Sky narrowed her eyes. Her legs hadn’t been bound, so she could kick the crap out of him. She was going to make him wish he hadn’t shown up tonight.
“Load the bitch up and let’s get the hell out of here.” A man guided his horse closer to where Gary was with Sky. “You can have your fun when we get this shipment to Albuquerque.”
“You’re a sneaky bastard, aren’t you?” Sky glared at Gary. “I bet you’ve been making sure the sheriff’s department was always following some false lead you’d planted while you’ve been laughing your ass off.”
The man on the horse scowled and cut in, “Yeah, but if Woods here hadn’t screwed up, we’d have some of your prime stock. Damn that Rider. Kept us from scoring that pricey bull.” She found it hard to talk with her jaw clenched as she narrowed her gaze at Gary. “You were the one who trashed my office and destroyed over a hundred years’ worth of records.”
“And I poisoned your stupid dog—unfortunately he didn’t eat enough to die.” Gary gave a loud snort. “Some payback for blowing me off.”
Rage filled her. “You. Poisoned. Blue.” Her entire body burned and the additional heat rising up within her actually made her sweat. “I’m going to kill you.”
Gary snorted.
Sky’s mind was still so overcome with fury over Blue that she could barely speak. “Why are you doing all of this?”
Gary shrugged. “Business is business. I’ve got bills, and working for the county doesn’t pay for shit.”
“Ah, this ain’t nuthin’.” The man on the horse slicked his hair back with one hand while his gaze raked over Sky. “This has just been a cover for the real money.”
“Shut up, asshole.” Gary’s expression darkened as he looked at the man.
“Were you the one who beat up Hector?” Sky said as she glared at Gary.
“Fucker should have died.” Gary’s mood seemed to turn blacker as he glanced at the other men. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The man turned his horse toward the other two men who were standing at the back of the truck, men Sky hadn’t recognized.
The men were all out of sight when Gary said, “Yeah, this is going to be fun.” He stood and leaned over to grab Sky by her upper arms.
As he started to touch her, Sky drew her knee up and shot out her foot. “No goddamned way.” At the same time, she screamed with the force of her fury and slammed her foot into Gary’s kneecap with all the power she possessed. “That was for Blue,” she shouted.
A sickening pop traveled from the sole of her boot and up her leg as his knee buckled.
Gary screamed and dropped to the ground, landing flat on his ass.
At the same moment, Sky clenched the handle of the pocketknife with both bound hands and launched her body at him. “And this is for Hector.”
She brought her arms down hard, driving the knife through the thick leather of his boot as she came down, and drilling the blade into his foot.
“Fuck!” he screamed again.
“You son of a bitch.” She landed on her belly, her hands still around the knife hilt, her face close to the foot she’d just impaled.
“Bitch!” Gary’s face was contorted with pain, a sheen of sweat glossing his forehead, glittering strangely in the moonlight.
Gary yanked a gun out of his holster, his hands trembling and sweat rolling down his face. “You’re going to pay, you goddamn whore,” he said before he backhanded her so hard her head snapped to the side.
Sky’s vision went blurry as pain burst in her head. Dizzy, she looked at Gary.
And felt blood draining from her face as she stared down the barrel of the gun that shook from the force of his trembling— the metal a mere foot from her face.
I’m going to die.
Just as she expected to feel a bullet slam into her, a snarling blur flung itself at Gary, knocking the gun out of her face.
Blue.
The gun flew from Gary’s hand and he screamed as the Border Collie sank his sharp canines into the deputy’s arm.
And then it was chaos.
Zack whipped around the truck, his gun pointed right at Gary.
At the same moment, Clay Wayland shouted, “Police. You’re under arrest,” as he trained his weapon on one of the men while on guard for the men who weren’t in sight.
“Son of a bitch!” Gary shouted as he struggled to get the vicious border collie to let go of his arm. “Should’ve given you more poison.”
Just hearing Gary talk about what he’d done to her dog burned fury through her veins again. With everything she had, Sky rammed her boot into Gary’s balls. “And that one’s for me, you bastard!”
Gary curled into a fetal position, tears actually rolling down his face.
The man on the horse wheeled his mount around and bolted into the darkness.
Zack kept his gun trained on Gary as he grabbed handcuffs from his belt. “If Sky and Blue hadn’t taken you down first, you’d be unconscious right now.”
Fear, relief, and fury cycled through Sky like a tornado as she watched Zack and the scene unfolding before her.
Hands still tied, Sky scrambled away from Gary, leaving the knife in his boot. She saw that Sheriff Wayland had the other two men cuffed and face down in the dirt. “ ’Bout time you made it, Rider,” the sheriff said.
Squinting, Sky peered into moonlit night and saw that the man who’d been on the horse was being marched back toward them at gunpoint—and Luke Rider was the man behind the gun.
“Nice of you to join us,” Zack said as he cuffed Gary, who was still rolling in pain and trying to get Blue to release his hold.
Luke offered a tight smile. “Are we missing anyone?”
“One more,” Sheriff Wayland said. “You keep an eye on these bastards and I’ll get the other.”
“No need.”
Everyone swung around and Sky caught her breath as she saw Wade Larson—with a rifle pointing at the fourth rustler’s back. “This son of a bitch was one of my ranch hands. Figured out today he was one of the rustlers screwing us over.”
“I’ll take it from here, Larson.” Clay Wayland drew out another set of handcuffs and had the fourth man down and cuffed in two seconds flat.
Sky’s attention turned to Zack and Gary. The sour, acidic smell of puke made her want to gag. Gary had upchucked when she’d let him have it in the balls. Yeah, it’d take him weeks before he’d be walking straight again.
One-handed, Zack grabbed Gary by the front of his shirt and hauled him up. Gary’s face was white and he was shaking, his eyes nearly rolling back in his head, and there was no way he could stand on his own.
Zack brought Gary’s face close to his. Zack’s eyes and expression were tight with fury—Sky had never seen him so angry. “If you ever touch my woman again, I’ll kill you, you miserable bastard.”
Zack shoved Gary away from him. The deputy went sprawling flat on his back, shrieking out in pain.
Zack turned and scooped Sky up from the ground, holding her so tight she could hardly breathe. She thought she felt his body tremble against hers.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” he said before he kissed her hard, like he was reassuring himself she was okay. And like he was never going to let her go.
Sky kissed him back with such equal fervor that she thought she might cry—what if she’d never had the chance to kiss him again?
To not have Zack... she couldn’t even begin to think about that right now. She was just thankful they were both alive.
Eric Torres, Rider’s men, Tyler and Joe, Zack’s brother, Cabe, and several of Wayland’s deputies arrived about the same time they finished subduing the prisoners.
After Zack kissed Sky over and over again, reassuring himself that she was all right, he removed her bonds and insisted she sit with Blue off to the side with one of the deputies. She seemed a little shaken up, which was no surprise, but still the tough, confident woman Zack loved.
When he could get himself to leave
her, he checked beneath the trailer’s chassis. Sure enough, dried yellow mud was clumped beneath it.
Clay Wayland took Luke and Zack aside. “Fill us in on how the hell you’re involved, Rider,” Wayland said. “Must have something to do with smuggling drugs across the line.”
“We’ve been after Woods for some time.” Rider jerked his head in the direction of the former deputy, who was sitting and shouting out promises to hurt Sky for what she’d done to him. “He got himself involved with a Mexican drug cartel. Woods has been trying to pay off heavy gambling debts.
“From the intelligence we’ve gathered,” Rider continued, “this whole rustling scheme was designed not only to provide Woods with more cash but to keep the focus off what’s really going on. The biggest drug deal of its kind is going down around here, and soon. Real soon.”
Clay Wayland narrowed his brows. “Why the hell wasn’t I informed about any of this?”
Rider said, “We couldn’t be positive that no one else in the sheriff’s department was involved, or in any of the law enforcement branches here for that matter. That’s part of my job—to sort out the good guys from the bad guys.”
Rider’s gaze cut to Sky, who was walking toward them. “But this stays with the three of us. You’re not to tell anyone else.” Zack studied Rider. “I expect full details tonight. We may have enough evidence that we can get an affidavit signed by the assistant U.S. Attorney and the magistrate that’ll get us our search warrant. Especially if we can get any of these bastards to talk. That’ll take care of the way the beef is getting to Mexico.”
Chapter 28
It had been a long fucking thirty-six hours.
Zack rubbed the bridge of his nose as he drove the half-hour trip along Highway 80 to Sky’s ranch. It was dark as hell out.
His mind replayed the events since last night. By the time everything had gone down, Zack’s massive adrenaline rush had faded. He was ready to sleep for a week, minimum.
He sure hoped Sky was expecting him, because he was going to climb into bed and hold her all night.
His mind whirled over the events since they’d met with the informant, gotten reports back from a surveillance team, run NCIC and TECS on suspects, caught the rustlers, and conducted the raid.
Thank God that Sky and Blue were fine. After the paramedics had taken a look at Sky’s face, she’d insisted she didn’t need to go to the hospital to be checked out any more than she’d already been. Zack had reluctantly left her home with her S&W but took off to take care of business.
The rustlers had been hauled off to the county jail and questioned. One of the men broke almost immediately to save his own ass.
Turned out the man was one of another agent’s informants. The agent considered him a reliable source even though he was as crooked as the dirt road leading up and into Horseshoe Canyon. The rustler slash informant had told them plenty, and the information he’d given them had backed up every bit of information that Marlin Jones, their other informant, had provided.
Zack yawned and turned up the radio to keep himself awake as he drove through the darkness along the lonely highway. An occasional car passed by, their headlights almost blinding to his tired eyes.
Before dawn, Zack and Eric had hustled to the office. Zack tweaked the affidavit, and by 6:00 A.M. the junior agent hauled ass on the two-hour drive to the U.S. Attorneys’ satellite office in Tucson.
In the meantime Zack had e-mailed the affidavit to Paul Davidson, one of the assistant U.S. Attorneys, to give him the opportunity to review the document by the time Torres reached Tucson.
Davidson had signed off and Torres went straight to the magistrate. Torres swore out the information in the affidavit and the magistrate agreed there was probable cause to execute a search warrant and signed the document.
By 9:00 A.M., Torres had the signatures and he contacted Zack. They had their search warrant.
Zack gave a grim smile as he drove. Like clockwork.
Most of the area’s ICE agents, including the asshole Denning, conducted the raid. The sheriff and every available deputy from the sheriff’s department were in on the fun.
The raid hadn’t exactly gone as smoothly as Zack would have liked, but they’d accomplished what they’d come to do. There’d been a little gunfire and one agent had been downed with a bullet to the thigh. Two of the smugglers had died.
Zack ground his teeth as he recalled the pens holding cattle bearing Sky’s Flying M brand. Cattle with Larson’s Coyote Pass brand as well as cattle with brands from other ranches had also been there. The cattle were ready to be butchered and processed.
What had looked like a barn had been exactly what Zack had thought—a meat-packaging plant.
Zack grimaced. The place had stunk like shit.
Smugglers had been apprehended tossing sides of beef into a tractor trailer retrofitted to be a reefer truck to keep the meat cool, the truck bearing Mexican license plates.
Smugglers in another truck had already been headed toward Mexico and floored it when ICE raided the plant. The truck almost crossed the border, but a team of ICE agents and sheriffs deputies cut off their path. The smugglers driving the vehicle had been apprehended and dragged back to the ranch.
It was with grim satisfaction that Zack had shoved that case down Denning’s throat.
When Zack reached the turnoff to the dirt road leading to Sky’s place, he rubbed his tired eyes. He was so ready for the movies of the night’s and the day’s events to stop playing in his head.
It was over. It was finally goddamned over.
At least this case was and Sky’s cattle weren’t going to keep disappearing.
When Zack pulled his Silverado up to Sky’s ranch house he turned off the engine and for a moment just listened to the hot engine tick.
His Adam’s apple grew tight as Sky opened the door, silhouetted by the light shining from inside. To have Sky waiting for him at the end of every day would be the most amazing thing that could happen in his life.
Blue tore from the house and straight for Zack’s truck. He climbed out and shut the door behind him as Blue wiggled his entire body in greeting. Every muscle in Zack’s body started aching as if he’d been working out the entire day.
“Hey there, boy.” Zack crouched and stroked Blue’s head. “I owe you big-time for what you did for Sky. Steaks for life.”
“Don’t go spoiling him,” came Sky’s soft voice. “He’s on a prime, vet-approved diet, and that doesn’t include steak.”
Zack couldn’t hold back a smile as he rose and faced Sky. A second later he had her in his arms, embracing her so hard she gave a soft gasp.
“I missed you.” She leaned her cheek against his shirt as she wrapped her arms around his waist. “I thought you’d never get home.”
Home.
That damned lump crowded Zack’s throat so tight he almost couldn’t speak. “Nothing could keep me from coming back to you, sweetheart.”
Sky gave a sigh. “God, you feel so good.” She tilted her head to look up at him, her nose wrinkled. “But you stink. What have you been into?”
Zack laughed softly. “You don’t want to know.”
“Let’s throw you into the shower.” She met his gaze. “And then I’m kicking your butt into bed. You look like hell.”
***
Tempting aromas teased Zack’s nose. He blinked away the light and realized he was alone in Sky’s bed. By the early-morning light peeking in the window he guessed it was close to eight in the morning.
Through the open bedroom door came the delicious scents of coffee, sausage, and eggs—and, if he wasn’t mistaken, maple syrup. His stomach, tired of dry cornflakes and milk every morning in his lonely apartment, growled a loud demand for the food he smelled.
Zack pushed away all thoughts of the past few days and concentrated on Sky and his eagerness to have her in his arms again. Last night he’d been too exhausted to do anything but take a quick shower and fall straight into Sky’s bed.
&
nbsp; He got up and pulled on his jeans, then walked barefoot and shirtless along the cool ceramic tile to the kitchen. The sizzle of sausages and clanking of plates met him as he rounded the corner and saw Sky.
She stood in front of the huge stainless-steel range top, using a spatula to scoop a pancake from the griddle and then flip it onto a plate.
For a moment he leaned against the doorway and just watched her as she poured more batter onto the griddle and then set the bowl down. She scooped sausages out of another pan and onto a plate, then turned the burner off beneath the frying pan.
Her long copper hair hung wild and loose down her back, and if he wasn’t mistaken she was wearing his T-shirt. It came to mid-thigh on her, and her legs and feet were bare.
A lump formed in Zack’s throat at the homey image Sky made as she cooked breakfast. What would it be like to wake up with her every morning? Having her beside him for conversation over pancakes and coffee. Being with her after work and sharing what had happened in each of their days. And to have her to hold in his arms every night.
Sky glanced over her shoulder and greeted him with a grin that warmed his blood and made his cock rise. “ ’Bout time you got up, cowboy.”
Smiling, Zack walked across the floor. When he reached her, he slid his arms around her waist and hugged her from behind, nuzzling her ear. “Mornin’.”
She sighed and leaned back against him. “Hungry?” “Starving.” He nipped at her ear and moved to the curve of her neck. “Everything smells so damn good.” He met her eyes. “Including you.”
With a soft laugh, she replied, “This pancake is going to be burnt to a crisp if you don’t stop messing with the cook.”
“Small price to pay,” he murmured. But he stepped back, releasing his hold on her. For now.
“Where’s that hero dog?” he asked as he shoved his hands in his front pockets. “I’ve got to give him one of those steaks I promised.”
“He’s outside.” Sky wrinkled her nose and gave a pretend haughty sniff. “And you’re not going to ruin his diet.”
Zack grinned. He’d have to sneak Blue a New York strip.
The rumble in Zack’s stomach was louder and more painful this time. He leaned over the plates of pancakes, sausages, and scrambled eggs. Damn, they smelled good.
Zack (Armed and Dangerous Book 1) Page 21