She glanced at the barn. Back at Tate. “I don’t want to waste our time—”
“We’re wasting time standing here arguing.” He turned, as if he didn’t care if she followed him, and stalked back toward the barn.
Fine. She caught up to him and walked in silence to the barn.
The side door was unlocked, and Tate took out his phone and flicked on the flashlight. They’d entered at the far end of the barn, where they kept the bulls, and the odor of bovine flesh, manure, and the earthy scent of hay and straw rose around her.
“Reminds me of my grandfather’s place,” she said quietly.
“Farmer?”
“Owner. Thoroughbreds. In Tennessee.”
He glanced at her, gave her a look she couldn’t read. “Really.”
“Yes. Listen, Dr. Phil, there are too many layers here for you to dissect, so don’t try. Let’s just find my friend.”
His eyes narrowed, as if he might be up for the challenge, and shoot, but that little stir of something forbidden only took hold.
No. Tate Marshall was absolutely the last, very last person she should let into her life.
But oh, her mother would hate him.
“It smells like our barn too. My brother breeds bucking bulls for the Marshall Triple M. In fact, one of our bulls was in the arena tonight.” He was shining his light into the stalls. A few thousand-pound-plus bulls lay in repose, hulking bodies heaving in slumber. A few raised horned heads and considered them with glassy eyes.
A handful of the pens were empty but filled with fresh straw.
He stopped at an intersection. “Hot Pete is housed down here.” He shot his light down to the end of the row.
A door stood open, and the light landed on a figure sitting in the fresh straw, her legs drawn up, her head in her arms.
“Kelsey,” Glo said and touched Tate’s arm. “Stay here.”
“Aye, aye, boss.”
She ignored him and headed down the aisle. She noticed he didn’t exactly obey her, coming up behind her to shine the light on Kelsey.
Who raised her head, her eyes wide. Her gaze flickered past Glo to Tate, then back.
“Hey,” Glo said softly, crouching. “How’re you doing? I was worried.”
Kelsey leaned her head back against the wooden slats of the pen. “Sorry. I just had to get out of there. So much…”
“I get it.” Glo came into the pen, searched for a cow pie, but found the straw fresh. She kneeled before Kelsey.
“I don’t know why I came here. I used to go to the barn when…well, before. When I was a kid, and it was just instinct, I guess.”
“Tate said you came here last night.”
Kelsey glanced at him standing a few feet away, holding the light down to puddle on the dirt floor. “Tate?”
“Knox’s brother. He was working security. Helped pull you out tonight?”
“Right.” She nodded at him. “Hey.”
He lifted his head in return, his mouth a tight line.
“Knox was worried about you,” Glo said. “And sent Tate to find you.”
Kelsey closed her eyes. Shook her head. “I can’t bear to see him again. It was awful, Glo. I just…I completely freaked out. You’d think I hadn’t had a minute of counseling. I was fourteen, stuck—”
Glo touched her arm. “Don’t. You’re fine. Safe.”
Kelsey slid her hand over Glo’s.
“But it’s also completely normal to be shaken up when a freakin’ building blows up around you!”
Kelsey met her eyes. Swallowed. Nodded.
“But you’re okay, right?”
Kelsey kept nodding. “I wouldn’t be if Knox hadn’t caught me, but—how is he? He was cut—”
“He’ll be fine,” Tate said and took another step closer. “He’s on his way to the hospital, but he wanted to see you.”
“No.” She made a wry face. “No. I’m too…” She looked at Glo. “We need to get back on the road. To our next gig.”
“It’s a week away. I think we can take our time—even cancel.”
“No!”
Glo jerked at her response.
Kelsey held up her hand. “Sorry. We just…let’s just get out of here. Put this behind us.”
Run. The word pulsed in Glo’s head, but she didn’t voice it. Because maybe yes, for tonight, go. Get someplace safe.
Then they could all take a breath, figure out their next move.
“Listen, I hate to butt in, but really, Knox needs to know you’re okay—” Tate came up to the stall. “He’s really worried.”
“I know. I’m sorry, but…” Kelsey looked at Tate now, pushing herself up. “Knox was amazing. Sweet and yeah, I’ve been sitting here for the last hour remembering him singing to Hot Pete. It helped. He probably saved my life tonight.” She reached up and pulled the feathers, now stripped and grimy, from her hair. She dropped them into the stall. “But he’s just a reminder of…” She shook her head and met Glo’s eyes. “I just need to forget this entire weekend.”
“Okay,” Glo said, taking Kelsey’s hand.
Kelsey turned to Tate. “I’m sorry, Tate. I don’t want to see him. But tell him thank you.”
She squeezed Glo’s hand, then let go and headed out of the stall, past Tate.
Glo followed her but stopped in front of Tate. “Thanks—”
He touched her arm, softly, but with enough strength in it for her to hear him. “Let me help. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m pretty good at reading people, and your friend—and you—are probably suffering from a little PTSD. I could run security for you, make sure that nothing like this happens again.”
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s a pretty bold statement—”
“I mean it. I used to protect some fairly important people with targets on their backs, and they’re still alive, so…I’d like to help.”
Something sarcastic, along the lines of I’ll bet you would, entered her brain, but the earnestness in his blue eyes simply shut it down.
And she fought the crazy urge to nod.
Especially when he added, “I’m good at what I do. Ask around. Look me up, Glo.”
Not honey, not sweetheart. Her name on his lips found its way under her skin, held her hostage for a long moment.
Then, “Okay, Kevin Costner, give me your number. We’ll see if you’re as good as you say.”
He let her go, but smiled, something dangerous entering his expression. “That’ll do. For now.”
Kelsey wasn’t okay, and no amount of texts from Tate was going to convince Knox otherwise.
Knox lay on a gurney at Methodist Hospital, bare chested, his right arm up over his head while some third-year female intern stitched up the slice that had cut into his artery. The flash of dark, bone-deep pain had rendered him a little light-headed for a bit as Kelsey hung from his grip between floors.
But he wasn’t going to let go, no matter how many shadows crossed his vision.
I’m going to get you out of this. Knox had made that promise, and now it practically thundered in his head, a drumbeat keeping time with his pulse.
He checked his phone again. He’d texted Tate back, a voice-to-text that came out awkwardly spelled and said something like Tell her I’m gonna finer.
Close enough. Because the second he got off this table, he was headed back to the arena to track down her tour bus.
Then he was going to pull her into his arms and tell her that she was safe. That he would make sure of it. Because he’d seen the look on her face—the one after the world had erupted. Knew in that moment what he was asking of her when he’d begged for her help.
Knox remembered how it felt to have something sit inside you, a darkness waiting to tug you down, pull you from your foundations. The panic when it had its way with you.
He also knew what it took to climb out of that darkness, find yourself, and care about the people around you.
Kelsey had no doubt reached way past herself to help him get little Tori
to safety.
Or maybe she’d simply put on a mask, like the one she wore while performing.
And because Knox couldn’t go anywhere, because he was trapped under the ministrations of the dark-haired intern trying to sew him back together, Knox closed his eyes and allowed himself a minute to remember Kelsey onstage.
Let himself sink into the way she’d reached into his heart and sparked to life something he thought he’d long buried. Intrigue, admiration, maybe even desire.
He might not have recognized the woman he’d met the night before except for her sweet ballad. She possessed a Karen Carpenter kind of alto, something deep and honest that wheedled inside him, made a home. Especially when she’d wrapped her hands around the mic, stared out into the audience as if finding just one, and poured out her heart.
He’d wanted to believe she might be singing just to him.
I’m too young to fall in love again, but he said try…
Under the lights, her long sable hair had shone, exotic with the twin feathers, and in her cutoff shorts, her long shapely legs clad in black hosiery, the brown v-necked NBR-X T-shirt, she looked like a hometown girl who might say yes to a ride in his truck. Or maybe on Duncan, his old quarter horse.
Yeah, Knox fooled himself into that fantasy as he watched her sing, almost gave in to a crazy urge to tear up as her song ended.
So wait…for one true heart…one true heart…
Yes, the Kelsey he’d seen onstage had rocked his world.
And coupled with the Kelsey he rode with on the Ferris wheel last night at the carnival… Knox had walked backstage with the intent of sticking around, seeing if he could earn more than a Thank you for being safe.
Safe and…well, not old.
“Just a couple more, Mr. Marshall,” the intern said. She wore the name S. Garcia on her badge.
They were in a cubicle with hanging cloth walls, other survivors of the explosion who needed attention in the stalls beside him. Just a handful.
They’d been remarkably lucky. Knox was still trying to puzzle it all together—how Tate had found him, how no one else had been seriously hurt. Thank You, God.
In his gut Knox knew—like he knew how to spot a good bucker, knew when the weather would shift, when a cow would birth, and when his brothers got in over their heads—that Kelsey wasn’t okay.
No matter what Tate said.
Garcia, the intern, took out a gauze pad and affixed it to the wound. Was cutting off tape when the curtain slid back.
Honestly, Knox expected Tate. So the sight of two men in suits had him frowning. They glanced at the woman, and one flashed a badge.
Local PD investigators.
“Knox Marshall?” said one of the men, a real cowboy type, lean and wearing a white Stetson, the Lone Ranger with dark hair and a tough cut of his jaw.
“Yeah,” Knox said, starting to sit up.
“Hey, hey, I’m not done yet,” Garcia said and put a hand on his chest. “Almost. Just settle down.”
Knox lay back down.
“Detective Torres,” said Lone Ranger. “We’re just here to see if you can identify a man we think might be connected to tonight’s events.”
“The bomber?”
The man behind Torres held up his hand, a blond with wide shoulders and wearing a tie. “Not necessarily, but we were wondering if you might have seen him backstage, perhaps right before the incident?”
“You mean the explosion? Was anyone seriously hurt?”
“No,” Torres said. “Just some animals.”
Animals.
But Knox didn’t have time to consider further because Torres pulled out his phone. Held up a picture on the screen. “You recognize this man?”
Knox took the phone. Stared at the photo, clearly from some security camera, of a balding man standing near two other men at a bar in the arena.
“No,” he said.
“Look closely. He was one of the rodeo clowns. Didn’t show up for the final show.”
“So, maybe he was sick, or injured—”
“He was seen by one of our security guards entering the lower level a few minutes before the blast went off.”
“Maybe he was checking on the stock.” Knox took another look.
Stopped. Wait. He widened the picture, scrolled over. One man, with gauged ears, stood with his back to the camera, but a port-wine stain extended out of his collar, wound around his neck. Knox scrolled to the other one. He stood beside his friend, slightly turned, looking over at the suspect.
If he looked closely, the shadow of a tattoo, maybe. Flames.
“I don’t know him, but this one is familiar,” he said, handing the phone back. “I saw him last night in the beer tent.”
“We are questioning them. But they’re just a couple cowboys. One of them is the son of the local mayor.”
“What are they doing talking to the bomber?”
“Not the bomber,” said Blondie.
Garcia finished wrapping his arm. “Take it easy with this,” she said as she helped Knox sit up.
The world turned a little wobbly, and he gripped the side of the gurney. Took a breath.
He met Blondie’s gaze. “Maybe. But maybe they know something about him.”
Torres took his phone, examined the picture. “It doesn’t look like they’re with him.”
“Whatever. Listen, can I go?” Knox made to slide off the gurney.
His legs buckled.
He grabbed the table. Torres grabbed his other arm.
“You okay there, pal?”
Oh. Now he felt like an idiot. He shook Torres off. “Long night.”
The intern had come around the table and now pressed him back onto the gurney. Grabbed the blood pressure cuff. “Let’s just take a look.”
“We’ll be in touch if we have any more questions,” Torres said and turned to go.
“Wait—you really think that’s the guy?” Knox said as the intern strapped his arm.
Torres stopped at the curtain, looked at Knox. “That would sure be easy, wouldn’t it?” He left as the intern finished taking his pressure.
“It’s a little low, Mr. Marshall. I’m going to ask you to stick around. Would hate to have you pass out and wreck all my stitches.” She smiled, winked.
Hello…flirting. At least, if he were reading her right.
Maybe he wasn’t quite as old as Kelsey made him out to be.
But now he was back to worrying about Kelsey, and he pulled out his phone. Voice-texted Tate. “Where are you?”
“I’m going to get you some orange juice,” Garcia said. She patted his leg and left him alone in the bay.
The text came back. On my way.
Knox hoped that meant with Kelsey. Maybe she was actually here, and he should just get up and—
Yeah. Enough sitting around like some pansy. He sat up, and his head didn’t swim. Stood.
See, he was just fine.
He cast back the curtain.
Nearly smacked full into Tate.
“Whoa—!” Tate said. “Hey there.” Tate grabbed him by the shoulders. “Bro. What’s going on?” He pushed Knox back into the room.
Knox noticed his brother had donned a new shirt, something a couple sizes too small. Of course. “Did you find Kelsey?”
“Absolutely,” Tate said. He guided him to the gurney. “Take a load off.”
Knox brushed Tate’s hand away. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah you are. You look like you’ve been trampled by a bull. How much blood did you lose?”
“Not that much. I’m fine. Let’s get out of here—I want to see Kelsey.” Knox made to push past Tate, but his brother stiff-armed him.
“Rein it in, Knox. Just…”
And then Tate looked away.
Oh, he could read his brother like he could the sky. “What?”
He made a face as he glanced back to Knox. “She doesn’t want to see you.”
Knox tried to process that information. “No. What? Why?”
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Tate’s shoulders rose and fell. “She’s pretty upset about what went down tonight. I’m not exactly sure what she meant, but she said something about completely freaking out—”
“We were nearly buried to death. We were all freaking out!”
But Tate held up his hands as if he had nothing to add.
“That’s just stupid,” Knox said and again tried to push past Tate. And would have if, yeah, he hadn’t lost a pint or two of blood. And maybe Tate had filled out a bit over the past couple years, apparently taking seriously his gig as a security for some Vegas casino.
“No,” Tate said and met his eyes.
Still, in that moment, Knox gave serious consideration to taking his little brother down. Except he probably would open a stitch or two, and who knew if he would be the one getting back up.
Instead he took a breath and slumped onto the gurney. “I don’t get it. I just—”
“Want to help? Yeah, bro, you did that. You got her out of there. I tried to tell her that you wanted to see her, but she was pretty gung ho about leaving town, pronto.”
“She’s leaving town?”
“Sorry. I think they’re all just trying to figure out what to do next. Probably suffering from a little PTSD—”
“Which is why I want to see her!”
“C’mon, bro. You can’t fix her.”
“I promised that I’d keep her safe. Get her out of this mess.”
“And you did. She called you sweet. Said you saved her. But also that you’re just a reminder of the explosion.”
Oh. And then he got it.
She was embarrassed. Stupidly, unnecessarily embarrassed.
He closed his eyes. And he was a reminder to her of whatever had her running.
So much for being safe.
The steps sounded behind Tate, and he looked up, expecting to see Garcia.
Rafe Noble appeared. His face was drawn, his eyes reddened.
“Rafe!” Knox’s voice turned Tate around. “How’s Tori?”
Rafe came in, breathed out hard. Shook his head, and his eyes filled despite his gritted jaw.
And for a moment, Knox’s gut dropped. No—
“Alive, thanks to you, Knox.” Rafe held out his hand, his eyes fierce on Knox’s.
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