Saving Sidewinder: Brotherhood Protectors World

by Kate McKeever

  “So am I. If this is a regular time for him to wake, I can take him to the stable until you get together.”

  Her first reaction, that of panic and refusal, melded into something else. Gratitude?

  “Let me think about it. I do have some work-related tasks that will require me to go to the main house for the internet. Knowing Charlie is safe while I’m working would be great.”

  “And he can get his fill of horses,” Sam grimaced.

  “You don’t like horses?”

  “Only the ones under a car hood. But I’ll manage.” He sat his cup down and turned when Charlie came into the room sporting his spurs and hat, along with jeans and a t shirt. “Better get a coat, kid.” Sam eyed the fruit bowl then glanced at Alana. “Mind if I take one of these?” He gestured toward an apple.

  She realized he may not have had breakfast, but should she offer him something when she hadn’t intended to cook? “Sure. I have yogurt and some bagels.”

  Sam shook his head, “No thanks. This should tide me over for a couple of hours. I’ll have to do what you did, go to the grocery for some staples.”

  Alana nodded. “Let me get dressed, Charlie and we’ll be on our way.”

  She hurriedly showered and dressed in jeans and a button up shirt she usually paired with a suit. Maybe she should have bought t shirts for her own wardrobe. She put her hair up in a pony tail and pulled on her running shoes. Her country look didn’t match the city girl inside, but it was much more practical. She grabbed a hooded sweatshirt with the ranch logo from the closet and carried it to the living room.

  Charlie and Sam stood at the door, Charlie with a lightweight jacket he wore to school and Sam in a denim jacket that fit so well, it looked tailored to fit wide shoulders and a narrow waist. Alana forced herself to look away from his jeans encased butt and toward her son. “Let’s go, kiddo.”

  They trooped to the stable Kid worked in and upon opening the door Alana caught a whiff of ammonia, manure and something deeper, something she’d never encountered. Horse flesh mingled with all the other smells to make for a heady mixture she might not like. Her son inhaled deeply. “Horses,” he breathed and started down the hay-strewn aisle toward the stalls. “Keep in the middle of the stable,” Alana cautioned and gingerly started to follow. Sam held her elbow and motioned toward the end of the stable, where Charlie and Kid stood, peering into a stall.

  “He’s okay. Kid will watch out for him, for now.” He gestured toward the door and they back tracked to the open doorway where Alana took her own deep breath.

  “Kid was in the army with you, right?” Sam rubbed the back of his neck and Alana knew this was a touchy topic.

  “Yeah, we were in the same unit in the Rangers. He’d just come off another assignment and joined the unit a couple days before we were injured.”

  “Is that why you’re both here? I mean I know you’re guarding me, but are you here for the ranch as well?”

  Sam shook his head, “Yes and no. I only got a bullet in the leg, didn’t take more than a month to get back into shape. But Kid needed to come here for a while, so I came with him.”

  “So, you’re close friends?”

  “We weren’t,” His expression tightened. Alana waited for him to expound on his explanation, but he didn’t volunteer anything further. Still, she needed to know Charlie would be okay with Kid. “Sam, will Charlie be okay with him? Safety wise, I mean.”

  “He’ll be fine. Kid has some memory issues and needs more time to figure things out that aren’t familiar to him. He’s here because he needs to get to a place where he can find work. He remembers everything about being a soldier but new things?” Sam shook his head,” He’s catching on to caring for the horses and all, but jobs like that are few and far between in Memphis.”

  “So he stays out here, in the west.” Montana might be just the thing for Kid.

  “He has some family back in Tennessee. I don’t know if he’ll want to go back or find someplace new. I just know he needs this place before he can go on.”

  And I wonder if you are footing the bill, Alana mused, and her estimation of Sam went up. He obviously cared for the younger man, enough to leave the military for him. “And you? After this stint is over, will you return to the army?”

  Sam turned his deep brown eyes on her, “No. I’m out for good.”

  She nodded, silently acknowledging a loosening of her muscles. Why should she care if Sam Jameson reenlisted? She watched as Kid motioned to Charlie, who stepped back a few feet from the stall. Kid unlatched the stall half door and lead a dark brown horse from the enclosure. They walked side by side with Charlie alternately eyeing the horse and Kid, who spoke in low tones, either to the horse or the boy, or perhaps both.

  Alana and Sam waited at the end of the stable then turned at the sound of boots. Talley approached them with his hat pulled low. “Ms. Hannah said you all don’t ride but want to learn.”

  Alana tilted her head in a noncommittal way but Charlie obviously overheard and with more care than she’d ever seen, walked away from the horse and Kid who turned the horse and led it to the middle of the stable. He approached her and nodded vigorously. “I want to learn.”

  Talley returned the nod with a head tilt and then took the reins of Kid’s horse and led it farther from the stable and to a fenced in circular area. “We exercise the horses in here, but we can have a basic lesson right now.”

  “Shouldn’t we have more than one horse?” Alana didn’t like the idea, but if Charlie wanted to learn to ride, she had to as well.

  “Not yet. I’ll show you all how to saddle, groom and approach the horse. After that, if we have time, we’ll sit the horse and do some slow walking.” Talley looked toward Kid,” Go grab a saddle and pad, will ya.” He then took the horse into the paddock and patted it on the shoulder, walking around it with his hand touching it all the time. Alana wondered at the practice until Talley explained to them. “A horse can see side to side, not backwards or forwards. When you saddle a horse keep in mind that if you walk around him, he can’t see you. Keeping a hand on him assures that the horse knows where you are at all times.” He eyed Charlie in particular, “Never run up to the horse, never come at him with a loud voice and never take your hand off him. Understand?”

  Charlie nodded vigorously, “Yes sir.”

  Kid came out lugging a large saddle with a thick pad on top of it. Charlie rushed to relieve his new friend of the pad, obviously an excuse to go into the paddock. Alana and Sam waited outside until Talley frowned at them. “You two coming in or staying out?”

  Alana sighed and stepped inside the gate, followed by Sam who closed them in the corral with a thousand-pound animal with a history of abuse. She eyed Talley. He was about her height and looked like he weighed around the same as she did, not nearly enough to stop a trampling horse. Alana hugged the fence line with Sam, but Charlie walked alongside Kid with his burden. Talley stood at the horse’s head and took the pad from Kid. “You need to look over the pad, make sure nothing is in there that might cause pain. If there’s anything in this pad that isn’t supposed to be, the horse will feel it and give you either a bumpy ride or a rear in the dirt.” He smoothed his hand over the lighter side of the pad and nodding, gently threw it over the horse, then smoothed it. Alana watched as the horse’s flesh quivered slightly then settled down. Talley followed with the saddle and strap tightening and she watched intently.

  After securing the saddle, Talley showed them the reverse, how to remove the saddle. He turned to Kid, “You’ll go through the brushing and hoof checks, right?”

  Kid grinned, “You bet, boss.”

  Talley gave Kid his abbreviated nod then turned to the novices, “Okay, who’s first at saddling?” Charlie’s hand popped up and Talley went through the steps with him, followed by Sam and Alana. Kid requested practicing again and Alana could see the memory lapses he suffered when he had to be reminded to do the front cinch before the back. She wondered, would he ever be able to get a job
? She hoped so.

  They returned the horse to the stable and went through brushing and grooming the horse, which had to be done with every ride, in addition to the daily grooming they had. Kid and Charlie then set about feeding, watering and cleaning stalls, all under Talley’s watchful eye. Alana realized her son was being guarded by more than one man. The foreman and Kid must have taken it upon themselves to protect Charlie as well. Maybe she could get some work done after all.

  Sam watched Alana watch her son. She needed some reminders that Charlie would be okay a few feet away from her. He turned to watch Kid work with the horses. Who would think a street kid from Memphis would have that kind of talent?

  Hannah walked up to them as they were standing in the stable’s entrance. “He’s good with them, Sam. Really good.”

  “I see that,” Sam’s voice deepened as he tried to control the relief surging through him. “How’s his memory?”

  “Still choppy. It will be for a while. Brain chemistry and healing can take a few years, but he’s looking good. We’ll be teaching him some compensatory techniques to use for his memory, if need be. And some techniques to control his emotional outbursts, as well.”

  Alana frowned, “He has outbursts? Like violence?”

  Hannah shook her head, “Some brain injured patients may have aggressive mood swings, but for Kid, it’s more depressive swings. Something that can be even more dangerous.”

  Sam swallowed. More vets than he’d like to think of committed suicide for one reason or another. Depression probably fit right in there for causes. He stared at his young friend again. If he’d only found the IED before it went off and killed and maimed so many. Kid’s first Ranger assignment had also been his last, and Sam was the one to blame.

  Chapter 3

  Several days passed with the same schedule, up at dawn or just after, grooming horses and stall cleanup for Charlie and Kid with Sam hovering nearby, and work for Alana. She tried to keep her work time to a maximum of three hours a day but by the time she finished emailing, faxing and talking on the phone, five hours would have come and gone. She ate lunch with Charlie when she could pull him away from learning how to exercise horses. Then, one afternoon, thinking she’d surprise him with a game of Parcheesi, she wandered out to the exercise corral then came to a full stop. Charlie sat atop a huge horse with his hands clasped over reins. A lead rope was attached to the horse and Talley stood in the center of the corral, directing the horse in some way. Still, her eight-year-old son rode that beast and without asking her permission. Alana strove to keep her voice level and calm. “Charlie, when did you ask if you could ride a horse?”

  “Hey, mom! Talley said I was ready this morning, so we’re exercising Beast.” He yelled at the top of his lungs and the horse wobbled a bit in its rhythm. Alana forgot to reprimand her son and prayed he wouldn’t end up under the animal’s hooves. Talley cautioned Charlie to quieten his horse and Charlie reached out to pat the horse on its shoulder before returning his patting hand to the reins. “Oh, dear Heaven,” Alana breathed and clutched the fence rail.

  “He’s doing a good job, according to Talley,” Sam walked up beside her and leaned his elbows on the fence. “He might be able to go out of the paddock tomorrow.”

  Who Alana turned and faced Sam. “Won’t that be dangerous? I mean with the threats and all.”

  Sam looked at her. “Have you had any more? I know you go to the main house to check email and work. But have you had any new threats that I should know of? And no, Charlie should be fine, as I’ll be riding with him.”

  “I’ve been using my office email, primarily and nothing suspicious has come across that.”

  “And your personal email?”

  Alana shrugged. “I don’t use it very much. Charlie and I talk to our relatives on the telephone and use the internet to message them, but I rarely use my personal email.” She looked at him, “Why?”

  He shook his head. “Just checking all possible outlets. Do you mind checking it when you go to work next?”

  “I can check it right now. It won’t take any time.” She cast one last look back at Charlie before turning to walk toward the main house.

  Once in the office area, she pulled up her email and scrolled through the myriad of sales pitches, junk mail and bill reminders she had accumulated over the past week. Deep in the midst of the list of emails rested one entitled “Warning”. She clicked it open before Sam’s hand stopped her. Both of them read through the message and Alana swallowed the bile collecting in her throat at the words before her. “Someone has my email address.”

  “You said you don’t use this address a lot, right?” He closed the message and scrolled through the rest of the list before closing the window.

  She shook her head. “Only bills, a few personal emails, and junk mail come through that account. I use my business account for almost all of my correspondence.”

  “Who knows your email address?”

  “My mother, a couple college and law school friends. That’s it, I think.” Why couldn’t she think? Her mind didn’t want to focus on the problem at hand, only on the fact that a fiend was out there and was threatening to kill her son.

  “Do you keep a record of your email addresses and passwords?”

  She stared at the computer screen, now in screensaver mode. A vision of her home office rose before her, the small desk she used with her home laptop, the bill drawer, the day by day calendar and the small notebook that held all of her passwords and accounts. And the username and password for her personal accounts. “At home,” she whispered then turned to him. “I need to check— “

  “No, you don’t.” He gestured to the computer. “Forward that email to the police and then save it. Or print it out, if you prefer. We need to make sure it doesn’t disappear. And don’t use that email account for anything else. If you need to email anyone tell me and we’ll set something else up.” He continued with the laser gaze. “Is this the first time he’s threatened you?”

  She nodded still weak kneed. “In words. He just threatened the State’s Attorney’s office in general before.”

  “Okay. I’m going to make a couple of calls about this while you send the email to the police in Helena. Then we’re going to sit down and you’re going to tell me everything you know about this guy and his brother. Deal?”

  She nodded and turned to the computer screen. At least she had a task to do. She’d concentrate on that for now.

  Sam shut the door behind him and strode to the end of the back porch and dialed Hank’s number. After a few minutes, he shut the phone off, satisfied Alana’s house would be searched, along with her computer. He had some questions, chief among them, could someone find Alana’s location through her email? And was this Shepherd guy smart enough to trace her? He needed answers and he needed them soon. Antsy to do something, he walked to the stable where the door stood open to the cool late summer day. Charlie and Kid stood near Beast, the newest recruit, as Kid called the horses ready for riding. Charlie ran a brush along the horse’s flanks while Kid gestured, apparently teaching the young boy the particulars of grooming. “Hey, Kid. How much longer you guys going to be in here?”

  “Probably another half hour or so, Beast needs some hoof work. Why?”

  “Just wondering.” Sam nodded to Charlie and returned to the house. Inside, he found Alana, her head bent down and her hands silent on the computer keyboard. Was she crying? Lord, he hoped she wasn’t crying. He didn’t want to deal with a woman and tears.

  He approached her then hunkered down on his haunches until they were eye level. He placed a hand over hers as it rested on the keyboard. “You and Charlie are going to come out of this okay. I promise.”

  She blinked a couple of times, as if trying to clear her eyes and Sam braced himself. Instead of a tear rolling down her cheek he got a curt nod and she squeezed his hand. Sam leaned toward her. Was he going to kiss her? She leaned in to meet his lips, surprising him. He’d not been aware of the need to kiss he
r even as his lips pressed against hers, but it seemed right, more than right. He savored the smooth line of her outer lip and then the soft inner tissue when she opened her mouth to his probing tongue. They sparred and tasted, hurrying yet taking their time. He didn’t touch her or pull her to him, other than the connection at their lips, but he felt her heat, warming him through and through. Lost in sensation, nothing disturbed them until he heard a voice outside the office door. Alana drew away and took a long breath. Sam remained in his crouch and stared at her, his eyes steady on her. Leaning away from him and into the leather chair, she turned and started the process of printing the email. “I’ll put these in my briefcase.”

  “We need to talk about Shepherd and the threats he made against you.”

  “Not in here. Charlie might come in.”

  “Where, then?”

  “In the cabin.” She smiled ruefully. “Charlie won’t come back. He knows I’m going to be homeschooling him come Monday morning. And there are the chores he still hasn’t done for the day.” She rose and he followed her to her cabin.

  Sam hesitated at the cabin door after Alana entered and she glanced over her shoulder at him. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” He entered but left the door open and Alana shivered at the cool breeze coming in through the open space. “Close the door. Do you want some hot tea?” She heard a snort, “Sorry, I guess tea doesn’t pass the manliness test. Coffee?”

  “Sure, thanks,” He followed her into the small galley kitchen area and sat at the dining table. Alana went through the motions of preparing coffee, all the while reviewing the kiss they’d shared. She hadn’t been aware of leaning into the man’s strength until she’d been deep in the kiss. How long had it been since she’d let herself go enough to kiss a man, just for the sheer pleasure of it? And if they hadn’t heard a noise, where would the kiss have led? And did she want the kiss to go somewhere else?