Stars & Stripes (38 page)

“I think you’re blinded by love.”

Zane nodded, acknowledging the truth in that. He looked over the other competitors standing with Ty. They were all capable ranch hands, and Mark had been a Marine. But like Ty had said, this sort of competition was as much a puzzle as it was a test of skill. What he was really concerned about was Stuart, and the idea that Mark was the mastermind behind their trouble.

“Mark keep up with the rifle range?” Zane asked.

“Like clockwork,” Annie replied.

As new ropes were hung up and the rifle reloaded, Ty stepped away from the others and began fiddling with his shirtsleeve again. Apparently it was his turn. Zane watched him, recognizing some of the quirky mannerisms, but not others. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention to what was going on, or he was drunk, and he seemed supremely distracted by the cuff of his shirt. It wouldn’t roll up like he wanted it to.

“Is he okay to shoot?” Annie asked.

Zane covered a laugh by clearing his throat. “Yeah, he’s fine. Superstitious, you know? Never steps on home base before a game, that kind of thing.”

Annie hummed but she didn’t say anything else, and Zane gave her a regretful glance. He prayed they were wrong about Mark.

Finally, Ty stepped closer to Mark and said something, to which Mark gave him a tolerant look and reached out to fix his shirt cuff for him. Ty thanked him with a smack on his shoulder that sent Mark stumbling sideways, and Ty sauntered up to the judge holding the rifle and took it with an easy grin.

He looked the rifle over and hefted it. “That’s nice,” he said, loud enough for the crowd to hear. “What is it, Marlin .44 Special?”

The judge nodded, frowning.

“That’s real nice,” Ty said. He cradled the rifle in the crook of his arm, the muzzle aimed carelessly toward where Stuart stood. Stuart flinched as the barrel swung his way.

“Watch where you aim that damn thing!” Stuart shouted. A round of laughter followed.

“I’m watching,” Ty said, his tone lazy but his words heavy. He rested the rifle in the crook of his arm, using his other hand to discreetly keep the barrel aimed at Stuart as he moved forward to stand on the X marked in the sand.

Stuart sidestepped but couldn’t get out from under Ty’s aim. He flushed in the hot sun. Zane read his lips as he called Ty all kinds of unsavory names.

Annie turned a look of disbelief on Zane, who had to cover his mouth to muffle the laugh. He knew Ty; there was no way he’d pick up that rifle while drunk unless he or someone he loved was threatened. Ty was playing it up. He was also sending Stuart a clear message: they had him in their sights.

“Shooter ready?” the judge called, and Ty brought the six-pound rifle up to snug it against his shoulder. His stance was wide and even, and something about the way his shoulders rounded was incredibly fun to watch. But he was having a hard time gripping the rifle. A ripple of laughter went through the crowd; they expected him to make a fool of himself.

“Zane, I told you we should have cut off this cast,” Ty called out.

He had a point. He couldn’t just switch up and shoot lefty with a rifle. The cartridges were made to eject to the right of the shooter, and if he fired with his left hand, the hot cartridge would eject right into his face after every round.

“Hope he shoots better than he fights,” Stuart said loudly, and another round of laughter followed.

The first shot of the .44 kicked Ty back, but his aim was true and the bullet snapped through the rope just an inch above the weight. A murmur of surprise went through the crowd. He rattled off six more shots in rapid succession, his long fingers cocking the rifle with practiced speed and ease despite the cumbersome cast. Each shot drew more sounds from the crowd, until many were hooting and whistling every time he dropped a target. It was an impressive show.

And then he missed. The eighth rope twisted as the bullet grazed it. A groan ran through the crowd. Ty shrugged his shoulders and looked up from the sights of the rifle. He grumbled something. He tried the next rope and missed again, fraying the rope but not enough to make the lighter weight drop. He graced the crowd with a distinctive curse, held up his broken right hand and waved it, then aimed at the last rope.

The weight dropped with an anticlimactic plop in the sand, followed by a round of rowdy calls.

Ty handed the rifle off, then threw his hands up and took a cheeky bow for the crowd. They ate it up, and Zane had to shake his head. His lover was a born entertainer who liked to kill things. How he wasn’t in a psychiatric ward or on a Most Wanted list somewhere was anyone’s guess.

Zane tore his eyes away from Ty to glance at Stuart. The man looked a little green now, and even Mark was shifting his weight nervously.

“Huh,” Annie said, turning to Zane with a suspicious look.

“What?”

Annie rolled her eyes. “You brought in a ringer.”

Zane’s lips twitched. “No. Although his lethality is a hell of a benefit.”

Annie smacked his arm once, then again, and Zane shoved at her hand, rubbing his arm and laughing. “Hey, I’ve got to shoot. Stop it!”

Annie poked him in the chest. “I have to go home with Mark! You know what kind of mood he’ll be in if you beat him?”

“You’re the one who pushed us to enter!”

“Yeah, well, I thought you’d bomb!”

Zane wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. It hurt to think he’d have to be the one to tell her that her husband was the bad guy, and he hoped Ty was wrong this time.
H
e looked up to see Ty walking—no,
swaggering
—over to the other shooters waiting their turn. He hugged Annie tighter.

Ty stopped in front of Mark first, smirking, and held out his arm. “Luck must have rubbed off on me,” he said as he swiped at his shirtsleeve. “Want it back?”

“Oh Lord.” Annie shoved at Zane’s chest and walked away. Zane smiled sadly. Annie still thought this was a friendly shooting competition.

Ty came to stand beside Zane, valiantly trying to restrain his grin. Zane glanced at him, snorted, and pressed his lips together hard to stave off the laugh. “You’re such a showboat.”

Ty turned to him, the sun reflecting off his sunglasses as a smile flitted across his lips. He pushed his hat back. “You telling me you didn’t enjoy that?”

“Oh, I enjoyed it a little too much. One down, several to go.” Zane grinned. “And at least you look good.”

Ty clucked his tongue. “Damn good.”

Zane couldn’t stop himself from sliding his hand against Ty’s back. Mark took up his spot and readied to shoot.

“Watch this,” Ty said, almost laughing.

“What’d you do?”

The crowd fell quiet. After a few heartbeats, Mark pulled the trigger.
His shot
grazed the rope but merely frayed it. He had missed the first and easiest shot.

Zane cleared his throat and stared at his boots for a long moment, trying not to tip their hand with his expression. “What’d you do?” he asked Ty under his breath.

“Got in his head, stole his luck,” Ty said. Mark turned to glare at them, and Ty pointedly wiped his imaginary luck off his shirt cuff, still grinning.

Mark rolled his eyes and set up again. He made the next shot, and the next. Ty was still laughing, obviously enjoying the mental game as well as the physical one. This was the same part of Ty that enjoyed profiling.

Mark ended up scoring one less than Ty, and although he looked like he was shaking it off, Zane didn’t miss his narrowed eyes as Mark walked off the range.

“I don’t care if we win,” Zane said as he watched Mark and Annie talk. “But I’d really like to beat him. And Stuart.”

Ty hummed. “Cut my cast off.”

“You know I don’t want to do that. You’re taking advantage of the situation,” Zane grumbled, though there wasn’t any heat behind it. Would it be horrible of him to consider re-injuring Ty’s hand if it meant beating Mark and that asshole Stuart in this stupid competition?

Ty looked over his sunglasses at Zane. “Okay. But I can’t promise a win with only one hand. And what if all hell breaks loose? I’ll need both hands then.”

“Tell me now, no shit, that your hand’s okay.”

Ty laughed incredulously. “It’s broken. Of course it’s not okay.”

Zane glanced toward Mark and back. “No,” he said, setting his fingers on Ty’s cast. It was the most pitiful excuse for a cast he’d ever seen, covered with signatures, phone numbers, a knife wound, several places where Ty had tried to saw at it, and tiger bites. Dirty beyond all reason, and it didn’t smell like the most wonderful thing in the world. It was probably uncomfortable, too.

“It’s not worth it,” he said, trying to tell himself that as much as Ty. “Besides, if we win anyway, it’s that much worse for him to know he got beaten by a man with a broken hand.”

“If you say so, Quickdraw.”

Zane turned to look at him, watching him raptly as Ty took a step forward and waved a hand when they were announced as the winning team for that challenge.

As a group they moved on to the next round, Ty hummed under his breath, his elbow brushing Zane’s. Zane soon made out the Battle Hymn in the hum, and he groaned.

At the next station, a bowl of fruit sat on the table, and the same Marlin .44 Special was being reloaded. The judge began telling the shooters what they were supposed to be doing, and the instructions made it clear that Zane would be the one trying his hand at this one. The shooter would take three oranges from the bowl, toss them in the air, and shoot as many as he could before they hit the ground.

Ty leaned over to whisper in Zane’s ear. “That rifle weighs six pounds. No way I can swing it with my hand. This one’s all you, big boy.” He smacked Zane’s ass and turned to head for the crowd.

“Ty,” Zane hissed. Ty turned to look at him. “Make yourself scarce, huh? This is the perfect shot to claim a misfire into the crowd, know what I mean?”

Ty nodded, but then he sauntered over to stand shoulder to shoulder with Stuart’s teammate in the front row.

“Great,” Zane said under his breath. He headed up to the table with the other competitors. He was a good shot with a rifle, that wasn’t his concern. But he’d have preferred a practice run with this shot. He just hoped he didn’t drop the rifle.

He stopped at the table with the others, and someone bumped his shoulder. He looked up to see Mark grinning at him.

“I didn’t figure he’d be able to do this one with that cast,” Mark said. “When was the last time you fired a rifle?”

“It’s been a while.”

Mark clapped Zane’s shoulder, hard enough that Zane had to take a step to keep his balance. “Buck up, brother. Time for a lesson from the master.”

Zane glanced at Ty. This was a bad idea. He knew the game Ty was playing with their quarry, and he shouldn’t have encouraged it. Ty raised his chin and gave Zane a languid smile. He didn’t look worried.

Mark volunteered to go first. Zane couldn’t shake the tension as he waited, praying he was wrong about his brother-in-law. He knew what kind of shot Mark was. If he missed one of those oranges and it went anywhere near the crowd, it was a warning shot, loud and clear.

Mark chose three oranges from the bowl, picked up the firearm, and moved into place. When the judge blew the whistle, Mark tossed, flipped the rifle up from the crook of his arm, and took the shots, quickly pulling the lever between each one. Juice flew through the air as all three rotten oranges exploded.

Zane released a pent-up breath, but he couldn’t relax. Just because Mark had yet to make a move didn’t mean he wasn’t going to. The next two shooters hit two each, one man missed all three, and Stuart caught all three even though he tossed them a little too close to the edge of the crowd for Zane’s comfort. Then it was Zane’s turn. He resisted the urge to look over his shoulder at Ty, but he imagined he could feel Ty’s eyes on him.

“Nothing like taking shots at a couple fruits, huh Garrett?” Stuart hissed as he passed by him.

Zane narrowed his eyes, refusing to rise to the bait.

He settled the rifle in the crook of his arm, nodded to the judge, and chose his oranges. They gave under his fingers, enough that he almost laughed, and it helped dispel the nerves. Determined not to dwell on what he was doing as he headed toward the mark in the sand, Zane took a deep breath, exhaled, and tossed the fruit, pulling up the rifle and shooting.

Two oranges disintegrated in the air, and the third exploded just before it was about to hit the ground.

Zane blinked in shock as the crowd applauded. He handed the rifle back to the judge before walking over to Ty with a shrug.

“You sure as hell showed those oranges who was boss,” Ty said, though the pride in his voice was easy for Zane to hear.

Zane chuckled, relaxing even more. “Never mind that it’s been a few months since I even touched a rifle.”

“You’re so getting laid tonight.”

“Lucky me.”

The contests continued, each event getting more outlandish and difficult, each rife with an undercurrent of antagonism and threats. Ty had to fire a Colt revolver over his shoulder using a mirror, holding it with his left hand, to shoot the ace of spades out of a playing card. He was the only shooter to even nick the card, much less the spade, and he came in first. Zane did both knife-tossing contests, the first to hit a stationary target, the second to hit a target painted on a watermelon as it swung like a pendulum. He won both and caused quite a stir when he twirled the knife around his hand before giving it back to the judge.

With each show of their skill, Stuart looked more and more mutinous. Zane could feel in every fiber of his being that something was going to happen tonight. The only question was who would instigate it—Ty or Stuart?

As sunset encroached, Ty was left to handle the last event: the lasso.

“Goddammit, Zane, you should have let me throw the first knife!” Ty hissed when the event was revealed.

Zane couldn’t help but laugh. Ty could handle any weapon someone put in his hands and do it with competence, if not skill. A lasso was the last thing Zane had expected, but even if they came in second place in this event, they would still win the whole thing.