Chapter 27 #2
“My best friend went missing a year ago.” She tucks her hair behind her ear with sticky crimson stained fingers.
“The only lead I could find led me here. To them. I need to know what happened to her. If she’s dead…
I need to know where they buried her. But getting Duke to trust he could say anything in front of me without me being a threat…
enough to let that information slip… it wasn’t easy.
And then you came home. They closed ranks.
Kyle threatened to kill me. But I have to know what happened to Tori. ”
Dawson screams in agony.
“He needs me.” She manages to get up and get past Summer. Running over to the table she takes Dawson’s hand. “You took a bullet. You need to let them patch you up.”
“Violet,” he croaks, but he settles enough that West can sew him up. While West stitches she soothes Dawson with soft words in his ear.
“We don’t tell my brothers any of what Violet just told us. At least… not yet,” Summer tells me.
“Her story was so rushed and garbled it has a ring of honesty to it. Which means Kyle could be working for Nicole. And she killed the goat under duress.”
“As long as Kyle is out there, she’s not safe. And if we tell Owen about his goat, I don’t know how he’ll react. Right now, I think it’s more important we protect her and worry about the goat later.”
“He wants revenge,” Rebel mutters. “But surely knowing what really happened, and why, might… soften him up. He wouldn’t hurt her.”
“Have you met him?” Summer gives me an incredulous look. “Did he not have you up to your neck in the pit a day ago?”
“Yes, but…” Rebel sighs. “He would never look at me the way he looks at her.”
“He might not look at her like that if he knew the truth,” Summer says. “He might be too angry.”
“Still, he should know.” Let him make up his own mind about her. The way I did when I found out Ivy was Alec’s sister.
“I know,” Summer sighs. “But not tonight.”
Eventually the wound is sealed, sterilized, and dressed.
West might not be the worst brother to have. Even if his last name is Hawthorne.
“Storm,” Owen calls him over. “Your turn.”
“Fucking vampire.” Storm grumbles as he takes a seat on the bench near Dawson’s head. He watches Violet comfort the man he seems to hate while Owen starts a drip line from his arm to Dawson.
Owen is watching her too.
“Can someone bring me a cookie,” Storm complains after a few minutes. “He gets sweet nothings whispered in his ear. The least y’all can do is bring me a cookie.”
“I’ll go up to the house and see what we’ve got,” Summer says. “I’ll grab a change of clothes and a blanket for you too, Violet.”
“Thank you.” Violet doesn’t take her eyes off Dawson.
“I’ll come with.” Rebel walks out with Summer.
“Rogue, I need you to go check on the girls,” West says. His gaze says he’s been concerned since we left Lily tied up in knots and Ivy in charge of her, but until now he’s compartmentalized his fears in order to do what needed to be done.
Leaving the rest of them to finish up, I trail after Summer and Rebel. She knows the ranch like the back of her hand, and it isn’t long before the house comes into view and I can split off toward the cabins.
West isn’t the only one worried about what he’s going to find in that cabin. He left Ivy under strict instructions to not tamper with the rope and knots keeping Dizzy safely ensconced. He’d checked the rope and Dizzy’s comfort before we’d left.
But I can see Ivy cutting her down at the slightest plea from her sister. And I still don’t trust her entirely. Even if she’s not to blame for the goat. She’s still a dangerous woman with the FBI after her. Where is Agent Lane anyway?
It would probably be smart to have tabs on the man given what has occurred tonight. Otherwise we might find ourselves all under arrest with body counts of our own.
Maybe Ivy is right about Dizzy not being dangerous to us after all.
The cabins come into view. I pass a couple of the compact buildings before I stop dead. The door to the one we left Ivy and Dizzy in stands wide open. My pulse starts to race. I break into a run.
Tex comes around the corner, his weapon drawn. He makes eye contact and he indicates one threat. Then enters the building.
One shot is followed by two returning.
Ivy screams.
There’s another shot fired as I skid across the porch.
Silence follows for one long torturous moment. Stepping inside, I can’t breathe for fear of what I’ll find.
Ro flies across the room to Tex, who is sitting with his back to the wall and a bloody spot blooming on his shirt sleeve. “Are you hurt?”
“Just a flesh wound,” he says while I lock eyes on Ivy.
She stands over the prone body of a man in a mask. It’ll be Kyle if Violet’s confession is true. Blood pumps from a wound in his chest. If he’s not dead yet, he will be soon.
Crouching down, she removes his mask.
Sure, enough it’s the sheriff. “He was helping Nicole. And he’s the reason the goat is dead. Violet—”
Ivy slams into my chest. “I was so scared.”
I engulf her. Those gun shots were loud. Security is no doubt coming our way. Agent Lane is on the ranch somewhere. He would have heard them too. As much as I want to hold onto Ivy we need to act. “We have to get Dizzy out of here.”
“What?” Ivy gives me an incredulous look.
Yeah, I know… after all my concern over her being dangerous it must be a shock that I want to hide her.
“Any second people are going to come through that door.” I let her go and start looking for something to cut through the rope with.
“Here.” Tex holds out a pocketknife with a pained expression. Ro has grabbed a pillow off the bed and stripped it of its case. She’s busy turning it into a bandage for his arm.
Taking the knife, I run into the bathroom and start slicing through the ropes that look like they’re holding Dizzy suspended.
Her top half free, she dangles.
“I’ll cut.” Ivy extends her hand for the knife. “You hold her.”
I place my shoulder under Dizzy’s chest and use my hands on her bare waist to brace her as Ivy hacks at the ropes. “This is taking too long.”
“Almost,” Ivy says as one of Dizzy’s legs comes free. She attacks another rope.
“Rogue,” Dizzy whimpers.
“We’ve got you,” I reassure her.
“When we’re old and we have grandkids,” Ivy says. “And we tell them stories about our romance that include the wedding…”
“We’re never telling them this story.” I chuckle mirthlessly.
With Dizzy finally free we exit the bathroom.
“I’ll go out first and make sure we’re clear,” Ivy says.
“Wait.” Ro rushes to grab a robe from the closet.
“Oh, shit yeah.” Running around with a barely conscious woman in her underwear is not going to be inconspicuous at all.
Between Ivy and I, and with Dizzy’s help we get her into the fuzzy robe and cinch it around her waist. She barely manages to stand long enough to do that. Her knees buckle as I lift her into my arms again.
“Ready?” Ivy asks.
I nod.
She runs out into the dark.
“I’ll give you a minute to get clear and then I’ll call it in,” Tex says.
I nod. He doesn’t know that Dizzy is Lily. He probably thinks that we’re trying to keep some weird sex game between her and West secret. But I trust he won’t say anything about either of us being here if the agent asks him about it.
Ivy appears inside the opening. “Hurry. I can hear security coming.”
I carry Dizzy out into the darkness and into the shadows of the cabin. “You need to go back in.”
“No.”
“I know you’re scared, baby. But this is West’s cabin. What is Rochelle doing in it?”
“He made me call her.”
“Exactly. We can pretend Dizzy was never here. But we can’t ignore the fact you were. I’ll take Dizzy to West and then I’ll come straight back. You’ll have to pretend you haven’t seen me yet.”
“Okay.” She walks away from me backwards before disappearing around the corner of the building. “Thank God, you’re okay.”
“Someone got the drop on me. Knocked me clean out.” A masculine voice responds. Davis. “I came to with the gunshots. Are you safe? What happened?”
“We were held at gun point,” Ivy tells him. “Tex has been shot.”
“And the culprit?” His voice fades as they move into the cabin.
I move from shadow to shadow. Hopefully Kyle’s mortal injury will keep them occupied. I find my way back to the cow shed where West is still watching over Dawson and Violet. Storm has decided to stick around now that he has a tin of cookies on his lap. His gaze sticks to Violet’s every move.
West rushes toward me. “What the hell are you doing? I told you she had to stay where she was.”
“Couldn’t. Your cabin is a crime scene.” I deposit her in his arms. She curls her hand in his shirt. Yawns. “West, why are you covered in blood?”
“It’s been a long night,” he murmurs to her as he carries her over to some hay bales and sits with her cradled on his lap. “I’ll fill you in on the details later. Brother, what happened?”
“Kyle held Ivy, Dizzy, and Ro hostage in your cabin. Tex shot him. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
“He wants to pray for a quick death,” West says, smoothing his hand over Dizzy’s hair. “If I lost you, my sunshine. The world would burn.”
“I feel that way about Ivy every day,” I say.
“It looks like we have something in common.” He looks at me and something new passes between us. A begrudging respect for the other perhaps. A sense of brotherhood that wasn’t there before.
“I need to get back.” I point my thumb over my shoulder in the direction I entered the shed. “Be there for Ivy.”
“If that agent shows up,” West calls out to me.
“I’ll take care of it.”