by Delores Fossen, Rachel Lee, Carol Ericson, Tyler Anne Snell, Rita Herron
“Wait, you’re pregnant?”
Remi turned to Josh and nodded. She felt bad he was finding out like this but, as was the current story of her life, she just didn’t have the time to address the topic with loving care.
The best she could do was give him a brief, apologetic smile.
Then it was down to business.
“Which is another reason we’re about to get the hell out of here.” Remi motioned to the gun, careful to keep its aim away from the three of them and Diamond Duke. “From what I remember this has eight rounds. I’m going to go ahead and assume our five bad guys all have guns, all have more bullets, and all know how to use them better than us.” She waited a beat for her brothers to interject. They didn’t. “So, since we haven’t been able to call for help, standing our ground in here with eight bullets that aren’t even guaranteed to hit their target sounds like an awful plan.”
Remi looked to the stall across the aisle from them.
Raphael, ever content, let out a little neigh.
“Which is why we’re going to focus on being the best cowboys we can be.”
“You want us to ride out,” Jonah said.
Remi nodded.
“Our best option is to put distance between us and them. Ride to the Nash Ranch and hope somebody’s home.”
“That’s a long ride out in the open,” Jonah pointed out. “Once we clear the last barn on Heartland that’s easy pickings in the fields between us and them. What...maybe ten minutes or so.”
Josh motioned around them.
“I’d rather be the fish in the pool than fish in the barrel.” He put his hand on Remi’s shoulder and nodded. His support rallied her even more.
“I’ll unlatch the back doors. Y’all tack up your horses like our lives depend on it.” Which they did.
“There’s no doubles saddle in here. Going to be a bumpy ride for you,” Josh said.
“Better than being those fish.”
They got to work quickly. Remi went back to the door she’d come through and barred it, checked the main double doors to make sure they were still locked, and then hurried to the back two. They were usually only opened to take advantage of cool air and breezes for the horses. Now they were all that stood between her relative calm and all-out fear.
Remi checked that the doors were still locked. She undid the latch slowly, careful not to make a sound, but didn’t open them.
Not yet.
She didn’t know where any of the men or Lydia were. They could be in the house still or the area around the barn, or they could simply have left. The fact that she had no idea was terrifying.
How long ago had she run from her father’s side? Five minutes ago? Ten? Maybe more?
If they were still on the ranch, Remi had to believe they’d check the closest building to the house. Sooner rather than later.
It put her nerves closer to the edge and sent pricks of adrenaline across her body. Her muscles tightened in anticipation. Her palms grew sweaty. Remi strained to listen past her brothers tacking up their horses in record time.
Then she heard something she’d prayed she wouldn’t.
A feeling of dread rolled over in her stomach. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
The door they’d all come in through might have been locked but someone jiggling the handle was like a gunshot in the silence. Remi hurried to the space between the horse stalls her brothers were in. Both had paused what they were doing.
“Keep going,” she whispered.
Someone coming to the barn didn’t change their plan. There was nowhere to hide, and their odds of five against one gun was still not something she wanted to test.
She stood there and listened.
The door was at the head of the barn, off to the left. Stalls blocked her view of it. If someone broke through she’d have a few seconds to react. Whether that was jumping on a horse or shooting.
“Done.”
Remi could have sung in relief as her brothers whispered in unison. Josh opened his stall’s door. Remi went to Jonah’s.
Whoever was on the other side of the barn door decided they were done trying things the normal way. The bang of someone ramming the door made Diamond Duke do a little jump as Josh led him into the aisle. He waved Raphael through but didn’t follow as he and Jonah went to the door. Remi held back, too, and together they heard another loud bang followed by the splintering of wood.
They’d run out of time.
There was no way all three of them could mount up and ride out now. Not without being targets.
What would Declan do?
The question popped into Remi’s head so quickly she answered it before she thought of why she’d asked it in the first place.
She took a small step forward so that she was in front of her little brother and raised the revolver.
She wasn’t going to let anyone hurt any more of her family.
Not today.
Not ever.
Chapter Fifteen
The moment he saw her, Declan thought he was dreaming.
Honest to God, he thought he’d somehow fallen asleep somewhere between Lydia’s house, Winding Road and his mother’s house.
He wasn’t even supposed to be on his way to the main house on the Nash Family Ranch. After he’d discovered Lydia’s place was empty, he’d called Caleb to tell him the news. Caleb thought that was wildly peculiar but hadn’t been able to make it to Cooper’s place yet to see if there were any more wildly peculiar finds. Instead, he’d said he was almost to their ranch.
“Cooper Mann’s family must have some crazy Spidey senses,” he’d said. “Ma just called and said his grandma June is sitting at her dining table, wanting to talk to us.”
“Why didn’t she go to the department or call us?”
Caleb had snorted.
“Southern women are most powerful when they have a glass of sweet tea in front of them and some kind of wicker chair beneath them. But seriously, if you had to talk to the law, wouldn’t you rather do it while basking in Mom’s hospitality?”
Declan had seen the logic in that. Plus, there was probably some way their mother knew June Mann through everything she did in the community. Which meant telling the older woman to go to the department was a no-no. Not unless they wanted to catch their mother’s wrath.
So Declan had decided to meet his brother and Grandma June at the ranch. On the drive there he’d percolated the information he did and didn’t have and had almost tuned so wholly into his own thoughts that he didn’t clock the movement streaking across the field he was driving alongside.
If seeing Remi galloping through an open field, hair blowing in the wind behind her wasn’t a dream then maybe it was fate.
Because Declan didn’t have to know the circumstances around why she was booking it for him to know exactly where she was going.
The same place he was.
Declan might have spent a bit more time speculating dreams and fate and Lydia’s empty home and Grandma June’s unannounced arrival if the other shocking details hadn’t filtered through.
Remi wasn’t alone.
Her brother, Jonah judging by his height, was trailing behind her on another horse. While someone was pressed against Remi’s chest. The man was slumped, head bent.
Something was wrong.
Something was horribly wrong.
Declan honked the horn, unlocked his phone and dialed the last number on his recent calls list. The second it rang he put it on speaker and then cut his wheel.
The Nash Family Ranch and Hudson Heartland both had fenced in most of their acreage. However, after a dispute that came before any of the children of either family were born, there was a stretch of land between them that neither believed the other should claim. A no-man’s-land, his father had called it. Owned and not owned by two f
amilies. Their only agreement concerning the expanse was that neither could erect a fence or let livestock or horses roam there.
Declan had never cared about the space.
Until now.
Caleb answered the phone just as Declan navigated the slight dip of the road’s shoulder and began driving out into the field. He honked the horn again. This time Remi turned her head to look.
She must have yelled something to Jonah. Both slowed.
“What’s going on?” Caleb asked.
“Remi and Jonah are booking it on horses to the ranch through no-man’s-land. Remi’s carrying someone who looks hurt.”
Rustling carried through the airwaves. Caleb was moving.
“How hurt we talking?”
Declan was eating up the distance between them and came to a stop a few yards off, not wanting to spook the horses.
He swore as Remi and Jonah trotted over.
“She’s holding Josh and there’s blood all over both of them.”
Declan threw open the door, adrenaline shooting through him so fast that he thought it might make him explode. Josh was pressed against Remi’s front, and he could see blood across her arm and the hand holding the reins.
And the gun she had clutched in the hand pressing Josh against her.
“Lydia Cartwright and at least four men are on the ranch,” Remi dived in, panting. “Dad’s upstairs in the house with a bullet in the stomach. Josh just got hit in the chest. They need a hospital. Now.”
Declan put his phone between his shoulder and his ear.
“You get that?”
“Yeah,” Caleb answered. “Calling for EMS and backup.”
Jonah swung off his horse and Declan motioned to Josh. He was unconscious. Remi’s expression was blank.
“Let’s get Josh in the truck,” he said. “Hold on, Caleb.”
He dropped his phone into his front breast pocket and, together with Jonah, pulled Josh down from the horse. Remi stayed astride while the two of them slid Josh into the passenger seat.
Then Declan only had eyes for Remi.
If the blood on her arm and hand had been alarming, the blood on front of her shirt was downright heart-stopping. She caught his eye.
“It’s my dad’s, not mine.”
Declan knew that shouldn’t have made him feel better.
It did.
He pulled his phone back out.
“Caleb, call ahead to the ER and say we have Josh Hudson with a gunshot wound to the chest coming in hot with Jonah and Remi in my truck.”
Jonah didn’t need any prodding. He looped around the truck to the open driver’s side door. Declan held his hand up to Remi to help her down.
She wasn’t having it. Her grip on the reins tightened.
Declan was reminded of the girl whose father used to tame wild horses. The one who could outride him and his siblings even if they’d never admit it. The girl who had grown up more cowgirl than he had cowboy, if he was being honest.
“You’re going back to the house. So am I.”
Remi straightened her shoulders.
Declan, Jonah and even Caleb spoke at once.
She didn’t listen.
“I left Dad for my kid’s sake. I’m going back for him for the same reason.” She pulled the reins to the side, turning her horse around and effectively ending the discussion. She turned to Jonah. “Go. Now.” Then she gave Declan a long, low look. “I can outride you and you know it. Telling me I can’t go only wastes time we don’t have.”
What Declan felt at her statements of fact was jarring. On the one hand he wanted to cuff her and throw her into the truck, sending her off to safety, kicking and screaming if need be. On the other hand, he’d never been more proud.
Remi Hudson was a fighter.
So was he.
And they’d both be damned if their kid didn’t get the chance to be, too.
Declan nodded to Jonah and then went to his horse.
“Caleb,” he said, “Remi and I will be approaching from no-man’s-land.”
“Des is here so I’m bringing him with me. Be safe, keep your phone on and in your pocket.”
“Roger that.”
Remi and her family might have been near-professionals when it came to horseback riding, but that didn’t mean Declan was an amateur. The second he was upright in the saddle and fingers laced around the reins, he felt something like what he thought a professional swimmer might feel when first diving into the lap pool. Adrenaline, natural and exciting, flooded his veins, tensing his muscles and making his heart gallop. Being on a horse was being at home.
He knew Remi felt the same.
In tandem they struck out back toward Heartland. Thundering across the field like a battle cry. Hooves against the earth. Cold air biting at their faces. Furious justice at their heels.
Two horses and their riders in sync.
It felt right, even if the reason they were riding was so wrong.
Declan glanced over at the woman next to him and knew without a doubt that he’d never find another person like her ever again.
Remi Hudson was one of a kind.
And he loved her for it.
Declan slowed as the barn nearest the house came into view. Thankfully, so did Remi. Although her bravado was still displayed fiercely across her face, he saw caution there, too. She’d come back for her father but wasn’t about to put their child at unnecessary risk. At least, no more than coming back had.
“For us to get out on the horses I had to shoot one of them,” she said with effort. Her cheeks were red with windburn and exertion. Being pregnant probably wasn’t helping. He remembered how tired Madi and Nina had been during the beginnings of their pregnancies.
“Did you kill him?” he had to ask.
The question didn’t even make her flinch.
“I thought I did but he shot Josh before I could make sure. We barely got him on the horse before another one of them ran into the barn. We took off, but no one shot at us again.”
Declan nodded, hoping that one man was out of commission by now.
“Stay behind me,” he said. “If anyone shoots at us, use me and the horses as cover if you have to.”
Declan took the lead, trotting ahead with eyes peeled and gun in one hand.
No one moved.
He led them to the side of the barn facing away from the house and jumped off his horse. Remi followed suit. She hung back as he moved around the corner to look inside the barn.
Blood was in the aisle between the stalls. Two spots of them on opposite ends. There was no one inside to match them.
“The barn nearest the house is empty,” he said down to his pocket so Caleb could hear through the speakerphone that was still on. Caleb said he understood.
“Des and I are coming up the drive now.”
Declan could feel Remi’s anxiety mounting as he peered around what used to be a door, splintered off the hinges and facing the house.
“No movement.”
Caleb repeated the sentiment when they made it to the end of the driveway opposite them.
“Let’s clear the house,” Declan ordered. “Be careful.”
Remi stuck to Declan’s back as they moved to the house in a hurry. For the next few minutes the four of them went from room to room, only to clarify it was empty.
The men and Lydia were gone.
And the only things they’d left behind were blood and Gale Hudson.
Sirens blared up the driveway when they finally made it to the upstairs bathroom the Hudson patriarch was in.
It wasn’t a pretty sight.
Remi cried out, pure anguish breaking down every part of the woman. She reached out for her father before she’d even cleared the doorway. Declan grabbed her, trying to shield her from a terrifying reality if onl
y for a few seconds longer.
Even if he didn’t know what had happened in the bathroom, it was clear that Gale had fought. Blood was smeared everywhere, the man himself in the middle of it all and as still as still could be.
Remi fought against Declan’s chest.
Desmond ran past them and knelt beside Gale. He checked his pulse.
He didn’t shake his head, but he didn’t look relieved, either.
* * *
UNLIKE THE LAST time chaos had reigned within their orbit, Declan didn’t leave Remi’s side once.
From Heartland to the hospital to roaming the halls of the hospital to even standing outside of the bathroom door, the sheriff kept his cowboy hat on but metaphorically seemed to take his badge off.
“Go do what you need to,” Remi had said after Josh had first gone into surgery. Declan had shaken his head. She’d noticed for the first time that day that dark stubble was lining his chin.
“I’m with you now,” was all he’d said in response.
These were words that were comforting in an increasingly uncertain world, and words he stayed true to.
He made and answered phone calls, spoke to his brothers, deputies and chief deputy in person, and when it was time for her to relay everything that had happened at Heartland, he was the one who took her statement personally.
Remi had been ready to ride solo back to the ranch to try to save her dad but now she was grateful for the close proximity. Especially when, hours later, Jonah met them next to a vending machine in the lobby.
He ran a hand through his hair. He was exhausted.
“I just talked to the doctor about Dad.”
Remi perked up at that. She’d been hovering around the hallways in the hopes of talking to a doctor sometime soon. Her father was still alive, a miracle by all accounts, and had gone through a series of touch-and-go surgeries. He’d only been sent to a room an hour ago. Josh, who had undergone his own surgery, had been out for four. He’d regained consciousness only to ask about them and then the “new fling” Jonah had told Remi about.
After a deputy had found and brought their phones to the hospital, Remi had made sure to call the woman after she realized how important she was to her brother. They had all been surprised when a brightly dressed, extremely expressive woman named Lilianna had rushed into the hospital and immediately to his bedside. Talking to the woman, seeing how worried she was, had eased Remi’s guilt at leaving Josh’s side.
