Cut and Run 6 - Stars and Stripes

and Joe flanked him. The three of them appeared to simply be sitting there in dazed silence. Sadie perched between Ty and Mark, babbling as they nodded in response. She wasn’t at all fazed, and she was recounting the events of the night as if it’d been a movie she’d watched rather than a terrifying experience she had lived through.
    Zane knew one thing for damn sure: he would never make fun of Ty again for teaching a toddler how to jab a pressure point.
    Annie and Harrison stood with the sheriff, relating what had happened, and many of the party guests had filtered back toward the house to tell their versions as well. The local press had not been allowed onto the property, but Zane knew they would all be loitering down at the gate. It wouldn’t be long before they got the story.
    Beverly turned her head and Zane met her gaze. It was excruciating to look into her eyes and see nothing there but that emotionless mask hiding what she truly thought and felt. Zane never intended to inflict that kind of pain on Ty again.
    “I don’t know what to say,” she whispered.
    “How about ‘good job’? Or ‘thank you’? How about telling me Ty’s a good man and you’re happy for me?”
    Beverly stared for long minutes. Zane tried to find some hint of emotion in her icy blue eyes, but there was nothing there. She nodded curtly and looked away, holding her chin high, stubborn and proper as ever.
    Zane sighed as the cold settled in his chest. Beverly had never known anything but ranches. Like frontierswomen before her, protecting the homestead was first and foremost, even if it meant sacrificing the things they loved. She was still doing that, protecting her ranch and her family’s legacy. She had simply lost sight of what her family meant.
    He looked down at the bandage wrapped around his thigh. The bullet had gone straight through, narrowly missing an artery. He’d been lucky and would only be limping for a while. Ty had fared much worse, all for the sake of Zane’s family.
    He nodded, looking over at Beverly one last time. “Good-bye, Mother,” he murmured before standing and limping away.
    Ty and Zane spent most of Sunday night, Monday, and the majority of Tuesday in the hospital. Each of them had several bags of IV fluids pumped into them, and when Zane heard a commotion down the hall, he knew that someone had just ordered a new cast put on Ty’s hand. Since Ty had lost a lot of blood and had nowhere to run, Zane was fairly certain he’d wind up in another cast.
    Wednesday was almost worse than the hospital—from which Ty had checked himself out early, against medical advice—spent filling out official statements. Ty cursed and muttered the entire time they sat in the barely air-conditioned trailer that served as the sheriff’s outpost for the ranch community. The sheriff had offered to come to them, but Zane knew Ty wouldn’t make a very credible witness while still confined to a hospital bed.
    After some intense questioning, one of the Cactus Creek hands had revealed where the stolen tigers were being kept. Tish and her people had already transported the other three tigers back to their homes. Barnum had been deemed a hero by several local news stations, and Ty and Zane were both in a hurry to get out of town before the national press caught wind of the story.
    The sheriff’s deputies had gone with Harrison to the pump house, and after a little searching they’d found an entrance to the underground system of caverns carved in the limestone. The river that had been the source of the spring was still trickling; it had merely dug deeper as it beat through the soft stone.
    Within the caverns, they found hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of cocaine.
    Zane knew Laredo was controlled by the Gulf cartel, the same cartel that had dealings with Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. The tenuous connection to his work in Miami was frightening, as was the mystery of why that much product had been shipped so far into the Hill Country. He left the sheriff and the San Antonio field office with enough information to watch over the connection in case it wasn’t a coincidence.
    When they were finally able to leave the sheriff’s office, all that was left for them to do was tell Zane’s family good-bye and go home.

Harrison dismounted and wrapped his horse’s lead around the deck railing, then pulled a large manila envelope out of the saddlebag before he walked across the stone pavers toward the guesthouse.