Unbridled and Untethered [The Double Rider Men's Club 10] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (7 page)

Meanwhile, Luke had been completely puzzled. “Can’t you get her name from Clay?”

He shrugged. “I don’t think so. He’s kind of protective of her. The truth is, he wouldn’t tell me her name when I asked. Apparently, she’s afraid of men. Something about a difficult romantic past.”

“Difficult romantic past? Afraid of men? Fascinating. Guess I’m not quite seeing the flawlessness of this unnamed and unseen woman that
you
obviously do.”

“Well, I don’t think she’s afraid of
me
. She leaned over and tried to look at me when Clay blocked my view of her. The glance I caught of her trying to get a look at me was nothing short of spectacular.”

Luke shook his head. “Well, good for you. But what if she’s afraid of
me
?”

Zeke waved it off. “You aren’t scary. And we can just work up to the whole ménage-life issue slowly.” He’d turned to Luke then with an exuberant grin. “What do you think?”

Luke had shaken his head. “I think you’re touched in the head.”

His lifelong friend grinned even wider. “Maybe. But I know what I like. And I like her.”

The reverie from last weekend faded in his head as Luke finished his noonday ride on his favorite stallion, Marauder. He slowed his gait as he approached the homestead and headed to the barn. He brushed his horse down, gave him and extra ration of oats, and walked to the house.

The phone started ringing before he even got his hat off and shut the front door. The ominous feeling of impending dread struck him hard as he crossed to the phone stand in the front hall. He picked it up on the third ring.

“Hello,” he said with caution.

“Luke, it’s Clay. I’ve got some bad news.”

* * * *

Emma Rae grilled everyone she met in the hospital about information on Zeke. No one was talking. Either they didn’t know or more likely couldn’t say where he was or what his overall condition was. She heard the words “patient confidentiality” more than one time on her quest. If she heard it even one more time, she might tilt her head to the heavens and scream her lungs out in utter frustration.

She’d held Zeke’s still hand until the EMTs came into the vault to tend to him. They loaded him onto a stretcher. They’d wheeled him out of the bank quickly. Although she’d stayed with the gurney all the way to the waiting ambulance, she hadn’t been allowed to go with him. She wasn’t a family member. In fact, they were barely acquainted, but he’d stood in front of her when a gun was pointed in their direction more than once. Plus, he kept her out of the clutches of the gunman who wanted to rape her. This was obviously a man she could trust.

Unable to ride along in the ambulance with Zeke, she was then rounded up along with the other bank patrons and put in a second ambulance. The authorities told them all it was standard procedure in cases like this. The bank wanted to ensure their patrons weren’t seriously hurt, so a mandatory hospital visit was required. Emma Rae ended up at the hospital to be looked over, just in case. Unfortunately, the bank officer they’d last seen in the safety-deposit-box room left in the coroner’s vehicle.

Once released from the hospital, she’d been taken to the police station. Detective Rollins put her in a small room and asked a battalion of questions starting with her account of events before, during, and after the robbery started.

They also tested her hand for gunpowder residue because she’d fired the paunchy gunman’s pistol at the third bank robber. She’d already admitted to using the weapon. The test on her would obviously be positive. She’d told them about shooting at the man who’d ultimately escaped the authorities back at the bank. She told the police at the scene that she fired the gun four times total but didn’t know for certain if any of her bullets had hit the third gunman.

Detective Rollins opened a file folder in front of him. “We’re testing some drops of blood found in the back hallway. Could be the bank officer’s though, so we won’t know for certain until the results come back.”

“Am I going to be in trouble for shooting at him?”

“Did you hit him?”

She shrugged. “I have no idea. My hand was shaking so hard it was a wonder I didn’t drop the thing and shoot my own foot. I’m not certain if he got hit, but it’s possible.”

The heavyset detective pushed out a breath. “A report will have to be filed. I can’t promise what action will be pursued at this time, if any at all. But I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.” He winked at her.

Emma Rae relaxed back in her chair until he asked the next question.

“Did you know the bank employee who died?”

“No.” She shook her head to further display her lack of knowledge. “But I believe he was a loan officer. I saw one of the robbers kick him in the head when they first arrived. He was led from the main bank lobby almost immediately.”

“What about the two alleged robbers who
didn’t
escape?”

“Zeke beat up the one who dropped his gun. That’s also the one who shot his cohort in the mêlée before he dropped the weapon. Is the young robber dead from the wound?”

“No. Luckily for him, the bullet didn’t hit anything vital. He’s in surgery but expected to recover.”

He cleared his throat and asked, “What about the other bank patron? The one who was with you in the vault who got shot in the chest? Is he your boyfriend?”

Emma Rae didn’t respond and especially refrained from expressing or gushing out any foolish personal data on how Zeke made her feel. They’d only just met there and had only seen each other one brief other time at Clay’s fortress.

She purposely deflected her answer with a question of her own. Perhaps he knew what happened to Zeke. “Will he be okay? The last time I saw him he was unconscious as they loaded him in the ambulance. I wish I could have gone with him. He saved my life, twice.”

The man looked startled. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any further information on his prognosis. So you
did
know him? Is he your boyfriend?” he asked again.

She shook her head again. “No. He’s not my boyfriend. We only just met at the bank. But like I said, he saved me from one of the masked guys.”

“Tell me about that.”

Emma Rae went into very minute detail about the harrowing experience, from when the men entered the bank to when the one escaped. Excluding the intense kiss she and Zeke shared, Emma Rae told the detective about the safety-deposit boxes they emptied into the white bag and being led into the vault, and continued with the gun landing at her feet from the man who’d wanted to violate her. She finished her official statement with the sudden entrance of the third gunman who grazed Zeke in the arm first before shooting him in the chest.

“After Zeke got shot in the arm, he pointed his gun like he was about to shoot him in the head. I couldn’t let that happen. I grabbed the other gun resting at my feet to threaten him, but my hand shook so much he apparently didn’t take me seriously. He laughed. So I took a shot and missed. I’d hoped to scare him off. But he wasn’t scared. He fired off a shot that hit Zeke in the chest. So I fired three more times in his direction.”

“But you don’t know if you hit him?”

“No. He backed up and exited as I fired the weapon. In fact, I think I may have closed my eyes when I fired the three rounds. Seriously, it’s a wonder I didn’t shoot myself in the process.”

The detective faithfully wrote notes down over the course of an hour. She was beginning to think her past troubles with the law might not come back to bite her in the ass. She should have known
that
was too good to be true.

Another officer interrupted as they were finishing up. He was short and heavyset with thinning red hair. He called Detective Rollins away from the table and whispered something to him. They retreated to the hallway for a lengthy discussion.

When Detective Rollins came back into the room and then to the table, he seemed different. His previously jovial mood had darkened. She really hated when men changed from nice to not so nice.

“Is something wrong?” she asked. Was it something about Zeke? Was he okay?

“Miss Madison, there is some information you neglected to tell us regarding your history.”

“What else do you want to know?” Emma Rae had a pretty good idea of
exactly
what they wanted to discuss. It would have taken a miracle to keep her personal history a secret.
Damn bastard men from my past.
Unfortunate incidents from her long-ago foolish, young life always seemed to roar forward at the least opportune times. That untoward event was the reason she’d had to move to Ryder, Colorado.

“Why don’t you tell me about the man you shot two years ago?”

* * * *

Clay paced the floor of the hospital’s waiting room to release the nervous energy seemingly coursing through the marrow of his bones. Alongside of him Zeke’s best friend, Luke, paced his own path of pent-up frustration. The hospital hadn’t been very forthcoming with information on Zeke’s condition. Zeke’s boss at the US Treasury was the only one getting updates. He wasn’t at the hospital, but luckily, he was passing any new medical information to Luke and Clay, albeit slowly.

Zeke had arrived at the hospital already unconscious. And whether it was from the head trauma or the bullet to his chest was unclear. Currently, he was undergoing surgery to remove the bullet from his torso. His last prognosis was guarded but stable. Whatever the hell
that
meant.

A young doctor that looked like he wasn’t even out of puberty yet came with the positive news that Zeke was out of surgery. He informed them reluctantly, since they weren’t family, that there had been no complications during the surgery. The staff was hopeful but naturally cautious at the possibility of his full recovery.

Clay resisted the urge to ask Doogie Howser how old he was as he explained what happened next. They’d sent Zeke to ICU post surgery for his immediate recovery. They’d eventually get him set up in a regular semiprivate room as long as his condition didn’t worsen. Visitation could begin as early as later in the evening, but they wanted him to be fully awake from the anesthesia before visitors would be allowed.

Clay didn’t want to leave without at least getting a glance of their friend.

When the doctor left to check on another patient, Luke asked, “Do you know what happened at the bank?”

“Not everything.” Clay had received a frantic phone call at the scene from Emma Rae as she was being loaded into an ambulance. She’d been talking a mile a minute about Zeke and a bank vault and a shooting and lots of blood. He’d had to wait for her to wind down before he could ask questions to figure out the bare bones of what had happened.

“How did you find out about this so fast, Clay? Usually it takes me forever to find out Zeke’s in trouble. Not that it happens very often.”

“A friend of mine was at the bank at the time and gave me a call to let me know what had happened.”

“I didn’t think he was in the field this week. Was Zeke at the bank for his job?” Luke had asked a plethora of similar questions earlier that Clay still didn’t have the answers for.

“No. I don’t think so. The person who called me mentioned that he was there making a withdrawal for poker night on his lunch break.”

Luke tipped his head up, shaking it back and forth as he stared at the ceiling. “This is so stupid. He’s faced how many dangerous situations over his career. But he gets shot in a bank robbery a mile from home trying to get poker money. So who’s the friend who called, anyway? Was it Zeke’s boss?” Luke turned away and stared down an empty hallway to the left. He murmured absently, “I should go find some cellular reception to thank him.”

“It wasn’t Zeke’s boss.” Clay didn’t know what possessed him to speak. He likely should have let Luke think it was Zeke’s boss who’d initially called him.

He turned immediately to face him. “Then who was it?”

Clay allowed his expression to go blank for a moment. Should he tell Luke about Emma Rae? Zeke had barely seen her once and been infatuated. Eventually Luke would find out. Plus, he couldn’t think of a good reason not to reveal it was Em. He finally said, “
Her
name is Emma Rae.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed. “So this Emma Rae, she’s your friend?”

Clay nodded. He must have been giving off reluctant vibes, because then Luke got very inquisitive.

“How do you know her? Was she recently at your communication lair?”

“Maybe.”

Luke continued his hard-hitting questions. “Is this by any chance the girl Zeke fell in love with when he saw her at your security building a few days ago?”

He shoots, he scores.
Shit.

Clay turned away and said, “No comment.”

“Which means yes.”

“No comment,” Clay practically growled. He hated to be in the middle of secretive romantic emotional crap like this. He sided with Em, if she didn’t want a relationship. He sided with Luke and Zeke because they’d been friends so long with the DRMC. He refused to come in the middle of this issue.

Luke put a hand on Clay’s shoulder. His expression was sincere. “Just tell her thank you for me, okay? Normally, I might not have found out until he didn’t show up at home tonight.”