Boone's Cowboy [Rescue for Hire 8] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (11 page)

“Be careful, Boone. Once you start saying things like that, I’ll be demanding a commitment. That’s what old cowboys that are set in their ways do.”

“I think I would welcome a commitment, Flynn,” Boone said.

“You have to be sure. By the time I’m eighty years old, you’ll be a spry sixty-seven. I’m pretty boring. It would kill me if you decided someone else is more fun to be around.”

“You are my rock, Flynn. I see you, and it’s like there is this huge rubber band propelling me to you. My job with Rescue for Hire will keep the adrenaline junky inside of me happy. As for your age, I like my men older. The question is, are you old enough for me?”

Flynn turned the truck into the farm’s driveway. As they neared the three-car garage, he pressed a button on the sun visor, and the garage door began ascending. Once it was fully opened, Flynn drove the truck into the garage.

Boone looked around the inside of the building. He counted three four-wheelers, one UTV, and a sweet Harley Davidson motorcycle in the end bay. Parked in the middle bay was a vintage red and white Corvette Stingray.

“Cowboy, I think you’ve been holding out on me. You definitely have a wild streak,” Boone said.

“Hey,” Flynn said.

Boone pulled his attention away from all the fun toys and looked up at Flynn. Green eyes, so full of emotions they seemed to be blazing, looked down at him.

“I didn’t say it before, but I think I love you, too,” Flynn said.

Gently, their lips met. The kiss sealed their newfound feelings of love, commitment, and a sexual chemistry that was out of this world. Soon the chemistry took over, and Flynn hustled a laughing Boone into the house and upstairs to their bedroom.

* * * *

Flynn stood inside the barn door and tried to memorize every nuance of what he was seeing. He’d woken up alone in bed this morning. Since the night he and Boone had declared their maybe love for each other two weeks ago, this had never happened.

Checking in and around the house hadn’t turn up any sign of Boone. Flynn found Boone’s cycle still parked in the garage next to his Harley. Not knowing what to think, Flynn headed down to the barn and searched the inside of it. By now Flynn was becoming concerned. That was when he heard a noise outside.

Wendy, his dapple-gray mare, was galloping around the pasture in an easy, graceful manner. The horse was beautiful in the early morning sunlight, but Boone, who was riding her wearing nothing but a thin pair of sleep pants, was gorgeous.

“I can’t believe it. He can get away with anything. I don’t understand. Why doesn’t Flynn kick him to the curb? Look at that. There isn’t even a bridle or saddle on poor Wendy. I hate it. He acts like he owns the place.”

Cold anger filled Flynn. Taking a silent step forward, he saw Tim standing outside the barn, leaning against the wall.

In one motion, Flynn stepped in front of Tim and wrapped his hand around his throat, knocking the man’s head back against the wall. Leaning over the now wide-eyed man, Flynn put his face inches away from Tim’s and looked him right in the eye.

“Let’s get something straight. Boone can do anything he wants on this farm.” Flynn had no doubt his calm, steely tone was the cause of Tim’s body visibly shaking under his hand. “You get off my land. Don’t bother to come back unless you can accept Boone as my life partner. Because that is what he is, and it isn’t going to change during either of our lifetimes.”

“Hey, cowboy. Are you misusing the hired help or just trying out a new dance?”

Flynn glanced over his shoulder and saw Wendy standing next to the fence with an amused looking Boone sitting comfortably on top of her.

Movement under his hand had Flynn looking back at a purple-faced Tim, who was glaring at Boone. Flynn squeezed his hand just a little more to get Tim’s attention.

“Get out of here. Now,” he ordered and let go of the man with a little shove.

Without a word, Tim stormed off. Flynn felt Boone come up beside him, but he didn’t take his eyes off Tim until the man was driving away in his old, rust-covered truck.

Boone burrowed under Flynn’s arm, and Flynn put his arms around him, finding comfort in his love’s presence.

“I don’t particularly like the guy, but you need his help around here, cowboy,” Boone said.

“There’s always someone around town looking for a job.” Flynn responded.

“We need a dog,” Boone stated.

“What?” Flynn leaned back and looked at Boone.

“This farm needs a dog,” Boone insisted

“I used to have a dog. She died of old age about five years ago,” Flynn said.

“See, I’m right. I hear border collies are smart and instinctively herd things. We need a border collie, Flynn. She can bark if someone or something is around that shouldn’t be. She can help you with the cows. She can sleep at the end of the bed or on the floor at night,” Boone argued.

Flynn snorted. “Right. After the dog has been out in the pasture all day and smells like cow shit, she’s going to sleep next to our bed.”

“We’ll work it out. We need a dog.” Velvety brown eyes looked imploringly at Flynn.

Flynn knew a losing battle when he saw one. There was a puppy in his near future.

Before Flynn could agree to Boone’s plan, Boone’s sleep pants started ringing. After fishing the phone out of his pocket, Boone swiped the screen and said, “Yes, boss.”

Flynn heard Cade’s voice through the phone’s speaker. “Boone, gear up. We have a huge storm out in southern California. Currently, they are experiencing one-hundred-miles-per-hour winds and torrential rains. We’ve got mass flooding. Be at the hanger in fifteen.”

Cold seeped through Boone’s skin right down to his bones. His rain gear had long ago surrendered to the pounding rain that beat down on his head and shoulders. It took all his strength to push through the waist-high water rushing down what was once a city street. His foot hit something hard, and Boone almost went under.

This morning the police officer he was partnered with had succumbed to the raging waters after being hit by a piece of debris. It had taken Boone over an hour to find him and administer lifesaving techniques to get him breathing again.

“Boone.”

He blinked away the water drops coating his lashes and made out the commander’s large figure through the sheets of water falling sideways in the gusts of wind.

“Yeah,” he yelled.

“We need to check these last two houses. Then we can take a break,” the commander yelled back.

A break sounded like heaven. The team had been going nonstop for the last forty-eight hours. Boone’s feet had a serious case of trench foot. He longed to be in his cowboy’s arms while they laid out in the middle of the lawn naked, letting the hot sun soak up all the excess water from Boone’s soggy body.

The commander struggled to open the front screen door of a small single-story white house. Boone grabbed the edge of the door and pulled with all his might until it was opened wide enough for them to get through it.

Calf-high, muddy water covered the small kitchen floor. Boone tried to breathe through his mouth as the sewage smell burnt his nostrils. They waded through the house, calling and checking any spots where people could hide. Boone understood wanting to protect one’s home and valuables, but this was a life-or-death situation. Everyone needed to get out and go to a safe weather shelter.

The house proved to be empty, and Boone followed the commander to the last house on the block. Something about the nondescript, cookie-cutter house drew Boone’s attention. The soaked hairs on the back of his neck made a valiant attempt to stand up.

“Commander.” Boone tugged on the drenched sleeve of the commander’s coat.

The commander turned. “What?”

“Something is wrong with this place,” Boone yelled. The outside of the house was kept up and didn’t look abandoned. Boone peered through the torrents of rain again. It was right in front of him, but he couldn’t see why the house seemed to be closed off from the others around it.

The commander studied the house for a few rain-soaked minutes. “Proceed with caution, soldier,” the commander ordered.

Oh shit, the commander saw something, too. Boone was still trying to figure out what was bothering him.

Using a glass-breaking tool, the commander broke through the glass of the front door. He reached in, brushing aside a piece of cardboard covering the window, and disengaged the lock before pushing it open. The only light in the living room came from the now-open door. That was when Boone saw the black plastic covering the windows.

Both men stood in the water up to their knees and listened for any sign of life while scanning the area. From what he could see, there was no furniture except a card table and chairs off to the side. Boone carefully made his way through to the back of the house while the commander searched out the front rooms.

Over the sounds of swirling water, Boone heard a clear, constant humming. Unclipping the safety strap from the handle of his gun, he slowly turned the doorknob of a closed door.

Boone could open it only partway in the water before it stuck on the water-logged flooring. Bright lights blinked at him from dozens of computers. A large monitor in the middle of the room showed a constant flow of numbers streaming down in neat columns.

“The house is empty. Holy fuck, what the hell is this?” the commander exclaimed.

“Commander, we have a problem,” Boone said calmly. “The information in this room is very valuable to our country. You need to call the highest authority you know and get them down here.”

“Okay, why is that a problem?”

“When I opened the door, it triggered that device on the table over there.” Boone pointed to a small mass of metal with red numbers blinking on it. Currently, the numbers read five twenty-two but were decreasing by the second.

“This is your area, Boone. What are our options?”

“We run like hell, or I go over and clip that yellow wire,” Boone stated.

“Sounds too easy. What’s the catch?”

“If I touch the wire cutters to anything other than the yellow wire, we blow sky-high. And if I were spies or a terrorist group with all this high-tech equipment, I would have a secondary bomb waiting,” Boone said.

“I don’t see anything.”

Boone studied the room. “Neither do I, but that doesn’t mean it’s not here. It’s your call, Commander. Do we save the world and maybe die in the process or run like hell and see our families again?”

The red numbers on the bomb read three twenty-one.

* * * *

“So then he proceeds to cut the yellow wire. I’m holding my breath waiting to hear angels sing, and then Boone turns to me with his usual cocky smile and says, ‘It looks like we might live to see another day.’”

Boone could only smile at the commander, knowing what was coming.

“Just then we heard a click from the other corner. Boone rushes over there and starts swearing. I’m rethinking the whole seeing-the-angels thing when Boone looks over at me and suggests I duck, just in case.”

“There was another bomb in the other corner, wasn’t there?” Rock asked.

“Oh yeah. I couldn’t see it, but I could hear Boone murmuring, ‘black, yellow, red, green, white. Or is it red, green, white, yellow, black?’” The commander took a sip of Gatorade. “A few seconds later, he turned around and said, ‘Have you called your contact yet? They need to get this stuff out of here before the water destroys the data or whoever owns this house comes back.’ We ended up standing in the living room with our guns drawn for the next hour until the men in black arrived.”

“Who do you think was behind it?” Damian asked.

“Well I might have opened a small notebook lying next to one of the keyboards and saw a few e-mail addresses,” Boone said.

“Did you recognize any of them?” Rock asked.

“No, but a couple were in Chinese and one was Russian,” Boone answered.

“What do you think, Commander, terrorists or espionage crap?” Treb asked.

“I’d lean toward a foreign government with a few spies thrown in,” the commander answered. Boone could see the commander was deliberately being vague. That was probably best. He’d learned long ago that with anything concerning potential government secrets, the walls somehow tended to had ears. And even if they didn’t, it was best to not speculate in any great depth. “What I don’t understand is how the computers were running in that room,” Gabriel said. “The electricity was out all over the rest of the city.”

“Backup generators,” the commander replied.

Boone relaxed back in the airplane seat. It had been a grueling five days, but now they were almost home. During the next few days, he would spend his quiet moments thinking about all the people he had helped out of the deadly water.

One young boy in particular stood out in his mind. So brave the child was, trying to hold his little sister above the muddy bacteria-infested water. Boone had carried them both to a waiting rescue vehicle so they could be reunited with their parents. There was another elderly couple that came to mind, but Boone pushed the memory aside.

Now he wanted to get back to his cowboy.

* * * *

Flynn couldn’t understand what Tim’s problem was. They had never been a couple. Not one time had Tim indicated that he was even interested in Flynn until Boone came into his life. He thought he had taken care of it, but obviously he was wrong.

“Tim, why are you in my barn?” Flynn asked.

“I needed to talk to you. I’ve worked here for five years. Please just give me a minute.” Tim twisted his baseball cap with nervous hands until it was unrecognizable.

Flynn sighed. The man had worked for him a long time. “Make it fast.”

“I wanted to say I was sorry for upsetting you the other day. I was out of line with my comments, and I’m sincerely asking for another chance. Please, Flynn, I need this job,” Tim pleaded.

Well, shit. Flynn wasn’t an unreasonable man. Wiping his hand across his mouth, he thought about his options. “If I let you come back, there will be no disrespecting Boone in any way. He is my partner and, in a way, your boss, too.”