Cowboy Fever (30 page)

Jodi didn't waste any time. Leaping from the gate, she dragged it behind her as she ran out of the enclosure. Her hands shook as she refastened the chain. Would it hold the bull?

Not if he really wanted out. She'd have to hope that he wouldn't try to bulldoze his way out of the paddock. Maybe he'd assume the fence was as sturdy as the one in his pen. Bulls weren't the sharpest tools in the shed, after all. They were too amped up on testosterone to be much smarter than your average Saturday night drunk.

He turned from the fence and watched her through his mean little eyes. Letting out a low moan, he dropped his head and took a bite of the coarse grass beside the fence. It must have hit the spot, because he turned away from her and made it a meal.

She ran to Teague and knelt beside him. His eyes were closed, and when she tried his pulse again, it seemed weaker and slower than before. He needed an ambulance. She glanced up and looked around. Rocket was nowhere to be seen, so the coast was clear. She'd get her phone out of her car and…

No. Wait. There was a phone lying just a foot away from Teague's outstretched hand. It was a pink Blackberry decorated into further pinkness with press-on rhinestones.

Dang. That had to be Courtney's.

Where the hell was Courtney, anyway? She glanced around, then picked up the phone. She didn't give a darn whose phone it was. They all dialed 911 the same.

Cissy answered in her best professional dispatcher voice. It was a good thing somebody was calm and collected, because Jodi hadn't realized how rattled she was until she tried to talk.

“Teague,” she said breathlessly. “He—the bull—I got him in the paddock, but he's—please.”

“Honey, slow down. Is this Jodi?”

“Yeah. He's…”

“Where are you?”

“I'm at the Treadwell Ranch. The bull got out, and Teague—shit!” She dropped the phone and dove to cover Teague with her body as best she could while Rocket thundered toward her at a speed that explained his name. Somehow, he passed over them, or went around them—Jodi wasn't sure which, since her eyes were closed tight and the thundering of hooves was rivaled only by the pounding of her heart.

When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to find she was still in one piece, unhurt. But a few feet away, the pink phone lay crushed in the dirt.

Hopefully Cissy had gotten the message that something was wrong at Teague's. She was a smart girl. She'd figure it out.

Jodi glanced around. Teague was still unconscious. There was nothing she could do until the ambulance came, if it came at all. But Rocket was standing near the barn, breathing hard, the whites of his eyes showing his panic.

Jodi stood up slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on the barn, the ground—anything but the horse. Lacing her hands behind her back, she approached him at a slow, dirge-like pace. He had a halter on. If she could just get a hold on it…

Yeah, right. If she got a hand on that halter, Rocket was liable to toss his head and pull her off the ground. He was a massive animal, and dang near as ornery as the bull. But it was her only chance. Bruiser obviously believed the fence would hold. Maybe Rocket would figure anyone who grabbed that halter was the boss of him.

“Easy, boy,” she said. “Easy.” She sidled up to the horse, careful not to meet his eyes, and brought her hand up to grasp the cheek strap. Without putting any pressure on it, she simply stood there for a full minute, breathing slowly, trying to communicate peace and goodwill to the nervous animal. When his eye rolled back to a normal position, hiding the white again, she gave the halter a gentle tug and led him forward.

For a half-second, he set his feet and resisted, but then he seemed to change his mind. Placid as a pony, he strode into the barn at her side.

His stall gate stood open under the plate bearing his name. Jodi led him inside and stroked his neck, readying herself to turn and go, but he shied and took a step back, obviously agitated.

Jodi followed his gaze. There was something in the straw, hunched in the corner.

A person.

She squinted in the barn's dim light and made out a hank of blonde hair and an arm decked in fringe.

“Courtney?”

The girl looked up at her and blinked. Her eyes were bleary and swollen almost shut, and a dark smudge stretched from the corner of her mouth up to her forehead.

“You,” the girl said, struggling to her feet. Her voice rose to a shriek. “
You
. You ruined
everything
.”

***

Teague opened his eyes and blinked. There was the barn again, tilted sideways. His eyes felt gritty, and no wonder. He was lying in the dirt, his leg twisted beneath him.

He sat up, gritting his teeth against a pain that zapped from his foot all the way up his leg, and glanced around. Courtney's phone lay a few feet away, crushed in the dirt. Everything else looked okay. The barn was quiet, and Bruiser was standing quietly in the—paddock?

What the hell was the bull doing in the horse paddock?

He'd been in his pen. He was always in his pen, unless he was on his way to a rodeo. Handling Bruiser was almost impossible. He was a great bucking bull, but hardly a house pet. How had anyone gotten him into the paddock? Courtney couldn't control a teacup Pomeranian. No way could she herd a two-thousand-pound bull.

Teague rose to his hands and knees, then tried to stand, but the pain shot through his leg again. With the pain came a dim memory of the bull standing in the barn entry, head lowered, pawing the ground.

Bruiser must have knocked him down. He remembered the animal's horns lifting him in the air, tossing him to the ground.

But the bull was in the paddock now, and Teague was alive. Neither scenario made any sense.

And there was Courtney's phone, lying crushed in the dust. Where was Courtney?

A high-pitched shriek of rage rose from the barn.

There
she was!

He remembered the horse's scream earlier. Courtney had done something to the animal, and God knew what she was doing now. He had to get to the barn. He had to stop her.

He set his hands on the ground and rose up onto one knee, keeping the hurt leg off the ground as best he could. Wobbling, he pushed himself up to a standing position. A wave of nausea and dizziness almost overwhelmed him, but he stood still and waited 'til it cleared before trying to take a step. Gingerly, he placed his injured foot on the ground and shifted his weight onto it.

This time, the nausea and dizziness were too powerful to resist. The barn faded from view as he hit the ground.

“You ruined everything
,
” Courtney repeated. She struggled to her feet.

Jodi couldn't believe what she was seeing. Courtney was always perfectly coiffed, with queen-quality makeup and hair and her clothes neatly pressed. Now she was filthy. It looked like she'd taken a page from Honeybucket's playbook and rolled in something nasty. Her face was smeared with something that looked suspiciously like horse crap, and her clothes were filthy.

“Courtney, what happened?”

Seeing Jodi and Teague together this afternoon must have pushed the girl over the edge. It had to hurt, seeing the man you loved—or at least the man you'd made up your mind you wanted—with another woman. Jodi reached out to pat Courtney's shoulder, wanting to comfort her, wanting to help.

Courtney slapped her hand away. Letting out a shriek that sounded like a combination between a cat in heat, a bellowing bull, and a screaming stallion, she grabbed Jodi's hair, jerked her out of the stall, and slammed her against the barn wall.

Jodi wasn't hurt; just shocked. She froze against the wall for what felt like a full minute. Courtney stood in front of her, swaying from side to side, her arms held loose like a MMA fighter searching for a hold. Finally, she rushed at Jodi, but Jodi was ready and grabbed her wrists.

“Courtney, stop,” she said. “Calm down. Beating the crap out of me isn't going to change anything.”

Courtney didn't reply; she just struggled to free herself. Her eyes were wild, her face pale, with two streaks of red standing out on her cheekbones. She looked deranged.

She
was
deranged, apparently.

Jodi glanced around the barn. The ambulance would be here any minute. If she could just hang onto Courtney until it came, they could probably give the girl a shot that would calm her down.

Too bad Teague didn't keep a tranquilizer gun around anywhere. It would have come in handy for the bull, and nailing Courtney in the butt with a large-animal dart would feel pretty good about now.

She scanned the barn, her eyes lighting on the box stall at the front that Teague had turned into a workshop. Putting Courtney into a room filled with hammers, saws, and shovels probably wasn't a great idea, but if Jodi could get the door shut and locked, she'd be safe.

She tugged on Courtney's wrists, dragging her down the alleyway. Courtney fought for a minute, then went limp. Pulling her dead weight was almost worse than fighting her, but at least she was little. Jodi hauled back and dragged Courtney's limp body in a slow circle, speeding up as she built up centrifugal force and finally letting go of the girl's wrists and flinging her through the door into the workshop.

As she skidded over the concrete floor, Courtney scrambled to her feet, but Jodi kicked her away and slammed the door. Grabbing the rusted padlock hanging from a hinged hasp, she flipped the hasp into place and threaded the lock through the hole.

She didn't need to lock it. There was no way Courtney could get at it from inside. Jodi leaned against the door and blew a strand of hair out of her face as the sound of a distant siren pierced the air.

Teague was vaguely aware of the sounds around him—the siren blaring, then suddenly cutting off as tires skidded to a stop; the low hum of voices; the sound of hoarse, steady wailing coming from the barn. It sounded like someone was skinning one of the barn cats.

The darkness that enveloped him suddenly slit open and a face entered his field of view. A bright light flashed in his eye.

“He's responsive,” a woman's voice said.

The slit closed and another one opened. Light again.

“Mr. Treadwell?”

Teague blinked and opened his eyes. Some lady was kneeling beside him. She looked worried. He struggled to sit up and tell her everything was okay, but as it turned out, everything hurt. His back. His leg. His arm and shoulder. His eyes, when the light hit them.

“Don't try to move, sir. We need to check you out first.”

Well, he was used to getting checked out by the ladies, but this was a little different. He tried to sit up again, and this time he succeeded.

“Please, sir, don't try to move.”

Since when had he done what he was told? Obviously, this lady didn't know Teague Treadwell. He looked around. The bull was still in the paddock. Courtney's SUV was parked in the drive, along with Jodi's little Ranger.

“Jodi?”

He looked left, then right. It took the world a while to catch up with the turn of his head and he had to lie down again. Turning his head, he saw Jodi standing in the dark barn doorway. But it wasn't the Jodi he'd seen yesterday. Somehow, he'd gone back in time. She was wearing that damn sparkly hat, along with a pink embroidered jacket and jeans to match.

Hell, she was a rodeo queen again.

He was thinking she'd gotten over that phase. She looked good, though.

She approached him, smiling, and knelt by his side. He struggled up to a sitting position again.

“Please, sir. You need to stay still.”

Teague waved the EMT away. “I'm fine. Really. It's just my leg.”

“And your arm,” Jodi said. “And your back, and maybe your head. You really ought to do what she says.”

He shrugged. It hurt. Jodi looked concerned.

“You okay, pardner?”

“Yeah. Foot hurts, though. And they ruined my boot.” He looked ruefully down at his foot. The EMT had cut his boot off, and his ankle was swollen to twice its normal size. “What happened?”

“I have no idea.” She laughed. “When I got here, Rocket was running around loose, Bruiser was working you over in the driveway, and your girlfriend Courtney was hiding in the barn, covered with horseshit. I was thinking maybe you could tell me what happened.”

“So where's Courtney now?” Teague asked.

Jodi blanched. “Oh, shit. I forgot.”

The sheriff narrowed his eyes. “You know where she is?”

“Well, yeah. I locked her in the barn. She's in the workshop.”

“She's what?”

“She was hiding in Rocket's stall when I brought him in. She attacked me, so I shoved her in the workshop and locked the door.” She turned to the sheriff. “Turns out she's even crazier than I thought.”

Teague nodded. “I found a suicide note she'd tried to write for her dad. It was pretty clear what had happened.”

The sheriff frowned. “When was this? First I've heard of it.”

“Well, it was right before she set the bull on me,” Teague said. “Sorry I didn't call.”

“I guess unconsciousness is an okay excuse,” the sheriff said. “You got a key to that workshop?”

“You won't need it,” Jodi said. “I didn't fasten the lock.”

The sheriff looked down at Teague.

“You okay?”

“I'm fine. Just a little banged up. I've had worse rodeos,” Teague said. “And Queenie here showed up and saved my life.”

“So did Courtney sic the bull on you, or what?” Jodi asked.

“I guess so,” Teague said. “One minute I was standing at the barn door, the next minute I was on my ass with two thousand pounds of raw hamburger on the hoof standing over me. The minute after that, I was flying. That's about all I remember.”

He squinted up at her. “How'd he end up in the paddock?”

She grinned. “Well, I had to put him somewhere.”

“You did it? How the hell…”

She grinned and tilted her hat to a more rakish angle. “I told him I'd make him wear the pink hat,” she said.

He reached up and coiled one spiral curl around his finger. “You really are the queen.”

“Of the rodeo?” She grimaced.

“Of the Treadwell ranch,” he said. “And the Brand ranch. And pretty much the whole town.”

“Thanks. I guess.” She looked down at her tight pink jeans. Damp circles of dirt marred the knees, and they were streaked with dirt—or maybe something worse. “I don't really want to be the queen anymore,” she said. “I was hoping this would be the last time I'd have to wear these clothes.”

Teague smiled and brushed her hair back over her shoulder. “It doesn't matter what you're wearing,” he said. “You're the real deal.” He grinned. “And I'll help you out of those later, if you want.”

“Teague, you're injured,” she said. “You have to be careful.”

“It's not that bad,” he said. “Nothing could be that bad.”

“Mr. Treadwell?” It was the paramedic. Teague lifted his eyebrows in inquiry.

“We need to take you to the clinic. Get you checked out.”

Teague started to shake his head, but Jodi was already tugging him to his feet.

“He's right,” she said. “You're pretty banged up. I know you hate doctors, but you need to go.”

“Okay.” Teague gave her a lopsided grin. “The queen has spoken.”