Cowboy Six Pack

by Kari Lynn Dell

  Easy, girl. She drew a steadying breath and willed her heart to stop thundering loud enough to drown out the newly crowned rodeo queen's speech over the loudspeakers. Next up would be a mounted drill team, same as each of the two previous nights. Their routine took nine minutes. Shannon had checked, on a possible need to know basis.

  Lonnie's truck, already in position at the loading chute, fired to life, a reminder that time was short. Shannon squared her shoulders and got to work.

  The first trailer she checked was a generic stock model with open slats along the top. A quick peek was enough to see it was empty. The next rig was newer, a gleaming dually pick-up with matching aluminum gooseneck trailer. When Shannon stepped around to the side not visible from the announcer's stand, she found two distinctive red-and-white paint horses gazing at her with mild curiosity, their heads hanging out of open, drop-down manger doors.

  Strike two. If she didn't find the stolen horse in the next one, she'd have to expand her search area. Where did she begin, with the dozens of contestant trailers parked in a haphazard maze the size of a football field?

  The third was a dull, rust-pitted bumper tow, pulled by a nondescript Ford pickup. The license plates on both were obscured by mud. Coincidence? The prickle at the back of her neck said no. The trailer windows were closed tight, the scratched Plexiglass opaque with grime. As Shannon moved closer she heard the thud of hooves on rubber matting and saw the trailer rock with the movement. She glanced around, found no one passing by, and eased up to the small escape door near the front of the stall. The latch was stiff, but gave after a good yank.

  The brown horse inside started, then snorted, nostrils flaring as it craned its neck to study her. Shannon clicked on her penlight. Just below the horse's right ear, a dark line marked a crescent-shaped scar.

  Bingo.

  She let out a muffled screech as a rough hand gripped her arm and yanked her around.

  "What're you doing in there?" the man demanded, shoving her against the side of the trailer.

  He was big, much bigger than Shannon. Her throat closed, unable to produce the scream that would bring help. Her knees went soft, her vision swam, and for an instant her panicked mind superimposed Chuck Potter's snarl on the stranger's shadowed face.

  He shook her, making her teeth snap together so hard her ears rang. "I asked you a question, lady. What the hell are you doin' in my trailer?"

  "I, um—" She forced her scrambled brain to produce a legitimate excuse. "He was pawing. I thought something was wrong."

  The man glared down at her, eyes narrowed. His grip tightened to the point of pain and his rancid breath fanned her face, reeking of stale chewing tobacco. Shannon's petrified muscles refused to react.

  A public place, she reminded herself desperately. She could pull away. She could run. This time, she could turn her back and run. He wouldn't dare...

  But if she raised a fuss, he might run, too.

  "Shannon? What are you doing back there?"

  The stranger's head jerked around at the sound of her name. Tyler's interruption provided enough of a distraction to allow her to slip a hand inside her purse.

  "Feel that?" she asked, pressing hard into the bulge of fat that spilled over his belt. "That's a Taser. You move, make a sound, and you're gonna be on the ground, twitching and pissing your pants."

  The stranger stiffened. "Who are you?"

  "State police," she said. "You're under arrest for possession of a stolen horse. But you can make it a whole lot easier on yourself if you cooperate with me."

  He snorted foul-smelling air into her face. "Why would I wanna do that?"

  "Because I've got you dead to rights."

  She glanced over to where Tyler had stopped a dozen feet away, phone clutched in his hand as if poised to dial 911. In the arena the mounted drill team was still performing to the first of three songs. At least five minutes before Tyler had to be back in the crow's nest. She cocked her head toward him and raised her voice.

  "And that gentleman has photographic proof that you assaulted an officer of the law, leaving me no choice but to push this little button and fry your ass. Are you really going to suffer all of that to protect a worm like Danny West?"

  The big man hesitated. Tyler lifted his phone and started snapping pictures. Shannon wiggled the Taser, making the points dig into flabby skin.

  "Okay, okay!" He let go of Shannon and held his hands up. "What do you want?"

  "How are you going to hand off the horse to Danny?"

  The big man hesitated again, then sucked in a breath and said, "When Bud and Danny go behind the bucking chutes for the bull riding, I'm supposed to tie this horse to the fence beside the alley gate."

  "And then?"

  "I clear out and the rest is up to him."

  Leaving Danny with a rock-solid alibi if the horse was discovered before he loaded it on the truck. He hadn't witnessed the delivery, had never been seen with this lump of shit. Shannon's brain whirled through the possibilities. She glanced over her shoulder, into the horse trailer. The front manger was split by a set of heavy steel bars.

  "Okay," she said. "Here's what we're gonna do."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Tyler stood, stunned, holding the stolen horse while Shannon handcuffed the fat bastard inside the horse trailer and warned him of the dire consequences should he make any attempt to warn Danny off. They peeked around the end of the trailer to be sure Danny was safely out of sight, then Tyler stood watch while she led the horse to the fence and tied it in the designated spot before grabbing his arm and dragging him away.

  He was sweating like he'd sprinted the length of the arena. She was cool as March in the Rockies.

  "The drill team is almost done. You have to get back up there," she ordered, shoving him toward the announcer's stand.

  "What are you going to do?"

  She planted a quick kiss on his cheek, then stepped back, smiling grimly. "I have a date with Danny West."

  Tyler hustled up the stairs, pausing for one look back before he went inside. Shannon slipped through the shadows between the horse trailers, circling out and around to the opposite side of Lonnie's truck. As she disappeared, her hand slid into her purse again.

  Tyler guessed that this time she wouldn't pull out a Taser.

  He barely remembered the rest of the performance, but he must have sounded semi-normal because Judy didn't seem to notice otherwise. Of course, she was busy scrambling to do both her job and Shannon's, running the electronic timers for the barrel racing and bull riding and writing down the scores. Tyler offered to help as a distraction from imagining what was happening down below. Every nerve ending in his body crackled, waiting for all hell to break loose, but the rodeo went off without a hitch.

  Lonnie's truck revved and pulled away from the chute, making Tyler's heart jump into his throat. He fumbled a cowboy's name, swallowed hard, and manufactured a laugh and a comment about how rodeo announcers have hot air where their brain should be. The rodeo clown took the cue and rolled straight into a series of rodeo announcer jokes while the next bull rider took his sweet time getting his rope situated just right.

  The Big West truck rumbled out of the fairgrounds, a rolling Christmas tree with all the running lights on the cab and trailer. Tyler couldn't see out the back of the announcer's stand to where Shannon would have intercepted Danny at the loading chute. Fear shot lightning bolts of adrenaline through his nerves, remembering her pinched face, the panic in her eyes before he'd interrupted her confrontation with Lard Ass.

  Why did she stay in this line of work? Not only did it tear her up inside, it obviously scared the crap out of her.

  Finally, to his infinite relief, the last cowboy scraped himself up out of the dirt and gimped away, dragging his bull rope behind. Tyler bade the crowd a brisk, "Goodnight, drive carefully, see you next year."

  He had barely switched off the microphone when the door swung open. Bud West stood outside, his fleshy face an unnatural shade of gray.
>
  "Bud?" Judy asked, her voice sharpening with alarm. "What's wrong?"

  "You'd best come downstairs, Mother." His eyes were flat, lifeless, as if someone had doused the light in his soul. He turned and shuffled heavily down the steps.

  Judy flashed a fearful glance at Tyler and hurried after her husband. Tyler was right on her heels. Bud led them down and around the back of the stock pens. There were no sirens or flashing lights, only a cluster of people around an unmarked car.

  The crowd parted before them. Tyler recognized the cop who'd posed as a cameraman standing guard over the open back door of the car. Danny was slouched inside, hands cuffed. Judy let out a heartrending wail and buried her face in Bud's chest.

  "You son-of-a-bitch," Tyler said.

  Danny looked him square in the eye and gave a slow, insolent hitch of his shoulder, then deliberately turned away. Tyler finally located Shannon standing near the front of the car, watching Judy and Bud, her face white and stricken. Tyler started to move toward her but Bud stopped him, passing his sobbing wife into Tyler's arms.

  "Take care of her, please? I have to deal with these people and I...she...just watch her, okay?"

  Helpless, Tyler wrapped his arms around Judy, patting her back awkwardly while Bud stumbled over to talk to the cop. Shannon stood transfixed, her eyes as glassy as a bystander at a gruesome accident. Tyler ached to hold her, tell her she wasn't to blame, but there were too many witnesses, too many of her co-workers, and if he let Judy go she would crumple into the dirt.

  Shannon's eyes met Tyler's over Judy's bowed head. He couldn't suppress a spurt of anger at the guilt and misery etched in her face. This goddamned job.

  "How can you keep doing this?" he demanded.

  Her face went blank. For a long moment, she simply stared at him. Then she whirled and fled into the darkness. Tyler moved to follow, but Judy clutched tighter to the front of his shirt. By the time he pried her loose and passed her back to Bud, Shannon was nowhere in sight.

  The rodeo office. Maybe she'd gone to take care of whatever needed to be done in Judy's absence. He broke into a jog as he rounded the last horse trailer, then stopped dead.

  Her car wasn't where she'd left it.

  On autopilot, he walked to the office. A hastily scrawled note was tacked to the locked door. Closed due to family emergency. Tyler stared blankly at the sheet of paper for a long moment. Then he turned and forced his leaden body as far as his pick-up. One part of his mind screamed at him to hurry—drive like a madman and catch her before she left town.

  His heart told him not to bother. Shannon was gone. Again.

  Shannon drove nearly an hour before tears made it impossible to see the lines on the pavement. They streamed from her eyes—hot, silent testament to the utter destruction inside her chest. Another family torn to shreds. Another son, hauled away in chains. And Tyler's bitter words hissing through her mind like a curse.

  How can you keep doing this?

  She pulled off into a dusty, nothing of a town and checked into the faded motel. Leaving her suitcases in the car, she stumbled inside, collapsed on the bed and curled into a ball, as if she could somehow keep the pieces of her heart from flying off into oblivion.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Tyler watched the last of the stars wink out from the cab of his pickup, parked at a scenic viewpoint in Makoshika State Park, the badlands just east of Glendive. The barren landscape was a perfect reflection of what he felt inside.

  After the cops had hauled Danny away and Bud and Judy had holed up in their RV, Tyler had driven out here to sit for what was left of the night, unable to bear returning to the room where he'd held Shannon in his arms and dared to hope she'd stay. Dared to believe he wasn't just a tool she'd used to accomplish her mission.

  Tool being the operative word.

  Squeezing his eyes tight against the pain, he turned the key in the ignition. A large espresso, the quickest stop possible at the hotel to grab his gear, and he would hit the road. Go home. Go on to the next rodeo. Whatever. He couldn't seem to give a damn.

  Coffee in hand, he shouldered open the door to his room, then dropped an F bomb when he started and the hot coffee spurted out of the hole in the plastic lid and onto his hand.

  "Don't you people need a search warrant or something?" he demanded, letting the door bang behind him.

  Seated in the same chair Shannon had once occupied, Don Murphy raised steel-tipped eyebrows. "You got something to hide?"

  Tyler let loose an explosive snort in reply as he dropped into the opposite chair and glared at his unwelcome visitor.

  "You look like hell," Don said, as casual as if they were discussing the weather.

  "So do you."

  Once he'd said it, Tyler realized it was true. Lines of fatigue grooved the older man's face and his red-rimmed eyes held the kind of exhaustion bred more from seeing too much than sleeping too little.

  Murphy heaved a weary sigh. "The drop off spot for the horse was clear down by Sundance. I hid in the sleeper while Lonnie drove because Shannon guessed the guy on that end would have it set up so he'd see if anyone was tailing the truck. I just got back into town an hour ago."

  "You got him?"

  "Yeah. Got 'em all."

  "How much trouble is Shannon in?"

  Murphy made a grim face. "Plenty—but she knew that going in. Lucky for her it all went down like clockwork. That'll weigh in her favor. And the other members of our team are pretty adamant that she was right and we should've listened to her to begin with. But she still disobeyed orders. I guarantee she won't be setting foot in the field again for a long time…if ever."

  Tyler nodded wearily, a part of him relieved on Shannon’s behalf, the rest tired of the conversation, tired of everything. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and the scene of the crime as possible. He rubbed a hand over his gritty eyes, wishing Murphy would just disappear.

  "What did you do to her this time?"

  "What did I do?” Tyler jerked his head up. “I've never done a damned thing to her. She used me until she got what she needed, then took off again. Never even said goodbye."

  "She couldn't." Murphy's heavy eyelids dropped like shutters over whatever emotion might have shown. "Last time."

  Something in his voice, an echo of past anguish, squelched Tyler's temper. "Why not?"

  Murphy steepled his fingers and studied the tips. "She was in ICU. They kept her in an induced coma for two weeks, and drugged pretty much senseless for another ten days after that."

  Tyler's hands clenched, horror icing his gut. "The scar."

  Murphy nodded.

  "What happened?"

  "Chuck Potter."

  "She was the officer he shot?" Tyler reared forward, snarling. "She said takedowns aren't supposed to be her job. What the hell was she doing there?"

  Murphy slapped his hands on the table and met him halfway. "Keeping your ass out of jail!"

  Tyler sank back into his chair, head spinning. "I don't understand."

  "Well, there's a news flash!" Murphy lunged to his feet. "You had your head buried so deep, that brother of yours coulda sold purple yaks through the sale barn and you wouldn't have noticed."

  Tyler squinted at him in confusion. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "My point exactly!" Murphy threw up his hands as he paced the length of the room. "Kevin was a lousy crook. He left a paper trail so wide a blind rookie could've followed it straight from him to Potter. Shannon had everything she needed to put them both away a week after she started working for you."

  "She was there almost a month," Tyler argued. "Why did she stay?"

  Murphy spun on his heel to nail Tyler with a derisive stare. "Why do you think, Einstein? You were a full partner in the business. Didn't you wonder why we never came after you?"

  "You did, until Kevin confessed and told you I had nothing to do with it."

  Murphy rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah, we always take the brother's word for stuff like th
at."

  "So...what? Shannon hung around to prove me innocent?"

  "Yes! But she couldn't find one damned piece of evidence to clear you. She knew you were screwed if she turned over what she had to us—unless she could get Chuck Potter to admit you weren't involved. So she gave me enough to get a warrant, put on a wire and went to see him right before we were scheduled to pick him up."

  Tyler's blood turned to slush. "Because of me?"

  "Yeah. You." Murphy shot him a death glare, then his face morphed into an expression of grudging admiration. "Gotta admit, she played him perfect. Said she knew about his operation and wanted a cut, or she was going to the police. He asked her how much. She asked what he was giving you and Kevin. He laughed and said he owned Kevin, but you were too damn stupid to figure out what was going on and insist on a piece of the action."

  Tyler flushed. Was that how Shannon had seen him, too? The naive idiot?

  "It was all good until she tried to leave. Potter grabbed her, figuring they oughta be more than business partners. When she fought him, he ripped her shirt and saw the wire." Murphy's voice caught, as if choking on the words. "She punched him in the throat, would've got away if he hadn't been armed. He shot her just as we busted in the door. The bullet passed through her lung, destroyed her spleen." He cleared his throat to finish softly. "And tore a chunk out of her heart."

  "Her heart?" Tyler wasn't sure how the words were audible through his paralyzed lips. Oh, God. The heart he'd once cursed as bulletproof.

  "If we hadn't had a helicopter on standby she would have died before we got her to the hospital." Shaken by the memory, Murphy sank onto the foot of the bed. "There was blood everywhere. So much blood."

  He stared at his hands, at the floor, as if he could still see the stains. They sat in heavy silence for a long, painful time.

  Finally, Tyler said, "No wonder you wanted to rip my head off."

  Murphy's shoulders jerked. "She hadn't regained consciousness yet. I had no idea why she'd take that kind of risk until you made the crack about her being in your bed. The others hadn't seen fit to share that information with me."