Cowboy Strong (Cowboy Up Book 5)

by Allison Merritt

  * * * *

  Of course it was raining. Only logical conclusion to this crappy day. Jinx adjusted her hat lower on her brow to shield her face better. She’d made it to a nice, isolated section of Whiteriver Avenue, which had seemed smart at the time because it was the shortest route to the bridge over the river. But it was getting dark fast next to the hill, and she could hear things. Doors creaking, dogs barking-slash-yowling. Somebody banging around in a delivery trailer parked at the loading dock behind the supermarket. But, hey. People were alive, right? That was good. And if they were alive, she wasn’t alone on the planet with the first guy she’d ever slept—now the last guy she’d—

  Was that a vehicle she heard? In the rain it was hard to tell, or to know which way it had gone. “C’mon, Korbel. Let’s go, buddy.” God, what a surreal day. Dragging a horse through an empty town would be weird enough without having run into big ole sexy—er, sulky—Dallas.

  From the corner of her eye, she caught movement down by the creek. Korbel startled sideways, skittered on the pavement. Damn it. “Hey, buddy. Hey.” She turned and calmed him, rubbed his face under the bridle strap. “That’s a good boy. I know. Let’s get home, huh? Home? Get you some oats. Huh?” At least his eyes weren’t rolled back anymore.

  She turned forward and hurried along.

  The power had to be out—not a single street light had come on even though it would be full dark soon. How serious was this epidemic?

  Lightning flashed; thunder cracked immediately after. Thank God Korbel wasn’t a skittish horse. Not about thunderstorms, at least. He didn’t seem fond of this ghost-town situation, though.

  They topped a blind rise and met headlights, along with the roar of an old white truck. It stopped dead with a rattly two-horse trailer behind. Shading her eyes to block the rain, she looked up to see Dallas getting out.

  “C’mon!” He waved them toward the back of the trailer.

  The world really must’ve ended because she was actually relieved to see him.

  They hurried together to get Korbel safe inside. She felt bad about leaving him saddled and loaded for now, but those dark shadows down by the creek had multiplied, and they were coming up toward the road.

  “Jesus.” Dallas looked down the hill while latching the door. “Let’s go!”

  She’d made it to her seat on the passenger side and was tugging the door shut when a Siberian husky raced up, snarling. The door finally came unstuck with a bong! and swung closed. “Drive!” she yelled. “God, its eyes. They’re…black.” Not the usual pretty ice-blue.

  “Fully dilated,” he answered over the roar of the engine before he shifted. “Stuck that way. So are the people’s.”

  “Creepy.” She pulled off her dripping hat and put it in her lap, wiped the water running down the back of her neck. Wait. “You’ve seen them?” How was he not sick?

  He shook his head, took a right turn up Sixteenth. “There’s a guy broadcasting on AM radio.” He adjusted the stereo volume so she could hear a man talking, sounding sleepy, then he turned it back down, cleared his throat. “Uh. Look. I know you’d like to get home, but we’ve got no way of knowing if there’s somebody sick at your house or what. And I’d just as soon go back to my place for tonight. It’s a lot closer.”

  Somebody sick at her house… Her dad! He might need medical help.

  “No.” He held up a hand to stop her. “I can guess what you’re thinking. But unless you’ve got a cure for the virus, all you’ll do by going there is get sick too.”

  “Why is there nobody sick at your house?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Folks went out to Kansas last week. Never made it back.” His voice had lowered at the end and she could tell he struggled to keep it together.

  “My dad left me a voicemail. He was definitely sick.” Half the sick died. Had he made it? Was he running around with dark eyes? Were first responders doing anything to help these people? They had to be. Right? Sure, yes. She couldn’t think otherwise. “Um. Okay. We can go to your place if there’s somewhere safe for my horse.”

  “We’ll put him in the barn. Got feed and water out there.”

  “Thanks.” He’d gone from leaving her high and dry with an ominous warning, to rescuing both her and Korbel. “Why’d you…come back?”

  He looked over at her like she was nuts. “What am I, a monster? I knew you’d never make it through town before dark, much less home. I wouldn’t leave anybody stranded like that.”

  Even me. Who says chivalry is dead, just because everybody else is? She squelched the hysterical laugh bubbling inside her.

  “What are you smirking about?” he asked as he turned right just past the cemetery.

  “Nothing. I mean, I might be losing it.” How could she even have a laugh inside her when half the human population was probably dead, and the rest might never again be…human?

  “It’s a lot to take in—” The truck lurched to stop a few feet from a group of probably twenty people milling around in the street. “Holy shit.” When he tried to drive around them, a man and woman moved in front of the truck as if to stop him.

  “They look like normal people,” she said.

  Dallas revved the engine at them and the crowd moved closer. “Not good.”

  A guy approached her door so she hurried to lock it. The rain running down his face didn’t seem to faze him; up close, he turned his head to look at her with just one eye. “Oh God!” The giant pupil overtook his iris entirely and his mouth hung open. And he was…filthy. Looked like the virus made people forget to change their clothes.

  He made some sound—a loud sound—and his crowd joined him. Almost a howl. Gooseflesh spread along her arms and up the back of her neck.

  Dallas held a pistol in front of her, aimed at the guy outside, revved the engine again. “In the glove box,” he said quietly. “Flashlight.”

  She reached for the latch, opened it, and her fingers found cool steel.

  “On three, shine it at him. I’ll get the headlights and the cab light at the same time. Hopefully that’ll drive ‘em back. Ready? One…two…” He set the gun back on the console. “Three!”

  The lights all came on. She couldn’t see much, but the guy outside the window did cover his eyes and squeal in pain, a shrill, almost childlike sound. The truck jerked into motion and bodies scrambled out of the way as Dallas gunned it.

  “No more slowing down for ‘em,” he muttered, switching off the interior cab lights.

  With the headlights on, they could see people moving along the sidewalks, the edge of the street, tramping across yards. Sitting on one lawn eating…oh God. Eating something she didn’t want to identify. Just a carcass of some sort. Yuck. Zombies, he’d said.

  No. Uh-uh. Negatory.

  “I’m gonna get us home as fast as I can. Hope your gelding can handle it.” He shifted into a higher gear and sped around the corner that would take them down the hill out of town to the east.

  CHAPTER 2

  Jinx released her hair from the towel she’d turbaned around it, wiped away the stray drips. By the light of her small battery-powered camp lantern and with her reflection in the hazy mirror above an antique dresser, she combed the tangles from her hair.

  Wow. That shower had felt amazing, even though she’d hurried through it to save battery power. She didn’t have a stitch of makeup with her, and she had on old lounge pants and a sweatshirt that Dallas had pilfered from his mom’s closet. Mrs. Miller was a little bigger around the middle, and had much shorter legs. But, hey. It beat wearing the ratty leggings she’d slept in the past week. Anyway, her saddle packs were locked safe and sound in the barn for the night. Tomorrow she’d have to see about washing the clothes she had in there and the wet ones she’d been wearing today. If she couldn’t get home to grab more clothes, she was stuck with two outfits.

  Maybe forever.

  No way. Surely Dallas had it wrong, due in part to that whackjob guy he listened to on the radio. This had to be a short-term situat
ion. Sure, people were acting weird. They were sick! But pretty soon they’d overcome this virus or whatever, and things would go back to normal. The guys running power grids and cellular boosters would be back on the job and things would work again. Unfamiliar dogs would bark at people they didn’t know, not try to eat them for dinner. People would have neighborhood BBQs instead of sitting on the lawn and eating whatever had died there that week.

  Eww.

  Enough combing, enough thinking. She smelled food, and her stomach had been growling for hours. She gently set her comb on the dresser, tucked her wet hair behind her ears, and sighed. No help for the way she looked—it was what it was.

  Leaving the tiny guest bedroom with her lantern in hand, she ventured down the hallway of the little old farmhouse. As far as she could tell, the only remodeling the Millers had done was to add a bathroom off the back of the house, attached to the master bedroom, and fixtures in the main bathroom had been updated. Otherwise, it probably looked the same as it had in 1955.

  Dim light glowed from the kitchen. Dallas had found another battery light, which he had on the counter beside the stove. Several flashlights stood on end in the center of the old round wooden table.

  “Found some lights, huh?” she asked, more to announce herself than to get an answer.

  “Hmm?” He briefly looked up from what he was doing, then turned his attention back to the stove. “Yeah.” With a spatula in hand over a griddle and a wooden spoon sticking out of a saucepan, he had more going on at the stove than her dad could usually handle at once.

  Rather than ask if he wanted help, she eased in to take over stirring the soup.

  He blew out a breath. “Thanks.” Man. He was so tall. She always forgot that until she got close to him.

  She lowered the flame under the pan of vegetable soup. Her stomach rumbled again. “Smells great.”

  “Mmm.” Using the spatula, he peeked under the edge of a grilled cheese. Golden brown. Perfect. He rushed to pull a plate from the cupboard and moved two sandwiches to it, then repeated with another plate. “Bowls,” he said, handing them to her. After opening a few different drawers, he shrugged. “Don’t know where the ladle is.”

  That was okay. They could pour the soup. She did it over the sink, splitting it so he had more than half, even though she probably could have eaten the entire pan.

  He carried the bowls and plates to the table, cracked open two cans of Pepsi from the fridge while she rinsed the soup pan. “C’mon. Let’s eat while it’s hot. Hmm. The pop is almost hot too. Not so cold anymore.”

  “It’s okay.” She was hungry enough, and actually, yeah, thirsty enough, that temp didn’t matter too much. At this point, she just needed to fill the void, then crash someplace soft for the night. A week of sleeping on the tent floor had her missing mattresses in a big way. She sat, and dug in to her soup. Yum. Hot food from a stove, not a campfire. Not jerky or dried fruit. She’d had no way to keep any cold food up in the hills, only canned goods and dried stuff… “Hey. If the fridge is off, where’s the cheese from?” Now she eyed the grilled cheese, wondering if it’d be safe to eat.

  Dallas turned a shade darker. “Er. Easy Cheese?”

  Spray-can cheese sandwich. Not what she’d dreamed of for her first meal back in civilization while she’d been hoofing it down from the mountain today. But, hey. “Food’s food, right?” She shrugged off her concerns and bit into it. Not bad, really. Not good, either… “It’s good.” It was hot, and perfectly toasted. She set the sandwich down. “Thank you. For…saving us. And now feeding us.” Korbel would prefer to be at home, no doubt. But at least he was inside safe and had plenty of fresh water, some oats, and a nice stack of hay to munch.

  Across from her, Dallas gulped down the bite he’d been chewing. “That is not good.” He laughed. “Liar.” He took a long swig of Pepsi. “Glad I saw you. Would be kinda lonesome right now if you weren’t here.” A sideways glance at the window and he added, “It’s too damn quiet. Ya know? Not even a train going by.”

  The lack of trains would be a big deal for him—the tracks weren’t far from the house. But, yeah. The place was literally tomb-silent. Kind of got on her nerves. “No cars on the highway either. Have you heard or seen any?”

  He shook his head, spooned soup into his mouth.

  Well, they weren’t likely to see or hear many cars if nighttime was danger time. Any healthy survivors would know by now to stay inside once the sun set.

  “The quiet was freaking me out too, when I was going through town.” Goosebumps rose along her arms at the memory. “It was like…a ghost town, or a—”

  “Movie set?” he said, just as she did. Their eyes met, and he grinned despite the grim topic.

  “Yeah. One where the guys in back forgot to turn on the power.” She tried another bite of the grilled cheese. Still not good. But not terrible either, and her empty belly welcomed it. “Not that I’ve ever been on a movie set.”

  “Me either.” He pointed his spoon at her. “But we have been to a ghost town, remember? Fourth grade.”

  Some of the kids had made a big deal about it being a ghost town, rather than just an abandoned mining town they got to visit as part of their unit on Colorado history. “I was a little scared before we went.” It had been October, after all. And the older kids had told them wild stories about their field trips there.

  “Remember Kent pissing his pants when Matt jumped out from around that corner at him?”

  She couldn’t hold back her evil laugh. “Yep.” Kent deserved to be laughed at. He’d been a colossal jerk all the way through school.

  “Good times in ancient history.” Dallas paused between bites and stared at her without blinking.

  True, they did go way back. In fact, she could remember going to rodeos her dad competed in, before she’d even started school, and hanging out with the other little kids. Dallas had competed in mutton-busting back then, and grown into roping and bull riding. “Why’d you quit rodeoing, Dallas?”

  He tilted his head to the side, answered, “Couldn’t stand the thought of missing out on all this,” with a sweep of his hand and a wink.

  “So you wanted to quit?” Somehow she doubted it.

  His lips pressed together in something between a smirk and scowl. “You do what you’ve gotta.”

  Well, he was the only son. His older sister had gotten married and moved to Denver, so she wasn’t around to help his parents with the ranch. And few ranchers netted enough income that they could afford to hire a full-time guy.

  Dipping the edge of his sandwich in his soup, he eyed her again. “Why were you up there licking your wounds all alone?”

  Here it was. Time to hash out her screw-ups. Ugh. “I think you know. Everybody in town does, seems like.”

  “All I know is what I heard. Which is probably blown outta proportion and only partly true to start with. ‘Cause you know how boring the truth generally is.”

  “Truth is pretty ugly this time.” She stared at her sandwich for a while, searching for strength to tell him to kiss off and mind his own business. But if they were the last two people in Rifle, she’d never have to tell the story again. She could do it this once. “Romeo got hurt—acute hock injury.” She acknowledged his sympathetic cringe with a half-shrug. “We were warming up the night of competition at Old West Fest, just made it around the second barrel and I felt him falter. He favored his right rear leg the rest of the course. I tried to walk it out after, but he was limping bad by then.” Some cowgirls had a backup horse for running barrels, but she only had Romeo. Truth was, she’d only wanted Romeo. They worked together. “So that was pretty much it for us. I stabled him, had a local vet check him out to make sure he was okay for the drive home the next day.” That day had sucked. She’d believed they had a shot at a first place that weekend. And instead of moving on to the event in Utah the next week, she’d be sitting at home, waiting for her horse to heal.

  Dallas nodded. “Sucks to get blown out of competition by bad l
uck.”

  But she hadn’t been ousted at that point. She’d only been down her horse. Sheer stupidity—and a loudmouth nemesis—no, it really was her own stupidity to blame—had ended her circuit for the year. Maybe longer, depending… “I was pissy and feeling sorry for myself. I admit it.” She should’ve gone to her trailer and drowned her sorrows alone.

  Across the table, Dallas shoved the last bit of sandwich in his mouth, eyebrows raised, a clear signal to continue.

  She sighed. “Yeah. Well, you’ve heard the rest, I can tell. Leanne waddled over to me—”

  “Waddled?” He choked on a laugh and his food.

  “Whatever you call what she does, swinging those hips like she’s a catwalk model everybody can’t take their eyes off.”

  He grinned. Again. Despite her horrific tale and this weird night after the end of the world, he grinned. “Yeah? And?”

  “Jackass. Of course you want to hear this. You’re just a dumb guy excited to hear about a chick fight.” She crossed her arms over her chest. She’d show him. Let him beg and plead—she wasn’t going to tell another detail.

  “Oh, so she kicked your ass.”

  “No! Oh!” What a cheap shot. “She taunted me, and laughed. She laughed about a horse being hurt! What kind of demon— Anyway. Then she called me…” She shouldn’t share this with him. It crossed over into their messy past. And he was amused.

  “What?”

  “No. I’m not telling you more because you think it’s all a big joke.”

  “That’s not it.” He leaned forward, the grin gone, didn’t take his gaze from hers. “Don’t you think of all people, I would enjoy hearing what you did to her?”

  They did share that common thread of dislike. Leanne had been a thorn in his side at times, too.

  Jinx thought of that night, considered what to tell him.