They rode in Seamus’s Jeep, bouncing over the dirt road that had been worn into the earth from decades of vehicles driving back and forth from the ranch house to the employee cabins. The cattle had been fed and let out to range. He could see them on a distant hill, dark bodies against the icy landscape. One of the men had a tractor out in the west field where alfalfa would soon be planted. A stallion pranced along the fence line nearby, a few mares nuzzling frozen blades of grass.
This was home.
A place he had never expected to love. He had been keen on adventure, amped up and ready to blow Texas and explore the world. He hadn’t had any intention of returning to Houston where he had grown up or to the ranch where he had spent so many of his summers. Not for any amount of time anyway.
He had planned to make a career of the military, then retire to Florida or the East Coast. Somewhere more urban and full of life. If he hadn’t been injured, that is probably what he would have done.
God had had other plans.
Mac couldn’t say he was sorry. He had found his place on Sweet Valley Ranch. He had learned to love the flow of the seasons and the rhythm of life there. Even if he could go back and change things, he wouldn’t have.
“Which one?” Seamus asked as they reached the cabins. The bunkhouse was farther away, a long porch with several chairs and small tables facing the direction of the rising sun. The other cabins were closer together, each with a tiny backyard and space to park a car.
“Mine’s the one with the red Chevy in front of it,” Anna said, pointing to the larger of the five cabins. It was the only one with two bedrooms, its front porch just a little wider than the others. She had potted plants flanking the steps and flower boxes hanging from the porch railing. She had whitewashed the old wood a few months after she’d moved in, asking permission in a quick email that he’d responded to in kind. He hadn’t expected her to make the place better. It had been empty for several months before she’d moved in, the wood floors dinged from decades of booted feet, the fireplace mantel blackened from hundreds of fires.
She had cleaned it up and made it home.
At least, that’s what Stacey had told him. Stacey had been a fixture on the ranch for nearly as long as Lucas, cooking meals for the ranch hands for nearly a decade before Mac had taken over the business. When he had presented the idea of a dude ranch to his employees, she had been the most enthusiastic, jumping at the opportunity to create meals for a wider audience.
He loved her like an aunt, and he didn’t want to believe she could have betrayed his trust, but she had befriended Anna. She had certainly been inside the cabin many times in the past seven months.
Seamus parked in front of the cabin, and Anna jumped out.
“It’s good to be back,” she said as she hurried up the steps. She paused at the top. “That’s funny.”
“What?” he asked, nearly bumping into her.
“That potted plant.” She gestured to one standing beside the door, a tall bush that he thought she might have decorated with lights during the holidays.
“What about it?”
“It’s usually on the back stoop. I wonder why it’s here.” She took a step forward, but his hair was standing on end, adrenaline shooting through his blood.
He grabbed her waist, pulling her backward and off the steps, diving onto the ground as the world exploded in a hail of thunder and fire.
ELEVEN
One minute she was reaching for her favorite potted plant, and the next she was lying on the ground, Mac’s deadweight pressing her down. She tried to turn her head so she could see what was happening and understand what had occurred. Black smoke rose from crater where the porch had once been. Red blood stained the ground beside her, and Mac was on top of her. Limp and quiet.
“Mac!” She tried to scream his name, but smoke clogged her throat and stole the breath from her lungs. She shoved against the frozen ground, twisting so that she could pull herself out from beneath Mac.
He was unconscious, blood seeping from a gash in the back of his head. Fire lapped at the old log cabin, consuming it at a frantic pace. Embers floated to the ground, catching bits of dead leaves on fire. She had to move. She had to get Mac away from the carnage.
She grabbed him beneath his arms, dragging him one slow step at a time. Blood dripped from her shoulder. She must have been hit with shrapnel, too. She didn’t have time to assess the damage. She didn’t have time to think about what had happened and why.
She had to keep moving away from the expanding fire and the shooting flames. Heat sizzled in the air, crackling around her in a snapping frenzy that made her body shake.
“Just keep going,” she muttered, pulling Mac another few feet.
“We need to move faster,” someone said.
Mac was lifted from the ground and tossed over Seamus’s shoulder.
“Come on! We’ve got no idea if there’s another explosion coming!” He grabbed her hand, dragging her with him as he sprinted away from the burning building.
“Where’s River?” she shouted, her voice hoarse from smoke and fear, her body throbbing from the impact of the explosion. If Mac hadn’t pulled her away, if he hadn’t covered her with his body, she would be dead.
“I thought he ran,” Seamus responded, setting Mac down gently, tapping his cheek. “You in there, brother?”
Mac moaned but didn’t open his eyes. Blood still seeped from his head, soaking into the ground at an alarming rate.
“I don’t see him,” Anna said, slipping out of her coat and using it to staunch the flow of blood. She could see a deep laceration in his scalp. He needed medical treatment immediately.
Ranch hands were running across the field, shouting in alarm as the fire rose into the pristine sky.
“Stay here. Do not leave this area. Do not leave his side. Anyone does anything you don’t like, shoot him. You do know how to use a gun, right?” Seamus pulled one from a holster beneath his coat and handed it to her.
“Yes.” She took it with her right hand, her left hand pressing the coat against Mac’s head. He was too pale, and too quiet, and she was back in time, lying on the courthouse steps, staring into the blank-eyed gaze of the prosecuting attorney.
“We’ve got to hold it together until help comes. You hear what I’m saying?” Seamus gave her a gentle shake, his voice thick with Irish brogue, his eyes cold with fury.
“I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Go find River,” she said, and she meant it.
She wasn’t going to panic.
She was going to focus with the same precision she used when prepping for a trial. She kept the gun in her hand, safety on, barrel pointed to the ground as she checked Mac’s pulse. It was thready and quick, his breathing shallow.
“Dear Lord have mercy on all of us,” a woman shouted, her voice tinged with all the panic Anna was feeling but could not give in to. “What happened? What could have possibly happened?”
Stacey appeared beside her, dropping down in a puddle of denim and flannel, her salt-and-pepper hair pulled into the snood she wore when she cooked.
“Honey, what happened?” she repeated, her voice calmer, her gaze on Mac and then on the gun.
“There was an explosion.”
“Yes. I see that. But how? Did the gas range explode?”
“The plant exploded,” she said, coughing on the words, her shoulder throbbing, her lungs burning, her gaze still on Mac. He hadn’t moved, and she was growing more worried by the second.
“Mac,” Stacey said, leaning over him, checking his pulse and patting his cheek. “We need an ambulance. Did anyone call an ambulance?”
“Yes, ma’am,” one of the younger ranch hands said. Anna thought his name was Trent or Trey. He knelt beside them.
“I’m a volunteer with fire department. EMT, too. How about we stabilize his neck? Make sure that we don’t do more dama
ge to him?”
“I dragged him across the road, and his friend carried him here,” Anna admitted, horrified by the thought of Mac being paralyzed. Of everything he had worked so hard to achieve being ruined because he had tried to protect her.
“You had to. That fire is raging, and there was no knowing if the gas line would cause another explosion.”
“We need to cut the gas to this part of the ranch,” Stacey said worriedly, her dark eyes scanning the crowd that had gathered.
“Lucas was out in the far west pasture last time I saw him. He’s probably making his way here. But don’t worry. I turned off the gas as soon as I saw the flames,” the young man said.
He’d stripped off his coat. Anna thought he’d use it to cover Mac. Instead, he draped it around her shoulders.
She started to shrug it off and use it for Mac.
He stopped her. “You’re shivering and in shock. Keep it on. The ambulance is here. He’ll be at the hospital and under medical care soon.”
“River may need help, too,” she murmured, the horror of what had happened finally beginning to register. The cabin had nearly been consumed by flames. A group of ranch hands had pulled hoses from outbuildings and hooked them to spigots outside nearby structures. The streams of water that were dousing the flames were like a drop of water in a volcano. They fizzled and evaporated, the heat from the inferno driving back the men and women who were trying to douse it.
A fire truck screamed up the road, sirens blaring and lights flashing. It pulled to a stop near an old fire hydrant that Anna had noticed but never thought much about. An ambulance sped up behind it. Paramedics jumped out and ran toward them, medical bags slapping their sides.
Smoke billowed across the road and up into the sky, black clouds that seemed to reflect the heart of the person who had planted the bomb meant to kill her.
Had it killed Mac?
River?
She glanced toward the cabin. Seamus was rushing away from the burning building, River over his shoulder in a fireman carry. The sheriff’s leg was twisted at an odd angle, his face pale, his eyes wide open and filled with fury.
He was alive. Injured, but alive.
So was Mac.
For now.
She prayed he wasn’t gravely injured as the paramedics rushed in and urged her away. Two leaned over her, asking questions she tried to answer. The words were in her head, but they came out jumbled and frantic, the panic that she had been holding back suddenly rearing up again.
A police officer appeared at her side. He knelt next to her, his dark eyes filled with concern.
“Ma’am, I’m going to need you to put the weapon down,” he said gently.
She nodded numbly, setting the handgun down, her hand shaking, her body trembling.
She wanted to believe it was over.
That this would be the end of the terror, but until they knew who had placed the bomb, until that person was apprehended, she didn’t think anyone on the ranch was safe.
It was her fault.
She felt the heaviness of that as Mac was lifted onto a stretcher and rolled to the waiting ambulance. She jumped to her feet, refusing to stop when the paramedics cautioned her to remain still.
She didn’t care about the wound in her shoulder.
She didn’t care that she was dripping blood onto the ground.
All she cared about was making sure that Mac was okay.
* * *
Mac woke to the steady beep of machines and the quiet hiss of oxygen being pumped through a hose. For a moment, he thought he was at his grandmother’s hospital bed, holding her hand as she slipped into a coma. Then he heard the quiet murmur of voices, felt a cold palm lying against his knuckles, realized he was the one in the bed.
His eyes flew open, and he sat up, shoving aside blankets that were piled on top of him.
“Whoa, brother,” Seamus said, pressing him back. “Not so fast. You’ve been here for two days. No sense in trying to take the world by storm today.”
“Two days?” he murmured, his throat scratchy, the oxygen tubes pumping air into his nose irritating him. He pulled them away, tossing them onto the bed, still trying to figure out how he had ended up in a hospital bed with Seamus standing over him.
“We were really worried about you,” Anna said. “I was worried about you.” She was sitting beside him, her hand resting on his, her palm cool and dry. There was a bruise on her cheek and a long scratch on her neck.
He frowned, images rushing through his mind. The cabin. The plant. Knowing before he really knew what was going to happen. Dragging Anna off the steps, diving for cover.
“Was anyone hurt?” he asked, sitting up again. There was an IV in his arm and heart monitor attached to his chest. He had a pounding headache and an aching need for water, but other than that, he figured he was ready to get up and go back to the ranch.
“You were hurt,” Anna pointed out, standing up and trying to push him back onto the pillows. “And River’s leg is broken. He’s not happy about it. The cabin is destroyed, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I brought all this into your lives.” Her voice broke. “Daniel arrived this morning. We’re flying back to Boston tomorrow. He wanted to leave today, but I told him I had to wait until you regained consciousness.”
“You’re flying back to Boston?” he repeated, trying to wrap his mind around the words, their meaning and his feelings about them. He had expected Anna to stay until the trial. He certainly hadn’t expected to say goodbye to her under these circumstances.
“I think it’s best,” she said quietly, tears in her eyes. She might think it was best, but she didn’t look happy about it.
Neither was he.
“Did the police find the person who planted the bomb?” he asked, changing the subject until he knew what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. This was important. He knew that. Anna was important, and he didn’t want to make a mistake. He didn’t want to have regrets in a week or a month or a year.
“Not yet. They’re we’re working on it,” Seamus responded, pulling out his phone and sending a text to someone. “Daniel is grabbing coffee. I’ve let him know you’re awake and that the knock on the head you received didn’t damage your hard head.”
“Did they review the security footage?”
“Tried. The recordings were corrupted.” Seamus watched as Mac got to his feet. “That’s probably not a good idea.”
“When has that stopped me?” Mac grumbled, his head swimming, his vision blurring.
“You need to lie down.” Anna slid an arm around his waist, trying to support him, but he was a foot taller and probably outweighed her by seventy pounds. He swayed, and she swayed with him, bumping into a bedside table and toppling a glass of ice water.
“What are you doing, man?” Daniel exclaimed as he walked into the room with a cup carry and three coffees.
“I was planning to get dressed and head home,” he replied, his hand on the wall so he didn’t topple over, Anna’s arm still around his waist, her fingers wrapped in the teal-blue hospital gown he wore.
He wanted jeans. Flannel. Boots. His hat.
He wanted out, because hospitals were for the sick and dying, and he wasn’t either of those things.
“You got thirty stitches in the back of your head. You need to stay down for a while.”
“Yeah. No,” he responded. “Are my clothes here somewhere?”
“Mac, this isn’t a good idea,” Anna murmured, still holding on.
“Neither is you going back to Boston, but that’s what you’re planning to do.”
That was not what he should have said. It for sure wasn’t a diplomatic way of expressing his unhappiness with the idea.
She frowned. “Okay. Fine. How about we discuss both things. After you lie down again?”
“You may as well
save your breath. Once he gets an idea in that thick head of his, there’s no moving him from it. If you wait out in the hall, I’ll help him get dressed,” Seamus said, grabbing Mac’s arm and steadying him.
“I don’t need help,” he bit out, not wanting Anna to leave his sight. If he hadn’t walked up the stairs right on her heels, if she hadn’t mentioned the plant being in a different place, she’d be dead. Someone had planted the bomb. She hadn’t touched it before it detonated. Someone had been watching and waiting for her return.
“I’ll be out in the hall,” Anna murmured, sidling away before he could catch hold of her hand.
“Be careful. Someone planted that bomb. He detonated it. That means he was on the ranch with us. It means he’s someone we both know.” He hated to say it. He hated that he was running through a list of likely suspects in his mind, that even in a foggy state, the betrayal was very clear to him.
“I’ll make sure nothing happens to her,” Daniel said, walking into the hall with her.
He wanted to call them back.
He also wanted to get dressed and get out of the hospital.
“You’re stubborn as a mule, you know that?” Seamus said, opening a drawer and pulling out folded clothes.
“I need to know who did this. I need to stop him from making another move.”
“You falling on your face isn’t going to make either of those things happen. Sit down. I’ll take the IV out.”
Mac did what he asked, waiting impatiently while the catheter was removed and a paper towel used to staunch the flow of blood.
“The nurse won’t be happy with me, but so be it. Go ahead and dress. I’m as anxious to get to the ranch as you are,” Seamus said, grabbing a bag from the floor near the bed and holding it up. “Your housekeeper packed a few things for you. Your cell phone is in here.”
“Thanks.”
“I had the security footage sent to a friend of mine at a high-tech lab that specializes in video footage. He called this morning. Said he thinks he may be able to clean it up enough for us to see details.”
Hidden Witness Page 15