A Cowboy to Keep

by Karen Rock

  A cave entrance yawned just a few yards away, the dim glow of artificial light spilling out. Luckily the water level had dropped enough since the storm to give him access to the caves.

  His heart raced wildly in his chest as he studied the missing horses, Pokey and Cher. They crowded each other, touching noses occasionally, tails beating back nighttime stingers. They were tied to a small tree that grew out of the side of the bluff.

  Inside, Smiley and his accomplice were lurking. Had to be.

  Jack had spoken to Kevin earlier. Turned out the guy was the anonymous tipster. Ray had taken Kevin on a fishing trip near the Mays’ property border, and they’d spotted Smiley there. When Smiley appeared at the Rusty Roof last night, Kevin had recognized him from a wanted poster. The ex-con had even drawn him a map to the spot.

  Using the map, Jack had searched in narrowing concentric circles until he’d zeroed in on a trail that’d led him to a descending path down to Spark Canyon.

  To Jack’s surprise, Kevin had blamed himself completely for what’d happened in Oklahoma. He admitted he’d roped Dani into driving the getaway car and had regretted putting her in that position ever since. Wanting to leave his bad connections behind and have a fresh start for him and his sister, he’d looked Dani up and relocated. It was his hope to someday make it up to her. When he’d seen the poster, he’d become concerned about a wanted man near Dani’s place of work and phoned.

  Still. It didn’t explain why Dani had kept secrets from him.

  A pair of coyotes howled somewhere close, sending a shiver up his spine. One of the horses nickered. He slipped from his cover and crept along the base of the bluff, his back sliding against the uneven surface, his gun in hand. Step by cautious step, he felt his way in the dark with the toe of his boot, testing for loose rocks that would roll and give him away. At last he reached the cave’s mouth, pressed himself against the lip and peeked around the corner.

  Inside a wide, rank space, two men argued, the younger one gesticulating while the older man kept shaking his head, his short, salt-and-pepper ponytail whisking across a black leather vest. A burning cigarette dangled from his blunt fingers. All around them, on rectangular folding tables, were bags of white powder and pills.

  Oxycodone? Heroin?

  Smiley had been caught for drug possession...but this...this wasn’t a street-level dealer stash. Clearly they were smuggling drugs. Heat rushed up his body.

  He reached for his cell phone, frowned at the blank screen, then shoved it back in his pocket.

  Nothing for it. He couldn’t risk these guys disappearing.

  “Hands up!” he ordered, stepping into the light. “On the ground.”

  The men fell silent and exchanged a swift look, surprise and dismay on their faces.

  “Now,” Jack barked, sweat beading at his temples.

  “Not so fast,” hissed another voice in his ear, followed by the click of a round being chambered and the cold, hard press of a barrel at his temple.

  Bile rose in his throat, burning his gut. He’d figured on two...but three?

  “Drop your weapon.” The voice sounded familiar, but from where?

  He rammed his elbow into the stranger’s solar plexus and the man’s gun discharged, the bullet tearing into the night. The sound spooked the horses, who jumped and pulled against their ties, whinnying, eyes rolling.

  The men inside the cave turned on him, weapons drawn. He didn’t recognize the older guy at this distance. Shorter pieces of lank hair snaked against a lined face, his small mouth a slash.

  “I said, drop your gun,” wheezed the man behind him.

  Jack swore under his breath and dropped his Glock. Dread seized him, locking up his muscles. He was unarmed. Alone. No one expected him back tonight. Who’d miss him? Come looking?

  Dani...

  “Inside.” The man behind him prodded him with the gun and he lurched forward on stiff legs. “Keep moving.”

  Inside the cave, shadows lunged across the uneven ceiling. A generator sputtered, powering the lights that hung from hooks drilled into rock. Tables, laden with bags of drugs, occupied both side walls and a hole in the back of the cave loomed dark. He breathed in the dead air, sour on his tongue.

  “Who the hell is this guy?” Smiley looked like his picture, Jack observed, silently fuming for getting caught so easily.

  “Jackson Cade, bounty hunter,” announced the man holding him at gunpoint. “I had to cut my trip short to come home because of you.”

  He started. It took him a moment to register what’d been said. A trip? Coming home...

  Who else knew his cover? Larry and...

  A thin, dark-haired man walked around him, a smug smile on his face.

  Ben.

  “We finally meet in person.”

  Jack swept any trace of expression away, despite the shock.

  “Do you always rip off Bond movie lines?” Jack drawled, nonchalant, keeping his face impassive, his voice cocky, despite the clamoring worry ringing in his ears, the rush of blood battering his ear drums.

  He had to figure a way out of this...stall.

  “I like Bond movies.” Ben cocked an eyebrow.

  “Then you know what happens to the villains.” Each word swaggered off his tongue.

  “Now, is that how you talk to people you’ve just met in person? Some people have no manners,” Ben mocked, followed by a tsking sound.

  “Put down the gun. Let me greet you properly.”

  The other men echoed Ben’s amused laugh, the sound grim and hard, and they advanced closer. “Let me think about it...” Ben tapped his chin. “Um. No. Another time, maybe... Oh, wait...you’re out of time. So sorry. Everett—take care of it.”

  “Everett. Everett Ridland?” As the man neared, understanding washed through Jack with the force of a nuclear blast. Everything around him dissolved. White noise. Static.

  One of his brother’s killers.

  At last.

  Every nerve leaped awake.

  “How’s this idiot know my name?” Everett demanded, gesturing with his pistol. His voice was low, full of pebbles—a sailor’s voice or a smoker’s. He flicked his Camel Filter into the dirt and a ribbon of smoke rose.

  Ben’s thin eyebrows crashed together. “Tell us.”

  “You killed my brother.”

  “I’ve killed a lot of people’s brothers,” Everett said flatly.

  “Jesse Cade,” Jack bit out, fury mad-dogging though him. He could feel the words sticking to the insides of his mouth. “Two years ago. Carbondale. Drug deal gone wrong.”

  “Drug deal? I don’t do small-time jobs like that.” The guy peered at Jack, stepping close and Jack’s hands curled at his side, itching to lash out.

  “Wait. You look familiar. Oh, man. I remember now. I would have killed you like your punk brother for what he owed us, if I knew you’d turn up again.”

  “Us?” Jack echoed, his heart feeling like it’d been kicked into a dark corner of his body. Jesse owed them money? That meant the help he’d asked for was to pay them off, not necessarily to buy more drugs. And Ben? What was his connection?

  “Our little opiate outfit. Your brother was in deep and trying to get out.” Everett sucked at his teeth for a moment, his expression distant.

  Jack’s mind whirled. His brother hadn’t been looking to get quick-fix money, he’d been in a desperate spot, had tried appealing to his big brother. And what had Jack done? He’d shut him down before he’d had a chance to explain...

  “You killed the Phillips couple in Denver,” he said, desperate to keep them talking.

  All of the air raced out of the room and the men exchanged swift looks. “Now, how do you know that?”

  “Because an informant ratted out Smiley.”

  “What? Who w
as that?” Ben stormed. He pistol-whipped Jack and searing pain exploded in his jaw. His vision made slow loops, as though something had gone wrong with his balance.

  “Answer me or you’re dead right now,” Ben said, his voice full of menace—not quite as if a shark could talk, but close.

  “I don’t know.” The inside of his cheek burned as blood washed over his tongue.

  “Everett, get it out of him.”

  Everett advanced and Jack’s entire body tensed. If he was going down, he’d take this guy with him.

  “Sure, boss.” Everett nodded at Ben.

  “You’re in charge?”

  Ben preened and waved Everett back, a triumphant smile stretching his lips, clearly enjoying the moment. “Not yet. But after this haul from my latest trip—” he nodded at the packages “—I’ll be promoted.”

  “Plus, you figured out Phillips was skimming from the take and ordered the hit.” Smiley grinned. “So I’ll get more jobs after this, right, Ben? More than just watching the drugs for you?”

  Ben shrugged. “Not now that you’ve been identified.”

  Smiley’s face flushed, his eyes getting bulgy and wild. “What do you mean? We’ve been friends... You promised. You said you wanted someone on this job you could trust.”

  “Hey...” Everett growled. He squared around aggressively. “Who’s saying I’m not trustworthy?”

  “No one,” Ben said quickly, shifting on his feet.

  “So you stuck me with this amateur because you didn’t trust me? If it wasn’t for him, there’d be no connection to that hit and this place. Told you we shouldn’t have met up here for the payoff. Rain’s kept us out of here until today and I’m not much for roughin’ it.”

  “It was the best place to hide you until I got back.”

  “Until Smiley got arrested.” Everett stabbed a thick finger at his accomplice. “Amateur.”

  Jack’s heart beat icily in a faraway cage. “So this place...these drugs...”

  “All of this belongs to our operation,” Smiley pronounced, his chest puffing, looking eager to brag. “Ben got involved ten years ago on a trip south of the border and I’ve been keeping an eye on things here ever since. He’s supposed to be next in charge...and I’ll be his right-hand man. Right, Ben?”

  Ben barely spared him a glance. “No one can know about this place. Erase this guy.” Ben jerked his head toward the cave’s entrance.

  “Let’s go. Time to meet your maker...or your brother.” Everett cracked himself up. Smiley joined in, eyes flicking between the men, shoulders jerking up and down so that he resembled a hyena.

  “Let’s hope your aim is as bad as your lines.”

  “Shut it, Cade. Out of here.”

  He marched Jack outside and his thoughts raced each other. Before they reached the horses, he kicked a stone at Pokey’s feet and the skittish horse flinched and reared up, just as he hoped, knocking into Everett so that his gun discharged.

  Jack bolted for the woods, veering toward the thickest part, and then something slung around his knees, tripping him, and he went down hard. The side of his head cracked against a stone and an ache reached up through the base of his skull. He groaned, scrambling to remove the slingshot rope tangled around his calves.

  Spots appeared before his eyes, and for a moment he thought he glimpsed Dani, peering at him from behind a tree, before she dodged out of view.

  What the hell was she doing here? He didn’t want her help. Didn’t want her in danger. He couldn’t protect her. Hopefully she had enough sense to get away from these lowlifes, call for help, if she hadn’t already, though it’d probably be too late for him.

  “On your feet, Jack, or I’ll shoot you like a dog, right here,” growled Everett, looming over him. “Or do you want to beg, like your brother...”

  “I’m not going to beg.”

  “But you are going to dig.” Smiley thrust a shovel into his hand. “Get going.”

  He prodded Jack, but before he could put the metal in the dirt a shot rang out.

  Dani!

  Instinctively, Jack lashed out, smacking Everett with the shovel so that his eyes rolled back and he collapsed in a boneless heap.

  He lunged for a gaping Smiley, tackling him, snatching the 9mm, then training it on him.

  “Freeze, Ben!” Dani stalked out of the trees, her rifle trained on her employer’s son. Jack glimpsed the other man out of the corner of his eye. “Or I’ll shoot.”

  “Drop your gun,” Jack ordered and Ben’s weapon thudded against the rocks. “Now kick it over.”

  The black metal piece skidded through the grass and Dani scooped it up and tucked it into her belt, her eyes narrow, spitting fire, the ends of her loose hair nearly crackling with static energy.

  She’d never looked more beautiful.

  “Authorities are...” she began, then stopped when Lance and a couple of other officers emerged behind her.

  “Here. We were in the area following up on leads for Tanya when your 911 call came in,” Lance said.

  Jack filled him in as the deputies cuffed and led the men away.

  “Interesting,” Lance said when Jack finished. “Explains why the Phillipses were planning on disappearing.” He shook his head slowly. “Mountain Sky Dude Ranch, a smuggling operation for the Quintaras.”

  “Larry and Diane don’t know anything about this,” Dani vowed, her chin jutting, as she returned leading Pokey and Cher. Her challenging gaze flew between him and Lance.

  Lance tipped his hat. “I hope that’s true. Thank you, Dani. Jack’s lucky to have had you around. Jack, we’ll need your statement.”

  Jack stared at his cousin’s disappearing back, every horrible image of what could have happened to Dani shuffling through his mind’s eye. How close he’d come to losing her.

  “You should never have come here,” he growled, all of his emotions, his anguish, incinerating each syllable.

  Dani tucked her rifle into Pokey’s saddle holder. “And why’s that?”

  “This was my bounty.” He practically fire-breathed, knowing he sounded irrational, but unable to make sense of anything right now, not when she could have died.

  He loved her, he thought, fighting the surging desire to hold her, feel her safe in his arms.

  Yet she’d lied to him. He wouldn’t get involved with someone who kept secrets, not after experiencing firsthand how that ripped apart relationships.

  “And you probably don’t want a criminal by your side, right?”

  “You shouldn’t have been anywhere near here,” he blurted.

  She made a disgusted sound. “I didn’t come here for you, anyway. This was for Tanya.”

  He stared at her, unable to make sense of his thoughts, his feelings, pictures of what could have happened to her, the danger she’d put herself in, exploding in his mind’s eye...

  Dani scanned the clearing. “So did Kevin have anything to do with this?”

  He shook his head, unable to unstick his tongue.

  She heaved a long breath, her expression a wrestling match of competing emotions, but it looked like hurt was winning out. “Well, don’t worry. You’ll never have to see me again. Oh. And you’re welcome.”

  She whirled and melted into the dark forest with the horses, leaving him more alone than he’d ever felt before in his life.

  She’d broken his trust; she’d also broken his heart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  JACK LAY ON his bedroll and listened to the waking calls from birds roosting in the spruce beside him, the spider-webbed light of dawn coming through the conifers. The sky in the east was rosy, slowly lightening. The dew-soaked landscape billowed away, ridged and cut, dark, then gray, then purple-shadowed. Hints of pine and fresh earth blew in on the crisp morning air.
/>   Lacing his fingers behind his head, Jack squinted at the glowing horizon. Would Dani be up? She hadn’t answered his knock when he’d returned from the sheriff’s office late last night and he couldn’t blame her. It’d been dead wrong of him not to thank her properly for saving his hide.

  When a signal brought his cell phone to life at last, he’d listened to her messages about Smiley and Spark Canyon, heard the concern in her voice and realized that she hadn’t just been looking out for Tanya last night, despite what she’d said.

  She’d been worried about him. Despite his harsh words at the Rusty Roof, his vow to turn her in, she’d put her life in danger on his behalf.

  How did he reconcile that with the woman who’d been hiding from her past, who’d kept secrets from him, just like Jesse?

  Who still held his heart?

  He sat up and leaned his elbows on bent knees, dropped his chin to his knuckles.

  Time to leave and stop the second-guessing that’d plagued these sleepless hours.

  He’d thank her, then head out.

  But where?

  A longing for home seized him. With Everett behind bars and Smiley cutting a deal that’d take down the rest of their operation, he could draw his first, unimpeded breath. His brother was avenged.

  But did that absolve his part in what’d happened to Jesse?

  Jack pushed to his feet and rolled up his bedding. If he hadn’t rushed to judge his brother, had paid the twenty thousand Jesse owed or, better still, had stayed with his brother and defended him, his sibling might still be alive. Might be living a sober, safe life. He glanced down at his tattoo: aJc.

  Then again, the painful realization came—Jesse might have relapsed, too.

  There were no guarantees.

  Did that mean he didn’t love his brother? Wish every day that he was still part of Jack’s life?

  He thrust the sleeping bag under his arm and trekked back to the dude ranch, his boots clipping the stone patches that broke up the grassy knoll.

  Of course not. Lies and addiction made up only a part of Jesse—not the sum total, not even close. His brother had his heart and his loyalty, no matter what.