The Last Wilder Read online

  In the back seat, Dane’s heart was about to pound its way up his throat. He didn’t know where she’d gotten the idea, but Stacey was deliberately trying to keep both men focused on her instead of him. And she was doing a damn good job of it. If he wasn’t so afraid it would backfire on her, he’d be bursting with pride at her wit and ingenuity.

  She was talking too loud, much louder than necessary. That was fear. She was scared, and he ached for her.

  If anything happened to her, he hoped to God Wilson and James killed him in the process, because he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. This was his fault. He’d had his mind on getting her home and crawling into bed with her. He’d gotten cocky. He hadn’t paid attention. He’d let them get the drop on him as if he’d been a green rookie.

  How he was going to get them out of this situation, he didn’t know. But somehow he would. They were coming up on the turnoff to the Flying Ace. There was help there, if only he had a way of reaching them.

  Dammit, he had a cell phone, but it was in the front seat. So was the radio.

  “Look at all those pickups,” Stacey said. Again her voice was loud.

  But it got his attention. His and James’s and Wilson’s as they all looked ahead and saw four, no, five pickups pull out of the Flying Ace road one after the other.

  In the front seat James started cussing.

  “You’re going to have to slow down,” Stacey warned loudly, “or you’ll run right into them.”

  “I’m gonna run right into you if you don’t shut up.” But he slowed, because he had no choice. And he swore, because he seemed to have no choice about that, either.

  The Flying Ace pickups were stopping, pulling sideways right across the highway two deep, blocking both lanes.

  “What the hell?” Wilson cried from the back seat. “Farley, what the hell’s going on?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  James was driving at a snail’s pace now, because he was mere yards from the pickups, with nowhere to go. They had even blocked the shoulders so he couldn’t go around.

  James stopped, the Blazer’s headlights showing the Flying Ace men, the brothers and their hands, armed with rifles, standing in the vee of their open doors.

  James cursed again. He couldn’t go forward unless he wanted to broadside the pickups. With them parked two deep, he had to know that would be useless.

  He couldn’t throw the Blazer in reverse because the van they’d been in was right on their tail.

  He bunched up his fist and pounded the steering wheel. “Damn those interfering Wilders!”

  Dane didn’t know what in the hell made Ace and the others pull out and block the road the way the did, and he didn’t care. He might never get another chance. He made his move.

  Wilson and James had taken the semiautomatic he wore at the back of his belt, but he’d never discussed in front of them the practice he’d learned in L.A. of wearing a backup piece in an ankle holster. He’d thought about doing away with it more than once since coming to Wyatt County, but he had never managed to break the habit. If this worked, he might just go back and kiss the instructor who’d insisted he get used to the extra weight on one ankle.

  He glanced at Ed Wilson seated next to him. Wilson, as was James, was focused on the pickups in the road ahead. Wilson still held the gun in his hand, but it was aimed at the side window now rather than at Dane’s head.

  Dane leaned forward to look over James’s shoulder. The movement had the added benefit of allowing him to reach his ankle. If only he could get the leg of his jeans tugged up far enough to allow him to reach into his boot without tipping Wilson off. At least it was the left leg he needed, the one away from Wilson. Of course, that meant he was going to have to draw it with his left hand, and he was not a left-handed shooter.

  So be it. He would take what he could get and make the most of it. Stacey’s life could depend on it.

  “What’s happening?” he asked.

  James flipped the switch to turn on the red and blue flashing lights on top of the Blazer. Then he used the P.A. system to speak to the people in the road. “Get out of the way,” he demanded. “Clear the road or I’ll drive right through you, Wilder.”

  “Come ahead, then, you stinking rustler,” Ace bellowed back, shouldering his rifle and taking aim.

  Wilson and James both started swearing again.

  Even from where Dane sat he could tell Ace had drawn a bead on Farley James. Leaned forward as he was, Dane could also see the sweat popping out on the back of James’s neck.

  He had his pant leg up. Now, if he could just…

  “What do you want, Wilder?” James called over the system.

  “You,” Ace called back, “with your hands in the air.”

  “You better do something,” Stacey said with a definite whine in her voice. “And fast. I have to go to the bathroom.”

  Her comment was so outrageous and unexpected that both bad guys gaped at her.

  Dane reached his gun and pulled it from his boot.

  Next to him, Wilson saw the move and cried, “Stop!” He lowered the barrel of his gun to aim at Dane. His finger tightened visibly on the trigger.

  Dane knew that Wilson preferred a stiff trigger, as opposed to James’s loose one, which was likely go off if you sneezed on it. If James had been beside him, Dane figured he would be dead by now. Instead, he had maybe half a second before he had a hole blown in his chest. He swung his right arm up and out and knocked James’s arm up.

  The gun went off, sending a bullet through the roof.

  Stacey cried out.

  James cursed. As he fumbled for the gun he’d laid in his lap and craned his neck to see what was going on in the back seat, Dane followed with his left hand and aimed his pistol at Wilson’s head.

  One down. But that left James.

  From the corner of his eye Dane saw Stacey move. She reached around with her right arm toward Wilson and cried, “Freeze!”

  James froze.

  “Put your hands up,” Stacey ordered harshly, “slowly. I’m real scared and my finger’s sweating. I just might pull this trigger by accident.”

  Dane swallowed. Trigger? What trigger?

  But James raised his hands. Dane had no idea why, since he knew Stacey didn’t have a gun, but he wasn’t about to question it. Neither could he hope James’s compliance would last.

  But suddenly men armed with rifles swarmed the Blazer. Doors were jerked open. Ed Wilson and Farley James were disarmed and dragged out. They offered no resistance as they were forced to lie facedown and spread-eagled on the cold pavement.

  The instant Dane saw they were secure and couldn’t cause any further trouble, he reached between the two front bucket seats for Stacey.

  At his touch, Stacey threw herself halfway over the console to reach him. “Dane!”

  “Are you all right?” His voice shook, and suddenly, now that the crisis was over, so did his hands.

  “I’m okay. I think.” She buried her face between his neck and shoulder and wrapped her arms around him as hard as she could.

  Questions, a dozen or more of them blazed through Dane’s mind, but they would have to wait. First he had to reassure himself that she was truly unharmed, that she was safe. The only way he knew to do that was to kiss her, so he did, over and over, all across her face and back to her mouth.

  “God,” he managed, his voice still unsteady. “I’ve never been so scared in my whole life.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “What just happened?” he asked, pulling back to look at her. Something niggled at the back of his mind. Some warning that there was something left undone. But he couldn’t focus on it until he had an answer. “How did you get him to raise his hands? I know you didn’t have a gun.”

  With a smile every bit as unsteady as Dane’s hands, she held up the cell phone still clutched in her grip. “I jabbed him in the side with the hard rubber antenna.”

  Dane stared at the phone, then at Stacey, dumbfounded.
“You used a cell phone to disarm an armed, known felon?”

  “It was the only thing I could think of to do.”

  It was too much. The chance she’d taken was beyond outrageous. And it had worked. He threw his head back and laughed. “God, I love you.”

  “That’s real sweet.” A grinning Ace Wilder stuck his head through the open back door through which he’d recently hauled one of the former county deputies who had stolen his cattle. “But if you two are about finished, there’s a little business out here to take care of.”

  Still holding on to Stacey, Dane grinned at Ace. “I don’t know where you came from or what you’re doing here, but I’m damn glad to see you.”

  “Same here, bro.”

  Bro? Dane blinked.

  Ace ducked out of the door and turned away toward the other men surrounding the truck.

  “Bro?” Dane looked back at Stacey. “You didn’t…”

  Her eyes wide, Stacey shook her head. “I didn’t say a word, I swear. I wouldn’t, Dane. Not when you asked me not to. Maybe it was just an expression.”

  “Yeah,” Dane said. “That’s probably it. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I will be once my heart stops pounding. And you?”

  “I’m fine. But I’ve got some business out there to take care of. You stay in here where it’s warm.”

  Then that something that had tickled the back of his mind, that told him there was more to worry about, burst through his brain. “The van.” There was a third man, behind them in the damn van.

  He whipped his head around to see out the back window, then slumped in relief. With red-and-blue lights flashing across the top of his unit, a Wyatt County deputy—good God, it was Donnie—had the third man facedown on the ground and cuffed.

  With one sneaker and one fuzzy pink slipper, Stacey climbed gingerly from the Blazer, mildly surprised to realize her knees were actually going to hold her upright. She was grateful, because she simply had to get out and move around. She knew an adrenaline crash was coming, and then she probably wouldn’t be able to do anything but collapse. Before that happened, she wanted to personally kiss Ace Wilder and every one of his brothers and hired hands right on the mouth, God love them every one.

  She didn’t know how much time had passed since Dane had drawn his gun and Ace and his men had taken the two creeps out and to the ground. Once Dane had left the Blazer she had sat there for some time watching him frisk and cuff the two. By the time she finally stepped outside another county unit had arrived. Between that one and Donnie, who had arrived in time to block the van from escaping, they had the three men safely in custody, two in the back seat of the second unit, one in Donnie’s.

  She watched as the two units turned around and raced away toward town. Good riddance, she thought with overwhelming relief.

  Most of the Flying Ace vehicles were also headed out. Only the three brothers remained talking to Dane as she approached.

  “Hey,” Trey called. “It’s our cell phone heroine.”

  She smiled, but it wasn’t easy. Mention of the cell phone reminded her of how terrified she’d been and made her heart race. “Could you hear anything?” she asked Ace.

  “Enough,” he said. “You did good, hon.”

  “Oh, Ace.” She threw her arms around him. “Thank you for coming. Thank you.” Then she repeated the process with Jack and Trey.

  Ace cleared his throat. “I think we better unhand her before Dane hauls us in for stealing his woman.”

  Stacey stiffened and withdrew from Trey’s hug. Sure, Dane had said he loved her a short time ago, but that, she was certain, had only been in reaction to everything that had just happened. They had survived. He was glad they were both alive. He hadn’t really meant it.

  “Damn right,” Dane said. “It’s called trespassing.”

  The Wilder men laughed.

  Stacey blinked.

  Ace pursed his lips, then nodded. “Yep, I was right. You’re in love with her.”

  Stacey held her breath.

  Dane looked at her, the glare from several sets of headlights casting harsh shadows across his face. “That’s between Stacey and me,” he said.

  Her vision blurred and she had to look away. She supposed that was as good as a denial. If he loved her, he would have said so, wouldn’t he?

  He did sidle up and put his arm around her, and that was some comfort, at least. Just then she was willing to take whatever he was willing to offer.

  “I have a question for you,” he said to Ace.

  “Shoot.”

  She felt the tension in every line of Dane’s body as he stared at the man before him.

  “A while ago, when you stuck your head in the car.”

  “Yeah?”

  Dane took a slow breath, then let it out. “What did you call me?”

  Ace paused a minute, then said, “I guess you heard me plain enough or you wouldn’t be asking. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  An icy blast of wind buffeted them, but Stacey seemed to be the only one who noticed. All eyes were on Dane.

  “What makes you think I’m…”

  Ace’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the matter? Can’t you even say it?”

  Jack stepped forward and placed a hand on Ace’s shoulder. “What makes us think that you’re another illegitimate son of a man who went through about a six-month period where he nailed everything in skirts, as long as she was several hundred miles from home? He had a real weakness for waitresses, you know.”

  Dane’s swallow was audible.

  “Hell.” Trey shouldered his way past his brothers. “Enough of this tap dancing. Are you or are you not our brother?”

  Another swallow, followed by a shudder hard enough to make Stacey, leaning against him, shake.

  Then Dane gathered himself and raised his chin. “My father’s name was King Wilder. I never met him.”

  Ace Wilder gave Dane Powell a wry grin. “Everything you’ve ever heard about him, both good and bad, is true. Welcome home, brother.”

  Stacey’s vision blurred again. Then suddenly she and Dane were surrounded by laughing, back-slapping, bear-hugging Wilder men.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was four in the morning before Stacey and Dane made it to his house. They’d gone by his office first for Dane to take care of the paperwork on the county jail’s newest residents.

  Word had spread rapidly, and when they’d arrived, most of the county’s deputies were there, outraged that two of their own—even if they were former—had stolen cattle and kidnapped the sheriff and Stacey. Dane had more volunteers for extra jail duty than he knew what to do with.

  “Remind me,” he muttered to no one in particular, “to thank those yo-yos for kidnapping us so I didn’t have to go tracking them down. Saved us probably several days.”

  Stacey rolled her eyes. She was sufficiently recovered from their ordeal to feel more like her old self. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “I’m real grateful.”

  She was, as far as Dane’s deputies were concerned, the heroine of the hour for her trick with the cell phone.

  Later, when Dane and Stacey were finally able to go home, they didn’t even make it to the bed before they had each other’s clothes off. It had hit them both at once when they’d entered the house just how close they’d come to losing each other for good.

  The living room was strewn with jeans and coats and sweaters. And one lone fuzzy pink slipper. The carpet was initiated in a way it had not been since Dane had had it installed two years earlier.

  They made love again, later, in the bed, and fell asleep holding each other tight.

  It was the sun streaming through the window that woke them the next morning.

  Dane woke first and lay still, staring at Stacey’s beautiful, peaceful face, storing up another memory. Ace had been right. He was in love with her. But what would she want with a man like him? He was too old for her. He was a cop. She hated cops.

  “You look so fierce,” she said.
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br />   Dane started. He hadn’t realized she’d opened her eyes. “I was just thinking.”

  “Must not have been very pleasant thoughts.”

  They weren’t, Dane silently acknowledged. They were about as unpleasant as thoughts could be. So, too, was what he had to say next. “You know, don’t you, that with Wilson and James locked up and your ankle healing, you’re free to go.”

  Her gaze darted away as she shifted to bunch the pillow beneath her head. “Go?”

  Was she already pulling away from him, emotionally if not physically? “Home,” he told her.

  She pulled the sheet up and tucked it beneath her arms. “Home.”

  Damn, he wished she’d look at him. “That’s right. You’re free to go home.”

  Stacey’s heart started a pounding that she thought surely Dane could hear. He was offering her the thing she had wanted most only a few days ago. Now it was the last thing she wanted. With a deep breath, she raised her gaze to meet his. She was not willing to walk away. Not yet. Not without a fight.

  “If I’m free to go,” she said quietly, “then I guess that means I’m free to stay, too.”

  His fist bunched around a handful of sheet. In protest, she wondered, or hope?

  “Stay?” His voice sounded rusty. “Why would you want to?”

  Was he blind? Couldn’t he see how she felt about him? “For you,” she said.

  Dane’s breath backed up in his lungs and his heart decided to stop beating. “I’m ten years older than you are.”

  “So?”

  “You don’t like cops.”

  “There are one or two I’ve come to tolerate.”

  Dane swallowed. “One or two?”

  A shrug of one gleaming, bare shoulder looked casual enough, but her fingers were twisting in the hem of the sheet. “Well,” she said, “I like Donnie. He’s cute and friendly.”

  Dane’s heart started beating again with a hard, solid thud against his ribs. He nearly smiled, but was afraid to. He could still be reading her wrong. She might not want as much from him as he wanted from her. “Donnie?”

  Stacey huffed out a breath and glared at him. Was the man being deliberately dense, or just perverse? He was going to make her come right out and say it. But, by damn, if she lay around and waited for him to get to it, their first child would be in college. “And you.” She didn’t mean to snap out the words, but fear and tension shortened her temper. She forced a slow breath.