Standoff at Mustang Ridge (20 page)

With the shots still coming fast and furious, Royce glanced behind them at the pair of oaks. They were much wider than the cottonwood they were using for cover now, and it would give Sophie and him several extra feet of breathing room. Plus, it had the added bonus of being even closer to the house. He didn’t want anyone inside being hurt from the gunfire, but a house would give them much better protection than the trees.

“Stay on your stomach,” Royce instructed her, though he had to shout over the roar of the gunfire. “And crawl there.” He tipped his head to the oak.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Try to give you a diversion. It’ll be okay,” he quickly added when he saw that she was about to argue with him. “Hurry.”

He left no room for doubt in his voice, and thankfully, Sophie stayed low and inched her way toward the oaks. Royce darted out from the cottonwood and fired. He didn’t see where his shot landed because he immediately went back behind cover, but he heard the bullet strike metal. Probably one of the vehicles.

He checked to make sure Sophie was behind the oak. She was. Royce glanced out again. Not at the shooters but at the guy going through the SUV. And Royce cursed when he saw what the man had in his hand.

The manila envelope with the land papers.

Hell. How the devil had they known the papers were there? And why were they so important to retrieve during a gunfight?

Royce figured he wouldn’t like the answer to either question, but both Travis and Eldon had some serious reasons for those papers to be destroyed. It was going to hurt Sophie bad if her father was wearing one of those ski masks. However, Royce couldn’t let that play into this.

Sophie came first.

And if her father was behind the attacks, then they’d have to deal with that later. For now, Royce just tried to even the odds.

Staying low, he moved to his left and took aim at the gunman positioned at the front end of the SUV. The one with the papers had already headed back to the semi. Out of range. But Royce figured his best chance to pick one of them off was the guy on the front end.

It was a risk, but everything about their situation was risky.

Royce leaned out from behind cover. And fired.

He double tapped the trigger and saw the man he’d targeted jerk back from the impact of the shots that Royce had just fired into his chest. For a moment, Royce thought the guy might be wearing Kevlar, but he wasn’t. The man dropped to the ground.

One down.

That thought barely had time to register in Royce’s head when he heard the sound. Felt it, too.

The pain seared into his shoulder as the bullet slammed into him.

* * *

“
W
ATCH OUT
!” S
OPHIE
shouted to Royce.

But she was already too late.

She’d seen the movement from the corner of her left eye. Another gunman. Not the one who’d taken the papers from the SUV—he was inside the semi now. This one had no doubt made his way from the back of the semi and toward them. Sophie could only watch in horror as the man fired a shot.

One that hit Royce.

“Stay down!” Royce told her just as she started to race toward him.

He was right, of course. If she moved out from the cover of the oak, the gunmen would just shoot her, too, but it took every bit of her willpower to force herself to stay put and not hurry to Royce.

Sophie levered herself up a little so she could get a better look at Royce. She prayed that he’d manage to survive that shot, and she was more than relieved to see him moving around. He was staying behind the tree, thank goodness, but she didn’t miss the blood on his jacket. She had no idea how badly he’d been hurt, but she had to do something to get them out of there.

She looked around and saw the gunman still at the rear of the SUV. The other one, the bastard who’d shot Royce, was no longer in sight. Maybe he’d ducked behind a tree, too, or he could have even headed back to the semi. There were some shrubs and even the ditch that he could be using to conceal himself.

So, there were three attackers still alive.

With Royce’s normally good aim, that wouldn’t have been such bad odds, but there was nothing normal about their situation.

The shots started to come again. Nonstop. Deafening. But they all seemed to be coming from the shooter at the rear of the SUV. Sophie didn’t have Royce’s shooting skills, but she fired a shot that guy’s way. He ducked down behind the SUV.

It was a temporary lull, but Royce used it to crawl his way to her. Even though Royce was cursing and telling her to stay down, Sophie fired another shot at the gunman, to keep the attention on her. And that meant she had to keep her attention on them, to make sure they didn’t try to come after Royce and her from a different direction. She considered calling for backup, and would, once she no longer had to fire shots to keep the men at bay.

Royce finally made it to her and pulled her back to the frozen ground.

“How bad are you hurt?” she asked, but Sophie was terrified to hear the answer.

“I’m okay.”

It sounded like a lie and probably was. While Royce kept watch, Sophie pulled open his jacket and looked for herself. There was blood. Too much of it. Of course, any amount was too much when it came to Royce. She wadded up some of his shirt and put some pressure on the wound, hoping it would slow the bleeding.

“We need to get to the house,” he said.

She looked back at the place. Not far. But every step would be dangerous, especially with those shots coming at them. Plus, she saw something she hadn’t seen from the road.

The weathered For Sale sign.

Oh, mercy.
That meant there might not be anyone inside to help them.

“I need the lighter,” Royce added. “And any paper you might have in your pockets.”

He used his hands to rake together some dead leaves and small sticks from the ground.

“They’re too wet,” she reminded him.

“We don’t need a fire. Just smoke. And the wind is working in our favor. It’ll carry the smoke toward the gunmen.”

Yes. It might shield them from the shooters.

Might
.

Sophie helped Royce scoop up as much debris as she could safely reach and then she rummaged through her pockets. She had a wadded up tissue and a receipt from a coffee shop. Royce pulled out his wallet and added some twenty dollar bills to the stash.

She lit the tissue and held her breath.

The shots didn’t stop. In fact, they seemed to come at them even faster. The oaks were old and thick, and thankfully the bullets couldn’t get through, but the gunmen could easily change positions and try to come at them from a different angle. Both Royce and she kept watch to make sure that didn’t happen.

It didn’t take long, just a few seconds for the bills and paper to catch fire, and Royce gently placed some of the damp leaves on top. He’d been right about the direction of the wind. It carried the smoke away from them.

“You have the gun with the backup ammo. So stay down and fire a shot to your left,” Royce instructed. He added even more leaves to the now billowing smoke. “The gunman’s moving.”

Oh, God.

She’d taken her eyes off him for just a moment, but he had indeed moved and was trying to make his way closer toward them.

Sophie fired.

The gunman ducked back down just as a gust of wind caught the cloud of ashy-gray smoke and sent it coiling out in front of them.

She and Royce added the last of the debris they’d collected, and they waited for the smoke to thicken. Time seemed to stop. The only thing that did. Because the fear inside was going at lightning speed. Not for herself.

But for Royce.

They needed to get to safety so she could call an ambulance, maybe from a landline inside the house—if there was one.

“Now,” Royce said.

And that was all the warning Sophie got before he latched on to her hand and got them moving. They stayed as low as possible but started running toward the house. Even over the sound of her own heartbeat roaring in her ears, Sophie heard the footsteps of the gunmen running straight toward them.

Chapter Seventeen

Royce knew the smoke wouldn’t give Sophie and him much cover for long. That’s why he hurried, pushing Sophie to go as fast as she could go. They had to make it inside the house so she’d have some protection.

And so he’d have position to take out these SOBs.

The shots returned, just as Royce had expected, though he figured the gunmen still didn’t have a clear line of sight because of the smoke. They were no doubt just randomly firing and hoping to get lucky.

That might happen.

Royce didn’t take Sophie onto the front porch. Everything about the place told him there was no one inside, that the farmhouse had been empty for months or longer. Part of the roof had caved in, the front steps, too.

So he headed for the barn.

It wasn’t in much better shape than the house, but at least there’d be no floor for them to fall through.

The barn door was wide-open, and heaps of snow-dusted hay were scattered everywhere. Royce pushed Sophie inside, and they managed to slam the door shut. There was no lock, and Royce knew they only had seconds before the shooters would catch up.

“Go over there,” he told Sophie, and he motioned toward the side wall.

That way, she wouldn’t be directly in front of the door. Royce took cover behind what was left of a stall. It wasn’t much protection, but he might not need it because he checked the back door, and it was indeed closed tight with a thick board lock. Old-fashioned, but it looked rock solid. That meant if the gunmen tried to get inside, they’d have to go through the front.

And get by him to reach Sophie.

Royce looked over at her and hated what he saw. The fear in her eyes. And more. She was terrified for him. He wanted to reassure her that his injury wasn’t that bad.

He hoped.

Yeah, he was bleeding. The warm blood was trickling down his chest from his left shoulder. There was pain, too. Lots of it. But Royce pushed that pain as far back in his mind as he could and kept repeating to himself that they had to get out of this alive.

And then he’d learn the identity of every man hiding behind those ski masks.

Because this was going to stop.

The footsteps got closer, and despite the wind, Royce thought he might have heard whispers. The gunmen were no doubt trying to figure out the best way in. Royce hoped there wasn’t one.

Sophie and he waited, but as time closed in around him, Royce began to think of some worst-case scenarios. Maybe the gunmen would try to use smoke or fire to draw them out. Just as Royce had done. He didn’t have long to dwell on that thought, though.

There was a sharp cracking sound.

And a split second later, the door flew open.

Royce fired. But it was too late. The guy who’d kicked in the door dove to the right side of the barn, and the shot missed him.

Royce mumbled some profanity, and though he wanted to check on Sophie again, he didn’t. He staked his attention on the now-open barn door and kept it there. He listened, trying to pick through the sound of the wind, his heartbeat and their breathing, so he could detect any movement.

He did.

Royce turned, took aim at the side of the barn where the gunman had landed. And he fired.

Royce’s shot blistered through the air, the sound echoing through the barn, and he heard the groan of pain. And then the thud of a body hitting the ground. Royce waited, hoping the hit hadn’t been faked, but then he heard something that confirmed it. One of the other gunmen cursed, and judging from his footsteps, he hurried toward his dead or injured partner.

“Stay down,” he mouthed to Sophie in case the men tried to rush in. Or return fire.

Part of Royce hoped they’d just run away so that Sophie and he could escape, but that would mean this wouldn’t end here. Until he had the person responsible, the attacks would just continue.

The phone in his pocket buzzed. Bad timing. Royce couldn’t risk taking his attention off the front door to look at the screen and see who was calling, but this meant they now had cell service. Good to know if he managed to eliminate the two that were left, then he could call for help.

He kept listening, but Royce no longer heard the mumbles or profanity of the gunmen. No movement, either. And without the shots being fired, the silence closed in around them.

Royce didn’t exactly get comfortable with the silence, but a jolt went through his body when he heard the crashing sound. He automatically glanced at the rear door, figuring their attackers were trying to get through there.

But there was no one.

His gaze slashed back to the front just as a gunman jumped out from cover. Royce fired at the same time there was more of that crashing noise. He pivoted, frantically looking around him, and he saw Sophie trying to scramble away from the gaping hole that was now in the side of the barn.

Someone had pulled off several of the rotting wooden planks.

And Royce got just a glimpse of the terror on Sophie’s face as the person yanked her through the opening and out of the barn.

* * *

O
NE SECOND
S
OPHIE WAS ON
the barn floor, and the next she was being pulled outside.

Oh, God.

What was happening?

Yelling and kicking, she fought the person who was dragging her across the broken wood siding, but he was a lot stronger than she was. Plus, he’d had the element of surprise. By the time she’d realized what was happening to her, he had her out of the barn.

It was one of their attackers, but she couldn’t see his face because of the ski mask.

Sophie landed hard on the cold ground, but she immediately tried to turn and aim the gun at her attacker. Again, he had the advantage of size and position, and he kicked the weapon from her hand. It went flying into the snow, and the pain screamed through her hand. At a minimum she would have bruises, but Sophie was afraid she might have broken bones. That wouldn’t help her fight.