by Wendy Vella
“Sure.”
“Bailey’s an old friend, right?” Fin asked.
Maggie nodded. “And it’s awesome that she’s back.”
“But?” Fin said as the three of them headed back to the stables.
“But nothing.”
“There was definitely a but in there, Maggie.”
“Stop hounding the woman,” Joe said, because he could feel the tension in Maggie, and while he wanted to hear more about Bailey, he didn’t want to do so if her friend was upset. “Seriously, what’s with you today? Thinking of auditioning as the next Oprah?”
“Just gentle curiosity and nothing more. You’re my friends, I’m just checking everything’s going okay.” Fin gave Maggie a smile that reached his eyes, and made Joe wonder if in fact he’d been on to something before.
“Gentle, my ass,” Joe snorted.
“And what a nice ass it is,” Maggie said as she always did, but this time it didn’t hold its usual kick.
“Yours too, sweet cheeks.”
“If we’re done butt admiring, shall we saddle you up a horse, Maggie?”
“I got it, Fin, but thanks. You two go back to your beers, and I’ll head out.”
They sat in silence, picked up their beers, and drank.
“She’s off today, it’s not like her,” Fin said quietly, so Maggie couldn’t hear.
“Probably that needle-dick she’s dating. Guy’s a loser.”
“Then why is she dating him?” Fin asked.
“She likes losers, is my guess. Damned if I know.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Okay, I didn’t realize you wanted sense, because let’s face it, anything to do with women and their love lives is black and white, right.”
“Fair point.”
They fell into companionable silence again.
“I sometimes wonder about big city life, and then I look around me and....”
“You think no.”
Fin grunted his agreement.
They turned to watch Maggie come out. She had just put her foot in the stirrup when they heard the noise.
“Was that gunshots?” Joe got to his feet.
“No one should be shooting around here, not without permission,” Fin said, doing the same.
“I’m taking the horse, Maggs.” Joe took the reins she handed him, and vaulted on its back. Seconds later he was galloping away. “Hold on to Buzz!”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bailey was enjoying the ride. The tension of the kiss with Joe, and then seeing Angie, was still there, a tight little knot in her chest. How could he do what he had to her, when he obviously had a girlfriend?
“So you used to ride all over this place alone?”
“We had farm hands, and they sometimes came with me. Plus Maggie, when she was allowed. But for the most, yes. This was my playground growing up.”
Jack smiled. “Awesome playground, it has to be noted.”
“No complaints here.”
They headed into the forest, the air cooling as the leaves formed a canopy overhead. Dappled sunlight played on the ground as they moved deeper. She could hear the river that ran past Joe’s house and down from the falls as they approached.
“While I’m here, Jack, if you need any help with rides, or the stables, I’d love to help.”
“Really?” His face showed surprise.
“Really. I miss this, and being around horses.” As the last word left her mouth, she heard the first gunshot.
“Christ!”
Turning at Jack’s anguished cry, she watched his horse rear, and him fall off the back. Bailey dropped her reins and quickly dismounted. The second shot had her dropping to all fours, and scrabbling through the dirt as she made her way to Jack.
“Jack?” She kept her voice low. “Are you all right?”
“My side,” he rasped. “I’ve been shot. You need to head back, Bailey, and get help. There’s no cell coverage here.”
“I’m not leaving you out here alone.” She reached him, and moved the hand he had pressed to the wound. Raising his shirt, Bailey saw blood, lots of it. She took off her own shirt, and reached for his belt buckle. “I need to use this, Jack.”
He edged forward, and she forced the leather through the belt loops. Folding her shirt into a pad, she strapped it to his side. Taking his good arm, she pressed the hand against the dressing to hold it in place. “You have to keep the pressure on now, Jack.”
“Y-you need to go for help, Bailey. I mean it. One shot could be a wild one, but not two. I think someone’s d-deliberately targeting us. I’ll hide.” His voice was strained, and she knew he was in danger of losing a significant amount of blood.
“No, I’m not leaving you here exposed. We have to get back, Jack. To do that, I need to get you on my horse.”
“Bailey, just go for help, please. We can’t risk whoever is shooting seeing us.”
She ignored him, and brought her horse closer. Jack’s horse was standing a few feet away, wild-eyed. No way did she want to attempt to get on her.
“Right, up you get now.”
“Bailey—”
“Now, Jack!” The tone of her voice had him struggling to his feet. She put her arm under his shoulder and helped him rise. His legs were shaky, and the hiss of breath told her he was in pain. Shock, she realized, and blood loss were very real problems. She had to get him help now. Had to get him back to safety.
“Hold out your leg, I’m going to give you a boost up.”
“I’m too big, Bailey, and my side is burning like fuck.”
“Jack, shut up and do as I tell you!”
He did as she asked, and used one arm to pull himself up onto the horse. He was pale and sweaty now, blood flowing over his fingers and onto the ground.
“Move back and stick out your foot.”
Again he did as she said, and seconds later she was seated before him. “Now I’m bending forward, you bend over me, Jack.”
“Jesus, Bailey!”
“Just do it, damn you!” Fear put strength into her words. Seconds later she felt his body hunched over hers.
She directed the horse through the trees as fast as she could, all the while listening for movement, or gunshots. Nothing happened, and then she was out of the forest.
“Hold on!”
He did, one arm wrapped around her waist. Bailey galloped as fast as she could.
“Stay with me, Jack!”
The relief when she saw someone coming toward them was immense.
“It’s Joe,” Jack said.
“Thank God.”
He was low over his horse, galloping hard, slowing only when he reached them.
“It’s Jack, Joe! Someone shot him, we have to get him help.” She galloped by him, and soon he’d turned and was passing her. He reached the stables first; she charged in seconds later.
“Call for an ambulance!” Joe was roaring orders.
He came to her as Bailey pulled her horse to a halt. “Take him, Joe. Help him. I-it’s his side.”
Joe’s face was fierce as he reached her side.
“H-help him.” Bailey could hear the hysteria in her words. “So much b-blood.”
He lifted one arm and wrapped it around her, easing her to the ground so he could get at his brother. “Thank you.” He crushed her to him briefly as he whispered the words into her hair before letting her go.
“You take his right, Fin.”
Bailey watched as they lifted Jack off the horse; his eyes were glazed with pain now, and he moaned as they carried him gently to a bench and lay him down.
“Bailey!” Maggie came running, with the phone still in her hand. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, and then shook her head. “M-Maggs, J-Jack was shot.”
“Shit!”
Her friend wrapped Bailey in her arms and held her tight. Bailey burrowed into Maggie and held right back.
“I need to get you a blanket, Bailey. You’re shivering. Sit here now.” She wa
s nudged into a seat, and sat shivering, watching as Joe and Fin leaned over Jack and worked on him.
Maggs came back with a blanket and wrapped it tight around her; the warmth was wonderful, but she was still ice-cold on the inside.
She kept her eyes on Fin and Joe, and Jack’s feet. When the fear inside her got too much, she moved closer. Maggs held her hand.
“Is h-h.... Is he going to be okay?”
Joe looked up at her; his eyes were greener than she’d ever seen them. Green, and rage-fueled. He nodded, and then returned to looking at his brother, his hand holding the dressing in place, and applying pressure. Jack was almost gray now, his breathing shallow, eyes closed.
“Bailey?”
She dropped down beside his head as he called her name.
“Thanks.”
Bailey leaned down and kissed his cheek. She took his hand and squeezed it, then held it until the ambulance and police arrived.
“I’m Deputy Steve Sanders, and this is my colleague, Deputy Rollins.” Two officers approached.
“Someone shot at Jack,” Bailey said, her voice raised. “You need to go out there and find them!”
“It’s okay now, Bailey,” Joe touched her cheek briefly. “Jack’s safe.”
He was just saying that to calm her down, she knew it, but she latched onto his words, wanting to believe them.
“Maybe you should go on out and look for leads while they’re fresh, Steve. The shooter could still be around,” Fin said. “I’ll take Bailey into the station, she can give Chief Blake her statement.”
“It’d make sense to do that, Fin. I’d be obliged if you got her there sooner rather than later.”
“As soon as the ambulance leaves we will too.”
The officers nodded, and then they left. Jack was put into the ambulance, and with Joe at his side, they soon departed too.
“Okay, Bailey, we’ll go see Chief Blake now, and tell him what’s happened,” Fin said. Like Joe, his face looked like it had been carved in granite.
“Okay.” She looked up at the sound of a horse approaching, and saw Jack’s mount trotting back inside.
“Let me unsaddle her, and put her in a stall, then I’ll come too,” Maggie said.
Soon they were in Fin’s cruiser, Bailey wrapped in a blanket, as her tank top was covered in blood. Maggs sat in the back seat with her.
“I’m okay now, really. It was just the shock.”
“Humor me, okay. I need to know you’re warm and right here beside me. I’ve heard about shock, and maybe you don’t have it, but I sure as hell do.”
Bailey leaned into her friend and let her hold her. It felt good. She hadn’t leaned on anyone in years... if ever.
“Okay now, Bailey. Let’s get this done, then Maggs can take you home,” Fin said as they pulled up outside the Ryker Falls Police Department.
It’d changed some since she was last here. Then it had been a small shed-like building; it was now long and low, and made of stone. Beside it was the fire department, and she imagined Luke had left there in a hurry already.
She got out with Maggs.
“Okay, let’s go.”
They walked her inside between them, and Bailey was grateful for the support. In fact, it felt good to have them watching over her.
“Jonas, is the chief in?”
The man behind reception nodded, then lifted his phone and spoke into it.
“Go on through, Fin, you know the way.”
She saw desks with phones and computers. Trays with paper, and passed a room that had a coffee machine that made her desperately want a cup to steady her nerves.
“Chief Blake.”
“Come on in, Fin.”
They entered a large office that had an equally large desk, two chairs, and a long squishy-looking black sofa.
“This is Bailey Jones, Chief, and you know Maggie.”
“Course I do, how’s my favorite art critic doing?”
“Good thanks, Chief Blake.”
The man who came around the desk wasn’t overly tall or big, but she knew he was fit. Bailey pegged him as late fifties, with short spiky hair and hazel eyes. She shook the hand he held out to her.
“That blood yours, Miss Jones?” He looked at her hands and arms. “And have anything to do with that ambulance call out at the Trainer ranch?”
She shook her head, and then nodded, and he waved her into a seat. Maggs took the one beside her, and Fin stood at her back.
“Not injured, are you?”
“No, but Jack Trainer is.”
“Like those Trainer boys,” Chief Blake said, moving back round his desk. “Be mighty unhappy if they’re hurt through any fault but their own.”
“I sent Steve and Jed out to take a look around, Chief. Thought it best while the trail is warm. They agreed after I told them I’d bring Bailey in here so you could get her statement down,” Fin said.
Bailey watched Chief Blake hit a button on his phone.
“Always thought you’d make a better cop than ranger,” he said. “Coffee, Jonas, now!” he then roared into the phone, while winking at Bailey. “Important they fear me a little bit, Miss Jones, even if everyone knows I’m a teddy bear.” He turned to his computer. “You go on and tell me your story now.”
She did, with as much detail as she could.
“And you say the second shot came as you dismounted?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear it hit something near you?”
“I d-don’t know, I-I just wanted to reach Jack.” Bailey laced her fingers through Maggie’s, glad of her friend’s support. Funny, she’d never reached for someone before returning to Ryker.
“Now there might be something else you remember, Bailey. Anything, and you call me.”
She took the small white rectangle of cardboard he handed her.
“What you did today took courage, Bailey, especially as we don’t know what was going on out there on Trainer land.”
“I think it’s fair to say someone was shooting at Jack.”
Fin had been quiet until then, but she’d felt his anger, just like she’d felt Maggie’s.
“Now, Fin, I understand your anger, but we have to follow a process here to come to the correct conclusion.”
“Process, my ass! Jack was shot, then Bailey heard the second shot nearby. No one makes that mistake twice. And let’s not get started about someone shooting on private land. What the hell would they be shooting at anyway? Bailey said she saw no elk, or anything else, did you?”
She shook her head.
“Like I said, Fin, I’m not jumping to conclusions until I’ve checked all the facts. First off I’m heading out to the Trainer land to look around myself. Can you tell me exactly where you were, Bailey?”
She could and did, as she knew the land intimately. “My family owned that land fifteen years ago, Chief Blake.”
“Must have been just before I arrived here, then. Nice piece of dirt.”
It was, and it now had Jack’s blood on it. The thought that what happened could have been much worse made Bailey shiver.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Joe looked down at his sneakers. Beside him Luke and Piper sat silently, all of them thinking about what was happening somewhere in the hospital.
“He’ll be all right,” Joe said for the fifteenth time. He was the oldest, and meant to reassure his family, but it was a hell of a job—because while his brother had been talking before he was taken away, maybe he wasn’t now.
Fear was so thick in the room, he could taste it. Fear, rage, and helplessness.
“Motherfucking son of a bitch!” Luke got to his feet and started prowling again. He’d been doing that on and off for the last two hours. “I’m gonna kill someone.”
Luke was the gentle Trainer—until he was riled, then he was mean.
“No one is killing anyone,” Joe made himself say, when deep inside he was in total agreement. “Get your shit together, and stay calm. We don’t know anything yet,
so let’s focus on Jack.”
Luke stalked to where Joe sat, his eyes narrowed, and Joe stood. He saw the fear and pain, and simply wrapped his arms around his little brother.
“It’s okay, Luke. He’s going to be okay.” Christ, let him be okay.
He felt Pip’s hand in his, and clenched it hard while he held his brother.
“I brought coffee.”
Joe let Luke go as Angie walked in. She had a tray of coffee and bag of food.
“Thanks.”
“I won’t stay, I know you don’t need that, but call if you need anything.”
She hugged and kissed all of them, and Joe got an extra squeeze. He wished all over again that he could love this woman. They thanked her, then it was the three of them alone once more, but now they had coffee. The food bag remained unopened.
Bailey slipped into Joe’s head as the fourth hour ticked over, and he wondered if she was okay. He had a feeling he and his family now owed her a debt of gratitude, and he’d be sure to tell her. That was, if she would talk to him again.
He’d been a dickhead kissing her when he and Angie were still seeing each other. The hell of it was she made him lose his head. He wanted her, there was no getting around that fact. But it was more; he just couldn’t put his finger on what that more was, and wouldn’t until he’d closed things off with Angie.
All eyes went to the door as it opened, and in walked Dr. O’Roake. He smiled as the Trainers stood and met him in the middle of the room.
“Jack’s doing good, he pulled through surgery well. The bullet went through the fleshy part of his side, so he was lucky as it hit nothing vital. He’s lost a lot of blood, and like I said, he’s a lucky boy.”
“Is he awake?” Pip asked.
“Yes, and someone will come and get you when he can be seen.”
“Thanks, Dr. O’Roake.” Joe shook the man’s hand. Then he and his siblings sat again, but this time it was easier, because they knew that Jack would live.
He was pale from blood loss and pain, and his eyes were closed as they stood around Jack’s bed. But on the day following the shooting he looked a hell of a lot better than he had when Joe had pulled him from Bailey’s horse covered in blood. They’d only been able to see him briefly last night, so they’d arrived at the hospital early.