Page 99 of Christmas with Three Cowboys

Jake is wading through a mess of his own making, and he’s running out of solutions, out of ideas, out of reason.

“Jake, don’t get yourself in deeper,” I manage. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I do, actually. I can’t have you telling the truth. Someone might believe you.”

“I think we’re a little past that, don’t you?”

“It won’t matter anymore,” he says, raising his weapon once more.

Staring down that dark hole, I feel… nothing. It’s as if everything inside me has come to a sudden halt. I’m frozen. Speechless. All I can do is hold my breath and wait for it.

A honk rather than a gunshot tears through the silence of the night. It rips the whole universe apart, accompanied by rumbling engines and scraping across the half-frozen snow outside. By the time Jake realizes we’re not alone anymore, boots thud across the porch. The door bursts inward, splinters flying everywhere.

I scream at the sight of one too many men clad in black.

So many weapons.

“Melissa!” Colton’s voice finds me.

Jake is about to shoot, but a familiar face pops into my hazy field of vision and smacks him hard across the face. It’s not Colton, though. It’s not Ethan either, or Mitch.

“Ramon,” I whisper, looking at them all, confused. “What is going on here?”

“I can explain!” Jake starts sobbing. His gun lands on the floor and slides farther away from him. Suddenly, he’s alone and helpless, mewling and whimpering like a lost kitten.

I gasp as I realize that Ramon, the nice man I bumped into the other day, is Ramon Esparza. Holy shit. I was mere feet from him a few weeks ago.

“We need to talk,” Ramon tells Jake. “But first, you’re going to let this poor girl go.”

“Let her go? I caught her for you!” Jake tries to spin this back in his favor.

Ethan whips out his gun, prompting Ramon’s people to point theirs at him. Ramon curses in Spanish and motions at Ethan. “Put that down. We had a deal, Mr. Avery!”

“Fucking hell,” Ethan hisses and puts the gun away.

Immediately, Ramon’s men focus on Jake, while Colton and Mitch flank Ethan—their eyes searching my face. I’m dazed and beyond confused, trying to wrap my head around what just happened. Seeing Colton and his brothers in the company of the cartel, while Jake is out of excuses and lies… I admit, I did not see any of this coming.

“Alright, Jake, so here’s where we stand,” Ramon says, glaring at him with dead eyes. “You need to remove Melissa’s cuffs first.”

“Ramon, I—” Jake tries to object, but Ramon smacks him across the face with the butt of his gun. It’s the second blow, and it draws blood, splattering it across the dusty, grimy floor.

“Uncuff her.”

Jake nods and does as he’s told. With trembling hands, he fishes the key out of his jeans pocket and rushes around, getting behind me. As soon as I’m free, I jump out of the chair and bolt right into Colton’s arms.

“Are you okay?” he whispers.

I feel Ethan’s hand on the small of my back.

“Yeah,” I whisper back.

“Ramon, hold on, you got things wrong here. I was planning to bring? Melissa to you,” Jake tries to weasel his way out of this, but it’s not going to work the second time around. “I had her in cuffs for you.”

“You were going to kill me before the cartel got anywhere near the truth,” I say, my tone flat, my sympathy in shambles. “Had they not come in…”

Ethan pulls me closer to him. “It’s alright, baby. He’s not going to hurt you anymore.”

“Jake, I don’t like being played for a fool,” Ramon says. His calmness is eerie, reminiscent of the quiet before a devastating storm. “What’s this about Laurel and Bruce committing perjury in court? I listened to their stories. I believed what you told me about Melissa because I thought to myself… No, Jake can’t possibly be stupid enough to even consider playing me.”

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