Cowboy Up (Coming Home #3)

“With all due respect, Sheriff, I hope you can understand how it slipped my mind, seein’ that aside from us sayin’ I do, there wasn’t much time to talk about our day.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Clay. Just pointin’ out that this clearly wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing if not even twenty-four hours after approaching your wife, he’s here.”

“What the hell was burnin’ somethin’ down in the middle of my property goin’ to prove anyway? It doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

“I understand your wife’s store in Wire Creek had some fire issues as well recently?”

I scoff. “You could say that. Someone tried to burn her inside of there the first time. Shit got tampered with while she was in the rebuildin’ stage, and the second she put the place on the market, they came back and sparked it up real good. That wasn’t long before when she officially moved in to the ranch.”

Holden bobs his head, listening to me while one of the younger cops writes some notes down.

“Coroner’s here,” someone mumbles.

I glance up at Spencer Russell, the town’s coroner, as he climbs down from his truck. The man’s old as dirt but wise as hell. He walks toward our huddle and shakes hands with Holden and Mav before getting to me.

“Nice night for a barbecue?” he cryptically jokes, grunting out a belly laugh while walking toward John’s body.

Mav snickers under his breath and I see the sheriff shake his head, a small grin on his lips. I keep my silence. It’s not like John being behind all this isn’t believable. But Caroline’s words about how he wouldn’t have hidden behind the fires echo through my mind. That’s why I’m having a hard time believing this is clear-cut. Someone like John Lewis would have made his point in an irrefutable kind of way. He would have been in your face and proud, hungry to see the fear he had produced. What he wouldn’t have done was spent months hiding behind fires and petty construction-site mischief.

“Well, well,” Spencer mutters, using his gloved hands to turn John’s head. “Y’all see a gun anywhere ’round here?”

Ice-cold dread fills my veins.

“No, sir. We checked the area real good when we got here, too.”

“Linney,” I wheeze, already turning and running back to the four-wheeler. I toss my leg over the seat and reach for the key. Before I can fire it up, the unmistakable sound of a gunshot echoes through the night. “Caroline!”

“Clay!” I hear bellowed at the same time my engine kicks over. Before I can get the four-wheeler into gear, my brother is jumping on the back rack with his legs hanging over one side. I don’t spare him a glance, flipping my wrist and gunning it back to the ranch knowing he’ll hold on but not giving a shit if he falls off. I need to get back to my wife.

“Kill it back behind the barn,” Mav yells into my ear.

I nod, changing gears and picking up speed. When we come into the clearing that the house is in, I flip the lights off and drive to the back of the barn and turn off the four-wheeler, running toward the house not even a second later. I don’t look to see if my brother is following; the only thing I care about is making sure Caroline’s okay. My feet have just cleared the top step of the porch when I hear the second gunshot and all rational thoughts vanish. I lift my boot and kick the front door, the wood splintering as the lock gives. Shouldering the broken door out of the way, I stand in the doorway, my eyes searching and my heart praying.

“Clay,” Mav whispers, pointing to the red smear that looks like someone dragged a body down the hall.

“Caroline!” I scream, rushing forward and following the trail, Mav hot on my heels. I hear more footsteps rushing up the porch and I have no doubt that Sheriff Holden didn’t waste a second following me.

“No,” I pant, coming into my office and seeing a nightmare coming to life. My world stops spinning a second later when I see through the cracked door of the office bathroom the delicate hand lying limp—the hand adorned with the rings I had put there.

“Holy hell,” someone says behind me.

I jump over the very dead woman on the floor in the middle of my office, noticing that not only is her head missing, she’s got a knife sticking out of her chest, directly under her collarbone.

My girl fought.

“Linney, love?” I sob, pushing the door open enough to get into the bathroom. “God, darlin’.” My knees slam into the floor and I reach out to check her pulse, feeling instant relief blast through the dark pit of dread that had settled over me when I find one, though it’s weak. “Get an ambulance here, now!” I bellow out. “Stay with me, baby. You stay with me, Linney.”

I rock her in my arms and pray, plead, and beg. My throat burns and my eyes sting. I bury my face in her neck, breathe her in. Her limp body is heavy in my arms, her face drained of color.

“Ambulance is five out,” Mav says, his own voice betraying his calm outer appearance. He grabs a towel off the rack and presses it against her leg. “She’s gonna be okay, Clay. Believe it. Ain’t room for any other outcome.”

I shake my head, my tears falling faster. I don’t say a word. Not while my brother helps to stop the blood flowing from her leg, pulling my shirt she’s wearing down to cover her underwear. When the paramedics burst through the door and take her from my arms, though, I break. Break into so many pieces that I know if something happens to her, I’ll never put them back together again.

The stretcher makes her look even tinier than normal. The men work on her for only a second before rushing down the hall. I jump from the floor and sprint after them.

Mav grabs my arm, stopping me from getting to the ambulance. I turn and punch him in the face when the ambulance door shuts, one of the men yelling out that they’re on the way to the hospital in Law Bone and taking off without me—taking my everything away from me.

“Get in the fuckin’ truck,” Mav demands, spitting and wiping his split lip with the back of his hand.

He stomps toward my truck, not looking to see if I’m following. We both climb in, and he punches the gas while I hunch forward to push my hands through my hair. Silence and the sound of my engine speeding through the night ring in my ears, the vision of Caroline lying in a pool of blood, lifeless, etched in my brain.

“She’s gonna be okay, Clay.”

“I’m nothin’ without her,” I mumble, feeling the pain of my words like a knife to the heart.

“Stay strong. She needs you fightin’ too.”

“If she doesn’t—”

Mav slams his palm against the wheel and bellows a string of curses. “Shut the fuck up. You’ve got another ten minutes before we get to the hospital, and I fuckin’ swear, you better fix your shit by then. You’re doin’ her no good already placin’ her in the ground when she fought to make sure you never gotta know what it’s like to not have her. You fight, knowin’ she’s doin’ the same.”