Cut and Run 6 - Stars and Stripes

with a distinctive curse, held up his broken right hand and waved it, then aimed at the last rope.
    The weight dropped with an anticlimactic plop in the sand, followed by a round of rowdy calls.
    Ty handed the rifle off, then threw his hands up and took a cheeky bow for the crowd. They ate it up, and Zane had to shake his head. His lover was a born entertainer who liked to kill things. How he wasn’t in a psychiatric ward or on a Most Wanted list somewhere was anyone’s guess.
    Zane tore his eyes away from Ty to glance at Stuart. The man looked a little green now, and even Mark was shifting his weight nervously.
    “Huh,” Annie said, turning to Zane with a suspicious look.
    “What?”
    Annie rolled her eyes. “You brought in a ringer.”
    Zane’s lips twitched. “No. Although his lethality is a hell of a benefit.”
    Annie smacked his arm once, then again, and Zane shoved at her hand, rubbing his arm and laughing. “Hey, I’ve got to shoot. Stop it!”
    Annie poked him in the chest. “I have to go home with Mark! You know what kind of mood he’ll be in if you beat him?”
    “You’re the one who pushed us to enter!”
    “Yeah, well, I thought you’d bomb!”
    Zane wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. It hurt to think he’d have to be the one to tell her that her husband was the bad guy, and he hoped Ty was wrong this time. H e looked up to see Ty walking—no, swaggering —over to the other shooters waiting their turn. He hugged Annie tighter.
    Ty stopped in front of Mark first, smirking, and held out his arm. “Luck must have rubbed off on me,” he said as he swiped at his shirtsleeve. “Want it back?”
    “Oh Lord.” Annie shoved at Zane’s chest and walked away. Zane smiled sadly. Annie still thought this was a friendly shooting competition.
    Ty came to stand beside Zane, valiantly trying to restrain his grin. Zane glanced at him, snorted, and pressed his lips together hard to stave off the laugh. “You’re such a showboat.”
    Ty turned to him, the sun reflecting off his sunglasses as a smile flitted across his lips. He pushed his hat back. “You telling me you didn’t enjoy that?”
    “Oh, I enjoyed it a little too much. One down, several to go.” Zane grinned. “And at least you look good.”
    Ty clucked his tongue. “Damn good.”
    Zane couldn’t stop himself from sliding his hand against Ty’s back. Mark took up his spot and readied to shoot.
    “Watch this,” Ty said, almost laughing.
    “What’d you do?”
    The crowd fell quiet. After a few heartbeats, Mark pulled the trigger. His shot grazed the rope but merely frayed it. He had missed the first and easiest shot.
    Zane cleared his throat and stared at his boots for a long moment, trying not to tip their hand with his expression. “What’d you do?” he asked Ty under his breath.
    “Got in his head, stole his luck,” Ty said. Mark turned to glare at them, and Ty pointedly wiped his imaginary luck off his shirt cuff, still grinning.
    Mark rolled his eyes and set up again. He made the next shot, and the next. Ty was still laughing, obviously enjoying the mental game as well as the physical one. This was the same part of Ty that enjoyed profiling.
    Mark ended up scoring one less than Ty, and although he looked like he was shaking it off, Zane didn’t miss his narrowed eyes as Mark walked off the range.
    “I don’t care if we win,” Zane said as he watched Mark and Annie talk. “But I’d really like to beat him. And Stuart.”
    Ty hummed. “Cut my cast off.”
    “You know I don’t want to do that. You’re taking advantage of the situation,” Zane grumbled, though there wasn’t any heat behind it. Would it be horrible of him to consider re-injuring Ty’s hand if it meant beating Mark and that asshole Stuart in this stupid competition?
    Ty looked over his sunglasses at Zane. “Okay. But I can’t promise a win with only one hand. And what if all hell breaks loose? I’ll need both hands then.”
    “Tell me now, no shit, that your hand’s okay.”
    Ty laughed incredulously. “It’s broken. Of course it’s not okay.”
    Zane glanced toward Mark and back. “No,” he said, setting his fingers on Ty’s cast. It was the most pitiful excuse for a cast he’d ever seen, covered with signatures, phone numbers, a knife wound, several places where Ty had tried to saw at it, and tiger bites. Dirty beyond all reason, and it didn’t smell like the most wonderful thing in the world. It was