Stars & Stripes (29 page)

“Jesus.”

They waited, tense and on edge, but there was nothing more. Mark was growing restless and Zane desperately wanted to head off over the hills in search of the source of the gunfire, but the desert made it impossible to locate. They could do nothing but keep to the trail they were following.

Zane soon realized he could hear a buzzing sound over the clopping of the horses, and he hissed for everyone to halt again. It swelled until they all heard it: the distant growling of a car engine far to the east. Soon, it grew fainter.

“Shit.” Harrison stood in his stirrups and tried to peer off into the distance with his binoculars. “Sounds like they got what they came for.”

“Or they got run off,” Jamie added.

“We have to find Annie,” Mark said, growing more and more agitated.

They continued on, still following the tire tracks for lack of anything better to guide them. It wasn’t long before they heard the unmistakable sound of a galloping horse.

Annie topped a knoll and called out to them, her voice a panicked shout across the dancing heat waves. She urged her horse down the ridge toward them. Mark headed off after her, and he dismounted when he got close, pulling her off the horse to hug her.

Zane watched the ridge, his heart in his throat. A moment later, Ty’s horse topped the hill and picked its way down. It was riderless.

“Where’s Ty?” Zane demanded as soon as he came up on them.

Annie shook her head. Tears streaked her dirty face. “They shot him with a dart. He shielded me from it and told me to run.” She gasped out a sob. “I left him there.”

“Shot him?” Zane asked. His entire body had gone cold.

“It was a tranquilizer,” Jamie said. “Means he could still be alive.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Annie had told them that animal tranquilizers weren’t meant for humans, and some could kill in minutes. And then . . . this was Ty they were talking about. “He’s allergic to all kinds of medication, there’s no telling how he’ll react to animal tranquilizers. We have to find him.”

Annie gulped in air and shook her head. “The tranqs won’t matter, Zane. The tiger . . .”

“What?”

“We found the tiger right before they attacked us. They shot Ty, and I think he drove them away with his handgun. But . . . I left him out there with the tiger.”

They backtracked Annie’s trail, Harrison in the lead. Zane’s mind would not stop spitting out all sorts of scenarios, every one of which ended with Ty dying alone in the desert—the desert he dreamed about, the desert he screamed about in his sleep. Reacting to the tranquilizers and suffocating or having a heart attack or a seizure. Mauled by an angry tiger, shot by exotic animal smugglers as he tried to save Zane’s sister.

Several times, Zane almost had to stop to throw up, but he kept himself together. He could lose his mind after they’d found Ty, if he needed to.

Harrison halted on top of a high knoll and pulled his binoculars out again, scanning the land. He stopped and tensed, sitting up straighter. “Found him.”

Zane urged his horse forward. “Where? Is he okay? Let me see.”

Harrison lowered the binoculars and shook his head, giving Zane a look that made Zane’s heart leap into his throat. “I can’t let you see, son.”

“Why not?”

Harrison hesitated, glancing at the others before he choked out, “The tiger found him too.”

Zane’s stomach turned and his vision started to narrow. “No. Let me see.”

“No, son.”

Zane spurred his horse up the hill, reaching across the horn of his father’s saddle to snatch the binoculars from him. He aimed them in the direction Harrison had been looking. It took his trembling hand a moment to find the splash of color, but when he did, the bile rose in his throat.

The tiger lay recumbent in the middle of an arroyo, protected on all sides by low hills. He could see Ty lying nearly under the big cat. The red buff on his head was hard to miss, as was the lime green cast on his arm. The tiger was licking and gnawing on his hand like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. Zane could see no blood, though. No carnage. He focused in closer, desperate to spot a sign of life from his lover.

The tiger rolled onto his back, powerful legs stretching out to the side. Ty’s cast was in his mouth between gleaming white teeth. He rested his head on Ty’s outstretched arm as he chewed.

Zane frowned. Then he caught it, the barest of movement from Ty. The fingers of his right hand curled in a come-hither motion.

“He’s moving.”

“Probably muscle spasms, Zane,” Mark said, voice gentle and careful. “I’m sorry, but . . . that’s a goddamn tiger down there.”

“He’s alive. He’s . . .” Zane held his breath, hardly daring to hope. “I think he’s rubbing the tiger’s nose.”

“What?” Annie asked through a quiet sob.

“He’s goddamn petting the tiger.”

“
Petting
the tiger?”

“I’m going down there.”

“Zane, wait!” Annie cried as Zane urged his horse down into the arroyo.

At the sound of her shout, the tiger sat up in a rush and focused on him. His horse balked, dancing sideways at it caught wind of the big cat’s scent. The tiger lunged to his feet, letting out a roar that froze the very marrow in Zane’s bones.

Zane was peripherally aware of the horses panicking. Ty’s bay broke away from Jamie and ran. It took all of Zane’s skill to get his own animal under control again.

Zane stopped his horse from going closer, but the damage was done. The tiger bent and took Ty’s arm in its mouth, pulling him by his wrist across the arroyo bottom. Ty didn’t move, didn’t struggle. Zane’s stomach knotted, and he had to fight the urge to retch as he watched Ty’s limp body being dragged across the ground, at the mercy of one of the largest, most dangerous predators on earth.

Annie joined him on foot, breathless and pale. “Tigers are territorial, Zane. Either Ty is his meal, or Ty is his friend. Either way, he sees us as a threat. We have to drive him off or tranquilize him before we get anywhere near Ty. And I lost the dart gun.”

Zane nodded, dizzy and ill. Annie reached for his saddle, pulling the rifle out of its scabbard and pointing it into the air. She fired.

The tiger jolted away, bounding a few yards before hesitating and looking back at Ty’s limp body. He seemed confused and intimidated by their aggressive behavior. Annie fired again and again, each time driving the tiger further away. Zane urged his agitated horse forward, and the animal just seemed glad to be getting away from the gunshots as it barreled down the hill. Annie fired the last round in the rifle as Zane’s horse charged, and the tiger turned and ran, disappearing into the hills.

Zane dismounted while his horse was still moving, hitting the ground running and then sliding to his knees in the scrub brush next to Ty. Ty’s eyes were open and unblinking, his body contorted in the position the tiger had left him.

“Baby?” Zane said through a broken sob as he reached for Ty’s face.

Ty closed his eyes, a painfully slow gesture, and when he opened them again he was staring at Zane.

“Oh Jesus, Ty. Are you okay?”

Ty closed his eyes again. He tried to speak, lips barely moving.

“What?” Zane asked as he leaned closer.

“I hate Texas.”

Zane held Ty’s limp body in the saddle. It wasn’t comfortable, but Ty seemed to have no control over his limbs and little awareness of where he was or even who he was. Zane couldn’t allow him to be strapped to a saddle like a dead man, so he rode with Ty in front of him.

Joe and Cody greeted them when they trotted into the main yard, running to help get Ty off the horse when they realized he wasn’t conscious. Ty’s horse had beaten them there, tipping the others off that something had gone wrong. A police vehicle and an ambulance were already on the way, even though Joe confessed they’d all just thought Ty had fallen off his horse.

Ty was a dead weight in their hands, and they had to carry him into the house together. Annie ran to her truck and retrieved the well-stocked bag she took with her on calls, and then she followed them in.

Zane stood in the yard, stunned and staring at the open front door.

“Z?”

He turned to his father.

“You fall apart later, you hear me? Your man saved my little girl today. You go in there and be strong for him.”

Zane blinked at him, and then nodded. He headed for the house, putting one foot in front of the other. It was the only way he could manage to function.

The boys had placed Ty on one of the sofas in the den. Annie was checking his pulse and blood pressure.

“I don’t understand why he was even conscious,” she said to Zane when she realized he was there. “That dart should have dropped him before he could get off a shot, much less empty his clip. And he’s still partially responsive, even now. I don’t understand.”

Zane nodded and ran his hand over Ty’s forehead, then leaned down to kiss it. “He has strange reactions. Two Tylenol will wire him up just like one of those five-hour energy shots. Benadryl makes him sick. Vicodin makes him stop breathing.”

“Christ, there’s no telling what he’s going to do with this! I know he pulled the dart out; maybe he didn’t get a full dose. Maybe it hit bone. Get his shirt open, let’s see where it hit him.”

Zane pulled out his knife and put the blade to the collar of Ty’s Henley.

Ty reached up and grabbed his wrist. Annie screamed and dropped her stethoscope.

“Don’t cut the shirt.”

“Jesus, Ty, are you awake?” Zane tossed the knife to the floor and dropped to his knees beside Ty.

“I hate Texas,” Ty said without opening his eyes.

“Why does he keep saying that?” Mark asked from the doorway where he stood watching.

“Obviously, he hates Texas!” Zane snapped. “Why shouldn’t he? It keeps trying to kill him!”

Ty’s head lolled to the side.

“Ty?” Annie asked as she leaned closer to him. “Can you hear us?”

Ty groaned.

“Baby?” Zane whispered. He rested his chin on the couch, letting his nose touch Ty’s. He closed his eyes and put his hand against Ty’s cheek. “Are you in there?”

“I feel weird, Zane.”

Zane fought back a sob of laughter and ran his hand through Ty’s hair.

“What in the world is going on in here?” Beverly demanded as she came into the room. She saw Ty on the sofa and put her hands over her mouth. “Oh my God!”

“He got shot with a tranquilizer dart,” Mark told her. He and the others were staying out of the way, watching from the doorway.

“Will he live?”

“We think so,” Annie answered as she checked his heartbeat again.

“Oh my. We have guests coming, is he bleeding on the upholstery?”

Zane raised his head, meeting Annie’s wide eyes. Zane pushed to his feet and rounded on his mother, fire boiling through his veins.

“You bitch,” he growled, sounding stunned even to his own ears.

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped.

Joe turned and ran for the door, yelling, “Harrison!”

“How dare you talk to me like that!” Beverly shouted.

Zane felt Annie’s hand on his arm, pulling at him and trying to calm him. He shook her off. “The only thing you give a damn about is your reputation and that goddamned party. You have a man who could be dying on your couch and you’re bitching about the upholstery?”