Christmas Cowboy

by Claire Adams

  Chapter 4

  Colt

  I knew something was wrong when Tiffany showed up to the restaurant some thirty minutes after I had shut and locked the doors.

  “What is it?” I asked, concerned at the stricken look on her face. “You’re going to break my glass doors down with all that pounding.”

  Tiffany rushed in when I pushed the door open to let her in. She ignored the jest, twisting her hands nervously in front of her.

  “It’s Cheyenne,” she said. “I think she’s in trouble, or about to be in trouble.”

  My concern only deepened when I saw the terrified expression on Tiffany’s face. I motioned for her to sit down. Whatever it was, it was enough to rattle Tiffany, and that wasn’t easy to do. There were only a handful of times throughout my whole life that I remembered my sister scared. She was fearless. Our dad taught us to never be afraid.

  “What sort of trouble?” I asked, sitting down. “Is she okay or do we need to—”

  “We need to keep an eye on her,” Tiffany said as she sat in the chair across from me.

  “That horse she picked up from Jacob is a stallion that belonged to Bill Coates.”

  Bill Coates. An icy anger rushed through me at the mention of his name. The man was a disgusting drunk. I’d kicked him out of my restaurant for his foul attitude only two days after opening. I knew how he treated animals over at his ranch and that he was close friends with Jim Staffer. There was no doubt in my mind that the man treated his business and his ranch the same way he treated everyone else around him—including his animals.

  “I imagine Bill is not happy about that,” I said grimly, my mind whirling.

  “He isn’t,” Tiffany said. “If that’s not bad enough, Cheyenne called PETA on him, too. Bill is on a tirade from what I heard in town earlier.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He promised revenge on Cheyenne from what I was told. I just ran into a few people who had been dancing up at Suds. They all heard him say he was going to get her sanctuary shut down one way or another.”

  I rubbed my jaw with a weary sigh. “It’s just threats, Tif. Probably drunken threats at that. I know he has an ugly temper, but I don’t think he’d really try to harm her.”

  “He abuses animals,” Tiffany said, aghast. “You don’t think he could lose control and go crazy on Cheyenne? He’s already showed up once to threaten her.”

  “What? When was that?” I asked. Anger shot through me. “He’s already tried to mess with her?”

  Tiffany nodded her head vehemently. “Yes! That’s what I’m telling you. He showed up out there demanding it back, and she sent him packing, refusing to give it back to him. He had already heard from PETA too, so he was even more furious. Now he’s been jacking his jaw all over town. He’s up to something, Colt. I know it. I can feel that something bad is going to happen.”

  “Damn. Cheyenne is out there alone, too,” I commented, pinching the bridge of my nose to fight off the headache I felt coming. “I’ll drive by there when I’m done here to check on her. I don’t know how receptive she’ll be to me trying to help since she barely knows who I am, but I’ll try.”

  “I’ll try and talk to her about it. She’s just too damn proud, I think, over what happened to her.”

  “Something happened to her?”

  Tiffany hesitated at my question. She looked down at the table, twisting her hands nervously again.

  “I can’t tell you, Colt. I wish I could, but I promised,” she said. “She made me promise not to tell anyone because she doesn’t want it going around town.”

  “I can respect that,” I said, but I didn’t bother hiding my disappointment. I wanted to know what kept Cheyenne so isolated at her sanctuary. I assumed it had something to do with men because of her aloof and distant reactions to anyone who expressed an interest in her.

  “So, you’ll check on her tonight?” Tiffany asked.

  I nodded, “Promise. I’ll take the long way back to the ranch and swing by to check on her.”

  Tiffany sank back in her chair with relief. “Thank you. She doesn’t answer her phone at night, so I can’t even call. I’ll feel so much better knowing she’s okay before I go to bed tonight.”

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” I said.

  I walked Tiffany out to her truck, and she hugged me goodbye before sliding in behind the wheel. After watching her pull away, I went back inside to finish up before I headed out. I immediately realized my heart wasn’t in it, and a building anxiety in my stomach was driving me to get going. I backed out to drive slowly down a dark and quiet Main Street. I kept one eye peeled for the sheriff who normally sat on the stretch of road that turned into highway, but the familiar SUV wasn’t parked in his usual spot.

  Unease filled me then, as it had my sister. What if Bill Coates did get revenge? The man could be a crazy son-of-a-bitch, especially when he was drinking.

  As my foot pushed down on the accelerator a little more, the truck roared to life, picking up speed in the direction of Cheyenne’s ranch.

  Cheyenne needed a way to keep herself protected. My fingers clenched the steering wheel tightly as I turned onto the county road that twisted around a patch of evergreen pines. This road led to Cheyenne’s place, as well as mine, but it also went right past the ranch belonging to Bill Coates and others. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was truly so naïve to think that threatening a rancher’s reputation out here wouldn’t lead to retaliation of some sort. I knew she was new to Green Point and all the local characters, but Bill Coates made his money through his ranch. A lot of it.

  Dark smoke danced in front of my headlights when I drove around the last twist in the road. I pushed through the cloud, my heart racing until it cleared for a moment. I slammed on the brakes when I caught sight of black smoke and orange flames curling above the barn next to Cheyenne’s log home.

  “Fuck,” I swore, fumbling around in the driver’s seat for my phone while I floored it towards the gate. “Oh, God. Where the hell is my fucking phone?”

  My fingers finally found it tucked beneath my sweater. One hand on the wheel, I felt the back end of my truck kick out when I turned to ram through the gate Cheyenne had locked. I dialed the sheriff’s department number. It was Deputy Paul Franklin who answered to my great relief.

  “What is it, Colt?” Paul asked, already sounding worried. “You never call me this late.”

  “There’s a fire at Cheyenne’s Horse Sanctuary,” I shouted, staring up at the massive cloud of smoke curling through the moonlight. “Paul, it’s bad. Get the fire department. The entire roof is on fire.”

  Paul swore into the phone. “It’ll take twenty minutes, Colt. I’m clear across town doing patrols. Get the horses and Cheyenne out of there if you can.”

  I jammed my truck into park as far from the barn as possible.

  “Just hurry over here, Paul.”

  Heat and smoke crashed over me the second I jumped out of the truck. I could hear the terrified cries from the horses inside the barn. Flames licked out from the roof, giving light to the pathway as I ran up to pound on Cheyenne’s front door.

  “Cheyenne!” I yelled, pounding hard on the door. “Wake up! There’s a fire.”

  A light flicked on upstairs immediately. I left the front door to run alongside the house to the water well and looked for a hose to spray water. Sweat poured down the back of my neck as I scanned the ground frantically.

  I heard a sharp scream before Cheyenne appeared from around the house, still pulling on a pair of boots over her bare feet. She had thrown a cotton robe over her pajama shorts and shirt. Her dark hair was tangled and wild around her face as she stared up at the barn in horror.

  “We have to get the horses out,” Cheyenne shouted, darting to the barn doors. “We have to get them out of there.”

  “Cheyenne! No! Don’t go in—”

  Cheyenne threw the barn door open and disappeared inside the cloud of black smoke. Lungs burning from the smoke, I pushed throu
gh the barn door too. The sound of hooves pounding against the ground alerted me to move to the side as quickly as I could. A stream of terrified horses galloped past me through the barn door.

  Pieces of burnt wood fell to the ground around me. Cupping a hand across my mouth, I hurried past burning stalls to see flames coming down from the roof where Cheyenne stored the hay. I found her crumpled on the ground, cradling her hands to her chest.

  “I burned my hands,” she cried out, holding them tightly. “The black stallion, Colt. He won’t—”

  A loud crash followed by a whoosh of flying embers and debris made the decision for me. I grabbed Cheyenne by the armpits, hoisting her up from the ground, and tried to ignore how badly my lungs screamed for air. We both stumbled along through the barn, sweat covering every inch of our bodies until we stumbled out into the cool night air.

  I sank to the ground on my knees next to Cheyenne, gasping for breath while I listened for the sound of sirens. There was only silence in the distance. Nothing besides the sound of the fire roaring and terrified horses. Seconds later, I watched through clenched teeth as the barn collapsed in a fiery wave. There was no saving it.

  “The stallion!” Cheyenne screamed, rising to her feet. She swayed unsteadily when she took a step towards the barn. “Colt, he’s in there. I couldn’t get him out of the stall. We have to get him out!”

  I stumbled to my feet to grab Cheyenne before she fell. The light of the fire gave me a glimpse at her badly blistered hands.

  “It’s too late, Cheyenne. It’s too late. I checked before we went out; there was no way to get a rope on him, and he’d wedged himself in the corner behind some burning debris that fell. He would never have come out past that; he was too scared.”

  Tears filled her eyes as she realized as I had that the noise coming from inside the barn only moments ago was now a deafening silence. She knew just as I did what that silence meant. There was nothing that either one of us could do.

  I kept an arm wrapped around her trembling shoulders until the fire department and Paul arrived. There was nothing left besides a pile of wet and charred wood when the fire department finished dousing the flames with water. Gray smoke filled the night air.

  Cheyenne was silent the entire time as one of the firefighters dressed her burns with gauze pads and cream. She went inside briefly to find a blanket to wrap around herself to fight off the chill while I pulled Paul off to the side near my truck.

  “Bill Coates did this,” I told him. “I know he did. Tiffany heard of him swearing revenge on Cheyenne over taking his stallion and calling PETA. He’d already been out here once threatening her.”

  Paul rubbed the back of his neck with a long sigh. “No one can prove it was him, Colt. I know the man’s a sick bastard for what he does—”

  “Then why hasn’t anyone arrested him?”

  “It’s complicated, Colt. I can’t just arrest him without evidence.” Paul gave me a long and pained look. “Look, you know how close Bill is to my boss. I can’t do shit right now without evidence, and all I have is what you just told me, and even most of that is hearsay, so it might not even be deemed admissible in court.”

  Fury filled me when I looked up to the road to see the black truck belonging to Bill Coates idling along in front of the gate. I took a step in that direction, but Paul put a warning hand on my shoulder.

  “Don’t do it,” he said. The truck sped off a second later. “Go stay with Cheyenne for the night, so we don’t have to worry about more trouble, okay? I’ll go talk to Bill.”

  I nodded harshly. I knew that Paul’s hands were tied when it came to Bill, and I dimly remembered my father complaining about the same thing when it came to Green Point politics. There was corruption when it came to protecting wealthy people like Bill Coates and Jim Staffer.

  And that corruption now came at the cost of Cheyenne’s barn and the life of an innocent stallion.

  I entered through the front door of the house long after the fire department had left. I managed to corral the horses into one side of the pasture before pulling my own .9mm from the center console of my truck. I tucked it in the waistband of my pants as I shut the front door behind me. I found Cheyenne sitting numbly on the stairs, her dark hair spilling around her.

  “Cheyenne.”

  She looked up at me through watery and red-rimmed eyes.

  “Get some rest,” I said. “Okay? You’ve been through a lot tonight.”

  She didn’t reply. Quietly, she rose from the bottom step and climbed up the stairs without saying a word. I clicked a lamp light next to the couch off before settling on the couch cushions facing the living room windows.

  If Bill Coates came back tonight, I’d be waiting in the dark.

  Chapter 5

  Cheyenne

  Bright morning light peeked in through the curtains when I woke after a strange and deep sleep. The smell of smoke was still thick in the air. I could smell it everywhere—on my bedsheets, my clothes, and my skin. It was still there.

  Hot grief rolled in waves over me. The sights, smells, and sounds from the night before flashed before me—the barn ablaze with blue and orange flames, the smell of burned timbers, the terrified look in the eyes of the horses, the sounds, those horrible sounds. And Colt, pulling me from the barn before it all gave way and quietly taking care of things as I sat there numbly, unable to move. It was all too much to think about, and I squeezed my eyes shut, willing those horrible images to go away.

  The house was silent. It was quiet outside, too. I had no idea if Colt was still even around. I last saw him when he came in and told me to go to bed. I couldn’t even bear to look at the barn after the fire department had shown up. There wasn’t anything left to see besides wet and charred wood.

  My hands throbbed from being curled in fists all night. I sat up with a hiss to look down at them, the gauze pads soaked from the oozing blisters. Dark smudges covered my bed sheets. I would have to wash everything later, and it was a good enough excuse to avoid going outside. Except I needed to feed the horses, plus they needed water. They needed comfort too. They weren’t the only ones.

  Tears flooded my eyes. What was I going to do now? My parents would be furious to know the little money I had saved up was gone. Up in smoke within a matter of minutes. They would demand justice, and they’d drive down here in a heartbeat to tell me it was all some stupid dream of mine. I could just hear it. “Oh, Cheyenne. You’re just so sensitive. If you could save the whole world, you would do it.”

  I had nothing left now that the sanctuary barn was gone, and my gut blamed it on Bill Coates. That sense of dread had followed me for the past two days. This isn’t over.

  I cinched the belt of the robe securely around my waist before stripping the bed down. Ignoring the pain that shot up through my hands, I bundled everything together to throw it into the laundry room downstairs. I had reached the bottom stairs when the sound of snoring caught me off guard. Passed out on my living room couch, with his long legs propped up on my coffee table in front of him, Colt was fast asleep.

  The pit of my stomach did that flutter thing again as I lingered on the bottom step, well aware of the fact that I had soot on my skin and unwashed hair. Go figure that a man like Colt would see me at my worst. My eyes were puffy and bloodshot from crying all night, but Colt was also the reason I felt this way. In that moment of clarity, I realized I was alive because of him.

  I set the pile of soot-covered bed sheets and blankets on the ground next to the stairs. Colt’s chiseled face was utterly peaceful and relaxed, his blond hair a tousled mess. His cowboy hat was perched on the couch cushions next to him. Though he slept, his muscles were coiled and taut, ready for action at a moment’s notice. Rushing into the fire hadn’t even phased him. He was just as fearless as his sister.

  And so handsome. Damn. My cheeks burned at the direction of my thoughts. Any woman would kill to wake up with Colt asleep on their couch clutching his gun—ready, willing, and oh so able to protect them at
any sign of danger.

  A rush of heat crashed over me, making my skin feel tight against my bones. It’d been too long since I had last felt the touch of a man, and my body craved that comfort.

  The sound of my phone ringing from the kitchen startled the both of us. Colt jerked awake, his fingers curling tighter around his gun. His eyes immediately shot to where I stood at the base of the stairs.

  “You better get that,” he said, his voice husky with sleep. “It’s probably Tiffany wondering if you’re okay. Everyone in Green Point probably knows about the fire by now. Maybe even your parents.”

  I tightened the belt of my robe nervously. “It’s probably Tiffany. My parents wouldn’t have any idea about it unless I told them.”

  Colt gave me a strange look as I rushed out of the living room to answer the phone ringing madly on the wall. “I’m fine, Tif. I’m not hurt, I promise.”

  “Thank God. I was so worried when I heard. How bad is it?”

  “Bad,” I told her, tears filling my eyes. “I can’t even look at it, Tif. The stallion—he’s gone. I couldn’t get him out of the stall, and then it all crashed in.”

  Tiffany breathed sharply into the phone. “Oh, honey. I’m coming over to help you. I’ll be there in an hour.”

  “Your brother is here,” I said. “He was the one who woke me. He pulled me out of the barn last night before it collapsed. If he hadn’t come, we—we would’ve lost everyone, Tif. And maybe me too.”

  “What have I been telling you, huh? My brother is a good man to have around! Tell him I’ll bring him some fresh clothes.”

  I hung the phone up and started a pot of coffee. The sound of boots thumping against the floorboards drew my attention to Colt entering the kitchen. His expression was grave when he looked out the kitchen window. I turned away to hide the tears in my eyes when he glanced over at me with one hand resting above the window.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” I asked, my voice quivering. “I know it’s bad, but I’ve been scared to look.”