Cowboy Under Siege

by Gail Barrett

  A thud in the trailer made her frown. His gelding was already raising a ruckus, stomping and trying to get out.

  “You know,” she said. “If you took the time to get your horse used to the trailer, he wouldn’t be such a problem to load.”

  “He isn’t a problem. You just need to know how to control him.”

  Her mouth flattened. Bullying didn’t work with horses any more than it did with people. “You wouldn’t have to use force if you’d just work with him a bit.”

  “He’s my horse. I can treat him however I want.”

  Her temper rising, she bit back a reply. She couldn’t stand men like Tony, who masked their inadequacies with force. She’d learned from her father—a true horseman—that consistency and patience gentled even the most skittish horse.

  “I’ll get the lead on him,” she said. “Hold on.”

  Still seething, she stalked to Cole’s truck and took out the lead rope, then headed to the trailer’s escape door along the side. Tony’s gelding continued to butt the partition and stomp his hooves.

  She climbed up on the stoop and opened the window. Then she reached for the gelding’s halter, needing to attach the lead rope before she unclipped the trailer tie. But before she could grab it, Tony leaped onto the loading ramp and unhooked the restraining strap from behind the horse.

  “Wait a minute,” she called. “I’m not ready. I don’t have the lead rope on.”

  But with the strap suddenly gone, the horse sensed freedom. He instantly surged backward and thrashed his head. Bethany lunged for his halter again, but missed.

  “Whoa, boy,” she said, trying to calm him. But the gelding pinned back his ears and pulled again.

  “Settle down. Settle down.” Moving slowly so she wouldn’t spook him, she inched her hand toward the anxious horse. But he whipped his head and jerked back. Without warning, the quick release on the halter snapped.

  Her heart stopped. The horse began to rush back. “Watch out!” she shouted to Tony. “He doesn’t have the lead rope on.”

  But Tony ignored her warning. He climbed inside the trailer, and everything inside her froze. “What are you doing?” Didn’t he know how dangerous that was? “Get out of there!”

  “Shut up. I know how to manage my horse.” Tony squeezed along the partition, muscling his way toward the front. The panicked gelding continued backward. His hind legs reached the ramp, and he started to swing around. Tony made a grab for the halter, but the horse’s momentum bumped him back.

  The impact knocked him off balance. He slipped and fell beneath the horse. Horror fisted inside her. Oh, God. He was going to get crushed.

  Freaked by the sudden commotion, the horse sprang back—but Tony was in his way. His hoof landed on Tony’s foot.

  A sickening crack rent the air, and Tony screamed.

  Swearing, Bethany jumped off the stoop and raced around the trailer. Cole sprinted over to help. “What happened?”

  “Tony.”

  The horse leaped sideways off the ramp. Bethany dove for his halter, but he escaped her, then cantered toward the trees. She let him go, knowing they could catch him later on. Tony’s injuries might not wait.

  She hopped onto the ramp ahead of Cole and rushed to Tony’s side. He lay sprawled on the floor, half crumpled against the partition, moaning and clutching his leg.

  Her stomach fell away. Even from a distance, she could see the unnatural angle of his foot.

  She knelt beside him, keeping her voice calm. “Lie back and stay still. Let me see what we’ve got.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “I’m a nurse. Let me see.”

  His mouth thinned. “I don’t need your help. Get your filthy hands off me.”

  Her face heating, she checked the size of his pupils, then scanned his scalp for bumps. She had a professional duty to help him, no matter how despicable he was. “Did he kick your head?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad,” she muttered. Anyone dumb enough to get into the trailer with an unrestrained horse…

  He groaned and rolled to his side. “Stay still,” she said again, her voice sharper. “Moving around is going to make it worse.”

  “I don’t need some damned Indian ordering me around.”

  “You’ll listen to this one,” Cole said, the threat of violence in his voice. “And you’ll watch your mouth—or I’ll break a hell of a lot more than your foot.”

  Tony shut his mouth, but his eyes turned sulky. Bethany spared Cole a grateful glance. “We need the first aid kit.”

  “I’ll get it.” His jaw rigid, Cole shot Tony a warning look, then hurried off. Bethany picked up Tony’s wrist and checked his pulse.

  Cole reappeared a second later with Kenny in tow. “We need to cut his boot off before his foot starts to swell,” she told them. “His pant leg, too, up to his knee so we can expose the wound.”

  Cole pulled out his pocketknife. While he and Kenny got to work, she rummaged through the first aid kit. Cole peeled away Tony’s boot, then made short work of the sock. When they finished, Kenny scooted aside, and she took his place.

  She swallowed hard. Tony definitely had a compound fracture. His foot dangled at a ghastly angle, and was already beginning to swell. “Can you wriggle your toes?” she asked him.

  Grunting, a sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead, he complied.

  “Good. Now don’t look at me.” She waited until he averted his gaze, then squeezed his toe. “Which toe am I touching?”

  “The little one,” he gritted out.

  She met Cole’s eyes, relieved. “That’s good. No obvious nerve damage. We need to immobilize the leg. Do you have something we can use as a splint?”

  “I’ve got a board in the trailer,” Kenny said.

  “Good. Grab a saddle blanket for padding. And bring some wrapping tape to tie it down.” While he darted away to get it, Bethany grabbed the scissors from the first aid kit.

  Kenny returned a second later. “This is the tricky part,” she told Cole. “I need you to help me lift his leg. Kenny, fold the blanket on the board, then slide it under his leg when we lift it up.”

  She aimed her gaze at Tony. “It’s going to hurt, but you’ll feel better when we’re done.”

  She and Cole knelt across from each other. Kenny readied the board. She nodded to Cole. “Now.” They raised his leg, and Tony cried out. Kenny slid the board in place. “Okay, lower it slowly,” she said.

  That done, she grabbed the tape and scissors. “We need to tie it in place. As soon as I cut some strips off, I’ll need you two to lift the board.”

  She worked quickly to secure the board, then tied off the final knot. “Let me check for sensation again.” She got Tony to wriggle his toes, made sure he could feel her touch.

  Relieved, she sat back on her heels and released her breath. “That’s all I can do. He needs a doctor now.”

  “We’ll lie him in the backseat of your truck,” Cole said to Kenny. “You’ve got more room than I do. You’ll have to drive him to the hospital in Honey Creek.”

  The men hoisted Tony from the trailer, his moans filling the air. Bethany scrambled out behind them, then raced to Kenny’s truck and opened the doors. She entered from the other side, cleared her gear from the backseat, then tugged her pillow from her sleeping roll.

  The men laid him across the seat. She handed the pillow to Cole. “Put this under his leg to elevate it. And here’s the cold pack.”

  Cole turned to Kenny. “We need to catch Tony’s horse and put him in the trailer with yours. Let’s just hope that damned gelding cooperates this time.”

  Kenny scowled, obviously not thrilled with the change of plans, but didn’t argue. While the men left to catch the horse, Bethany stayed at Tony’s side. “You all right?” she asked, checking his pulse again.

  “Yeah.” He paused. His eyes flicked to hers, then veered away. “Thanks.”

  She nodded, knowing it cost him to be polite. She skimmed her gaze over him
again to make sure she hadn’t overlooked any injuries, lingering on his bruised jaw. “Tell me about that bruise.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you. Someone followed me last night and tried to run me off the road. His truck hit the guardrail, and the impact probably gave him a bruise like that.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  His eyes flashed. “Yeah, I can prove it. I was at the Wagon Wheel Saloon until midnight. Everyone saw me there. If someone tried to run you off the road, it wasn’t me.”

  She frowned at that. His story would be easy to check. “Then what about this?” She pulled the browband from her pocket and held it out. “Care to explain how it got in the field by the dead cows?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Because it’s yours.”

  “It is not. I’ve never seen it before.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You’re nuts. What…?” Understanding dawned in his eyes. “You think I killed those cows.”

  “You bet I do.”

  “I had nothing to do with that.”

  She leaned closer. “Then who did?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Because you’re the one causing the problems. And you threatened my father to stop him from turning you in.”

  “The hell I did. You’re out of your mind.”

  She held his gaze. He glared back, denial hot in his eyes. And sudden doubts crawled through her mind. Even though she despised him, he seemed to be telling the truth.

  But if he hadn’t caused the problems…

  The tailgate on the trailer slammed. Cole returned to the truck, and she stepped back, confusion muddling her mind. Kenny leaped into the driver’s seat and started the engine while Cole closed Tony’s door. They slowly drove away.

  Bethany stared at the empty road, her world suddenly tossed on its head. If Tony had told her the truth, then she’d misjudged him. She’d let her childhood memories blind her to the facts.

  Her stomach dipped. Her sense of superiority disappeared. She’d always considered herself fair-minded. She’d prided herself on her unbiased judgment, railing against bigotry in any form. But she’d been just as prejudiced against Tony, allowing her resentment to cloud her thinking, even creating a vendetta against him.

  Which didn’t make her any better than him.

  The cold wind gusted. Chilled now, she met Cole’s gaze, and another realization hit her hard. She never should have lied to Cole. If she’d told him about the attack, he could have taken precautions to keep them safe.

  Because if Tony wasn’t to blame, someone else was—and they’d just lost the only backup they had. They were now open targets, heading into the wilderness alone, a killer hard on their heels.

  “Let’s go,” Cole said, sounding grim.

  She trailed him to their horses, her steps heavy with foreboding, just as it began to snow. She could only hope they survived the night.

  And that Cole would forgive her if they did.

  Chapter 11

  The snow fell steadily as the day wore on, building with the same relentless intensity as the certainty inside of Cole. If he’d needed proof that Bethany didn’t belong in Maple Cove, Tony’s accident had just provided it in spades.

  He picked a trail through the snow-covered deadfall, then crossed a meadow in the deepening dusk. Seeing Bethany in action—her quick thinking under pressure, her obvious medical expertise—had forced him to view her in an altered light. And for the first time he understood why she’d needed to leave Maple Cove.

  And why she could never stay.

  Gunner stumbled on a patch of ice. “Whoa,” Cole said, reining his exhausted horse to a halt. The frigid wind gusted, whipping pellets of snow at his face and bringing a chill scuttling over his skin. He turned up his collar and hunkered deeper into his saddle while he waited for Bethany to catch up.

  She emerged from a cluster of trees a moment later, her black hat dusted with snowflakes, urging her tired mount up the treacherous slope. The muscles of his belly tightened, the inevitable surge of lust tempered with heavy guilt. It was bad enough that he’d exposed her to his father’s attackers. Even worse, they were going to have one hell of a time driving those cows down the mountain through the snow. But all these years he’d misjudged her, blaming her for something that wasn’t her fault—and he didn’t like that one bit.

  She came to a halt beside him, her nose pink from the bitter cold. “How much farther to the cattle?” she asked, her breath forming puffs in the air.

  He twisted in his saddle and peered at the canyon ahead. “They’re up that draw, near the divide.”

  “Can we make it there tonight?”

  He shook his head, dislodging snow from the brim of his hat. “We’d better wait until daylight.” He’d pushed the pace to make up the time they’d lost, but night was fast closing in. “The ride gets steeper from here on out, and I don’t want to risk a fall.”

  “You want to camp here, then?”

  He ran his gaze around the clearing. A stream gurgled nearby. Patches of grass still peeked through the blowing snow. A rocky overhang walled the northwest corner, offering some shelter from the blustery wind. “Yeah, this looks good.”

  “Great.” She swung down from her horse, not quite managing to stifle a moan.

  Wincing in sympathy, he dropped to the ground. “Sore?”

  “Not too bad.”

  He didn’t buy it. The strenuous ride had tired him out, and he spent every day on a horse. But Bethany rarely admitted to any weakness. She always suffered in stoic silence—a trait that both impressed and irritated him.

  Like when she’d refused to reveal what had spooked her last night.

  Too tired to summon any annoyance, he removed his gear from behind his saddle and hauled it to the rocks. “I’ll take care of the horses if you set up camp and start a fire. But keep your rifle handy,” he added.

  “You think we’re being followed?”

  “No, but there’s no point taking a chance.”

  He removed the saddles, then led the horses to the nearby creek, his thoughts still lingering on her. All this time he’d resented that she’d moved away, that she hadn’t cared enough about him to stay. But there was nothing for her in Maple Cove. His expectations had been out of line.

  And no matter how many grueling hours he’d spent in the saddle, no matter how relentless the pace he’d set, he couldn’t outrun the truth. He hadn’t been fair to her.

  Not liking that blunt assessment, he hobbled the horses near their camp. Then he sat next to Bethany at the campfire and devoured a can of stew. But he could no longer deny the facts, no matter how unflattering they were. He’d been wrong.

  Sobered by that brutal truth, he sat beside her in the flickering firelight, the welcome warmth heating his skin. His gaze kept returning to her high, sculpted cheekbones, her exotic, dark-lashed eyes. Her beauty made his heart thud. Every gesture, every graceful motion she made brought heat surging straight to his loins. And he had to admit that no matter what else had gone wrong between them, she still appealed to him in a basic, primal way.

  And sitting together, snowflakes falling around them, the cold wind murmuring in the pines, it was far too easy to remember the good times, the reasons he’d once given her his heart—her intelligence, her patience, their easy camaraderie. She’d believed in his abilities. She’d encouraged him, given her unflagging support, and made him feel worthwhile.

  But that was then. That time was gone. And in a few more days she’d once again exit his life. And he’d be on his ranch, just how he wanted to be.

  Alone.

  Pushing that thought aside with a frown, he finished his last can of stew. “You think Tony’s all right?” he asked to distract himself.

  She gave her head a quick shake. “It was a pretty bad break. He’ll be out of commission for a while.”

  “Good. Then he’ll have time to find a new job.�
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  Her head came up. “You’re not going to fire him?”

  “Damn right I am.” He didn’t tolerate disrespect or disloyalty among his men.

  “But…you can’t. Your ranch hands just quit, and you need the help.”

  “I don’t need it that bad.” Hell, Tony was lucky he’d only escaped with a broken foot. Hearing him disparage Bethany had sent a bolt of white-hot rage blazing through him, incinerating his self-control. It had taken every ounce of willpower he had not to attack the injured man.

  His belly hot with remembered anger, he surged to his feet, then returned his utensils to his pack.

  Bethany rose and moved to his side. “Seriously, Cole. Don’t be hasty. Wait until the problems with your father settle down before you make up your mind.”

  He shot her an incredulous look. “I can’t believe you’re defending him.”

  “I’m not. Not at all. I can’t stand him. It’s just—”

  He stiffened. “None of my business?”

  “No, that’s not what I was going to say.” The wind gusted, making the pine trees creak. “It’s just…complicated.”

  “It seems simple to me.”

  “I used to think so, too,” she admitted. “The thing is…everyone pretends racism doesn’t exist anymore. But it does. Not everyone is a racist by a long shot. There are lots of nice people around. But it happens, more than you’d expect.”

  “I know that.” He’d felt the disapproval of some of the townspeople when he and Bethany had dated during high school. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve got to tolerate it on my ranch.”

  “I don’t expect you to. I’m just saying to wait for a better time before you fire him. Tony’s a bully. He always has been. The racial aspects just give him another excuse to be mean. And maybe…maybe I misjudged him. My father says he does good work, so maybe you should give him another chance.”

  He doubted that. But her words triggered memories of the animosity he’d always sensed. And suddenly, it clicked. “Tony bullied you?”

  She turned back toward the fire with a shrug. “When I was a kid.”