Kidnapped By The Cowboy (C Bar C Ranch Book 2)

by Pam Crooks

  “Who was standing guard this morning?” TJ vowed vengeance on the man who let trouble in.

  “Ronnie. He took the shift after mine.” Jesse shot a glance toward the tree. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him for a spell.”

  TJ’s jaw went tight. Wasn’t like the cowboy not to do what he could to protect Callie Mae. Ronnie’s allegiance to Penn and Carina had never been questioned.

  “TJ, look.” Woollie pointed toward shrubbery growing along the foundation.

  His attention latched on to a Stetson first, lying on its side in the grass, but then shifted toward movement—coming out from beneath the bushes. A man bound and gagged, awkwardly rolling toward them, slow but sure, and the mystery of Ronnie’s disappearance solved itself.

  They rode over to him; TJ dismounted and whipped out his knife to cut the man’s own bandanna off his face and the short length of rope binding his wrists and ankles.

  “Did you get a look at him?” TJ demanded, helping Ronnie to a sitting position.

  Ronnie winced and probed the back of his head. “Just that he had a beard. He clunked me good, and I dropped like a rock.”

  “Emmett.” TJ gritted out the word.

  “Sounds like it.” Woollie nodded.

  Ronnie cursed in disgust, whether at himself for being caught unawares or for what Emmett had done to him. “Son of a gun hid me in the bushes while he snuck into the house, but when I came to, I could see him leavin’ the back way with Callie Mae. He was hanging on to her by her hair.”

  TJ drew in a slow breath. If Emmett hurt her, if he drew a single drop of her blood…

  “Any idea where they went?” Jesse asked.

  “Not for sure. I was plenty worried he’d remember he left me in them bushes, so I laid real still and listened real hard. I heard him say ‘valley,’ though, plain as paint.”

  Woollie connected his gaze with TJ’s. “Only one valley close by.”

  “Tres Pinos.” TJ’s chin jutted in agreement.

  The prettiest piece of land on the entire C Bar C.

  Seemed fitting Kullen would wait for her there. He’d know Callie Mae had always wanted to live on those acres with her husband someday.

  “Remember what I said, TJ,” Harvey said quietly.

  We have to assume Kullen will want to resume his relationship with Callie Mae in some way. In his twisted mind, he won’t see marriage to her as being implausible.

  TJ remembered, all right.

  He stood. Adrenaline simmered in his blood. “You up to riding with us, Ronnie? We could use your help in getting Callie Mae back.”

  “Hell, yes, I’m up to it.” The cowboy heaved himself to his feet and threw his glance over toward the bushes. “Just let me get my hat first.”

  But TJ had already mounted and was riding hard toward Tres Pinos Valley.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Pull up. There’s something I need to say to you before we go down there.”

  Emmett’s order left Callie Mae defiant. He hadn’t spoken a word to her during the ride out to Tres Pinos. Why did he have to talk now?

  Her impatience to get to Kullen increased tenfold now that she could see him only a short distance away, sitting beneath a cottonwood tree, with his injured leg stretched out before him. His head rested against the tree trunk, as if he’d fallen asleep waiting for them.

  “What makes you think I’d want to listen?” She dragged her attention back to Emmett.

  “Cut the sass, girlie,” he snapped, jabbing the Smith & Wesson at her. “I can still shoot you dead any time I want, you know.”

  He wouldn’t shoot her, though. Callie Mae had grown confident he wouldn’t. He’d gone through too much risk and danger to bring her out here.

  “Now listen up,” Emmett said. “He ain’t himself, just so you know. His leg’s botherin’ him real bad, and the morphine’s turned his brain to cotton. He’s not thinking right.”

  “You should never have taken him out of the hospital,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, wouldn’t have been long and the sheriff would’ve come nosin’ around.”

  “You’re a fool if you think he won’t still.”

  “We’ll be long gone before it happens.” He bored a hard look at her. “If I have my way.”

  “Oh?” Her brow arched in disdain. “And just what might that be?”

  “I’m willin’ to cut you a deal.”

  Callie Mae hid her surprise. Emmett Ralston knew the cards were stacked against him. Kullen’s injury was a detriment, a major blow to their scheme. If the cousins intended to stick together, Kullen would only slow them down…

  Emmett had to know, too, time was running out. Back at the ranch, her mother would’ve been discovered by now. A posse of C Bar C vigilantes would’ve quickly formed and would be riding out even now.

  “I’ve got a strong hankerin’ to get to Mexico, Miss Lockett,” Emmett said, dredging up the more respectful use of her name in his appeal. “I’m willing to take Kullen with me and make sure he never bothers you again.”

  She didn’t have an iota of an idea how he would manage such a thing. Did he really presume he could control a money-hungry, vengeful man like Kullen? Even injured?

  “And my end of the bargain?” she asked coolly.

  “Tell him he ain’t got a chance in hell of marryin’ you anymore.” Emmett regarded her. “You know you ain’t going to, besides.”

  It shouldn’t have hurt to hear him say the words, but it did. Callie Mae had had high hopes of a lifetime of happiness with Kullen. The perfect marriage to carry on her legacy.

  Yet of everyone, TJ had been the one to rock her convictions first. He’d shown her what true love was like. What love should always be. Kisses that could melt her strongest defenses, weaken her knees, fire her blood.

  A love that had nothing to do with money or prestige. Conspiracy or revenge. TJ expected nothing from her in return, except, she suspected, a fragile hope that she might love him back.

  But TJ wasn’t here, she reminded herself firmly, and she refused to be told by a lowlife like Emmett Ralston what she should and shouldn’t do.

  “My relationship with Kullen is my own business,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Without waiting to see if he followed, she nudged her horse into a brisk lope toward that cottonwood tree. The long, rich grass cushioned the sound of their hooves, but not so much that Kullen shouldn’t have heard their approach.

  “We’re back, Kullen,” Emmett said in a loud voice as they pulled up. “I’ve got her with me.”

  Still, Kullen didn’t rouse, and Callie Mae feared he was dead. She dismounted, noting how he still wore the expensive suit he’d donned for their meeting with the entrepreneurs in Amarillo. The fabric was dirty, one pant leg torn and bloodstained. A scruffy beard roughened his cheeks; his hair was unkempt and in need of washing. His fingers loosely gripped a whiskey bottle, and beside him in the grass, a pile of morphine vials and a syringe.

  Kullen Brockway, alias Kullen Brosius, had never fallen so low.

  Emmett strode over and briskly nudged his shoulder. “Wake up, Kullen.”

  His head lolled, then; his eyes opened. Glazed and feverish, those eyes struggled to focus. Seeing her, he grinned. Like a drunk.

  “Callie, honey.”

  Disgust rolled through her in waves. She set her hands on her hips and glared daggers at him. “I’m not your honey, Kullen. Damn you.”

  “You mad at me?” He struggled to get up, swayed and would’ve fallen right over if Emmett hadn’t been there to keep him from it. Between the two of them, however, they managed to get the job done. Kullen stood on his good leg and braced himself on the trunk of the cottonwood.

  “I’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done to me and my family,” she said.

  Red-rimmed eyes darted to Emmett. “She talkin’ about the boy?”

  “Yes, she’s talkin’ about the boy!” Emmett snapped. “She ain’t goin’ to marry you, either,
so the jig is up. Tell her how sorry you are, so we can hightail it to Mexico.”

  “Mexico?” Frowning, Kullen shook his head. “Don’t want to go to Mexico.”

  Emmett fairly quaked with desperation. “We’re goin’, like we agreed.”

  Kullen straightened, but his expression darkened. “Goin’ to live on the C Bar C. With Callie.”

  “You’re not going to live on the C Bar C, damn it!”

  “That’s enough, Emmett!” Callie Mae snapped the command. “His mind is as befuddled as a child’s. He’s incapable of understanding you or the consequences of what you’ve done together.” She turned to Kullen. “You’re very sick, Kullen. You need to go back to the hospital.”

  “He’s not going to the hospital.”

  Her glance whipped back to Emmett. “He’ll die if he doesn’t.”

  Emmett broke into agitated pacing, then halted and shot a quick look over his shoulder, as if he feared the whole C Bar C outfit might appear at any moment.

  Callie Mae tasted his indecision. The battle he warred inside. “He’ll never make it to Mexico, Emmett. You know that, don’t you? In fact, neither of you will. So why don’t you give yourself up?”

  “Like hell.” He swiped a hand across his mouth.

  “Cooperate with the law. Maybe you’ll get less jail time.”

  Abruptly, he stomped toward Kullen and yanked the whiskey bottle of his grasp.

  “Hey!” Kullen snarled.

  “Shut up!” After a couple of bracing swigs, Emmett recapped the bottle and tossed it to the ground. He blew a breath against the whiskey’s burn and leveled his cousin with a spearing glance. “All right, you heard her. You’re not goin’ to make the trip to Mexico, so I’m headin’ there without you.”

  “They’ll find you,” Callie Mae said, her heart beginning a slow pound from the knowledge that he very likely wouldn’t just leave her with Kullen, both of them witnesses to his escape.

  “You can’t pin nothin’ on me,” he said.

  She thought of Harvey Whelan and the detailed reports he’d made. “You’ll have a price on your head. My family will put up a large reward for your arrest.”

  His lip curled. He cocked his Smith & Wesson. Pointed it at her, then at Kullen. And back at her again.

  “Emmett, shut her up.” Kullen straightened from the tree. The glaze in his eyes cleared; contempt snarled his voice, his words no longer slurred. “Y’hear me? Just knock the bitch off her high-and-mighty Lockett pedestal—”

  Suddenly, he halted.

  His expression turned to surprise.

  And the Smith & Wesson fired.

  The gunshot echoed throughout the valley, and TJ forgot to breathe.

  Sweet Mother, don’t let it be Callie Mae.

  Woollie pointed. “Came from over there.”

  TJ’s muscles coiled. He forced himself to think. To distance himself from the possibility Callie Mae had been killed. He had to plan. To be ready for anything when they rode into the belly of Tres Pinos Valley.

  “Spread out in a circle and lay low,” he ordered. “I’m going down alone. No one shoots until I give the word. And if I don’t… Woollie, you’re in charge.”

  He faced the possibility he could be killed, too. Lush, rolling hills made Tres Pinos a choice piece of rangeland, but there wasn’t much out there to conceal their approach.

  “We can take ’em,” Woollie said. “We outnumber ’em more than three to one.”

  TJ refused to budge. “We don’t know who’s down there yet. If Callie Mae is still alive, and everyone gets trigger-happy—”

  He didn’t finish the sentence.

  The foreman nodded. “All right. I’ll cover you.”

  After the others rode off, TJ crested a low-rise hill and spotted yellow. He kept his horse walking while his gaze riveted to the color, his worry building that the yellow wasn’t moving, that it lay too close to the ground near a cottonwood tree.

  He prayed for her to move. And then, she did. To bring herself to a standing position.

  TJ eased out the breath he’d been holding. Only at that moment did he see the man in the grass, the one she’d been leaning over. Wasn’t long and he was close enough to tell it was Kullen Brockway.

  Dead?

  It was almost more than he could hope for, but TJ didn’t let himself become distracted by the possibility. Emmett kept his revolver pointed at Callie Mae, and that had TJ sizing up the situation in a hurry.

  “Have a little tiff with your cousin, Emmett?” TJ called out. He moseyed his horse closer, giving himself the appearance of a nonchalance he was far from feeling.

  Hearing him, Callie Mae whirled, but Emmett was faster, hooking his arm around her neck and shoving the nose of his pistol against her temple. Though she sank her teeth into her lower lip, she didn’t cry out.

  “Don’t come any closer, Grier!” Emmett yelled. “I’ll shoot her!”

  “Easy, Emmett.” TJ reined in, lifted his hands. “I’m not carrying, so you can just let her go. I’m not going to shoot you.”

  “You must be crazy to think I’m that stupid.”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid, Emmett.” Keeping his hands up, he swung his leg over the horse’s neck and slid to the ground. Thinking of his rifle tucked in its scabbard, he dared to take a step away from being armed. Two. Three. Closer to Callie Mae. “And I’m not crazy.”

  “Back off, y’hear me?”

  Heart pounding, TJ halted.

  “You alone?” Emmett’s eyes darted around the valley; sweat beaded his forehead.

  “Maybe,” TJ said. “Maybe not.”

  The man snarled and shifted his stance, his nervousness growing more obvious. “I’m taking her with me, you know.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “Don’t think so?”

  “I’ll kill her if you try.”

  “It was you in the horse barn the night Danny died, wasn’t it, Emmett?”

  The abrupt change of topic appeared to startle him. “Hell, no, it wasn’t me.”

  “Maggie hit you on the side of the head with her whiskey bottle. She gave you a scar, didn’t she? That’s why you grew a beard, to hide it. And she never recognized you.”

  “You can’t prove nothin’. She doesn’t know who she hit. I heard her talkin’ about it, up at the Palo Duro. She doesn’t know.”

  TJ’s pulse lurched. That he hadn’t expected, Emmett having been in their camp.

  Damn.

  But it didn’t matter. Not anymore.

  “Bet you didn’t know my mother was left-handed.” TJ continued his assault, his need to convince Emmett he was out of possibilities. “Wouldn’t take much for Sheriff Dunbar to have her play out what happened for him. And I’d bet my favorite horse the scar you’re wearing is on your right cheek. Because that’s how she’d swing. Toward your right.”

  Emmett swore. He tightened his grasp around Callie Mae’s neck; her breathing roughened.

  TJ met her gaze and loved her for her courage. She had to be terrified. As terrified as he was. He willed her silent strength, enough for the both of them.

  “Let’s go, girlie. Toward the horses. C’mon.” Emmett pushed her forward, and she stumbled. TJ tensed. She could fall, the Smith & Wesson could go off…

  “You’re surrounded,” TJ snapped. “Right now, you’ve got six rifles trained on you.”

  “Six!” Emmett jerked in alarm.

  “Don’t believe me?”

  The lowlife didn’t answer. But he swallowed hard. And he didn’t move.

  “Woollie! Stand up!” TJ called. The foreman, lying like a sniper in the tall grass, stood, the butt of his rifle pressed to his shoulder. “Jesse!” The cowboy did the same. So did Harvey, Ronnie, Orlin, and Billy. TJ never took his eyes off Emmett. “Six rifles.”

  “They’ll kill you, Emmett,” Callie Mae said then. “Let me go and give yourself up.” She held herself stiffly against him. “It’s the only way you’ll g
et out of here alive.”

  “Shut up. Let’s go.”

  “Emmett.” Her voice carried threads of frustration. “We know everything. You can’t deny your guilt anymore.”

  He half-dragged her with him to their mounts, but suddenly her foot shot out, and he tripped right over it; with a cry, she twisted and rammed her fists into his chest. He grunted and grappled for balance.

  TJ made his move, then, with a flying leap to tackle her to the ground, frantically shimmying over her body as a shield.

  Just as six shots fired, one after the other.

  And then… haunting silence.

  “Won’t you come in, TJ?” Callie Mae asked quietly. “My parents will want to know every detail.”

  He tilted his head back and studied the house. Wouldn’t take much to climb the stairs and walk in, then tell Penn and Carina everything that happened in Tres Pinos Valley.

  Yeah, they’d both want to know how their son’s death had finally been avenged.

  Trouble was, TJ wouldn’t want to walk out again. He’d want to stay in that house. For the rest of his life. With Callie Mae.

  But he couldn’t.

  The ride back to the C Bar C had been somber, to say the least. Woollie and a couple of the others had kept on going, taking the two bodies into Amarillo for burying.

  TJ had taken Callie Mae home. And it was going to be hard as hell to leave her there.

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll head on back to Boomer’s,” he said. “Maggie will worry over where I’ve been.” He managed a smile.

  She hesitated, as if she regretted his answer. “Of course.”

  But she didn’t go in just yet. Was it hard for her to see him leave? Is that why her eyes were all shimmery?

  “Tres Pinos Valley is yours,” she said. “You didn’t know that, did you?”

  “No.” But he recalled her mentioning it that day she rode out to Preston Farm with Kullen. Before hell had broken loose.

  Her mouth softened. “A gift from my mother to her favorite cowboy.”