Zack (Armed and Dangerous Book 1) (26 page)

“And everyone else’s.” Wayland nodded as he watched the men rounding up the herd. “Recognize any of them?”

“Hard to tell from here.” Zack clenched his fist, imagining the pleasure he’d take in knocking the crap out of the SOB he was sure was responsible.

“They’re finished loading the trailer,” Wayland said as the rustlers slammed the gate behind the last cow they’d loaded. “Looks like we’re going to have to go in without backup.” “Rider is here, too.” Zack’s mouth set in a grim line as he glanced at Wayland. “He’s a fed. DEA.”

The sheriff nodded. “The way the man handles himself, I’m not surprised.”

“Sky’s got to be down there,” Zack said. “I haven’t been able to spot her.” His voice came out in a low growl as he added, “She’d better be all right, or whoever hurt her is dead.”

Wayland glanced at him, a hard look on his face as he nodded. “Yeah, take care of Skylar first.” Wayland’s expression said he’d do the same thing if he were in Zack’s shoes. “These guys aren’t going anywhere.”

“Let’s do it,” Zack said as the men had almost finished loading the stock trailer.

Both Zack and Wayland started forward when a furious shriek cut through the sounds of the cattle and men’s voices and the blood in Zack’s body surpassed the boiling point.

A woman.

Sky.

***

After tying her wrists in front of her with rough baling twine, one of the thieves threw her on the dirt next to the truck. The rustlers left Sky alone as they loaded up the cattle. She sat on the ground, her back against a truck tire, her tailbone and ass hurting from hitting the ground so hard.

The men were obviously stupid when it came to women being armed. They hadn’t bothered to check her for more weapons after taking her S&W, so her utility knife was still in her right front pocket. While the rustlers were busy stealing cattle, she bent her knees so her hands couldn’t be seen from where they were, bound in front of her.

Whistles, horse hooves, and the sound of bawling cattle echoed in the night as the men worked the cattle.

Sky set to trying to get the utility knife out of her right front pocket. It had worked down so deep she was having a hard time reaching it. Her fingers ached and the twine chafed her wrists as she maneuvered her hands. She was beginning to think she’d never dig the pocketknife out when she finally got a good grasp on one end of it.

The men’s voices around her were loud and would easily have been heard by ranchers if they weren’t so far from the nearest ranch house.

Her breathing came hard and fast and her heart pounded as she struggled to get the blade out. She was biting the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood.

Sky gave a huge sigh of relief when she managed to pull the knife out and into her palms. She fumbled as she worked to open the damned pocketknife.

There.

She didn’t give herself a moment to appreciate the small victory. She was just about to see if she could cut the twine binding her wrists when she noticed one of the men approaching her. A man in a sheriff’s deputy uniform.

Her eyes widened.

Gary Woods.

“Gary?” The closer he came, the greater the shock. “You’re part of this?”

She barely had the presence of mind to hide the knife between her hands and her bent knees. She hoped Gary hadn’t somehow seen the metal glinting in the moonlight.

Gary gave a low chuckle as he ambled closer, an arrogant look on his face she didn’t recognize.

His expression turned hard when he reached her. “We’ve got a bit of lost time to make up for, Skylar.”

She had a hard time shaking off the surprise at seeing him and learning he was one of the rustlers. “What are you talking about?”

He crouched in front of her and his handsome features seemed strangely twisted in the moonlight. “I wasn’t good enough for you, was I?” he stated. “Wouldn’t give me the time of day.”

Sky’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t get over the stunned feeling that had temporarily overtaken her anger. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Gary’s humorless laugh grated on her fraying nerves. “Like I said, not good enough for you to even notice me.”

As the men continued loading the trailer, Gary reached out and caressed her cheek with his knuckles. She gritted her teeth and refused to recoil from the deputy’s touch.

The smells of chewing tobacco and alcohol on his breath made Sky’s stomach churn. She could tell he was drunk as he said, “I’m going to get what I want and fuck you until I’ve had enough.” A crazy glint was in his eyes as her stomach churned. “And that may be a while.”

“Like hell,” Sky growled at the same time her skin chilled. “You’ll never get close enough to me.”

Gary laughed. “I could drag your pants down and do it right now in front of these shitheads who can watch me fuck you unconscious.”

Sky narrowed her eyes. Her legs hadn’t been bound, so she could kick the crap out of him. She was going to make him wish he hadn’t shown up tonight.

“Load the bitch up and let’s get the hell out of here.” A man guided his horse closer to where Gary was with Sky. “You can have your fun when we get this shipment to Albuquerque.”

“You’re a sneaky bastard, aren’t you?” Sky glared at Gary. “I bet you’ve been making sure the sheriff’s department was always following some false lead you’d planted while you’ve been laughing your ass off.”

The man on the horse scowled and cut in, “Yeah, but if Woods here hadn’t screwed up, we’d have some of your prime stock. Damn that Rider. Kept us from scoring that pricey bull.” She found it hard to talk with her jaw clenched as she narrowed her gaze at Gary. “You were the one who trashed my office and destroyed over a hundred years’ worth of records.”

“And I poisoned your stupid dog—unfortunately he didn’t eat enough to die.” Gary gave a loud snort. “Some payback for blowing me off.”

Rage filled her.
“You. Poisoned. Blue.”
Her entire body burned and the additional heat rising up within her actually made her sweat. “I’m going to kill you.”

Gary snorted.

Sky’s mind was still so overcome with fury over Blue that she could barely speak. “Why are you doing all of this?”

Gary shrugged. “Business is business. I’ve got bills, and working for the county doesn’t pay for shit.”

“Ah, this ain’t nuthin’.” The man on the horse slicked his hair back with one hand while his gaze raked over Sky. “This has just been a cover for the real money.”

“Shut up, asshole.” Gary’s expression darkened as he looked at the man.

“Were you the one who beat up Hector?” Sky said as she glared at Gary.

“Fucker should have died.” Gary’s mood seemed to turn blacker as he glanced at the other men. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

The man turned his horse toward the other two men who were standing at the back of the truck, men Sky hadn’t recognized.

The men were all out of sight when Gary said, “Yeah, this is going to be fun.” He stood and leaned over to grab Sky by her upper arms.

As he started to touch her, Sky drew her knee up and shot out her foot. “No goddamned way.” At the same time, she screamed with the force of her fury and slammed her foot into Gary’s kneecap with all the power she possessed. “That was for Blue,” she shouted.

A sickening pop traveled from the sole of her boot and up her leg as his knee buckled.

Gary screamed and dropped to the ground, landing flat on his ass.

At the same moment, Sky clenched the handle of the pocketknife with both bound hands and launched her body at him. “And this is for Hector.”

She brought her arms down hard, driving the knife through the thick leather of his boot as she came down, and drilling the blade into his foot.

“Fuck!” he screamed again.

“You son of a bitch.” She landed on her belly, her hands still around the knife hilt, her face close to the foot she’d just impaled.

“Bitch!”
Gary’s face was contorted with pain, a sheen of sweat glossing his forehead, glittering strangely in the moonlight.

Gary yanked a gun out of his holster, his hands trembling and sweat rolling down his face. “You’re going to pay, you goddamn whore,” he said before he backhanded her so hard her head snapped to the side.

Sky’s vision went blurry as pain burst in her head. Dizzy, she looked at Gary.

And felt blood draining from her face as she stared down the barrel of the gun that shook from the force of his trembling— the metal a mere foot from her face.

I’m going to die.

Just as she expected to feel a bullet slam into her, a snarling blur flung itself at Gary, knocking the gun out of her face.

Blue.

The gun flew from Gary’s hand and he screamed as the Border Collie sank his sharp canines into the deputy’s arm.

And then it was chaos.

Zack whipped around the truck, his gun pointed right at Gary.

At the same moment, Clay Wayland shouted, “Police. You’re under arrest,” as he trained his weapon on one of the men while on guard for the men who weren’t in sight.

“Son of a bitch!” Gary shouted as he struggled to get the vicious border collie to let go of his arm. “Should’ve given you more poison.”

Just hearing Gary talk about what he’d done to her dog burned fury through her veins again. With everything she had, Sky rammed her boot into Gary’s balls. “And that one’s for me, you bastard!”

Gary curled into a fetal position, tears actually rolling down his face.

The man on the horse wheeled his mount around and bolted into the darkness.

Zack kept his gun trained on Gary as he grabbed handcuffs from his belt. “If Sky and Blue hadn’t taken you down first, you’d be unconscious right now.”

Fear, relief, and fury cycled through Sky like a tornado as she watched Zack and the scene unfolding before her.

Hands still tied, Sky scrambled away from Gary, leaving the knife in his boot. She saw that Sheriff Wayland had the other two men cuffed and face down in the dirt. “ ’Bout time you made it, Rider,” the sheriff said.

Squinting, Sky peered into moonlit night and saw that the man who’d been on the horse was being marched back toward them at gunpoint—and Luke Rider was the man behind the gun.

“Nice of you to join us,” Zack said as he cuffed Gary, who was still rolling in pain and trying to get Blue to release his hold.

Luke offered a tight smile. “Are we missing anyone?”

“One more,” Sheriff Wayland said. “You keep an eye on these bastards and I’ll get the other.”

“No need.”

Everyone swung around and Sky caught her breath as she saw Wade Larson—with a rifle pointing at the fourth rustler’s back. “This son of a bitch was one of my ranch hands. Figured out today he was one of the rustlers screwing us over.”

“I’ll take it from here, Larson.” Clay Wayland drew out another set of handcuffs and had the fourth man down and cuffed in two seconds flat.

Sky’s attention turned to Zack and Gary. The sour, acidic smell of puke made her want to gag. Gary had upchucked when she’d let him have it in the balls. Yeah, it’d take him weeks before he’d be walking straight again.

One-handed, Zack grabbed Gary by the front of his shirt and hauled him up. Gary’s face was white and he was shaking, his eyes nearly rolling back in his head, and there was no way he could stand on his own.

Zack brought Gary’s face close to his. Zack’s eyes and expression were tight with fury—Sky had never seen him so angry. “If you ever touch my woman again, I’ll kill you, you miserable bastard.”

Zack shoved Gary away from him. The deputy went sprawling flat on his back, shrieking out in pain.

Zack turned and scooped Sky up from the ground, holding her so tight she could hardly breathe. She thought she felt his body tremble against hers.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” he said before he kissed her hard, like he was reassuring himself she was okay. And like he was never going to let her go.

Sky kissed him back with such equal fervor that she thought she might cry—what if she’d never had the chance to kiss him again?

To not have Zack... she couldn’t even begin to think about that right now. She was just thankful they were both alive.

Eric Torres, Rider’s men, Tyler and Joe, Zack’s brother, Cabe, and several of Wayland’s deputies arrived about the same time they finished subduing the prisoners.

After Zack kissed Sky over and over again, reassuring himself that she was all right, he removed her bonds and insisted she sit with Blue off to the side with one of the deputies. She seemed a little shaken up, which was no surprise, but still the tough, confident woman Zack loved.

When he could get himself to leave her, he checked beneath the trailer’s chassis. Sure enough, dried yellow mud was clumped beneath it.

Clay Wayland took Luke and Zack aside. “Fill us in on how the hell you’re involved, Rider,” Wayland said. “Must have something to do with smuggling drugs across the line.”

“We’ve been after Woods for some time.” Rider jerked his head in the direction of the former deputy, who was sitting and shouting out promises to hurt Sky for what she’d done to him. “He got himself involved with a Mexican drug cartel. Woods has been trying to pay off heavy gambling debts.

“From the intelligence we’ve gathered,” Rider continued, “this whole rustling scheme was designed not only to provide Woods with more cash but to keep the focus off what’s really going on. The biggest drug deal of its kind is going down around here, and soon. Real soon.”

Clay Wayland narrowed his brows. “Why the hell wasn’t I informed about any of this?”

Rider said, “We couldn’t be positive that no one else in the sheriff’s department was involved, or in any of the law enforcement branches here for that matter. That’s part of my job—to sort out the good guys from the bad guys.”

Rider’s gaze cut to Sky, who was walking toward them. “But this stays with the three of us. You’re not to tell anyone else.” Zack studied Rider. “I expect full details tonight. We may have enough evidence that we can get an affidavit signed by the assistant U.S. Attorney and the magistrate that’ll get us our search warrant. Especially if we can get any of these bastards to talk. That’ll take care of the way the beef is getting to Mexico.”