Clark had done some detective work. The rifling on the slug pulled out of Cranston matched Maverick’s .357 Magnum not Cranston’s rifle. Clark promised a thorough investigation, but investigations took time. He urged Maverick to be patient.
Still no sign of China.
Maverick got edgier as the afternoon stretched. He saddled Star and rode back up to the fence line he had repaired the day before. Everything looked good. When he returned home, he pounded a few more nails and finished Puppy’s doghouse. By dinnertime, his whole body had transformed into a set of parabolic ears, tuned toward the driveway and hoping for the sound of tires on gravel.
Still no damned car. He couldn’t shake the pinch in his gut. Where the hell is China?
“You want something ta eat?” Z asked at the bunkhouse door. “X done baked a ham and ya ain’t eaten none of it yet.”
“No thanks,” Maverick answered.
“Yer fixing to hurt his feelings.”
Maverick grunted. Z sounded a lot like his mother.
“Come on, son.” Z persisted. “Ya can’t stop eating jes’ cuz Miss China ain’t home yet. She’ll be here soon enough.”
Maverick pulled himself out of the chair and studied the leaden clouds piled in the west. The sun cast its rays in a bright, silvery lining at the edge of purplish black.
The truth was he couldn’t eat. His gut clenched so tight he could barely swallow. Pre-battle nerves. A man’s body turned into a purging machine. There was no sense putting food through the slippery slide his intestinal tract had become. It would just come back up or sail right on through.
Z squinted at the sky. His nostrils flared. “Rain’s comin’. Hope they skedaddle and git Miss China home before it gits here.”
Maverick sucked in a lung full of the fragrant air. It smelled like rain and China and Russian Olive trees. Pleasant. Sweet. But he knew better. A storm was coming.
And he was dead, damned tired of waiting.
Chapter Twenty-Two
He strapped on his holster and shrugged into his leather jacket. The ham could wait. A man didn’t sit around, not with his woman’s life in the balance. The rain commenced before he had the chance to fire up Z’s truck. Within seconds, a gray van lumbered up the gravel drive and pulled to a halt at China’s front door. Didn’t it figure?
“Hey guys,” Maverick called to X and Z. “They’re back.”
Maverick secured the brim over his Oakleys and headed toward the van. X and Z followed close on his six. Leezel lifted a newspaper over her head before she dropped off the running board. Reardon rounded the van and opened the side passenger door.
Maverick caught the first tell when Reardon shot a disingenuous smile toward the hired hands instead off flipping them off. A cold chill that had nothing to do with the drizzling rain shivered across Maverick’s shoulders.
The second tell double-tapped him straight to the heart.
Reardon activated a hydraulic lift and lowered a wheelchair to the ground. He turned the chair to face Maverick, X and Z, that same sneering smile on his face. “There you go. You’re home now. Don’t that feel better?”
Maverick’s heart dropped.
China. My God. China.
She sat like a zombie in the chair, her hands limp in her lap, her shoulders sagging, and her hair straggly and unbrushed. She still wore the same clothes she had been shot in. A belt held her in the chair. Her bright eyes were dimmed and unseeing. Her cheeks sagged.
Z groaned into his knuckles. “She looks so—”
Dead.
A whimper escaped X. “What ’n tarnation happened?”
“Sure glad you guys are all here. I don’t wanna have ta say this twice.” Reardon grumbled as the rain matted his straggly hair. The bastard had taken center stage too easily.
Maverick couldn’t come up with the word that fit what his eyes were seeing. Betrayal? Farce? All of the above? He gritted his teeth, both hands clenched and needing to strike fast and hard. To save China.
Reardon pulled an umbrella from the van and opened it over her. “Doctor says Miss China suffered a stroke in the emergency room getting stitched up from her little hunting accident.” He took over the umbrella, leaving her sitting in the rain.
“Oh my, you poor thing. Let me get that for you, Sis.” Leezel leaned over China’s shoulder and wiped a line of spittle from her sister’s chin, smiling up at Maverick and the guys like someone might want to take a picture of her being decent for once in her life. “She’s a little messy now and then. You know how stroke patients are.”
Maverick refused to believe what his eyes were telling him. Not China. No way.
“Bottom line is, we don’t need your help with Leezel’s sister. Only with the ranch.” Reardon spat to the ground at China’s feet. He looked edgy, his shoulders taut, as if ready for a fight. “Just keep doing what you been doing, ya hear? Leezel says the first crop of grass hay’s due in. Git it cut and baled. You got any questions?”
Maverick squared his shoulders to face Reardon. “Can’t cut wet fields.”
Leezel interceded. “Just you never mind. Grass hay don’t need cutting ’til the rain quits. You know that. It ain’t no problem. Soon as you can cut it is fine.”
Zeke raised his hand like a kid in school. He stood with rain running down his weathered face, not even trying to wipe it away. “How ’n tarnation could Miss China suffer a stroke jes’ by getting shot in the hip like she did?”
Maverick glanced sideways at him, not sure if those were raindrops or tears leaking out of his eyes. The old guy seemed to be falling apart.
X’s head bobbed. “Yeah. They give her the wrong medicine or somethin’?”
“Why yes, Z. Yes, X. That’s exactly what happened to my poor sister. They, umm, gave her the wrong anesthetic, jes’ like you said.” Leezel could’ve won an Oscar with her June Cleaver act. “As a matter of fact, we’ll be talking to an attorney first chance we get. Who knows? We might just hafta sue, isn’t that right, Troy?”
Sue, my ass. You did this. I know damned well you did. I just can’t prove it.
Reardon grunted. Maverick didn’t know which of these two held the leash and who wore the collar. He bit his lip and did what he did best. Watched. Waited.
“One more thing.” Zeke rubbed the back of his neck, as if he was about to broach a sore subject. “I really hates to ask, this kinda thing being so hard on y’all, but, umm, who’s gonna be in charge while Miss China recuperates? I mean, I’ve got to buy tractor parts and it’s payday on Friday and—”
“I am.” Reardon stabbed a thumb into his chest. “I’ll be signing your paychecks. I’ll buy them tractor parts. You got any problems, bring ’em to me from now on, ya hear?”
God, Maverick wanted to go a few rounds with Tough Guy. He shifted his gaze to China. Every piece of him ached to shelter her, to pull her under his arm and wipe the water out of her eyes. Reardon hardly kept the umbrella in place long enough to protect her from the weather. Rain dripped off her chin.
Leezel didn’t look too happy with Reardon’s answer. She glanced up at her boyfriend. Her nose twitched. She must’ve thought she was in charge, but damned if she didn’t adlib like a pro. Or else, he really was in charge. “Yes, umm, your new temporary boss will be my ex—I mean my boyfriend here, Mr. Troy Reardon. He’s in charge for now. Y’all know him. Me and Troy’s gonna get married real soon, and then we’ll both be your bosses. How’s that sound?”
Maverick didn’t care how the hell it sounded. “Where’s Kyrie?”
“Why, she’s right here, Mav, ah, excuse me. I mean Maverick.” Somehow every word out of her mouth dripped with a twisted, southern belle drawl. “Come here, Kyrie honey. Git out of that van and come see the guys. Hurry up now. It’s raining, and we don’t got all day. Troy, move that lift outta the way.”
Reardon grumbled but moved the hydraulic lift.
A very subdued little girl climbed backwards out of the van all by herself. She dropped to the ground and turned h
erself around, her eyes wide as she scanned the yard. Maverick removed his glasses, needing to catch her eye, but the second Kyrie spotted China, she ran to the wheelchair. “I is right here, Andy China,” she whispered.
The sadness etched on her poor, little face was enough to make a grown man cry, but China never gave any indication that she saw her niece.
Leezel ran up the stairs, beaming like a foolish wife out of a 1950s rerun. She couldn’t have looked less authentic if she had batted her eyes and worn a bouffant hairdo. “So here we are. One great big happy family. Let’s get outta this rain ’fore we catch our death. Get my sister up here, Troy honey. Come on. Hurry. ‘Fore she catches cold.”
Reardon’s brow lifted. He leveled an evil eye at Maverick and collapsed the umbrella. “Yer in my way. Git back to work.” Tough Guy shoved the umbrella at Kyrie. “Take this.”
The little tyke clutched its handle with both hands while she stood shivering in the rain.
Reardon tilted the wheelchair back, jostling China while he pushed her through puddles toward the porch. He hadn’t considered the difficulty of getting her up those seven steps, though. With a thinly disguised sneer at Leezel, he growled at Kyrie. “Git yer stupid ass up there with yer mother. Go on. Git outta my way. Move.”
She scampered up the stairs, her little butt tucked in behind her, but the umbrella to the mud fell in her haste.
“Kyrie!” Reardon bellowed. “Can’t you do a damned thing right? Damn it, Leezel. Get your dumb-assed daugh—”
Maverick ran to intervene. “Let me help.” He scooped the sodden umbrella out of the gravel and winked when he handed it back to Kyrie. She didn’t look up.
“Now see? What have I been telling you about good ol’ Maverick?” Leezel gushed from the cover of the porch roof. “He’s a real gentleman and he’s as helpful as the day is long, ain’t he? He’s polite, too.”
But Maverick had only offered for Kyrie and China’s sake. He lifted the bottom of the wheelchair, sheltering as much of China as he could with the brim of his cap and the curve of his body. His hand brushed her icy cold fingers. The poor woman was drenched. The spark between them didn’t crackle to life. She didn’t look up with eyes full of sparkling mischief, either. She didn’t look up at all.
Her head lolled to the side. A sour medicinal odor wrinkled his nose. Her beautiful hair clung sodden to her skull, as lifeless as her eyes. No punctures marked her hands or arms, though, and he looked. Drugs would’ve explained her pathetic condition, but by all appearances, China had suffered a stroke just as Leezel said.
Like hell. He knew down to his gut this was all a lie, damn it.
When the back wheels of the chair cleared the steps, Reardon jerked it out of Maverick’s grasp. His act of charity was done, but he couldn’t let China go. Not like this. Time was short. Too soon she would be out of sight from the world.
He did the only thing he could think to do. He dropped to one knee at China’s side and ended the small act of kindness with a melodramatic show that fit the performances on this liars’ stage. Only his act was born of desperation instead of deceit.
He cupped China’s jaw tenderly in his palm and leaned his forehead into hers. His fingers trembled. He might never see her again. Chances of him being invited inside were slim to none. His voice caught in his throat. “I’ll always be at your service, ma’am,” he whispered fervently. “Always.”
She didn’t even blink.
“Why ain’t that sweet?” Leezel gushed, the annoying troll.
He froze. Every instinct screamed at him to pick China up, to warm her up and run as fast as he could and as far away from Reardon and Leezel as possible. Hide her! Save her!
His gut churned. There was no aspect of this farce that felt even remotely truthful, but what could he do? Until Hammer confirmed Reardon’s part in the fire and shooting, the act would go on.
Maverick kept his position until Reardon bumped the wheelchair backward through the front door with another menacing growl. The door closed. A wave of panic hit Maverick full in the chest. He had never felt so helpless. The woman he cared about was gone.
It was all he could do to stand and walk away. He joined X and Z at the bunkhouse door. Reardon stood at the picture window, the deed done, his arms crossed and a twisted smile on his ugly face. Gloating. The bastard was finally where he wanted to be.
Inside.
Rain kept falling. The horses were up high on the hillside. X and Z ran into town for tractor parts. They spent the rest of the evening in the machine shed getting the two tractors up and running and ready to cut the first crop of hay.
It sat opposite the ranch house, east of the bunkhouse. One end of it held the corncrib, empty at this time of year. The rest of the weather-beaten building housed a variety of farming contraptions: a harrower, a rake, two plows and, for now, two broke tractors. An odd collection of scythes, rubber belts, and other farming implements hung from the ceiling.
Gloom filled the ramshackle building. It mingled with the smell of musty dirt, rain, and oil. And despair. Z’s disposition had turned cranky. X was quieter than usual. He fiddled with some small engine at the workbench. Puppy was flat on his back with all fours in the air, asleep as usual.
Maverick had too much time on his hands. He lent a hand where he could, but these two codgers seemed to know what they were doing, so he stayed out of their way and did what he did best. He kept an eye on the house through the open garage door.
Nothing felt right. The hospital would have never released China if she had suffered a stroke in their care, but Maverick was powerless to prove otherwise. All he had were suspicions and a gut feeling that Leezel had betrayed her sister to the devil incarnate, Reardon. She had knowingly brought a predator into the ranch house, and China had become the lamb to the slaughter. Maybe Kyrie, too.
A cold chill clamped the back of his neck. What were they doing in there? Were they caring for China at all or had they shoved her into a closet so they didn’t have to look at her? And what about Kyrie? He brushed his hand over his face in frustration. God. What are they doing?
“Hey! I’m talking to ya.” Z’s grumpy voice jolted Maverick back to the repair job at hand. “I need that there wrench. You gonna give it to me or not?”
Maverick grabbed the only wrench nearby and handed it to Z.
“About time. I dun asked ya twice,” Z grumbled, cross-legged beneath one of the tractors, grimy, with grease-covered hands. He twisted the wrench and growled at it, but the tool slipped. With a roar, he chucked it halfway across the shed. “Ouch! Guldurned tractor! Dag nab it. Got my thumb!”
X ambled over to where the wrench landed. He picked it up and walked back to where Z sat fuming. Peering under the tractor, he reached in, sunk the wrench onto the stubborn bolt in question, gave it a few quick turns and walked away without a word.
“Why didn’t you tell me you was so darn smart?” Z bellowed. He rolled to his feet and dusted the butt of his pants off, wiping his sore thumb on the grease rag hanging out of his back pocket. “Damn it, X. I been working that bolt for hours and you trots in like you was Dale Earnhardt or something. Why didn’t you speak up and help me sooner, ya smart alec?”
X shrugged. “Ma always said I had a knack for fixin’ them kinda things. All ya had to do was ask. I’d a helped ya.”
Z glared at Maverick. “What you looking at? You gotta knack for something, too?”
“He ain’t listening. He’s watching for Miss China,” X supplied the truth before Maverick had a chance to lie.
Z looked out the wide-open doors. “I told ya before, Miss China likes you.”
Liking China was no longer the problem. Saving her life was.
“Ya know what ya need to do?” Z wouldn’t let up.
“Leave it alone, guys.” Maverick waved them off. The solitude of the bunkhouse looked pretty good. “Just drop it.”
X had his I-know-better-than-you face on, and his hands on his hips. “Me and Z been talking. Look at you. Yo
u don’t belong here. You’re some kinda Army Ranger, ain’t ya?”
Maverick gritted his teeth. Here it comes. Be all you can be. Here we go, off into the wild blue yonder. Be Army strong. He’d heard it all before, and it was crap.
“Then why don’t ya call your Green Beret buddies and do what it is you guys do best?” X pointed a scolding finger at Maverick. The guy might know copper and horses, but he didn’t have a clue about soldiers or Marines.
“X is right. What are you, son? Really?” Z asked quietly. “You ain’t no cowboy, and you ain’t no ranch hand neither. That’s for sure.”
“You’re one a those guys like ol’ man Jefferson was, ain’t ya?” X quieted down, as if he knew he treaded on thin ice. His brow spiked. “Or maybe you’re one of them Navy SEAL guys, the ones no one can see. Are ya?”
“Marine.” Maverick provided the correct answer to prevent more wild guesses.
Z stroked his grizzled chin. “I should’ve known.”
X dropped his jaw and stared. “You is? Damn. Really?”
Maverick stared back at his friends, too. They weren’t much to look at and they were older than dirt, but he heard what they’d meant to ask. Why don’t you man up? Yes, he had come out of hiding when China got shot. His training had resurfaced, as if he hadn’t buried it after Darrell’s death. Doctoring her had come as natural as the rain pouring down, and he helped her because of it. So what was he supposed to do, become that man again? That indestructible Corporal Carson who’d charged into Hell and got others killed?
He was lucky up there on the hill with China. That was all. He hit the bastard who had shot her, but it could’ve just as easily gone bad. He could’ve gotten her killed. Maybe Kyrie, too.
Liar. His damned conscience pricked him. China wasn’t in any danger of dying from that gunshot. She had been grazed, pure and simple, and he’d done nothing but help. He wouldn’t ever have lost her like—Darrell.
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