But Dalton wasn’t interested, not in her, not in any of the girls. He’d flirt but that was it. Hell, Izzy had been working there less than three months and that kid got laid practically every night. Jim-Billy knew all about it. Izzy was young but he wasn’t as good-looking as Dalton so he bragged, a lot.
Not Dalton.
Young, good-looking guy like that? That wasn’t right.
Jim-Billy had never thought anything of it.
Never.
Until now.
Now he had Laurie and he was going to hurt her. Hurt her like he hurt Tonia. Like he hurt Neeta. Like he hurt that pretty, sweet hippie chick.
And Laurie was Tate’s Elise. He had Jonas, so she wasn’t his everything, but that didn’t mean she didn’t make up half his world.
Once half of your world was torn from you, you could live to be a hundred and never build it back up.
Never.
And Tatum Jackson was a good man. He didn’t deserve Jim-Billy’s life, going home alone to a cold bed every night and staying awake remembering what it felt like when his bed wasn’t cold when he slipped into it, when he never felt alone, even when he wasn’t with her.
And he was going to do something about it.
He knew he should call the cops, or even call Tate, but he didn’t have a cell phone.
And he didn’t have time.
Someone had to get to Laurie.
* * * * *
Tate
“It’s a federal investigation, Jackson,” Chief Arnie Fuller said through the phone.
“Yeah, it is, Arnie, that don’t mean you can’t send your boys out to look for her while you wait for Tambo to get his ass here from Denver,” Tate growled back.
“We fuck that shit up, we got federal heat, we don’t need federal heat,” Arnie shot back.
“No, Arnie, you don’t need federal heat. You don’t need the Feds gettin’ more in your business than they already are. You don’t think Tambo’s already got your fuckin’ ticket?” Tate returned.
“Fuck you, Jackson, you were always a pain in my ass,” Arnie retorted.
“You aren’t fuckin’ me, you wait two hours for Tambo to get here. You’re fuckin’ Laurie. In two hours she could bleed out of multiple stab wounds, some of ‘em in places, I swear to God, you sit on this, you’ll feel ‘cause I’ll make certain you see jail time, you asshole, and a cop in lockdown will get all sorts shoved up his ass,” Tate promised.
“Go to hell, Jackson,” Arnie snapped then disconnected.
“Fuck!” Tate barked.
“I take it we got no support from the Carnal PD,” Wood noted, his voice vibrating with anger.
Tate’s eyes went to his friend.
“Got your .38?” Tate asked Wood and Wood’s eyes narrowed on him.
“Tate,” he said, his voice gentling.
“Didn’t want to leave the house armed, Jonas would see. Need a gun, Wood,” Tate stated.
“You think –?”
“I asked,” Tate cut him off, “do you got your .38?”
Wood sucked in breath. Then he jogged to his office. By the time he jogged out of the office to Tate’s Explorer, Tate was behind the wheel, the SUV was idling.
Tate’s head turned to him when he swung in.
“Got it?” he asked.
Wood handed over the .38 and Tate noted Wood had a nine millimeter. Tate took the .38, released the clip, studied it a split second, jammed it back in and then leaned forward so he could slide the gun in the back waistband of his jeans.
Then he put the truck into reverse and sped backwards out of his parking spot in front of the garage.
* * * * *
Lauren
He’d cleaned the knife of my blood on the mattress and then cut the length of my hair off with it, cutting it at my shoulders, getting started, the rest would go later, I knew. He was shoving my hair into a new baggie when it happened.
The door flew open and Jim-Billy was there.
I was so shocked, and thrilled, and hopeful, thinking Tate would come in next, my whole body bucked, apparently violently because, surprisingly, the rusty pipe my hands were tied to at the radiator pulled clean away from the wall.
“What the –?” Dalton gritted out, getting up, whirling, armed with the knife.
It hurt like hell, pain slicing through the wound at my side, but I had to get up, I had to get out of there. I sat up, yanked the gag from my mouth, leaned double and went for the ropes at my right foot.
“He’s got a knife!” I shouted but I did this over a gun blast.
I looked up and saw Dalton go back, blood pouring from a wound in his middle.
Then Jim-Billy was skidding on his knees, stopping at my left foot, he put the gun down clumsily and then his fingers were on the ropes.
“We gotta get you outta here, Laurie,” Jim-Billy said, slurring only slightly, calling my attention from Dalton, who had his back to the wall and his hand to his middle, blood seeping through his fingers, his face pale, his eyes blank, his body beginning to slide down the wall. “Get your other foot free, darlin’.”
I went back to work on my foot as Jim-Billy got the left one untied. Then he shuffled over to my right one, pushed my awkward hands away and worked that one.
I was free and Jim-Billy grabbed my hand, straightening and beginning to pull me up with him, when Dalton was suddenly there. Dalton hit Jim-Billy in a flying tackle, Jim-Billy and Dalton went careening to the side and I fought through the pain and instead of falling back, I pushed to a crouch, one of my hands going to the wetness at my side. The other one reaching out toward Jim-Billy’s gun.
“Go! Go! Go!” The last “go” Jim-Billy uttered ended in a grunt, Dalton rolled off of him and I saw his knife jutting out of Jim-Billy’s belly.
“No!” I screamed.
“Go,” Jim-Billy whispered, I stared into his pain-filled eyes and hesitated.
I looked at Dalton whose eyes came to me.
I was in no shape to help Jim-Billy. I had to find help.
I had to get to Tate.
I stopped reaching for the gun, found my feet and ran.
* * * * *
Tate
“Simpson,” Tate muttered into the cab.
“What?” Wood asked.
“Jane Simpson,” Tate kept muttering.
“Tate… what?” Wood bit out.
“Jesus, fuck, Wood, you remember that girl, she was ahead of us in school, two, three years. Whole town was talking about it. She got knocked up. Then she started dating that guy from Ouray, he was here, forget, working on an oil rigger or somethin’. She moved back to his town with him then she got killed and he got life for doin’ it.”
“Oh fuck. Yeah,” Wood replied.
“She was blonde. Blue eyes. Like her kid. Remember her kid?” Tate asked.
He felt Wood’s head turn to him in the dark. “The Simpson place.”
“Old one lane track. Not paved. Remember it only ‘cause Amelia’s kid went missin’. Cops formed search parties, we went through these hills. I found him by that track, wondered what it was, stayed curious and looked it up when I got back to the station. The Simpsons left it to their daughter and it went to the kid when she was murdered. He never paid taxes on it and the government seized it but never did anything with it. They let it sit. Fuck, no one would know it was even there, they didn’t know to look for it.”
“You remember where it is?” Wood asked.
“Yeah, call Deke, Bub, get everyone headed there,” Tate ordered and Wood moved to pull out his phone.
Even so, he asked, “You that sure, Buck? Pullin’ the boys, focusin’ in one direction?”
Tate had lived by his gut a long time, not only on the hunt or as a cop but also on the football field. You looked at someone running at you, you needed to take them down, or you were following a receiver running a play, you had to go with your gut about which way they’d bolt to avoid you or which way they’d turn to catch a pass because you sure as fuck didn�
��t want to go the other way. Tate couldn’t say he picked the right direction every time but he didn’t make the All-America team two years in a row picking the wrong direction.
“Get everyone headed there, Wood.”
“Gotcha,” Wood muttered then said in the phone, “Bub, Tate’s thinkin’ it’s Jane Simpson’s son. The Simpson place. Get the word out…”
And Wood talked as Tate drove.
Fast.
* * * * *
Lauren
I was running down the hill, my entire side had gone passed pain and felt like a ball of flame and I knew he was after me. I could hear him crashing through the wood behind me. We both were injured but he knew these woods. He’d already caught me once. He knew them.
And I didn’t.
But they were Sunny’s hills and Tate found people for a living.
He’d know.
He’d know.
He’d know to look for me here.
Pray God, he’d know.
“Help!” I shouted, hoping they were out looking for me and someone would hear. “Help! Help! Please, please, please help me!”
I looked behind me to see him closing in. I looked forward, came out at a clearing and saw the headlights to my left. They shocked me so much my body shuddered to a halt but the truck was right there and I threw out an arm as it skidded across the mud, its brake lights illuminating its tail in a flash of red.
Before it stopped, it came so close to me, my palm came to rest on the hot hood. It did this for only a second before I looked through the windscreen and saw Tate.
Relief flooded through me and I mouthed the word, “Baby.”
Then Dalton hit me in the back in a tackle, pain seared through me and I went down full frontal on the mud in front of Tate’s Explorer, the double blow of pain from hit and landing, not to mention my head landing on a rock, meant I was out like a light.
* * * * *
Wood
“Buck!” Wood shouted but Tate wasn’t listening. Tate was gone. Tate was gripped tight in a fury so extreme nothing was going to break through.
Wood had to break through. Wood had checked her after Tate yanked Dalton off of her and Laurie was breathing and coming to but she was bleeding from a stab wound and beaten. She didn’t need to survive this only to spend the next five to ten visiting Tate in the penitentiary.
Wood got close to Tate who was holding Dalton up by the neck of his t-shirt and beating his already bloodied to a pulp face into a bloodier pulp. He wrapped both his arms around Tate, taking Tate’s arms down to his sides so Dalton crumpled to the ground and Wood yanked Tate back, shouting again, “Buck! We gotta get Laurie down the hill.”
Tate jerked violently to the side, focused, wanting to get back to his target and Wood’s body went with him but he held on with everything he had.
Then Wood heard trucks arriving.
Thank, fucking, God, Wood thought.
“It’s over, get her to the hospital,” he said.
Tate’s body jerked again and Wood again went with it, his eyes on Tate’s profile, Tate’s eyes looking down on the moaning, crawling body of Dalton.
“She’s injured, Buck, take her to the hospital,” Wood whispered, using the only thing he had to break through.
More trucks arrived, headlights everywhere, rushing feet.
“Got her, got her, goin’ down the hill,” Wood heard Deke shout and then men were all around.
Wood felt it safe to let Tate go and turned to see Deke’s back departing on a jog, Laurie held in his arms.
“I’m with him!” the hippie guy, Shambles, yelled and then took off after Deke.
“Motherfucker!” Bubba bellowed, yanked back a foot and then landed a kick so savage in Dalton’s bleeding side, Dalton howled with pain even as he rolled twice.
Bubba stalked the step it took to get back to Dalton and landed another kick before Wings, Stoney and Pop were on him, pulling him back.
“Where are the fuckin’ cops, this is what I wanna fuckin’ know!” Steg shouted, standing in the grass, staring down at Dalton.
Wood had no answer to that and it occurred to him that Tate had not moved nor spoken in the last two minutes so his eyes moved to his friend to see Tate still staring at the ground even though Dalton was no longer in his line of sight.
Pop saw it too because he called, “Buck?”
“Two sets of tracks,” Tate muttered.
“What?” Wood asked, getting close to his side as Pop got close to the other.
“Warm winter, ground not frozen solid,” Tate was still muttering, his eyes pinned to the dirt. “Two sets of tracks. One back and forth. One just forward.”
Wood looked to the ground and stared but he couldn’t see it. Then again, he wasn’t a tracker like Tate was.
“What are you thinkin’?” Wood asked the ground then looked at Tate to see his head was up and he was staring into the distance.
“She was on the run,” Tate whispered. “He’d been shot.”
“Tate, son, let us in on what’s goin on up there,” Pop urged, his finger jabbing impatiently toward Tate’s head but Tate turned abruptly and headed back to the Explorer. Sirens could be heard in the distance but Tate had opened the driver’s side door.
Wood wasted only the second it took to catch his father’s eyes then he sprinted to the passenger side door. He was still swinging himself in when Tate accelerated so fast, the tires skidded, spewing mud which was good because it gave Wings the second he needed to yank Dalton’s body clear of the track as the Explorer barreled forward.
Wood got his ass in the seat, slammed the door and turned to Tate. “Talk to me.”
“Someone else is up there,” Tate said.
“Who? A partner?” Wood asked.
“No,” Tate answered, “a hero.”
* * * * *
Lauren
I opened my eyes. It was dark. I smelled hospital. I felt no pain.
I turned my head to the side and saw Tate.
He was awake, sitting in a chair pulled close to the side of my bed, his elbows to his knees, his eyes bloodshot, he looked wiped.
“Hey,” I whispered and I felt my lips form a small smile.
His eyes dropped to my mouth then they closed, so slowly it felt like it took ten minutes watching him do it.
Then his head dropped and he muttered to his knees, “Jesus fucking Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Honey,” I whispered and his head shot up and then he filled my vision because his mouth was on mine, gentle but firm and his big hands had spanned either side of my head, holding me still.
He broke the connection of our lips and he rested his forehead against mine.
“Baby,” he whispered.
“Jim-Billy?” I asked.
“Okay, knife did more damage on him than you, went through his stomach, but they patched him up.”
I closed my eyes this time then opened them to have the only thing I saw be his.
“Thank God,” I breathed then asked, “Jonas?”
“Outside sleepin’ on a couch with Krys and Stella and Sunny and Wendy and half of Carnal.”
“Half of Carnal?”
He nodded, his forehead rolling against mine. “Half of Carnal.”
“Must be a big waiting room,” I whispered, realizing this was taking it out of me, my eyelids were getting heavy and I fought it. It was the first time I didn’t want to sleep.
Tate saw it and his head came up a couple of inches but both of his hands slid down to my jaws.
“Go to sleep, honey,” he urged gently, both his thumbs lifting up, stroking my cheekbones, “I’ll be here when you get to the other side.”
“Don’t wanna,” I muttered, my lids lowering and, with effort, I pulled them open again.
“Go to sleep, Laurie.”
“Tate,” I whispered, my eyelids falling again and I couldn’t pull them open.
But before sleep swept me away, I felt his lips on mine form the words, “Sweet dre
ams, baby.”
* * * * *
Jim-Billy
Jim-Billy woke feeling something he hadn’t felt in seven years.
A soft, warm female pressed to his side, her hand under her cheek at his shoulder.
With effort, he looked down to see the top of Laurie’s blonde head, her shoulder covered in a hospital gown, the rest of her body covered in a thin hospital blanket.
He sensed movement, his head settled back on the pillow and his eyes turned to the bright, Colorado sunshine coming through the window where Tate stood, Tate’s eyes on the two people in the bed.
“She asleep?” Jim-Billy asked, his voice a soft rasp.
Tate nodded.
“Made me bring her in here, wanted to be with you,” Tate whispered, his voice barely audible.
Jim-Billy nodded.
“She okay?” Jim-Billy asked.
“Better than you,” Tate answered.
Jim-Billy nodded again.
He didn’t feel much pain but then again, he wasn’t moving and he had a soft, warm female body pressed to his side. She was Tate’s but she was still a soft, warm female and she was Laurie, alive and breathing. It was a gift and life was too short, you get a gift, especially one as precious as the one squeezed next to him in a damned hospital bed, you accept it.
Tate walked from the window to the bed, the entirety of this short trip his eyes never leaving Jim-Billy’s.
Once he made it to the bed, though, they flicked down to Laurie then back to Jim-Billy.
Then he said in a fierce whisper, “Owe you, Billy, owe you huge.”
Jim-Billy nodded again.
“I know.”
And he did know, not because Jim-Billy suffered whatever was behind the complete numbness of his gut, made that way from whatever was feeding into his bloodstream from the drip in his arm but because Jim-Billy suffered it to do his bit to keep what was squeezed in bed beside him alive and breathing.
Jim-Billy grinned his semi-toothless grin at Tate.
Then he said, “Merry Christmas.”
Tate stared at him for a second and he did this hard.
Then Tate’s face relaxed and Jim-Billy heard his low, amused chuckle.
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