Last Second Chance (A Thomas Family Novel Book 2)

by Kristi Cramer

  He hurried out to the corral, where Janie had coaxed the horses with a couple flakes of alfalfa. They made quick work of slipping off the halters and putting the bridles in place, then Tim threw a blanket and saddle on Roo. Before Janie could go to the barn for her saddle, they both heard the unmistakable sound of tires on the cattle guard at the top of the hill. Looking up, they saw a black SUV stop at the crest.

  It didn’t move, and no one got out. Janie and Tim looked at each other, knowing they were in plain sight of the occupants of that vehicle.

  “I’ll ride bareback,” she said, and swung up onto Carmelita. Tim hesitated only an instant before stepping into the stirrup and swinging his leg over Roo. Together, they turned and headed for the closest hill, knowing they needed to put a rise between them and that vehicle to get out of their line of sight.

  “Relax with the motion,” Janie reminded him as they quickened their pace. She held the reins in one hand and the rifle in the other. “Put your heels to his flanks and he’ll run faster.”

  Before he knew it, they were climbing up the hill faster than Tim had ever gone on the horse before. As they crested the hill, he looked over his shoulder to see that the SUV hadn’t moved, but a single figure stood next to it, looking their way.

  Once the vehicle was out of sight, they turned right, which Tim thought would lead them to the river.

  “Where are we going?” he called out as Roo lengthened his stride and their ride smoothed out. Roo and Carmelita raced across the ground and, despite his fear, Tim felt the thrill of galloping for the first time.

  “The river,” Janie called back. “We’ll have the cover of the trees and shrubs on the verge. If we can put water between us and them, we’ll have an advantage. Horses can swim. That SUV can’t.”

  That sounded like as good a plan as any.

  Ten minutes later, they entered a tangled line of cottonwoods and willows. They slowed as they approached the river, which looked rough. Angry waves foamed as they flashed by, and muddy water carried debris from the recent rains.

  “Upstream,” Janie called without breaking stride. “There’s a ford that might still be usable.” She didn’t sound quite as confident now.

  Tim said nothing, concentrating on holding on. By the time they got about a mile upstream, Roo spooked. A bushy tree branch floated too close to the bank, and the horse reared up, slashing his front hooves in a panic. Taken completely off guard, Tim flailed to keep his balance, but he felt himself slipping off. He tried to hang on, but one foot slipped out of the stirrup. Roo pivoted, throwing Tim further off balance. A sharp pain in his ankle told him his right foot was still caught in the stirrup, wrenching as he went down.

  ⋘⋆⋙

  Angelisa was aware when Kenny climbed out of the SUV to stand behind her, looking after the two riders fleeing over the hill.

  “Horses, huh?” she commented, knowing that while her SUV could keep up with them, it probably wasn’t the best idea. No one on her crew knew the first thing about driving off-road. Maybe this Kenny knew, but she wasn’t sure how willing he would be to pursue them in an all-out chase.

  “Why are they running?” Kenny wanted to know. Angelisa couldn’t tell anything from the tone of his voice. How bad did he want Janie? Would she be able to convince him the bimbo needed to be chased down?

  “She hit me,” Angelisa said with all the conviction she could muster. “He probably told her all sorts of lies about me. Maybe even that I’m dangerous. But he was the one who let me touch him. He’s surely trying to convince her that he’s not the bad guy to cover up how much he enjoyed my attempt to win him back. Where can they go out there?”

  “Where can’t they go? If they cross the river, they can go back to town. Or they can ride out into the prairie, across neighboring farms.... Heck, they could end up in Colorado.”

  “Well, I don’t think we want them to get to the police before us,” Angelisa said, turning to Kenny. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but nine times out of ten, the first person to talk to the police gets the other party sent to jail. If he convinces her the police need to be involved and they make it back to report the incident, they will make it sound like I was the one who was violent. If we find them first, I’ll help you convince Janie to say Tim was the one who hit me. I’ll say I won’t press charges against her because I know how manipulative Tim can be. We can save Janie, and now that I realize how bad Tim really is, I can have my revenge on him for breaking my heart.”

  Angelisa watched Kenny carefully, pretty sure she had pushed all the right “machismo” buttons. Sure enough, when she mentioned “saving Janie”, his eyes lit up. She could almost see wheels turning in his mind as he projected images of Janie fawning over him, praising him and promising to reward him for his bravery.

  The cowboy was even dumber than he looked. He never once questioned why she had three men with her when she was only supposed to be trying to win back an old lover.

  “We can use the ranch ATVs to catch them,” Kenny said, and he actually licked his lips in anticipation. “I can track them well enough.”

  ⋘⋆⋙

  Mitzi looked up to see Sheriff Jonas flagging her down. She could hardly hear anything over the rollicking anthem the band was playing, so she moved away from the stage on an intercept course with her superior officer.

  “Why haven’t you answered your radio?” Jonas asked, but continued without waiting for an answer. “Kylie called me to say Janie and your brother are out at the ranch, and that they’re afraid someone is chasing them. I can only assume it is your drug dealer.”

  Mitzi checked her radio and groaned when she saw the volume was turned down. She remembered turning it down as she spoke to a woman who had grabbed her sleeve, asking for help finding her young son in the crowd. They had located him quickly, but Mitzi had apparently forgotten to turn the volume back up.

  She patted her pockets for her phone, finding it in its pouch on her gear belt.

  Pulling it out, she saw she had missed several calls—two from Janie, one from Blue, and two from Kylie. She checked the volume and saw it was on, but there had been too much incidental noise to hear the song ringtones she had chosen for her family members.

  There were also seven text messages in her inbox.

  “Crap,” she said, checking her voicemail first. She listened to Tim’s message with a rising sense of dread. “Tim confirmed it,” she said. “Angelisa is here.”

  She opened her inbox and saw that all of the text messages were from Janie.

  At ranch. Where r u?

  No signal for calls.

  It was a reminder of something Mitzi knew all too well.

  Txt when u get this.

  Then, timestamped a few minutes later, more texts.

  Going 2 ride out and get lost.

  Draw her away from town.

  Txt when u get this!

  We need the cavalry.

  Mitzi turned her phone so Jonas could read, then texted a reply.

  Cavalry on the way.

  Send your position.

  Stay safe.

  “I’ll round everyone up,” Jonas said, turning on his heel and parting the crowd, already talking into his radio. Mitzi turned to follow when her phone chimed with an incoming text.

  Upstream from HP.

  Hurry! Tim is hurt. Fell off horse.

  She is here.

  Mitzi felt her chest squeeze as she thought of her brother and sister-in-law out there on their own with Angelisa Salgado on their trail. Reaching for her radio, she waited for Jonas to finish calling in the troops, then she keyed her mic.

  “We have confirmation. Salgado is out at the Lazy J. I repeat. Salgado is out at the Lazy J.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The next few seconds—minutes?—were a blur as Janie watched Tim on the ground, rolling away from Roo’s stamping hooves. He tried to hang onto the reins once he fell, but Roo fought him, growing more panicked by the force restraining him from flight.

&
nbsp; “Let go!” Janie called out, acutely aware that instead of calming the beast, he was having the opposite effect. When Tim did as she instructed, Roo took off, heading away from the raging river. The horse wasn’t trying to hurt anybody, he just wanted to get away from what frightened him.

  Janie dismounted, landing next to Tim. “Are you all right? Did you hit your head?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said, shaking it from side to side as if testing to see whether that was true.

  “Try not to move while I check you out.” Janie set the 30-30 rifle on the ground and put her hands on either side of his head, holding it still as she looked for abrasions. He didn’t appear to have a neck injury, but she knew it was best to hold it still until she’d had a look.

  She ran her hands through his hair, checking for signs of bleeding. Then her hands travelled down his arms, across his chest, and down his legs.

  “Not how I imagined getting you to put your hands on me,” he said wryly. She would have laughed under any other circumstances.

  “I don’t see anything major,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Can you stand?”

  “I think so,” he said, sitting up with her help. She draped his arm over her shoulder and hauled him up.

  He hissed and she felt his weight shift, leaning more against her. “My foot...,” he said through clenched teeth. “It got caught in the stirrup.”

  She eased him back into a sitting position and was debating whether to pull off his boot when her phone chimed. She read Mitzi’s texts, then replied with a few of her own.

  “Cavalry is on the way,” she told him. “I need to assess the damage.” She searched her memory for the first aid training part of her vet school curriculum. “I reckon it turned outward,” she said. “Did you hear or feel it pop?” Tim shook his head. “That’s good. But, unfortunately for you, we’ve got to get that boot off before your foot swells so bad, we have to cut it off. The boot, not your foot,” she clarified when Tim’s eyes widened. “Tell me if it hurts too much.”

  She positioned herself at his feet and slowly flexed his foot, watching his face. He grimaced, but nodded as she tugged on the heel, wincing as his foot started to slide out of the boot. He gasped as it finally slipped free, and she set the boot aside. Gently, she peeled off his sock before lowering his foot to the ground.

  “Color is just a little blue. Means it’s not too severe. I’m going to press on your tendons and ligaments. Tell me how bad it hurts.” She suited actions to words, pleased when Tim didn’t admit to too much pain. She figured it was worse than he let on, but she didn’t think he would be able to hide a break. Even as she moved his foot through a range of motion, she noticed the increased swelling and the deepening bruises around the ankle.

  “Could be a second-degree sprain,” she said, sitting back. “We’ll be able to get you up, but you’re not going anywhere fast.”

  “Crap,” he said flatly.

  “It would help if we could wrap it,” she said. “But I don’t have a first aid kit.”

  “You just want to see me with my shirt off,” he said with another tense smile as he sat forward and pulled his shirt over his head in one swift motion.

  “On any other day...,” she began, but she couldn’t help the hitch in her breath as his bare chest was abruptly revealed to her. She knew he was lean and strong, but seeing those whipcord muscles, flat stomach, and cut abs made her desperately wish she had the time to really appreciate them.

  As it was, she couldn’t help but reach out to run her fingers along the scars on his upper left arm and shoulder. She had seen a hint of the damage peeking out of his sleeve before, but she hadn’t known the latticework of scars would be so extensive.

  “What happened here?” she asked, surprised when he flinched under her touch.

  “Sorry. I know they’re ugly. I forgot to warn you.”

  His sudden vulnerability touched her enough that she wanted to reassure him. “Hey, chicks dig scars, remember?” He turned to meet her gaze, and she smiled. “What happened?”

  The smile he returned was grim, but trusting. “Remember I told you I got into a fight in prison? I picked the biggest son of a bi...gun I could find in the mess hall and told him to get off the bench he was on because I wanted to sit there.” He shook his head. “I saw something like it in a movie once. It seemed like a smart move at the time. I got in a couple solid hits, but he kicked my ass, then threw me through a plate glass window. I spent a week in the medical ward, but when I got out, Mack found me and befriended me. He said new fish did that a lot, but I was one of the very few who actually made him know he’d been in a fight.”

  Tim’s smile disappeared. “I’ll tell you more about my acts of stupidity when we get out of this,” he said abruptly, thrusting his shirt toward her.

  On impulse, she caught his face in her hands and leaned forward to kiss him firmly.

  “Only if you want to,” she said when she pulled back. She pulled the shirt out of his hands and turned her mind to figuring out how best to use it as a wrap.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to tear it up,” she warned.

  “It’s just a shirt.”

  Without saying anything further, she set about tearing the t-shirt into strips, which she then wrapped tightly around his ankle. A few minutes later, she asked if he was ready to try standing up again.

  “Whether I am or not, I think I had better. Somehow, I don’t think Angelisa will balk at coming out here to try and find us.”

  Looking around, Janie saw Carmelita cropping grass a few dozen feet away, Roo not too far beyond her. What a stroke of luck. When she whistled, Carmelita trotted up, Roo following, although he didn’t come very close to the water’s edge.

  Janie pulled Tim to his feet again and helped him hobble over to Roo. They stood at the horse’s head, knowing they needed to take a moment to reestablish trust.

  “The flood waters spooked him,” she explained. “When you didn’t let go of the reins, he panicked. But given that he didn’t run back to the Homeplace, I’d say he’s feeling the horse equivalent of chagrin.”

  As if reinforcing her words, Roo nudged at Tim with his nose, and Tim reached up to scratch his cheeks. “It’s all right, fella,” he said. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

  Janie was a little concerned when Roo’s ears flicked to the side, but then she heard it, too...the sound of a motor in the distance.

  ⋘⋆⋙

  Tim heard the motor, too. Without more than a glance at Janie, he moved to Roo’s side and put his left foot in the stirrup, swinging up into the saddle. It was weird not having a boot on his right foot, but he didn’t think they had time to pick it up or anywhere to put it. Janie climbed up on Carmelita and pointed upstream.

  “We can’t risk leaving the river now. That’s where Mitzi will be looking for us. Keep talking to Roo. Doesn’t matter what you say. Just keep encouraging him. He’ll calm at the tone of your voice.”

  They headed upriver, keeping as far from the water as they dared without climbing the steeper hills above the banks. Tim knew that if they had to crest one of the taller hills, they could easily be seen if anyone happened to be looking in their direction.

  He fought the urge to call out to Janie, afraid to spook Roo again. There hadn’t been enough time for Mitzi to get there, so he knew the vehicle pursuing them was not the home team. He was desperately curious to know how Angelisa had found them.

  Leaning over Roo’s neck, he praised the beast for his courage, stroking his neck every so often as they ran. He watched the animal’s ears for signs of distress, and was happy to see the horse calm, allowing Tim to focus on moving across the hills as fast as possible.

  ⋘⋆⋙

  Angelisa hung on as the cowboy drove the ATV up and down the hills. He wasn’t moving as quickly as she liked, although she understood the need to track their quarry. Behind them, Rico and Bill rode two more ATVs, while Eddie followed in the SUV. She knew the biggest risk was getting the SUV
stuck and stranded out here—it was a city dweller’s idea of a “sport ute,” not a true off-road vehicle—but she hadn’t wanted to leave it at the ranch as a giveaway that they were there. She wanted to be able to ditch the ATVs once the deed was done and they reached a road.

  This was no longer an attempt to bring Tim back into the fold. It was now a cleanup job. Before she was done, there would be three corpses out on the prairie.

  It occurred to her that Tim might have called his sister, the cop, but she didn’t think there had been enough time for them to set up an ambush. She had done her research on the sheriff’s department and knew they didn’t have much in the way of resources. Only four deputies and the sheriff himself, and they would have all been at the fair. They had no air support of their own, and even if they called up the nearest search and rescue team, it would take hours for them to scramble.

  No, she should have time to find her lover and put a bullet in his head, then get away before anyone even got close.

  They crested a hill and saw the river rushing in all its muddy, flooded glory, and she smiled even as Kenny said, “They won’t get the horses to cross that.”

  “Which way did they go?”

  Kenny didn’t answer, just drove down into the trees at the water’s edge. Even Angelisa could see the hoof prints that churned the soft earth before turning left, upriver. Kenny turned to follow, and she waved to the others to fall in behind them.

  They didn’t have to go far before Kenny slowed the ATV again. To her surprise, he laughed.

  “The greenhorn fell off his horse!” he crowed, pointing out another spot where the ground was torn up, along with some flattened scrub bushes, and a single boot on the ground.

  “He’s hurt?”

  “I hope so, because then they’ll have to slow down.”

  “Do you know where they might be headed?”

  “Probably trying to find a way across the river. When they realize they won’t be able to, who knows what they’ll try. Janie grew up out here. She knows the land better than anyone. I can only track them, not outmaneuver them.”