Shades of a Desperado

by Sharon Sala

  “Esther, this is the man who witnessed Paul and Sally’s wreck. He called it in and stayed with them until we got there.” An odd look passed between Charlie and Boone, as if neither of them could believe they were still talking to each other. “Boone MacDonald, isn’t it?” Charlie asked.

  Wordlessly Boone nodded.

  Esther Worlie looked back at Boone, seeing him in a whole other light. A dark red flush spread over her face.

  “Why...I had no idea,” she muttered, then looked down at her granddaughter, who was cowering behind her leg. “Come here, Melissa, it’s all right.” When the child didn’t budge, she bent down and picked her up. “I guess I scared her,” she said. “It doesn’t take much these days to set her off.”

  Boone hurt for the fear on the little girl’s face. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said softly. “I hope Punkin’s mother is doing all right.”

  Esther looked even more surprised by Boone’s use of her granddaughter’s nickname than by his concern for her daughter’s well-being.

  “Why, yes, she is...thank you.”

  Boone needed to get away. This conversation was becoming dangerous. It was too congenial—too ordinary—for a man like him to be having.

  “I guess I’ll get my motor oil another day,” he said quietly, and started to walk away when Esther Worlie stopped him.

  “Mr. MacDonald?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “You called my granddaughter Punkin.”

  He frowned. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “That was what Paul called her. No one else in the family ever calls her that.” She looked at her granddaughter again, hesitant about how much to say in front of the child. “How did you know?” she asked. “I mean... Paul was already...”

  Suddenly Boone understood. Her daughter had been unconscious. Her son-in-law dead. Who’d told him?

  Boone ran his hand over the top of the little girl’s head, gently tousling the abundant and unruly curls.

  “I asked this pretty thing her name... and she told me, didn’t you, Punkin?”

  Esther Worlie’s face fell. Her eyes teared, and her lips began to tremble. “She told you her name was Punkin?”

  Boone nodded. “Yes, ma’am, she did. I guess the wreck cost her more than a daddy, didn’t it? If no one ever calls her Punkin anymore, then she lost her identity, as well.”

  Esther Worlie had a lot to consider as she walked away with her grandchild in her arms.

  Boone watched until they disappeared in the crowd, then turned to Charlie, who’d remained a silent bystander during the odd conversation. Boone’s eyes narrowed as he studied the intent expression on the man’s face.

  “I owe you,” Boone said.

  Charlie shrugged. “One of these days I’ll collect.”

  There was too much tension between them for Boone to stay any longer. “I’m out of here,” he said, and walked away.

  Chapter 14

  Although Boone was nowhere in sight, Agent B. J. Wayland wasn’t bashful. He wasted no time in checking his old friend’s messages. He’d been sent to find him and bring him out, and that wouldn’t happen unless he knew where he’d gone.

  A cockroach scuttled across the floor beside his tennis shoe as he considered his options. He stepped on the bug and replayed the message.

  “Boone, Denver says come on over around eight. He’s got someone he wants you to meet.”

  B.J. checked his watch and frowned. It was five minutes until eight. Having been briefed on the situation, he knew all about Denver Cherry, as well as his cohorts. He took a cell phone out of his jacket pocket and made a call.

  “Captain, he’s not here, but there’s a message on his machine that leads me to think something’s about to go down. Didn’t you tell me he’s never met the man behind the scenes?”

  “That’s right,” Susan Cross said.

  “I think he’s about to,” B.J. said.

  “Do you know where?”

  “Denver Cherry’s... I think.”

  “You have the location,” Susan said. “Get over there now. From the way Boone was talking earlier today, I think he expects trouble.”

  Wayland grinned. “Want me to go in shooting or wait for someone else to fire the first shot?”

  Susan rolled her eyes. “You hotshots are all alike. You know the routine. I’m sending down backup...just in case. They’ll have your number. You coordinate.”

  “All right,” Wayland said.

  “And, Wayland...”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “Just get him out of there alive, okay?”

  Wayland’s smile turned cold. “Yes, ma’am... I’ll do my best.”

  Boone’s nerves were on edge. When he pulled up in front of Denver Cherry’s house, he noticed Denver’s vehicle was missing. Snake and Tommy Joe came out of the house as he parked and got out, and with every step he took, his gut instinct was to duck and run. This didn’t feel right.

  “Where’s Denver?” he asked.

  As always, Tommy Joe deferred to Snake, letting him answer.

  “At the lab,” Snake said, and then glanced at his watch.

  Boone’s hopes fell. Not only had he never met the boss, he’d been unable to find the new location of the lab. “Then the meeting is off?”

  “Nope,” Snake said. “You’re coming with us. The boss is already there.”

  Boone felt torn. This was what he’d been waiting for, but it wasn’t the way he’d wanted it to happen. “I’ll follow you,” he said, and started toward his truck.

  “No way,” Snake said. “We can’t have no damned parade on the way up. You go with us. Boss’s orders.”

  Tommy Joe was as nervous as Boone had ever seen him. That alone gave Boone food for thought. While Boone was pretending disinterest in the entire affair, in reality his mind was in overdrive. Something was up besides a meeting, and as he slid onto the seat between Snake and Tommy Joe, he had a sudden sense of his own mortality. As they drove away, the last thought in his mind was of Rachel. He’d never gotten to tell her goodbye.

  The narrow blacktop highway up this side of the Kiamichis was unmarked and unlit. At night, unless you were familiar with its twists and turns, it could be deadly. Snake drove with his usual disregard for oncoming traffic and the laws of gravity, while Boone took comfort in the small loaded handgun concealed inside the top of his boot.

  The radio was blaring a sad country song with which Snake felt compelled to sing along. Tommy Joe rode with his left elbow in Boone’s ribs and his other one hanging out the open window. The wind whipped through the cab, drowning out the worst of Snake’s voice and easing the stench of sweat from the two men’s unwashed bodies. Boone never took his eyes from Snake’s hands. Of the two men, he trusted him the least. It was his first mistake.

  Snake slammed on his brakes without warning and shot off the road to the right, barreling down the driveway leading to Rachel Brant’s house before Boone had time to react.

  “What the hell are you—?”

  The familiar feel of a gun in his ribs ended his question. He looked at Tommy Joe with surprise.

  “Sorry,” Tommy Joe said. “Just following orders.”

  Snake hit the brakes near the front porch steps, coming to a halt right beside a dark, shiny car. Boone’s heart stopped. He recognized the car, even knew the man who drove it, and at this point, he didn’t even want to consider what all this meant.

  “Get out,” Snake ordered, and grabbed Boone by the arm, dragging him beneath the steering wheel and out of the truck.

  Boone didn’t argue. Tommy Joe’s gun was too close to the small of his back.

  Their footsteps were loud on the old wooden porch, and Snake shoved Boone through the door first without bothering to knock.

  From the first, Boone had faced the dangers of living life as an undercover cop. Over the years, he’d prepared himself for just about any situation that could possibly have occurred. But there was no way in hell he could have predicted he would f
ind the woman he loved in another man’s arms.

  Despair gave way to a ballooning, white-hot pain, and for a moment Boone wondered if he’d been shot. But when he took a deep breath, he realized the only thing shot was his faith. The expression in his eyes went flat. A muscle jerked in his jaw as a cold, derisive smile spread across his face.

  Rachel was still reeling from the shock of opening her door, expecting to see Boone, and finding Griffin Ross waiting instead. He’d asked to use her phone, but that had been three minutes ago, and he had yet to make a move toward it, or the table on which it was sitting. Instead, he kept glancing nervously out the window, then back at her, muttering things that made no sense.

  Just when Rachel thought this night couldn’t get any worse, more car lights suddenly appeared, and instead of curiosity about who it could be, Griffin Ross was all but jumping up and down in an odd kind of delight.

  “Griff, what on earth... ?”

  He spun, grabbing her by the arm. She didn’t know what shocked her most, the grip with which he was holding her, or the crazy grin on his face.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Rachel cried, trying to yank free from his hand.

  Instead of being set free, she was attacked. He slammed her up against the wall, grinding his lower body against her hips and his mouth against her lips. Shock passed swiftly into disbelief. This couldn’t be happening...not to her...and not with Griff.

  She tried to scream, but when she opened her mouth, he thrust his tongue inside. All but gagging at the unexpected intrusion, Rachel hammered helplessly at his chest with her hands.

  And then the front door opened. Her freedom was as sudden as her violation had been. Stunned, she watched Griffin turn, then smile at the men who came through the door.

  “Oh, my God,” she groaned, and wiped her hand across her face. Everything she’d been experiencing up to this point had prepared her for an understanding she wasn’t ready to face. Something told her this was the beginning of the end.

  The look on Boone’s face broke her heart. She knew how this would look. Her first thought was to explain.

  She started toward him, but Griffin grabbed her, yanking her roughly against him, then sliding his arm beneath her breasts and holding her fast.

  The shock was so sudden and so rough that it left her momentarily breathless, and in that moment, when she couldn’t speak, she realized that Boone had not come in of his own accord. There was a gun in his back. Her hesitation was just long enough for Boone to say what was on his mind.

  “Well, hell, Rachel. You’re quite a little trooper, aren’t you? That must be some man you’ve got, to let him talk you into sleeping with his enemies.”

  “You’re quite a little soldier, aren’t you, Mercy? Since you’ve ridden every man you rode with, I guess you...”

  “No!” she screamed, struggling to get free of Griffin’s clutch. It was happening all over again, just as she’d feared, and unless she could figure out a way to change it, she was going to be responsible for another outlaw’s death.

  Griff splayed his hands across her breasts in a rude but possessive gesture. “What’s wrong, little Rachel? Did you get a little too attached to this pig?”

  “You’re the pig!” she cried, and kicked backward at his shins, trying to free herself from his grasp.

  “You can cut the play,” Boone said. “You won, Rachel. I hope you and your socially correct boyfriend live a long and miserable life on other people’s money.”

  Rachel didn’t know what he was talking about, but she knew how this must look. Boone wasn’t going to help her. It was up to her to save them both. Then, to her dismay, Griffin Ross pulled a gun out of his pocket and jammed it into her throat.

  “Take him out back,” he ordered. “Before we let these two lovers follow each other to hell, there’s some unfinished business sweet Rachel and I have between us, isn’t there, darling?”

  Boone froze. Two lovers? Follow each other to hell? He stared at Rachel, at the shock on her face and the fear in her eyes, and wondered if he’d read this all wrong.

  “Rachel, I...”

  She moved like a wildcat thrown into a den of pups. Screaming at the top of her lungs, she spun and lunged, leaving claw marks down Griffin Ross’s face before she kicked him in the crotch. He dropped the gun to grab his face, falling backward over the only light in the room. As if in answer to a prayer, the room went dark.

  Snake never saw the kick coming. One minute he was in control; the next thing he felt was his supper coming up uninvited as Boone’s boot hit him square in the belly. Tommy Joe ducked and fired the gun at the same time, and because he did, the shot went wild. It was all the chance Rachel needed. She grabbed Boone by the arm.

  “Run!” she screamed, and started through the house, moving on instinct and memory around furniture and walls, pulling him with her.

  As they reached the kitchen, she paused long enough to throw the main switch on the breaker box. Boone yanked her by the arm.

  “What are you trying to prove?”

  “That I love you!” Rachel screamed. “Now run, damn it, run!”

  He didn’t have to be told twice. They bolted out the back door and into the yard, running past the shrubs and the swing, out into the wide-open space between her house and the woods beyond.

  Just let me get her out of range of that damned security light and into the trees, Boone thought.

  Gunfire suddenly erupted behind them. The lights were back on. Someone had found the switch. Boone heard the screen door slam and then a rash of wild, angry shouts. He shoved Rachel in front of him, not wanting her to be an easy target at his side.

  “Keep going!” he yelled.

  She ran without looking back, confident from the sound of his footsteps at her heels that he would follow.

  “There they go!” someone shouted.

  Rachel winced at the sound of Griffin’s voice. He must be crazy!

  Fear lent speed to her steps, although she was getting winded. A stitch was pulling in her side, and her legs felt like rubber. No matter how fast they ran, the trees didn’t seem any closer.

  Gunfire came again, like firecrackers going off on the Fourth of July, and Rachel had a fleeting thought that she would never like fireworks again. She wanted to look back, to see if Boone was still behind her, but she was afraid that if she stopped she wouldn’t be able to take another step.

  Again the sound of gunshots shattered the silence, echoing from one side of the Kiamichis to the other, until Rachel couldn’t tell where the shots had originated.

  Then she looked up, and to her relief, the trees were right before them. Elation lent a fresh spurt of energy to her stride. Because she was so certain that they were safe, she didn’t see Boone stagger and then pull himself upright. All she knew was that when they moved into the shelter of the forest, he was behind her all the way.

  Wayland cursed his bad luck four ways to Sunday. He’d gotten to Denver Cherry’s house just in time to see the taillights of a vehicle in the distance. Boone’s truck was parked in the yard, but it didn’t take more than a quick glance at the house to see that no one was there. Moving on instinct rather than knowledge, B. J. Wayland took after the taillights and hoped to hell he wasn’t following some couple who were going off to the woods to neck. He would have some difficulty explaining if he caught them peeled down and going at it.

  Twice he feared he’d lost them, but then he would catch a glimpse of the lights disappearing around another bend in the road.

  “Damn roads aren’t much better than a goat path,” he muttered as he took a curve at high speed. Give him a flat road and a hot car any day over this hide-and-seek.

  He flew past the small dirt road on his left like a blind bat coming out of hell with his tail on fire, moving with no sense of direction except fast and forward. It was pure luck and a good angle in the road that made him realize the car he’d been following had turned off. He glanced up in his rearview mirror just as Snake Martin hit the brake
s in front of Rachel Brant’s house.

  B.J. stomped on his own brakes and went into a slide. The car spun sideways. When B.J. came to a stop, the smell of hot rubber drifted up through the heating system into the interior of his car, and the headlights were pointing in the direction from which he’d just come.

  “Just like in the movies,” he drawled, and gunned the car forward.

  He parked in the trees at the end of the driveway and then got out, intending to go the rest of the way on foot. But he never made it past the front of his car before all the lights in the house went out. At the first sounds of gunfire, he grabbed his cell phone and hit redial as he started to run.

  “Cross here.”

  “It’s going down!” Wayland said as he ran. “Get me some backup, Captain. It doesn’t sound pretty.”

  “What’s your location?” she asked.

  “Damned if I know!” Wayland yelled. “About five miles below Boone’s trailer and into the trees. Just follow the sound of gunfire. You can’t miss us.”

  “Wayland, don’t do—”

  “Gotta go, Captain. Catch you later.”

  The line went dead in Susan Cross’s ear. She slammed the phone down as she bolted from the room. God save them all.

  Boone hadn’t planned on getting shot. But then, a sane man never actively searched for different ways to die. His shoulder felt numb, and the farther they ran, the lighter his head was getting. They had to find a place to hide, at least until he got his second wind. He hadn’t come this far to fall flat on his face. And then he staggered as a tree suddenly jumped into his path. It was luck that kept him upright and moving...that and Rachel. To his overwhelming relief, she began to slow down and seemed to be searching the area for a specific location.

  “Over here,” she said, and took him by the hand.

  He went where she led him, weaving around trees and staggering through bushes until they entered a tiny clearing, little more than six feet in diameter. Completely surrounded by a dense stand of evergreens, their location seemed safe...at least for the time being.