A Lawman's Justice (Sweetwater Ranch Book 8) (17 page)

It was.

And Whitt must have seen the truth in her eyes because her father whipped his gun right at her.

He was fast.

But Seth was faster.

Shelby barely felt his hand when Seth pulled the gun from her jeans. He fired. Not once, but a double tap of the trigger, and he used his body to push her to the ground. Shelby already had started in that direction anyway, but Roy dragged her down next to him and reached for Jewell.

That was when Shelby heard the other shots.

It all happened at once. A whirlwind of gun blasts, shouts and blood.

The hired gunman froze. Then dropped, his weapon falling right next to him. From the corner of her eye she saw that Cooper had been the one to take him out.

Then Seth fired again.

And Shelby saw her father.

Seth’s bullets had gone into his chest and head.

Whitt’s smile was gone now. And everything else, too. No life was left in him, even though he was still on his feet.

That only lasted a split second before her father crumpled into a heap on the ground.

Shelby couldn’t move. But she certainly could feel. She braced herself for all the raw emotions she thought might come. After all, her father had just died right in front of her eyes. But the only thing she felt was relief.

It was over.

Almost
.

“Call an ambulance!” Roy shouted. He scooped Jewell into his arms.

Cooper took care of that, and Shelby got a closer look at Jewell’s injury. Not just to her arm as she’d originally thought. The blood had spread across her chest.

Jewell was bleeding out.

Chapter Eighteen

Seth wished he could do something to ease the shock and fear he saw on the faces of all the people in the hospital waiting room.

Rosalie’s husband, Austin. Colt, Tucker and their wives, Elise and Laine. Plus, Cooper’s wife, Jessa, and Jewell’s sister, Kendall, with her fiancé, Aiden, who was also Shelby’s brother.

But Seth figured that same look of shock was also on his own face.

The adrenaline had come and gone, leaving him exhausted and a little numb. Not numb enough, though, because whenever the image of Whitt crossed his mind, he got a new jolt of anger. Annette and Whitt had come damn close to killing them all.

And might have succeeded in killing Jewell.

His mother was still in surgery, which meant they were all waiting for the outcome of this nightmare. Waiting for news of Rayanne’s labor, too. Too bad waiting wasn’t exactly Seth’s strong suit. Even the bone-weary fatigue couldn’t stop him from pacing.

Unlike Shelby.

With her sister on one side of her, and her brother on the other, Shelby was slumped down in one of the hard plastic chairs, and she was staring at the floor. Seth had tried to comfort her. Multiple times. But the one-word responses and dazed looks she’d kept giving him were enough to let him know she needed some time.

Maybe plenty of time.

Heck, maybe even forever.

After all, she’d watched him gun down and kill her father.

Yes, Whitt had done some bad things. Very bad. But maybe all of that bad couldn’t totally kill a daughter’s love for a father she’d longed to see for most of her life.

Kendall stood, prompting Aiden to stand, too, and he left his sister’s side to go to Kendall’s. He pulled her into his arms. Kissed her. Even though they’d been together for well over a month now, it still gave Seth a little jolt. Whitt’s son and Jewell’s sister together.

Which wasn’t a whole lot different from Seth’s sleeping with Whitt’s daughter.

And they weren’t the only ones who’d managed to put this family feud to rest. Since they’d arrived at the emergency room, Tucker had been giving Laine hugs of comfort. And love.

Seth had no trouble seeing the love between them.

And then there was Roy. His face was bruised and battered from his run-ins with Annette and Whitt’s thug, but he’d refused medical treatment. He wanted all the doctors focusing on Jewell.

Yeah. Roy was a man in love, too.

Nothing could erase the memories of the past. The hurt. But then apparently nothing could erase that kind of love, either.

Seth heard the footsteps, hoped it was news about his mother, but it was news of a different kind. Cooper came in sporting a bandage on his arm from the injury he’d gotten the day before at the Braddock ranch. It wasn’t serious, and it clearly hadn’t slowed the man down one bit.

Cooper made a beeline for Seth, and his brothers quickly joined them. “The dead body by the fence is Marvin Hance,” Cooper told them.

Seth hadn’t realized that Shelby had gotten up from her chair until he heard her make a sound. Part surprise mixed with relief.

“How did he die?” Shelby asked Cooper.

Since she didn’t look too steady on her feet, Seth slipped his arm around her. Okay, he did that for himself, too.

Because holding her steadied him.

“We’re piecing it together now,” Cooper explained. “But judging from some notes found at Annette’s place, she was furious with Hance because she thought he was the one who’d killed Marcel.”

“But Whitt killed him,” Seth quickly pointed out.

Shelby huffed. “My father no doubt convinced her otherwise. That way he didn’t have to take the blame for murdering Marcel.”

Cooper nodded. “We’re also figuring out why Annette took Marcel’s death so hard. They’ve been having an affair for years, and even though Annette was still obsessed with Whitt, she might have been in love with Marcel.”

Another example of opposites attracting. The rich city girl and the ranch hand. Too bad Annette hadn’t stopped obsessing over Whitt so she could have had a life with Marcel. If she had, none of this might have happened.

Of course, if things hadn’t played out like this, his mother might be standing trial—today—for murdering Whitt. It didn’t seem fair that Jewell had escaped one injustice only to face another from Whitt’s bullet.

Cooper tipped his head to the hall. “Anything about Mom and Rayanne?”

“Nothing yet,” Tucker answered.

Seth wondered if Cooper even realized he’d called her Mom. Any other time it’d been Jewell. So maybe some good had come from this awful situation after all. Not just for Cooper. But for all of them. Despite the fact the room was filled with Braddocks and McKinnons, there wasn’t any bad blood.

Maybe because too much blood had been spilled already.

“What about the ranch house?” Colt asked his brother.

“Gone. All of it. There wasn’t much the fire department could do by the time they got in there.”

Yet another casualty of Whitt’s war against the McKinnon’s. Since Jewell’s father had built the place, it would come as another hard blow.

Colt, Cooper and Tucker stepped away and started a whispered conversation about how they were going to handle the property loss. And the wrap-up of the investigation. Seth figured he should be in on that part of the discussion, but he didn’t want to leave Shelby’s side, and he didn’t want her to have to hear any more details about the destruction her father and Annette had caused.

She looked up at him. No tears.
Now
. However, her eyes were still red. “I’m trying to remember that I loved my father once. I’m trying to hang on to that good part. But it’s hard to remember anything good.”

That tugged at his heart. To hear the hurt in her voice. To see it in her eyes. Seth brushed a kiss on her forehead.

“Your dad loved you,” Seth settled for saying.

Not a lie. In his own way, Whitt had loved her. Probably his other kids, too. He’d just had a warped way of showing it.

“So what now?” she asked.

That was the million-dollar question, and Seth wasn’t sure he had a worthy enough answer. Even if he’d had one, he wouldn’t have had time to answer, because Rosalie appeared in the doorway of the waiting room. Since she’d been in the delivery room with Rayanne, Seth very much wanted to hear what she had to say.

“It’s a boy,” she announced. “He’s perfect, healthy and screaming his head off right now.”

Austin went to Rosalie’s side. Kissed her. Smiled, then he kissed her again. In about six months, they’d be doing this themselves, since Seth recently had learned that Rosalie was pregnant.

“Is Rayanne okay?” Roy asked.

Rosalie nodded, gave her father a hug. “The baby weighed eight pounds and five ounces. Rayanne did great. Blue, not so much. He nearly passed out when the doctor asked him to cut the cord.”

That caused a trickle of laugher in the room. Blue wasn’t exactly the passing-out type.

The relief that his sister was okay hit Seth a little harder than he’d expected. So did the flood of pure joy. His sister was now a mother, and even though Rayanne had a wild streak, he was betting that motherhood would settle nicely on her. Her marriage to Blue certainly had.

“Any news about Mom?” Rosalie asked Seth.

“Not yet.”

Roy groaned and scrubbed his hand over his face. “I’ll see if I can find out anything.” He left the room and headed up the hall.

“I’m so sorry,” Shelby said, her voice cracking.

Rosalie blinked. “Please don’t think you have to say that for Mom. None of this is your fault, and you don’t have to apologize for anything your father did.”

Rosalie had taken the words right out of Seth’s mouth.

“But I feel so bad, as if nothing I can do will ever make things right.” Shelby’s tears threatened again, and Seth tightened his grip on her.

“You might feel worse when I tell you I’m in love with you.” Seth certainly hadn’t intended to blurt that out, and it just hung there, causing the room to go silent.

Shelby turned, slowly. Stared up at him. And her mouth was slightly open. “Why would that make me feel worse?”

Well, hell.

This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have in public with everybody listening, but it seemed a little cowardly to pull Shelby into the corner and talk this out.

“Because you probably don’t need a complication like me in your life,” Seth said. That had sounded a whole lot better in his head than it did out loud.

“A complication.” Shelby repeated it. “Actually, it’s a relief. I figured I was going to have to do something huge to make you want to ask me out on a real date. You know, one where we’re not getting shot at, burned or blown up.”

Shelby somehow managed the impossible. She got Seth to smile. Everybody else in the room did, too.

“Is it true?” she asked. “Are you really in love with me?”

Now Seth pulled her to the other side of the room. Still not much privacy. But he kissed her anyway.

Yeah, he needed that. Needed the feel of her in his arms. The taste of her against his lips. Heck, he just needed her, and Shelby was there for him to take.

When he finally pulled back from the kiss, Seth noticed that most of the people in the room were trying not to stare.

Most
.

Aiden’s stare was more of a glare, probably because he was wondering what this FBI cowboy was going to do with his kid sister. But Kendall reined in Aiden’s glare with a kiss.

Lovebirds.

Until Seth had become one himself, he hadn’t known just how good and right it felt.

“It’s true,” Seth told Shelby. “I’m in love with you.” And he waited.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long because his heart had seemingly stopped. His breathing, too.

“Good,” she said. “Because I’m in love with you. Scary, huh?”

“A good kind of scary,” he assured her. A good kind of feeling as well, since it felt as if his heart had doubled in size.

Seth would have finished that off with another kiss, too, if footsteps hadn’t grabbed his attention. It was Dr. Howland.

“Jewell’s fine,” he said right off the bat. “Weak and groggy, but fine.”

The good news just kept coming. Maybe because they were due after all the bad news they had gotten lately.

“Roy’s with her now in the recovery room,” the doctor continued. “I didn’t know they were back together, but I for one am glad to see it. Always thought those two were right for each other.”

No one in the room disagreed with that—including Cooper, Colt or Tucker. But it did make Seth wonder what Roy had done or what the doctor had seen to make him realize they were back together. Maybe the kissing bug had bitten them, too.

“I can’t let you all go in there at once.” Dr. Howland’s gaze went around the room. “But you can go in two at a time, no more than that, and speak to her for a few seconds.
Seconds
,” he emphasized. “Jewell should be plenty well in a week or so, and you’ll have time to talk her ears off then.”

The doctor motioned for them to follow, and some of Seth’s happy mood evaporated. His mother had been through a lot. Maybe too much. And he wasn’t sure exactly what he would see when he went into the room.

What he saw was exactly what the doctor had told them. A woman who’d just come through a serious injury, but she still managed to look strong. She smiled when she saw all of them in the doorway.

“Why don’t you go first?” Seth offered to Colt, Cooper and Tucker.

“She’d probably rather see you,” Colt said.

“She’d rather see all of you, all of
us
,” Rosalie corrected. “She loves us all equally, including Seth.”

Colt nodded, looked back at his wife. “Then, why don’t we go in as couples since the doc said no more than a pair at a time?”

There were sounds of agreement and nods, and Rosalie motioned for Cooper and Jessa to go in. “The eldest son first,” Rosalie added when Roy made his way back out to the hall.

Cooper didn’t exactly seem comfortable with this visit, but Jessa and he went to Jewell’s bed. Seth didn’t hear what Jewell said to them, but a moment later, she lifted her uninjured arm and eased them down for a hug.

The relief returned.

“Seth and Shelby, you go next,” Rosalie said when Cooper and Jessa started out. “We’ll stick with the eldest first because they need to get off their feet faster than the rest of us.” She winked at Colt, the youngest of the boys.

Seth was just glad to be included in the visit, but Shelby didn’t budge when he started into the room.

“Jewell won’t want to see me,” Shelby insisted.

“You’re wrong,” Roy spoke up. “She specifically asked for you.”

Shelby went a little pale, but she didn’t pull back when Seth led her into the room. Jewell immediately reached out her hand to them.

“I get to see all my kids today and the people who are near and dear to them,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “For a mother, that makes it one of the best days ever.”

Seth wasn’t sure how she could feel this way after coming so close to being killed.

“I love you,” he told his mother, and kissed her cheek.

“I love you, too. And you,” she added, looking at Shelby before her attention went back to Seth. “Have you told Shelby you’re in love with her?”

There it was again. That mother’s sixth sense.

He nodded. “Just now. In the waiting room.”

“Not very romantic, but I’m sure you’ll make up for that soon.” She paused. “The house is gone. I know that. But the way I see it, this is a good thing. Roy and I can build a new place. Have a fresh start. Just like Shelby and you.”

There were no tears in his mother’s eyes, but Shelby might have some coming on. And there was a darn lump in Seth’s throat.

“You don’t mind that Roy asked me to marry him again?” his mother said to him.

Seth gave her another kiss on the cheek. “Well, I didn’t figure you two would shack up, so marriage is a good starting place.”

Jewell smiled. One of those smiles that only a mother could manage. “It’s a good starting place for...others, too.”

Seth gave her a long look. “Since when did you get into meddling?”

“Since I got shot and know that I can get away with it,” she joked. “Seriously, think about that fresh start.”