Stars & Stripes

“What?” Zane asked as he leaned closer.



“I hate Texas.”



Chapter 8



Zane held Ty’s limp body in the saddle. It wasn’t comfortable, but Ty seemed to have no control over his limbs and little awareness of where he was or even who he was. Zane couldn’t allow him to be strapped to a saddle like a dead man, so he rode with Ty in front of him.



Joe and Cody greeted them when they trotted into the main yard, running to help get Ty off the horse when they realized he wasn’t conscious. Ty’s horse had beaten them there, tipping the others off that something had gone wrong. A police vehicle and an ambulance were already on the way, even though Joe confessed they’d all just thought Ty had fallen off his horse.



Ty was a dead weight in their hands, and they had to carry him into the house together. Annie ran to her truck and retrieved the well-stocked bag she took with her on calls, and then she followed them in.



Zane stood in the yard, stunned and staring at the open front door.



“Z?”



He turned to his father.



“You fall apart later, you hear me? Your man saved my little girl today. You go in there and be strong for him.”



Zane blinked at him, and then nodded. He headed for the house, putting one foot in front of the other. It was the only way he could manage to function.



The boys had placed Ty on one of the sofas in the den. Annie was checking his pulse and blood pressure.



“I don’t understand why he was even conscious,” she said to Zane when she realized he was there. “That dart should have dropped him before he could get off a shot, much less empty his clip. And he’s still partially responsive, even now. I don’t understand.”



Zane nodded and ran his hand over Ty’s forehead, then leaned down to kiss it. “He has strange reactions. Two Tylenol will wire him up just like one of those five-hour energy shots. Benadryl makes him sick. Vicodin makes him stop breathing.”



“Christ, there’s no telling what he’s going to do with this! I know he pulled the dart out; maybe he didn’t get a full dose. Maybe it hit bone. Get his shirt open, let’s see where it hit him.”



Zane pulled out his knife and put the blade to the collar of Ty’s Henley.



Ty reached up and grabbed his wrist. Annie screamed and dropped her stethoscope.



“Don’t cut the shirt.”



“Jesus, Ty, are you awake?” Zane tossed the knife to the floor and dropped to his knees beside Ty.



“I hate Texas,” Ty said without opening his eyes.



“Why does he keep saying that?” Mark asked from the doorway where he stood watching.



“Obviously, he hates Texas!” Zane snapped. “Why shouldn’t he? It keeps trying to kill him!”



Ty’s head lolled to the side.



“Ty?” Annie asked as she leaned closer to him. “Can you hear us?”



Ty groaned.



“Baby?” Zane whispered. He rested his chin on the couch, letting his nose touch Ty’s. He closed his eyes and put his hand against Ty’s cheek. “Are you in there?”



“I feel weird, Zane.”



Zane fought back a sob of laughter and ran his hand through Ty’s hair.



“What in the world is going on in here?” Beverly demanded as she came into the room. She saw Ty on the sofa and put her hands over her mouth. “Oh my God!”



“He got shot with a tranquilizer dart,” Mark told her. He and the others were staying out of the way, watching from the doorway.



“Will he live?”



“We think so,” Annie answered as she checked his heartbeat again.



“Oh my. We have guests coming, is he bleeding on the upholstery?”



Zane raised his head, meeting Annie’s wide eyes. Zane pushed to his feet and rounded on his mother, fire boiling through his veins.



“You bitch,” he growled, sounding stunned even to his own ears.



Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped.



Joe turned and ran for the door, yelling, “Harrison!”



“How dare you talk to me like that!” Beverly shouted.



Zane felt Annie’s hand on his arm, pulling at him and trying to calm him. He shook her off. “The only thing you give a damn about is your reputation and that goddamned party. You have a man who could be dying on your couch and you’re bitching about the upholstery?”



“You said he wasn’t dying!”



“Not the point, Mother! Jesus Christ!”



“It’s his job to risk his life for law and order, and that is precisely what he’s doing.”



“He’s not here because it’s his job! He’s here because he loves me!”



Beverly’s eyes widened and she shook her head, looking from Ty, lying half-conscious on the couch, and back to Zane. “Well, the young man is obviously confused, Zane. Shame on you for taking advantage. As soon as he wakes, I expect him to be on the first flight home.” Then she turned and stormed out of the room.



Zane shouted in frustration and ran both hands through his hair.



“Zane,” Annie whispered.



Zane glared at the threshold, peripherally aware of Mark and Cody watching him, and of Joe and Harrison coming through the front door.



“Zane,” Annie said again, more insistent.



Zane turned to look down at her and Ty. She was perched on the edge of the couch near his hip, her hand on Ty’s chest. Ty’s fingers grazed the oriental carpet. His head had lolled to the side, and his eyes were closed.



Zane swallowed hard and went to kneel by his side again.



“He’s gone,” Annie whispered.



Zane looked up at her with wide eyes.



She gasped and put out her hand. “I mean he’s unconscious! Not gone! Just unconscious.” She winced and gave the others a helpless shrug as she put her hand over her mouth.



Zane studied Ty’s face. “I love you, Ty,” he whispered.



He got no response. Annie was feeling for Ty’s pulse again. She nodded, but she still looked concerned. “The ambulance is on the way. They can monitor him in the hospital. I suspect he’s going to be out for a while. He fought it. He fought it hard.”



Zane ran his fingers through Ty’s hair, letting his thumb graze over Ty’s cheek.



“That’s what he does.”



“I don’t understand why you’re keeping him around. Why not send him home? He obviously can’t handle himself in such a rough environment,” Beverly said as they sat at the dinner table.



Zane had been seething ever since they’d loaded Ty’s limp body into the ambulance and he’d come back into the house to find one of the maids hard at work, scrubbing the dust and dirt off the upholstery.



He’d gone to the hospital, but as soon as visiting hours were over, he’d been forced to leave. He wasn’t family, and though he’d tried to argue that Ty might be disoriented when he awoke, maybe even destructive if someone familiar wasn’t with him, the officials at the hospital had heard none of it. To add insult to injury, now he was being forced to sit through his mother’s opinions at dinner.



“He’s . . . actually quite capable, Mother,” Mark said, and Zane could see his brother-in-law’s feathers ruffling too.



“God knows what would have happened had he not been with me,” Annie tried.



“You wouldn’t have been there in the first place,” Beverly said. “I’ll have Manuel drive him to the airport when he’s discharged.”



“Mother, stop,” Zane said through gritted teeth.



“And it’s quite uncouth of him to just drop out of the sky, uninvited, and expect you to play host, Zane.” Beverly spread her salad across her plate, unaware of how angry Zane was getting.



“That’s it,” Zane ground out. He glanced at the others before turning his attention to his mother. “I was hoping to avoid this, Mother, but you really leave me no choice.”



“Oh, Z, slow down,” Harrison said.



Beverly’s eyes widened before she regained control and cocked her head at Zane.



“Ty’s not just my partner and he’s not just my friend. And he’s certainly not uninvited or unwelcome. He’s my boyfriend, we’ve been together for almost a year now, and he’s not leaving.”



Beverly stared at him, not blinking, not even twitching. “Boyfriend?”



“Yes. We’ve been living together for months. And I’ve been seriously thinking about asking him to marry me.”



Annie gave a little golf clap before she could get control of herself, and she bit her lip.



“That is . . . scandalous! Zane!” Beverly stood. “How dare you come into my home and say such things!”



Zane stood as well, refusing to let her feel superior with higher ground.



“Is it really so much worse than letting me kill myself with drink and drugs? He’s the only reason I’m still here!”



Beverly’s eyes hardened, her nostrils flaring. “You’re still here because of him? Not because your family needed you?”



“He’s my family too, Mother. He’s in that hospital alone because he sacrificed himself for my family. And because everyone else thinks just like you, I can’t even go and be with him!”



Beverly took a deep breath and looked around the table. Zane could feel all their eyes on him, but he didn’t look away from his mother. Rage boiled deep inside him, and whether she deserved it or not, she had become the target.



She schooled her features, putting on a painfully familiar mask. It almost sickened him, recognizing himself in her, seeing what his future might have held. An emotionless, tactical assault on the world. Not even Becky had been able to steer Zane off the path he’d started on, rising in the ranks to power, taking the world by both horns and bending it to his will.



Ty was the only one who’d ever been able to break him out of what his mother had taught him, to show him what a life well-lived and hard-felt could be like.



Before he could allow himself to dwell on it anymore, or to say anything to his mother he might regret, he turned and walked away, leaving his family in stunned silence behind him.



He almost barreled over Sadie as he left the room.



“Uncle Z, will you play with me?” she asked, tiny voice full of hope, completely oblivious to the drama around her.



Zane forced himself to exhale and knelt in front of her. “Of course, sweetheart.” He tried a smile. She climbed onto his knee and he gave her a hug as he stood. “You want to go call and check on Ty first?”



“Will he play with me?”



“Probably not, baby doll. He’s asleep.”



“Then no. Let’s go play!”



Zane couldn’t help but laugh as he obediently carried her to the stairs. So much for Ty’s ability to inspire undying devotion in every creature he encountered.



Zane sat on the front steps, eyes unseeing, thinking of Ty and worrying. The screen door behind him creaked and shut with a snap, and heels on the wooden planks approached.



From somewhere in the distance, a tiger roared.



Zane stood to stare into the night, shivering at the sound.



“Oh my,” his mother whispered.



Zane tore his eyes from the moonlit landscape to look at her. She seemed nervous. Why had she come out here? He could count on one hand the number of heart-to-hearts they’d shared over the years, and before every one, she’d looked like that.



“That’s an unpleasant sound.”



Zane nodded. “It’s because the roar hits a frequency so low we can’t hear it. It’s called infrasound. Causes a sense of terror. A roaring tiger can actually paralyze with fear.”



“How do you know that, Zane?”



“Ty told me.”



She sighed and looked out over the darkened vista of the ranch. Zane studied her profile. “Was it true, what you said?” she asked finally. “Are you going to ask him to marry you?”



“It’s true. I think.”



She swallowed hard. “I don’t know that I can live with it, Zane.”



Zane stared at her, chest tightening. The tiger roared again, and he tore his eyes away from her to look into the darkness. They had secured all the animals, locking the horses safely away in the barns and putting all the hands to work at wrangling in the other livestock. They were still exposed in pens, but they were closer to the house. His spine tingled as the tiger continued to roar. “He’s getting closer.”



“It’s quite unsettling. What’s being done about it?”



“They’ve got animal control people coming from Austin to hunt him. So far, the locals aren’t having any luck. Probably because they’re still looking way out near the preserve.”



“We should call them and inform them he’s come this way.”



“Annie’s on it. She thinks he followed us here. That he tracked Ty’s scent here.”



“Goodness.”



Zane nodded. Of course the tiger would track Ty across miles and miles of desert. It was Ty. He attracted death and disaster and undying loyalty like nobody else.



“Did Mr. Grady truly save Annabelle’s life?”



Zane nodded. “And mine. Many times over.”



Beverly sighed. “Desperate times call for unusual allies,” she said. She glanced at him. “I phoned the hospital and explained the situation to them. They said you were welcome to stay with him until he wakes.”



Zane whipped his head around. “Really?”



She nodded, though she didn’t look pleased with herself. Zane lunged toward her and hugged her, picking her up off the ground. She gasped and made a gurgling noise, and when Zane set her down, she put a hand to her hair. “My goodness, Zane.”