Outlaw Lawman (18 page)

But she failed.

Curtis pulled the trigger not once but twice, both shots blasting so close to her ear that it drowned out all other sounds. Including whatever Harlan said to her. While he ran toward them, she saw his mouth moving, almost as if he were speaking in slow motion, but she couldn’t make out a word.

But she sure felt the impact of Harlan tackling Curtis.

Harlan was a big man, and all those solid muscles plowed right into them. All three went to the ground so hard that Caitlyn could have sworn she saw stars. The pain would have been well worth it.

If Curtis hadn’t managed to get off another shot.

Caitlyn couldn’t see where the bullet landed, but she prayed it hadn’t hit Harlan.

She rammed her elbow into Curtis’s stomach and felt the small victory when he yelped in pain. But her victory was short-lived, because he fired again.

And then he bashed the gun against the side of her head.

It was as if her brain exploded, and Caitlyn had no choice but to quit fighting. The only thing she could do was try to get out of the mix so she’d have a better chance of grabbing that gun from Curtis.

She twisted and turned. Tried to maneuver her body to the side. But she was pinned between them, and she caught the blows coming from both men’s fists. It was obvious that Harlan was trying to fight around her, but Curtis kept shoving her right at Harlan’s fist.

Caitlyn felt a hard jolt, and for a moment she thought she’d been punched again. But this was no punch. Someone took her by the shoulder, his grip hard and bruising, and he yanked her from the middle of the fight. She caught a glimpse of Slade’s face before he slung her on the ground behind him and went after Curtis.

Not that Harlan needed his help.

With her out of the way, Harlan clamped on to Curtis’s right wrist and slammed his hand against the tree. The gun finally went flying. But before it even fell, Harlan landed a crushing blow to Curtis’s jaw. His head flopped back and his body went limp.

Caitlyn’s vision was still blurred from the punches she’d taken. Her hearing sucked, too, because of the bullets fired so close to her ear. But she could see and hear enough to know that this fight was over. Farris was dead and Harlan hauled Curtis to his feet and bashed him into the tree.

Slade pulled a pair of plastic cuffs from his pocket and used them to restrain the man.

“I’ll transport him in my vehicle and call the sheriff to see if they have the situation at the morgue contained,” Slade volunteered. He looked back at her. “You okay?”

“Fine,” she lied. She tried to get up, but her legs were just too wobbly. Caitlyn decided to sit there for a few seconds and catch her breath.

The danger had passed, yes, but it would take a lifetime or two to forget how close they’d all come to dying tonight.

“You should probably run her by the hospital,” Slade suggested to Harlan.

Harlan’s gaze snapped to her, and she could have sworn the color drained from his face. She must have looked pretty bad for him to have that reaction, and he hurried to help her to her feet.

“Were you shot?” But he didn’t wait for her to answer. He shoved her hair from her face and looked her over.

“Not shot,” she assured him. However, her panic soon mimicked his when she saw the blood trickling down the side of his head. “Were you?”

He shook his head, snapped her to him and hugged her. It was a little too hard, considering that every part of her was hurting, but Caitlyn didn’t pull away. That hug was exactly what she needed.

“This isn’t over,” Curtis snarled. The look he gave them all could have frozen Hades.

“Sure looks like it’s over to me,” Harlan snarled right back.

Slade grabbed Curtis and got him moving.

“If you arrest me, he dies,” Curtis shouted over his shoulder.

That stopped Slade in his tracks, and he turned and stared at the man. “What the hell does that mean?”

Harlan moved closer, and because he still had her in his grip, Caitlyn got her legs working so she could move, too. This was probably some last-ditch ploy from Curtis to get them to release him, but Caitlyn was positive that wasn’t going to happen. Curtis had killed at least two people and had attempted to kill them. The only place he was going was to jail.

But still Curtis smiled.

Definitely not the expression she’d expected, and an icy chill went through her that was bone deep.

“I have an insurance policy.” Curtis’s smile widened. “If you arrest me, he dies.”

No.
That icy chill got significantly worse. “Who dies?” Caitlyn managed to ask.

“Kirby, of course. Must have forgotten to mention that I sent a hired gun to the ranch.” Curtis met Harlan’s stare head-on. “And if he doesn’t get a call from me in the next few minutes, his orders are to start shooting.”

Chapter Eighteen

Harlan couldn’t get his body to move fast enough. He whipped out his phone and punched in the number of the ranch office. The chief hand, Cutter, should have answered the landline, but it rang several times before the answering machine kicked in.

Hell.

He tried Wyatt’s cell next because his brother was supposed to be inside the ranch house with Kirby and Stella. But again it rang only once and then went to voice mail.

There could have been a dozen reasons for Wyatt and Cutter not to answer, but Harlan could think of only one very bad one.

The ranch was under attack. His family could need immediate help, and here he was a good forty-five minutes out.

“I’ll phone Sheriff Geary,” Slade volunteered. He kept a firm grip on Curtis and made the call so he could get some backup out to the ranch. Still, it would take the sheriff at least twenty minutes to arrive.

“My hired gun will be mighty hard to see in the dark,” Curtis bragged. “No telling how many places he could hide on a ranch and wait to ambush any- and everyone. You can get all the lawmen you know out there on foot, and it won’t save Kirby because you can’t kill what you can’t see.”

It took every ounce of Harlan’s restraint not to knock this guy’s teeth down his throat. “Call off your man,” Harlan demanded.

“Not a chance.” Any sign of gloating disappeared, and the eyes of a killer stared back at Harlan. “If I have to rot in a jail cell, then it’ll help knowing that you’ve lost someone you love.”

That did it. Harlan caught Curtis’s shoulder and bashed him into a tree. “Call off your man,” he repeated, and to get his point across he gave Curtis another hard knock.

Curtis laughed. “You think I can file charges for brutality? Heck, might even get the case thrown out because you beat a confession out of me.”

Not a chance, and while he would like to add more bruises and maybe a broken bone or two to Curtis’s injuries, it was clear this conversation was getting them nowhere fast.

“The sheriff’s on his way out to the ranch,” Slade relayed to Harlan. “He’ll try to contact Wyatt and the others, too.”

It was a good start, but not nearly good enough. Harlan needed a vehicle, and unfortunately his truck was literally in a bog.

“What about a chopper?” Caitlyn asked. “Do the marshals have one?”

Harlan shook his head. “The nearest one is in San Antonio, and the sheriff doesn’t have one either.” They were looking at an hour, maybe longer because it would take an approval higher than Saul to get a chopper in the air.

Kirby, Stella and God knew who else could be dead by then.

Caitlyn snapped her fingers, took his phone and started punching in numbers. “I’m calling my old boss” was all she said.

Harlan wasn’t sure she’d get anywhere with this call, but one thing good came out of it. For the first time since his arrest, Curtis actually looked concerned that his plan might not work.

“No time to explain,” Caitlyn said the moment her boss answered. She was talking so fast that her words ran together. “But you know all those favors you owe me—well, I’m cashing in. I need the news chopper in the air
now.
Get it out to the Blue Creek Ranch near Maverick Springs.” She paused. “Yes, that’s the place. Put on the search-and-find lights. There’s a gunman on the loose out there, and people are in danger.”

Harlan hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until she hit the end-call button and handed him back his phone. “He’s on the way out there.”

Good. Though a reporter probably wouldn’t have a way to take out the gunman, at least the lights might help pinpoint the guy’s location.

“My truck’s that way, parked just up the road,” Slade said, tipping his head in that direction and tossing Harlan his keys. “Take Caitlyn with you and leave now. Clayton, Declan and I will take this piece of slime and catch up with you.”

Harlan didn’t refuse his brother’s offer, and even though Caitlyn didn’t appear to be in any shape to run, he didn’t want to leave her alone there with Farris’s body. And he damn sure didn’t want her having to ride back to Maverick Springs with the man who’d just tried to murder her.

“Curtis could be lying,” Caitlyn said when he caught her hand and got them moving.

Yeah. And Harlan had to remind himself that a lone hired gun would be seriously outnumbered by Wyatt and the other ranch hands. Plus, the security system would have alerted them that they had an intruder trying to break into the house.

Well, unless Curtis had somehow managed to take that out, too.

But Harlan didn’t allow himself to go there. He just ran, and when it was clear that Caitlyn wasn’t going to be able to keep up with him, he scooped her up in his arms and ran as fast as he could.

His lungs were burning when he finally reached Slade’s truck, and he practically shoved Caitlyn inside. She clearly had injuries on her face and arms, and he prayed he wasn’t making things worse with his rough treatment.

“Give me your phone,” she insisted. “I’ll keep calling while you drive.” But she didn’t wait for him to hand her the phone—she yanked it from his pocket.

“Try Dallas first. His number should be in there because I called him earlier.” He started the engine and drove out of there fast.

Thank God there was no traffic at this hour. No rain or fog either. Of course, he’d be driving like a crazy man, so that created more than enough obstacles in their path.

Every passing second seemed to take hours, and with each of those seconds, his worries skyrocketed. Even if Caitlyn and he got there before the gunman could start shooting, that would only put her right back in danger. He couldn’t do that to her, but he had to help his family.

Caitlyn scrolled through the recently called numbers, located Dallas’s and pressed the button. Harlan heard the call go to voice mail. His nerves were already shot, and that sure didn’t help.

“Who should I try next?” she asked.

Harlan mentally went through the possibilities. “Try the house’s landline,” he finally said, and he rattled off the number.

He heard the rings from the other end of the line. And he prayed and waited. He stopped counting at five rings and was ready to tell her to hang up and call someone else. But then Harlan heard a voice.

Stella.

“Who’s there?” Stella demanded.

Caitlyn hit the button to put the call on speaker. “It’s me, Harlan. What’s going on?”

“Maybe some trouble,” the woman immediately answered. Her voice was a whisper. “Somebody set off that new security alarm, and Cutter, Dallas and Wyatt are out there trying to figure who it is.”

So unless this was a horrible coincidence, Curtis hadn’t been bluffing. He had indeed sent someone. Even though he was already speeding, Harlan went even faster, and prayed the miles would disappear between him and the ranch.

“It’s a gunman hired by Curtis Newell,” Harlan told her, “and he has orders to shoot up the place.”

“Great day in the morning.” Stella also mumbled something he didn’t catch. “I doubt Wyatt and the others will answer their phones. Probably got the ringers off. What should I do, Harlan? It’s dark out there, and trying to find a gunman would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Yeah, and the guy could just hide until he had an easy kill shot. “A helicopter’s on the way. It might help. In the meantime stay down and stay quiet. Kirby, too,” Harlan added. “I don’t want either of you taking any chances.”

“But if someone could get hurt—”

“Wyatt and Dallas know how to handle this,” he said, cutting off any protest. No way did he want Stella out there facing down a hired killer. “Sheriff Geary should be out there any minute now. Call him and tell him what’s going on so he doesn’t walk into an ambush.”

“I will, but get here as fast as you can.”

Oh, he would do that. He damn sure didn’t want Curtis claiming any more victims. It was bad enough that he’d gotten his hands on Caitlyn.

Harlan glanced at her, but it took more than several glances to take it all in, and what he saw turned his stomach. Even in the thin moonlight, he could see the blood. Not just one spot either but multiple places, including a line running from her eyebrow to her chin.

He’d lost count of how many punches she’d taken while in the middle of his fight with Curtis. Too many, that was for sure.

Harlan cursed, shook his head. “Look what that SOB did to you.”

“That bad, huh?” She leaned over and looked in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, that bad.”

Caitlyn used the back of her hand to swipe at the blood. Since there was blood on her hand, that didn’t work very well, so she grabbed some tissues from his glove compartment. But she didn’t dab at her face. She dabbed at his, and even though Harlan tried not to react, he winced when she hit a sore spot.

“Look what that SOB did to you,” she repeated.

Harlan didn’t want to do a mirror check, but he could feel some of his injuries. Maybe even a cracked rib or two. Still, he’d gotten off lucky.

Because Caitlyn was alive.

The realization of that miracle hit him so hard that he hooked his arm around her and pulled her closer to him. He needed to feel her next to him. Needed to know that she was somehow going to forgive him for not doing a better job of protecting her.

“I’m sorry.” He kept his eyes on the road, but he brushed a very gentle kiss on her injured cheek.

She pulled back, looked at him. “For what?”

“For not living up to that complete-package notion you had about me.”

That earned him a scowl. “I would give you an elbow jab for that, but I don’t want to add to the bruises.” She settled against him as if that was exactly where she belonged. “You lived up to the
notion
just fine.”

Harlan kept his attention fastened on the road, but he couldn’t push the other thoughts out of his head. Thoughts of Caitlyn. Not just of all the bad things that had gone wrong since she’d come back into his life. But of the things that had gone right, too.

Like this moment with her next to him. Making love to her. Hell, just being with her.

“Look.” Her head whipped up from his shoulder, and she pointed to the night sky.

Even with just a quick glance, Harlan saw the light in the distance. The helicopter had arrived and had a giant spotlight aimed at the ranch.

He hadn’t thought it possible, but time seemed to go even slower, and he could have sworn it took him an hour to drive those last two miles. However, the closer he got, the brighter the light was from the helicopter.

Harlan flew past his place and drove the last leg to the main house. When he took the final curve, he saw someone. And not just someone but a man holding a rifle. His heart went to his knees until he realized that someone was Wyatt.

And he wasn’t alone.

Dallas and Cutter were there. The sheriff, too, and they all had weapons pointed at a man kneeling on the ground.

Harlan slammed on the brakes and jumped out. Caitlyn did, too, and she hurried to his side. Just in case things weren’t as under control as he thought, Harlan stepped in front of her.

“You’re a little late,” Wyatt greeted him. “Thanks to the chopper, we found this moron about two minutes ago. Don’t worry. Everyone’s okay. He didn’t get off a shot.”

The relief was instant. A lot of prayers had been answered tonight. “You can thank Caitlyn for the chopper,” Harlan let his brother know.

“Well, thank you, darlin’.” It was Wyatt’s usual charming tone, and he aimed that rock-star grin at Caitlyn. A grin that dissolved right away when his gaze landed on them.

“Sheez, you two look like hell,” Wyatt mumbled at the same time Dallas said, “How many fights did you lose tonight?” Dallas didn’t wait for an answer, because his phone buzzed.

“We won the important one,” Harlan insisted.

Well, the important one against Curtis anyway. Harlan figured there was another battle he had left to fight, and this one was just as important as life and death. He put his arm around Caitlyn and pulled her closer to him.

“I’ll get this guy into town,” the sheriff volunteered.

“I want a plea deal,” the man grumbled as Sheriff Geary led him to the cruiser parked just a few yards away. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I’ve got proof that Sherry found out Curtis was laundering money. I stashed away some emails and notes. I’ll give ’em to you for a plea deal.”

“The only way that deal will happen is if you also have proof that Curtis killed her,” Harlan argued.

“Got that, too. He killed her himself. Strangled her right there in her office and then he had me help him cram the body into a freezer at my hunting cabin. I’ll show you where it all happened if I get that plea deal.”

Harlan wasn’t about to refuse the information, but it wouldn’t be needed to convict Curtis. Not only did they have his confession, he’d murdered Farris in front of them.

“Clayton, Slade and Declan are on their way to the jail with Curtis,” Dallas relayed when he ended his call. “And I just let the chopper crew know the threat was over so they could leave.”

Good. One less thing to worry about. Next on his list was getting Caitlyn checked out by the doctor. Well, the next to the next thing. He had something he had to get off his mind first, and it wouldn’t wait.

“I don’t want just a dinner date with you,” Harlan told her.

Caitlyn blinked, and thanks to the chopper he had no trouble seeing her surprised expression. He braced himself for some comeback that would dismiss everything they’d found together.

She shook her head. “And I don’t want just sex with you.”

Dallas cleared his throat and muttered something about needing to check on Kirby and Stella. Wyatt mumbled something about them finding a bed—soon.

Harlan ignored them both and kissed her. He tried to keep it gentle because they were cut in all the wrong places, but he wanted it to be hot and deep enough to cloud her head a little. Or maybe just to make her remember that they had something special here.

The sheriff’s cruiser drove past them. The chopper turned and whirled away, taking the clopping noise with it. But Harlan didn’t break the kiss until breathing became an issue.