someone want to do that to her? She looked around uneasily. This
was no drunken prank.
No one was watching her as far as she could
tell, but Sandy did spot DC at Blackstone's. If she could catch him
before he left, she could save herself some waiting time. Ignoring
the crosswalks, she made the direct trek diagonally through the
intersection.
DC looked up from his clipboard. "Sandy,
don't be making me write you a ticket for jaywalking." His grin
took any sting out of the words.
Sandy surveyed the deserted road with
disdain, then swept her gaze back in DC's direction. She peered at
him over the top of her sunglasses. "Don't make me hurt you, DC.
Not one car has gone by in the past fifteen minutes."
DC shrugged. "The law's the law. What can I
do for you?"
"Someone did really disgusting things with
body fluids all over my truck, carved some free advertising in the
door, and then murdered one of the tires with a hunting knife. And
in case that sounds a little too Chicken Little Sky is Falling for
you, the knife's still in the tire."
DC blinked, stared at her. He shoved his hat
further back on his head. "Aw, jeez, Sandy. It's too early in the
day for this crap."
Sandy examined the parking lot with a
critical eye. An assortment of tires lay scattered like oversized
donuts burning black in the strong morning sun. A tire rack was
toppled and one tire had been tossed onto the hood of an antique
cherry-red Cadillac convertible. Mayor Bennett wouldn't be
thrilled.
"What's going on here? It looks like a giant
had a temper tantrum."
But DC had gone silent. He cast a
speculative look in the direction of the bar, then back at the
chaos surrounding them. Frowning, he stooped, picked up a tiny tan
cylinder. He looked back across the intersection, walked a few feet
and looked down, stooping to pick up another one.
"Heck of a thing, ain't it?" Walt announced,
joining Sandy. "Got in here this morning and found all my new tire
stock slashed. Never had to lock it up at night before. I knew he'd
bring trouble, coming back here like he did."
Sandy stared at the old auto mechanic. "I'm
sorry, you lost me. Who brought trouble?"
Walt shook his head as though he couldn't
believe she didn't already know. "Why, young McGee, of course."
Apparently, Walter Blackstone had already
tried and convicted. Irritation sparked.
She fixed Walt with a narrow-eyed glare.
"Mr. Blackstone, do you seriously think a responsible man in his
thirties vandalized your shop?"
The mechanic was stubborn. "Just making the
obvious connection. He's back and now there's trouble. The fire at
Ed's yesterday, now this." He took out a pack of cigarettes and
plugged one into his mouth, then pulled out an ancient silver
lighter with a fading U.S. Army emblem on the side.
Seeing the action, Sandy realized what DC
had been plucking from the ground. Cigarette butts.
"You know, Ryan was having lunch with me and
DC at my place when the fire started," Sandy argued. "He couldn't
have been responsible."
But there was no swaying Walt. "Someone with
his know-how would be able to rig it for a delayed start."
Not enough coffee to process the input.
"Know-how?"
"Oh yeah." He became animated, gathering
momentum now that someone was listening to his conspiracy theory.
"He used to work putting out fires on oil rigs, you know. Them
fires most often get put out with explosives."
Actually, she hadn't known what Ry had done
while he'd been away, but fighting oil fires would have suited him.
There would be no winning the argument so she made a noncommittal
sound.
"Did they get all your stock?"
Walt nodded his head. "Every last one of
'em."
"How soon can you get a replacement tire
ordered up for me?" Sandy asked.
"I can send Wendell up to Jackson today, be
ready to put it on tomorrow," Walt said. "Did you get hit,
too?"
Sandy nodded without going into detail,
though she could clearly see Walt would have appreciated the
gossip.
Fortunately, it became a nonissue when her
cell phone signaled an incoming call. Sandy checked the caller ID
and answered with a smile. "Hey Sean, what's up?"
"We need some supplemental feed. Were you
still planning to stop by the feed store for Domingo's blend?"
"Actually, I'm going to be delayed."
"Delayed, huh?" Sean chuckled. "My brother's
out here at the ranch so it can't be good lovin' delaying you."
Before she could think of an appropriate
comeback, she heard the telltale "oof" of breath being pushed from
his lungs with a gut punch. She winced for him. Then she heard a
masculine voice in the background, and Sean was suddenly
apologizing profusely.
She laughed into the phone. "I'll pick up
your feed as soon as I can, Sean. Tell Rocky I'll see him after I
change a tire."
"What happened to your tire, Sandy?" Sean
asked sharply.
She sighed, afraid she knew what would
result when she answered. "I had a visitor last night who decided
to leave a hunting knife in my rear tire. I'm here with DC now,
so—" She broke off with another sigh, already hearing Sean relaying
the information to his brother.
"Ryan'll be there in forty minutes," Sean
said before the phone went dead.
****
Chapter Eleven
Ryan made it to town in twenty-five minutes.
As his car roared to a halt next to the sheriff's cruiser in front
of Blackstone's, DC just shook his head.
"Keep driving like that," he said in a stern
tone. "I'm going to be forced to deputize you just so you can write
your own citations. You two are a pair."
Ryan shot Sandy a
questioning look. "What did
you
do?"
Sandy shrugged, slid her sunglasses off her
face and hooked them into the front of her off-the-shoulder top. "I
jaywalked at rush hour."
Ryan's gaze lingered momentarily on the
front of her shirt, where she had parked the sunglasses. Then he
looked at her face. Her eyes held no shadows, only a flash of
temper. The tightness in his throat eased. His heart rate returned
to as normal a rate as he'd ever had in her presence.
He began noticing the little things. How the
breeze lifted the wisps of hair escaping from her loose pony tail.
How the turquoise of her shirt contrasted with her peachy skin. How
her shirt lovingly embraced her curves. The milky skin of her bare
shoulders. The six inches or so of exposed skin above her low-rise
jeans. And the delicate gold lizard dangling from her belly
button.
Echoes of feelings from the night before
stirred. She was the perfect blend of sexy and beautiful, and just
being near her was a fantasy-come-true. But they had a lot to talk
about and he didn’t know when or where to begin.
DC's voice broke into his contemplation.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" he asked
Ryan.
"I'm going to have to look at Sandy's truck,
get the knife out of the tire," said DC. "But I'm guessing this is
all connected." He gestured to a cluster of evergreen bushes.
"There's a pile of cigarette butts on the ground over there, looks
like almost a whole pack. Someone sitting just right wouldn't be
spotted from the road, but sure would have a good view of your
place."
"Why would anyone be watching my bar?"
Over Sandy's head, Ryan met DC's troubled
eyes, reading in them what the sheriff was unwilling to say out
loud. The violence was definitely escalating. And it was bleeding
over to stain Sandy's life.
"What happened, Sandy?" asked Ryan.
"Oh, someone decided to leave a couple of
calling cards in the form of various body fluids on my truck, along
with a love note carved into the door. And then they murdered one
of my tires with a hunting knife." Her voice was drenched with
sarcasm. "How's your day been so far?"
She was being flippant but she kept toying
with the strap on her purse. She was definitely beginning to take
things seriously. Good.
"We had an incident with a broken lock and
dumped feed." Ryan addressed his next words to the sheriff. "Still
think it's not personal, DC?"
"Getting harder to discount that theory," DC
admitted. He motioned for them to follow him. "Heading to your
place now, Sandy."
On the walk to Valentine's, DC made it a
point to demonstrate the proper use of the crosswalk.
Ryan's hands balled into fists he knew he
would plow right into Bull's ugly face if his old adversary made
the mistake of crossing paths with him any time soon. Relieving
himself on Sandy's truck might have been the drunken act of
settling the score with her for rejecting him Sunday night. Or it
could have been a way of marking territory. Either way, it was a
threat they couldn't ignore. The single word labeling Sandy's
character was gouged into the truck's door, and only added fuel to
Ryan's slow burn. This was about him. The same way the crap at the
ranch ultimately came back to him.
When he saw the sixteen-inch special forces
knife, with the double-serrated top edge, the blood running through
his veins went from fiery to icy in the space of a heartbeat. Fury
turned into fear for Sandy's life.
Donning a latex glove, DC pulled the knife
from the tire and popped it into an evidence bag. Air once held in
by the blade now escaped with a viperous hiss.