Worth the Trouble

by Becky McGraw

  But he didn't have any choice. He had to take the medic job and stay at the ranch. But he did have a choice whether he would join the search and rescue team, and whether he would pursue Roxanne Baker or not.

  One thing was for sure, he couldn't watch them together. Tomorrow, he would tell Wes he wasn't joining the team.

  After that he was staying away from Rocky. It was best for both of them.

  Ethan waited in the truck for them to finish up in the barn, which took quite a while. By the time they finished, it was pretty late. When they reached the truck, both of them looked exhausted. While they drove back to the ranch, Ethan rode in silence, and Rocky and Wes talked about the foal they had just brought into the world. Together.

  Ethan felt like a third wheel sitting there looking out the window.

  As soon as Wes pulled the truck to a stop in front of the house, Rocky opened the door, grabbed her backpack, and hopped out of the truck. After she got his crutches and handed them to him, she went around the front of the truck and hugged Wes goodnight.

  Without a word to him when Wes's tail lights reached the end of the driveway, Rocky turned on her heel and headed toward the bunkhouse.

  Ethan yelled, "Rocky, wait!"

  She stopped but didn't turn around. "Tomorrow, Ethan, I'm tired."

  "Tonight, Roxanne, I need to talk to you," he insisted and she turned around to face him with her hands on her hips.

  They stood staring off for a moment, then she huffed out a breath and walked back over to him. "Make it quick, I need a shower."

  "I'm sorry..." he began, but she cut him off.

  "You certainly are, bucko," she told him with a snort and twist of her lips, before she turned to leave.

  "Please, Roxanne listen to me..." he tried again. "I made a mistake avoiding you, I didn't mean to hurt you."

  "You didn't," she assured him, then spun back around to tell him, "I just think it takes a low-life skunk to stiff a man who has been working his ass off to get donations to fund a team that's going to help a lot of people."

  "Stiff?" Ethan repeated not really getting what she was saying.

  "Yeah, you not showing up at that class today made me look like a fool for recommending you, and it cost Wes a bundle to register you for it. You need to pay him back," she told him angrily.

  "I'll find out how much it cost and pay him back," Ethan agreed. "Did you know I was in an accident on the way there? I was speeding to get there, because I didn't want to disappoint you, and my brakes gave out."

  "I know all I need to know, Ethan. You chose to stay in Henrietta, instead of honoring your commitment to the team, and it's all your fault."

  "It is my fault, totally my fault, but..." he started to explain that someone was trying to kill him, that he didn't have a choice but to stay in Henrietta to talk to the inspector, but thought better of it and pinched his lips.

  Rocky and Terri were friends, she would tell Terri, then Terri would tell their mother, and their mother would be a wreck worrying about both him and his dad.

  No, it was better that he didn't share that information.

  Instead he told her, "I made it to the class, I just didn't make it in time, because of the accident. I'll talk to Wes, apologize and pay him back."

  "Good," she replied shortly.

  They still hadn't discussed the elephant in the room. "About the night at the lake," he said and noticed her face go pale.

  Rocky held up her hands. "No need to go there, Ethan, I get it," she said with a harsh laugh.

  "No, you don't get it, the reason I've been avoiding you is..." Ethan began, but stopped himself yet again.

  Going there was another slippery slope, definitely a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. If he told her about the Captain's job, about being undecided about the team, she would think he had no intention of being at that class in the first place. And she would come to the correct conclusion that he had know it when he made love to her by the lake.

  Ethan could spill everything to her, but what good would it do?

  If by some chance, she didn't hate him when he finished telling her all that, or he managed to smooth things over with her, he would just have to push her away again. To keep her safe, on the off chance that the killer was stalking him here.

  The accident had definitely drove home the point he was in danger. Being with her meant she would be as well. But he couldn't tell her that, so his only option was to hurt her.

  Again.

  Ethan would just let her think he was a slimy asshole who had gotten what he wanted, like she probably already thought. If she hated him, she would stay away from him though. Problem solved.

  His sister could be in danger too, he thought suddenly, and a cold chill swept through him. Tomorrow, he would have to talk to Joel, swear him to secrecy, and get him to watch her closely.

  God, he didn't want to hurt Roxanne, would rather rip his own heart out, but the words he knew would crush her tumbled out of his mouth anyway, because he knew he didn't have a choice. "It was nice, it was good, but it's over, Roxanne."

  She sucked in a breath and her lower lip trembled. He could see her fighting emotion he knew she wasn't usually prone to. For endless seconds, they stood there staring at each other, while she got herself under control.

  Finally in a choked voice, she told him, "You're damn right it's over, and it wasn't nice or good. It was the worst mistake I've ever made in my life." With a derisive snort, she looked him up and down like she was inspecting a manure pile, then told him with a slap to her forehead, "What the hell was I thinking sleeping with a dried up, pathetic excuse for a human being like you?"

  Dried up and pathetic, that was a damned good description of him. She had hit the nail on the head, even though he knew what she said was said just to hurt him. A storm of regret swept through him as Ethan watched her spin on her heel and walk toward the bunkhouse.

  Forty-eight hours sleep deprived now, Ethan dragged his bruised and battered ass out of the bed and into the shower. He wished he was made of salt and would just melt down the drain as he stood under the stinging spray. That's how bad he felt.

  He felt like the lowest form of life, pond scum, the things that pond scum fed on.

  Never in his life had Ethan purposely set out to hurt someone. He was a healer, someone who saved people, he didn't hurt them, yet he had done just that last night, because he decided to take the easy road to make sure his problems didn't end up becoming Rocky's problems.

  They were both tired last night, maybe he should have waited until today to talk to her when he was feeling better. The problem was he wasn't feeling better, he was feeling much, much worse.

  Maybe once they caught the guy trying to kill him, he could talk to her, tell her everything and let her know he hadn't used her. After the fact was better than never, even though he highly doubted she would ever talk to him again.

  He'd write her a damned letter to explain it, if he had to.

  This morning Ethan was going to call the inspector to see if he could give him a clue or two to help things along. His dad had mentioned that the crew would have noticed someone at the fire not in turnout gear.

  Well the Henrietta Fire Department had just replaced their gear at the firehouse. The old stuff had been donated to a volunteer department in Crowley, a hundred miles south, but it sat in the storage room for a month, because the department didn't pick it up.

  All night he had tossed it over in his mind, and he came up with a couple of other ideas too. That truck incident had to be connected, and since his truck had been sitting at his parent's house after the accident, the damage was done there. That made him worry about his parent's safety too. The inspector and his dad thought this was about him, but that wasn't necessarily the case.

  His dad was the Fire Chief, in charge of all the men on the crew, and Ethan was his son. It could be about him too, and if the killer didn't succeed in killing Ethan, he could go after his dad, or his mother to get to his dad.
>
  Hell anyone connected to them, anyone they cared about could be a target.

  That is why he had done what he did last night with Rocky. He couldn't tell her about all this crap, and he had to protect her somehow. It still didn't make it any easier to swallow, even though that had been his purpose.

  At the accident scene, the tow truck driver said the brake fluid had been drained, he showed Ethan the plug was gone. Ethan wanted the inspector to see it himself though, and make his own determination. The man needed to gather evidence, if that was the case. And Ethan needed to find out if he had talked to Brad.

  It might even be time to call in the police to help, if he hadn't done that.

  Ethan dried off and got dressed, then headed out to make some calls on his cell phone, privately.

  Rocky shoved the last of her things into her duffle bag, then hefted it over her shoulder. She couldn't believe she was letting Ethan Cassidy run her off, tried to convince herself that she wasn't doing that by moving to Dylan's trailer with her sister.

  But that is exactly what she was doing.

  This time she didn't even have her mother to blame for losing the best job she had ever had. The fault was all hers for getting involved with Ethan Cassidy, for trusting him.

  There was no way in hell she could make herself stay here and see that asshole day in and day out. And she couldn't give Terri an ultimatum, either him or me, the man was her brother, and Rocky knew what her choice would be.

  So this morning, Rocky had called Wes and told him she wanted to take the vet assistant job full time, then she woke up Dylan and Matt to tell them she was leaving and say goodbye. They had been shocked and pissed off, with plenty of questions, and she hadn't answered any of them, which didn't make things better. But her reasons for leaving were her business.

  All she had left to do was tell Terri and Joel.

  Joel would be the path of least resistance, so he was the one she was going to try and corner alone. Most likely, he would be out at the barn soon, so she would try and catch him there, so she could get the hell out of here. She had held back the dam break she felt coming for about as long as she could.

  Rocky walked out the front door of the bunkhouse with her heavy duffle, then went around to the back of the bunkhouse and tossed it into the bed of her truck. Emotion burned a hole in her stomach when she went into the barn and saw all her babies.

  Her eyes stopped on Reed, and despair hit her in the center of her chest. She was going to have to leave him here until she found a place for him. Because her income was going to be decreased considerably, she might even have to sell him.

  He was the best horse she'd ever owned. The last gift her daddy had given her, before he died, and she had trained him from a colt. Rocky walked over to the stall and threw her arms around him, then breathed in his special scent.

  "I love you buddy," she told him and hugged him again, then stepped back. She saw movement on the other side of the barn, and saw it was Joel, taking his horse Ace out of his stall. Sucking in a deep breath, Rocky headed over there.

  After he cross-tied Ace, she stepped closer and said, "Joel, I need to talk to you."

  He spun around to face her with a wide smile. "Morning, Sunshine, I was just taking Ace out for a little ride."

  "Joel..." she said and swallowed hard, her eyes burning. "I'm leaving."

  "What time will you be back?" he asked, and she figured out he thought she was leaving for an hour.

  "I'm not coming back, I'm leaving the ranch. Wes offered me a job as his vet assistant, and I decided to take it."

  "What?!?" Joel shouted and Ace danced in the cross-ties.

  With a head nod toward Ace she said, "Let's go talk in your office."

  "Damn right we will," he said and stormed past her. "Have you talked to Terri?" he asked as he walked through the door of the office.

  "Um, no, you can tell her," Rocky stuttered then sat in a chair in front of his desk, while he went behind it.

  "Talk to me, sugar. What the hell happened? I thought you were happy here? Is it money? I'll pay you more."

  "It's not money, Joel...you pay me plenty, too much."

  "What then?" he demanded leaning forward on his forearms on his desk. "Did one of the guys get cross-ways with you? If so, they're gone."

  "NO! It's not the guys, either." It was a guy, just not the ones he was thinking of. This one wasn't going to be gone, because this man loved his wife more than life, and he would do anything to make her happy. Having her brother here made Terri happy.

  "Explain yourself, Roxanne. I think I deserve a reason at least," Joel said through pinched lips.

  "I can't," she told him with a break in her voice, the squeezed out past the lump of emotion choking her, "I'm sorry, Joel...thanks for everything."

  Rocky pushed up from the chair, because she was about to do something girly and so unlike herself. Her eyes were burning so badly, she knew it was only a matter of seconds before the dam broke.

  Sucking in a deep breath, she turned slowly and tried not to run out of the office, and out of the barn to her truck.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "So Brad has an alibi?" Ethan asked and huffed a relieved sigh.

  "Yes, he was holding a poker game at his parent's house that night, and seven men vouched for him, it all checked out."

  "Were they all firemen from the department?" Ethan asked curiously.

  "No, there were a couple of firemen there, but the others were just friends."

  "And you talked to all of them?"

  "Every one...he was there the whole night, so he's off the hook."

  "Inspector, have you called the police yet? After what happened to me yesterday, I have to admit, I'm a little concerned about my parents," Ethan told him and gripped the steering wheel of the ranch truck harder. He figured sitting in one of the trucks was his best bet that he wouldn't be overhead while he made this call.

  "I'm going to stop in at the Ranger station in Lubbock this afternoon, when I go to the impound yard to see your truck."

  "Good, I think that's a good idea. I'm going to call my dad next and give him a head's up on what happened. Tell him to be careful."

  "Thanks for the information on the uniforms, you may be on to something," the man told him gravely. "All someone would need is a radio and that to impersonate a fireman out at the scene."

  Ethan thought about that a moment. "Sir, have you talked to Brad's father?"

  Mr. Thomas was in his early sixties, but able-bodied, and he was devastated when Jimmy died. Brad also lived at his house, so the man would have access to his radio. He came to the station all the time too. It seemed like he had gotten over Jimmy's death, but who knows. Losing a child, even an adult child, can't be an easy thing. Ethan never wanted to have to find out himself.

  "At the funeral, he made a couple of comments, but I just wrote them off to him being upset and grieving," Ethan replied.

  "What did he say?" Inspector Gilley asked, his voice perking up.

  "Jimmy looked up to me, respected me, and I had let him down. He said my dad and I should have trained him better. The doctor had given him medication to settle his nerves, so I thought he was talking out of his head."

  "I'll talk to him, then. That's not a threat, but could be motivation."

  "Thank you for everything you're doing, sir," Ethan told him.

  "We're going to figure this out soon, Ethan. Just be careful until we do."

  "I will. Let me know if you find out anything," Ethan told him then disconnected the call, sitting there stunned that he had just implicated Brad's father, and it somehow made sense. Guilt flooded him, but he pushed it to the back of his mind. If the man was trying to harm him, or his family, he needed to be stopped. If he wasn't behind it, Inspector Gilley would find that out, and he would be absolved, just like Brad had been.

  Ethan heard someone coming up the driveway, and his eyes automatically went to the rearview mirror to see who it was. Rocky's dusty blue pickup bounced
over the dirt packed road, but he couldn't see who was driving through the dust that surrounded the truck. It passed behind the ranch truck, but didn't stop, it headed on down the driveway, then turned right and disappeared.

  The front door of the house slammed back on its hinges and his gaze swung that way. Terri rushed out onto the porch with tears streaming down her face. She looked mad and hurt. Her eyes met his and he thought she looked like she wanted to kill him, as she stomped across the porch, down the steps, then toward the truck.

  Her face was so red, he thought it might catch fire at any minute as she jerked the truck door open then growled and asked him, "What the hell did you do to her?!?"

  Ethan leaned away from her, because Terri really did look like she was about to lay into him. Her small fists were clenched at her sides and her shoulders were near her earlobes. "Who?"

  "Roxanne Baker! You know who, don't play coy with me, Ethan. You did something, what did you do?!?" she demanded.

  Oh, Lord, he sure hoped Rocky hadn't gone to Terri.

  As close-mouthed as the woman usually was, he highly doubted it. She would be embarrassed by what happened too, so what he said to her wasn't something she was likely to share. But one thing was certain, Terri was mad, and if Rocky did tell his sister what happened yesterday, she was going to kill him.

  He might welcome it.

  "Nothing, why?" he wasn't about to tell her something she didn't know. Let her tell him why she was mad. Ethan wasn't guessing and stepping off into it.

  "She's gone!" Terri yelled.

  "Calm down, Terri, she might be upset about something," he told her. He knew what Rocky was upset about, and he couldn't blame her for leaving to find somewhere to cool off. "She'll be back."

  "No, she won't!" Terri screeched, her voice getting higher when she informed, "She told Joel she quit a few minutes ago."

  Ethan groaned and slammed his head against the steering wheel. If the killer didn't get him, he was a dead man anyway.

  "Where was she going?" Ethan asked.

  "How the hell do I know? She talked to Joel, not me," Terri told him with hurt in her voice. "The only thing she told him was she was taking a job with Wes Jepson."