Stars & Stripes (37 page)

“You two ought to shoot, Z,” Annie said, looking across the round table at Ty and Zane.

Mark narrowed his eyes at Ty. “I suppose Grady would give a good showing. From what I remember, you were pretty good at the competitions.”

Ty shrugged, a mixture of humility and nonchalance. Zane was still trying to shake the nagging feeling that they would be putting Mark in handcuffs soon. With that and the ultimatum from his mother, he was having a hard time concentrating on what was going on around them.

He tore his eyes away from Ty and adjusted his hat.

“What do you think, Ty?” Annie asked. “Are you two good enough to compete?”

Zane tried not to smile too much as he glanced at his partner. They had no idea what he and Ty were capable of. Zane almost wanted to see Ty show them all what he could do.

“I don’t know, we do okay,” Ty answered with a careless shrug. He took another drink of his beer, then glanced over at the large area they’d cleared for the shooting gallery. “Trick shots don’t usually have much to do with how good a shot you are.”

Marissa leaned forward. She was sitting on Cody’s lap, and they’d been whispering and flirting for most of the day. “Why do you say that? I’ve been watching this stuff all my life, and it’s always the best shots who win.”

Ty shook his head. “It doesn’t just take shooting straight. It takes practice. It’s kind of like playing mini golf; they’re more like puzzles than pure tests of ability. Same guy who can hit a moving target at a hundred yards can’t always hit a penny on a fence post with a mirror. And a dude who can shoot the fluffy part off a toothpick at thirty yards while he’s hanging upside down by his balls might not hit a moving truck if it was trying to run him over.”

That drew a round of laughs, and Zane shook his head as he drank from his water bottle. It was hot, hotter than he remembered from his youth. He could feel the sweat making its way through his shirt. Ty had one of his Buffs around his forehead, sitting under his hat, and another around his wrist that he used periodically to wipe the sweat away from anywhere that needed. Zane imagined it was a system he’d created while in the Corps.

“You get a lot of target practice working for the FBI?” Cody asked. “I didn’t even think to ask if you carry normally or if it’s just been since you came to Texas.”

“Not exactly target practice,” Zane said under his breath. He ran his water bottle over his forehead.

Ty shot him a grin and emptied his beer. “Nothing too exciting,” he answered, tongue-in-cheek. “But yeah, we carry all the time.”

Cody nodded.

“I think you should enter, Z. Someone from the family should,” Annie said.

“Since when is Mark not family?” Zane asked.

“Jackass,” Mark said with a snort. “You know she means a blood relative.”

“You’ll have to talk to Mother about that,” Zane said, trying not to sound bitter and failing.

“Come on, Zane,” Annie whispered. Zane shrugged.

“How about it, Grady?” Mark said. “We’ll all enter, see who’s held onto their skills.”

Zane glanced between them, not sure why Mark would warn him about Ty being unstable and dangerous and then try to get Ty to enter a
shooting
contest. Perhaps it was just a little too much testosterone for his brother-in-law to handle. Or maybe Mark was trying to find a reason to have a loaded gun pointed at Ty’s head.

Ty glanced at Zane and gave a lazy shrug. “I got three beers in me, no way I should be trick shooting.”

Mark laughed and threw back the rest of his beer.

The sheriff walked up to their table as they talked, tipping his hat when they all looked at him.

“Sheriff Barnes,” Zane with a smile. “Any news for us?”

“Some,” the man said, as unflappable and unreadable as ever. “We found the vet practice the tranquilizers were stolen from.”

“That’s great!” Annie said. She sat forward in her chair.

“Yes, ma’am. Unfortunately, it was yours.”

“What?” Her smile morphed into a horrified gape.

Zane glanced at his sister, then he met Ty’s eyes. Ty was looking at the table, probably trying to observe Mark’s reaction without being noticed. There was another point against him.

“I reported it missing the other night when I was taking stock of everything,” Marissa admitted, looking mortified.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Annie asked.

“I thought it was drug seekers, not tiger poachers!”

“We’ll flag ’em down,” the sheriff said. He tipped his hat. “Y’all enjoy the party.”

He sauntered away, leaving a pall over their little gathering.

“What does that mean?” Annie finally asked.

Ty and Zane shared a look, but neither was willing to answer.

“Oh no,” Annie said.

Zane glanced up, but Annie was peering past his shoulder at someone else approaching. Zane turned to find Stuart walking toward them.

“Garrett,” Stuart said. He touched the brim of his hat with a finger and Zane stood to meet him. “I come to apologize to you and . . . your friend.”

Zane couldn’t help it when his eyebrows climbed high.

“Well, that’s . . . decent of you,” Zane said.

Stuart held out his hand, but Zane hesitated before taking it. After the things this man had said to him, and more importantly, to Ty, Zane wasn’t feeling overly friendly. He also had pretty solid suspicions that Stuart and his buddies were behind the tiger poaching, and one of them had probably shot his father. Still, he didn’t want to tip his cards yet, so he took the hand Stuart offered.

Stuart turned to Ty, offering to shake. Ty didn’t stand; he merely drank his beer, one foot on the edge of the table in front of him, leaning back in his chair.

“It’s Grady, right?” Stuart asked. “Staff Sergeant Grady?”

Ty looked at the man’s hand, then at him. Zane glanced between them, wondering how the hell anyone had learned Ty had been a Staff Sergeant. He glanced at Mark as another wave of suspicion went through him.

It was impossible to see Ty’s expression between the aviators and the Stetson. “Nice limp.”

“Accidents happen when you work on a ranch.”

Ty cocked his head, examining the man’s leg. Zane knew his partner was seeing what no one else was.

“You’re not going to shake my hand?” Stuart demanded.

Ty waited another few heartbeats, long enough to make the man even more uncomfortable. Then he slid to his feet. He was several inches taller, and when he stood, his proximity forced Stuart to take a step back. Ty offered his left hand, and Stuart was obligated to give him an awkward, backwards handshake. For whatever reason, it pissed the man off. He didn’t say anything else, just turned on his heel and walked away. He was indeed limping, and it seemed more pronounced than it had several days ago.

“That was weird,” Mark said, frowning hard.

Zane nodded.

Ty took a long drink of his beer. “Is he one of the shooters?” he asked, voice filled with cruel anticipation that sent a shiver of pleasure up Zane’s spine.

“I believe he is,” Joe answered, smiling. “He and his buddy damn near beat Jamie and Mark last year.”

Ty nodded. “I’m in.”

The others let out whoops and started banging on the table, and Zane couldn’t help but laugh. He set down his drink. “I guess we ought to pay in, then.”

The others chattered as Zane and Mark walked over to the stage to make the donations. When he returned to the table, Zane stopped at Ty’s side and looked down at him.
“All these boys are good. You better bring your A-game, Grady.”

Ty just smiled and stood, reaching out to grab the three bottle caps he’d collected and slide them into his pocket. “Ladies,” he drawled as they left the table.

Ty’s shoulder bumped Zane’s as they walked, and it was harder than Zane expected to keep from wrapping his arm around his partner. He talked to distract himself.

“There’s several events, and they tally scores for individuals and teams as we go along.” They made their way to the shooting gallery, set up in a nearby corral. No one was allowed in before the contest started, to avoid any unfair advantages.

“Okay,” Ty said. He rolled up the sleeves of his thin linen shirt and wiped at his forehead with the buff on his wrist. They came up to the main table and surveyed the gear laid out. “Rifles, pistols, knives.” Ty began to laugh. “The things you get me into.”

Zane grinned. “Texas,” he said, since that was the answer to everything. “What are you up to, Ty?”

Ty just hummed as he wandered off toward the end of the table. Zane had no idea why Ty had offered to enter the contest, other than for the chance to stand close to one or more armed men they knew wanted Ty out of the picture.

They wouldn’t know what shots they were taking until they were unveiled during the contest, so they wouldn’t know if there was a possibility of danger either.

If anyone was going to take a shot at Ty, though, this would be when they did it. Zane followed along, checking out the competition. He recognized a few of the men. Stuart and one of his asshole companions were there. Several hands from another neighboring ranch had signed up, as had Cody and Joe. Mark and Jamie made up the fifth team, and he and Ty would be the sixth. Zane shook his head as butterflies fluttered. He didn’t have anything to prove here. It was for charity, and he didn’t care what the others thought about him. What he was really looking forward to was Ty showing them all up. Or arresting them in the middle of it.

“Zane, are you entering the competition?”

Zane looked up to see his mother and two of her friends approaching. “Yes, Mother. Along with Ty.”

Beverly looked him over. “Well. Good luck,” she said. She lingered a moment, looking torn, but then moved away without saying anything more.

Ty chose that moment to come sauntering back to Zane’s side. He’d managed to grab another bottle of beer from somewhere, like he was producing them out of his ass. “That’s not awkward at all.”

Zane shook his head.

Ty met his eyes, still grinning. “You really want to go into this thing with me after I’ve been drinking and baking in the sun all day?”

Ty’s smile and his shining eyes were enough to make Zane forget all about his mother. “Absolutely. Let’s kick some ass.”

“Or shoot some.” Ty shoved his shoulder into Zane’s and they made their way toward the gathering of shooters awaiting instructions.

Ty and Zane were deemed Yellow Team. Judges directed them to stations set up through the corral and around the barn, and partygoers began gathering with them, bringing their cocktails along. The bleachers began to fill. Looking around, Zane wondered if he was the only sober person here. The thought was wildly funny for some reason.

He was catching snippets of conversation from people around him, their words traveling in the heat in unpredictable ways.

“Is that guy drinking?”

“Is that the Garrett boy’s gentleman friend?”

“He’s not anything like I thought he’d look. He’s quite strapping.”

“Zane looks good, doesn’t he?”

Zane shook his head and turned his attention to their first challenge as all the teams gathered. It was a gallery of ten weighted ropes hung in a row, all different lengths and with varying sizes of weight attached. The idea was to shoot through the rope and make the weight drop. They would have a limited number of shots. He glanced to the judge approaching with a rifle.

“Preference?” he asked Ty.

Ty leaned back to look at the gun, then eyed the ropes with a growing smirk. “I kick ass with a rifle,” he whispered, then took a slow sip of his beer.

“Then by all means,” Zane drawled, sweeping one hand toward the judge.

“Gentlemen, pick your shooters. The rest of the team members, if you will please join the crowd.”

Zane waited until Ty was passing by to whisper, “I’d kiss you for luck, but it would probably cause a ruckus.”

“So will your shooting,” Ty told him, and he smacked Zane on the hip for good measure, then handed him his beer bottle. “Hold this.”

Zane took the bottle with a good-natured snort. With Ty in his line of sight, the beer in his hand wasn’t even a temptation.

Zane scanned the crowd. He found Harrison standing over to the side, talking to some of the judges. When Harrison looked up, Zane caught his eye and nodded. To Zane’s delight, Harrison mimed a pistol with his finger and thumb to shoot at him.

Zane turned to watch the competition, feeling much lighter all of a sudden. It still shocked him how much his parents’ approval meant to him. He knew he would never gain his mother’s, but Ty had been right about his father; he was epic.

The first shooter was given the rifle and told where to stand as the others moved to a safe observation point. They weren’t wearing earplugs or safety glasses like they should have been. Ty glanced around and pulled his aviators out of his shirt pocket to slide them on. He looked in Zane’s direction as the first man took aim and fired at his first weighted rope.

Ty didn’t flinch away, holding Zane’s gaze with each rifle blast. Just because he could, Zane gave Ty a quick wink.

Ty smiled, the same evil smirk Zane knew so well. Whether they won the whole thing or lost every single contest, Zane knew he was getting laid later. It almost made him want to ditch the entire day and take Ty somewhere secluded.

Ty finally turned his attention back to the shooting. The first contestant had hit four of the ropes but only snapped three. He’d also hit one of the weighted bags, and sand was gushing out of the holes. His score of three was chalked up on a large board on the side of the gallery, and the rifle was reloaded and new ropes tied up. There was a smattering of distracted applause as the next shooter, Stuart’s teammate, went up. He didn’t fare much better. The ropes were tough and thick, and though they snapped when nicked with the heavier weights, the lighter weights weren’t enough to pull a missed shot.

Annie appeared at Zane’s elbow. “What do you think?”

“I think your husband is in for some stiff competition.”