Part 18 (2/2)

She screamed and tried to get off the horse, but her boot was stuck in the stirrup. Riding in front of her, McCall spun his horse around and was already leaping down as the man grabbed her calf with his free hand.

McCall lunged at the man, knocking him to the ground with the b.u.t.t of the rifle.

Regina's horse reared and suddenly she was falling through the air. She landed on the ground hard, all the air knocked from her lungs.

When she looked up she saw McCall standing over Will Jarvis, the rifle pointed at the man's head.

”Are you all right?” McCall cried, moving to her side, while keeping the rifle aimed at Jarvis.

She could only nod.

”Can you move?”

She nodded again. But she didn't want to move. She wanted to lie here. She promised herself she would never get back on a horse.

”Help me,” Jarvis whispered.

She could see the blood across the front of his coat, on his hands and the knife, and realized it was his blood he had all over him.

He released the knife, dropping it as his fingers opened and his eyes closed.

She heard another noise. McCall turned to listen. It sounded like a vehicle coming slowly up the mountain. As she turned her head, she thought she saw what looked like a dirt track down the hillside through the trees. A road?

J.T. motioned her to silence as a truck came around a bend in the road below them.

She saw the Sundown Ranch logo on the side and began to cry. There was no way the driver would be able to see them up here on the hillside. He would drive right past.

McCall raised the rifle, the barrel pointed to the sky and fired three shots. They boomed in the morning air.

The driver of the truck hit his brakes. Dust boiled up. McCall fired another three shots and the driver was out of the car, looking up the hillside.

Regina closed her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks. When she opened them, two men with blond hair and blue eyes were looking at her in something close to disbelief. One of the brothers, the one J.T. was calling Cash, had on a sheriff's uniform.

Vaguely she remembered McCall lifting her from the ground, touching her forehead, his palm ice-cold and him saying, ”My G.o.d, she's burning up.”

He'd carried her down to the truck. She remembered leaning against him, her face buried in his chest, his arm around her, s.h.i.+vering, trying to say something but her lips felt so dry and her mind so filled with fog.... She thought she recalled McCall's lips against her hair whispering, ”You're going to be all right, Reggie” as the truck b.u.mped down the mountainside.

Chapter Fourteen.

”Who is this woman, James Thomas?” Shelby McCall demanded of her son as she drew him aside into the empty den and motioned for him to take a seat.

J.T. was too tired to argue. He sat and scrubbed a hand over his face. He hadn't slept last night, instead spending the hours beside Reggie's bed after the doctor had left. ”It's a long story.”

He was anxious to hear from Cash, to find out if they'd found Claude Ryan. If Claude really was alive.

After the pickup ride down the mountain with J.T. and Reggie, FBI agent Will Jarvis had been taken to the hospital where he had been flown to Billings for immediate surgery. The last time J.T. had checked, he was still in surgery for knife wounds.

But before Cash had got him out by helicopter from the ranch, Jarvis had said he'd wounded Claude badly and that they should look for his body on the mountain.

Unfortunately, Claude had also wounded the agent. Will Jarvis was lucky to be alive. If he hadn't headed for the county road and stumbled across J.T. and Reggie...

”James Thomas?” His mother had her arms folded in front of her, waiting for his answer as if she had all the time in the world. She did.

”I'd rather hear about what's going on with you and the old man,” he said. He'd seen his mother and father with their heads together earlier, then Asa had left, taking Brandon and Dusty with him to try to find the missing cattle.

Cash had gotten a call from a bow hunter who'd seen a bunch of cattle with the Sundown Ranch brand on national forest land in the Bighorns south of the cow camp.

”Looks like your killer wasn't after the cattle,” Cash had said before leaving with the state investigators.

”You and the old man seemed to be arguing about something,” J.T. said, watching his mother. She had never told any of them why she'd come back here after pretending to be dead for so long.

She gave him a look that only a mother can pull off even though she hadn't been in their lives for over thirty years. ”Don't call your father 'the old man.”' Were those tears in her eyes? She really did seem to love the old man. ”About this woman...”

J.T. shook his head, raked a hand through his hair and sighed. ”I met her on the highway. She had a flat. I fixed it. She works for a blue jeans company and she was in Montana looking for a cowboy to do a commercial.” He glanced at his mother. She was still waiting. ”Reggie got the idea that I was that cowboy. I told her I wasn't interested but as determined and foolhardy as she is, she conned Buck into giving her a job as our camp cook.”

Shelby lifted a brow.

J.T. nodded. ”You know the rest of it, at least as much as I do.” He'd barely reached the ranch when the call had come in from a neighboring rancher that they'd found Buck and taken him to the hospital. He had a mild concussion and some abrasions, couldn't remember what had happened to him. He thought he'd been bucked from his horse. But he was doing well and was expected to be released by the end of the week.

J.T. wanted to go see him, but couldn't leave Reggie. Nor could he leave the ranch until he heard from Cash.

”This Reggie sounds like quite the woman,” his mother commented.

J.T. smiled. ”She is something, all right.”

Shelby was eyeing him intently. He still couldn't call her mother. ”You obviously care about her.”

”I'm just worried that she's going to be all right,” he said, wanting this conversation over. The doctor had said Reggie needed bed rest. She was suffering from exhaustion and a low-grade infection from a cut on her leg.

He'd noticed the cut on her calf last night when they'd made love in the cave. She'd said she didn't remember when she'd gotten it. The past few days had been so crazy....

”It's all my fault,” he said.

”Oh, stop looking so down in the mouth,” his mother said. ”She's going to be fine. She can stay here as long as she needs to. But what about this commercial?”

”I refused to do it.”

Shelby gave him that mother look again, making him think of all the years he'd been spared it.

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