Rustling Up Trouble

by Delores Fossen

  He was right, and Rayanne forced herself to consider that. Still...

  “Finish dressing,” Blue said. “Then we’ll go downstairs and wait for some news.”

  Despite Seth’s and Blue’s orders for her to stay put, Rayanne was still debating what to do when Blue brushed his hand over her stomach. It was one of those reminders that she didn’t necessarily want.

  But needed.

  The deputy sheriff in her wanted to go racing to the jail, but the baby had to come first.

  Blue leaned in, kissed her. “We’ll talk about that later.” He tipped his head to the heap of rumpled covers on the bed.

  Yes, the heat between them and their apparent inability to fall in love. However, Rayanne was pretty sure that for her, it was no longer an inability.

  She was falling in love with Blue—again.

  That made her either stupid...human...or both. She was still debating that, too, when there was a knock at the door, and the knob rattled.

  “Rayanne?” Rosalie called out.

  “She probably heard about the bomb threat,” Blue mumbled, and he opened the door.

  Rayanne got ready to give Rosalie the same reassurance that Blue and Seth had just given her. But after one look at her sister’s face, Rayanne knew a mere reassurance wasn’t going to help. There were tears spilling down Rosalie’s cheeks.

  “The deputy from Clay Ridge just called,” Rosalie said, her words rushing together. “A bomb went off at the jail.” She paused, swallowed hard. “Mom’s been hurt.”

  * * *

  BLUE CURSED. NOT JUST because Jewell had been injured but because he knew there was nothing that could stop Rayanne from going to her.

  Still, he tried.

  “Wait.” He caught on to her and turned back to Rosalie. “How bad are her injuries?”

  Rosalie shook her head. “The deputy couldn’t say. There’s an ambulance on the way to take her and the rest of the wounded inmates to the hospital in Clay Ridge.”

  “I have to see her,” Rayanne said, shaking off Blue’s grip. She grabbed her holster and gun from the dresser.

  Blue darted out into the hall, cutting her off before she could get far. “You should wait until I’ve had a chance to make some calls.”

  “You can do that on the drive over.” Rayanne looked up at him, and he saw the tears shimmering in her eyes. “What would you do if it was your father who was hurt? And let’s take that one step further. What if your father was hurt, and the people around him hated him enough to let him die?”

  Oh, man. He’d been afraid she was going to toss that at him. Because it was a darn good argument. If his dad had been hurt, nothing would have stopped him from going.

  That meant since he couldn’t talk her out of going to Clay Ridge, Blue had to do anything and everything to keep Rayanne safe.

  “Who’s here at the ranch?” Blue asked Rosalie, following both women down the stairs.

  “Roy and the hands, of course. Colt had to go back into town to work.”

  Not good. The ranch hands had done well so far, but Blue wanted law enforcement for this. “Call Cooper and see if he can arrange for someone to escort Rayanne and me to the hospital so she can see her mother.”

  Rosalie gave a shaky nod and made the call while they hurried to the kitchen. Roy was there, buckling up a waist holster. Obviously, he was aware that the explosion and Jewell’s injuries could be some kind of trap to draw them out into the open.

  “I’m going with you,” the man insisted.

  “Me, too,” Rosalie added the moment she finished her call. “Cooper said Colt and Reed are on their way over to escort us to the hospital.”

  “We can wait for them at the end of the road,” Rayanne mumbled. “And they’d better hurry.”

  Again, Blue had to step in front of Rayanne to stop her from bolting out the door. “I need to make sure it’s safe enough to go out there.”

  “I’ll do that,” Roy insisted.

  Damn. He was just as stubborn as his daughter. Blue didn’t get a chance to argue with the man, because his phone rang, and he saw Seth’s name on the screen.

  “I’m guessing all of you are headed to Clay Ridge,” Seth said the moment Blue answered.

  “Even hog-tying won’t stop them.”

  Seth mumbled some profanity. “I’ll see what I can do about getting you some help. It’s a forty-five-minute drive, and a lot of bad things can happen along the way.” He paused. “Is Rayanne listening?”

  “No.” And Blue moved slightly away from her because he figured this was something Seth didn’t want her to hear.

  “I just found out from someone in the ambulance that Mom’s injuries could be pretty bad,” Seth explained.

  “Oh, God,” Rayanne said, and Blue knew then that she’d heard her brother after all. She snatched the phone from Blue and put it on speaker.

  “How bad?” Rayanne demanded.

  It took several seconds for Seth to answer. “She’s unconscious, has lost plenty of blood and will likely need surgery. That doesn’t mean I want you going off—”

  That got Rayanne heading out the door again. She punched the end-call button and tossed him his phone, and all Blue could do was draw his gun to help Roy make sure the yard was clear.

  Rayanne opened the door of an SUV that was parked close to the house and would have gotten behind the wheel if Roy hadn’t stopped her. “I’ll drive,” her father insisted. “That way, the two of you can keep watch.”

  “Me, too,” Rosalie said, and that was when Blue realized she’d also grabbed a gun.

  “I guess it won’t do any good to say just how bad an idea this is,” Blue grumbled.

  Nope.

  No good whatsoever.

  The best Blue could do was maneuver Rayanne and Rosalie into the backseat so he could ride shotgun. Rayanne got behind Blue. Rosalie behind her father.

  “Both of you stay down,” Blue warned them.

  Whether they would was anyone’s guess, but at least Rosalie slid lower as Roy took off.

  “It’ll take Colt and Reed at least another ten minutes to get out here,” Roy said to no one in particular.

  “Drive slow,” Blue advised him.

  The sooner they met up with the deputies, the better, and Blue wanted to minimize their time on the road without the added protection. Since it was already dark, their attacker might be able to hide somewhere along the way.

  “I’ll call the Clay Ridge hospital,” Rosalie volunteered, “and see if there’s an update.”

  Blue needed to start his own calls. The big one had already been made—Colt and Reed were on the way—but he wanted to know the location of their three suspects. And also how someone had managed to set off a bomb in the county jail. He took out his phone to get started just as Roy brought the SUV to a stop at the end of the road.

  “We’ll wait for Reed and Colt,” Roy said. “As soon as they show, we’ll all head out together.”

  Rayanne opened her mouth, no doubt to protest that, but Roy shot her a look that only a father could have managed. Yeah, Rayanne was hardheaded but Roy made it clear that arguing wasn’t going to make him budge.

  Blue kept his gun drawn, and he kept watch while he made the first call to Agent Hale at the ATF. The county sheriff had likely already arranged for a CSI team, but Blue wanted to get some federal agents on the scene.

  “Headlights,” Roy pointed out, and he tipped his head to the vehicle approaching.

  “I’ll make sure it’s Colt and Reed,” Rayanne said, taking out her phone again. “And if it is, hit the gas and let’s get out of here.”

  Blue’s call to Hale went to voice mail, and he put away his phone, his attention planted on those headlights. He wouldn’t breathe easier until he had confirmation from Rayanne that it was backup and not someone else ready to attack them.

  “It’s them,” Rayanne relayed several moments later.

  Roy pulled out onto the main road, Colt and Reed right behind them, and as Rayanne ha
d said, her father hit the accelerator.

  Just as a fireball exploded right in front of them.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The blast shook the entire SUV, and it took Rayanne a moment to realize what had happened.

  Someone had detonated a bomb.

  Roy slammed on the brakes, and despite the fact all of them were wearing seat belts, the jolt threw them forward. She heard Blue make a sharp sound of pain, no doubt because the seat belt had caught his shoulder.

  “Back up,” Blue practically shouted to Roy. “Get us out of here.”

  Rayanne saw that Colt was already doing that. His tires screamed against the asphalt, and the cruiser sped backward, giving them enough distance for Roy to do the same.

  But he didn’t get far.

  The second blast came at them like a thunderbolt, tearing through the road in the meager space between the cruiser and their SUV. Blue cursed, reached over the seat and pushed Rosalie and her down.

  Rayanne had already drawn her gun, but she got it ready in case she had a chance to fire and stop this monster from setting off another explosive.

  Blue had been right. The bombing at the jail had likely been designed to draw them out into the open. And it’d worked. But her mother was hurt. Maybe dying. There was no way she could have stayed put and not gone to the hospital.

  Now that decision might cost all of them their lives.

  Blue’s phone rang, and he hit the speaker button. “Are you all right?” she heard Colt ask.

  Blue glanced at each of them. “I think so. You see anyone, anything?”

  “Nothing.... Wait, maybe something. Look to the driver’s side of the SUV.”

  Rayanne lifted her head to do just that, but all she could see was a cloud of milky-gray smoke caused by the bombs. She knew there were woods on that side of the road. There were pastures on the side they were on. It would make sense that if their attacker wanted to hide, he would use the woods.

  “I don’t see anyone,” Blue told Colt. “How many and how close?”

  “I only got a glimpse of one man, and he ducked behind the trees.”

  If it was the same guy who’d fired at the house earlier, then he could be carrying a rifle and use it to rip the SUV apart with bullets.

  That kicked up her heartbeat a significant notch. They had to do something to get out of there alive.

  “How bad’s the road?” Roy asked. “Can I drive around the damage?”

  “Probably not,” Colt answered.

  Rayanne groaned. If they couldn’t move, then it meant they were trapped just waiting for the next attack. And she figured it wouldn’t take long for that next attack to come.

  “I’m going to try to use the shoulder to turn around and get us out of here,” Roy said. “You keep an eye on the guy you spotted.”

  “Will do,” Colt assured him.

  Roy put the SUV in gear, and while Blue and Rayanne kept watch, he maneuvered the vehicle off the asphalt and onto the narrow dirt shoulder. Thankfully, there’d been no recent rains, or both the shoulder and the ditch would have been a bog. Roy was able to gain enough traction to make some progress in getting them turned around.

  “Why hasn’t he finished us off?” Blue mumbled.

  That caused the skin to crawl on the back of her neck, and it was a question she should have already asked herself. For nearly a minute, their attacker had had them at a standstill, and it would have been the perfect time to kill them. Probably Reed and Colt, too, since they would have tried to stop it.

  So why were they all still alive?

  “This is a kidnapping,” Rayanne said.

  Blue nodded.

  Just as there was a plinging sound as something hit the front of the SUV. A split second later, there was another one.

  “Tear gas,” Blue and she said in unison.

  They didn’t have to wait long for confirmation of that. The wispy gas immediately started to spew from the canisters. Their windows were all closed, but the gas seeped through, and they all started to cough.

  “He wants us out of the SUV so he can take us at gunpoint,” Blue told Roy.

  Yes, and then do heaven-knew-what to them.

  If it was Caleb or Woody behind this, then they might want to use Blue and her as pawns in whatever dirty dealings they were into. Or maybe they would use her to force Blue into helping them cover up the plot that landed those confiscated weapons back into the hands of criminals.

  And if it was Wendell, then they could be pawns for a different reason.

  To punish her mother.

  Of course, this could be Gandy’s men, carrying out his wishes from beyond the grave. It didn’t matter that Gandy was already dead. He could have set this into motion, knowing that he would finally get his revenge against Blue for his investigation.

  Despite the fact he was coughing and wheezing as much as the rest of them, Roy kept maneuvering the SUV. He didn’t panic and gun the engine; he inched forward, then back, until he had enough room to get the vehicle around the crater in the road and onto the shoulder.

  He hit the accelerator.

  “I can’t see,” Roy said through his coughs.

  Neither could Rayanne. The tear gas was burning like fire in her eyes, and she was coughing so hard that she couldn’t catch her breath. She prayed this wouldn’t do anything to harm the baby.

  “Stay on the shoulder as long as you can,” Colt warned him. “The road might not be stable.”

  Roy did. The SUV bobbed over the uneven surface of the grass-and-dirt shoulder, and thanks to the night breeze clearing away some of the smoke, Rayanne got just a glimpse of the massive hole in the road. If Roy had gone into that, they would have been stuck again.

  “Keep moving,” Colt instructed. “Let’s get back to the ranch so we can regroup.”

  And she could check on her mother. Even now, that was pressing as hard on her as this nightmarish situation. If this monster had managed to kill her mother, then whoever he was, he would pay.

  Roy finally maneuvered around the massive hole, and Rayanne spotted Colt’s cruiser. For the first time since this ordeal had started, she thought maybe they might finally make it out of there.

  But she was wrong.

  A bullet crashed into the SUV.

  * * *

  “GET DOWN!” BLUE SHOUTED, mainly to Rayanne.

  As a deputy, she no doubt had the instinct to try to return fire, but he didn’t want her taking a bullet while trying to protect the rest of them.

  Roy hit the gas, but another bullet ripped through the windshield and shattered the safety glass. Mixed with the lingering smoke from the explosives and the tear gas, it made it nearly impossible to see.

  Worse, the bullets just kept coming.

  Not inside the vehicle, though. Now that the windshield was gone, the shooter was aiming at the tires.

  Trying to stop them.

  Worse, there wasn’t just one shooter. There were likely several of them, and they seemed to be stretched out in the woods, firing nonstop as Roy drove past them. If so, then this was a well-orchestrated attack by someone who was desperate to get their hands on Rayanne and him.

  “Get off the road,” Blue instructed Roy. “Go through the fence and into the pasture.”

  Of course, there were no guarantees gunmen weren’t waiting there, too, but at least the pasture was wide-open, and Blue had a chance of picking off one of these idiots if they came out of cover.

  Blue risked glancing back at Rayanne to make sure she was okay.

  She wasn’t.

  Both she and her sister were pale and shaking, but at least they were alive and unharmed. And thank God, they were actually staying down on the seat as he’d told them to do.

  It crushed his heart to think of what this was doing to her and the baby. To Rosalie and Roy, too. He was an agent, had been in the middle of gunfire before, and while that never would be routine, the others had to be terrified.

  Heck, Blue was, too.

  And lat
er he’d kick himself for allowing things to get this far. If there was a later, that is.

  “Hold on,” Roy said.

  Rayanne’s father gave the steering wheel a sharp turn to the left and accelerated even more so they’d clear the ditch. It worked, but it wasn’t a smooth landing.

  Far from it.

  The SUV bolted through the wooden fence and sent a spray of debris right at them and tearing through what was left of the windshield. A thick piece of wood smacked against Blue’s arm, and he could have sworn he saw stars. He forced aside the pain, not easy to do, and got ready for another attack.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  The bullets started again. Nonstop. All of them tearing into the lower part of the SUV. There wouldn’t be much of the tires left by now, but he hoped it was enough to get them the heck out of there.

  Roy hit the gas again, but the SUV didn’t move. The flat tires just spun around in the soft ground. They were stuck. Again. Sitting ducks with their attackers closing in on them.

  “Colt, I can’t move,” Roy shouted toward the phone, though he kept trying to get the SUV out of the bog. “Anything you can do?”

  “It’s too risky for you to come out on the road to get to me. I’m coming closer,” Blue heard Colt answer over the thick blasts. “The cruiser’s bullet resistant, so I’m going to try and get behind you and push your vehicle to get it moving.”

  That would put Rayanne’s brother and Reed in the direct path of those bullets. Still, it might save Rayanne and the baby from being hit, and right now Blue had to put their safety above all others’. However, he did have to wonder how Roy felt about his youngest son taking the brunt of the danger on his shoulders.

  “If I get stuck, too,” Colt added, “Cooper and some of the ranch hands are on the way out here. Just hold your positions until we can fight off these idiots.”

  Blue hoped they wouldn’t have to fight much longer. Each bullet fired was a risk that one of them could get hurt or killed.

  It didn’t take long for Colt to come crashing through the fence. The shots kept coming, but as he’d said he would do, Colt turned the cruiser, lining up the front end of it with the back bumper of the SUV. Blue heard Colt rev his engine and could feel the cruiser pushing against the SUV.