Page 78 of Rough Ride

And she had told him she loved him.

He had known he was falling for her for weeks now, but he didn’t know how he felt about it. The fact that she had told him she loved him made him feel a bit better, but not much. Still, he didn’t want to give her up. Having her there steadied him in a way he hadn’t expected.

“Here we are,” she said. When they stepped in, there was laughter in the room. Danny was sitting next to the bed talking to Jerry.

“You weren’t here all night, were you?” Crysta asked.

He shook his head. “Kono came by to relieve me a couple hours after you two left.”

“How are you feeling, Jerry?” she asked as she leaned down to kiss Jerry’s weathered cheek. When she pulled back, Eli could swear that Jerry was blushing.

“Doing fine, thanks to you.” He looked at Eli. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have taken her out so far.”

“It’s not your fault,” Crysta insisted.

Jerry looked at her. “No. I should have known better.”

If Joe had been his surrogate father, Jerry had played the uncle. Eli hated seeing him so sad and embarrassed. Still, someone had tried to kill both he and Crysta.

“Do you have any idea who it was?” Eli asked.

“I told Mitch that I had no idea. He was a ways away, so there is a good chance the man was a sharpshooter.”

Exactly what Eli thought. “I told Danny here not to let anyone near you.”

“I can handle Mitch,” Jerry said. “I’m not too old to answer a few questions from the law. It’s not like it was the first time I dealt with the law.”

Eli smiled. He sounded more like the old Jerry, not the hurt one who had been lying in the bed when he walked in.

He wanted to stay, but with Jerry out of commission, he needed to check on things at the ranch. He also needed to talk to Mitch. “I’ve got stuff I have to do back at the ranch, so I guess we should get going.”

“Why don’t I stay?” Crysta said.

“I can take her back, boss,” Danny said.

She was safe there, probably safer than at the house if he needed to go out to work. He nodded and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Behave.”

She snorted. “As if I ever misbehave.”

“Don’t give the nurses any grief,” he ordered Jerry.

He left then, knowing he didn’t want to go, but understanding theirs was still a working ranch. He knew that there was too much to worry about, piled on top of the shooting and mutilations.

It took him a good thirty minutes before he got home. He stopped by the house to change, but knew there was something wrong the moment he stepped over the threshold. Nothing in particular. The security had been active from the gate to the house, so he knew that someone hadn’t breached the house. Still, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and something cold brushed against them. He searched the first floor, but there was nothing.

When he turned the corner to go back into the kitchen, he felt the sharp prick of a needle, then felt his world tilt from side to side. He blinked trying to focus. All of a sudden, he seemed to lose control of his legs. They turned to rubber beneath him.

He stumbled to the counter and grabbed a piece of paper; he tried to write something down on it. He wasn’t sure he accomplished that, but he still tried. His vision was so blurry he didn’t even know what it said. Then, he was falling…his world dissolving around him.

* * *

When she walked into the house, it was silent. It sent a chill dancing down her spine. Eli might be out, but there was something off, something weird.

“I thought the boss was going to be here,” Danny said.

“He was.”

She walked through the foyer to the hallway. She looked down one hallway and the next. Nothing. Crysta knew there was something wrong, though.

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