Authors: Sara Petersen
Mac looked down at her. Her face was pale, and her eyes were rimmed in red, evidence of their awful confrontation hours earlier. “Only a coward would stay,” he scorned, punishing her with her own words.
His eyes narrowed in firm resolve, and Jo knew appealing to him was hopeless. Flinging herself away from him, she lurched toward Leif, urging him to see the danger in what they were doing. “Leif, you can’t,” she started, but he was as determined as Mac.
He grabbed Jo by the shoulders and said calmly into her face, with words that offered comfort but gave none as another sharp
CRACK
split the night, “We have to. It will be all right.” Then he turned from her, and sharing a quick decisive look, he and Mac burst out the door into the black night. Jo swarmed onto the porch, grabbing hopelessly at Mac’s shirt and stumbling down the stairs after him.
“
Get in the house!” he roared back at her, thrusting his finger toward the door as he raced across the yard. The harsh command was like a physical force to Jo, and she froze like a dog that had been commanded to stay home.“Kirby!” Mac hollered wildly, gesturing for him to get Jo. The cows were mooing loudly in the fields, and Jo could hear a vehicle on the road as it sped away.
Kirby hobbled down the stairs after Jo and wrapped his arms tightly around her, hauling her back into the house. He tossed her gently inside and then slammed the door shut, placing himself in front of it like a guard. Jo’s shoulder slumped, and her chin quivered as she stared at Kirby, the daunting sentry. Seeing the fright and worry clouding up Jo’s eyes, Kirby swallowed and then spread his arms open wide. Jo stumbled into them and buried her face against the soft cotton of his nightshirt and sobbed. Kirby held her in his arms and let the waves of worry soak his shirt. Gradually, the flood subsided into a light trickle, and Kirby maneuvered Jo out of his arms and into Mattie’s tender care.
***
Mac and Leif tore out of the yard and down the dirt road in the black Ford, craning their necks out the window, looking for headlights. “They can’t be too far ahead,” Leif said hopefully, whipping the steering wheel to the left and right as they drove wildly down the road. Mac stretched his neck out the window, scanning the road as far ahead as he could until his vision was lost in the pitch-black night.
“There!” Mac and Leif shouted in unison, pointing to the back of a car that was barely visible in front of them. Leif pressed down on the accelerator. They’d spotted the car, but the car had also spotted them. It turned left off of the ranch road, its tires swerving crazily behind it as it raced away, throwing up dust. Mac and Leif charged into the mass of dust without even slowing down, unwilling to give up the chase. Kirby had never taken the tractor to the road, and every bump and dip rattled the truck viciously.
Leif tightened his grip on the wheel. “Can you see ‘em?” he hollered at Mac.
“No. Just keep going! Stay as close to them as you can.”
Leif stepped on the gas, speeding up. He didn’t want to lose them. He swerved around the corner where the road dipped down a draw with heavy woods on either side. The dust settled some, and the car came into view once again. It was swerving recklessly in the road ahead of them, taking corners sharply and hurdling in the air with every pot-hole.
CRACK
! The front window of the truck shattered, spraying glass all over Mac and Leif as the bullet ripped through it. Mac shouldered his gun and returned fire, sending a round through the now-empty window. The spray of bullets crashed forcefully into the car ahead of them.
“Get down!” Mac shouted at Leif, seeing the barrel of a gun poke out of the window toward them again. Another loud
CRACK
whooshed through the night air, spitting like bacon grease in a hot pan as the shotgun spray collided with the metal on the hood of the truck.
Propping his gun up to his cheek, Mac stared down the barrel; taking aim, he shot one round and then another closely after it. The first shot thudded into the back of the car, but the second blew out the right rear tire and its spokes. The car veered wickedly to the side, then back to the left, desperately trying to hold the road. Its front bumper clipped a thick cedar tree stump edging the road, and the car vaulted into the air, spiraling wildly in a tight ball of black metal. It crashed into the ground and then flipped violently into the air again…and again…and again. Leif slammed on his brakes, sliding the truck to a stop just before colliding with the mangled vehicle in front of them.
The Ford’s headlamps streamed through the dust-choked night, illuminating the twisted wreckage in an eerie yellow haze. The car lay upside down, wedged inside a clump of trees to the right of the road, with its remaining three tires spinning lazily in the aftermath. Mac and Leif stared at the wreckage, looking for any sign of movement; there was none. Cautiously, they exited the truck, and Mac motioned for Leif to fan out around it. Foot by foot, they crept steadily down the road, guns trained on the jumbled heap of metal. Mac approached the car stealthily. Glancing at Leif, he gestured to the side of the automobile where an immobile arm was flopped out of the window, resting at an odd angle in the dirt road. Signaling for Leif to cover him, Mac approached the vehicle and crouched down next to the arm. Ducking his head, he looked inside the overturned car. The arm was attached to a body by a few thin slivers of flesh, but besides that, it was completely severed. Not that it mattered. The person it belonged to would have no use for it; he was dead. His red hair identified him as one of the ranch hands Mac wouldn’t hire back, but beyond that, he was unrecognizable.
A feeling of uneasiness crept over Mac. He saw only one person in the car, and to his knowledge he hadn’t seen any bodies leave the automobile during the rollover. “Only one body,” he whispered to Leif, raising his index finger.
Leif’s eyes, alert and edgy, shot into the thick stand of trees on either side of the road. Mac walked to the other side of the car, and calling Leif to him, he pointed to a bloody trail leading down into the gulch away from the car. Slowly, they spread apart and picked their way into the trees.
The slope was full of dead and decaying leaves, making it slippery. Mac groped along from tree to tree, watching Leif out
of the corner of his eye as he did the same. Mac’s finger shot to his lips as he heard a branch break further down the hill and to his right. He cocked his head to the side and listened. He could hear the heavy labored breathing of an injured person. It was a sound he knew well, a sound burned into his memory from the war. Using hand signals, he pointed down the slope and motioned for Leif to skirt around to the left.
Painstakingly slow, Mac inched his way down the slick draw, careful not to make noise. Something wasn’t right. He stopped, listened. A sharp streak of movement to the right and a flash of moonlight off shiny metal caught his eye. Mac dove to the left just as a blast exploded around him. Limbs and shards of bark rained down on him as he lay flat on his stomach in the thick rotting leaves. The smell of musty earth and blood mingled in his nose, bombarding his senses, bringing with them a flood of memories. Crawling to his knees, Mac grabbed his gun and took cover behind a broad tree. He didn’t know where Leif was or where the shooter was.
CRACK
! Another loud shot rang out, followed by the heavy noise of brush breaking as someone charged through it. He heard Leif curse.
Jumping up, Mac weaved in and out of the trees following the sound of breaking brush. Ahead of him, he could see the outline of someone running through the woods. The muscles in Mac’s legs drove harder, faster, digging into the slack earth. Mac tossed his gun to the side, and pushing off with all the force within him, he leapt through the air, crashing brutally into the back of the outline. As they plunged down the small embankment in a tangle of limbs, Mac’s arm smashed into a sharp rock and fiery pain licked up his nerves. Unable to hold onto the man, Mac shoved away from him and rolled to the side.
Freed from Mac, the man frantically clawed at the ground, pulling himself toward the gun that had been pitched to the side in the chaotic tumult. Mac’s head whipped up, spotting the metal barrel of the rifle amongst the slimy leaves. He hauled himself over the slimy foliage and clasped the man’s ankle in a vice-like grip. Yanking the leg hard, Mac dragged the kicking, desperate man back to him. He wrenched the man’s knee to the left with ruthless force and, twisting it at an unnatural angle, fell onto the man’s leg with the full weight of his body.
The shooter shrieked in agony as the bone crunched and the pop of his knee echoed through the pines. Spotting a tree limb lying next to him on the ground, the man frenziedly fumbled for it and snatched it up. Swinging it wildly, he struck Mac, catching him on the right side of his forehead above the eye. The skin split open and blood poured out of the gash, flowing down Mac’s head and into his eye. Dazed, Mac clutched his wound, wiping the blood from his vision and trying to shake the muddled wooziness from his head. The man swung again, bringing the limb down across Mac’s side with a sickening thwack. Fire exploded in Mac’s ribs as the air was driven from his body. Using the branch as a crutch, the man hobbled to his feet behind Mac and shoved the rigid bough under Mac’s throat, pulling it deep into his windpipe.
Gasping for air, Mac clawed at the branch, but he couldn’t break the man’s hold. His head was spinning, and the man’s heavy, crazed breathing pounded in his ears. Lifting his elbow, he thrust it behind him with brute strength, bashing the thick point of it into the man’s injured leg. The man cried out and crumpled to the side.
With lethal speed Mac seized the branch and twisted it out of the man’s grip. In one vicious fluid motion, he swung it into the man’s shoulder with deafening force, hurling the man backward onto the ground. The man landed directly next to his gun, five feet away from Mac.
Through his blood-clouded eye, Mac saw the man’s hand snake out and grab the stock of the gun. Using his injured arm, Mac staggered to his feet and charged, but it was too late...
CRACK
.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jo held Sam in her arms, rocking him slowly back and forth on the edge of Mac’s big bed. The noise and frantic movements in the house had woken him up. Rising from the sofa, she’d discovered him standing in the upstairs hallway, tears running down his face, crying for Mac. Jo had rushed to him and picked him up. She’d gotten him a drink and carried him back to bed, but he wouldn’t be still. It was as if he felt the same way Jo did, desperate and worried. It had been hours, and still Leif and Mac hadn’t returned. Kirby had left in the car to search for them, promising Jo he’d come back shortly and assuring her that everything was fine, but that had been almost two hours ago.
Jo’s arms sagged under the weight of Sam. She had been rocking him steadily for the past forty minutes and tried to lay him down several times, but each time he stirred and whimpered. Jo could hear Mattie padding around downstairs in the kitchen. She was trying to be brave for Jo, but it was obvious that she was just as concerned. Two hours ago when Kirby left, she’d started scrubbing the kitchen and hadn’t stopped her fretful cleaning since.
Jo’s arms were killing her. Shifting ever so slightly on the bed, she lowered Sam inch by inch onto the mattress. The instant Jo tried to slip her arms out from beneath him, he woke up and started crying for Mac again. “Shhhh…shhhh… It’s all right, Sam. Daddy’s gone, but I’m here,” Jo said soothingly.
Sam sat up in the bed and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, still continuing to cry.
“Do you want me to lie down with you?” Jo whispered to him softly. Sam didn’t answer her, but his crying stilled a little. “All right, here…scoot over a bit…”she said, sliding him across the bed so she could lie down next to him. It was so uncomfortable being in Mac’s room, in Mac’s bed, but she’d tried to put Sam in hers earlier, and he wouldn’t have it. Figuring she’d have better luck getting him back to sleep in a bed that was familiar, she gave in. Jo pulled the blankets over her legs and wrapped Sam up in her arms. Once again, his breathing calmed, and he nodded off.
Jo lay wide awake, a flurry of what-ifs racing through her mind. Frustrated, she flipped onto her side and buried her head in the pillow. Its cushy softness carried Mac’s masculine smell, and she took deep breaths, filling her senses with its comforting scent. Exhausted from the events of yesterday and today and worn out with anxiety, Jo drifted into a fretful sleep.
***
The sun was just crawling over the mountains and the rooster was squawking in its pen when Mac finally climbed the stairs to his room. His body ached, and if there was any spot on him that wasn’t sore before, it certainly was now, after Mattie had nearly squeezed the life out of him. As soon as he’d stepped foot into the house, she had barreled down on him with the ferocity of a mother bear. Kirby had returned to the house an hour prior to Mac and relayed the night’s events to Mattie, hoping to set her mind at ease, but it hadn’t work; only the solid weight of Mac and Leif in her arms could offer reassurance. After she’d finished berating Mac for flying out of the house in the middle of the night, she’d ordered Kirby to pull the car around, and off she’d sped to town so she could offer the same treatment to Leif.
Mac had left Leif in town at the doctor’s house and had only come home himself to check on the cows and get cleaned up. Then he planned on going back to sit with Leif.
Mac’s shirt was crusty with blood and dirt, and his arm was in desperate need of cleaning. The rock he had rolled into had sliced the skin on the back of it from his elbow to his wrist. Until he washed the blood and dirt away, he wouldn’t know if it would require stitches or not. That was one perk of having Kirby on the ranch. He had stitched up more wounds in his life than the doctor in town. In fairness to the doc, he had tried to have a nurse look at Mac’s arm, but Mac refused, unwilling to leave Leif’s side.
Mac didn’t like the idea of shooting a man in the back, which was why instead of firing he had tackled the shooter. In hindsight he regretted the decision. After they’d rolled apart and Mac saw the gun lying in the soggy leaves, he knew it had been the worst mistake he’d ever made. He’d hoped to get to the man before he could pull the trigger, but he was too late. Just before the gun went off, Mac saw a black mass spring toward him that collided with him and crushed him into the ground as the rifle sounded. He knew instantly that Leif had shoved him out of the way and that he was hit. Mac had felt the vibration of the bullet as it pounded through Leif’s body.
After they had crashed to the ground, Mac threw Leif off of him, and before the shooter could reload, Mac pounced on him. He grabbed hold of the gun barrel and shoved it hard into the face of the shooter, cracking his nose open. Knowing every second it took to immobilize the man was another second he couldn’t see to Leif, Mac beat the shooter with ruthless intensity until once again he lay in an inert pile of flesh, face down on the ground.
Breathing heavily and with blood pouring into his eye from the cut on his brow, Mac dropped onto the ground at Leif’s side and sought desperately to quench the flow of thick blood from his brother's wound.
Leif was still conscious, as Mac hefted him up and they made the awful climb back up to the road. Leaning him against the hood of the truck, Mac had cranked the engine to life and turned the headlights on so he could get a better look at the bullet wound. It looked like the bullet had hit the front of his right shoulder and gone clean through, but it was a nasty wound, and Leif was losing precious amounts of blood. Instantly, Mac had forgotten the broken man lying in the gulch and the car turned upside down in the road with a lifeless body in it, and he loaded Leif into the truck and raced toward town.
An hour later, Kirby had come upon the gruesome scene as he was searching for Mac and Leif. The man Mac had beaten had come to and somehow crawled out of the gulch. He was sitting against the overturned car, with a bone sticking out of his arm and blood pouring down his face from a deep gash slicing horizontally across his forehead. His eyes were a sick black-purple shade, and they were both swollen shut. At first Kirby hadn’t recognized him, but as he approached with his gun trained on the man, he’d realized it was indeed one of the old ranch hands, and the other was already turning stiff in the car. Kirby was debating the best way to get the man to town when Sheriff Waters arrived on the scene with two other deputies. He informed Kirby that Mac and Leif had made it to town, and also that Leif was shot. Without hearing the rest of his information, Kirby had jumped in the car and whipped down the road after them.
It had been a trying night to say the least, and Mac was glad it was all over. Feeling that bullet tear through Leif and not knowing where it had hit was more terrifying than any experience he’d had in the war. Losing Leif would be unbearable. He shook his head to get rid of the horrible thought. Mac stood at the top of the stairs and stared down the hallway to Leif’s empty room, thinking to himself how grateful he would be when his cocky, irksome brother was healed up and well enough to return home. Mac turned toward his own room and pushed the heavy door open. The bed called to him, but it would be a long while yet before he would find sanctuary in it. He still needed to go out to the pasture and assess the damage from last night’s shooting.
Padding softly across the floor, Mac glanced toward the bed to check on Sam. What he saw staggered him. Sam and Jo were snuggled in the middle of the bed together, with Sam nestled in the crook of Jo’s arm. The sight of Jo…in his bed…cuddling his son obliterated all of Mac’s remaining barriers.
He moved silently to the side of the bed and gazed down on them. Jo’s and Sam’s hair were entwined, with Jo’s long caramel strands falling over the tufts of Sam’s downy white head. Her thick black lashes floated over the rosy balls of her cheeks in an innocent, dreamy way that held Mac riveted at the side of the bed. He thought back to a few hours ago when Jo had begged him not to go. Her eyes had been frantic, wild, and desperate, and he had brushed her callously aside, cut her open with his cruel words. If not for Leif, they might have been the last words he ever spoke to her. Staring down at Jo, it occurred to him that a bullet was more than shell and gunpowder. It was a choice—him or me. When the projectile is fired, spinning down the barrel, a man’s already made his decision, and if later he can’t make peace with it, he might as well have never pulled the trigger.
Mac reached his hand out, drawn to Jo’s soft pink cheeks, and traced the ridge of her cheekbone with the back of his knuckle. Her skin was smooth and silky, and the tiny sprinkling of light freckles charmed him. A tight ball formed in his throat. What would it feel like to crawl into this bed with them? To curl Jo into his body and hold her like he had a right to? He could live with guilt. He had done it for years, but could he live without Jo?
Mac lifted a piece of Jo’s silky hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. As he did so, she stirred, her eyes fluttering open.
“Mac?” she murmured drowsily, question in her eyes. Then as clarity dawned, relief flooded her rosy face. “Mac!” she cried, starting up from the bed. The heavy weight of Sam in her arms reminded her of where she was. Holding her breath, she looked down at him and skillfully maneuvered her arm out from under him, inching her way to the edge of the bed.
Alarm shot through Jo as she took in Mac’s ragged appearance. His face was bruised and smeared with dried blood from a cut above his right eye, and his shirt was ripped in several different places. A piece of fabric clotted in rusty blood hung down from the back of his sleeve, and the whole front of his shirt was reddish-brown.
“Everything is fine,” Mac whispered, shaking his head to the side to curb the drea
d rising in Jo’s eyes. “Leif is hurt, but he’s going to be all right. He’s in town. I just came home to clean up and take care of the cattle.”
Jo reached out as if she was going to touch his face but pulled back sharply, remembering Mac’s rejection of her. She longed to comfort him, to care for him. If things were different, she would hold him and tell him how thankful she was that he was home safe. She would tell him how much she loved him and how scared she’d been. She would clean his wounds, wipe the dirt from his face, and hold him in her arms, but things were not different, and Jo desperately needed to remember that. Mac was not hers to care for.
She glanced toward the bed to the divot in the mattress where she’d been lying. She colored, chagrined. She hadn’t intended to fall asleep in Mac’s room
. He had probably come home and been irritated to find me here
, she worried to herself.
He’s probably wondering right now how many times he will have to rebuff me before I get it, like a dog that’s too dumb to train
.
The warmth Mac had seen in Jo’s eyes at his return fled, and wrapping her robe tightly around her, she withdrew from him. It dawned on Mac that momentarily she had forgotten the explosive exchange from last night, and so she had received him openly. Now that she remembered, a guarded hesitancy came into her eyes, the same look she’d worn during her first few weeks on the ranch.
“I’m sorry I’m in here,” Jo stammered, turning red and looking toward the bed, “but Sam…he wouldn’t sleep. I only brought him in here to rock him, but then when I tried to lay him down, he woke and…”
“It’s fine, Jo.” Mac stopped her, staring fixedly into her eyes with a look on his face she couldn’t read. A moment of awkwardness passed between them, and Jo dropped her eyes to the floor, unable to maintain
the direct eye contact with him.
Almost angrily, he said, “Don’t apologize for being in my room, for taking care of my son.” Mac’s eye burned into Jo’s scalp, but she wouldn’t meet them. “Jo…” he murmured fervently, stepping toward her and speaking
softly so Sam wouldn’t waken. His expression was anxious and emotional. “I…” he began.
“You need to clean up and get back to Leif,” Jo blurted out, interrupting him and taking another brisk step away. No part of her wanted to repeat last night’s horrible scene.
He opened his mouth to continue.
“No, Mac… Don’t say anything,” she injected, feeling like she’d break into a million pieces if he told her one more time that he couldn’t love her. Her eyes turned up to him, and she said sincerely, “I’m glad you and Leif are all right.”
Upset by the formality in her tone, Mac’s jaw ticked. She was acting like somebody he didn’t know. “Hold on a sec, Jo…” he started, but she cut him off again.
“I’m sure you are anxious to clean up and get going…”—she looked toward the door—“I’ll start the morning chores.” Without giving him an opportunity to say more, Jo scurried into the hallway, her robe flipping up behind her with the swiftness of her departure. After she’d gone, Mac just stood in the middle of the room and stared at the door, cursing himself for ruining things between them.
***
Jo spent the morning in her usual routine, gathering the eggs, feeding the animals, and milking Shirley. She finished and walked through the kitchen door just in time to see Kirby put the last stitch into the back of Mac’s arm.
I could never be a nurse
, she thought to herself, cringing at the sight of Mac’s bloody arm and the red smudged cloths lying on top of the table.
“Well, that should do it,” Kirby said, tossing the needle and thread into a bowl on the kitchen table. “Now all you need to do is figure out a way to keep it clean.”
“It’ll be fine.” Mac dismissed the concern, rising from the chair, without even a hint of pain evident on his face, even though stitching the wound must have been terribly painful.