Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
E verything was going great.
The ranch was working the way it was supposed to. They were planning to add on to the kennels. Paperwork was started for grants. They had some new stock coming in, both cattle and horses. The new cowboys were working out, doing their jobs and giving Ben the chance to rest his arthritic old body.
West still hadn’t found anyone to drive Trey around, possibly because he hadn’t tried searching for someone.
He liked spending time with Trey and the kids. It didn’t matter that they weren’t his family.
They sure felt like his family.
Hell, barring the fact he slept in his own bed every night, it felt a lot like him and Trey were married—they talked about work over supper. They went to the store together. They had a beer every night. One beer. One damn beer that wasn’t enough for either one of them to leap over that stupid boss and employee hurdle sitting in front of them like a big, nasty toad.
Yes, it was like old marrieds who slept in different rooms and didn’t bother to have sex anymore. The problem was he was young and he wanted to have sex.
A lot of sex.
With Trey.
He just wasn’t sure if Trey was quite ready to have sex with him. He thought they were getting there. He really did.
The problem was, Trey seemed so damn sad. Not like sobbing-in-his-beer sad or hysterical anything. It was more like resignation. Like Trey was going through the steps.
He wasn’t quite there.
Maybe West was just being an idiot. Maybe West was looking for things where there weren’t any. Looking for reasons that maybe Trey didn’t want to jump over that damn wall and kiss him.
Hell, the man was in therapy. He went with the kids every week, and?—
“Uncle West?”
Zoe startled the fuck out of him. He’d been waiting for Maria to sign a couple of checks, but she hadn’t been in the office, and he’d figured out she was having a meeting with Trey in the main house, so he’d grabbed a cup of joe and settled his cold bones in the warm kitchen.
“Yeah, baby girl?”
“Can you love on my baby doll for me? I have to go find her bottle. She’s sad.” Zoe was so damn cute. She was dressed in a yellow princess dress from the dress-up clothes Trey had found her for her birthday. That and her coat.
He took the little baby doll, cradling it gently. “Is she? Why?”
Also, why do you have your coat on?
“Her can’t see. Poor baby.” Zoe stared at him, so serious. “Her needs loves.”
“I can do that.” He cradled the baby close. “Honey, why are you wearing your coat?”
“I’s cold. It snows on the floor.”
He frowned and stood. Had someone left a window open in the back or something? “Show me?”
She nodded and took his hand, leading him back into the long hallway that led to the offices and the playroom that Trey had created for the kids.
Zoe was right. It was pretty bitter in here. Damn.
Also, the office door was closed, and he didn’t hear chatter or Mark vacuuming or dusting or anything.
Trey never closed the office door against Zoe without someone watching her.
Never.
In fact, unless someone was coming in from outside the ranch, Trey never closed the door at all.
The silence was pretty damning too.
Okay. Okay, dammit. Something was wrong, and he needed to be smart about how he handled this for Zoe’s sake.
So he texted Ben and the other cowboys. No matter what was up, the group of them were better than one cowboy who had to keep watch over the little girl.
Something up at big house. Come quick but quiet. Nate, brng dogs. Ben, I got Zoe
Within minutes, he was meeting the cowboys in the kitchen. Some of them were armed, one with the old .22 rifle from the bunkhouse, and one with a shotgun.
He handed Zoe to Ben. She was still singing to her doll, smiling at the cowboys.
“Hey, Missy. Let’s go to the barn and see the horses since you got your coat on.”
“Puppies!” She waved her doll at Quinn and one of the livestock guardian dogs, a huge Anatolian shepherd.
“You can say hi in a bit, Miss Thing,” Nate told her. “You go on with Mr. Ben.”
“Okay.” She leaned her sweet little head on Ben’s shoulder as he took her off.
“What’s going on, boss?” Nate whispered.
“Door’s shut to the office. Can’t find Maria, Mark, or the boss. Nate, I want you to go around on the other side with the dogs. It’s cold enough in here that outside back door’s got to be open. I’m going to go this way through the office door. One of you with the shotgun goes with Nate, the other one stays with me. Nate, as soon as you need me to come through that door, you just make a noise. Be careful though, I don’t know what the situation is.”
“You got it.” Nate and one of the guys went out along with the dogs. The other cowboy just sort of stared at him.
“This is the Wild West, isn’t it?”
“Shut up.” This was absolutely not the Wild West. This was a dog ranch with some horses and some cattle. Fine, a lot of cattle and more than their fair share of horses, but this was not the fucking Wild West.
And whoever it was making it seem that way was fixin’ to hold a come-to-Jesus meeting with them in the worst kind of way. It was about to get Western in here.
He hated waiting. He wasn’t sure what the hell was going on behind that door, but he knew it had to be bad. No way would Trey shut that door against his Zoe.
Not for any reason unless it was dangerous.
He took a deep breath, then let it out. The kid with the .22 was shaking so hard West took the rifle from him. “You hang back, okay? Just come on when I call you.”
“Sure. Okay.”
A crash sounded, then a furious barking and a huge woof, along with a screaming that sounded like someone who had their balls caught in a vise.
“Boss! Hit it!”
He smashed through the door, taking in the scene in a heartbeat. Maria and Mark were sitting in the guest chairs in front of Trey’s desk, bound and gagged. Trey sat behind his desk, hands flat on the desktop. And a man stood between him and Trey, a gun dangling from his right hand.
Stood was a strong term, really.
Crumpling was way more like it.
“Trey! Gun! Twelve noon!”
West would worry more about Trey grabbing the pistol, but he was praying the son of a bitch had forgotten how to use it, because Quinn had the guy by the zipper area, guard dog-style, and was pulling madly while the Anatolian hit the son of a bitch from behind, taking him out at the knees.
Trey’s hand shot out, proving that he’d been moving his eyes, biding his time, and he had the barrel pointing straight up at the ceiling, away from any of them.
“Call the fucking dogs off!”
“Not a chance, fucker.” Trey growled, jerking the pistol from the bastard’s hand, turning it on him in a smooth move. “I’m a lot of things, man. Helpless and alone aren’t two of them. Get him, Quinn.”
Quinn shook her head, growling happily and wagging to beat the band.
West was totally into this being a dog ranch.
“Fuck!” The asshole went down, and Trey stood, gun aimed without a hint of wavering.
That was his cue. West stepped up with the rifle, pointing right at the guy’s chest. “Don’t move.”
The man put his hands up. “Get this fucking dog off me!”
Nate snorted. “Which one?”
It was a valid question. The Anatolian was sitting on the guy’s feet while Quinn gnawed away her prize.
“I hate dogs.”
“That says a lot about your character,” West snapped.
“Almost as much as attacking folks in their homes, trying to rob them.” Trey’s nose wrinkled. “Did he just piss himself?”
“Oh, yay. Here, Nate.” Tanner, the guy with the shotgun, handed it off to Nate, then pulled a pair of zip ties out of his pocket. “Hands, dude. We’re going outside to wait for the sheriff. You stink.”
“Nicely done. Where the fuck is my daughter? Ben has her?” Trey rolled his eyes and sighed. “If the fucker had just asked, I’d have given him a couple hundred bucks, but he had to involve a gun.”
West bit back a chuckle. The cowboys would never understand it. Maybe Nate, but… “Nate, call Quinn off.”
“Quinn. Release.”
Quinn let go, then circled around to sit by Nate’s legs. West wondered if Nate did that police dog training with Quinn, the one that combined scent work with apprehending people. That was something they could add in…
“Focus, West,” Trey told him.
He snorted. “You had this.” He watched the cowboys untie Maria and Mark. They looked shaken, but not hurt.
“Everyone okay?” he asked.
“I’m not!” The guy scowled at all of them.
“I will gag your ass,” Trey snarled. “Nate, call the sheriff.”
“Yessir.” Nate stepped back, heading outside. He closed the door, cutting off the frigid air coming in.
Trey put the gun down on the desk, covering it with a manila folder. “Mark, why don’t you take Maria to the kitchen and get some coffee or hot chocolate or something started?”
“That’s a good idea.” Mark stood, a little pale and shaky, but determined, he thought. “I’ll get some sugar too. Cookies or something.” He took Maria by the arm.
She shook her head at Mark and turned to Trey. “I am so sorry, Senor Trey. I met him at a bar last night in town. I bragged about how nice the ranch was. This is all my fault.”
“No, sweetie. This is all on him.” Trey pointed to the fucker who had tried to rob them, just sneering. Lord, Trey was something amazing. Someone special. He had faced down a man he could barely see, and had given them time to come kick some ass.
West couldn’t be more proud.
“You go on and rest. The police will need to talk to?—”
“Just let me go.”
Trey spun around and yanked the guy to his feet, slamming him against the wall so hard the house shuddered. “You dared to bring a gun into the house where my little girl was, you scum-sucking bottom feeder. You are fucking lucky I don’t rip your motherfucking head off and shit down your neck. You want something, you fucking work for it. You ask for it. You never.”
Slam.
“Ever.”
Slam.
“Show your fucking face on my ranch again.”
Then Trey bounced the bastard off the floor.
“I reckon you ought to listen to him, man. He’s the boss.” West couldn’t stop smiling. He was just about turned-on.
He reckoned all they had to do was wait for the cops. The guy was hog-tied like a steer at the rodeo. He chuckled. “Don’t damage him too much, honey. The cops will frown on it.”
Trey bared his teeth, looking a lot like Quinn for a moment. “Fucker.”
West knew Trey didn’t mean him. “I know. I agree.”
Trey let the guy go, and came to sit at his desk. His hands were shaking a little, but West wasn’t gonna say nothin’.
Reaction was what it was.
Trey’s face didn’t show a hint of any kind of stress, though that expression was stony and hard.
West had to admit he could bend Trey over that desk and take him right now. It would not be appropriate, but that didn’t stop what he wanted. He reckoned what he had here was one of them paradigm shifts.
He’d not been real clear about what those were until that second, but now he got it.
Not only what the definition of paradigm shift was, but the fact that while Trey might need a hand? There was nothing about his man that was weak or in need of rescuing. And whatever help West was going to give Trey was because Trey was going to let him.
And that was hot as fuck.
“I take it Zoe found you.” Trey’s voice didn’t shake one bit.
“She did. She brought me her baby doll. It was sad, she told me.”
“Oh yes, Cherry.”
“Cherry?” That baby doll had seen better days.
Trey cracked a smile. “That’s the baby’s name, Baby Cherry.”
The dude on the floor grimaced. “Should have taken the little girl hostage maybe. It might have got me the money, and I wouldn’t have to listen to y’all go on about a fucking doll!”
“West, do me a favor.”
West glanced at Trey. Oh buddy. Whatever Trey was about to ask, West knew he was fixin’ to have to say no.
“Yes, boss?”
“Give me your gun.”
“No, sir. Nope. No going to jail for murder, even if the scum-sucking bottom feeder deserves it. We’ll work out that rage some other way.” In a while. After the sheriff’s people came and went.
Trey gave him a glittering stare. He wondered how much of his grin Trey could see.
“Huh. Insubordination already.”
“Oh, you know me.”
That had Trey grinning back. “I reckon I do.”
Maria cleared her throat. “May I leave the office, please?”
“Of course, sweetie. You rocked it,” Trey said.
Nate breezed back in. “I can keep an eye on him, if you folks want to go sit somewhere else.”
“Take him outside. I don’t want him in my house.” Trey stood there for a second. “Mark, we’ll need to mop. West, secure the firearm. Maria, coffee. Nate, I want a dog for the house. Make it happen. I need my daughter. Now.”
West couldn’t be prouder. That was his man.
His man, and he wasn’t going to pussyfoot around about it, anymore.