Cut and Run 6 - Stars and Stripes

immediately taken a liking to Ty, and Ty to them. Zane smiled.
    Annie whistled and Jamie broke out in a laugh. “He’s that good, huh?”
    “You have no idea.”
    “Thank God for small favors.”
    The conversation turned to the past, Zane reminiscing about their childhood adventures with his sister and cousin. Soon Harrison was moving them back toward the horses.
    Zane met Ty at his horse. “Learn anything?”
    “Cody and Marissa are having a thing. What were y’all talking about over there?”
    Zane licked his lips and shrugged. “Mark thinks you’re crazy and dangerous.”
    “Oh,” Ty said evenly, though his eyes gleamed with amusement. “He tell you about the time we killed one of our teammates by shoving him off a cliff?”
    Zane blinked and nodded.
    Ty laughed as he slid his sunglasses back on. “Yeah, good times.” He put one foot in the stirrup. The horse took a step, causing him to hop with it to keep from falling down. Then it took another, playing with him. “Hold on now, Elmer,” Ty growled as he pulled himself into the saddle.
    Zane put a hand on Ty’s thigh and peered up at him. “Is it true?”
    Ty stared at him for a moment, his expression hidden behind his sunglasses and the shade of his hat. He finally gave a curt nod. “He fell off a cliff, that’s for sure. But the only thing that pushed him was the ghost of Blackbeard.”
    Zane shook his head, smiling. “I love you. Even if you are a crazy, cold-blooded murderer of your coworkers.”
    Ty grinned and reached down to run his fingers through Zane’s hair. As soon as he let go of the reins, the horse danced sideways, taking Ty with him. Zane laughed as Ty cursed the horse and his lineage, trying to regain control.
    He was still laughing as he headed for his own mount, investigating the feelings of the last half hour. Even if what Mark had said about Ty was true, Zane didn’t care. That in itself was kind of scary.
    “Come on, Elmer. Let’s go find a glue factory,” Ty said to his horse, who tossed its head and snorted as if in argument. “Uh-huh, you know why? Opposable thumbs, bitch!”
    “Man’s crazy,” Zane’s uncle said to Harrison.
    Zane grinned.
    Harrison nodded and they watched Ty argue with the horse. “Seems to work for him.”
    “That’s why I’m up here, and you’re the one wearing the saddle,” Ty told his horse as they headed off.

    When they reached the pump house, Ty dismounted with a grateful groan, then cursed the animal up and down. The guys surrounding him cackled as they swung down with no problems.
    Zane was still chuckling as he joined Ty, though they were both moving stiffly. Zane put an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. Ty was still getting used to being able to do it without fear of being seen.
    The pump house was simply an old adobe and wood shack, patched and patched again over the years, there to mark the ancient spring well and to show tour groups that came through.
    Harrison took them through the events of the morning he’d been shot. It had been just past dawn and he’d been riding, as he said, to check the problem area at the problem time.
    He’d seen a vehicle parked beside the pump house and gone closer to investigate. They weren’t far from a main road, and since he suspected most of the trespassing was just kids messing around, he’d assumed someone had been off-roading and gotten stuck, broken down, or possibly even hit the old building and been hurt.
    When he’d gotten closer, however, he’d seen that the truck was idling, a large tarp covering the back roll bars. And then the driver had fired at him.
    He’d been lucky to get away with just the one bullet hole in him, and he’d lashed himself to his saddle before passing out from loss of blood. The horse had carried him home.
    Ty was unspeakably impressed with Zane’s father. Now he knew where Zane got it from.
    By the time anyone had come back out here, whoever had done it was long gone. The place had since been trampled with police vehicles, horses, and footprints. Ty surveyed the scene, shaking his head. It was daunting. Now he really wished Zane hadn’t bragged about his tracking skills.
    “What do you think?” Zane asked, voice low. “Think you can unearth anything?”
    “I don’t know, Zane. I mean . . . it’s been baking in the sun for two weeks. The scene’s been disturbed by all kinds of things. I’m not sure I could recreate what happened, even knowing how it went down from your dad’s