My Tye (32 page)

The round went wide, burying itself in the frame of the wooden slider, missing their perp as he zigzagged out the door and bolted toward the pasture.

“Goddamn it!” Tye aimed his gun at the ceiling and rounded on her. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. He’s getting away. Go.
Go!
”

As he took off for the pasture, she wasn’t far behind. Despite being barefoot, Tye kept his pace at a steady dead run. They were being hammered with rain so heavy she could barely make out the tree-lined edge of Tye’s property.

Fire burned in her lungs as a crack of lightning flashed overhead. The man had nearly made it to the trees. Tye was closing in on her attacker, but he wasn’t close enough.

“Stop,” Tye warned again.

Tye knew it was now-or-never time. The jackass was veering off to the left of his property. If he made it there, they were screwed. A rocky gully took up much of his land past the tree line to the right, but to the left was a portion of forest. If he made it in there, with the brush and all the downed trees, shit, they’d never find him. There were simply too many places to hide. He had to stop him, and he had to do it now.

He skidded to a halt, squinted through the driving downpour and aimed. He squeezed the trigger just as Laine ran up beside him.

The man dropped to his knees. Red blossomed across his shoulder. Hell
yes
, he’d nailed him.

With his gun held out in front of him, Tye ran up on him. He had his back to Tye and was beginning to stand by the time he got there. “Stay where you are. Don’t move.”

The burly guy took one look over his uninjured shoulder. “Fuck you,” he bit out, then spun on Tye with a speed he hadn’t expected.

Tye evaded the roundhouse kick aimed for his face. His gun hand wasn’t so lucky. It took the brunt of the hit, sending his weapon flying just as big guy’s fist followed through and landed where his foot hadn’t.

Pain ripped through Tye’s jaw. The metallic tang of blood spread across his tongue, but all he could focus on was the terror in Laine’s ensuing scream.

He made sure she was behind him, that he stayed between her and big guy, who now stood crouched and ready to rumble.

He wanted a fight? Tye would give him a goddamn fight.

He lunged, faking first with a right hook, then making contact with the left. Jesus, the guy was like a damn boulder. Tye’s fist bounced off his rain-soaked face. He’d barely moved him.

“Come on, pussy boy. You can do better than that.”

The taunt did its job and urged Tye on. He went at him again with his fists, his elbows, even his fucking knees, throwing all his power behind each punch. He knocked big guy’s head back with his fist before coming full circle and splitting the eyebrow over his motherfucking dead eye with his elbow. His knee was the kicker, though. He drove it in and up, straight into his gut.

Big guy oomphed and doubled over, but only for a split second. His good eye looked crazed as he let out an evil laugh. He straightened, circling his injured shoulder and stalking toward Tye. Blood ran in rivers down the side of his face, mixing with the rain in spindly, crimson tendrils.

“Better,” he growled. “But not good enough.”

He sensed more than saw Laine as she moved behind him in the knee-high grass. Big guy began to circle them, lifting the edge of his lip in a sickening grin.

Oh hell no.

“Laine, stay behind me.”

“I can’t find it,” she wailed. “It flew this way.”

His gun. She was looking for his gun.

“No time. Get behind—”

“Look out!”

Tye ducked. Big guy’s punch swooped over his head. With the other man’s body now turned, Tye kicked out, his foot crunching against the man’s ribs to knock him off balance.

And then Laine was there. Instead of his gun, she held a three foot tree branch in her hands. She swung before Tye could get a word out, whacking the guy in the back of the head.

But it didn’t faze him. He grabbed Laine’s wrist as he found his footing, dragging her with him. They were precariously close to the rim of the gulley. One damned misstep…

Fury raged through Tye’s veins. Not only no, but
fuck
no. He charged, hitting big guy with a shouldered power-drive directly where his bullet had ripped through moments ago. Big guy hollered out in pain and fell to his knees just as Laine twisted her wrist out of his grip.

Tye spun on her, grabbing her shoulders. “Damn it, woman. What were you thinking?”

Her wet hair clung to her face and her lips were damn near blue. But it was the terror in her eyes as she stared over his shoulder that had him dreading the worst.

Tye turned, keeping Laine against his back.

“She was thinking she could save you,” big guy snarled as he came to his feet. “But guess what? No one can.”

Tye couldn’t so much as blink before he found a shoulder shoved into his gut. The force pushed him back into Laine. He dug his feet in, trying to stop the momentum, but it did no good. His feet were too wet, the grass too slippery. They were being bulldozed over the edge of the gully and there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do about it.

Tye tumbled over the edge of the ravine, crashing downward for what seemed like forever. The first ten feet or so of broken tree limbs and jutting saplings quickly gave way to the sharp and pointy outcropping of rocks lining the side and bottom of the gully.

He landed with a boulder digging into the small of his back and a searing pain shooting through his calf.

But he didn’t give a shit about any of that.

Where in God’s name was Laine?

Being behind him when big guy ran at them, she’d been the one to fall first, but only a split second before he had. He tried to grab her as they plunged, but he couldn’t reach out to her. He couldn’t grab onto her. He couldn’t do a goddamn thing but listen to her screaming.

There were no screams now.

The only sound came from the roaring of the heavy rain. He lifted his head and touched above his eye. Sticky red coated his fingers. He tried to clear his vision by squinting. Once. Twice. Three full times before he could see well enough.

“Laine!”

Nothing. No answer. He couldn’t see her. He couldn’t hear her.

Fear like he’d never known grabbed him in a stranglehold, cutting off his air supply and making him lightheaded. She couldn’t be far. She just couldn’t be. He rolled to his side and came up on all fours. Blood spread out from a six-inch rip in his pant leg. Fire burned through his calf as he tried to stand.

Over the din of the downpour, he heard a moan to his right. There. Quiet and muffled, but it was still a moan.

“Laine. Baby. Answer me.”

A downed oak tree lay sideways across the bottom of the ravine. The weak moan he’d heard was coming from the other side.

He stumbled in that direction, ignoring the agony the jagged edge of the rocks created as they poked and sliced into his bare feet. Two steps and his injured leg threatened to give out on him. Pain ripped from the gash in his calf upward through his knee as he twisted hard so he wouldn’t fall face-first onto one of the rocks.

Not good. Not good at all.

Ten feet. Ten feet more and he’d get to her. His vision blurred again. He wiped at his eyes, coating the back of his hand with more of the viscous blood oozing from his forehead. With each torturous step he took, his calf burned and his knee throbbed like a mother. He knew only seconds had passed, but it felt like an eternity before he finally reached the monstrous fallen tree.

He threw his body on top of the soggy oak, arms out in front, and searched for her.

Hot damn and hallelujah. There she was, not five feet away.

“Laine. Talk to me,” he cried out as he scrambled over the side of the tree. “Jesus, tell me you’re all right.”

She moaned again and opened her eyes. “Tye?”

“I’m here. I’m right here,” he breathed, coming up beside her.

“Are you okay?”

Figures that she’d be more worried about him than she was about herself. “Don’t worry about me. What about you?”

Other than a few scratches, he didn’t see any visible blood on her. Later, though, she was going to end up with more than a few stellar bruises. Hell, they both were. He looked up the side of the ravine and followed what had to have been her trajectory on the way down. He was so thankful that she’d plummeted down a more moss-covered and plant-strewn section than the craggy path he’d tumbled through. Still, they’d both taken one hell of a serious fall.

“I’m all right…I think.” She lifted onto one elbow, swiping at the rain on her face before looking down at the bloody rip in his pants. “Oh God. You’re bleeding.”

“It’s…” he started, only to stop when she looked up at his face. He was going to say he was fine, but there was no point in lying. He wasn’t anywhere near fine.

She paled and reached out for him, stopping only inches away from the gash above his eye. He took her hand and pressed it to his chest. “Can you stand? We need to get out of here.”

“Hold on,” she said. “We need to take care of your leg first.”

She pried the knot on the wide sash of her soaked robe loose and pulled it through the loops at the sides. Working quickly, she wrapped the belt around his calf to put pressure on the wound. He bit back a curse. Fuck, that hurt.

“It’s not going to stop the bleeding, but it’s better than nothing.”

He got to his feet, hopping on his good leg to keep his balance, and then held his hand out to her. The robe slipped open as she grabbed hold and pulled herself up. Damn, he could hardly believe that just minutes ago he’d been sinking into that luscious body of hers. Now they were both battered and bloody and fighting for their lives.

“I hate to admit this, but I think you’re going to have to help me to the top.”

Watching her step so she wouldn’t gouge her feet on the rocks, she sidled up beside him and drew his arm over her shoulder. She held him by the wrist while circling his waist with her other arm. “Don’t ever be afraid to admit anything to me, no matter what it is. We’ll help each other to the top. Deal?”

Damn straight they had a deal. He nodded once and hopped again, letting her take the lead. The trek was slow going, and he found himself getting more and more pissed the higher they climbed.

“He had to have seen us,” she said, sliding a glance up to him. “On the porch. He had to have been watching us.”

Yeah, that’s what Tye figured too. But what concerned him more was what big guy was doing there in the first place. If the jackass hadn’t made a ruckus in the stables, if Tye and Laine had made it into the house and gone back to bed…

A chill swept over his skin at the thought of what could have happened.

“Try not to think about it,” Tye said through gritted teeth. “Let’s just get to the top and back to the house. I’d lay a hundred to one odds that he’s already long gone, but I’ll call my guys in anyway. We’ll call Mac too, to tell him about this and see what he found out about the van. Hopefully he’ll have some news for us.”

Her ankle pitched on a slippery rock. He held her up, unintentionally putting weight on his bad leg for a moment. He bit back the shout he wanted to let loose and replaced it with a deep-seated growl.

“Easy. No, wait. Over this way,” she said. “There are more exposed roots to grab on to.”

The sky began to lighten some as the deluge morphed into a drizzle. Thunder rumbled off in the distance, signaling that the storm was moving on.

“Sure,” she murmured. “Now the rain decides to stop. Perfect timing, Mother Nature.”

Tye couldn’t help but agree. Moments later, after a slew of grunts and groans and a few not-so-politically-correct curse words thrown out—more on his part than hers—they inched their way up and over the crest of the ravine. And just as he had suspected, their man was nowhere to be seen.

“We should look for my gun,” Tye said, turning them in the direction he thought it had flown.

“Oh no. I’m getting you back to the house. You’re going to need a doctor to look at not only your leg, but that cut on your head too. Your gun can wait. Last thing I need is you bleeding out on me.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“It’s bad enough,” she countered, steering them through the pasture and back toward the house. “I’m not taking no for an answer.”

He glanced down at her tucked against his side, dripping wet and half-naked. She was hellfire and full of venom one minute, while bowling him over by being so soft and perfectly submissive the next. The combination was one he’d craved for so long, yet never thought he’d find. But he had. In her. And he wasn’t ever going to let her go.

“Now who’s being the bossy one?” It hadn’t been that long ago that she’d called
him
bossy when he was taking care of her. For the moment, however, the tables were turned. She was the one calling the shots and he was powerless to do anything but let her hold the whip and crack the hell out of it.

But his compliance was only for now. Because once they made it back to the ranch, once he finished making his phone calls and had his cuts sewn up and taken care of, all bets were off. The motherfucker who hurt her was going down, and he was going down by Tye’s own hands.