Cowboy Bodyguard

by Dana Mentink

  “When was the last time you ate?”

  She shrugged. “I had a candy bar yesterday, and a lady at the café gave me a bottle of water.”

  In one of the musty cupboards, Shannon found three cans of baked beans, along with a rusty can opener. She cranked open the baked beans and emptied two of the cans into some cracked bowls, after wiping them out with the hem of her shirt. She stuck in spoons and plopped them onto the table, in front of Cruiser and Skids, without a word.

  “That’s it?” Skids said. “That’s not enough.”

  “There’s one more can, but we’re going to eat it,” Shannon said.

  He glared at her, fingering his gun. “I don’t think so. Bring it here.”

  “I won’t.”

  Skids fired his gun into the ceiling. Shannon flinched. Dina screamed. Skids and Cruiser laughed.

  “Get me the food,” Skids grunted.

  Shannon stared him down. “She’s hungry. If you want to shoot, go ahead, but you’ll be welching on your deal with your Ace, won’t you? They want her alive.” Shannon faced Skids full on, her heart rampaging in her chest.

  Cruiser dug into his beans. “Quit being a baby, Skids. Eat your beans and leave the little girls alone.”

  Stiff with fear, Shannon whirled on her heel and walked back to the kitchen. There was only one bowl left, so she poured the beans in and grabbed two spoons, rubbing them as clean as she could on her shirt. They crouched on the floor and took turns spooning up the beans. Shannon stopped after a few bites.

  “You finish,” she told Dina.

  “No, we can share,” Dina said, but the hunger still showed in the lines of her face, the tension of her fingers clutching the spoon.

  “I had soup earlier. I’m okay. Eat.”

  Dina nodded and wolfed down the rest of the beans. They sat there on the floor together until Skids began to yawn.

  “I’ll take first watch,” Cruiser said. “You can sleep in the car.”

  Skids nodded.

  “Where will we sleep?” Shannon said.

  “I don’t care if you sleep at all.” Cruiser propped his feet up on the table, the gun in his lap. “But if you try to get away, I will shoot you.” He smiled. “We’re not getting a dime for you, Doc, so it don’t matter when I do it.”

  When I do it.

  The truth hit her hard as a hammer blow. Dina was part of the deal. Shannon was not. Cruiser would kill her when his business was concluded, or maybe before. There was no way he would leave any witnesses.

  The minutes ticked away, sending her further and further into despair.

  EIGHTEEN

  Jack didn’t waste time with an official hospital discharge. As soon as his fractured wrist was splinted, he escaped, his brothers chiding him all the way out the exit door.

  “There’s no word on Shannon or Dina,” Barrett said as he drove back to the ranch. “Be sensible. You can’t do anything for them until we get an idea of where they went, especially with a busted wrist.”

  He ignored Barrett, staring at Keegan from the back seat. “You can find Dina’s brother, Hank. Gang name’s Pinball.”

  Keegan raised an eyebrow. “Their leader? I’m not exactly in the good graces of the Ace’s head honcho. I washed out, remember?”

  “No, you realized you were being an idiot, and you didn’t want to throw your life away by joining a gang,” Barrett said.

  “Thanks for the tender words, Bear,” Keegan said.

  “You have contacts still, people you can ask,” Jack prodded.

  Keegan studied him. “I don’t know if they’ll talk to me, but I’ll try in the morning.”

  “Now.”

  “It’s almost 1:00 a.m. Not optimal time to elicit cooperation.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Right. What I meant is, I’ll try right now.”

  “How’s Hazel?”

  “She’s gonna be okay. She’s distraught about Shannon, so they had to sedate her.”

  Jack swallowed hard.

  “You did everything you could, Jack,” Barrett said.

  Jack closed his eyes. “Not enough, but I will get her back. What’s the status at the inn?”

  “Lots of superficial damage to the structure. One guest requiring stitches for a bullet that grazed his shoulder. Bikers all fled, except the few that were arrested. It’s a blessing that no one was badly hurt. They’ve had to close up until this thing is sorted out.”

  Pain gouged at Jack, inside and out.

  “Okay,” Keegan said, clicking off his phone. “I left a message with someone who should know how to get word to Pinball. Now all we can do is wait.”

  “No, we can start a search party.”

  Keegan grinned. “A posse? Straight out of the Western?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Keeg and I can handle it,” Barrett said. “You...”

  But Jack waved him off, tensing against the pain as he wriggled the phone from his pocket. It was mercifully undamaged and maddeningly void of messages.

  He stared at the blank screen, thinking about Shannon, willing her to get word to him somehow. Where are you, Shan?

  * * *

  One slim hope throbbed deep down inside Shannon. The phone, her cell. She’d tucked it in an inside pocket of her jacket, and neither thug had thought to search her. Maybe she could get a message out, a text that might send in spite of the spotty cell coverage. But the cabin was so minuscule, Cruiser would detect the tiniest flicker of light from her phone. She could wait for him to fall asleep, but she was not sure how much charge was left in her depleted battery.

  “I’m thirsty,” she said.

  “We all are,” Cruiser snapped.

  “I can get some water at the pond. Boil it to make it safe.”

  Cruiser licked his dry, cracked lips. Cocking his head, he considered her words. “All right. I’ll holler out to Skids to let him know, so hopefully he doesn’t shoot you.” He pointed the gun at Dina. “But she stays.”

  Dina sucked in a breath and gripped Shannon’s hand. “Don’t leave me here alone.”

  “I’ll come back.” She smoothed Dina’s hair. “I promise, I will come back.”

  “If you don’t,” Cruiser said, “I’ll hurt her. Bad.”

  Dina clutched her fingers until the bones ached. “Please.”

  Again, she realized the odd truth that she would risk her own safety and freedom before she abandoned Dina. She had not known she was capable of such self-sacrifice, and it both scared and bemused her. Where did that well of deep emotion come from?

  Perhaps God.

  And perhaps, too, it had been nurtured by a mother’s love and the devotion of a man who had shown her again and again that she was worth saving, worth loving. Thinking about Jack made her throat clog with pain.

  Cruiser strolled to the smudged window. “Got a great view from here, Doc. One whiff of disobedience, and you know what will happen.”

  If he found out...

  She thought of what Jack would say, how he’d hold his chin up and quietly defend what he knew to be worth protecting, worth loving.

  “I’ll be back,” she said again to Dina, grabbing a dented pot and pushing the door open. The night air was cold and heavy with the scent of spring. Nerves screaming, she walked away from the cabin, allowing her vision to adjust to the near-total darkness.

  Clouds drifted across the moon as she pushed into the tall grass. It whispered against her legs as if it had secrets to tell. The ground became mushy under her feet, and she picked her way closer and closer to the glittering edge of the pond.

  She crouched behind a clump of cattails and fished out her phone. Just one message to Jack. Just one.

  It came to her in a sickening flash that even if Jack had survived the crash, his phone might not have
. She’d text a message to both him and Larraby, if she could, but how could she communicate where they were? She had no idea what road, or even what direction, they’d taken away from the Gold Nugget, since she’d been unconscious for part of it and terrified for the rest.

  All she needed was one second to take a picture and send off a text.

  She pushed her fingers into the grass at her feet and found a stone. Without giving herself time to think, she launched it into the air. It plunked on the roof of the small cabin and bounced down. Three seconds later, the front door of the cabin was flung open, and in that precious gap of time in between, she took a photo of the cabin and sent the text. Her phone showed two bars of charge left, enough, she knew, enough.

  Her rush of triumph was crushed a moment later when the screen notified her.

  Message sending. The little bar eased its way across the screen and stalled.

  She had to return to the cabin, and if someone texted a reply back, Cruiser or Viper would surely hear it, but it was their only chance.

  Message sending.

  It was still not sent when she heard the sound of booted feet crashing through the cattails.

  NINETEEN

  Jack’s dark mood eased a bit as he greeted the group gathered in the kitchen of the Gold Bar Ranch before sunrise, on Tuesday morning. They all held cups of coffee, the table sporting the remnants of the cinnamon bread his mother had put out. He said hello to Ken Arroyo, Barrett’s father-in-law, who had an arm slung around his daughter, Shelby. Barrett stood protectively nearby. Drake Gregory, a friend from a neighboring town, was also there, as well as Oscar.

  “Hazel’s resting comfortably, still sedated. Her cousin Jenny is staying with her so I could come here and give you an update.”

  Arroyo’s and Gregory’s horses were hitched to the post out front.

  Jack could not resist kissing the top of Annabell’s head as she nestled in his mother’s arms. “We’re gonna get your mama back, Little Bit,” he whispered into her fuzz of hair. The rabbit he’d given her was tucked next to her tummy. His mother must have snatched it up in their flight from the cabin. The baby responded to his kiss by skimming her petal-soft fingertips over his chin, a touch that made his heart swell. So fragile, so innocent. This seven-pound critter had gotten right down inside him in the few days he’d been her pretend daddy. And Shannon, too, had seemed to be falling just a wee bit in love with Baby Annabell. That notion had to be put right away immediately, since any thought of Shannon amped up his emotions to near-panic level. Reluctantly, he moved away from Annabell, standing, rather than enduring the discomfort of folding himself into a sitting position.

  Keegan was on the phone in the family room, trying to get a response from the contact he’d looked up to secure access to Dina’s brother, Pinball. The frown on his face suggested he was having no success.

  Larraby joined them, pushing through the crowded room after Tom opened the door for him.

  Jack didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “Did you pick up Viper near the cabin, where we tied him?”

  “Yeah, he’s in custody and not talking. Big surprise.”

  “He might not have known about the plans at the Gold Nugget anyway,” Barrett suggested. “Cruiser and the other guy may have cooked up their own plan after you hog-tied him.”

  “What do you have worked out?” Drake said. They all crowded around the table to scan the spread-out map.

  “I’ve marked it,” Shelby said. “Everyone has a search area.”

  “You can stop right there,” Larraby said. “This isn’t the Old West. None of you have the authority to go off with pistols cocked.”

  “Rifles,” Ken said, “and we all have permits to carry them. We’re not breaking any laws.”

  “These bikers are armed and dangerous,” Larraby said.

  “So are we, and they made the mistake of taking one of our own and the woman she’s protecting.” Drake’s expression was grim. “We can’t ignore that.”

  Jack felt a swell of gratitude. He couldn’t ask for better neighbors.

  Larraby glowered. “Let the police handle it.”

  “On horseback, we can go places you can’t.” Ken squeezed Shelby’s shoulders. “We’ll divide the search areas and check in by phone.”

  Shelby tapped a corner of the map. “I’ve chalked out four grids, one for Barrett, my uncle Ken and Drake, who will be on horseback, one for Keegan on his motorcycle.”

  “Where’s mine?” Jack demanded.

  Shelby looked at him. “I didn’t think, I mean, with your broken wrist...”

  “It’s fine.”

  There was an awkward silence, and he felt the weight of all the eyes in the room.

  “Well, I’m going to say it since I’m the pregnant lady, and that gives me permission. You should stay here, Jack. You were just in a bad accident,” Shelby said.

  “Not too bad since I’m still upright and breathing.” He took his rifle from the closet. “I’ll make my own search grid, call in if I see any sign of Cruiser.”

  “No, you call the police in,” Larraby said. “We’re not going to have you all rushing into a gunfight like you’re a bunch of cowboys.”

  All the men in the room stared at him. “We are cowboys,” Jack finally said, “and we take care of our own.” He meant to push by Larraby, but the man put a hand against his chest.

  They squared off, and Jack thought his heart was going to pound right out of his chest if Larraby delayed him a minute longer. “Unless you’re going to arrest me,” he snarled, “get out of my way.”

  Larraby held there for a couple of seconds. “Don’t do anything dumb,” he said before he slowly stepped away and shifted his gaze to Evie. “I’ll get a squad car over here to pick up the baby as soon as I can. Have her ready in a couple of hours.”

  Evie clutched the baby tighter but did not reply. Jack wanted to grab Annabell to his chest and fly her someplace where no gang members would ever touch her. Instead, he allowed himself a moment longer to look at the small bundle, perfect and oblivious to the chaos building around her.

  “I’ll bring your mama home,” he repeated silently. “And Shannon, too.”

  * * *

  A split second after Shannon shoved the phone in her sock and sloshed some pond water into the pot, Skids grabbed her shoulder and hauled her to standing position.

  “You’re hurting me,” she said. “Cruiser told me to get water.”

  “Something hit the roof of the cabin and fell off on top of my car. A rock, I think.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he grabbed her by the waist and patted her arms and torso. Her cheeks went hot, and she tipped the pot so it doused him. He sprang away from her with a curse.

  “Now look what you made me do,” she said. She scooped up more water and walked gingerly away from the pond, praying Skids would not decide to search her again and discover the phone in her sock.

  Back in the cabin, Cruiser brushed off Skids’s suspicion. “What’s she gonna do out here in the boonies? Go back to sleep, you pinhead. I’m gonna hike back up to the road in an hour to get a phone signal, but I need some sleep first, so keep it down.”

  Dina greeted Shannon with a brilliant smile. “You came back.”

  “Just like I promised.” She forced a happy tone. Message sending. Her plea for help was stuck in limbo, a desperate call that might never be heard, like a note in a bottle tossed out into stormy seas.

  Shannon had only a foggy idea of how to use the dusty cookstove, but to her surprise, Dina took charge. “My grandma had one. I lived with her when my mom took off.”

  “How old were you when that happened?”

  “Six. She met some guy who could feed her habit, and off they went. Left me and Hank with Grams.” Dina smiled.

  “Grams would have thrown in
some dried potato peels to keep the creosote from building up.” Dina lit the wood, Shannon heaved the pot onto the stove and they sat down by the crackling warmth. Cruiser had watched their efforts for a while, but now his head was on the table, and he appeared to be asleep.

  An idea came into her mind. She just needed a signal, and Cruiser was the one who could get it for her. Heart beating faster, she helped Dina feed more wood into the fire, which crackled and puffed until, twenty minutes later, the water bubbled enough to kill off any harmful bacteria. Using her jacket as a makeshift oven mitt, she eased it off the heat.

  She poured some water in a mug, where it began to cool quickly. Her plan was half-crazy, she knew, but better than nothing. She took the mug and approached the sleeping man. When she heard another soft series of snores, she eased the phone from her sock and slid it into the outside pocket of his vest. Dina looked at her in complete puzzlement. Cruiser must have felt her proximity because he jerked awake and stood with such haste, his chair fell over with a crash.

  “Whaddya doing?” He waved the gun from her to Dina.

  “I brought you some water. It’s still warm but almost drinkable.”

  He looked as though he did not quite believe her, and her heart thunked so hard, she almost choked as he yanked at his vest. Any moment he might discover her phone in his pocket, where he would unwittingly carry it to the road, if her desperate scheme worked. Instead, he righted his chair, the gun never wavering. “You sit back down over there by the stove, Doc, with the little tramp.”

  “She’s not a tramp,” Shannon said, but she complied, sliding to the floor, next to Dina, who she hoped had wiped the astonished look off her face.

  Skids banged through the door. “I can’t sleep. All these frogs and crickets, and it’s cold out there.”

  “Take your turn inside,” Cruiser said. “I’m going to hike up to the road to get a signal, see if there’s a message.” He shot a hard look at Shannon again. “I don’t like dragging this thing out. Sooner we can finish the job and get our money, the better.”