by Jillian Neal
“You would really do that for me?” Summer sounded astonished.
“That’s what family does.” Luke shrugged.
“Thank you.” Austin’s emotions kept strangling not only his voice but his thoughts. Not sleeping all night wasn’t helping. “Okay, we need to think. Assuming it’ll be a few days before they realize them papers are gone, how do we get out of here without my absence being noticed by too many people?”
“Austin, what about your contract with Minton? I don’t want you to give everything up for me. I just don’t know what else to do.”
“Come here to me.” He had to put a stop to all of this back and forth. Embracing her in the strength of his arms, he kissed the top of her head. “Last night was by far the worst night of my entire life, and that includes the night of the wreck. Bull riding’s all or nothing, honey. The moment you get to thinking you’d rather do something else, you should. I’ve been thinking that all season right up until the moment I met you. I told you I knew right then.”
“Apparently, that’s a Camden thing,” Luke sighed.
Summer grinned against Austin’s chest.
“It’s a hell of a thing, I’ll say that. Like being struck by lightning and never wanting it to end. I don’t want to be a rodeo hero anymore. I want to be your hero,” Austin pledged.
“You are my hero,” she vowed adamantly.
“Then stop thinking that I’m giving up something. I’m keeping my girl and my little guy safe, giving them a home, and doing what I was put here to do — be a cowboy.”
She squeezed him tighter. “Thank you. I don’t know what I did right in my life. I swear I’ve screwed most everything up, but at some point I must’ve done something right. I met you at just the right moment. Like …”
“Fate,” Austin supplied with a glance at the few loose strings of white clouds on the horizon over the Laramie mountains. One of them looked decidedly like a wound lariat. ‘Thanks, man.’
“Yeah, I guess. I still feel like I fell into your life and turned everything upside down.”
“I kind of think you fell into my arms and set everything to rights. Perspective, sugar. For now, let’s go with mine and get the hell outta Dodge, so to speak.”
“While you two were professing your fated love or whatever,” Luke chided, “I’ve been working on a plan. Austin you should go out in town, act like an asshole. God knows you can when you ain’t gettin’ your way. If you find Brant or any of his wagon trail groupies, let on that Summer left you after what happened with Dallas Devil yesterday. Tell anyone who’ll listen that you flew her back to Santa Fe. If you can put on like you’re hung over or injured even better.”
“Why injured?” Austin had followed right up until that point.
“Then no one will wonder why you don’t show tonight to ride.”
“I don’t know. I think we should go on. I want to talk to the police as soon as possible. A few days from now, Brant can charge me with kidnapping instead of the other way around,” Summer reminded them.
“No, he’s right.” The longer Austin stood there with Summer close enough for him to absorb her scent and her essence, the easier it became for him to think clearly. His mind reengaged as he began to understand that she was never leaving him again. “I’ve got some places in mind we can hide out if it came to that, but I’d much prefer we get to stay on the ranch. The longer we can keep Brant away, the better. Even if he realizes you found that proof, if he thinks you’re in Santa Fe and heads that way, that’s perfect.”
Summer’s nod was visibly forced. “I don’t want you to go,” escaped her mouth in a quiet confession, just before she sank her teeth into her bottom lip to make herself stop talking.
Austin closed his eyes, reveled in the fact that she needed him, and swayed her back and forth. “I’ll be right back. I can make the whole damn town think I’m an asshole in record time, sugar. You know that. Stay here with Luke and get J.J. ready for the trip. I don’t want to stop once we head out. If you can get him some food together that he can eat on the way, that’d be good.”
“What if he already knows those papers are gone? What if he’s already freaking out, and he comes after you or gets one of his daddy’s goons to find you?”
“There’s a pistol in my glove box. I’ll be fine.”
“He shoots better than Mama, and that’s saying something,” Luke tried to help.
“You got her?” Austin raised his eyebrows as he gestured to Summer.
“I’m gonna help her get everything ready and then we might go out and get lost ‘til you’re ready to go. Not a great idea for her to be seen here, since it’s floating around that you two broke up, and there’s four dozen other families staying in these cabins. I’ll call Mom and Dad once we’re out of here, bring her to meet you along 80 somewhere, then I’ll double back.”
Austin let the plan register in his mind. The contingencies were eating at them all. They needed to be in action. They could stand around debating the day away or they can get on with this. “I’m going into town to see how much trouble I can russ’ up. You help her get everything ready and get out of here. ‘Bout thirty minutes due east on this side of the state line is a little one-horse town, Burns. Exit 386 I think. Get off there and cut back West. There’s an old gas station there I had to fill up at once. Little dirt road runs behind the station. I’ll meet you off of that road. Park as soon as you’re outta sight of the station. No one’ll see us loading up my truck.”
“There any cell service out there?” Luke was already shoving some of J.J.’s toys into the diaper bag.
“Probably not. So don’t vary from what I said. I don’t want to waste all afternoon trying to find you.”
Suddenly, J.J. crawled to Austin’s boots and pulled up on his Wranglers. Grinning, Austin lifted him up. “I missed you, little man. I’ll be back to get you and mama in just a little while. You take care of her for me.” He brushed a kiss on J.J.’s temple. He batted Austin’s face away with a giggle.
“Tin.”
“That’s right. Aus-tin,” Summer gazed at them sweetly.
“Tin.” J.J. repeated.
Though it pained him to do so, he handed J.J. back to Summer and tried to think of the fastest way to get attention in a town full of cowboys. Wrapping his arms around both of them, he tried to let that feeling of having them in his embrace tide him over for the next hour or two. “I’ll be back quick.”
“Austin.” He watched Summer’s graceful neck contract with her swallow. “Please be careful. I’m so sorry I pushed you away. I love you, and I swear I’ll make all of this up to you somehow.”
“You loving me, marrying me, making a life with me once we take care of this is all the making up I need. ‘Til I get you in bed tonight, anyway.” He winked at her. There was his sunset glow in her cheeks again.
Luke rolled his eyes. “Get,” he ordered.
Summer watched Austin’s truck pull away and she sank down on the sofa, trying with all of her might to make sense of what she’d found and how her entire world had been turned upside down in one week. Brant didn’t even want J.J. Why was he doing with this?
“You okay?” Luke’s impatience perforated his tone.
“I’m really already packed. I just need to change J.J.’s diaper and fix him some cups of milk and juice for the cooler. I just … need a second.” She let her head fall into her hands, trying to summon courage from the mountains and prairies surrounding them.
“It’s a lot to process. Take a few deep breaths. I know I don’t know you that well, but Austin’s my kid brother. I’d give him the shirt off my back if he needed it, and he’d do the same for me. I’ve always looked out for him. Took care of him. I swear I’ll keep you and J.J. safe, too.”
“I know you will. Thank you.” Because you’re the buzzard. She both hated that Luke ended up being a scavenger bird and that her story had aligned precisely with Sapana’s, just like Ekta had said. She should have known.
“Uh, just ou
t of curiosity, in case this goes way further south than I’m sure it ever would, you ever shot a pistol?” Luke quizzed as he dragged two of Austin’s suitcases out into the sitting room.
The acid in Summer’s otherwise empty stomach swirled to a maelstrom. “I’m not intending to be shooting anything, but yeah, I have a few times.”
“You a decent shot?”
“I once shot a rattler slithering towards my horse, Vixen.”
“How far away were you?”
“From where I’m sitting right now out to that first hay bale out there.” She pointed to the hay, baled mostly for show in the Ranch Cabin pasture, a good 30 yards away. Luke looked impressed.
“How many times it take you to hit it?”
“I hit it on the first shot, but I fired twice ‘cause it pissed me the hell off he was messing with my horse. Nobody messes with my horse, or my little boy, and lives to tell about it, or Austin either, for that matter.”
“Understood, and you and my brother are either a match made in heaven or hell on wheels to anybody that crosses your path. Think I’m glad I’m on your side.” He winked at her. It reminded her of the way Austin winked at her to remind her that he loved her and to reassure her that he would always be there for her, but didn’t have anywhere near the same effect. He certainly hadn’t meant for it to. The reassurance was there, but not the love.
“All right, let’s get, darlin’. I don’t like the idea of Brant or his mama causing trouble out here in front of all these people. You got everything you need?”
“Just give me one minute.” Summer headed into the kitchen, filled all of J.J.’s juice cups and a couple of bottles just in case they needed him to be quiet at some point. Flinging Austin’s toiletries from the bathroom into his case, she made quick work of the rest of her preparations and stayed inside the cabin per Luke’s instructions while he discreetly loaded his truck.
“Ready?” Luke held the door open. With a quick prayer that Austin was safe and would meet them in Burns in just a little while, she rushed out the door.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cursing the traffic and scanning the local hangouts up and down Frontier Park and what had effectively been dubbed ‘Cowboy Triangle,’ Austin was debating how to proceed when he found what he was after.
He still couldn’t believe everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Damn day felt like it had deducted a decade from his life. His body still ached from the pain of being without her and stumbling around in the dark all night. The rigid chill that had set up in his bones had gone as soon as she’d raced into his arms, though, so in his book, life was looking up.
He just had to get Summer to the ranch, tuck her up nice and safe in his house, get those papers to Wes Wilheim, the sheriff in Pleasant Glen that had been friends with the Camdens for years, get Brant’s sorry ass locked up in a federal prison for attempted kidnapping, and life would be beautiful. That’s a lot of ifs there, Camden. It occurred to him just then how much his own consciousness sounded like Max. Refusing fear was something he was more than accustomed to. He refused to believe that all of it wouldn’t work out. Brant’s number was up. He’d messed with the wrong girl this time. He was going down, and if Austin got the chance, he intended to see all of the Preston Cattle corporation go with him.
“Bingo,” he huffed. Three maroon F-250’s with the Preston Cattle logo on the doors were in the parking lot of the The Albany Bar. Studying the parking lot, making certain this was as safe as it could be, he barreled in and parked diagonally across two spaces with a tire over the curb. His brakes squealed on cue, and he tried to hide his grin and get into character. Swallowing down the bile brought on by forcing himself to remember what it’d felt like when Summer had left him, he stumbled out of his truck.
Pulling his hat low, he made a show of tripping through the front door and bumping into a waitress, making her spill a pitcher of water.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he tried to steady her.
“Go home, cowboy. You’re drunk,” she spat angrily.
Should’a been an actor. The restaurant wasn’t full, but every patron noticed his entrance.
Three of Brant’s lackeys were at the bar. They eyed him suspiciously and leaned in to inevitably discuss his appearance. As he was still wearing the grimy clothes he’d had on since yesterday, he’d definitely dressed the part.
Ignoring the ‘Please Wait to be Seated’ sign, he flung himself onto a nearby stool.
A manager approached cautiously. “Can I help you?”
“Uh, yeah.” Austin rubbed his head and squinted his eyes at the sunlight, though he’d never been more stone cold sober. “What time is it?”
“11:30, Mr. Camden. Maybe you ought to get on back to your room and sleep it off.”
Perfect. They knew who he was. “It Sunday yet?”
“It’s Saturday. Maybe I ought to drive you back to your room. Where you staying?”
“Nah, I’m good. Friday, you say? Am I ‘sposed to ride tonight?”
Brant’s boys snickered.
“It’s Saturday, and yeah, there’s a rodeo tonight. You’re the main show. How ‘bout a coffee?” The man, who was being rather kind, poured Austin a cup. “Bull’s gonna kill you if you get on him drunk, man. Come on, sober up.”
Shaking his head, Austin shoved the mug away, sloshing the coffee on the tile floor. “Give me one of them Suffering Bastards.” He burped loudly. Three waitresses scowled. “Feels about right, just skip the lime juice and the ale, and keep ‘um coming.”
“That’s just straight up bourbon, Camden. It’s 11:30 in the morning. I ain’t mixing you liquor. Drink the coffee or hit the road.”
One of Brant’s douche-nozzles was texting somebody fast and furious. Austin took a sip of the coffee to hide his grin.
“Heard our bull made you his bitch, Camden,” another one sneered.
Cutting his eyes to the asshole in question, Austin huffed, “I can’t believe her. You ever seen her ride? Damn,” he sighed longingly, putting on one hell of a show.
“Who? Summer? Yeah, we seen her. Only a pussy needs a woman to save him. Loser.”
“You say it was your bull?” he feigned confusion.
“Yeah, it was Dallas Devil. You’re riding him tonight, soon as Brant gets him out of quarantine. Nice knowing you, Camden.”
Quarantine. Well wasn’t that interesting. “What’s he quarantined for?”
The Preston Cattle boys could apparently clam up faster than a jack rabbit on speed. Debating how to proceed, he motioned to a nearby waitress who approached him warily.
“I got one hell of a headache, honey. Just give me a shot of something to take the edge off. Put it on their tab. Manager won’t know.”
“Our tab!” one of Brant’s boys bellowed. “He ain’t drinkin’ on our tab. Mr. Preston’d shit a solid gold brick. Buy your own damn liquor, Camden.”
“They owe me a drink. Drove my girl away.” Austin shook his head in despair.
“Drove her away? He’s off his tits. We didn’t do nothing,” the third huffed.
“You hush up. I heard you put that bull in that ring that tried to kill him.” To Austin’s shock the waitress came to his defense.
“We didn’t do that. They caught one of the other riders this morning with hot shot marks on his hands. It was him. Now we’re all in trouble for it, though.”
“I didn’t hear nothing about that,” the woman spat. Austin kept his eyes on the marbled pattern of the bar, listening intently.
“What do we care what you heard, honey? Refill my drink and keep your mouth shut.”
“You’re about twenty pounds of bullshit in a ten-pound bag, Denton McCoy. If you can find it, you can ride your sad little whiskey-dick straight to hell,” she came right back, and Austin laughed harder than he probably should have, but this was taking way too long. The trouble needed to speed it up, and whatever had happened between the waitress and McCoy was ripe with opportunity.
Heat floo
ded McCoy’s cheeks. “What are you laughing about, Camden?” he bellowed.
Austin spun on the stool but before he could make a retort, “Thank God! There he is,” rang through the restaurant.
Fuck it all to hell. Austin cringed as Scott, Jackson, Cam, and Clif surrounded him.
“Get him another coffee,” Clif demanded of the hot-headed waitress.
“He ain’t finished the one he has. Nursing a broken heart. Poor thing. These idiots goading him on.” She threw another glare at McCoy. Scott sized up the situation.
“Why don’t you three settle up and get. Heard the Devil might be out of competition tonight. Bet Brantley’s some kinda pissed.”
Austin bit his tongue to keep from asking how they’d heard that. Clif seated himself on the barstool beside him and put his arm on his shoulder. Clearly looking drunk wasn’t something he struggled with. He wondered if that was a bad thing.
“Listen, let’s get you back to your cabin. Get you to bed. You’ll be all right. PBR’s had Dallas Devil since he busted through that chute gate yesterday. Brant’s raising hell about it since they caught Travis Anders with hotshot marks on his hands. Preston had Anders arrested, still claiming that he stole the trailer with Dallas inside. He’s at the jailhouse, but they won’t release the bull.”
Still feigning confusion, Austin measured his words carefully. He didn’t want to give anything away. “What’s all that mean for tonight?”
“If they don’t release him before noon, he won’t be allowed in the rodeo tonight. You can skip if you want, or take a ride on an unranked bull,” Clif explained.
A ride on an unranked bull meant Austin’s score would automatically be lower since 50 of the possible 100 points were up to the bull. The rides from Cheyenne were all on top ranked bulls. This was supposed to be the best of the best.