Rancher's Covert Christmas Read online

  She stumbled as the truth hit her. The thought of Zane being taken from her brought everything into sharp focus. And she knew she did, indeed, love Zane.

  * * *

  Zane opened his eyes slowly. He squinted against the winter sun which seemed bright despite the thinly overcast sky. He took a moment to assess. Where was he? Lying on his back. On the ground. He could hear the frightened bellows of cows.

  Something had spooked the herd. That thought permeated the fog in his brain, stirred a sense of urgency in him that hiked his pulse.

  Get help... Trouble with the herd...

  He tried to sit up, and his head swam. Pounded. He raised a hand toward his temple. Then froze. Tiny, bleeding cuts covered his arm. What the...? He squinted against the throb of pain in his head and glanced down at his body. Shards of glass sparkled around him, on his clothes, in his skin, on the rocky dirt around him.

  Why was the ground moving? Rolling like a wave in the ocean?

  Zane blinked, inhaled a cautious breath, and his ribs protested. Damn! Had he been bucked? He hurt all over.

  Casting a glance around him, he blinked again at the view of rolling foothills, twisting highway and—

  Reality slammed into him with a sobering punch. Adrenaline flooded his veins.

  Roy. Murder. Truck crashing.

  He jerked his head toward the sound of the distressed herd. The sudden movement caused a paroxysm of pain to roll through him. He gasped, sucking a shallow breath into his sore chest. More carefully, he angled his eyes toward the sound of an engine, the agitated lowing of cattle and restless thump of shifting hooves. The front of the truck teetered at an awkward angle over open air at the top of a sheer drop. The truck’s hood was crumpled, the windshield broken out, the back tires askew yet still slowly spinning. Gasoline dripped from the undercarriage.

  Roy. Where was Roy?

  Rising carefully to his knees, Zane scanned the ledge. No sign of their foreman. Moving unsteadily to his feet, Zane groped for balance, for clarity. Broken glass fell from his clothes, tinkling like tiny Christmas bells as it littered the ground. He took a staggering step toward the truck and craned his neck to peer inside the crumpled cab.

  Roy slumped over the steering wheel. Not moving.

  Ignoring the pain that throbbed beneath his skull, Zane edged closer to the pickup, sizing up his options. As the cattle in the trailer moved about in their panic, the trailer jostled, rocking the precariously perched truck. His gut clenched. He had to get Roy out before the truck lost purchase and tumbled down the mountain.

  The cattle. Going to auction. The bulk of the ranch’s income for the year. Zane hesitated, his pulse beating wildly in his ears.

  Roy had betrayed them. Killed innocent women. Brought on the crisis his family now faced.

  Resentment boiled in his core.

  He glanced toward the trailer. Could the cows be saved? If the cattle were lost, they’d almost certainly lose the ranch within months.

  Bile filled his throat. He took a step toward the trailer—then stopped. What was he doing? He gritted his teeth, and frustration made his blood surge and his headache swell. As much ill will as he had for Roy, having learned of his betrayal, he had to try to save their foreman before he could think about the herd.

  “Roy!” he shouted. No response.

  Edging toward the cab, Zane opened the passenger door, which was now facing the sky. He tested the truck’s stability with one hand. Then a foot. Half of his weight. Then more...

  “Roy?”

  Metal creaked, and the truck dipped and swayed. Zane’s mouth dried. Any second the truck and trailer could shift and slide over the edge, down the embankment—a freefalling deathtrap. “Roy!” he shouted with more urgency.

  The older man moaned. Moved a hand.

  Fumbling with the seat belt buckle, Zane hurried to free Roy from the encumbering strap. When the older man groaned again, he pulled Roy back at the shoulder and slapped at his cheek. “Come on, man. Wake up! We gotta get out of here!”

  Roy mumbled something Zane couldn’t understand. Zane cursed under his breath. He couldn’t wait, couldn’t count on Roy’s help to get him out. Whispering a litany of prayers, he reached around Roy and braced a foot on the steering wheel for leverage. Pain ripped through Zane’s rib cage as he hoisted Roy. He dragged the foreman up, toward the open passenger door.

  The wrecked F-350 rocked and shimmied as the cattle continued stirring anxiously inside the trailer. Gasping for a breath, Zane took stock of his position, the distance yet to lift Roy. How the hell was he supposed to get the limp man out without sending the truck careening off the tenuous perch? Was he really going to risk his life to save the man who’d ruined his family?

  An ache wholly separate from his physical injuries speared Zane’s chest. Roy was family. No matter how he’d betrayed the McCall’s, Zane refused to let Roy die. He had to find a way to get them both out alive.

  * * *

  “Zane!” Erin called, frantically searching the ledge around the wreckage. She was sure she’d seen Zane ejected from the truck as it crashed. So where was he? The sharp tang of fear filled her mouth. Swallowing hard, she forced down the panic that strangled her.

  “Zane!” Josh echoed, his voice sounding equally taut with worry. He scrambled down the embankment at the side of the highway toward the crash site. “Roy!”

  “Here!” Zane called back.

  The relief that ballooned in her made her knees wobble. She caught her balance, bracing a hand on the crumpled guardrail. Zane was alive!

  “I need help! Roy’s hurt.”

  She visually tracked Josh’s progress down the hill to the large pickup that lay on its side, hanging over the embankment. The precarious position of the vehicle made her breath snag in her lungs. As quickly as she could, she climbed down the ice and rocks at the edge of the road and rushed to the crumpled truck.

  Josh’s face reflected the same anxiety clambering inside her as he skidded up to the truck. “Are you all right?”

  “Good enough,” Zane rasped. “Help me get him out!”

  Josh put a hand on the F-350 as he positioned himself to grab Roy’s arms, and the vehicle creaked and slid a few inches toward the drop-off.

  Erin gasped, and Zane shouted, “Careful! It could go over any second.”

  Biting her bottom lip, Erin turned away, unable to watch as the brothers struggled to drag Roy out of the cab. Knowing that any false move could spell disaster, she held her breath and prayed as hard as she could. She heard grunts and scraping metal, the crunch of gravel and ice. And the clamor and plaintive mooing of frightened cows. Heart thumping, she shifted her attention to the trailer, and with a sinking sensation in her gut, she realized what else was at stake. The cattle. If the trailer went over the edge...

  Another car stopped on the highway, and an older woman came to the top of the embankment. “Oh, good gracious! Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Yes!” Erin called back. “Do you have medical training?”

  “Sorry, no. I’m a hairdresser on my way to fix up a bride for her wedding.”

  Disappointment pinged Erin’s chest. “Do you have a cell signal? We haven’t been able to call 9-1-1 yet.”

  She raised her phone and glanced at the screen. “No. But I’ll keep checking as I drive and as soon as I can get a call out, I promise I’ll alert the police and ambulance.”

  “Please do. Thank you!”

  The loud scrape of metal on rock drew her attention back to the truck as the trailer and pickup shifted, sliding to a sharper angle. Josh and Zane had Roy out of the pickup, and the older man was rousing, waving the brothers off as they ministered to his injuries. She jogged over to join them, crouching beside Josh. When she glanced at Zane, she gasped.

  “You’re bleeding!” she cried, seeing the tiny trickles all over Zane’s fa
ce and hands.

  He frowned and swiped a hand along his brow, then blinked at the red stains on his fingers as if surprised by the blood there. “I went through the windshield,” he said, as if that were an everyday occurrence and all the explanation she needed. She made a move toward him and he lifted a hand to stop her. “I’m fine. Sore—” he grimaced as he clutched his ribs “—but I’ll be okay.”

  “And Roy?” She leaned to peer around Josh.

  Josh cut a glance to her. “His arm looks broken, and he says his hip hurts like hell. He’s got cuts from the glass like Zane. But...they were lucky.”

  Zane grunted, and she faced him again. “What happened?”

  His jaw tightened, and he mumbled, “Later.”

  Later. Despite the dire situation, she couldn’t help but remember the last time Zane had used that word with her. A pang twisted inside her. Their later might never come.

  She held his gaze and could see deep pain dimming his eyes. Some was physical pain, she was sure, but something more troubled him, and she recalled the text he’d sent just prior to the crash.

  We have a situation. May need police assistance.

  “Zane, the text you sent earlier said—”

  He shook his head, then winced as he raised his palm to a goose egg bulging at his temple. “Not now.” He gave Roy a dark look, then rose to his feet and faced the trailer. “We’ve gotta do something to save the cattle.”

  She stood and moved beside him, studying the trailer that jostled and rocked as the restless animals moved inside. Erin was no engineer, but even she could tell the only thing keeping the truck from plummeting and dragging the trailer down the mountain was the weight of the cattle. “How, Zane? If you start taking the cows out, the decreased weight in the trailer will throw off the balance with the pickup, and the whole thing will go over.”

  Josh joined them, staring bleakly at the trailer and the drop-off beyond. “She’s right, bro.”

  Zane glared at them both, saying tightly, “And if we do nothing, the whole thing will still likely fall, and we’ll lose the majority of the herd. No herd, no auction, no income. We might as well kiss the ranch goodbye!”

  Erin surveyed the small shelf-like outcropping where they stood. “If we can get the cows out of the trailer without it falling—”

  Josh snorted. “That’s a big if.”

  “There’s room for most of the cattle on this part of the hill,” she persisted.

  “But, Erin, the logistics of getting them out of—” Josh started.

  But Zane cut him off with, “We have to try. Are you in or not?”

  Roy stumbled over, limping and holding his injured left arm. “I’m in.”

  Zane shot the foreman another odd look. “You’re injured. Sit this one out.” He strode to the back end of the sideways trailer and reached for the sliding rod that held the cargo doors shut.

  Roy followed Zane, grimacing with each step. The man was clearly in pain and needed medical help.

  “Zane, someone...has t’ go inside the trailer...steer the cattle out,” Roy wheezed, “make sure there’s...not a stampede.”

  Nodding somberly, Zane said, “I know that. I’m willing to take the risk.”

  Josh stepped forward, frowning, and grabbed his brother’s coat sleeve. “Are you kidding me?” he asked, aghast. “No one can go inside the trailer! It’s too damn dangerous!”

  “The animals ’re frightened. Some l’kely injured,” Roy started, his tone even, though his words sounded rather slurred. “Someone has to—”

  Josh cut a sharp glance from Zane to Roy and back. “No! Are you joking? And you call me reckless?”

  Erin stepped closer, her heart stuttering a staccato beat. “I agree with Josh. Please, Zane, don’t—”

  The trailer shifted again with a groan of steel on rock.

  “We don’t have time to debate this.” Zane wrenched open the door now on the bottom as the trailer lay on its side. The door smacked the ground with a thud. Inside, the hooves of the herd could be seen.

  Roy elbowed his way in front of Zane with an odd look on his face. “Son, you know why...I have to be the one takin’ the risk. If fate...takes me today, it’s what I deserve.”

  “Roy?” Josh scrunched his face in dismay. “Roy, no! This is insane! You can’t—”

  Zane jerked a nod to the foreman and stepped back as he raised the second sideways door, folding it back on the wall of the trailer that was now on top. “Go.”

  * * *

  The cattle nearest the open end of the trailer staggered out on their own. Zane watched Roy squeeze past the press of bovine bodies moving en masse toward the opening. The trailer swayed ominously as the cows stomped to the open end.

  Zane swatted at the heifer closest to him, directing it away from the drop-off. Already he could see that some of the cows had been injured in the wreck. Keep your head. Work fast and work smart. “Erin, help Josh herd ’em away from the drop-off and toward the highway!”

  She hustled out of the way as the first of the half-ton cows barreled toward her.

  “Wave them away from the edge!” Josh demonstrated as he took his position by the embankment.

  Erin edged into place, flailing her arms as the riled Black Angus herd moved toward her.

  “Keep this area clear as we move them out,” Zane added, seeing that the dazed and frightened cows were bottlenecking the exit.

  Trying to refocus the anxiety twisting in his chest into a productive sense of urgency, Zane smacked one hindquarter after another as the cattle disgorged onto the ledge. Some balked at the exit. Others bolted erratically. Still others were clearly injured and hobbled or swayed as Roy shoved and shouted, steering the herd out of the death trap.

  More than half of the cows were out when the trailer began sliding, gathering speed as each successive animal was unloaded and the balance of weight anchoring the wreckage changed.

  Zane cupped a hand by his mouth, shouting to be heard over the restless herd. “Roy!” He made a giant sweep with his arm, motioning for the foreman to hurry and feeling his ribs throb in protest. “Time to go! We’re losing the trailer!”

  Roy met his gaze, clearly knew what he was saying...but turned away and continued directing the last of the herd.

  Zane grumbled a curse. “Damn it, Roy! Don’t play martyr! Get your ass out of there. Now!”

  Roy ignored him, and the first wing-beats of panic flapped in Zane’s chest. He was furious with Roy and crushed by his betrayal. But he didn’t want the man to die.

  The truck dipped further over the drop-off, and, with a screech of metal, the back bumper ripped free. The truck fell with a loud crash that reverberated in Zane’s chest. In the next instant, the trailer, perched on a boulder-fulcrum like a deadly teeter-totter, rocked back, throwing the front end up as the weight of the exiting cattle re-shifted the balance.

  Startled cows charged out, sending Zane stumbling backward. Josh grabbed his brother’s arm, narrowly saving him from stepping over the drop-off.

  Roy was thrown to the floor of the trailer. He cried out in anguish as he landed on his hip.

  Josh turned to the trailer, alarm in his eyes. “Roy, get out of there! It’s going over!”

  No sooner had Josh spoken than the teetering trailer tilted sharply to the side. Rocks loosened by the crash tumbled down the embankment.

  “Roy!” Zane felt his chest tighten, dread fisting around his throat. “We’ll work things out! Don’t do anything stupid. Just...get out!” His voice sounded strangled even to his own ears.

  Josh cut a puzzled look toward him that Zane ignored. His full attention was on Roy. The sliding trailer. The last dozen injured cows.

  Roy struggled to his feet, grimacing and grunting in pain. Pushing past cows too wounded to walk, he took a few lurching steps toward the open end of the trailer. In seconds, the
trailer rolled past its tipping point. Picked up speed as it slid.

  His heart in his throat, Zane reached inside, grasped Roy’s outstretched right hand. The trailer careened down the mountain, crumpling and breaking apart as it smashed against rocks and frozen earth. Roy’s feet scrabbled for purchase on the loose stones and ice at the edge of the outcropping. He slipped, pulling Zane to his knees as Roy tumbled over the edge.

  Erin screamed.

  Zane thudded, chest-first, onto the ground, pain slicing through his ribs and streaking up his arm. But he clung stubbornly to Roy’s hand.

  Josh was beside him in the next instant, grabbing Roy’s coat collar, his belt, and hauling the man up.

  Roy bellowed in agony as he flopped on the ground, and the foreman’s shout shot splinters of pain beneath Zane’s skull. He, too, laid back on the icy rocks, panting and trying not to think about the lost cattle.

  “We got most of them,” Josh said quietly, echoing his thoughts. “The one’s we lost...well, many were injured and...now they’re not suffering.”

  Leave it to Josh to try to put a positive spin on tragedy. His ever-optimistic brother.

  “You shoulda let me go with ’em,” Roy muttered, clutching his left arm to his chest.

  “What?” Josh shook his head, frowning at their foreman.

  “Better dead than where I’m going.”

  Josh turned a confused and dismayed look to Zane. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Before he could answer, Erin called to them, her tone agitated. “Guys, a little help? They’re wandering toward the edge! Some are clearly hurt. Time to cowboy, fellas!”

  He crawled slowly to his feet, every muscle in his torso cramping and throbbing. His head felt ready to explode. But there was work to do. The rescued cattle had to be herded to the road, a replacement trailer brought to collect them.

  And the sheriff needed to be called to take Roy into custody.

  Chapter 16

  “Anyone have a cell signal?” Zane asked once the herd had been moved out of immediate harm’s way. They’d moved the second truck and smaller trailer to block the road, the emergency flashers on to warn other cars the highway was temporarily impassable because of the cattle. From the other direction, another driver had angled his SUV and was helping keep the herd corralled. The three men and Erin were spaced about ten feet apart, guarding the edge of the road, a human fence. Roy, who couldn’t stand without excruciating pain, half sat and half lay on a large bolder near the road.