by Kym Roberts
Dalton laughed mid-kiss but didn’t seem quite as enthused as my best friend. His hands were on her waist, but I suspected that was a natural reaction to a woman ambushing him. Especially a woman he didn’t recognize.
He gently pushed her away with a grin on his face and looked down at Scarlet. Something I couldn’t identify passed through his eyes. Pain mixed with disbelief, possibly a little anger before he stepped back even farther.
“That was good for the cameras, but one notch in your lipstick case is enough for this rodeo, don’t you think, darling?” Dalton turned his back on Scarlet, dismissing her like she was yesterday’s news.
Cade was the first to state the obvious. “You’re alive.”
Dalton chuckled as all three of us gaped at him. “Just because a man takes a few days off, doesn’t mean he died and went to heaven.”
Scarlet’s face grew red as the media continued to record the entire meeting. She clearly didn’t expect the brush-off, but that’s exactly what Dalton was giving her. He was ready to walk through the lobby of The Ranch and straight through to the staging room for the riders on the backside of the residence without a second look in her direction. If Scarlet didn’t care so much, she would have run and hid. But she did care. She wanted to know how he was alive. Why he hadn’t called her. How we’d tracked his phone to a dead body—that wasn’t his.
“Where were you?” I asked, putting my back between Scarlet and the media. Cade moved over to stand next to me, and I was happy that at least one man had a clue when it came to Scarlet’s emotions.
“I do have a private life, Princess.” Dalton reached for the back door, but my anger stopped him dead in his tracks.
“My name is Charli. Why didn’t you call Scarlet?” I demanded.
He let out a little puff of air as if he was thinking, this chick is unbelievable, before he said, “I didn’t realize I said I would.”
“Dalton, stop this. This isn’t like you.” Tears filled Scarlet’s eyes as she stepped forward and placed her hand on top of his. Dalton, however, wanted no part of it. He pulled his hand back so fast you’d think she’d scalded him.
And once again I wanted to slug the cowboy. Scarlet was better off with this man in the ground.
Dalton watched her brush away her tears, and again it was like witnessing two people struggling in one body. The part of him that was melting, stepped forward. The other part, which I had no use for, checked himself. Stiffened his spine as if he knew better than to be human.
“We had a good time. Let’s not make this messy,” Dalton said. Again, he made a move toward the exit.
To my surprise, Cade stepped forward, hands clenched at his sides.
“She thought you were dead you son-of-a—”
Scarlet was the rational one. Although some may say it was irrational to defend Dalton Hibbs after he discarded her in such a crass manner. “Cade, it’s all right. He’s okay; that’s all that matters.”
Dalton’s happy-go-lucky attitude faltered. “Why in the world are you people acting like I’m the living dead? I was gone for a couple days. Erik knew where I was.”
“Erik went back to Austin the day after you disappeared, and I’ve been calling your phone….” Scarlet’s lower lip quivered. “We tracked it with your iPad, which you left at my place.”
“You hacked my iPad?”
“Because I was worried half to death about you!”
“I’m sorry. I can see you were upset, but I just took a couple days off to rest before the rodeo.” The man was determined to run out the back door. Scarlet’s next sentence changed that.
“We found two graves.”
His eyes shot back and forth among the three of us, trying to see if Scarlet was telling the truth. Cade gave him a grim nod. I wasn’t that calm. Maybe it’s because I was one of the few who had witnessed what I thought was his mangled body. Only now I didn’t know who those graves belonged to, so my response was a tad bit angrier. “Yes, we did. And your phone was in one of those graves.”
“My phone was… My phone was where?”
“Buried six feet under,” Scarlet replied.
I wanted to say it wasn’t that deep, but I held my tongue.
“So that’s why all the media is hounding me, because they thought I was dead? That’s why they kept asking me if I was the real Dalton Hibbs?” He scrubbed his face with his hands and then looked up at us with all kinds of worry written across his face. “My parents? Do they think I’m dead?”
It was Cade’s turn to add what he knew. “They provided the DNA samples for the ME to test. We’ve been waiting to hear.”
“Holy crap.” He looked around the lobby frantically. “I need a phone.”
Scarlet was the first to offer her cell phone. Their fingers touched and I could see the hope on Scarlet’s face, but all Dalton gave her was a sheepish, “Thank you,” before turning his back and dialing his parents.
“I think Mateo might want an update on his case,” I told Cade.
Cade pointed out the window. Mateo was pushing his way through the growing crowd of spectators and reporters who were jockeying for a glimpse of Dalton. Microphones were being shoved in his face, but he just shook his head and if I was reading his lips correctly, he told each one, “No comment.”
Mateo made it in the front door with Peter and his cameraman, Aiden, close on his heels. They didn’t make it inside despite their every attempt to attach themselves to the sheriff.
“Unless you’d like to be introduced to the deputy in my jail, I suggest you wait outside for Mr. Hibbs to release a statement,” Mateo said and closed the door with a solid thud.
Mateo looked at Dalton and shook his head. Then he took in Scarlet’s smeared mascara and his jaw softened. Finally, he looked in my direction. His expression completely void of any emotion as he cataloged my injuries.
“Are you okay, Charli?” he asked.
“A couple days, and I’ll be like new.” As long as “new” didn’t involve sitting without a donut or reaching for anything above my waist. I probably wouldn’t be wearing a tank top dress and heels anytime soon. Of course, a woman without a date didn’t have to worry about that.
Dalton hung up the phone and turned back to us.
Mateo reached out and shook his hand. “I’m glad to see you’re okay, Dalton. You gave us quite the scare if you haven’t figured that out already.”
“Yeah, I’m really sorry, Sheriff. If I’d known, I would have come and talked to you immediately.”
“Where were you?”
“Up at a cabin near Enchanted Rock.”
Mateo pulled that ever-present little pad of paper out of his shirt pocket. Sometimes I liked that pad; most of the time I really hated it. At the moment, it was my best friend.
“Can you tell me what cabin?” Mateo asked.
“Crabapple Cabins off 965.”
“Are you still renting it?”
“Erik rented it for me, and I haven’t checked out yet.”
“So you haven’t been back to your hotel room?”
“No. I planned on going this afternoon…” Dalton cussed under his breath. “I don’t have a room anymore, do I?”
“Sorry, no you don’t. Your items were collected as evidence a couple days ago.”
“So…to the entire world, I’m really dead.”
“For all intents and purposes, yes. But you have not been officially declared dead by anyone. You’ve been listed as a missing person.”
The entire reality was starting to sink in for Dalton. I wanted to feel sorry for him. I wanted to help, but I just couldn’t shake how he’d treated Scarlet.
“How did you get here?”
“Erik rented a car for me. I had it at the cabin.” Dalton removed his felt hat and ran his hand through his hair as if the mounting problems were becoming too much. “You said there were two graves…”
Mateo nodded but didn’t say a word. Scarlet’s eyes fil
led again, and Cade looked like he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure what. Silence filled the room and you could see a sense of dread seeping through Dalton’s body. He wanted to know…but didn’t. Because if our suspicions were correct, there was no hope of ever finding his brother.
“Have a seat, Dalton.” Mateo held his out toward the chairs that were out of the view of the windows and Dalton complied.
“We found two graves, one with your phone buried in it, and the other with evidence that would lead us to believe it was Wyatt.”
“Was it?”
“We’re still investigating.”
Mateo talked to Dalton for a few more minutes, but their voices became hushed and the rest of the conversation transpired without us hearing the details. Dalton took the news better than I expected. Maybe the fact that he had been missing and presumed dead, when he obviously wasn’t, gave him hope. Or maybe it was because his brother had been missing for so many years, having any answer was better than none. I wasn’t sure. Mateo took more information from Dalton, including his cabin number at Crabapple Cabins, and asked him to come in to give a statement to detectives after his qualifying round. Dalton was happy to oblige.
His next actions caught everyone off guard, except Scarlet. He stood up and reached for her hand. She went willingly, and Dalton pulled her back into the corner for a semi-private conversation. With the cameras outside trying to capture the angle, Mateo, Cade, and I talked quietly, but were ready to pounce on the man if he so much as said one wrong word.
Okay, one of us was ready to pounce. I wasn’t sure what the other two were thinking. Cade’s brow was furrowed and Mateo’s face lacked all expression. Cade, however, was the first to leave when the doctor came out of her office and seemed a little shocked that we were still there.
“Are you going to be okay, Princess?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine.”
Cade’s hand rose to my cheek and for some stupid reason, I leaned into it. Enjoyed his touch as I gazed into his eyes.
“Take care of yourself,” he said like he would to his sister. The lack of heat in his eyes was even more evident by the heat rising on the other side of the room between Dalton and Scarlet. His hand fell and Cade headed toward the staging area for the riders, the attractive doctor at his side.
“How are you…really?” Mateo’s voice was soft.
I gave him my undivided attention. “Me? I’m fine.”
“You broke your promise,” he scolded.
“No, no…” I shook my finger back and forth. “I did not go back on my word. I was walking through the barn when this bull was making funny noises. I looked inside the stall, but all I could see was him lying on his side. I climbed up to get a better look… And someone pushed me over the edge.”
My mind suddenly started working in a direction Scarlet wouldn’t like. Whoever pushed me over the top of the stable wall had a knack for disappearing. Just like Dalton. Could he be the one who wanted to see me gored?
I looked over as he kissed Scarlet’s cheek. That happiness she felt a few days ago was returning to her face—and it scared me, way more than the thought of Dalton being the one who tried to kill me.
“Don’t.” Mateo interrupted my thoughts.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t say what you’re thinking. I know he looks guilty, and I promise you no one wants to find the person who attacked you more than I do, but I need you to promise me to stay out of it completely. You’ll just cause more trouble.”
“I can only hobble like a newborn filly and I can’t raise my arms. How much trouble can I get into?”
“You don’t seriously expect me to answer that, do you?”
“Funny. Why did you become sheriff when you had such a promising career ahead of you in comedy?”
He smirked and it was way too cute for my comfort.
“How are you getting home?”
“Well, Scarlet was going to take me to Country Mart to get a donut—” When his expression turned blank, I thought I’d better explain. “It’s to sit on, not to eat.”
His brow furrowed. “That bad?”
“Unfortunately, and my ribs feel even worse.”
“Meet me out back by the barn and I’ll pick you up in my patrol car so you don’t have to go through that mess.” I looked out the window, expecting the crowd to have dissipated. But if anything, it was worse.
“Deal. I can’t imagine pushing my way through that.”
Mateo walked to the front door with swagger, while I went down the hall and out the back at a pace that could be compared to a sloth’s. The doctor had also given me a script for extra-strength Naproxen, which I planned on filling at Country Mart; otherwise, I wasn’t sure I’d be walking the next day.
I made it out the back door and down the steps just as a volunteer was emptying the trash outside the barn. He lifted the barrel up, not expecting it to be that heavy, but lost his balance as the weight of the barrel threw him backward. Most of the trash made it into the large bin, except for a few items.
A red plastic bag caught my attention and before I knew it, I was trying to run and stop him from throwing it into his trash container.
“Excuse me!” I yelled, but he didn’t hear me over his earbuds. “Excuse me!” My second attempt stopped him long enough for me to get to his side. I was completely out of breath and hunched with pain.
“I’m sorry. That bag is mine. I’ve been looking for it. It has my meds in it.”
He pulled one bud out of his ear. “Your meds?” he asked.
“Yes, the doc gave me some meds for my injuries. I had no idea where I left it but apparently someone thought it was trash.”
“Oh, you mean this?” He started to pick it up, but I warned him.
“Careful, I’ve got a used syringe in there from my insulin.”
He scanned my appearance suspiciously, so I built up my lie just a tad. “I had a diabetic seizure and fell out of the stands.”
“Wow, you’re lucky to be alive.”
He had no idea how lucky, as he bent down, picked the bag up by the top corners, and handed it to me. It was sticky from a soda that had spilled on the outside of it but was otherwise fairly clean.
I smiled, more grateful by the moment. “Thank you.”
“No problem, lady, but you might want to be more careful with that stuff. There are kids everywhere.”
I nodded and said I was sorry, duly chastised for my carelessness. Then I looked inside the bag. Just as I suspected: two large needles and two empty vials, both wrapped in paper towels. The same thick, blue towels found in dispensers outside the stalls where they kept the bulls. The kind of dispenser I bumped my head on. I was pretty sure I’d been right about Twisted Mister being sick. In fact, if I was a betting woman, the bull had been drugged for a better performance. More vicious. More out-of-control. And definitely a ride one of the cowboys would never forget.
Scarlet came running up to me, panting heavily and fanning her bright red face. “O.M.W. Princess, I nearly forgot I said I’d take you to Country Mart!” Despite feeling bad about forgetting me, Scarlet couldn't have been happier. Her eyes were sparkling and she didn’t give a fig about how much she was sweating or the smear of mascara under her eyes. She was less than her perfect self, yet all the more beautiful because of it. Then again, maybe it was because she was in love.
“It’s okay. Mateo is going to take me. He wanted to talk to me about what happened with the bull, anyway.”
She blew out a sigh of relief and wiped her shiny brow. “I’m so glad. I called Joellen to work the gate, and now I can watch Dalton do his qualifiers. Will you forgive me for getting caught up in the moment?”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Scarlet. Go enjoy the rodeo.”
Scarlet’s hug came faster than I expected and knocked the wind right out of me. I moved the bag out of the way so neither one of us got poked with a bull-sized needle.
“I’ll call you later.”
I watched her run back toward the arena. Only then did I think of the one question I forgot to ask:
“Scarlet, who’s he riding?”
She beamed with pride. “Twisted Mister! It’s going to be a ride for the history books! See you later!”
Chapter Nineteen
Mateo pulled up and got out of his patrol car to help me into the passenger side. I held out the bag, being careful neither one of us got stuck.
“What is this?”
“I suspect it’s the reason I was tossed over the side of the stall.”
“What are you talking about?” He reached for the bag.
“Careful, there are needles inside it.”
He hesitated and then pulled a pair of plastic gloves out of his rear pocket. “What kind of needles?”
“Based on the size, I suspect they’re what a vet would use on a bull.”
Mateo’s face relaxed a bit. “It’s not unusual for the bulls to get checked by the vet before a big event, Charli.” But he reached into the bag and pulled out a needle and one small glass bottle. He read the label on the bottle. “Well, would you look at that.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s a concoction of drugs—steroids, hormones, and stimulants. If given to a bull, it would make his behavior highly erratic.”
“Wouldn’t it be highly suspicious if I heard someone say, ‘He’ll never make the buzzer,’ and then exit a stall next to a bull whose behavior became highly erratic?” I asked.
“You saw someone with these needles in the barn?”
“No, I saw someone with a red bag coming out of the stall next to the bull that was acting sick.”
“And?”
“And the cowboy with him said, ‘He’ll never make the buzzer.’”
“Has anyone checked on the bull?”
“He’s the bull that attacked me.”
“Did Cade report it to the commission?”
“I don’t know; I was getting checked out by the doctor. But Scarlet just told me that Dalton is about to ride him.”