Chapter 18
eighteen
“Lower the rifle.”
The command came from a stranger at the edge of the reception lights. His voice was familiar, but Rainey couldn’t—
The radio.
He was the marshal they’d been listening in on.
Evander looked at the others gathered around them, then lowered the rifle by degrees until it was pointed at the ground. “You must be Brandt.”
“I am. And you must be Evander Cole.” The man turned to her. “Ms. Beckett. Deputy US Marshal Corbin Brandt.”
He wasn’t what she expected. Her mental picture of a US Marshal was something out of the Old West—lawmen who were almost outlaws themselves.
But Brandt was a lean, watchful man wearing a dark suit jacket over a black T-shirt, no tie.
His black hair was short on the sides, longer on top, and he had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen.
“Are you here of your own volition?” he asked.
River made a sound from across the yard.
“Yes,” she said.
“Has this man coerced you in any way? Made threats, physical or otherwise, to keep you with him?”
She looked at Evander. His skin had gone gray, and sweat was beading over his brow, his left arm clamped to his side. He wasn’t doing the thing where he hid the pain, and that worried her.
She refocused on Brandt. “Rux Granger had a knife to my throat at the Dead Marshall, and Evander was the only one who stepped in to help me. I got into his truck that night because I trusted him. I’ve been on that mountain for a week because it was the safest place I could be, and because I chose to stay.
He hasn’t threatened me. He hasn’t hurt me.
He fed me and kept me alive and got shot at and stabbed protecting me from the Sons of Sin. I’m not a hostage.”
Brandt held her gaze three beats longer than he needed to, and she got the creeping sensation that he could see all the way through to the bottom of her soul with those uncanny blue eyes.
He nodded. “Okay.” He stepped aside.
As soon as he moved out of the way, River crossed the yard and yanked her into his arms. He held on too tight, the way he used to when they were kids and something had scared him. He said her name against her hair in a relieved exhale—just that, just Rainey—and under it ran eight years of guilt.
She let herself be held. Her arms went around him, her cheek against the lapel of his jacket, and she breathed in the familiar smell of him.
“I’m sorry.” His voice cracked. “Rain, I’m so sorry. I should’ve— I never should’ve left you with— I should’ve—”
“River.”
“I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there, and you were—”
“River,” she said more firmly and stepped back.
He let her go. His hands dropped to her arms, and he stared down at her. His expression carried the apology, the guilt, the need for her to tell him it was fine, that she wasn’t angry, that his leaving hadn’t cost her anything.
She loved him. She was furious with him.
He thought a hug would fix it. River had always believed that if he held something hard enough, the broken pieces would knit themselves back together.
It had worked when they were kids and their father’s hand had left a welt across her cheek — River, eleven years old, wrapping his arms around her in the dark of their shared closet, whispering that he’d never let it happen again.
He’d meant it. And she’d believed him. And then he’d left anyway, because he had to, because staying would have killed him, and she didn’t blame him for leaving but she couldn’t pretend his absence hadn’t cost her.
The guilt sat in him now like a stone. He was waiting for her to lift it.
To tell him the past eight years hadn’t happened, that his sister hadn’t survived their father and Mal Granger and a week on a mountain with a man who’d nearly died protecting her, all while River built a life here that didn’t include her.
She loved him too much to give him the lie.
“I’m sorry,” River said again, quieter.
“Stop. Just— stop.”
Behind her, Evander swayed on his feet. She caught the movement from the corner of her eye and spun toward him just as he fell.
He tried to brace one hand against the gate post and missed.
His fingers grazed the wood, and then he was down, collapsing sideways, his breathing coming in short, ragged pulls that didn’t sound right.
“Oh my God. Evander.” She knelt in the dew-damp grass beside him. His face had gone bone-white, his jaw locked against whatever was happening inside his body.
A man who looked like he’d been carved from the side of a mountain was already there.
Six and a half feet if he was an inch, broad through the shoulders, thick dark beard.
The way he moved reminded her of Evander — no wasted motion, everything with purpose—and he was light on his feet despite his size.
He dropped to one knee on Evander’s other side. “Someone got the best of you, man.”
“Creed,” Evander muttered.
“Jesus. Creed Calder did this?”
“That fucker’s back?” River asked.
Evander’s eyes rolled, but he caught himself and jerked to consciousness. “My horse... I cut her loose…”
“Don’t worry. Jonah will get her.” The big guy nodded toward another man with beautiful auburn hair.
Jonah nodded back. “I’ll go out tonight. What’s her name?”
Evander tried to answer but couldn’t seem to form the word, so Rainey supplied it, “Sable.”
Evander’s head lolled. “Rainey…”
“I’m right here.”
Again, he dropped to the edge of unconsciousness.
“No!” She shook his shoulder. “Evander, stay awake.”
“Hey, it’s okay, I got him now,” the big guy said.
“I was a combat medic. Name’s Dane McKenna, but everyone calls me Bear.
” He reached for the bandage on Evander’s arm, peeling it back with a gentleness that belied his size.
He frowned at the burn marks, then replaced the gauze.
His palm moved to Evander’s forehead and stayed there.
“Those burns don’t account for his fever. Where else is he hurt?”
Rainey hesitated only a second before lifting Evander’s shirt to show the bandage there. Blood had seeped through the gauze. “Stab wound in his side. He was also knocked out and lost consciousness yesterday afternoon.”
Bear studied the bandage, then glanced up at her. “You dressed it?”
“I did.”
He acknowledged that with a grunt that could’ve been anything from good job to don’t quit your day job. “He needs antibiotics.”
Two more men materialized from the crowd with a stretcher.
One wore a black Stetson pulled low, his face all angles, his movements fluid in a way that made Rainey think of predators.
The other had short dark hair and unreadable gray eyes.
Neither of them spoke as they got Evander off the ground and onto the stretcher.
Corbin Brandt stepped in. He collected Evander’s rifle from where it had fallen in the grass, checked the chamber, and set it against the fence. Then he reached for the backup pistol Evander carried at the small of his back and took that too.
“You’re not under arrest tonight, Cole,” Brandt said. “But you’re staying on this property. That clear?”
Evander’s head lolled toward him. His eyes found focus, barely. “Clear.”
“Your word.”
“On it.” Evander’s voice was scraped raw. “Not going anywhere.”
Brandt nodded. Stepped back.
The three men carried Evander toward the house.
Rainey stayed on her knees in the grass and watched them go.
Halfway across the yard, Evander turned his head.
His eyes found hers through the dark and held.
She didn’t look away. She held his gaze until the distance swallowed him, until all she could see was the shape of Bear’s broad back and the silent man’s Stetson bobbing toward the porch lights.
The yard went quiet.
Rainey stood. Her legs didn’t want to hold her. She braced a hand against the gate post — the same one Evander had missed — and took a breath that felt like the first one in hours.
Then her surroundings sank in.
String lights. Dozens of them, stretched between the pines, throwing warm gold across grass still trampled from dancing.
Rows of beautifully set tables under a tent with a makeshift dance floor, all filled with people who were watching her with varying degrees of curiosity.
A catering table sat along the fence, covered in half-empty platters and abandoned glasses.
A tiered cake on a separate table, pristine and untouched, three layers of white frosting and fresh flowers that matched the ones in the archway.
Oh, God.
A wedding.
The one they’d heard about on the radio.
They’d crashed a wedding.
Embarrassment flashed through her. She was standing in someone’s perfect day with blood on her hands and a man who’d nearly died on their lawn, and the cake hadn’t even been cut.
She spotted the bride coming toward her—a woman in an elegant blush-colored dress, her dark hair swept up into some kind of updo with tiny white flowers woven through it.
The groom followed. He was tall, blond, with his sleeves rolled to his elbows and a kid up on his shoulders.
The boy’s hair was a mess, his little suit rumpled, and his eyes were wide as bottle caps.
The way he was bouncing on his dad’s shoulders made it clear this was the best day of his life.
The kid pointed at her and said, in a voice that rang out across the lawn, “Is she a zombie?”
“Oliver,” the bride chided.
“But, Mom, she looks like one!”
The bride pointed at her new husband. “This is your fault, you know. I told you that movie was a bad idea.”
The man had the grace to look sheepish. “Aw, he loved it.”
“Yeah, Mom. I loved it!”
She poked a finger at her husband’s chest. “You’re dealing with the nightmares.”
As they approached, Rainey tried to look less like she had a crime scene on her shirt, but the best she could do was cross her arms to hide the worst of it. “I-I am so sorry for ruining your wedding. I didn’t— we didn’t know.”
The bride reached for her hand. Her palm was streaked with Evander’s blood, dried and fresh both, and the woman took it between both of hers without flinching.