Black Rock Guardian

by Jenna Kernan

  Jewell ambled over and took Ty’s other arm, giving Chino the chance he needed to drag Beth from his side. Jewell clung tight as Chino propositioned Beth.

  “Maybe you’d like to stay up here on Turquoise Canyon. Join our group,” said Chino, drawing Beth before him and moving in way too close.

  Beth shifted away and Chino tugged her back. Ty realized she was trying to prevent him from feeling the gun in her jacket pocket.

  Uh-oh, Ty thought, unfolding his arms as he reached the coffee table and Beth, trapped between Faras and Chino. Time to go.

  Beth was FBI, but she’d worked organized crime. Did she know what was involved with a woman joining a gang?

  “Just a small initiation,” said Chino, unable to keep the smile of anticipation from curling his lips.

  “No,” said Ty, extracting himself from Jewell’s ferocious grip. Her job done, Jewell moved beside Faras.

  Chino kept a hold on Beth and faced Ty. “Why not let the lady decide?”

  Ty looked to Faras to settle the argument. He didn’t. Instead, he lifted his hands from his beer bottle and offered them palms up.

  “Settle it outside,” said Faras.

  Chino rose to his feet and bumped Ty with his shoulder on the way past. Ty grabbed Beth and muscled her toward the rear exit.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Getting you out of here.”

  “I’m not going without you,” she said.

  “Only way out for me is through Chino,” he said.

  Ty watched the big man head through the door, followed by several of the men and all the women.

  “Don’t go out there,” said Beth.

  “You want to be my girl? This is how it’s done. If you plan to hang on the posse’s turf, I have to establish my singular claim.”

  “That’s barbaric.”

  “So are they.”

  Beth hesitated, looking toward the back of the roadhouse.

  “We won’t make it,” said Ty.

  “Well, I can’t let him kill you.”

  Ty nodded. Beth had assessed their chances, pictured the encounter and decided Ty would not only lose, but also be killed. Her confidence was touching.

  “If I help you, I have to blow my cover.”

  “Who asked you to help me?” said Ty, and headed for the door.

  She grabbed him before he went outside. There in the entrance, between the roadhouse and the lot, he faced her.

  “Do you know what the initiation involves?” His words came as a rasp, like a file on metal.

  She looked at the dirty rug advertising Coors beer. Her words where flat, as if she was just reciting them. “Crime is a standard initiation for males. For a female, it’s sex.”

  She lifted her gaze and their eyes met.

  “Exactly.” Ty wiped his face with both hands. “I don’t like you, Agent Hoosay, but I’ll protect you if I can.”

  Now he saw the worry in her eyes, and her hand went into her jacket pocket, reaching for the pistol he knew was secreted there.

  He grabbed her wrist and pulled her close, speaking against her temple. “No.”

  She clung to his shirt with her free hand. “It’s a last resort.”

  “You can run, but you cannot draw that pistol. If you do, I’m a dead man because I brought you here. Do you understand?”

  “But what if—”

  “Do you understand?” he growled.

  “Yes.” Her voice was breathless.

  “While I’m fighting, you’re backing up until you get to my car and then you are out of here.” He held up the key fob.

  She took it.

  Ty pressed his lips to the top of her head and closed his eyes.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said again.

  “Either you’re mine or you’re not. No middle ground.”

  Then he let her go and stepped out to the lot, where the circle of spectators waited. There in the center stood Chino.

  “Thought you snuck out the back,” said Chino.

  “Had to take a piss,” he said.

  “When I’m done with you, you’ll piss yourself again,” snarled Chino.

  Several in the gathering laughed at this.

  The man looked positively delighted, though whether at the prospect of fighting Ty or sleeping with Beth, Ty did not know.

  Faras arrived behind Ty with Quinton at his side.

  “Come on!” Chino was already flexing and snorting like a bull preparing to charge.

  Ty looked to Faras, who sighed. Then he gave Ty a slow shake of his head.

  “She worth it?” asked Faras.

  Ty did not hesitate and nodded once.

  “Then you got to prove it.”

  “You won’t blame me if I damage your man,” he said, thumbing toward Chino.

  That caused many of the watching Wolf Posse members to laugh out loud. Faras didn’t laugh because Faras had seen Ty fight.

  Chino roared and charged without waiting for Faras to answer the question.

  He came at Ty with his shoulders back and chest out. Most fights started with shoving and jostling, sometimes with a chest or belly bump. Ty never wasted time or effort with posturing. Chino was bigger. But he wouldn’t win.

  Ty glanced to Beth. She wasn’t backing up. Worse still, she clearly thought Chino would win, because she had her hand in her jacket pocket again.

  Chapter Ten

  Beth wrapped her hand around her service pistol and used one finger to flick off the safety while keeping her eyes on Ty and Chino.

  She’d been undercover before and thought she knew what she was doing, but somehow in less than twelve hours she had managed to put both herself and her contact in jeopardy.

  Chino lifted a hand to shove Ty. It was a sloppy first move.

  His hand never made contact. Ty grasped his wrist and spun him so fast the entire thing was a blur. Chino folded at the waist as Ty forced his wrist up behind his back, using only his thumb as leverage. Then Ty ran him across the circle. The members in the gathering marked Chino’s course and moved aside a moment before Chino’s head hit the door of the pickup parked in the handicapped spot. The car door was dented on impact.

  Ty let him go, which Beth thought was an incredibly stupid thing to do.

  Chino rose from the ground, roaring as he turned like a Kodiak bear preparing to charge.

  Ty looked to Faras and lifted his hands as if asking for directions or perhaps hoping Faras would call this off. Faras nodded his consent and Ty’s shoulders sank and he turned his attention back to Chino. Beth thought Faras had just given Ty the okay to continue. Ty would have to finish this fight. But what were the rules? Did they fight until someone conceded, or what?

  Ty rolled his shoulder. Chino fixed on the movement, sensing weakness like a shark senses blood.

  Speaking of which, was that blood on the front of Ty’s T-shirt? His bomber jacket was unzipped and the shirt beneath glistened in a way she associated with blood. Beth knew that Ty had been injured at Antelope Lake and that he had lost a significant amount of blood because of the samples collected. She’d seen the photos, but she did not know where exactly Ty had been injured while crashing through the picture window. She also could not get her mind around how a man with that much blood loss could manage to make it twenty-three miles over rough ground back to his rez, on foot and alone.

  Chino’s eyes narrowed as he shook out his arm and rubbed his sore thumb. She knew Chino had an eighth-grade education, had been expelled for bringing a weapon to his middle school and had been arrested twice for shoplifting and drug possession. Meanwhile, Ty Redhorse had served in the US Marine Corps. Had distinguished himself in several combat engagements and had left with an honorable discharge.

  Size aside, she now had her money on the warrior.
Quinton wandered over to stand beside her.

  Beth rested her free hand on her hip as her sweaty hand gripped the pistol. Quinton folded his arms and leaned against the truck bed behind them as Chino took his first swing.

  “Wish I had the guts to challenge Chino sometimes, but he’d break me in two pieces like a dry stick,” said Quinton, and then pantomimed the break. “Snap!”

  Beth cut her gaze away from Quinton and back to the fight.

  “I’m Quinton.”

  She knew who he was. Quinton had finished high school. Barely. He’d been in the tribe’s jail for three months after a bar fight that tribal suspected was gang-related. He’d lost the fight, which was how the police picked him up, bleeding all over himself.

  “Beth,” she said, and was forced to release her pistol to shake his hand.

  “This has been coming for a while. Chino hates Ty.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Beth hoped she would not have to draw her weapon to keep one male from killing the other. She did not want to blow her cover, but she was not going to watch this gorilla kill Ty. Especially when Ty was defending her.

  “Chino resents that Ty gets to come and go as he likes. That Faras shows him a kind of respect he doesn’t give the rest of us. But those two got a long history. Back to high school. Almost like Faras owes Ty or something.”

  Chino’s second swing was clumsy and Ty ducked under it.

  “Brewing for a while is all.” Quinton motioned to the women, all sitting on the open gate of a pickup across the circle, glaring daggers at her. “Looks like you haven’t made any friends here yet but Faras.”

  Ty glided under Chino’s flailing arm, punched him in the kidney and watched the big man sink to his knees.

  “Down goes Frazier,” said Quinton, imitating Howard Cosell’s famous words. “You a fight fan?”

  “No.”

  “Got a favorite?” asked Quinton.

  “I like the horse I rode in on.”

  Ty cast her a look and motioned his head toward his car. He’d given her plenty of time to escape. But she wasn’t leaving him here wrestling that gorilla.

  “I’d love to see Chino land just one punch,” said Quinton.

  “Why’s that?”

  Quinton shrugged. “Pretty boy. Teacher’s pet.”

  It seemed Ty did not have many friends among the gang, either, except perhaps Faras Pike himself.

  Chino started to rise and Ty kicked him in the head with his booted foot. Chino fell facedown, hard. Ty was on Chino’s back an instant later. Ty had the man’s beefy arm up over his head and bent his arm back toward his shoulder blade until his wrist nearly met his shoulder.

  Chino cried out and kicked.

  Beth took a step forward. Ty increased the pressure on Chino’s shoulder, and the man stopped struggling.

  Ty had won and chosen to spare Chino’s life, which was great because it kept Beth from having to arrest him for manslaughter.

  “Yield,” demanded Ty.

  Chino’s eyes were bloodshot and his mouth screwed up like that of a man who ate limes for a living. Finally he nodded.

  “Yield,” Chino said.

  Ty rose and his opponent rolled to his back. Ty offered his hand. Chino hesitated, then looked at Faras, who inclined his chin by the slightest measure. Chino snorted but accepted Ty’s help to his feet.

  Beth slipped her hand from her jacket and glanced to Faras, who pinned her with a steady stare. Did he suspect she had a weapon or, worse, did he suspect who and what she was?

  Ty remained where he was as Chino shuffled back toward Faras; then he turned to Beth.

  “You’re still here,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Didn’t want to miss your win.”

  “Win? All I did was make Chino even more determined to kill me.”

  She looped her arm in the crook of his elbow, casting a glance around at the crowd, who would all watch Ty Redhorse leave with her.

  “You are both welcome at the crib anytime,” Faras called after them.

  Beth lifted her hands and wiggled her fingers in farewell. Ty’s breathing was heavy and his face was pale. She glanced at his shoulder. His black T-shirt was definitely wet and she suspected it was wet with blood. His blood. She needed to get him home and find out what was wrong with him.

  She lifted the keys. “I’ll drive.”

  “Thank God,” he said.

  “Hospital?”

  “No.”

  Beth clenched her jaw and didn’t argue, ignoring the flutter of worry in her chest. He was a contact. Not her man. Though he had just fought as if he was. It was a level of commitment you couldn’t get with threats or bribes. She knew that, but she didn’t want to think about it or what it meant.

  She did admit, to herself at least, that Ty was not what she had expected.

  “Did you know that might happen when you agreed to this?” she asked.

  “I knew it was likely.”

  “How?”

  “Because Chino has challenged me before. Any excuse.”

  “Has he ever bested you?”

  “No. But sooner or later he’s going to stop playing fair.”

  She’d put him in danger and he’d fought to protect her. It required acknowledgment.

  “Thank you for getting him off me,” she said.

  He turned to stare for a long moment. Then he said, “Bet that wasn’t easy to say.”

  That made her smile. “You’re not what I expected, Ty.”

  He turned back to look out the window. His words seemed spoken more to himself. “That’s because no one expects much.”

  Beth got him back to his place. She walked behind him as they mounted the outside steps, keeping one hand on his lower back. She ignored the flexing of the strong muscles that rippled beneath the thin fabric of his shirt and concentrated on supporting him. Ty unlocked the door. Hemi charged at them and then skidded to a halt, her toenails scraping on the tile floor. Then she dropped to the ground and whined.

  “I know she’s got a gun, Hemi.” Ty extended his hand and Hemi rose, still whining. His dog knew something was wrong. Ty motioned her outside, but she wouldn’t go. Beth admired the canine’s loyalty. Hemi was staying right where she was until she knew that her master was all right.

  Beth drew out a kitchen chair.

  “Sit,” said Beth to Ty. He did. Hemi did not.

  She removed her jacket and slipped her pistol into the waistband of her jeans, in the center of her back. Then she got his jacket off. The sticky black T-shirt left a smear of blood when she dragged it up and over his head. Now Beth saw what Hemi smelled. Blood coated the strong muscles of his chest and torso, painting them crimson. Across the top of one shoulder was the cause of the torrent. A six-inch wound cut a jagged course across his flesh. Someone with skill had sutured the laceration, his oldest brother, she suspected, but a one-inch section had torn open.

  “Call Kee,” said Ty. Then he closed his eyes.

  “Do you feel sick?”

  “Tired. Tired of fighting and lying and...” His words fell off.

  “Is this wound from Antelope Lake?” she asked.

  Someone had helped Kee overpower Yury Churkin, the Russian crime family’s hired assassin, and taken on the other man on guard in the house. Kee had managed to get to two missing women with the help of his mentor, Hector Hauser, who turned out to be up to his eyeballs in the entire mess. Both captives were rescued, Kee escaped, Hauser was shot and killed along with one of the Russian guards. Yury Churkin had shot himself to avoid arrest. And Ty had been there. The blood evidence said so.

  Beth wadded his shirt and used it as a compression bandage, pressing it tight to the wound.

  Beth suspected that Ty’s arrival had saved his brother Kee and two women. The fact that Ty knew where to fi
nd his brother could mean he was involved or that he followed Kee. Instead of wanting the truth, Beth was disturbed to learn she hoped he had tracked his brother to the holding house.

  “How did you know where to find Kee and Hauser?” she asked.

  “Call him and then you can ask him yourself.”

  Ty took possession of the shirt. Beth did not remove her hand, and his fell on top of hers. He met her eyes and his expression held a warning as if he knew what would happen if she didn’t move away. That attraction was there again, despite his pallor and tight-lipped expression. His eyes flamed and his gaze dropped to her lips.

  “You’ve got my cooperation, Beth. You can’t convict me of helping Kee. You want the story, he’ll tell you, but call him before I bleed all over my clean floor.”

  Droplets of blood had already landed, spattering outward evenly in all directions, looking like one of the many crime scenes she had investigated.

  She lifted her phone from her back pocket and called Kee Redhorse, identified herself as Ty’s new girlfriend and relayed the situation before disconnecting. “He’s on his way.”

  The compression bandage seemed to be doing its job. No more blood ran in rivulets down his smooth ochre skin.

  “Do you want me to wash off some of that blood?” she asked.

  “Is that code for taking a blood sample?”

  He was quick, she’d give him that.

  “That ship has sailed.”

  “Then knock yourself out.”

  She went to his sink, got a dish towel and returned with a basin of warm soapy water. She dipped the cloth and wrung away the excess water before beginning at the farthest rivulets of blood. His stomach muscles twitched at the first contact and then braced. As a result, his abdomen turned to ridges of taut muscle. His jaw muscles bunched as his eyes met hers and she read the heat. Her body responded and her hand shook as she continued to wash away the blood.

  “Am I hurting you?”

  “More than you can ever imagine.” His voice trembled.

  Her smile was part grimace. He was not hers. She needed to keep reminding herself of that. But as the cloth moved over his warm skin, she ignored what was and imagined what might be. Beth took the time and trouble to memorize the patterns on his skin, the tiny mole under his armpit and the scar on his rib cage. The water in the basin turned pink as she worked. The cloth offered little barrier because she let her fingertips graze his torso, stomach and chest. The pads of her fingers relayed the electric excitement that snapped and arced like a power line ripped from its anchors by a violent storm. The storm in Ty’s eyes raged as he watched her, one hand clenched to the wadded T-shirt at his shoulder. His free hand rested on his knee, fingers clamping down as if struggling not to touch her.