Back on Bittercreek Ranch

by RaeAnne Thayne

  She wasn’t sure what had happened and she didn’t really care. Consumed by a terrible grief, she couldn’t seem to move from her spot, kneeling there by the sofa. Let Djami finish the job. Her survival instincts seemed to have abandoned her.

  Two men she loved—two wonderful, honorable men—had died trying to save her and she couldn’t bear it. First Harry, now Mason. They both should have just let her die—she wasn’t worth their sacrifice.

  She let out one sobbing breath and screwed her eyes shut, waiting for Djami to kill her. She couldn’t bear the idea of having to live with this horrible pain and loss.

  “Janie? You still with me?”

  “Shut up, Harry,” she muttered wearily.

  A long silence met her words, then a slightly disgruntled voice asked, “Who the hell is Harry?”

  CHAPTER 17

  She frowned. That certainly sounded like Mason’s voice. Wonderful. Now she had two dead men in her head.

  Behind her she heard rustling and then a grunt. Was Djami coming after her again? She lifted her head and turned slowly, warily. Her fear disappeared in a rush as shock and joy poured over her.

  It wasn’t Djami moving around—it was Mason! He sat six feet away, pale and pressing a blood-soaked shoulder with a hand that still held a small revolver.

  She had never seen a more wonderful sight.

  “You’re alive!” she exclaimed and launched herself at him. With another grunt, he landed on his rear end.

  “For now,” he muttered, but his arm slid around her and pulled her tight.

  “You came for me. Just like before, you came for me.”

  Mason had to close his eyes against the guilt and pain. If he had trusted her in the first place, she never would have been in this situation. He could have protected her, could have concealed her from the men Djami sent for her. She would have been safe at the Bittercreek right now, where she belonged, instead of battered and bleeding in the middle of this gruesome scene.

  He would never forget the icy fear in his gut when he had burst through that door and seen her on her knees with Djami’s blade poised above her head. All his years of training, both in the Rangers and after, flew out the window and he had acted entirely out of fury. If he’d been thinking, he never would have started firing so indiscriminately.

  She easily could have been killed in the crossfire. Another brick of guilt to add to his burden.

  “Sorry it took so long,” he murmured. He finally had a clear view of her swollen face and in that moment he forgot about the mistakes he’d made. He would have killed Djami all over again if the bastard wasn’t already dead. Blood dripped from a cracked lip and her face bore the clear print of a man’s hand.

  “I should have trusted you,” he murmured. “I should have trusted my instincts about you. Should have trusted my heart.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.” She pressed her battered cheek to his and he couldn’t seem to breathe around the tenderness soaking through him, filling all the dark and empty places inside him with joy.

  He couldn’t help himself, he kissed her—a quick, fierce kiss of celebration that they had both survived.

  In that moment, he heard voices in the doorway. He barely had time to wrench his mouth away and move in front of Jane, his Ruger in his uninjured hand, before a half dozen men poured into the room, Cale Davis leading the way.

  They stood inside the room, surveying the carnage. Djami wasn’t moving but both guards had started to moan. Shattered glass and shell casings were everywhere.

  “Nothing like leaving a mess for us to clean up,” Cale said dryly. “I guess you found her.”

  Mason let his weapon fall, sick again remembering how he’d found her, kneeling and helpless. “Yeah. Just in time. See that nasty blade embedded in the couch? When I walked into the party, Djami had it poised over her neck. If I’d been thirty seconds later, I would have been too late.”

  She shuddered against his back and though his shoulder hurt like a son of a bitch, he pulled her back into his arms. He couldn’t seem to stop touching her. He wondered if he ever would.

  “Ah. That explains a little of the mess. Shoot first, ask questions later?”

  “Something like that. Jane Withington, this is Cale Davis, your friendly neighborhood FBI agent.”

  She stiffened and he remembered she had little reason to trust FBI agents.

  “He’s one of the good guys,” Mason assured her and she relaxed. He had to swallow, amazed that she could trust him so completely after he hadn’t had the courage to do the same with her.

  Cale smiled. “A pleasure, ma’am.”

  “I’m counting three tangoes here, one dead and two injured,” one of the other agents said.

  “Djami?” Mason asked.

  Cale shook his head and Mason felt Jane shudder again.

  “There’s one more in the bushes out front,” he said, starting to feel a little woozy.

  “Yeah, we found that one. He was just coming around when we pulled up.” Cale grinned. “You’re one hell of a fighter, Keller. Are you really sure you’re ready to retire?”

  He thought of Charlie and Miriam and had a fierce wish to see them, to hold them and make sure they were safe. “Yeah,” he murmured, suddenly more exhausted than he’d ever been. “I’m done.”

  As if from a great distance, he heard Cale make some comment about quitting while he was ahead and going out with a bang. He barely heard him, focusing all his efforts on holding tight to Jane. He couldn’t let her go, even though it was taking everything he had.

  Hold on.

  It was the last thought he had for a while.

  * * *

  His cover was blown and he was being tortured.

  They were jabbing needles in his arm, tying him down and blowing poison air into his face.

  Jane. He had to save Jane. He started fighting, desperate to be free.

  “Easy. You’re okay. Easy.”

  He blinked away the wooziness and found that he was being tortured but it wasn’t by any terrorist cell. He was on a stretcher, with medics bustling around him, an IV in his arm and an oxygen mask over his face.

  He pulled the thing away, hating that sensation of dry air being forced into his lungs.

  “Jane?”

  “I’m here.” She gripped his left hand.

  “What happened?”

  “One moment you were with us, the next you weren’t.”

  “I fainted,” he said in disgust.

  “You passed out,” she corrected. “The medics said you’ve lost a great deal of blood. They seemed to think it was amazing you made it as long as you did.”

  He looked at the activity around him and realized they were preparing to load him into a waiting ambulance. He had no idea how long he’d been out but it had to have been at least fifteen minutes or so.

  “Well, this is embarrassing.”

  She smiled a little, then winced; the movement must have pulled at her swollen face. “You’re going to be all right. They’ve managed to stop the bleeding for now, but they’re likely going to have to operate to remove the bullet and repair the damage. They’re taking you to a hospital in Salt Lake.”

  He wanted to lie here and just listen to that sexy proper voice for a few years but there was something important he had to remember. It came to him suddenly and he frowned. “What about the kids?”

  “I’ve already rung Pam and given her the shortened version of what’s happened. She’s fine with the children staying there as long as you need.”

  “And you? How are you?”

  She gave another of those lopsided smiles. “A few stitches and a little ice and I should be right as rain.”

  A paramedic stepped forward, a burly man with no hair and a handlebar mustache. “We need to load you up now.”

  “Do we have to? I hate hospitals,” he muttered.

  Jane laughed a little. “It’s only a few days. I’m sure you’ll muddle through.”

  A second p
aramedic and a couple of men he recognized as FBI agents moved up to load the stretcher into the back of the waiting ambulance.

  “Wait a minute, please,” Jane said.

  She laid her cheek to his, then kissed him softly on the mouth. “Thank you, Mason, for what you did back there.”

  I love you. He thought the words, but the time didn’t seem right to say them aloud, even if he could get his throat to work past the lump in it.

  Later. He would tell her when she came to the hospital.

  He eased back onto the stretcher and didn’t even complain when the medics shoved the oxygen back on his face, his mind full of extremely pleasant images of Jane pulled to the side of his bed, holding his hand and reading to him in that delicious voice.

  * * *

  She didn’t come to the hospital.

  Twenty-four hours later, Mason was going crazy with worry. He thought maybe she’d gone back to the ranch for some much-needed rest but when Pam brought the children to see him earlier in the afternoon, she said she hadn’t heard a word from Jane and hadn’t been able to find out where she might be.

  When they left a half hour later, even Charlie seemed more subdued than usual and Miriam just looked at him in disappointment because he hadn’t kept his promise to bring Jane back to the Bittercreek.

  He couldn’t seem to get through to anyone who would tell him anything. Finally he managed to reach Cale’s cell phone.

  “Hey, how are you?” the agent said. “I called to check on you in the night and they said the surgery went well but you were still in recovery and couldn’t talk. I’ve been meaning to call all day but things have been crazy around here today. With the files we found on Djami’s laptop, we’ve cracked the VLF wide open. There are some mighty happy people in the crowd you used to hang with right about now.”

  “Where the hell is Jane?” Mason cut in.

  A prolonged silence met his question, then Cale hissed out a curse. “You mean nobody told you?”

  He could swear his heart stopped but the monitor beside his bed continued blipping. “Told me what?”

  “I’m sorry, man. I should have thought to let you know. She’s been in FBI custody since yesterday.”

  “In custody? What do you mean in custody?”

  “We had no choice, Mason. You know that. The evidence against her was overwhelming. We couldn’t just let her walk away.”

  “The evidence against her is complete bullshit!” He thought of his sweet Jane in jail, frightened and alone while he lounged around here, and had to fight the urge to toss the phone through the window.

  “I know that and you know that. But we had to follow proper procedure to make sure. You’ll be happy to know she’s in the clear, though,” Cale went on. “Our computer guys found nothing on Djami’s laptop to link her to the plot or the group and one of the men you shot yesterday came clean and confessed he helped Djami plant the evidence against her to discredit her.”

  “So where is she now?”

  “I don’t know. We had no more reason to hold her so she was released.”

  “When?”

  “About a half hour ago. I’m sorry. I thought she would have called you from the holding facility.”

  Why didn’t she? he wondered, hurt and confused. Didn’t she think he would want to know? And if she wasn’t in FBI custody anymore, where had she gone?

  He was damn well going to find out. He ended the call to Cale and slid out of bed, ignoring the ache in his shoulder and the slight wooziness in his head from the pain meds they shoved into his IV.

  Ten minutes later, he had managed to pull his jeans on one-handed but he realized he was going to need help with his shirt, starting with removing the IV.

  He pushed the nurse call button, then sat on the bed to shove on his boots. He was still working at it, chagrined at the sweat beading on his upper lip, when he heard the quiet whoosh of the door opening.

  “I’m done with this,” he growled to the nurse without looking up. “I need you to take out this damn IV or I’ll yank it out myself.”

  A startled silence met his demand and then his visitor spoke. “I can certainly try. But don’t you think you’d rather have a nurse?”

  That voice. That wonderful, sexy voice. He lifted his gaze and found Jane standing in the doorway, looking small and delicate in a dark-blue business suit. Her eyes were shadowed and her face still swollen and bruised, but she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

  He felt like his world was finally right again.

  She was blushing, he realized, and he wondered why until he realized she was staring at his still-bare chest.

  She cleared her throat and lifted her gaze to his. “Um, where are you off to in such a hurry?”

  “Looking for you.”

  Jane barely heard him, too fascinated by all those rippling muscles. Good heavens. When she finally registered his words, she could only stare at him.

  “Looking for me? Why?”

  “Maybe because I had no idea where the hell you were. Why didn’t you tell me they were detaining you? Didn’t you think I’d wonder why you didn’t show up here at the hospital?”

  “I didn’t want to worry you. You had enough to deal with here and you needed your strength to recover from your injury. There was nothing you could have done to expedite matters, anyway.”

  She had to admit, even knowing he couldn’t have changed things, she would have dearly loved to have him with her during her ordeal in FBI custody.

  It was a nightmare she never wanted to repeat—the long hours of questioning, the utter exhaustion, trying to keep things straight in her mind when all she wanted to do was rush to Mason’s side and make sure he was all right.

  “I was worried about you.”

  His voice was low, intense, and she felt her last ounce of strength trickle away. The long night of worry and strain finally caught up with her.

  “I’ve been such a bother to you. I’m so sorry.” To her dismay, she started to cry and couldn’t seem to stop.

  Mason stood and crossed the room, then pulled her into his arms, bare chest, sling and all. She settled against him, careful of his injured shoulder.

  “You have been a trial,” he said. “I haven’t been shot over too many women before.”

  She made a sound that was half sob, half laugh. “You’re not making me feel better!”

  “That’s funny.” He grinned suddenly and the sight took her breath away. “I’m suddenly feeling a hell of a lot better.”

  She had no idea what to say to that so she just decided to enjoy the moment, soaking in his heat and his strength.

  “You should have let me know what was going on. I’ve been out of my head wondering why you didn’t call or come by or anything.”

  She sniffled one last time then pulled away just long enough to grab a tissue from the box on his bedside table.

  “I had to do this myself, Mason,” she said after she’d wiped her eyes. “For once, I had to handle things on my own to prove that I could.”

  She gave him a shaky smile. “I believe I’ve finally convinced anyone who would listen that I’m not a terrorist.”

  “I’m sure that’s a relief.”

  He leaned forward and she held her breath, certain he was going to kiss her, but before he could the door opened and a round, cheerful-looking nurse in flowered surgical scrubs came into the room.

  “You buzzed, I think. Sorry it took me a moment to get to you. We had a crisis down the hall. Is everything okay?”

  Mason stepped away from Jane and she shivered. “I’m ready to get out of here. Can you take the IV out?”

  “Tired of us already, are you? Your orders say maybe tomorrow so I’m afraid I’m going to have to talk to the doctor about that, Mr. Keller. Why don’t I check your vitals while I’m here and then I’ll go call your doctor and get back to you?”

  Mason looked vaguely embarrassed. “Do you have to?”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

&nbs
p; While she hooked up a blood pressure cuff, Jane retreated to the armchair in the room, wondering if she ought to leave.

  “Everything looks good,” the nurse said after a moment. “Your heart rate’s a little accelerated but that’s all. You haven’t been doing jumping jacks in here, have you?”

  “No,” Mason said.

  Jane wondered at his abrupt tone, until she remembered what they’d been about to do when the nurse came in. He’d been about to kiss her—could that have raised his heart rate? She had to admit, she found the idea intriguing.

  The nurse punched the stats into the computer by his bedside, then walked out of the room with a promise to come back after she’d talked to the doctor. She left a slightly awkward silence in her wake.

  “So what are your plans now that you’re a free woman?” Mason asked after the nurse left.

  Jane looked down at her hands, already dreading the future. “I’m not sure. I suppose I’ll go back to London and…and try to put all this behind me.”

  He said nothing for so long that she finally lifted her gaze to his. She found him watching her closely, an odd expression in his eyes that made her insides flutter.

  “Or you could stay.”

  She stared at him, unsure what to say.

  “I know two children who will be very unhappy to see you leave,” he said, then paused. “And so will I.”

  She swallowed, her heart pounding so loudly she was certain he must hear it. “Mason—”

  “I understand that your life is there, but I don’t want you to go.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have a life in London. Not really. A few friends, a flat I don’t particularly care for, a job I can live without. I realized since my memory returned yesterday that I’ve been hiding out from life. I don’t take any risks, I don’t try anything new. I go to work, I come home and that’s about the extent of it.”

  “So you won’t be missing much if you come back to the Bittercreek with me.”

  She curled her hands together, stunned that he would ask after all she had put him through. She wanted to—oh, how she wanted to—but at the same time, she had come to a sad realization while she’d been in that holding cell.