Chapter Sixteen #2
wouldn’t need to do all this. It’s easy enough to send someone in and then
eventually the guy they sent in is alone with Shane and oops, accidents happen
on ranches. Shit. That’s why they stole the damn safe.”
It was all falling into place, and he was on the edge of
panic. He wanted to get back in the truck and plow through. That gate wouldn’t
hold if they hit it hard enough. He needed to get to them. He would give
Kingman everything if it meant Brooke was safe. If it meant his brother
survived.
“What the hell do they want with a drawing?” Max asked,
somehow staying calm. “Can you give it to them?”
“If it’s the one I think it is, then it’s in my sketchpad in
the foreman’s house. I usually take it with me, but we weren’t supposed to be
long,” Bay admitted. “I left it on the bar in the kitchen. I think a couple of
Brooke’s books are on top of it. I thought about that because I like it when
Brooke’s on top, so I liked her books being on top of mine.”
“Too much information,” Max gritted out. “Why would they
care about your drawings? I mean I can see Stef trying to steal them since he’s
certain you’re some sort of brilliant artist person, but Kingman doesn’t give a
crap about art.”
There, Max would be wrong. Kingman actually had some lovely
examples of contemporary Southwestern art, including a couple of pieces that
should have been in Native American museums. But that was all about showing
off. Kingman’s art gallery was like his mansion. Meant to intimidate and bring
glory to Kale Kingman.
“There was this woman. She’d been on the ranch for a couple
of years,” Bay said, his anxiety growing. “Kingman didn’t have many women on
the team, but she seemed close to him. And then one day she was leaving. I was
working near the house that day and I saw her getting ready to leave. There was
something about the whole scene, some deep emotion I didn’t understand but I
had to catch. I know that sounds weird…”
“Stef Talbot has been my brother for my whole life. You
think I don’t get the weirdo art stuff? Trust me. I’ve had to sit while Stef
tried to capture some shit I didn’t understand. It’s a damn tree. There are
thousands of them around here, but Stef’s got to paint that one. All right, but
how did Kingman even know you had it?”
Oh, he remembered now. “It was right before Thanksgiving,
and one of the guys was being an asshole. He got hold of my sketchpad and
started looking through it. When I walked in they were all making fun of me for
my drawings of Brooke. Saying I was a pervert but hey, could I introduce them
to that girl?”
“They were talking about my sister? Bay, I don’t care what
anyone tells you, it’s your job to kick the ass of any man who looks her way.”
He wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle any man since she was
gorgeous and every man with eyes would look at her, but he would take care of
the ones who touched her. “Anyway, they were all joking about me sitting around
drawing women I could never have, but one of them pointed to the picture of
Meli Smith. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now I wonder.”
“You wonder?” Max put the binoculars to his face. This part
of the G was in the valley surrounded by mountains, but the land where they had
the houses and the barns was fairly flat. Max should have a decent view if the
binoculars were powerful enough. Even from Bay’s place he could see the houses
and the barn, at the least the roofs. Max was higher. “What does Kingman
drive?”
“A black Escalade when he’s showing off, but he’s got
several cars. A couple of Jeeps. A tricked-out F-150 when he’s working,” Bay
replied. “But it’s been a couple of months. He trades them in pretty fast.”
“There are three vehicles I don’t recognize. Two trucks, and
there is that Escalade,” Max confirmed. “It looks like they’re mostly in Trev’s
house. He’s going to lose his shit on those boys when he gets back here. Bay,
they’re all armed.”
Bay’s gut clenched. “Can you see Brooke? Shane?”
“No,” Max informed him. “I’ve got two men on the porch. They
look like they’re guards. Probably the lookouts. One just walked out. He’s
heading for the barn.”
“Henry and Nell are in that barn, along with Noah and Lucy.”
What the hell was about to happen? Where was Brooke? Did they already have her?
Had Shane already tried to defend her? Nell was pregnant. She couldn’t get
killed for his mistake. He would never fucking survive being the reason the
town mourned. He could jump that fence. “I’m going in.”
“Don’t. Not if Henry’s there.”
Yes, Henry Flanders, the dude who ate tofu and claimed to be
some kind of badass. Except he didn’t actually make the claim. It was a town
legend. “I need to go make sure he doesn’t get hurt.”
Max snorted. “Yeah, you need to help Henry. Get up here. I
assure you Henry already knows what’s happening. Maybe not the whys, but he
knows they’re here. I hope like hell Brooke and Shane went out to that barn to
say hello and they’re with him now.”
Bay climbed onto the truck and took the binoculars from Max.
He heard the sound of a gunshot. At least he thought it was.
It came from the barn, maybe. It was muffled from the distance. The man who’d
been stalking to the building stopped and he said something. It was only a
second later before he turned and walked back toward the house.
A shot. He’d walked away because he was confident whoever
was in the barn was dead. “I think someone was in there and they finished off
the people in the barn. I think I’m going to be…”
“Yeah, wait for it,” Max advised.
He was getting ready to jump that gate and run like a madman
when he saw the barn door open slightly and a familiar figure slip out.
Henry Flanders moved with the grace of a true predator.
“There he is,” Max said with what seemed like a sigh of
relief. “We need to get in. He might need help. There are a lot of them. The
least we can do is lock down the barn, though I assure you Henry’s left strict
instructions to shoot anyone who tries to get in, so we’ll have to be careful.”
It was like he was watching a nature documentary. Henry was
the lion stalking the gazelle who should have been way more careful. Bay felt
his breath hitch as Henry easily moved in behind the man before he could reach
the part of the yard where the guards would see him. One swift move and the
man’s body crumpled to the ground.
“You see, Henry likes to do this thing where he internally
decapitates a son of a bitch. It’s quiet and neat and why I no longer have any
desire to see a chiropractor.” Max jumped down with far more grace than he’d
gotten on. “I was going to try to send you back to get Nate, but I think
Henry’s got this. We should go and check on the people in the barn. Figure out
exactly where everyone is.”
Max had an enormous amount of faith in Henry.
Max reached inside his truck and came back with a shotgun.
In the distance, Henry already had the dead man’s pistol and
was moving around the house, away from the porch. He moved toward the back
where there were windows and a way to get into the basement. From there he
could carefully move through the rest of the building.
He looked like he knew what he was doing.
Bay needed to see them, needed to know they were still
alive.
“I’m going to turn myself in,” Bay announced. “Me walking
into that house will distract everyone from where you’re going. And if my
brother’s alive, it might buy me some time.”
“If you’re right about what they want,” Max handed him a
small pistol. “Put it in your boot. They’re less likely to find it there. I’ll
check on the people in the barn and see if I can get them out. You stay safe
and trust Henry. He knows what he’s doing. If I can get them back here and
Brooke is with me…”
“Get her into town and bring the sheriff,” Bay replied,
carefully putting the pistol in his boot. His heart was in his throat, but a
sort of calm came over him. This was the thing to do. He had to give his
brother and Brooke every chance to live.
And if it came down to one of them or Brooke, he knew what
they would both do. She was their love, the woman who completed them in a way
they wouldn’t be had they never met her. They might have found some form of
happiness, but they wouldn’t have been whole. They would lay down their lives
to ensure her safety.
Max brought out a big set of wire cutters. He had it in his
tool kit in the back of his truck since Harper Stables also had to deal with
fencing. He walked to the side. “I’m not going to risk alerting them by busting
through the gate. We’ll have better luck sneaking up like this.”
He would have to fix that fence later, but he followed Max,
ready to save his family.
* * * *
Shane was fairly certain he was going to die. And he
wasn’t even sure why.
It was clear now that this had little to do with him since
Kale Kingman was pissed as hell that he wasn’t Bay.
“Well, they look a lot alike,” Ned said, watching the boss
with a wary frown. “How was I supposed to know?”
The girl he’d met at The Trading Post a few weeks ago rolled
her eyes. “Well, you were supposed to let me be the one to call the boss. Also,
I think I heard McNamara call him Shane, so that should have been a sign that
he wasn’t the asshole we were looking for.”
Billy sighed. “Okay, I’m going to admit I might not have
heard that. I was busy dealing with the fact that we had an almost empty place.
I didn’t think we would get a better shot since the boss was waiting.” He
turned to face Kale Kingman. “You go back to Wyoming tomorrow. I thought you
would want to be in on this.”
The young woman sneered Billy’s way. “You just didn’t want
to get stuck here working for those perverted assholes. They’re all over this
town. Threesomes. It’s disgusting. These people are having kids and exposing
them to all their filthy habits.”
“Says the woman who’s sleeping with the married man,” one of
the others said under his breath.