To the Studs

by Roxanne Smith

  His plan was crazy, Cherish had that much right. But Duke’s gut said a few minutes without police interference might save a couple of canine lives. He refused to acknowledge the trade put his own at further risk. “Shit. All right, I’m going to get Neve. Cherish, you can go to the sheriff when you get back into Red Hill if you want. All I need is a head start. By the time anyone arrives, I’ll have either pulled this off, or we’ll all be riddled with bullet holes, anyway, and it won’t matter.”

  She sighed and readjusted her gold frames. “Some optimism wouldn’t hurt your cause none.”

  The trailer door swung open. Kay marched in with a small pistol pointed toward the ceiling. “You’re out of your mind if you think you’re going in alone. And yes, I heard everything. I may have a small eavesdropping habit, but don’t tell Neve. It’s just I’m small and quiet, and I tend to sneak up on people.”

  Duke gawked. “What the…? Am I the only person not armed by default?”

  She cocked a little blond eyebrow. “Have you read the crime statistics in Little Rock lately? I have a license to carry concealed. You would, too, if you were a hundred-pound, five-foot-nothing female who lives alone. Relax, I’m trained.” She hitched her chin toward Krandall and Cherish, who didn’t look nearly as surprised as Duke felt. “Y’all go on and get the sheriff. We’ll want him here when we subdue Tim.”

  Duke blinked at her. Subdue Tim. Right. Okay. Sure. They were totally going to do that.

  Kay drove the rental car at a crawl with only the parking lights on and the windows down to listen for any noise, such as the whir of a four-wheeler engine coming from the ranch.

  Duke snuck a side-glance at Kay. Unflinching gaze at the road, jaw set. Determined and one hundred percent on game. That was good. He couldn’t afford to doubt his partner.

  He checked the small pistol Krandall had handed him with three bullets, safety on. Duke would keep it on as long as possible. After all, he’d brought the goods. The chest in his lap weighed a thousand pounds—or at least as much as the lives of Neve and their dogs. It had every letter, every incriminating note, and necessary documentation, including Paul Beel’s birth certificate confirming Ben Huxley was his father. And, of course, the real treasure: the living will Ben Hux had drafted and notarized after Florrie’s murder, the one naming his legitimate heir.

  Kay kept the headlights off as they approached the ranch. Made no difference. Their arrival didn’t go unnoticed. Miles met them at the front door, weirdly friendly, considering the circumstances. He didn’t have the dogs with him.

  Duke held tight to the lockbox, the pistol tucked into the back of his jeans and hidden by his shirttails. “Well? How do we do this? I can’t claim a working knowledge of hostage negotiations, unless you count bad eighties movies. But maybe you and Tim have this down, huh? Don’t tell me it’s your first time. I mean, I’m nervous enough.” He impressed himself, keeping his sense of humor. Neve would be proud. She was probably in there now, hurling zingers at Tim and the gun pointed in her face.

  Kay frowned, as if offended he’d flirt with the enemy. Then she amazed him by taking up the reins. “The dogs, Miles. A fair trade. You give the dogs to me, and Duke hands you the chest. Then Tim can let Neve go. She needs medical treatment if he actually shot her.”

  A subtle attempt at information gathering. And it worked. Miles’s sober attitude matched the occasion. He tucked his hands into his pockets and nodded, almost guiltily. “It’s a flesh wound, but she might need a few stitches. Nothing serious, though. Tim wouldn’t really hurt Neve.” He hooked a thumb behind him at the front door. “Let me get the dogs, okay? I’ll be right back.”

  Duke shook his head. “That easy? What about Neve?”

  Kay didn’t waste time. The second Miles disappeared inside, she withdrew the gun from her back and clicked off the safety, then returned it. “Tim won’t need her when he has the box.”

  “Won’t need her? As in she’s expendable, or he’ll have no reason to keep a gun trained on her?” He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re planning something. I don’t think you should do anything crazy, Kay. Remember, Cherish will have the sheriff headed this way as soon as they reach Red Hill. We only have to maintain the situation, not get slaughtered trying to be heroes.”

  She pinned him with a hard gaze, her childlike countenance making it goddamn eerie. “If you want to run the risk of Tim actually getting away with this, go sit in the car. As for me, I’ll be giving Tim a taste of his own sour medicine. And it’s like you told Cherish. They don’t expect us to be armed. Certainly they don’t expect us to try anything.”

  “You should consider joining the armed forces.”

  “Daddy’s a cop.”

  “That does answer a question or two.”

  She grinned. “Here he comes. Relax, okay?”

  “Sure, Boss, I’ll get right on that.” Contrary to the sarcastic claim, his heart jumped from his chest as Miles exploded through the screen door with Darcy the Pit and Hannah on leashes, tangled up and excited from the buzz of human emotion clogging the air. They had to sense the tension, the heady anticipation.

  The dogs tugged against Miles, who smiled at their enthusiasm and struggled with all his body weight to keep them from bounding to Duke when they saw him. Miles let out a small laugh like they were all good pals and came close enough to hand the leashes over to Duke. At the same time, Duke held out the box.

  The swap successfully made, they both turned at the sound of a click from behind Miles.

  Kay had her pistol trained on him. Pointed right at his face, actually, with the hammer cocked.

  “Wow,” Duke breathed. “You’re not fucking around.” He looked at Miles and ignored the dogs as they sniffed and snorted at his feet, happy and excited to see him. “She’s not fucking around.”

  Kay didn’t take her eyes off Miles. “Put the dogs in the car, Duke. And get the box back.”

  Duke followed orders. He had no idea what kind of games Kay had played growing up, but he got the impression she hadn’t been a big Barbie fan. He opened the back door of the rental car and settled the dogs inside. Almost immediately they melted into a mingled mass of fur and paws. Then he took the box back from Miles, without an ounce of resistance, and locked it in the trunk of the car.

  Miles chewed his lip and eyed the barrel of Kay’s gun with a respectfully fearful gaze. “I just want you guys to know I don’t hold this against you. Tim’s kind of lost it. If we have to sign the deed for the ranch over to Krandall, we won’t know what to do with ourselves. We’ll have nothing. I think we could manage, you know, but Tim’s convinced the world’s gonna end or something.”

  Duke shook his head. The violence, the threats, all so unnecessary. “You know, it could’ve been a really simple thing. Krandall isn’t interested. He’d have probably signed over the deed to you with nothing more than an impatient grunt. As it stands, your brother is going down. What do you think, Kay? Is shooting Neve assault with a deadly weapon or attempted murder?”

  Her face didn’t move, not so much as a tic in her jaw. “Assault and kidnapping.”

  “For taking the dogs?”

  She sighed, but still her gaze stayed set on her hostage. “Neve is here against her will.”

  “Oh, right.” Whatever. Duke withdrew the gun at his back and clicked off the safety but kept his finger well away from the trigger. He held it in both hands and waited for Kay to tell him the next move. Her plan, after all.

  She nodded approvingly at his readied weapon. “Let’s go get Neve. Where’s everybody else, Miles? Owen and Laurel. Are they inside with Tim?”

  Miles shook his head. “Tim gave them the night off, sent them into town. I don’t think they have a clue what’s going on.”

  Duke believed him. He looked to Kay.

  She cocked her chin toward the front door. “Lead the way, Miles. But remember, the hammer’s back, and I’ll put a bullet in your ass cheek without hesitation. Try me
if you want, but first, consider how much you like being able to walk.”

  Did Neve know her assistant was a badass? If not, Duke would write a letter of recommendation himself, because damn. “Where can I get one of you?”

  He caught a small dimple creasing the left side of Kay’s mouth, as close to a smile as he’d get from her in this situation.

  Miles led them up the creaky wooden steps and into the house.

  Duke let the screen door slap loudly against the frame. The lack of the telltale noise would give them away quicker than anything. Old houses and longtime residents were like elderly married folks. They knew the groans and moans by heart. Duke had his parents to thank for this small insight. If the furnace didn’t whine when it kicked on, his mother noticed without fail and proclaimed it on its last leg.

  They entered the dining room, where Tim and Neve sat facing one another, tumblers of dark brown liquid in hand. Whiskey, Duke guessed. That shouldn’t surprise him, but it seemed to him only Neve would end up on the drinking end of a hostage negotiation. Gentle conversation flowed until they caught sight of Miles with a gun to his head.

  Tim blinked rapidly, pushing himself back in his chair. He groped for his own piece, but Duke was quicker.

  He raised his gun and aimed for Tim. Neve’s pale face and the bloodied rags next to her glass of liquor made him weak in the knees. His hands shook as he leveled the barrel at Tim’s chest, instinct and fear thumbing back the hammer. “I fucking dare you, old man.”

  “Thank God,” Neve cried, coming to her feet. “I’m going to pass out. Someone needs to get me to a doctor.” Despite the claim, she made neat work of retrieving Tim’s gun from the table as she stood.

  Duke had hardly considered what to do next when the explosion sent his vision tumbling.

  Smoke curled from the barrel of the gun in Neve’s hand, and Tim’s cry of animal pain registered seconds before Duke realized she’d shot him. She stood unsteadily, the gun still aimed at the rancher. “I’m a hell of a shot. I ever tell you that? Just a flesh wound. Nobody ever bled out from losing a toe. Or two.”

  Tim was on the ground and grimacing as he held his foot. The bullet had gone clean through his cowboy boots.

  “Your next pair ought to be steel-toed.” Duke shook his head. What was he doing? He swung his head, gaped at Neve. “You shot him.”

  “Self-defense,” she rasped, her grip on the weapon slipping. She glared at Tim with malice even Duke had never seen. “He shot me first.”

  “I’ll back that up,” Kay chirped. She dug the barrel of her gun into Mile’s neck.

  “Yup, me too,” he said hurriedly.

  Duke didn’t get a chance to add anything.

  A cacophony of shouts and barked commands came from every direction at once, roaring voices demanding they lower their firearms. Uniformed officers swarmed from the front and the back of the old ranch house.

  Kay, Neve, and Duke immediately put up their hands, fingers off triggers. Kay took a half a second to safely lower the hammer so no one accidently got shot while taking possession of all three guns, which officers did while two others took Tim and Miles into custody, cuffing them and leading them away without explanation or remark.

  The three of them were instructed to make their way to the front of the house. Neve put an arm around Kay’s offered shoulder but swayed, despite the support.

  Duke tried to get a look at her wound, but she had it covered with a bandage. “Did you lose that much blood? Cherish will have told the sheriff Tim shot you. There’s probably an ambulance outside. Or some kind of medical staff they brought from town.”

  She smiled with narrowed eyes, as though the light hurt. “The bullet hole’s just dandy. The whiskey’s what’s kicking my ass.”

  * * * *

  Neve still couldn’t look at Duke. Not without all sorts of weird feelings rising to the surface and threatening to verbalize themselves without her full consent.

  For his part, he said nothing. His glassy dark blue eyes were focused somewhere far away, not quite steady on the task of helping Neve onto the sofa, where he untied her work boots and slid them from her feet in slow, mechanical motions. Without his beard blocking the view, his mouth gave away much of his emotions, but Neve had no idea what the grim line of his pressed lips meant.

  Anger? Was he upset with her for getting involved with Tim? Or still pissed about how she mishandled Gavin’s visit to the cabin?

  She didn’t know. She was afraid to ask. It would take one wrong word to knock her over at this point. The whiskey, the pain of her bandaged arm, the lengthy interrogation from Red Hill’s finest, the fear of sitting at the smoking end of Tim’s gun…Neve was hard. Real hard, she told herself. She could handle anything. But she wasn’t completely immune to the events of the last several hours. Shooting Tim didn’t bother her. He’d deserved it. The cops hadn’t hardly asked what had happened. Pretty much took the group’s vague self-defense explanation at face value. But she’d almost lost her life. Her dog.

  Then there’d been Duke, Kay at his side, waltzing in and daring Tim to make a move. It was like a movie. She’d been rescued by a raven-haired Fabio, who had something hard inside him—hard enough to aim a loaded gun at another man, and by the look on his face, hard enough to pull the trigger.

  Hard enough to handle a woman like Neve, if he wanted to. There he’d been, all along, the one guy who could deal, and he didn’t even want her. How had she managed to dance through life assuming the choice would always be hers at the end of the day? Finding him didn’t mean she got to keep him.

  Vulnerable and hurting in more ways than one, she put a firm hand on Duke’s bicep as he tried to move away, still crouched at her feet. She swallowed and lowered her eyes, hating how she shook with anticipation, hating the fear in her chest, but knowing she’d ask anyway. “Stay with me.”

  He moved to sit beside her. “I’m not going anywhere.” He gathered her hands into his.

  “No.” She made herself meet his eyes. It wasn’t easy. “Stay with me. Tonight. I need to feel safe. I need something cleansing and honest to wash off this feeling. I’m not—” She stopped and tried to make sense of what she needed. She was unnerved to realize the pinpricks of tears stung the outer edges of her eyes. “It won’t be like last time. I’m not angry. But in a way, it is like last time, because I want to take something from you.” She waited for the glimmer of pained apology, the pulling away. But like last time, rejection never came.

  Duke held her gaze as he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles, causing something in her chest to flip over on itself. “Whatever it is, it’s yours for the taking. Every time.”

  He might’ve taken a needle to a balloon. Pop. His generosity undid her. She didn’t deserve it. “I’m so sorry. For everything. For what I did to you and Gavin. I’m so ashamed of myself.” She dropped her hand. “I don’t know when it happened. I told you I’m honest but not cruel, and I lied. Somewhere along the way, the lines blurred, and I always had the perfect justification.”

  He smiled and pulled her into his arms, wrapping them around her, while being mindful of her injury. His mouth rested near her ear. He lowered his voice. The murmur rumbled through her, and she shivered despite the warmth. “You were right. I would’ve tiptoed around the issue. Maybe even decided Gavin would be better off if I kept up the lie. You did what I didn’t have the balls to do.”

  “I owe you both an apology.”

  “So apologize.” He leaned away from her.

  Her breath caught when he cradled her face in his hands and let his deep blue gaze roam over her face.

  “But don’t let go of yourself, Neve. You scare me, but there’s something utterly wonderful about it. I’d take your painful honesty over a comfortable lie any day.”

  She closed her eyes. Looking at him hurt. She didn’t have the courage to believe his earnest gaze was trying to tell her. She covered his hands with hers. “Maybe this is a ba
d idea. Maybe I should sleep alone. I keep getting these weird feelings around you. Guilty, and sad, and warm.” She inhaled and forced her eyes open, forced herself to look at him. “I know what they mean, but it’s not something I can walk into and then step away from. It’s a door I won’t open. I’m sorry.” She tried to push his hands away.

  He only allowed it so far. He gripped her and leaned forward to steal the breath from her lungs with a kiss. A fierce sensual pressure swept her senses clean away. The intensity remained without any of the anger, and it hit her. He’d meant it—he’d give it away so she never had to take a thing.

  She broke away and squeezed her eyes shut. “Shit. This can’t be happening.”

  “That’s what I said. It’s fucked up. I’m gay.”

  The laugh that bubbled up from her surprised them both. “And I’m horrible.”

  “It’s going to explode in our faces, isn’t it?”

  She kissed him back, amazed by his eagerness and the way he leaned into it with a gleam in his heavy-lidded gaze. “Probably.”

  “You know, you’re not so bad when you’re doped up on a painkillers.”

  “I turned down the paramedic’s offer of meds, actually. This is pure aftershock and immensely latent sexual desire.”

  His smile came slowly, a gradual overtaking that rattled her.

  God, she’d imagined him looking at her like this for so long. How odd and gratifying. And stimulating. She bit her lip. “I’m not moving into your place.”

  “It’s okay. Your place is nicer.”

  With that, the relationship talk was over, and Neve was happy to move on to more fundamental discoveries.

  Chapter 14

  Inside the cabin, Duke and Gavin each occupied a plush chair facing the cold fireplace. Krandall and Cherish sat on dining chairs turned to face the rest of the group. Neve sat on the edge of the bed next to Kay.

  Miles remained standing. He had to be the only person more uncomfortable than Neve.

  A week later, her gunshot wound—okay, graze—was healing nicely, and Tim sat in county lockup awaiting trial. The charges officially came down to kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon, no set bail. Miles had come off incredibly lucky after agreeing to testify against his brother. He’d face no charges for his part in the ordeal, which amounted to little more than taking the dogs from Neve and Duke’s trailer at Tim’s command. Just toeing big brother’s line, as he’d spent his life doing.