Page 65 of Cowboy Don't Go

Muttering curses, Evan lay defeated, face down, bleeding on the dirt barn floor.

With his knee on Evan’s back, Trey met Cooper’s look and grinned. “We got ’im.” He pulled a pair of zip ties from his back pocket and locked Evan’s hands behind him.

Cooper nodded, breathing hard, his heart still racing. “Where’d you come from?”

“I just had a feeling. Pulled up down the road. Looks like I was right.” Trey’s dark hair fell in his eyes. “You call the sheriff,” he told Cooper quietly. “I was never here.”

Cooper nodded and pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed the sheriff.

Brushing the dirt off himself, Trey dragged Clulagher over to the wall and shoved him against it.

Cooper hung up the phone, looking over at Shay and Sarah embracing. “Sarah. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“No. I’m okay.”

Shay refused to look at him, but he could see she was crying. She swiped at her cheeks angrily with her palms.

“Shay—listen to me,” he began, but she put her hand up to stop him from saying anything more.

Frustrated, he turned to Trey. “The sheriff’s on his way.”

“Great!” Shay said. “That’s just great. Perfect! The sheriff! Now we’re ruined. Everything we’ve worked so hard for. He’ll see the money, linking us to whatever our father was up to. That we had no part of. It’s just perfect!”

The four of them stood in silence for a long moment before Trey reached for the duffel. “What if he doesn’t?”

Shay shot him a questioning look.

“What if there is no money to find?”

Evan Clulagher groaned miserably.

“What if,” Trey proposed, lifting the duffel over his shoulder, “all this disappears? What if I take it out of here right now and they never see it?”

Shay shot a look at Cooper. “And do what with it?”

Trey shrugged. “TBD. But this fool will never see a dime of it again.”

The accusing look on Shay’s face put a dark look on Cooper’s own. “I’ll tell them all about it!” Clulagher snarled from his corner. “I’ll tell them all how you made off with my money.”

“What money?” Trey snorted. “Nothing here but a sad, old, desperate man trying to pin the blame for what he did on everyone else.” He pointed at the hole in the wall. “Oh, and that? That’s just demolition. Just like everywhere else on this property. And FYI, you weren’t as clever as you thought you were fixing Ray’s books. If they’d looked a little bit closer, they would have found what we found. Your digital fingerprints all over those transactions that framed Ray. So, not so smart after all, are you, Evan?”

Evan slunk down against the wall, silent again.

“I’d better get out of here before the sheriff comes.” Trey looked at Sarah. “Cooper, you stay here and wait for him. Sarah and Shay, you should get out of here, too. No use complicating matters any more than they are.”

Shay nodded, tugging her mother by the arm. She stopped to pick up the keys that had fallen out of Evan’s hands, then turned back to Cooper.

He blinked at her, unsure what to say. Knowing anything he said now would only make things worse.

Anger was still burning in her eyes. “You know, I’ve been disappointed by people before, Cooper. But you? You’ve just managed to set a whole new bar. I actually let myself care about you! So, thank you. Thank you for reminding me that trust is just another word for gullible. And that I’m the fool. Again.”

*

“This isn’t Cooper’s fault,” Sarah told her riding back to the ranch in her truck. “None of this is Cooper’s fault.”

Shay stared straight ahead, her fingers tight on the wheel.

“This all started a long time ago, before you were even out of school.”

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