Return to Oak Valley (38 page)

In his sleep, Scott frowned at the light and muttered something, turning on his side.

The urge to wrap his hand around Scott's neck was powerful, but Sloan retained enough of a sense of honor to find the thought of attacking a man in his sleep distasteful. He glanced around, his gaze lighting on the half bottle of wine Scott had left on the battered night table by his bed.

Smiling, Sloan picked it up and began pouring it over Scott's head. “Wake up, sunshine,” he crooned.

The splash of cool wine brought Scott instantly awake, the blinding light from Sloan's flashlight making him blink as he struggled into a sitting position. “Wha—?”

Sloan flicked on the table lamp next to the bed. Laying down the flashlight, Sloan said, “Surprise.”

“Jesus Christ!
You!
What the hell do you think you're doing?” Scott growled. He looked at the clock, then back at Sloan. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Yeah, time for you to pay the piper.”

A crafty look entered Scott's eyes. “It's too damned early for riddles. You're crazy.”

Sloan smiled, a terrifying smile, and reached over and grabbed Scott around the neck with one hand. “Crazy works for me. Actually,” he said softly, “you're the crazy one—you should have known that turning Shelly's cattle loose was a crazy idea.”

Scott looked smug, even with Sloan's big hand around his throat. “Now that's real curious,” Scott said with a smirk. “Especially since me and my buddy, Ben, have been here together all night. Of course, we did go four-wheeling a couple of hours ago, but I don't remember seeing any cows.” He smiled. “You can't prove anything.” He glanced in the direction of the door. “Ain't that right, Ben?”

“You got it, bud,” said Ben from behind Sloan.

Keeping his hand around Milo's neck, Sloan turned his head slightly and almost smiled at the sight of Ben Williams standing in the doorway, a double-barreled shotgun leveled at him. He had hoped to catch the two of them together.

“Move away from him, real slow,” Williams ordered, his cold black eyes reminding Sloan of a rattlesnake. Williams was a tall, beefy guy with a straggly reddish brown beard crawling across his cheeks and chin. His gut strained over his black T-shirt, and Sloan figured Williams outweighed him by fifty pounds…and the other man held a shotgun. He'd come here for a fight, but he wasn't stupid, and only someone stupid took on a shotgun. But inwardly he smiled. Shotgun aside, things were working just about as he had planned.

“Sure,” Sloan said easily, suiting word to action.

Just as he had known he would, the moment Sloan let go of Scott's throat and stepped away, Scott shot up from the bed and, putting muscle behind it, slammed a punch into Sloan's stomach. “Bastard!” Scott snarled. “You made a big mistake coming here. You've been wanting a lesson for a long time, and I'll be happy to give it to you.” Over his shoulder, he said to Williams, “Keep him covered.”

Scott's punch nearly knocked the air of out Sloan, and he gasped. Scott followed it with another one, laughing when Sloan almost doubled over, enjoying himself. Sloan let him get a few good licks in, judging his chances of taking both of them down. The shotgun worried him, but not much. Scott drew back his fist, ready to ram it into Sloan's face, when Sloan decided he'd been polite enough. He caught Scott's fist in one hand, the other hand dragging up a handful of the T-shirt Scott was wearing. In one smooth, powerful move, he threw Scott across the room, slamming him into Williams. Both men went down in a heap, the shotgun bouncing and clanging against the floor as it was torn from Williams's grasp.

With a flick of his foot, Sloan kicked the shotgun under the bed and, reaching down, half dragged, half threw the other two men out of the bedroom and down the hallway. The fight that followed was ugly, vicious, and brutal. It was two against one, but Sloan was more than a match for them. The battle spilled out of the hallway into the small living room, Sloan breaking Williams's nose and sending Scott flying with a crash into the table and lamp that sat at the end of the couch. It was not a pretty fight and there was as much destruction to the furniture as there was to the fighters. Sloan's lip was bleeding, his fists were scraped and cut, and he had to blink to keep the blood out of his left eye from a cut above his eyebrow.

Scott was smaller, but he was tough and wiry and a dirty fighter; Williams was heavier, a strong man, but he was slow. As he took a stunning blow to his right temple and the room swam, Sloan figured that if he didn't bring the fight to a quick end, they would eventually wear him down. He fought with a single-minded ferocity, heedless of the blows they struck, heedless of the damage they inflicted, his one thought being to take them down. And he did.

Concentrating first on Williams, in a series of lightning and violent punches, Sloan soon had the big man slumped and groaning against the far wall of the living room. A kick to the groin and an uppercut sent Scott spinning backward to land in a moaning pile on the floor.

Gasping for breath, wiping away the blood from his cut eyebrow, Sloan stood there, swaying just a bit from the damage he'd taken. His body was one long ache and, gingerly, he touched his ribs, wincing at the pain that lanced through him. Jesus. A broken rib, that's all I need.

He walked over to where Scott lay and nudged him with his toe. When Scott rolled over and looked up at him, Sloan said softly, “Stay away from Shelly Granger. She has any more trouble of
any
kind, and I'll come back to visit.” Despite his busted lip Sloan smiled, a smile even more terrifying than his earlier one. “And if I have to come back…you won't like it…trust me.”

Chapter Eighteen

G
rimacing against the pain, Sloan turned around, stopping short at the sight of Jeb leaning against the jamb of the front door. For a second the two men confronted each other, then Jeb said dryly, “You forgot to tell him to cancel the lease with Shelly.”

Sloan nodded. “Yeah, I did.” He turned back to Scott and poked him with his toe. When Scott half sat up and looked blearily at him, Sloan said, “See Sawyer and tell him you want out of the lease with Shelly Granger. First thing Monday morning, you tell him you're eager to end it. No money.”

Scott hesitated. Jeb strolled over to stand next to Sloan. “You have a problem with Sloan's request?” he asked politely.

Scott glanced from one face to the other, for the first time seeing the family resemblance. There was no yielding in either face, and, flopping back down on the floor, he muttered, “Sure. No problem. I'll call Sawyer first thing Monday morning.”

“Appreciate it,” Sloan said, and began limping toward the door.

Jeb regarded Scott for a moment longer. “I take it everything is OK here? No complaints, or anything like that?”

Scott flashed him an incredulous look. “Get out,” he grated. “Just get the hell out of my house and take your trained ape with you.”

Jeb grinned. “Glad to. Just wanted to make certain.”

Jeb wasn't grinning when he caught up with Sloan, who was leaning against the front fender of the Suburban. “You OK?” he asked as he rested one arm on the top of the vehicle.

Sloan grimaced. “I'll live, but it'll be a few weeks before I want to do that again.”

“Take it from me,” Jeb said quietly, “
don't
do it again—ever.”

Sloan squinted at him from his swollen eye. “You going to arrest me?”

“If you pull a damn fool stunt like that again, I will.” He pointed a finger at him. “You're lucky, you know that. You took on two of them—not smart. And you broke all kinds of laws.” When Sloan started to speak, Jeb held up a hand. “I don't want to hear it. I'm on thin enough ground as it is.” Then he ruined it by grinning. “Nice work. I've been wanting to do that for a long time. I especially liked that uppercut you gave him after you threw him against the wall.”

Sloan started to smile, then groaned as his split lip made itself felt. “How long were you watching?”

“Since you drove up.” He jerked his head down the street. “I'm parked in Mrs. Nolan's driveway. Figured you'd drive right on past—which you did. Knowing you and how you feel about Shelly, I was pretty sure you'd come after him.” He smiled faintly in the darkness. “Thought you might need some backup, but you handled it just fine, son.”

Sloan shook his head, pain lancing through him. “Jesus! I'm too old for this sort of thing.”

Jeb clapped him on the shoulder, and Sloan winced. “Remember that the next time you get all riled up.” He sent him a considering glance. “You OK to drive home?”

“Yeah. I'm fine—or I will be once I've made it to bed—for a week.”

Jeb laughed and sauntered off into the darkness.

Shelly woke Saturday morning tired, crabby, and depressed. The events of the previous evening were fresh in her mind and, as she dragged herself from the bed, she marveled at how swiftly a really great time had turned into a nightmare. One minute her only worry had been if she could resist Sloan's advances and then the next…She sighed. And the next, her dream for the future of Granger Cattle Company had been shattered.

The shower helped, but she still felt groggy and out of sorts. Looking at the clock and noticing that it wasn't much past 8:00
A.M.
she wasn't surprised. She'd only had a couple of hours' sleep—if that.

She trudged downstairs, trying to work up some enthusiasm for the day. It was Saturday, not a normal workday, although on a ranch and with livestock there was no such thing as a weekend, but except for feeding and care of the stock, they did slack off some, and the hours stretched out endlessly before her. The loss of Beau weighed heavily on her and while she usually ran out to the cattle pens first thing every morning, this morning she was hard-pressed not to burst into tears every time she thought of the cattle. Poor Beau. As for Milo Scott…her face set, and her hands clenched into respectable fists. The next time she saw him, she'd probably forget she was raised a lady and kick his balls right up into his throat. She smiled at the picture. Yeah. She'd enjoy doing that.

Feeling a trifle better, she followed the scent of coffee and frying bacon to the kitchen. Maria was bustling around in front of the stove, and Acey was seated at the kitchen table.

“Morning,” Shelly said as she helped herself to a mug of coffee and joined Acey at the table. She eyed him appreciatively. He looked almost rakish with his bandaged head. “How're you feeling?”

“Beyond my pride takin' a beating, I'm not doing too poorly. Head aches a little. Like I told Maria, when I explained what happened last night, the scratch looks worse than it feels.”

After laying the last piece of bacon on a paper towel to drain, Maria turned around and glared at the pair of them. Hand on one hip, she demanded, “I suppose it never occurred to anyone to call me when all this was going on last night.”

“Wasn't last night,” Acey murmured. “This morning. Hell of a time to wake you from your beauty rest.”

Maria snorted. “At my age I am beautiful enough.” She fixed a gimlet stare on Shelly. “You should have called me.”

Shelly grimaced. “Maria, it was one, two o'clock in the morning. There was nothing you could have done except lose sleep.” She grinned. “And eat pie. I was never more thankful that you keep the freezer stocked with those apple pies of yours than last ni—er, this morning.”

Maria looked slightly mollified. She turned back to her cooking for a minute and, after pouring pancake batter on the big black griddle on the stove, pointed a spatula at Shelly, and ordered, “The next time something like that happens, you call me—at any hour of the day or night.”

Shelly nodded, her expression grim. “Let's hope nothing like that happens again.”

“It won't,” said Acey decisively. “We're putting locks on all the gates and, for the next little while, Nick and I are going to take turns patrolling the cows at night.”

“Count me in,” Shelly said. “If we take turns, no one has to lose much sleep.”

Acey's dogs started up a ruckus, and they all heard the sound of a vehicle pulling in behind the house. A moment later, purple shadows under his eyes, Nick strolled into the kitchen. Spying the pancakes his mother was flipping on the griddle, he said, “Hot damn! Timed it just right for breakfast.”

“Do you ever think of anything other than food?” Shelly teased.

Helping himself to a piece of bacon, he grinned. “Oh, yeah. Like Acey here, I think of women a lot. But unlike Acey, I get to
do
something about it.”

Acey sputtered in his coffee. “I'll have you know that I
do
quite a bit about it, myself,” he said grandly. “And better. You young studs think in terms of quantity—you're too dumb to know that it's quality that counts.”

Maria and Shelly both groaned. “Please,” Shelly begged, “not this morning. You're both studs, let's leave it at that.”

“Damn right,” Acey said.

Half an hour later, her stomach full of Maria's sourdough pancakes, Shelly drove the Bronco into town. She didn't know exactly what she was planning on doing, but double-checking that Beau's carcass had been removed from the side of the highway seemed a logical move. Sloan had said he would take care of it, and she didn't doubt that he had; she was grateful that was one decision she didn't have to make. She slowed when she reached the site of the accident, relieved that there was no sign of the dead bull. Don Bean must have been out early taking care of the grisly task. On her return, she stopped at his place, her face paling when she drove around back of his big metal shop and caught sight of Beau's remains lying stiffly on the back of a large flatbed truck.

Wearing a pair of grease-stained blue denim overalls, Don came walking out from his shop. After wiping hands the size of Virginia hams on a red rag, he stuffed the rag in his back pocket and pushed back the ubiquitous baseball cap on his head. Standing next to her vehicle, he said, “Morning. Sorry about your bull.” He jerked his head in the direction of the flatbed. “I wasn't certain where you wanted the body dumped. Thought I'd call you in a little bit.”

Shelly smiled with an effort, keeping her gaze averted from the truck. “Thank you for getting him off the road so quickly.” She swallowed. “Uh, you're not going to drive him through town that way, are you?”