How to Wrangle a Cowboy

by Joanne Kennedy

  Sinking down on the bottom step, she covered her face with her hands. She’d loved him. A part of her still did. But if he was the kind of man who’d allow animals to be victimized, just for the sake of a job…then that love had to die.

  A few dogs had ventured out of their crates, and a couple of them crawled into her lap, standing on their hind legs to lick her tears away. They were incredibly dirty, with damp, matted hair that stunk of urine and worse, but she hugged them to her anyway. She always felt better once she’d hugged a dog—even a filthy, smelly, half-starved dog. She rested her head against one of them and found strength in the beating heart, the love that didn’t question who she was or why she was here.

  Thirty seconds of puppy snuggling nourished her courage, and she focused once again on escape. Should she break a window?

  No, that would make too much noise. Half an hour ago, she would have thought that a good thing, because it would bring Shane to her rescue. But now, she didn’t know if she could trust him.

  You remember that job I offered you?

  She shivered, feeling cold and alone. She’d have to wait until Brockman opened the door, then overpower him somehow. She needed to find a weapon. Because for all she knew, she was on her own. For good.

  You need to think hard about where your loyalty lies, cowboy.

  Just thinking about those words made her dizzy, as if she had no solid place in the world to stand. Had Shane become that important to her? Had she given away her hard-won independence so easily, so completely, that she couldn’t face life without him?

  Of course not. Shaking her hair back from her face, she told herself she’d work that stuff out later. Right now, she needed to touch every surface in this dark basement, feel every inch of the place, until she found a way to defend herself.

  Making her way around the walls, she ignored the long fingers of ancient cobwebs that stroked her face like a ghostly lover—an unwanted one. Insects skittered away from her fingers, their dry bodies clattering over the walls, and she occasionally hit a spot of unexplained dampness she didn’t want explained.

  It felt like an hour before her hand lit on a wood-handled shovel, but it was probably more like ten minutes in real time. It was long and narrow—the kind Bud had used to use to dig postholes. Did Brockman use it for cleaning out kennels or for burying dead dogs? She shuddered and decided he used it to dig postholes.

  The man had never fixed a fence in his life, but the alternatives were too ugly.

  Hefting the implement in her hands, she returned to the top of the stairs and crouched, her knees bent under her so she could pop up like a lethal, shovel-wielding jack-in-the-box as soon as Brockman opened the door.

  A few of the dogs joined her, and as she waited, more and more joined the throng. Finally, she was surrounded, an island in a furry sea. Normal puppies would have been yapping and whining, but except for the beagle, Brockman’s dogs were oddly silent—a testament to the abuse they’d endured. Even the youngest of the puppies had learned not to draw attention.

  She closed her eyes and concentrated on her sense of hearing. The voices seemed to have faded away. What was happening?

  The sound of an engine, or maybe two, told her Shane was leaving.

  So Shane was gone. Maybe the second engine meant Brockman was too, but she didn’t dare count on that. Pulling a particularly fluffy puppy into her lap, she thought of the sign with the long list of breeds. Was she holding a poodle or a bichon? Maybe it was a Maltese. In any case, the dog trembled like a quivering Jell-O. She realized she must have been communicating her own nervousness to the animals.

  Breathing deep, she thought of her happy place—the hayloft, with its big front window. She remembered the night of Bud’s funeral, when she’d watched Shane from there, lit only by moonlight, his hat clutched to his chest as he scanned the sky.

  Bit by bit, the dog’s trembling slowed, then stopped.

  But Lindsey had to wonder: Which had calmed her—the place or the man? And how could she ever trust herself or anyone else if the man who’d won her damaged, hard, persnickety heart had betrayed her this way?

  * * *

  Shane watched, poised for action, as Brockman backed away from the crowd. He had his eye on a rock that jutted from the parched lawn right in the man’s backward path. Sure enough, Brockman’s foot caught on the protrusion. As he struggled to catch his balance, Shane lunged forward and clubbed his arm with a swift chopping motion. It was a tactic he’d seen in a martial arts movie, and he was so stunned when it worked that he was surprised to find Brockman’s gun in his hand.

  He tossed it to one of Ozzie’s henchmen, who moved to stand over the prone body of the so-called rancher with the shotgun at the ready.

  “Come on.” Shane waved his hand like a general marshaling his troops. “Let’s find Lind—let’s find Doc Ward!”

  With a roar, the men surged past him, but Ozzie held them off at the door.

  “Hold on,” he said. “Let’s do this right. Remember law and order!”

  Shane was surprised that law or order meant anything to these men, but as they entered the house one by one, moving swiftly from wall to wall and peering cautiously around corners, he realized Ozzie was referring to the television show Law & Order. They moved like trained members of a SWAT team, but found only Mrs. Brockman, lying on her bed in her underwear, claiming to have a case of “the vapors” and moaning about her ovaries. Shane suspected she was simply suffering from a hot flash, but she wasn’t his concern right now.

  He had to find Lindsey.

  Ignoring Brockman’s wife, he joined the rest of the men, who were meeting in the kitchen after a thorough search of every room.

  “There’s a basement,” Shane said. “Lindsey said that’s where the puppies are. Anybody find the basement door?”

  “There’s a hatch outside,” a sinewy, dark-haired man said. “But it’s padlocked. Twice.”

  Just then, a ruckus outside the house drew their attention.

  “No!” shouted the high, desperate voice of a child. “I gotta find Lindsey! She’s in there somewhere!”

  Shane rushed to the door in time to see the man who’d been standing guard sitting on the ground, looking confused and rubbing his jaw.

  “Thought he was unconscious,” the guard said. “Then he pops up like a zombie on steroids and punches me.”

  Beyond him, a little ways down the driveway, a red-faced, breathless Cody, clad in pajamas with one leg hitched up over his cowboy boots, was seemingly waltzing with Brockman.

  On looking closer, Shane could see that the older man had gathered the front of the boy’s top into his fist and was swinging Cody to and fro. As Shane rushed to help, Cody slipped out of the shirt with one agile twist. Backing up, he bent over and raced full speed toward his attacker. When the top of his head met Brockman’s belly, the big man doubled over and let out a grunt.

  Brockman’s chin met Shane’s fist as he fell to the ground. Cody stood over him, fists clenched, like a pint-sized conquering hero—but his eyes, wide and beseeching, were damp with tears when he looked up at his father.

  “Did you find her?”

  Shane shook his head.

  “She’s in there,” Cody said. “I saw her go ’round the back, and she never came out.”

  Brockman, who had ended up flat on his belly with the guard’s foot on his neck and a gun aimed at the back of his head, turned his face up to them. His pockmarked cheeks were creased by an evil smile, and his small eyes glittered with malice.

  “Don’t be thinking you’ll be her knight in shining armor,” he said. “You’re too late, cowboy.” He let out a rasping laugh. “Your boy is right. She’s never coming out—not like she went in, anyway. And what do you care?” He grinned even harder. “She never gave a rat’s ass about either of you, ’cept to clean up the shit her precious puppies leave behind.”

  One of the men from the trailer let out a victorious shout.

  “Found her!”

&nbs
p; “Looks like you’re wrong.” He nudged Brockman with the toe of his boot.

  Brockman’s last speech inspired his captor to sit on him and grab the scant hair at the back of his head in one meaty fist so he could press his face into the dry Wyoming dirt. When Brockman turned his face toward Shane, it was streaked with blood and dirt.

  “Found her body, maybe. Hope that makes you happy.”

  Chapter 56

  Shane narrowed his eyes to a hard squint. He wasn’t going to give Brockman the satisfaction of knowing those words had grabbed his heart and twisted, wringing out hope and joy and answered prayers in one quick, brutal squeeze.

  Shutting off the whirling emotions that dizzied his brain, he erased the pictures of Lindsey dead or disabled. He’d know if she was dead, wouldn’t he? He’d feel it, he was sure. Brockman was bluffing, using his last bit of strength to stab at Shane with cruel untruths.

  The thought sparked an angry flame that rose hot in his heart, demanding release. Without thinking, Shane drew back one foot and gave the prone victim a sharp kick in the ribs with the toe of his boot.

  Cody looked up at him for a moment, then cautiously tried a kick of his own.

  Shane’s heart sank. What kind of example was he setting?

  He turned to Cody. “You shouldn’t ever do that when a man’s down.” He gave Brockman’s prone form another nudge. “But you know what? That’s not a man. I don’t know what it is. Looks to me like a worm, groveling in the dirt.”

  “And you know what we do to worms.” Showing his crooked teeth in a grin, the man sitting on Brockman wriggled his substantial behind, eliciting a groan from his prisoner.

  Shane took Cody’s hand. “Now let’s stop wasting time and find your mom.”

  Oh, Lord. What had he just said? It had come to his lips so naturally, so easily.

  He hoped his son hadn’t noticed, but a squeeze of his hand and a quick, flashing smile told him otherwise.

  Rushing inside with Cody in tow, Shane stormed into the kitchen to find a circle of men egging on a skinny old coonhound who was scratching at a Hoosier cabinet and baying his fool head off. In an effort to help out, Ozzie knocked the whole cabinet to the floor. Clouds of flour billowed from one bin while sugar poured from another. Dog kibble, evidently stored in the cupboard below, bounced across the floor.

  While the dogs feasted on floury, sugary kibble, the men struggled with the latch on the three-quarter-sized door that had been hidden behind the cabinet.

  “Hold on.” A short, swarthy man, with stubble on his cheeks and dark hair styled into an ineffective comb-over, stepped forward. “I can deal with this. Anybody got a Swiss Army knife?”

  Ozzie dug deep in his capacious pockets and handed the man a red pocketknife. While Comb-Over Man inserted various implements into the padlock, Shane pulled his son aside. The boy avoided his gaze, faking absorption in the gang’s battle with the stubborn lock.

  “You want to tell me how you got here?”

  Cody bit his lips and shook his head, staring down at the floor.

  “Sorry, pardner,” Shane said. “I need to know.”

  Cody sighed. “Okay.” He took a deep breath and began. “I heard you and Lindsey having a fight, and then she went out to the truck,” he said. “I was afraid she was leaving and might not come back. So I…”

  The boy gulped back tears, and Shane rubbed his back. He wished he could promise Cody that Lindsey would always be around. Hell, he wished he could promise himself that, but it was up to Lindsey. Actually, he was pretty sure she’d stay at the Lazy Q, but it probably wouldn’t be for his sake. He knew he’d lost her.

  Worse yet, he knew he deserved to.

  “I got out of bed and watched out the window,” Cody continued. “She forgot her purse or something, so when she went back inside, I went out the back and got in the back of the truck.”

  He looked up at Shane, his big eyes pleading for understanding.

  “I hid under a tarp. I know it was bad, Dad, but I figured if I went with her wherever she was going, she’d have to bring me back once she found me, right? And then you’d have another chance.”

  “Cody…” Shane didn’t know what to say. He knew he should admonish the boy. Manipulating people like that was wrong. Riding in the bed of a pickup was dangerous. And leaving the house without permission was forbidden.

  But the boy had done it for him. For him and for Lindsey. For the dream of a family with a mother and a father.

  Shane understood that dream. He’d given up on it long ago, but he’d resurrected it lately, hoping he could make it come true for his son.

  Of course, he’d screwed up so badly that the dream was in tatters. Hell, without Cody on his side, he would have screwed up his relationship with Lindsey before it had even started. Sometimes he thought she only kept him around because she’d fallen for his son.

  How had he ever thought, even for a moment, that she wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted? The kind he needed?

  He turned his attention back to Cody.

  “She parked here, and I waited and waited,” the boy continued. “But she didn’t come back. I snuck up to the house and peeked in. She wasn’t with Mr. Brockman, but I saw a little teensy bit of light at a basement window, so I looked through there. She was videoing the dogs.” Cody’s face fell. “Those poor puppies, Dad. I can’t believe Stormy came from such a terrible place and is still such a nice dog. I wonder how he can trust us after being treated so bad.”

  Shane almost laughed aloud. The little dog he’d scorned as useless had a bigger heart and a more forgiving soul than Shane himself.

  “I saw Mr. Brockman come out with a flashlight, but I ducked down behind the shrubbery and he didn’t see me. When he opened the hatch, I was scared, but I figured he’d just yell at Lindsey.” His tears had dried as he’d spoken, leaving trails of clean skin through the grime on his face, but now they began afresh. “I thought he was just going to yell at her again, but he hit her, Dad! Right on the head!”

  Cody touched the back of his head as if he’d been hit himself. His eyes gleamed with unshed tears.

  “I shoulda saved her, but I didn’t know how.” His voice broke on a wail. “I’m not big enough.”

  Shane stroked the boy’s hair, pulling him close. “You did the right thing, Son. You couldn’t have helped. He might have hurt you too.”

  “I know. So I hid in the bushes and thought what I could do, but then you came, and Ozzie.”

  “How do you know Ozzie?”

  “I went with Lindsey sometimes, remember? To the trailer park. And I met all these guys, and their cats and dogs. They’re really nice people, Dad. They only look scary because they’re poor. Not like Mr. Brockman.” Cody shuddered. “He looks scary because he’s mean. But the way Ozzie looks at Lindsey? It’s the same way you look at her. I think he’s in love with her too. So I knew she’d be okay with both of you there.”

  The boy stared down at the ground, biting his lip.

  “Lindsey says love makes people stronger, but I think mean people like Mr. Brockman are pretty strong too, ’cause they’re mad all the time. But when Lindsey had two people who loved her show up, I knew Mr. Brockman wouldn’t win.”

  Just then, a shout went up and the lock picker raised a fist in victory.

  “Lockhart?” Ozzie nodded respectfully toward Shane. “You want to open this?”

  “Got the right name for it.” The lock picker looked intently into Shane’s eyes. “I can pick most any lock, if you ever need that kind of help. But a locked heart?” He grinned. “For that, you need somebody like Doc Ward, or maybe your boy there.”

  “You’re right.”

  Shane had heard that pun before, but for the first time, he felt the truth of it. It was like the lock picker had finally diagnosed the malady he’d lived with all his life. His heart had been locked up tight since childhood, when he’d learned that love led, inevitably, to loss.

  Maybe this time, it would be different. Like a tim
id swimmer testing the water with one dipped toe, he allowed himself a shred of hope that Lindsey would forgive him, that she’d want him to stay.

  He turned the knob slowly, unsure what he might find. From what Cody had seen, Lindsey was probably unconscious, and who knew what Brockman might have done to her? He didn’t necessarily want the entire male population of Springtime Acres traipsing down the stairs with him, but he could hardly ask them to stay away. He knew Cody was right, and he wasn’t the only man in love with Lindsey. Most likely they all were.

  But this was no time to be timid. Swinging the door open, he started down the stairs.

  But his feet wouldn’t work. It was like the stairs had come alive and were moving under his feet. Struggling to catch his balance, he pawed at the wall, hoping to find a railing, a shelf, anything steady he could grab. But there was nothing.

  Next thing he knew, he was hurtling down the stairs, ass over elbows, into the smelly dank pit of Brockman’s basement. Puppies yipped and hollered while the coonhounds bayed a mournful accompaniment.

  His last thought was that he shouldn’t land too hard or he’d hurt the puppies. Either that, or they’d kill him with a million tiny teeth. But as his head hit the rail he’d been searching for, then clipped the edge of a step, the world went dark and he only hoped the dogs weren’t too terribly hungry.

  * * *

  Lindsey stood at the top of the stairs, helplessly watching Shane tumble to the bottom. Knowing the hard concrete floor awaited him, she clapped a hand over her mouth and choked back sobs.

  She’d tripped him. She hadn’t meant to, but he’d stepped on her arm and when she’d jerked it away, he’d fallen.

  One of the coonhounds, barking madly, lunged down the steps and grabbed his pant leg, but it only swung him sideways so he hit his head. He landed in an awkward, splayed position, and lay still as death.

  Lindsey hurtled down the stairs behind him, nearly falling in her haste, and knelt beside him.

  His handsome face was even more attractive in repose. The hard lines between his eyebrows, the brackets around his mouth, the frown that came so readily—all were softened, and he looked even more handsome than before.