Stars & Stripes (39 page)

Ty was shaking his head, muttering under his breath as they watched Mark take his turn. Before Zane could quell the urge, he pulled his lover close to give him a very public kiss. It caused a few gasps and murmurs, and Zane could feel all those eyes on them. He didn’t care. Ty didn’t flail or tense up, and Zane felt him smiling against his lips.

“Even if we don’t win this,” Zane said, “thank you.”

Ty nodded, lingering just long enough to make Zane’s heart beat faster. Then the judge called for the last contestant to take his turn, and Ty gave Zane one last glance and a smile before stepping out into the cleared arena. There were three targets, and the closer he came to the smallest target, the higher his points. The most he could get was six, and they only needed one point to beat Mark and Jamie.

Zane laughed heartily as Ty tried to get the rope settled in his left hand. He might have been able to handle the thick, heavy rope with both hands, but with his dominant hand in a cast, it was just too much for him.

The crowd began to buzz, ripples of laughter going through it.

“If I was a rodeo clown, you’d all be gored to death,” Ty said as he finally got the rope in place.

There was more laughter, and Zane realized he was grinning from ear to ear as he watched his lover make a spectacle of himself.

When Ty got the rope going in circles over his head, Zane thought his partner might actually have paid attention when he’d tried to teach him. He had good form, and the rope was swinging like it needed to. But then Ty released the lasso too early, and the toss came sailing toward Zane and the other contestants instead of the targets.

Stuart didn’t have time to dodge it; he just stood there as the rope dropped around his shoulders and Ty pulled it tight. He stumbled forward, arms trapped at his sides as the crowd burst into raucous laughter and applause.

“Sorry!” Ty said with a wave of his hand that pulled the lasso tighter.

“What the hell are you doing!” Stuart bawled. “You fucking moron!”

Ty pulled him forward again, and Zane could only shake his head as he watched, stunned by his partner’s gall.

Ty continued to apologize profusely, making a show of being a bumbling drunken idiot, and Stuart kept up a litany of cursing and accusations as Ty inexplicably managed to wrap him up even more instead of helping him out of the ropes.

“Wow, these things are really complicated, aren’t they?” Ty said over the raucous laughter of the crowd. Stuart lost his balance and tumbled to the ground. Ty stood over him. “How do you make it let go?”

Stuart’s friends came over to help, strong-arming Ty out of the way. He held up both hands and took a few steps back, the picture of innocence.

“You’re insane,” Zane said as soon as he drew close. Ty was grinning, his eyes sparkling in the dying sunlight as they watched Stuart struggle to get loose.

“I’ve always wanted to do that,” he said, as gleeful as a schoolboy who’d just caught a frog.

“And?”

Ty looked Zane up and down, as if sizing him up, then he gave a lecherous grin. “You think we could take one of those lassos home with us?”

“Ty, focus!”

Ty grinned. “We got him.”

“You’re sure?”

“Damn sure.”

Mark and Jamie were declared the winners amidst a round of polite applause as Ty and Zane discussed it. When Zane was declared the individual winner of the event, he looked around in surprise as everyone cheered.

“Nicely done, Big Iron,” Ty said to him.

Zane looked at him suspiciously as Ty patted him on the shoulder. If Ty had made that lasso toss, he would have won.

Harrison came up to smack each of them on the back. “Well, if it ain’t Pancho and Lefty. Looks like you caught you one,” he said to Ty with a big grin. He put his arm around Zane’s shoulder. “That was a mighty fine show you put on. Boy, I had no idea you could throw a knife like that.”

Zane felt himself blushing. Ty patted him on the shoulder and gave him a wink. “I’m going to go have a discussion with the sheriff,” he said, then left Zane alone with his father.

“I guess . . . we have a lot of catching up to do,” Zane said with a hopeful smile.

“You bet your ass we do.”

“Have you talked to Mother?”

Harrison’s jaw tightened and his eyes grew harder. He nodded curtly. “If she intends to make me choose between my wife and my son, she’s got a surprise coming. I hope you and your boy decide to come down more often.” Harrison threw a pointed look at Ty, who had melted into the crowd, shaking hands, laughing with strangers. He’d been accepted for the most part, whether by his own doing or Harrison’s influence, Zane didn’t know. Zane’s mother could sign all the legal documents she wanted; it wasn’t going to pierce through Zane’s armor now.

Zane nodded, throat tightening. “I think we’ll be able to manage that.”

Harrison patted him on the cheek. “Did you catch him?”

“Ty claims he has proof enough to get the sheriff. That’s what he’s doing now.”

“Let’s hope he’s right. Why do you look worried?”

Zane took a deep breath. “We think Mark’s involved.”

Harrison inhaled sharply. “I hope you’re wrong on that one, son.”

“Me too.”

Zane remained there as his father walked away, the feeling of warmth and acceptance spreading deeper into him. His mother and their suspicions of Mark were a small blight on an otherwise bright day. He set off into the crowd to find Ty again, feeling somehow that if it weren’t for Ty, he would never have come home, and he would have drifted through life alone until it killed him. Ty had given him a new home, and then shown him he still had his old one.

He was still musing over the twists and turns of life when a commotion broke out ahead of him. He pushed through the crowd to see what was going on, and somehow he wasn’t surprised to see Ty in the thick of it. Ty stood with the sheriff and two of his deputies, facing Stuart and his three friends. Stuart was in Ty’s face as the crowd cleared for them.

“You accusing me of something, boy?” Stuart was saying as Zane came up on them.

“I’m saying I know where you got that limp,” Ty said.

Stuart puffed up his chest like he was trying for courage as he glared up at Ty. Both deputies put their hands on their firearms, ready for a show of force.

Everyone and his brother was armed, and the tension was gathering in the air.

Zane stepped forward, standing behind Ty and the sheriff. The others joined him, Cody, Mark, and Joe finding their way into the clearing. Zane put Mark to his side, not allowing his brother-in-law to be behind him.

“You think you know something about me? Go ahead and say it!” Stuart shouted.

“You’ve been poaching tigers,” Ty said, as calm as the breeze. “You’re running something out there, and you shot me in the chest with a dart that damn near killed me.”

“You got no proof. Sheriff, this is ridiculous. You gonna let this queer come in here and tell you what to do?”

The sheriff nodded curtly. “He seems to know what he’s talking about, Stuart.”

“Bullshit! You got no proof!”

“You’ve got my knife in your boot.”

Stuart took a swing. Ty leaned away from it and trapped Stuart’s fist between both hands. He jabbed his elbow under the man’s chin, sending him reeling back, then kicked at his thigh and caused his leg to buckle. Stuart went to his knees, and Ty kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling into the dirt.

The sheriff and his deputies pulled their weapons, fanning out to surround Stuart and his cohorts.

Ty put one booted foot on Stuart’s neck, pressing down with the heel to keep him still. It had happened so fast that none of Stuart’s buddies had been able to move to help, and when the guns turned on them they each raised their hands, sinking to their knees without putting up a fight.

Harrison forced his way through the crowd. “What in the Sam Hill is going on here?”

Ty didn’t lift his boot off Stuart’s throat. “I put my knife into the thigh of one of the poachers who attacked me.”

Sheriff Barnes looked down at Stuart. The spot where Ty had kicked him was beginning to bleed. The sheriff pursed his lips, then bent to look in Stuart’s boot where Ty was pointing. He pulled a knife out of the sheath the man had tucked into his boot and held it up. It was a Strider SA model. A simple, sturdy knife about seven inches long. Zane knew the leather-wrapped handle was worn from years of use, and that the sheriff would find the words “S. SGT BT GRADY” engraved in the hilt.

The sheriff looked up at Ty and nodded. He pulled his radio from its belt and called to his dispatcher. “We caught the poachers.”

Ty moved his foot off Stuart’s neck as Zane joined him.

“There were more than four people involved,” Zane told the sheriff.

Ty and Zane stepped back to let the deputies handcuff their prisoners. They rolled Stuart to his belly and yanked his hands behind his back.

“You think you know everything, you fucking queers?” Stuart snarled against the dirt. “You got trouble in your own damn house!”

Zane stalked forward and bent down to grab a handful of his hair. “Trouble in
my
house? Who?”

Stuart gave him a toothy grin. “You got no idea.” He looked over his shoulder as he lay in the dust. “I want a lawyer.”

Ty grabbed Zane’s arm and pulled him up before Zane could throttle a restrained prisoner in front of witnesses.

“We need to go back to that pump house,” Ty hissed in his ear as he bullied him away from the others. Zane stopped fighting him and let himself be dragged to the edge of the crowd. “We need to do it now.”

Zane’s eyes landed on Mark, and he was unable to tear them away as he nodded. “Let’s get out there before he does.”

They slipped through the crowd, lost in the excitement of the confrontation, and headed around the barn, where the family had parked their vehicles to keep them out of the way and block off certain parts of the ranch from partygoers.

The chaotic hum of the milling crowd on the other side of the barn was overwhelmed by the distinct sound of a tiger roaring.

Silence overcame the ranch. The sound ripped its way through Zane’s body like nothing else he’d ever experienced, and he and Ty both froze in their tracks. The tiger roared again, the sound culminating in a low, seemingly endless rumble. It was like a purr from hell.

The crowd on the other side of the barn began to boil with panic. Screaming and shouting, people scrambled to get to safety.

Zane felt the hairs rise on his neck, a feeling of foreboding overtaking him as Ty’s hand tightened on his arm. He turned his head, knowing Barnum the Bengal tiger was there before he ever caught sight of him. Ty turned with him. Barnum sat twenty yards away, watching them. He chuffed and sniffed the air.

There was a buzzing sound over Ty’s harsh breaths and the sounds of the terrified partygoers, and Zane realized it was panic encroaching.

The tiger made another sound, an odd hissing that Zane soon realized hadn’t come from the tiger at all. It was Ty, making the same sound he did to call Smith and Wesson.

He did it again and took a step forward.

“Oh Jesus, Ty, this is not how I want to die,” Zane whispered.

“It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t!”

Barnum stood and lowered his head. He took a step to match Ty’s. Ty took another. Barnum chuffed and drew closer, looking wary.

“He’s scared, Zane.”

“Well, he should join the fucking club.”

“Come on, Barnum.”

“Ty, you are not the tiger whisperer,” Zane hissed.

Ty held out a hand to calm him, then took a few more steps toward Barnum. In the blink of an eye, Barnum lowered his body and lunged at Ty, wrapping his arms around his head and dragging his face against Ty’s as he stood on his hind legs and hugged him. His massive body dwarfed Ty, and Zane could only see Ty’s arms as he returned the tiger’s hug. Barnum continued to rub his floppy ear against Ty’s face.

Zane stood rooted to the spot, mouth hanging open, shaking his head.

After a few long moments, Barnum released Ty and sat down. Ty staggered back and leaned over, gasping for breath.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen,” Zane whispered, still stunned.

Ty began to laugh. “That’s what he did in his enclosure.” He held out his fist to the tiger, and Barnum smacked him with his paw like he was giving him a fist bump. “Loves to hug.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“We need to get those animal control morons over here. Or call the sanctuary, let them know we found him.”

“You’re a fucking idiot!”

Ty straightened and Barnum sent a low grumble in Zane’s direction. Ty shook his head, smirking a little. “My tiger disagrees, Zane.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Go call the place, I’ll stay here with him, keep him calm.”

“Fuck no.”

“Well, what do you want me to do with him?”

Zane stared. Both Ty and Barnum were looking at him with their heads cocked. He wasn’t even sure he was awake right now. “How tame is he?”