Sarge put the fruit away and pulled a loaf cake out of the cupboard. He poked holes all over its surface with a toothpick and then went back to the pantry and returned with a bottle of limoncello. “That purty Italian girl on the Network”—his name for his favorite channel—“says this makes for a real flavorful cake.” Ryder watched him pour almost half the bottle over the cake, a puddle forming around it. “It will soak it up in a while. Then I’ll frost it with cream cheese icing.”
“With more limoncello in it?” He winced.
“Yeah, it’ll be great.” Sarge barked loud, but he forgave quickly. Humming, he pulled out a half dozen pans and set them on the stainless steel commercial stove they’d bought with the first guest money. “I got to get some bacon and eggs cooking. The hands’ll be hungry. Half of ’em were out on the land all night. I never seen the like.”
Ryder poured a fresh up of coffee from the pot Sarge had started at some point in their conversation and made his getaway. Grabbing a jacket from the row of hooks by the door, he headed out the onto the porch and strolled around to the front of the house. A row of white rocking chairs lined the wall. In a couple of hours, they’d be full of guests gabbing or just relaxing and enjoying the “ranch experience.” Sitting in one near the door, he eased his leg up onto the railing and lay back, watching the sky lighten over the mountains to the east. The sun finally made its appearance, and soon guests would as well, with their noisy chatter.
Would the weapons dealers, if that’s what they were, return today? They couldn’t be anything else, not with Vibora on board. The barb itself caused no more than minor damage to the body it lodged in before exploding. And even that did not kill unless it struck an artery. In his case, it had missed doing that by millimeters. No, the death was in the venom the force of the concussion released. The ugly yellow neon substance that ate the victim’s body away. A slow, painful death. One he faced.
His buddies had acted so quickly they’d bought him time. Time to watch the birds fly from tree to tree, a hawk soar overhead. To see his brother and the ranch. To meet Isbet and have the most incredible night of his life.
But nobody could save him.
Until now. His team only had fragments of the barb and a rapidly changing chemical that their techs couldn’t do anything with.
Now, those bastards had brought the damn evilness of it onto American soil. And they’d left one behind. He hoped they hadn’t made a big mistake in giving it to the tech in Reno. If she screwed up, they’d lose the only chance they might have to make the Vibora into a non-issue. He wouldn’t have to worry about his career in that case. He’d spend his last days in military prison.
“Good morning, Ryder.” Despite his worries, he felt a little lighter at the sound of Isbet’s voice. “Have you eaten?” She pushed open the screen door and joined him outside.
“Yeah.” Setting his mug of cooling coffee on the porch floor, he reached for her hand and drew her onto his good leg. “How about you?”
She smiled at him, her curly hair damp from another shower, fresh as a daisy when he probably looked like a cast member from The Walking Dead.
“No, but I never eat breakfast. Besides, you can get drunk on it around here. Did you realize that?” She sniffed his breath. “Pastry, huh?”
“Sarge does have a flare for cooking. Sleep well?”
“I did. For a few hours, anyway. Any plans for today?”
He stood and set her on her feet. Linking their fingers, relieved she didn’t reject him after her insistence on one night only, he drew her to the outside railing. “Up there, where we were yesterday, there might still be more clues.” He pointed to the south. “I think the plane had to come from that direction.”
“Probably, it landed facing north, right? I— What’s that?”
Again, her better ears beat him to the punch, but this time he didn’t have to strain to hear the whine of a single engine plane. “Are you freaking kidding me?” He opened the screen door and hollered inside. “Andrew! Carson! They’re back.”
Chapter Ten
In five minutes, they had a plan. In ten, they were ready to put it into action. Somehow, it never occurred to Isbet, or apparently to any of the guys, that it could be an innocent plane about to fly over. Small craft often flew down the valley, but this one was already too high in the mountains to be doing that.
They saddled horses, not wanting the noise of engines to attract attention. The men on watch in the high pasture overnight had already come down for breakfast and the replacements were also in the dining room, probably half tipsy on fruit salad.
The hands were tough, but they were not gunmen, snipers or, except in the case of Sarge, trained in warfare. They were good at following orders but with the enemy approaching, they were safest out of the way. Andrew had given them all busywork around the barns and paddocks near the ranch house while the others got ready to head out. They were also to keep the guests close by until further word.
Isbet tightened the saddle on her assigned mare, glad for her girlhood passion for horses. She might not have style, but she had enough experience to hold her seat. Carson and Andrew swung onto a pair of tall, leggy geldings while Ryder led his over to the fence and used it to climb on. For a man who grew up on a ranch, who probably rode before he walked, his actions showed real loss of strength.
“I think you should stay here,” she argued, as she had for the last twenty minutes. “You told me the doctors didn’t want you riding.”
He gathered the reins and started the animal toward the trail. “Let’s go.”
She fell in behind him. She could do no more, and the guys had given up even sooner. The plane might have landed already, and they needed to get there before it took off. Ryder kicked the sides of his horse, and it took off like a rocket. Spurs could do that.
Her cheeks heated. Was one of those steel wheels the one he’d used to awaken her entire body to sensual pleasure? She felt almost naked, seeing the sun glint off them. She ducked her head into her hoodie.
As they approached the pasture, they heard the disturbed moos of the cattle and the louder whine of the plane. Ryder dismounted and waved to the rest of them who slid to the ground. They tethered the horses off the trail, out of sight, and shouldered their packs then crept closer, hiding behind a jumble of boulders at the edge of the meadow. Tule fog swirled low to the ground, dampening the grass. The damn plane came in for a landing in almost the same location as the day before, and while they watched, a man in camouflage pants and a white T-shirt, carrying an assault rifle, came out of the bushes and approached the craft.
Had he been up here all night?
She wanted to rush him, but her training held her in place. Carson and Ryder would have the same instincts, but Andrew tensed, and his brother had to grab his arm and whisper in his ear. He subsided, but his fists were clenched.
The door of the white single-engine craft faced them, and when it opened, a man dressed like the other one hopped out and tugged a set of steps to the ground. He also carried an automatic weapon, and the two stood on either side of the door while a third person descended.
Somehow, she’d never expected a woman. Why, she didn’t know. She’d encountered plenty of evil bitches in her day, and poison was long known to be a woman’s weapon. But not poison packed into an exploding barb. More like a little hemlock in the wine of a man who’d cheated on her.
This woman stood, looking around, in high heels and tailored slacks. Her silk shirt was covered with a heavily embroidered jacket, and she wore enough gold jewelry to open her own store. Piles of black hair were pinned in an elaborate hairstyle. Her heels had to be sunk into the damp earth, and the low fog swirled around her ankles, but she held herself with the posture of a queen. A very angry queen who shouted at her subject in rapid-fire Spanish.
“What is she so mad about?” Andrew whispered.
“They didn’t make their delivery yesterday,” Isbet translated. “They heard us coming and panicked. So she came
today to make sure there were no screw ups.”
“Have they made other drop offs?” Carson asked.
“She hasn’t said.” She continued to listen. “Mostly, she’s just calling them names.”
Isbet waited for another person to descend, but no one did. Carson, pack on his back, worked his way on his belly a short distance up the hill from them where he had a better angle to see inside the plane. After a long moment, he held up one finger. One person remained on the plane. The pilot, maybe. The woman sure didn’t look like the type to fly herself around, and her bodyguard just didn’t have that pilot vibe.
Okay. They knew what they had to do. Carson continued on around the meadow to the other side.
“Oh no…. Shit!” she hissed. “Someone else is coming.”
Not in a plane, this time. A pair of ATVs roared up, and three men hopped out. Two more who looked like hired guns, more T-shirts and camouflage and deadly automatic weapons. The third man wore a suit. Completely incongruous in a meadow full of cattle.
“If they harm one hair on one of my cows, I’ll kill ’em all,” Andrew muttered.
“Sssh.” Ryder rested a hand on his arm and cast him a warning look. The men were close, too close, and although their vehicles still rumbled, Isbet and the guys were outnumbered. They couldn’t lose any advantage.
With Ryder slowed by injury and Andrew just an angry rancher, the only two at full strength were Isbet and Carson. Against six really horrible examples of humanity.
They would not hesitate to kill.
She waited anther long moment in case anyone else showed. For a meadow in the middle of the High Sierras, the traffic was pretty rush hour. Finally, she nodded to Ryder and slipped away to the downhill edge of the meadow. She hoped the brothers could handle their part. Andrew’s was critical, and he was most at risk in a situation he couldn’t have been prepared for. But he’d revealed a skill they couldn’t ignore.
And Ryder. He’d looked pale when she left him behind, but she couldn’t let that distract her. Not if she was going to keep him alive.
She set her pack on the ground and peered around the thick trunk of a pine. A flash of reflected light caught her eye, and she pulled out the kit Carson put together for her the night before, holding it over her head. A second flash, a third, and she threw it as hard as she could away from her just as Carson did the same with his—hopefully. Three, two, one.
Kaboom!
The two explosions went off.
As they’d hoped, the two locations of danger produced confusion and, instead of climbing back in the plane and escaping as they’d known was possible, the armed men ran toward the spots where they believed the enemies lay. The man in the suit ran back toward his ATV, but he dropped like a stone a few feet away.
The woman remained by the plane, but she stared away from the boulders and, like a shot, Andrew and Ryder raced at her. Before she could get out more than a muffled curse, they had her on the ground and handcuffed. Isbet took a fraction of a second to be glad that at least they hadn’t played with the cuffs before looping a coil of rope over her shoulder and lifting the tranquilizer gun. Cattle ranches had so many interesting tools to work with. She pointed at the first of the men racing past her and squeezed the trigger.
She didn’t get an A in sniper school for nothing.
Carson had gotten an A plus.
Fifteen minutes later, they had the criminals bound and piled on the floor of the plane.
They had a moment of concern regarding the number of people and the weight in the craft, but they didn’t have far to go, and, with Carson riding shotgun, literally, Andrew flew the plane toward a small airport outside of Reno. His pilot’s license, acquired in the hope that one day he’d be able to afford his own plane, came in handy.
Grey and Athena would ensure ATF, as well as a few other organizations, met the guys and took possession of the pile of bound weapons smugglers, their guns, and the shipment of Viboras. And the plane.
After taking some time to make sure the cattle were no longer panicked by the noise, Isbet and Ryder rode the ATVs off ranch property and returned to their horses to head back to the house.
Isbet made a stirrup out of her fingers for Ryder, but he refused to allow her to help him onto the horse.
“Thanks, but I’m too heavy.” He led the horse over to a handy rock and used it to climb on.
“Ask me what weight I press.” She gathered the reins from the spare mounts and mounted her mare.
He smiled, but his eyes showed all the pain his actions did not. “Later.
She rode past him and paused to kiss his lips. “Later is fine. I want to get you into bed.”
“Great.”
“To rest.”
He sighed and fell in behind her and her trio of horses. “I really do need to lie down for just a little bit. Besides, I’m almost out of toys.”
“I totally hate that those jerks are bound with the rope you used on me, you know—it is the same rope, isn’t it?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. I’ll get you new rope.” His voice held a little more strength as he bantered with her. She just needed to keep him like that until they got home.
Home.
His home. She had a sterile apartment she hardly ever visited. The ranch grew on her.
“That’s not the point,” she said, riding slowly to make sure he could keep up and not bounce more than necessary. “That was our first rope.”
“Does that mean you aren’t leaving today? You might stick around?”
Her eyes filled with those stupid tears again. What had changed? But something about Carmichael Ranch rooted her in place. “I’m not leaving today. “
She was too tired to travel anyway.
Chapter Eleven
Sarge picked up Carson and Andrew. The magic of the Omega Team and all of Grey’s connections got them out of Reno after only a couple of hours of questioning and a promise not to leave town. Carson had already asked for a few days off to get to know his family, and Sophia would be there to join him the next day anyway.
Some of the feds were beyond grumpy about it, felt they should have let them handle things and definitely should never have moved the plane. They told them where in the forest to find the ATVs, and it seemed to calm them.
On their way out of town, they swung by the lab and grabbed a copy of the tech’s report and a bottle of capsules containing a compound the girl’s mother, a pharmacist, swore would counteract the poison in Ryder’s leg. He’d already taken the first dose. He and Grey worked out a way to get the information out on the Darknet and make sure the government stumbled on it.
“Only took one genius, and, even though we don’t know if they made any other deliveries of Viboras, it doesn’t even matter. Take a few capsules and bam! If the government wasn’t so irritating, we could have just given them the results directly.”
“We didn’t bother to explain we wanted the whole mess off our damn land,” Andrew growled, clutching his glass of whiskey.
Carson laughed. “I’ve never had land to worry about, but this is the nicest piece of property I can imagine. Makes me feel protective just being your cousin.”
Ryder lifted his leg onto the coffee table and winced. “Turned out well, didn’t it? Maybe we should form our own team.”
“I don’t think you’re going to pass your physical next week,” Carson said. “Any idea what you’d like to do going forward?”
Ryder poured a shot. “If I’d gotten the meds sooner, I’d be in better shape, but the tech’s note said even now it shouldn’t take too long. Still, I’m just as glad not to go back.
Isbet came in with a tray of sandwiches, the only thing non-boozy they could find to eat, and a pitcher of tea. She set it down and snatched the whiskey glass from Ryder. “None for you. It might react with your meds.”
Carson laughed. “Grey wanted me to call him when we were all together. Now’s as good a time as any.” He pulled out his cell phone and hit #1. “Hey, boss, got you on
speaker. What’s up?”
Grey’s voice boomed into the room. “Carson thought I should make this offer myself, so here goes. Ryder, we can always use another strong man on the team. What do you think?”
He looked shocked. “I don’t know. This place is falling down around my brother’s ears and it is my ranch, too.”
“Grey,” Carson said, “tell him the rest.”
“I need someone in the area out there, although we might ask you to travel sometimes. But you can base out of Northern Nevada.”
Isbet knelt at his side and squeezed his shoulder. “Do it, Ryder. It’s the perfect job for you.”
“But what about you?”
Her smile lit her entire face. “Grey has my phone number. He called me while I was making sandwiches. I’m free, Ryder. He made some calls, and I work for Omega now, too.”
Lifting his leg, he put his foot on the floor and stood. “I’d be proud to work for the Omega Team. If it’s good enough for my cousin and my girlfriend, it’s good enough for me.” He chuckled. “I hope I’m good enough for all of you. I’ll heal as fast as possible.”
“Your girlfriend?” she squeaked. “I don’t think I agreed to be anyone’s girlfriend.”
He took her hand. “Please, Isbet. Stick around. We’ll get to know one another, see where we go. Give us a chance.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “You need someone better than me. Someone prettier, maybe blonde…someone who will always put you first. Last night…what if you’d died? I should have said no and made you rest.”
He pulled her to him and embraced her. “There is nobody better than you. Nobody prettier, and I don’t want a blonde. I want a feisty former secret agent who loves me.”
She spluttered. “I never said I was—”
His lips descended on hers, and he lifted her and strode out of the room. As they mounted the stairs, her voice carried down, protesting his hurting himself.
The Omega Team: Spurs (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 8
