Standoff at Mustang Ridge (12 page)

She got that “deer caught in the headlights” look and nodded. When she turned, she eased down her bra strap, and he spotted the tiny flower tattoo on her shoulder blade.

“My father and brother don’t even know it’s there,” she whispered. “It’s a relic from a college trip to Scotland, and it’s not in a place that many people can see.”

“No,” he mumbled. But he’d known it was there, just as he’d known the sounds of pleasure she made in bed.

Yeah. Those popped into his head, too.

“We need to get that test done,” she insisted.

Hurrying now, she pulled on the jeans and sweater, and Sophie sat on the edge of the bed to put on the shoes she’d borrowed from Maggie. She went to the adjoining bathroom to wash her face and groaned when she looked in the mirror. Maybe because she thought she didn’t look good without her usual makeup and perfectly styled hair.

She looked
good,
Royce silently argued.

Damn good.

That thought collided with the reminder of why she was rushing to leave. The test. And the possible pregnancy that might or might not be a lie. Later, Royce was sure he’d have to deal with that. One way or another. But he forced everything out of his head except making this trip. He went back to the kitchen to close down his laptop, and he grabbed his coat and keys. However, before Sophie and he could make it out the door, his house phone rang. Royce hurried to answer it, hoping it wasn’t trouble.

Or his father.

He didn’t want to answer questions about where Sophie and he were going.

“It’s me, Tommy,” the ranch hand said. “We got a problem.”

The young man sounded frantic and out of breath, and Royce was a hundred percent sure that this was not going to be good news.

“I got word from one of the hands who was putting out hay in the back pasture,” Tommy continued. “Two men just came over the fence. And, Royce, they’re carrying guns.”

Chapter Nine

Sophie waited by the front door for Royce to finish his call, but she stepped back when she saw the stark expression on his face.

“There’s been a change of plans.” Royce threw open the cupboard over the fridge and took out a handgun and some ammo. “There are two armed men on the property, and they’re headed this way.”

Her breath vanished, and Sophie couldn’t even utter the
Oh, God
that started racing through her head.

Royce put the gun he’d retrieved in her hand and took out another one from the wall unit in the living room. He didn’t waste any time, and Sophie was glad he caught hold of her to get her moving, because her feet seemed anchored in place.

He took her through his bedroom and into the bathroom at the back of the house, and Royce put her in the tiled shower stall.

“How close are they?” she asked, and even though her hands were trembling, Sophie got the gun ready just in case she had to fire.

“They crossed the back fence about five minutes ago.” He hurried to the sole window in the room and shoved back the edge of the curtain. “That puts them about a half mile away from the house.”

Not far at all. Just minutes for someone determined to get to them. And she figured these two were determined if they’d chosen to trespass on a ranch in broad daylight. Sophie could see the pasture and one of the barns, but she didn’t see anyone, including ranch hands or gunmen.

“Will your hands try to shoot them?” she asked.

“Yeah.” And that’s all Royce said for several seconds. “Tommy’s trying to get into position to stop them, but he might not have an easy shot. The two aren’t making a beeline across the pasture. They’re staying along the fence line where there are a lot of trees they can use for cover.”

“Two of them,” she repeated. “Whoever’s behind this hired someone else to replace the dead gunman.”

Royce made a sound of agreement and glanced at her from over his shoulder. “There might be more than two.”

That caused her heart to slam against her chest, and even though she already had a death grip on the gun, Sophie’s fingers clamped harder around it.

“I can’t call the deputy,” Royce said. “It’d leave the sheriff’s office unmanned. But the ranch hands are all armed and are good shots.”

Royce’s cell rang, and without taking his attention from the window, he yanked out the phone, placed it on the sill and put the call on Speaker. Probably to free up his hands in case of attack.

“Royce, I lost them,” she heard the man say. Tommy, no doubt. “They went back over the fence by the west barn and disappeared into the woods.”

Royce mumbled some profanity. “Come back closer to the houses. You said you’ve warned my father?”

“Chet knows. I told him to stay inside like you said, but I doubt he’ll listen.”

“He
won’t
listen,” Royce verified. “Just watch out for him because he’ll be out there somewhere.”

Royce punched the button to end the call, shoved the phone back into his pocket and grabbed her hand again. “I need to be at the west side of the house, to keep watch and back up Tommy. And I don’t want to leave you in here alone. Not with the window so close to the shower.”

Sophie couldn’t agree fast enough. She definitely didn’t want to be alone, and besides she might be able to provide some backup, too. She wasn’t a marksman by any means, but she had fired a gun before on one of the visits to the ranch when she was a teenager.

Shutting the bathroom door, Royce led her back into his bedroom and positioned her on the side of the dresser before he hurried to the window. He pulled up the blinds and stood to the side so he could look out.

“Stay down,” Royce warned her.

She did. Sophie could no longer see the outside, but she could see Royce, and if he spotted the men, she’d be able to tell from his body language.

The seconds crawled, but her thoughts didn’t. They were racing through her head. She wanted to catch these men and demand to know if it was indeed Travis behind all of this. It was sickening to know that someone wanted to harm Royce and her.

And for what reason?

It certainly seemed an extreme reaction for a man scorned, but then Travis was often an extreme person. A dangerous one, too, she added. Maybe the scorned feelings had mixed with his need for revenge for her encounter with Royce and it had brought them to this. Now it wasn’t just Royce and her. Chet and the ranch hands were in the middle of this.

Even though Sophie had braced herself for an attack, the sound still sent her heart to her knees.

A gunshot.

It was deafening. And that caused her breath to gust because the shot had been fired very close to the house.

Royce didn’t get down or duck out of sight. He threw open the window and pushed out the screen. She started to yell for him to get down, but she couldn’t. If the gunmen didn’t already see Royce, then her voice might give away their position in the house.

There was another shot.

Then another.

Both were thick blasts that seemed to shake the entire house. They definitely didn’t seem like shots fired from a handgun but rather a rifle. That could mean the gunmen were far enough away from the house to possibly be out of Royce’s shooting range.

But maybe not out of the ranch hands’.

Of course, anyone out there was in danger of being killed.

Royce took aim and fired. His shot rattled the panes in the window. Rattled her, too, because the men were likely converging on the house.

Another shot came flying through the window, and glass flew across the room, some of it landing on the bed and clattering onto the floor next to her.

“Stay back,” Royce repeated.

She did, but Sophie caught a glimpse of the movement in the yard. A man wearing camo and a black baseball cap ducked behind a tree, and that put him much too close to the bedroom.

Much too close to Royce, too.

Royce leaned out again, directly in front of the window, fired and ducked back behind cover.

The gunmen returned fire, the bullets pelting into the window and the side of the house. Sophie saw the spray of drywall and wood and realized some of the shots were tearing through the exterior wall and coming into the room. But they weren’t just coming from the direction of the bedroom window, they were also coming from the back of the house and ripping through the bathroom, as well—where Royce and she had been just minutes earlier.

“We have to move,” Royce insisted. “Get down as low as you can and crawl into the living room to the side of the sofa.”

Sophie dropped to her belly and started making her way there. The shots didn’t stop. In fact, they were coming at them even faster.

Her heart was in her throat now. Racing out of control. And even though her hands were shaking, she tried to keep a firm grip on the gun in case she had to help Royce return fire.

It seemed to take hours for her to get from the bedroom to the sofa, and she pressed herself against it, making room for Royce. He didn’t come right away, something that didn’t help her racing heart, but he finally scampered out of the bedroom and slammed the door behind him. He’d barely gotten to her when his phone buzzed.

Volleying his attention between the doors and windows, he took the call on Speaker.

“We got a problem.”

Not Tommy, but it was a voice she recognized. It was Royce’s father, Chet. “Just got a call from one of the hands. Tommy’s been shot, and he’s pinned down by the side of your truck.”

Sophie’s breath vanished.
Oh, God.
The man trying to protect her had been hurt. Maybe worse.

“I’ve already called for an ambulance,” Chet said, “but you know those medics can’t get to him with all this shooting going on. I’ll see what I can do to get to Tommy and help him.”

“No.” Royce glanced at her, took her by the shoulder and pushed her flat on the floor. “Stay put,” he insisted. “I need you to make sure neither of the gunmen gets into the house with Sophie.”

“You gonna help Tommy?” Chet asked.

“Yeah. Just make sure you watch the house.” And with that, he ended the call.

Sophie frantically shook her head. “It’s too dangerous for you to go out there.”

“It’s too dangerous for Tommy if I don’t help,” he countered. Royce didn’t give her a chance to disagree. “Lock the door behind me and then get back down. If anyone you don’t recognize comes through a window or door, shoot him. And don’t even think about following me.”

The warning had barely left his mouth when Royce raced toward the door and hurried out.

* * *

R
OYCE HATED THE IDEA
of leaving Sophie alone in the house, but there was no other option. It was too dangerous for his father to try to cover the distance between the main ranch house and Royce’s truck. There was too much open space where Chet could easily be gunned down. Plus, the gunmen had the upper hand. They’d clearly established position where they could pick off anyone and everyone who tried to make it to the wounded ranch hand.

But maybe the gunmen wouldn’t count on someone coming from the front of Royce’s house.

And that’s exactly what Royce planned to do.

He only hoped his father could manage to stop anyone from getting inside. Chet still had a good aim. Good eye, too. So maybe Chet could keep these would-be killers away from Sophie. And there was no doubt in his mind now that they’d come here to kill rather than kidnap. If they’d wanted her alive, they wouldn’t have fired all those dozens of rounds directly into the house.

Royce paused a moment on his front porch until he heard Sophie lock the door as he’d ordered her to do. He wished he could have taken the time to reassure her, but any reassurance at this point might be a lie. Yeah, they had more ranch hands than gunmen, but the hands weren’t hired assassins.

He went to the end of the porch and peered around the side of the house. Royce immediately spotted his truck that had been riddled with bullets.

And he spotted Tommy.

The ranch hand was on the ground between the house and vehicle, and Tommy had his left hand clutched to his shoulder. There were blood on both his hand and jacket.

Hell.

He had to do something fast or Tommy might bleed to death. It wouldn’t take the ambulance that long to respond, but Chet was right about the medics not being able to come in with bullets flying.

Keeping low, Royce eased over the porch railing, his boots landing without sound in the snow. Of course, being heard wasn’t a huge concern since the din of nonstop shooting was deafening. The shots gave him another advantage, too.

Royce was able to pinpoint the location of the shooters.

One was still behind the massive oak only twenty yards or so from his house. The other was farther toward the back and was firing into the bathroom.

Keeping close to the house, Royce inched his way toward the truck. He had to do something about the shooter behind the tree to stop any other bullets from slamming into Tommy.

But how?

How could he draw the SOB out into the open so he could stop him?

A noise distraction wouldn’t work, so Royce pushed aside some snow and located a rock. Using his left hand, he hurled it in the direction of the tree and immediately took aim. The moment the rock hit, he saw the movement.

The gunman pivoted out from the tree.

And fired.

Directly at Royce.

Royce fired, too, and he dove to the side so he could use the front of the truck for cover. His shot smacked into the tree, but as soon as he could, he fired another shot. And another. He knew from the sound of that one, that it hadn’t hit the tree.

The gunman dropped forward, collapsing onto the snowy ground.

One down. One to go. But Royce hoped that he could at least keep one of them alive so he could question the moron and confirm who was behind this assassination attempt.

Royce shifted his attention to the back of the house where the sounds were still coming from, and he hurried to Tommy. He’d been right about the blood loss.

Way too much.

And Royce had to rethink his plan to keep the second one alive. The sooner the gunman was eliminated, the sooner he could get that ambulance on the grounds.