Page 64 of Cowboy Don't Go

He reached down to pick up his phone. From somewhere behind them came the sound of a gun cocking. “That is the question, isn’t it?” The three of them jumped as a disheveled-looking man appeared from the shadows under the loft. Had he been lurking there all along, watching this crazy scene unfold?

He stood at the loft ladder, holding a pistol aimed at them. His hair was overlong, his jaw was covered by an unkempt beard and his clothes looked like they could use a wash. It was the same man from the road that night. He tossed a small duffel bag in their direction. “I’ll take that money now and I thank you all for saving me the trouble of tearing all these walls out in the last place I had to look. You—Sarah—you fill up that bag.”

Cooper shoved Shay behind him. “There’s no need for guns,” he told Evan. “Take the money. We don’t want it.”

“We?” Shay hissed in a strangled whisper. “No. We don’t want it,” she corrected over Cooper’s shoulder. “Whatever it is. We, as in us. The Hardestys.”

“That’s amusing,” Evan said. “You think you’re all above this money? This Hardesty clan that thinks it’s so upright? This? This right here is the money your father stole from me. Blackmail money. Oh, yeah, he wasn’t above breaking the law, your old man, if it meant his family would profit and Sarah’s lover would go to prison.”

Shay gaped at him in shock.

She gripped the back of Cooper’s shirt as she watched her mother’s reaction to Evan’s words. At how some dawning realization replaced the shock in her expression.

Impossible. All of this was impossible. Crazy.

Evan gestured at Sarah to hurry up. “Gotta say I’m relieved to find he didn’t spend it all.” He fidgeted, pacing along the wall, unable to stand still as she tossed the money in the bag. “But I knew he’d stashed it somewhere here on the ranch. Frugal man your husband.” He wiped his nose and sniffed.

“You’re lookin’ pretty rough there, Clulagher,” Cooper said. “Things a little shaky in your world? Once you betray everyone you know?”

Clulagher winced at the dig. “You seem to know something about that, according to the little lady here.”

Shay curled her fingers warningly into Cooper’s shirt. “Don’t—” she whispered.

“Maybe you’ll get away with it again this time. Maybe you won’t. Maybe you’re not in complete control of it anymore,” Cooper said.

“You let me worry about that. You worry about your old man who looks like maybe he doesn’t have long for this world.”

“You stole eight years of his life!”

The man shrugged. “I didn’t steal it exactly. More like he gave it away. All for love.”

“Liar,” Cooper barked.

“Yeah? Ask him.” Clulahgher hauled Sarah up by the elbow once she’d finished putting the last of the money in the bag. He pulled her close against him with the gun to her head.

“No! Mom!” Shay breathed. “Cooper do something!”

“No!” Sarah snapped. “Leave it. You protect her.”

And he did. He was. He was blocking her with his body.

“That’s right,” Evan said. “You stay right where you are. Throw me the keys to that truck of yours.”

Cooper nodded at her and, angrily, she fished the keys out of her pocket.

“Toss them over here.”

She did and he made Sarah pick them up, then sidled out toward the barn doors with her back against his chest.

“Now, I’m not a killer,” he told them. “But you never know. Things are a little . . . desperate right now and you never know what might—”

But before he could clear the barn doors, someone reached out from behind the wall and knocked the gun out of his hand.

Chapter Twelve

Evan grunted as the pistol clattered to the ground and went off in the dirt. Trey Reyes jumped Clulagher and wrestled him to the ground. Sarah fell as well, then crabbed out of the way. Instantly, Cooper was there, dragging her up, away from the struggle. Evan and Trey fought briefly before Cooper joined in, gaining advantage. Fury overtook him as he punched Evan hard in the face, over and over until Trey stopped him, rolling the man over and locking Evan’s hands behind his back.

“Yeah, you bastard,” Cooper spat. “That was for my father. For the eight years he spent behind bars because of you.”

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