Last of the Red-Hot Cowboys

by Tina Leonard

  “Because we weren’t invited to the after-party,” Trace said, and Ava thought he sounded patient—and dangerous. “The party that was set for after the sheriff took the noise-violation, busted-curfew call. You know, the real party, when the fun really cranked up.”

  Jake laughed, and squeezed Cameron against his side. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Trace. Hey, you ready for a swim, darling?”

  Cameron hesitated, and Ava noticed she glanced at Saint from the corner of her eyes. “Not yet.”

  “What’s the holdup?” Jake asked, nuzzling her neck, and Cameron rose and went to warm herself at the fire. Saint stared at her, and Ava could feel him practically devouring Cameron with his eyes.

  Ava’s gaze met Trace’s, and she thought she saw anger flash in him. But she didn’t know him well enough to know for certain, so she rearranged her beach towel so it was long enough for two and glanced back at him, an obvious silent invitation to come share the towel with her. After a moment, he brought a couple of beers over and sat beside her, and that caught the attention of the Horsemen.

  “Getting friendly, are we?” Buck asked Trace.

  “Pretty much,” Trace said.

  “I’m going for a swim,” Harper said suddenly. “I came here for a swim, and this party is a drag.”

  She headed to the pond, dropping her terry cover-up to the ground. Declan scrambled after her, as did Buck, and they all went off the dock about the same time.

  “This is bad,” Trace muttered to Ava. “Nothing good is going to come of this.”

  Ava nodded. “I know. Did we bring anything to drink besides beer?”

  “You don’t like beer?”

  “I’m too nervous to relax with a beer.”

  He chuckled and got up to retrieve a bottle from the cooler he’d brought. “Water.”

  “I’ll take it.” She opened it gratefully.

  “We can swim if you want.”

  “Maybe later. Thanks.”

  “Well, I’m going in,” Cameron said, with a dare-you glance at Saint, and she ran to dive off the pier. Jake laughed Saint’s way and went to join the party.

  “Great. Now I’m a third wheel,” Saint groused.

  “Not necessarily,” Ava said, “because we’re not spokes.”

  “We’re just enjoying the moon and cussing the Horsemen,” Trace said. “Let’s all try to relax and enjoy the perfect weather, and maybe Cameron will come to her senses tonight.”

  Cameron’s screams came to them by the fire, and Saint and Trace took off running toward the pond. Ava couldn’t see what was happening in the dark, so she hurried to the water’s edge, as Trace dragged Declan from the pond.

  “What the fuck?” Trace yelled at Jake and Buck. He laid Declan on the ground, rolling him onto his side. Declan spit out water, coughing, curling up in obvious pain.

  Ava knelt next to him. “Breathe, Declan. It’s okay, just relax and breathe.” She looked up at Trace. “What qualifies as Emergency Services in this town?”

  “He doesn’t need that,” Jake said, his tone the big wuss.

  “Call them anyway,” Ava commanded. “Lie still, Declan.”

  She rubbed his back, glancing at Trace. His expression was grim, dark by the light of the moon. Dangerous.

  “Declan, man,” Saint said. “Dude, what happened?”

  Declan lay very still, though he was breathing now and no longer coughing up water. Ava shivered, catching a sneaky look pass from Jake to Buck.

  “We’re going to head out,” Jake said. “This isn’t much of a party. Coming, Cameron?”

  Trace had dialed 9-1-1, was urgently talking to them. Cameron shook her head as she got out of the water and stood close to Harper under a towel. Harper stared down at Declan, her eyes huge and distressed. Ava wondered if her teammate even realized she had a little thing going for the big, handsome cowboy.

  “I’m staying here,” Cameron said.

  “Maybe the next date we go on you don’t bring along your friends,” Jake said, the inference clear that their big date had been messed up by interference from the Outlaws.

  Cameron looked stricken. Trace shoved his phone in his jeans and knelt by Declan. “You okay, man?”

  “Think so,” Declan whispered.

  Saint hovered near his friends, and Ava had a sudden snapshot that the three of them had been together for so long that they were a brotherhood of their own, a family that went beyond blood. She shivered, but not from the breeze blowing across the pond.

  There was going to be hell to pay once Trace figured out exactly what had happened to his buddy.

  * * *

  Ava heard a knock on the bungalow door late that night and flew to open it, relieved to see Trace outside. She dragged him to her room, telling herself she didn’t want to risk waking her teammates on the only day of the week they’d get to sleep in late. “What happened?”

  Trace sank onto her bed tiredly. “We took Declan to the hospital and they ran some tests. Thanks for taking the girls home, by the way.”

  She sat down next to him. “What did the hospital say?”

  “He definitely was drowning. Which is weird, because we all trained together. Declan’s a strong swimmer.” He looked at her. “He ingested some kind of drug. They’re testing it now.”

  “They slipped something into his beer?”

  “Pretty sure he was roofied.”

  Which would mean his central nervous system had taken a hit, and paralysis had set in. Ava’s gaze met Trace’s. “You don’t think the Horsemen were planning to roofy Cameron and Harper, do you?”

  “Hell, yes, I do.” Trace shrugged. “Whatever Declan drank, it really messed him up. Somebody much smaller than Declan would have been helpless.”

  Ava’s blood ran cold, colder than it ever had. “You said they were assholes, but I didn’t know you meant evil.”

  “Grade-A evil.” He lay back on her bed, exhausted. She thought she’d never seen so much handsome, sexy male stretched out in one place. She wanted to pull off his boots, and then the rest of his clothes, and crawl into his arms.

  “Cameron’s going to have to curtail her walk on the wild side. Harper, too.”

  “They’re not going to believe that they were nearly roofied,” Trace said.

  “Sure they will. Anyway, Harper can’t afford a problem like that, or her ex will bring a custody suit for her son.”

  “And Cameron?”

  “Cameron’s wild as a March hare,” Ava admitted, “but it’s not a harmful thing. She’s a serious rider, and she’s not out to hurt anyone.”

  “Just herself.”

  “She’s going to be so upset when she learns that Declan nearly drowned.” She looked at Trace, studying him. He wore a chambray denim shirt, blue as a robin’s egg, and well-worn jeans. His dark hair fell over his forehead.

  She moved her gaze lower, realized he was studying her as intently as she was him. “Can I get you a cup of tea? Something stronger?”

  He barely shook his head. “My blood is boiling. I’d better get home. I’m too mad to be good company.”

  But he didn’t move off her bed. He was dead, bone-tired, and if he couldn’t move, she wasn’t going to make him.

  Ava crawled up beside him, put her head on his shoulder, listening to his heart beat crazily inside his chest.

  “This is going to be a bumpy ride,” Trace said, and Ava smiled.

  “I’m good at those,” she said, and he buried his palm in the back of her jeans, tucking her up against him.

  This is heaven.

  Chapter Ten

  Trace was gone when Ava awakened the next morning, which was too incredibly bad, on the one hand.

  On the other, it would give her a chance to clear her head.

  Last night had been a disaster. She felt horrible for Declan. There was a text on her phone that Trace had left to check on Declan, since he’d been released from the hospital after several tests had been run.

  She called her mot
her, who was delighted to hear from her.

  “How’s it going?” Vera wanted to know. “Is it what you were hoping for? Let me get your father on the other phone,” she said, running over her own question. “Bob! Ava’s on the phone! Now, go ahead and tell me everything.”

  “It’s different,” Ava said. “I want to give it more of a chance before I make up my mind.”

  “That’s not a ringing endorsement,” Bob said.

  “No, but it’s not terrible, Dad.” It was so hard to explain how Hell worked. “I like it most of the time, and then sometimes, I wonder if I’ve bit off more than I can chew. Which is probably a normal way to feel in the beginning.”

  “Yes,” Vera said, “you wanted a challenge. So it’s good you’re getting it.”

  “Don’t you worry about a thing,” her father said. “My little girl can come home whenever she likes.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.” She didn’t want to say that that was the last thing she wanted. Life at the paper factory was never going to happen to her again, if she could stay focused, make the most of her opportunity.

  Not to mention that leaving Trace wasn’t something she wanted to do.

  But a hot cowboy wasn’t one of the reasons I came here.

  “How’s the family?” Ava asked, dismissing the broad-shouldered, sexy cowboy from her mind.

  “You know how it is around here,” Vera said. “It’s always a circus.”

  Her father laughed. “Most people want to join the circus. Some days your mother and I think we might run away from it.”

  Ava smiled. There was nothing her family liked better than the constant pandemonium of the Buchanan household. “I miss it. Sometimes. Not today, when it’s a quiet Sunday morning and I slept until nine.”

  “Nine o’clock!” Vera laughed. “You’d not do that around here.”

  “Nope,” Bob agreed. “Well, keep us posted, girlie. We expect to see you on TV one of these days, being a rodeo princess or something.”

  He hung up and Ava said, “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you, too. Now, listen, don’t you start borrowing trouble. You know you worry too much. If you like it there, you just look for the good. As long as you’re training hard, everything else will fall into place.”

  “I know. Bye, Mom.”

  “Keep your hands soft on the reins when you ride and everything else will come. Mind your posture.” Vera hung up, and Ava went into the kitchen to grab a snack.

  Harper and Cameron were waiting for her in the common room between the bedrooms and the kitchen, sitting on the navy-blue sofas and looking at her expectantly.

  “Tell us,” Harper said. “First, we saw Trace leaving this morning, which was a shocker, but then we realized he must have come to tell you something about Declan.”

  “Declan nearly drowned,” Ava said crossly, “because he got roofied.”

  “Roofied?” Cameron frowned.

  “Yes. He probably took a dose of what you were meant to get. Only because he followed you into the water, and the drug kicked in, he nearly died.”

  Cameron gasped. “That’s awful!”

  That was putting it mildly. Harper looked at Cameron. “That does it for me with the Horsemen.”

  Cameron blinked. “You don’t know that they did it.”

  Ava stared at her teammate. “Who else would have?”

  Cameron shrugged. “Listen, I’m not crazy about them. I’m not going out with Jake again, though I hope I get to go to another party at Ivy’s; it’s a lot less boring than Judy’s party was. But you don’t know that Buck or Jake did it.”

  Ava shook her head, remembering the sneaky glance that had passed between the Horsemen. “I have to go.”

  “Where?” Harper asked, sitting up.

  “I’m going into town. I want to go through the shops, and they’re only open from one to five today.”

  Harper scrambled to her feet. “Don’t leave without me, Ava.”

  “Fair warning, I’m stopping by to see Declan. I think he’s at Trace’s.”

  “Oh, good!” Harper hurried into her bedroom to get ready.

  “Do you ever get tired of being Miss Goody Two-Shoes?” Cameron asked Ava.

  “Are you coming or not?” Ava asked, grabbing a cup of coffee.

  Cameron took a deep breath. “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “Hiding here isn’t going to help, so get over it.”

  Her teammate’s shoulders slumped. “Ava, I’m sorry—”

  “Just get ready.”

  * * *

  Trace went to find the snakes where they lived—at Wild Jack’s. He strolled in unannounced, spotting Jake by a horse trough. No one else was around, so now was as good a time as any to have the discussion that needed to be had.

  He walked steadily, as he would during any other ambush when he wasn’t a civilian, and wrapped his arm around Jake’s neck. Jake struggled but couldn’t get loose, and Trace buried his head in the horse trough, holding Jake down to the count of fifty. He let Jake up, let him have a gasp of air, shoved him down again. One more time for good measure, then he tossed Jake to the ground. Jake lay in the dirt, rolling onto his back and staring up at the sky as he gasped for breath.

  “You bastard,” Jake sputtered.

  “That’s what my buddy felt like last night,” Trace said quietly. “Next time you decide to get cute, think long and hard about whether it’s worth it.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Jake muttered, rolling onto his side and coughing.

  “Something like that,” Trace said, and went searching for Buck. He found him in the dusty, run-down office, sipping a beer despite the early hour and watching a tiny TV. Grabbing Buck’s head, he dragged him over to a nail that was hanging out of the wall. “See that? Your eye is fixing to be wearing that. Where’s that roofy crap you put in my buddy’s beer?”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Buck gasped, trying to talk past Trace’s crushing of his larynx and realizing he was serious about impaling his eye.

  “You remember in three seconds or you wear an eye patch the rest of your life.”

  “In the office drawer!”

  He dragged Buck inside the office. “It better be the only thing you pull out or I’ll separate your head from your body.”

  Buck reached into the drawer, took something out. “Here!”

  “You nearly killed Declan.”

  “It was just a little fun. You guys are such assholes. You take our business, you want all the girls for yourselves.” Buck tried to twist around Trace’s arms but couldn’t loosen Trace’s choke hold.

  “I’m weeping for you, I really am. Drink it.”

  “No.”

  “It’s just a little fun, isn’t that what you said? You drink it, or I help you drink it. Those are your choices.”

  Buck slumped down. Drank it, all the while eying Trace balefully.

  “I can’t believe you were going to put that crap in a woman’s drink. It’s a new low, even for you Horsemen.” Trace told himself to go before he did some real damage. “If you ever pull a stunt like that on either of my partners again, I’ll be back here. Got that?”

  “You guys suck.” Buck wiped his mouth. “You think you’re royalty, the princes of Hell. But you’re not. You suck.”

  “Duly noted. Not that your opinion interests me.” He noticed Buck starting to look a little relaxed, a little punchy as he leaned against the wall. “Remember what I said.”

  He walked out, his steps measured, saw Jake staggering toward the back of the barn. But he was moving. Which was almost more than Declan had been able to do. Trace got into his truck and drove toward Declan’s before he really lost his cool.

  * * *

  When Trace walked into his house, Declan was in high spirits, with the three ladies sitting around him in the den. Trace nodded at Ava, Cameron, Harper, and Saint as he went by. “I’m going to change.”

  “Why are you all wet?” Declan asked, staring.

  “Coul
dn’t really tell you,” Trace said. “Guess it’s a hot day.”

  “Hot day my ass.” Saint followed him to his room. “It ain’t that hot. What have you been up to?”

  “No secrets!” Declan bawled from the living room. “If there’s a story, you bring it in here so we can all hear!”

  Trace sighed. “You guys don’t have to live hanging on to my bootstraps.”

  Saint laughed. “Yeah, we do. Come join the crowd. Ava’s going to whip us up something to eat, and it’ll be better than anything you’ll scrounge.”

  This was true. Trace showered quickly, telling himself that he wasn’t hurrying because of Ava’s big green eyes and the smile she’d flashed him when he walked in the door.

  Yeah, a man could get very used to that smile waiting on him.

  He shook his head and jumped in his clothes, joined the gathering.

  Declan looked at him accusingly. “You don’t have to tell us. We already know.”

  “That fast?” Trace slumped into the leather sofa, as far away from Ava as he could get. He wanted almost no distance between them, but he figured it’d be best to let her send him some welcoming smoke signals. “So what happened?”

  “You went to the Horsemen for payback,” Declan said. “You tried to drown Jake, and Buck’s not going to be right for hours. His tongue is all twisted and he’s practically sobbing in his paralyzed state.”

  “Damn me if I don’t feel the slightest bit of sympathy,” Trace said, feeling very cheerful upon hearing that good news. “So, what’s for lunch?”

  They all stared at him. “What?”

  “You can’t do that, man. You can’t go all Rambo without telling us.” Saint looked at him, displeased.

  “I can’t do it without telling you, or including you?” Trace pushed his hat back, lounging with his arms atop the sofa. “Anyway, who called to tattle?”

  “Jake called Cameron to give her his side of the story,” Declan said.

  “What a rat fink bastard.” Trace shook his head. “Crying to the woman he was going to drug. That just about tops it.”

  “Just the same,” Saint said, “you can’t do that again. You have to take us with you next time. We work as a team.”