The Spy Wore Spurs

The shot reverberated in the silence of the night. Then another shot answered. Her heart rate picked up as she ran that way. Her palms were sweating. The trembling came. Then the flashbacks—of other dark nights, other shots, blood and pain, people dying. She kept on running.

After a few hundred feet or so, she could see a pinpoint of light in the distance, a flashlight that led her to a barely conscious man.

For a terrifying second, she was still on a battlefield, her mind unable to distinguish between past and present. Then the gruesome images slowly faded and she came back to reality, to the man lying on the ground in front of her.

“Are you okay?”

In his early thirties, he wore black cargo pants covered in blood, a black T-shirt and military-issue boots. She would have taken him for a border agent, but he didn’t wear their insignia.

Not a local, either. She’d known most everyone around these parts at one point. He was about her age, so if he’d grown up here, they would have gone to the small school together in Hullett. She would have recognized him, despite the smudges of blood that covered his features.

Probably not one of Dylan’s businessmen, unless he was their trainer. The stuff on his belt was all professional grade and then some. Question was, what was he doing here all alone, so far from the ravine? She took his gun and tucked it into her waistband behind her back, out of his reach. Probably an unnecessary precaution. He didn’t look ready to reach for anything.

“What happened? What’s your name?”

His eyes fluttered open, then closed again. He was only semiconscious, but he kept his hands pressed tight against a wound on his thigh. Smart man—he was focusing his energies where it most counted. She held the flashlight closer.

Gunshot wound. The bullet had gone in the back and came out the front. Definitely not a self-inflicted, accidental injury.

Keeping her rifle close at hand, she slipped off his belt and made a quick tourniquet. Then she ran back to her pickup, grabbed a half-empty water bottle that was still warm from the day’s heat. It’d do in a pinch. She shook him so he’d revive enough to drink. He needed to replenish his fluids.

He needed an IV, but he wouldn’t get that here.

When she had done all she could, she dialed 911. She didn’t get through, of course—no reception. Cell phone coverage was spotty out here on a good day. With the storm moving in, the bars on her display were flatlining.

“Help.” The single word slipped in a rasp whisper from the man’s lips.

And when she looked up, his eyes were open again. She couldn’t see their color in the dark, only that they were disoriented. “I’m trying.”

He was a big man but, like her brother, she’d served in the United States Army and had gotten the best possible training. She bent and worked the guy’s arm over her shoulder, supported his body weight as she struggled forward and dragged him toward the truck.

The rain had been picking up steadily, turning into a downpour. Her feet slipped in the mud, but she wouldn’t allow herself to stop, wouldn’t allow him to slide to the ground. If he did, she might not be able to pick him up again.

She peered through the rain into the darkness, making sure she kept aware of her surroundings and didn’t let him claim all of her attention. Hurry. Her rifle hung over her shoulder, his gun tucked behind her back, no way for her to quickly reach for either if whoever had shot him came back and caught her by surprise.

Lightning lit up the sky. The water was coming down in sheets by the time she reached her pickup. She dumped him in the passenger seat then ran around and jumped behind the wheel. The dry creek beds could fill quickly in weather like this. Then they’d both be trapped out here.

He coughed and opened his eyes as she drove way too fast over the uneven road, the pickup rattling.

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Ryder… McKay.”

She didn’t know any McKays around here. “Do you know who shot you?”

He passed out again before he could have answered.

Hot anger hit her, a hard punch right in the chest. This was her land, dammit. Stuff like this wasn’t supposed to happen here.

The creek beds were filling up, but she made her way across them. The mud proved more dangerous, at the end. The pickup’s tires spun out on a steep incline she tackled. Long minutes went wasted before she could maneuver the truck free.

“Hang in there,” she murmured, not knowing which one of them she meant to bolster.

Her windshield wipers swished back and forth madly and still weren’t enough. Intermittent lightning flashed across the landscape. The thunder sounded like heavy shelling. The ground shook as if bombs were falling. Not now. She bit her lip hard and used the sharp pain to yank herself back from the edge.

She navigated the barely visible road, doing her best to pay attention to everything at once: the mud, the injured man, the trees that could be hiding the shooter.

The drive back to the house took three times as long as the drive out. “Okay, we’re here. You’ll feel better once you’re flat on your back and we’re out of this rain.”

She parked by the front door and dragged the man in, ignoring the mud they tracked all over the floor. A particularly nasty bolt of lightning drew her gaze to the window, and for a second she could see all that driving rain drowning the open land, field after field. No other houses.

Neighbors would be nice. The kind of close neighbors you could run over to in a time of need. But the ranch was in an isolated spot, the farthest house from town.

“Here we go.” The old couch groaned under the man’s weight as she laid him down. “I’ll be back in a second.”

She dashed back to the truck for her rifle and the veterinary supply bag behind her seat. She locked the front door on her way back in, something her grandfather hadn’t done once in his life. They lived in good country, around good folks, he used to tell her.

She wondered what he would think about this. He’d have words to say. And not the kind of words you’d find in a church bulletin.

She wiped her face. No time to dry herself fully. Bag. Scissors. She cut off the man’s pants so she could do a better job at assessing and cleaning his injury. If being a field medic in the army had taught her anything, it was to be resourceful and find a way to use whatever she had at her disposal. The veterinary bag was a godsend.

“Wake up. Can you hear me?”

No response. He didn’t even flinch.

Clean the wound. Stop the bleeding. Dress the wound. Make him drink so he had enough fluids in him to get his blood pressure back up enough for him to permanently regain consciousness.

“You’re going to make it. That’s not a suggestion. That’s an order.” She snapped the same words at him as she had at soldiers on the battlefield.

She checked his limbs—everything moved, nothing felt broken. His heart beat slowly but steadily. His pupils were the same size, responding to light. His airways were open. He was in top combat shape, a big point in his favor. The patient’s physical condition always had a big impact on recovery.

Once she finished with the basics, she moved to the niceties. She washed his bloody hands, then wiped his face with a wet washcloth. She’d definitely never met him before. In the light of the lamp and without the smudges on his face, she could fully see him at last: tussled dirty blond hair, straight nose, a masculine jaw, sexy lips. The fact that he looked drawn failed to deduct from how ridiculously handsome he was.

“Ryder McKay,” she said his name out loud, then felt foolish when the cat padded in and gave her a curious look.

The scrawny feline assessed the situation while she licked her lips.

“That better not be cream on your whiskers,” Grace warned the cat, pretty much resigning herself to the fact that her Twinkie was history. “And you better not get sick from all that sugar. I’m not kidding.”

The cat flashed her a superior look then strolled away.

The man’s eyes blinked open slowly, the color of desert honey, then closed again.

“Ryder? You need to wake up. Can you hear me?”

He didn’t stir, not even when a loud banging shook the front door the next second.

Grace jumped to her feet, faced the door in a fight-ready stance, her heart lurching into a race before she caught herself. It’s not an attack. Someone’s just stopping by for a visit. Most likely.