Texas Free

by Janet Dailey

  * * *

  After a dozen paces, Rose halted and stood still. She could see the boys, each one gripped by a man holding a pistol to his small head. Their moon-pale faces were frozen in fear. Rose’s heart broke for them and for their father.

  “Let the boys go now, Refugio, or I won’t take another step.” She shouted the words, hoping Tanner could hear her.

  She willed herself not to think about dying. Refugio was holding all the cards. He could shoot her now and kill the boys out of spite. But giving her a quick death would spoil his fun. His sadistic streak was all she had to count on.

  “Let them go, Cabrera,” Bull shouted. “Tell your goons to take their hands off them. If anything goes wrong, I won’t care who I have to kill or how long it takes.”

  “They can go. But you keep walking, Rose, or my men will shoot them.” The cartel boss nodded to his henchmen. They released their grip on the boys. Will reached for Beau’s hand and locked his around it. They stumbled a few steps, then broke into a run that took them all the way across the open yard to their father’s arms.

  Rose kept walking, aware of the switchblade knife under the back of her jeans. In her side vision she glimpsed Bull carrying his sons to the truck. Go, Bull, she thought. Get them out of here. Nothing else matters.

  Bull’s truck might have started and moved. But if it did, Rose couldn’t be sure, because she had reached the entrance to the barn, and the two Cabrera cousins—she recognized them now—were stepping forward to take her arms, holding her between them.

  Maybe this was her time to die—like Ramón and María and the good people of Río Seco, who’d been lined up against an adobe wall and shot, or killed in more imaginative ways for the amusement of the cartel. After all, everybody died. Why should she be anything special?

  Then she thought of Tanner, somewhere out there, risking his life to save her. Tanner, who’d told her he would rather die with her than live without her. And she knew she had to keep fighting. She wanted to live. She wanted to raise a family with him, to grow old with him. And she wasn’t about to settle for anything less.

  It was dark inside the barn, but Rose could make out figures and faces. The vehicle—some kind of enclosed ATV with oversized tires—was a looming black shape, parked to one side of the barn, taking up almost a third of the space.

  The two cousins, gripping Rose’s arms, propelled her over to Refugio, who held a flashlight in one hand. As he holstered his gun and shone the light in her eyes, his cruel, handsome face broke into a smirk. “So we meet again, Rose. I can hardly wait for us to get to know each other better.”

  Rose spat in his face.

  Refugio’s chiseled features froze. Taking a handkerchief from his jacket, he wiped his face. “Cuff the bitch and throw her in the back,” he snarled in Spanish. “Let’s get the hell out of—”

  A crash of splintering wood and the echoing sound of a gunshot shattered the night. The two men holding Rose’s arms let go and went for their weapons. In a lightning move, Rose whipped out the switchblade and drove it into Refugio’s body. The tip of the blade barely penetrated his black silk shirt. Too late, she realized that he was wearing a Kevlar vest underneath.

  “Rose! Get down!” Hearing Tanner’s voice, she understood that he was afraid of hitting her. Still gripping the knife, she dropped and rolled under the vehicle. “They’re wearing body armor!” she shouted to warn him.

  Frustrated by her helpless position, she lay in the darkness, listening to the deafening whang of the 9mm Glocks the cartel men carried and the blast of Tanner’s .38. She could hear air escaping from a tire. That must have been where Tanner’s first shot had struck.

  A leg—clad in black pants, not Tanner’s jeans—came into view below the vehicle’s metal frame. Rose hacked at it from behind with her razor-sharp knife. Gasping with effort, she cut deeper and felt the hamstring separate with a snap. She was rewarded with a scream. The man had fallen a few feet away, crying and holding his maimed, useless leg. She could tell it wasn’t Refugio. Too bad, she thought. But if she could get the man’s gun, she could help Tanner.

  Hugging the barn’s earthen floor, she came in low behind the wounded man, wrenched the loosely held 9mm Glock from his hand, and aimed. A single, deafening shot to the back of the head ended his worthless life.

  As the sound cleared her ears, she realized that the gunfire had stopped.

  Scarcely daring to breathe, she lay still. A flashlight came on, its beam moving over the carnage in the barn. The man Rose had killed lay nearby. The other Cabrera cousin, also dead, sprawled a dozen feet away. And Tanner . . .

  Rose’s heart contracted. Tanner lay facedown at Refugio’s feet, a crimson flood spreading over the back of his shirt.

  Refugio let the light linger on him. “He is still alive, Rose. Toss that gun over here. The knife, too, or I will finish him right now.”

  Rose did as she was told. “Let me help him,” she said. “Please.”

  “All right. Do it. Any tricks and I’ll kill you both.”

  Rose moved to cover Tanner’s prone body with hers. She could feel his heart beating, but he was badly hit, losing a lot of blood. She tried to stop the bleeding with pressure from her hands. It was useless. “He needs a doctor,” she said.

  “Come with me, and I will leave him alive. Maybe Bull Tyler will come back and find him.”

  Maybe, Rose thought. But there was no guarantee that Bull would come back at all, and Tanner didn’t have much time. If she left him, he would die alone.

  “No.” She clung to Tanner’s unconscious body, covering as much of him as she could. Tanner’s words came back to her, and she knew they were true for her as well. She would rather die with him than live without him. “I’m not leaving him,” she said. “If it matters that much, you’ll have to kill us both.”

  Refugio cursed in Spanish. Rose tried to imagine what he was thinking. His men were dead, and the police would have the roads blocked, watching for his vehicle. He might be able to slip away alone and on foot, disguised as a common migrant worker, but with Rose as his prisoner, that kind of escape would be impossible. And for him, mercy was out of the question. Kill her now. Kill them both.

  With the flashlight still in one hand, he raised his pistol and cocked it.

  Rose glimpsed a tall silhouette in the open doorway of the barn. In the same instant, the deafening roar of a 12-gauge shotgun, firing on both barrels, shattered the air. The close-range blast could have dropped a thousand-pound steer. Even in a Kevlar vest, Refugio didn’t stand a chance.

  Bull steadied his balance, lowered the weapon, and rubbed his shoulder. “Damn, but that old gun’s got a kick,” he said. “How’s Tanner?”

  Rose found her voice. “Alive, but barely. He’s losing a lot of blood. We’ve got to get him to a hospital.”

  Bull stripped off his shirt to use as a temporary dressing. “Better not to move him without help. Let’s put a patch on him, and you stay here with him. The patrol cars are out. First one we pass, I’ll have them call an ambulance . . .”

  Eighteen hours later

  Tanner opened his eyes. As his murky vision cleared, he saw that Rose was bending over his hospital bed, red-eyed, disheveled, and so stunningly beautiful that all he wanted to do was look at her.

  “Hello,” she whispered.

  “Hello,” he said. “You look like an angel. Am I in heaven?”

  “You were knocking on the gate,” Rose said. “But the doctors brought you back. You needed three pints of blood. Even so, you were lucky. The bullet didn’t hit anything vital.”

  “What about Cabrera and his pals?”

  “They’re shaking hands with the devil.”

  “All I remember is a lot of shooting. Then I got hit and everything went dark.”

  “You got one of them,” Rose said. “I got one, and Bull finished off Refugio. Good teamwork, I’d say.”

  “Sorry, I really wanted to save you by myself—you know, ride in like a knight in shining
armor and slay all your dragons.”

  “You did save me.” She took his hand and pressed it to her cheek. “Without you, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “You should get some rest.” He touched her tangled hair.

  “There’ll be time for that. Right now I need to go call the Rimrock and tell Bull and Jasper you’re awake. I’ll call Joe, too. He’ll want to know.”

  After she left the room, Tanner lay in a fog of uncertainty. He could feel the pain under the dressings that bound his ribs, covering the entrance and exit wounds where the shot had gone through his chest and back. Crazy. He didn’t even know which way the bullet been traveling when it hit him.

  He groaned as the worries flooded over him. How long before he’d be ready to work again? What about his job? He didn’t even have a place to live, except the ranger post. Worse, his injuries weren’t related to his work, so there’d be no compensation.

  And what about Rose? He knew that he wanted to marry her, and it couldn’t happen soon enough. But what did he have to offer her? Nothing but a modest savings account and half ownership of a struggling Wyoming ranch. How could he provide the best future for Rose and peace of mind for himself? Could he make it here in Texas, with Rose wanting to stay on her beloved land, or would he be better off joining Clint’s family in Wyoming? Only one thing was certain—he couldn’t have it both ways, and neither could Rose.

  He had some hard decisions to make, and they needed to be made soon. He could only hope those decisions wouldn’t cost him the woman he loved.

  * * *

  By the time Rose returned to Tanner’s hospital room, he was nodding off again. She bent over the bed and kissed him awake, working her way around monitor cords and an IV. He opened his eyes. “Joe sends his best,” she said. “He talked to Clive. Your job will be waiting when you’re mended. Bull’s with his boys, but Jasper’s coming here. He wants to talk to us. Since he’ll have to drive from the ranch to Lubbock, he won’t be here for an hour. You might as well get more rest.”

  “You too,” he murmured and closed his eyes.

  Rose curled up in the armchair next to the bed. It wasn’t comfortable, but she hadn’t slept in nearly two days, and she was exhausted. It seemed as if she’d barely drifted off when Jasper walked into the hospital room, startling her awake.

  “Thank God you’re both all right. Don’t get up, Rose. I can see you’re tuckered out.” Jasper pulled a straight-backed chair up to the bed. “And you—” He laid his hand on Tanner’s. “We’ve got a lot to thank you for.”

  “All I did was get shot,” Tanner said.

  “We’ve got some talking to do.” Jasper took a deep breath. “Some of this is going to hit hard, Rose. That’s why Bull and I decided to save it until we knew Tanner was out of the woods.”

  Something told Rose that bad news was coming. She was strong and she could take it, she encouraged herself.

  “I guess you already know that when we drove up to the line shack, we found those two Mexican boys shot dead. After they gave you up for a reward, the cartel had no more use for ’em.”

  Rose struggled to ignore the hurt that was still there. “I know, and I wasn’t surprised,” she said. “I’d already figured out that they’d betrayed me to the cartel.”

  “There’s more,” Jasper said. “Your property. I went over and had a look after the fire. Everything’s gone, Rose. They torched it—the trailer, your truck, even the damned chicken coop with the chickens in it. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh—” Rose knew she shouldn’t be shocked after hearing the sirens and guessing the truth. But the news still hurt. Her hands balled into fists as she fought to hold her emotions in check. The trailer and truck were a loss. But the chickens were living creatures, and she had loved them.

  Jasper paused, waiting for her to take in the news before he continued. “This is the worst part. When the sheriff’s crew came to investigate, they found a body on the other side of the creek. A young man in a camouflage shirt. He’d been shot.”

  “No!” This time the news broke her. She pressed her face into Tanner’s blanket to muffle the sobs that shook her body. Reuben had been a lonely, misfit boy, just needing a little kindness. And she had made him her friend for her own selfish reasons. “This is on me,” she said. “I was nice to him. I asked him to watch the place.”

  “Don’t, Rose.” She felt the gentle weight of Tanner’s hand on her hair. “Reuben’s death isn’t on you. It’s on Ferg, and on the monsters who killed the boy just because he was there.”

  “But he didn’t have a chance to grow up. He could have found his way. He could have become somebody.”

  “He had a friend who was good to him,” Tanner said. “At least you gave him that.”

  “It wasn’t enough.” Rose took time to get her tears under control. “I just realized I have next to nothing,” she said. “No home, no money, nothing but a piece of ground and the clothes on my back.” She forced a smile, remembering how she’d come to the Rimrock as a fourteen-year-old girl after her grandfather was killed. “But I guess this isn’t the first time, is it?”

  “You’ve got your friends,” Jasper said. “And the Rimrock will be your home for as long as you want to stay.”

  “And you have me.” Something in Tanner’s voice told Rose he had more to say.

  “You can stay, too, Tanner,” Jasper said. “You’ll need a place to rest up and heal. You’ll have it at the ranch.”

  “Thanks, I may take you up on that,” Tanner said. “Meanwhile, I’ve got a lot of thinking to do and some big decisions to make.”

  She gave him a questioning glance, wondering if his decisions involved her. “Well, take your time,” Jasper said. “As long as you do right by our girl, Bull and I will be happy.”

  * * *

  After Jasper had gone, Tanner took Rose’s hand. The whole time Jasper had been talking to Rose, the arguments had been warring in his mind. Now that the answer—the only answer—had fallen into place, he knew that, for her sake, he couldn’t leave things unsettled.

  “I have something to say to you,” he began. “Hear me out. If you need time to think about your answer, I owe you that much, at least.”

  “I’m listening.” Her eyes were soft and dark. She was a woman who’d lost almost everything, a woman who’d been terribly hurt. Was he about to hurt her again? Tanner cleared his throat.

  “I love you, Rose. I want you at my side forever. I want to raise our babies and grow old with you. But here in Texas, I’ll never be more than just a man with a job.”

  He saw the subtle shift in her expression, as if she’d already guessed what he was going to say next. He knew how much she loved her land and how hard she’d fought for it. But one of them had to make a choice. Maybe it would be him.

  “Right now, that parcel of land is all you have. I know how much it means to you. But I have land, too. Land and family in Wyoming, a place to put down roots and bring up our children. We wouldn’t have to live with my brother. We could rent a place in town while I build us a home on the ranch . . .”

  Her face reflected shock. “You’re saying you want us to go back there?”

  “I’m not saying. I’m asking. More than anything else, I want a life with you, Rose. If that little parcel means so much to you, I’ll try to stay and make things work. But think about the constant struggle you’ve had there, and the danger. Think about what we could have in Wyoming—our own land and cattle, satisfying work, safety, and plenty of family around.”

  Seeing her unreadable expression, he trailed off. Had he said too much? Did that parcel of creek land mean more to her than his love?

  “What is it?” he asked.

  After an agonizing pause she spoke. “My grandfather died for that creek land. He left it to me as a legacy. I came home to Texas, thinking that nothing was more important than making a home on it. But I’ve come to realize that the land will always be there, whether I choose to live on it or not. But if I make the wrong choice, I coul
d lose what means even more to me—I could lose you.”

  “Rose—”

  “No, wait. I need to know this. What about your memories? What about your wife and son?”

  “We’d be building a new life. The memories will always be there, but they won’t stop me from being happy. Not with you.”

  “Then I have just one question,” she said. “And I need an answer now.”

  “Ask it.” Tanner held his breath, sensing that the rest of their lives could depend on his answer.

  A radiant smile lit her face. “Can I have chickens and goats in Wyoming?”

  * * *

  Three weeks later they were married on Rose’s land. They stood next to the fallen tree where her grandfather lay, his grave marked by a granite stone that Bull had placed there as a token of thanks for saving his sons.

  Bull had also cleared away the burned remains of the trailer, pickup, camper, and chicken coop. The earth lay bare and clean, ready for the new grass that was already beginning to sprout.

  A justice of the peace performed the ceremony. In attendance were Bull and his sons, Jasper, Bernice, and Joe. They watched, smiling, as Rose said her vows to Tanner in a simple white dress with a garland of summer wildflowers in her hair.

  After a farewell luncheon, it was time to take leave of their friends and start north for Wyoming. Rose was looking forward to a new home, a new family, and new adventures with the love of her life. But she would always keep her Rimrock family in her heart. Saying good-bye wouldn’t be easy.

  Joe had already gone back to work. Standing beside Tanner’s loaded pickup, Rose hugged Bernice and the boys. “Can we come and visit you, Rose?” Beau asked.

  “I hope you can. That will be up to your father,” Rose said. But something told her that Bull’s attachment to the Rimrock was so deep he would never tear himself away, even for a visit.

  She flung her arms around Jasper’s neck, almost weeping. He had been her dear friend and staunch ally. She would miss him most of all. “Things are gonna be a lot less interesting with you gone, darlin’,” he said. “Take care.”