Page 42 of Deputy Brand Gets Her Man
God, it was good to think about something besides her and Jeremiah.
She tried not to let her thoughts slide back to the infuriating man and instead focused on the gentle rocking of the animal beneath her, and the breeze in her hair.
They arrived all too soon. She took the rope from her saddle and tied Sundance loosely to a shady spot behind the diner, where some tender looking grasses were growing. A kid came out the back door with a bucket of water, sloshing over both sides.
“That a clean bucket, son? It been washed since anybody drank from it?”
“Great grandma puts boilin’ water in after a horse drinks,” he said.
“Good man,” she said as the boy set the bucket in front of the horse and patted her neck. He was maybe nine, red-headed and freckled in jeans and a T-shirt.
“Thanks, kid.” She handed him a couple of singles for his trouble, and headed around front and inside.
The interior of the diner was long and narrow, with red vinyl stools lined up in front of a counter and booths along the front wall, with a narrow walking space in between. The kitchen was even narrower behind the counter, with an open pass-thru in between.
She’d no sooner ordered a full-on breakfast, which they served there all day, when a loud buzzing sound drew her gaze around just in time to glimpse one of those crotch-rocket motorcycles fly past, bike and rider entirely in black. In a heartbeat, the diner’s front window exploded inward. People screamed and ducked and a brick landed on the floor.
Willow dove off her stool, running for the door, shouting, “Is everyone all right?” And as they nodded, she raced outside and around back to Sundance, untying his lead on the way. She jumped into the saddle, and squeezed his sides, “Let’s go, boy! Giddyap!”
Sundance loved to giddyap.
He was fast, one of the fastest on the ranch. Could’ve been a racehorse, but Willow wouldn’t have it. She steered Sundance off at a sharp bend, short-cutting cross country, catching up enough to see the biker. As she rode, she grabbed her phone and tapped the mic symbol to record a message to dispatch. “Unit three, I’m in pursuit of a motorcycle, no plates?—”
She came to another big bend in the road, and again, steered Sundance off the road. They jumped a fence, all but flying. Willow couldn’t help but thrill to the ride. The wind in her ears, her hair flying like Sundance’s mane. They came to the end of the shortcut and onto the road again—and there was the bike right in front of them, skidding around to face them and revving, then shooting forward.
Sundance reared and tried to pivot at the same time, and then he went over backwards, right on top of her.
Chapter Eight
Jeremiah was on his way to the site of his father’s showdown with the Brands, a canyon at the far western part of the ranch. His old man might have had time to hide something there when he’d been waiting to ambush Garrett Brand and his brothers and his kid sister, Jessi, who was scarier than all of ’em.
It had been a stupid mistake to take on a family like the Brands out of vengeance. But they had his son, and de Lorean wanted Ethan back. Jeremiah supposed that would’ve been enough to make his old man take stupid chances.
Imagine him murdering Ethan’s mother and then thinking he ought to be the one to raise him. Hell, he almost wished he’d been rescued by a family like the Brands. Maybe he’d have turned out to be decent, like his brother.
He’d pulled the Jeep over alongside a stretch of pavement and looked at the map unfolded on the seat. He’d resorted to the map when the GPS had refused to locate the canyon. Thompson’s Gorge, according to Garrett Brand’s notes. It was apparently several miles west and there didn’t appear to be a road that led out there. He had no idea if it was drivable. His Jeep was not an off-roading model. Mud-bogging had never appealed.
He looked off to the left, and saw badlands and desert, boulders and drifts, and he knew plain and simple his Jeep wasn’t equal to the terrain. He was going to need an ATV.
The radio crackled, then he heard a dispatcher’s voice. “A deputy on horseback is in pursuit of a suspect on a motorcycle who just vandalized the WTD. She’s gone silent, we can’t raise her.
A female deputy on horseback? Willow?
He jammed the Jeep into gear, pulled a U-turn in the road, stomped it, and didn’t let off the gas until he got onto the state highway seventeen minutes later, he skidded to a halt on the shoulder amid three cop cars and an ambulance, dove out of his Jeep and ran.
He stopped when he caught sight of Willow, lying on her back on the ground. Her horse stood nearby. Someone came running up behind him. Ethan. His red pickup was sideways in the road behind him; its driver’s door open wide. The EMTs closed ranks around her there on the ground, most of them kneeling, some standing.
Jeremiah couldn’t see Willow. Ethan was swearing and pushing his way forward, so he stayed close, riding his brother’s wake, but then Garrett stepped in front of them, hands to their shoulders. “You have to stay back, boys. Let ‘em have some room.”
“What happened?” Jeremiah croaked.
“Anonymous caller said the horse spooked, reared up so bad he flipped backwards and landed on top of her. Added ‘it wasn’t on purpose.’” He looked over where Sundance was standing. Another deputy had him by his halter. The horse kept picking up one foreleg.
Jeremiah edged past Garrett while the sheriff was focused on keeping his son out of the paramedics’ way. A minute later, Ethan did, too. They strode up behind the EMTs where they could see Willow. She had a neck brace on, and a backboard underneath her. They were fastening straps to hold her in place. Her eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving.
Jeremiah swore under his breath, pushed a hand through his hair, front to back, and swore some more. He saw blood on the pavement and something dropped out of his stomach. He didn’t realize he’d dropped with it, right to his damn knees.
They hefted the backboard and carried her toward the ambulance with its rear doors open, then placed the backboard and Willow onto a waiting gurney.
