Hard Ride (Clean Slate Ranch) Read online

  “Not getting you killed, too.” With his free hand, Slater lunged up and squeezed a pressure point on Reyes’s wrist. Reyes hollered a protest as his fingers spasmed. He released Slater.

  And Slater fell.

  Chapter Three

  “Slater! Fuck!”

  Reyes Caldero had been truly terrified only a handful of times in his life. He’d been terrified as a sixteen-year-old while watching his former gang buddies torment and torture a neighborhood gay kid, scared of being found out himself. He’d been terrified after crashing through the floor of a burning building and being trapped, forced to watch a fellow fireman burn to death, assuming he’d die the same way. He’d been terrified one night last fall when he and Robin had investigated a distant gunshot on ranch lands and found a bloody, shaken Miles on the ground with his stalker ex-boyfriend unconscious beside him.

  This was a new sort of terror, because he’d just watched a man he considered a friend begin a long, tumbling descent down the slope of the mountain. On purpose. Slater had disappeared from view pretty quickly, but dust continued to rise, hinting at his path. He didn’t scream, didn’t shout, didn’t make a sound.

  Behind him, both the little boys and their mother were crying. The father, Frank, and the tall blond—Zack?—had been holding Reyes by the ankles. The young redheaded guy was desperately searching for a cell signal, despite Reyes telling them at the start of the trip there was no WiFi out here. The redhead’s mother clung to his arm, worry all over her face.

  Reyes scooted away from the edge on his stomach and then raced over to Mischief and grabbed his walkie. “Judson, you copy? I’ve got a 911 out at the summit. Judson!” He took a few deep breaths as he waited for a response, because panicking in front of the tourists was a bad look.

  “Copy, Reyes, what’s going on?” Judson replied.

  “I need at least three horsemen up here to collect the guests and get them home. Then I need Search and Rescue as soon as possible.” Reyes swallowed hard so he didn’t vomit. “Someone got too close to the soft cliff, and Slater went over pulling them back.”

  “Christ Almighty. Let me get on all that. Stand by, okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Reyes turned and jumped a mile, surprised to see Frank right behind him. “I am so sorry,” Frank said, obviously distraught and near tears. “He saved my boy’s life.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Reyes forced the words out, because why hadn’t Sam’s parents been paying better attention? “Help’s on the way, you just see to your family.”

  Frank returned to his wife and sons. The gay couple approached Reyes with equally shocked expressions. “Can we do anything?” Zack asked. “I’m a SEAL, man. I’ve got rescue experience.”

  Reyes’s first instinct was to say yes, please, to the SEAL. But his job was to protect the guests, not put them in danger. “You just sit tight and wait. You’re a guest and I can’t risk you getting hurt. We’ve got more men on the way, and they’ll get here a lot quicker at a gallop and take you all back to the ranch. Search and Rescue is being notified.” All Reyes wanted to do was fling himself up onto Hot Coffee and find a way down into that valley. He was pretty sure he could get in about a mile or so east, where the land sloped down, but he had a responsibility to the seven people in his care. He needed backup first.

  Judson called back on the walkie. “I’ve got Robin, Ernie and Hugo saddling up and heading out as soon as they can,” he said. “Search and Rescue will be out with a chopper to get down into that valley. How are the guests?”

  “Upset but coping.” Reyes didn’t know what else to say. He needed to hear Miles’s soothing voice, to have his husband tell him everything would be okay. That they’d find Slater caught in a bush, cut up but alive. That Reyes hadn’t just allowed a man to fall to his death. “Who knows?”

  “Only a handful of people so far. None of the guests. Don’t need a panic or for folks to think the trips aren’t safe.”

  The last thing the ranch needed was bad publicity over an accident, but it had been one of the ranch’s staff that was hurt, not a guest. Hell, Slater was a goddamn hero for saving that kid’s life. “I hear that, Judson. What about Arthur?”

  “Hell no, he’s down at the rescue today, and I don’t want him notified until we actually know something about Slater.”

  “Right.” Reyes completely agreed with that decision. Arthur had had two heart attacks last year, was turning eighty this year, and his health was delicate some days. The last thing he needed was the stress of worrying and wondering if Slater was alive. Hell, Reyes wasn’t sure he’d manage this stress himself without exploding.

  While they waited for backup, Reyes shouted Slater’s name a few times to no response, other than his own voice echoing over the vast valley below. He kept rubbing his right wrist, still able to feel Slater’s hand in his, then the sharp pressure that made Reyes inexplicably let go of the man. Maybe Slater had done it to keep Reyes from going over, too, but damn it, that had been Reyes’s decision. Not Slater’s.

  Too much time passed before his walkie crackled. “Reyes? You there?”

  Miles. Reyes pressed the talk button. “Mi alma, what are you doing there?”

  “Judson called me. I think he could hear how stressed you are in your voice. How are you?”

  Reyes turned away from the guests. “Barely holding it together.”

  “I can’t imagine. Do you think...?”

  “I don’t know. I’m trying to have faith he’s alive down there somewhere, but it’s a long way down.” He shivered once.

  “I know. I love you, and I know you did everything you could.”

  I’m not so sure about that.

  “As soon as backup gets here,” Reyes said instead, “I’m going to go look for him. I won’t be back for a few hours yet. Please don’t pace and worry over me.”

  “I’ll worry over you anyway. I can’t—” He coughed hard. “Do you believe he’s alive?”

  “I have to believe that or I’ll go crazy. I was holding on to him, Miles. I couldn’t...” Reyes wasn’t sure what he’d do if Slater’s name ended up on the list of people he’d failed to save in his lifetime. “I have to believe he’s alive.”

  “Then I believe it, too, my soul.”

  Reyes closed his stinging eyes and rubbed at them. “I’ll make sure you’re updated, okay?”

  “Okay. See you later.”

  “Yeah.”

  He hated ending the conversation, but Reyes was also stretched thin. Thankfully, the small family had calmed down, and the other trio was sitting quietly together near their horses. Eventually, the thundering noise of hoofbeats rose in the distance, and three familiar faces on horseback appeared.

  Reyes told Ernie and Hugo to get the guests and chuck wagon back to the ranch, and then he enlisted Robin to ride with him. Now that he knew more about Robin’s history with horses and riding, he trusted the man to keep up. He’d already saddled Hot Coffee with the equipment from the chuck wagon, and they took off to the east at a gallop. The land did slope down, as he’d hoped, and they found a way to get into the valley itself.

  Reyes wished he’d grabbed the shotgun from the chuck wagon, but too late now. They rode fast, over rocky terrain and around bushes and trees, moving west again, closer to the place where Slater had gone over. Being in a valley made walkie reception difficult, but they made it back to the summit at roughly the same time Reyes heard the whir of a helicopter in the distance.

  They’d been leading guests to the summit for years and had exact coordinates for emergency crews to use. Horses were a bit trickier. He and Robin dismounted and tied their horses to nearby trees, in case they reacted poorly to the chopper noise. Slater was nowhere at the bottom of the slope, which suggested he’d gotten caught up somewhere above. As much as Reyes wanted to start climbing the damned mountain himself, he deferred to the authorit
ies.

  Twenty minutes of searching finally led to a shout of “We found him!” from one of the teams scouring the side of the mountain. The resulting urgency told Reyes that Slater was still alive. He and Robin hung back with their horses as the helicopter lowered a body-sized basket to a site roughly thirty feet up, where a big bunch of bushes and trees dotted the side of the mountain. A few minutes later, a body rose toward the waiting chopper.

  “They’ve got him,” Robin said.

  “Yeah.” Reyes watched the basket disappear inside the chopper and the vehicle flew away with its patient. They wouldn’t be acting so quickly if Slater was dead, right?

  More than any other question, as he and Robin led their horses back toward Clean Slate, was who did they call? Slater never talked about his past, about any family he might have. Who was Reyes supposed to tell about today’s accident, other than his brothers at the ranch? Reyes didn’t have a clue.

  And deep, deep down, that hurt. A lot.

  * * *

  Eating dinner at Sophie and Conrad’s apartment had become something of a tradition in the last year or so, and Derrick enjoyed spending time with his brother and sister-in-law. And now he had his little niece Mia to dote on for several hours a week, and he’d begun to crave Mia time.

  Derrick had missed seeing Sophie at work for the last three weeks and looked forward to these evening visits, bringing with him treats for Mom, toys for Mia, and usually a six-pack for Dad.

  Conrad wasn’t a frequent beer drinker, though, and the six-packs were starting to add up. He accepted the new pack graciously as he welcomed Derrick into their place. After their engagement, Sophie had moved from her parents’ house into Conrad’s one-bedroom apartment, and it worked for them for now while Mia was still an infant. But they were looking for a bigger, affordable place now, since they tended to lease out quickly in the Bay Area.

  “Hey, sorry, man,” Conrad said. “Delivery should be here soon. I got home too late to cook, Mia has been fussy about breastfeeding, and Sophie’s been distracted with Wes for the last two days.”

  “Why?” Derrick asked. “Wes having some kind of crisis?”

  Conrad shut the door and crossed the small living space to the galley kitchen. “Not personally, no. Remember that summit we saw the morning after our camping trip?”

  “Sure.” He’d never forget the view.

  “Apparently one of the ranch hands went over the side saving a kid and he tumbled almost to the bottom.”

  Derrick nearly fell over from that shocking statement. “What? Who was it? Are they okay?”

  “Guy named Slater. The name’s familiar but I don’t remember him.”

  It was a good thing Derrick had given Conrad the six-pack, or he’d have dropped it. His heart started pounding. “Shit, really? Is he alive?”

  “Yeah, he’s alive.” Conrad put the six-pack in the small pantry, then pulled two cold beers from the fridge. “Wes called a little while ago with an update. Apparently, he’s got a small skull fracture, busted his right ankle all to hell and has all kinds of cuts and bruises, but by some freaking miracle, the guy is alive. Fell down a freaking mountain and survived.”

  Derrick took the beer from his brother but didn’t drink. He couldn’t wrap his brain around the idea that the hot guy who’d fucked him senseless three weeks ago had nearly died. “Jesus.”

  “Yeah. With the ghost town closed these last two days, Mack, Wes and some of the other guys have been spending a lot of time with Slater at the hospital.”

  “I bet.” Derrick would have been there, too, if he’d had a clue Slater was hurt.

  Wouldn’t he? No one knew he and Slater had fucked, so how would Derrick have explained his presence at the hospital? “Wait, you said he has a skull fracture?”

  Conrad nodded and gave Derrick a funny look, probably confused by Derrick’s intense interest in this subject. “I’m sure Sophie can give you more details. She’s feeding Mia in the bedroom but she’ll be out in a bit.”

  “Right.” Derrick finally sipped his beer but didn’t really taste it. His thoughts were full of Slater and all the healing he had ahead of him. And the fact that the guy had saved a kid’s life. How many times did people get to do truly heroic shit like that?

  Their delivery arrived before Sophie emerged from the bedroom, sans Mia, and her finger-over-lips signal meant Mia was down for a nap. Sophie looked exhausted but she still tore into the container of chicken carbonara Conrad had ordered for her. Derrick wasn’t a picky eater, and he accepted a chicken Parmesan sandwich and side of seasoned fries. The food was from a local place with good prices.

  Ever since Sophie gave birth, Conrad had made liberal use of his phone’s delivery service app.

  “Conrad told me about Slater,” Derrick said after a few minutes of eating. It hadn’t come out quite as casually as he’d hoped, but Sophie didn’t notice.

  “Yeah, it’s such a shame.” Sophie speared a piece of chicken. “His ankle is really busted up and will need at least one surgery to repair the damage but even that doesn’t guarantee he’ll walk normally again.”

  That completely sucked ass for someone with an active job. “What about his head injury?”

  “The swelling is going down, and the doctors are optimistic the fracture will heal on its own. But he’s having some issues with hand-to-eye coordination, writing and a bit with remembering words. It’s all stuff that can be relearned with physical therapy, at least, according to Wes.”

  “It sucks to lose his independence, though, with that ankle busted up. Slater doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’s used to leaning on others.”

  Conrad put his fork down and grabbed his beer, sharp eyes missing nothing. “I didn’t know you and Slater were friends.”

  “I wouldn’t say we’re friends, but we had a conversation the other weekend. Neither one of us could sleep, and we ran into each other both not sleeping.” And then we fucked, and it was crazy-intense, and I need to know the guy will be okay.

  “So all you did was talk and not sleep?”

  Derrick shrugged, because why lie? “We might have hooked up in the garage.”

  Conrad groaned. “When are you going to grow up and stop being such a horn dog?”

  “Hey, I’m older than you.”

  “Exactly. I’ve got a wife and a kid, dude.”

  “Please, don’t start.” Derrick took several long pulls to drain his beer. “I’m going to get earfuls of it all summer long at every damned wedding I’ve RSVP’d for, just because I’m the oldest, unattached cousin in the family.” He stormed over to the fridge and grabbed a second beer.

  “Hey, leave him alone,” Sophie said to Conrad. “Do you know how many times your mom has asked if I know any nice girls Derrick can date in the last six months alone?”

  “No, but I can guess,” Conrad replied. “Sorry, brother, I’m not picking on you. Just...you seem to have a type going on with that ranch. First Colt, then Robin. Now Slater?”

  Derrick returned to the table and picked at a fry. “Maybe I do have a type. Dunno. We both made it very clear it was a one-time thing. I would like to visit him, though, make sure he’s okay. Would that be weird?”

  “Not at all, it’s sweet,” Sophie said. “Call Wes—no, bad idea. Call Miles. I’ll give you his number. He and Reyes can coordinate a visit without spreading your personal gossip around. Which I’m sure Slater would appreciate, too.”

  “I know he would. Thanks, Soph.”

  “You’re welcome. He must have been a good lay if you’re still thinking about him.”

  Derrick rolled his eyes. “You’re as bad as your brother sometimes.” Wes was a relentless gossip whose tact button was often stuck in the off position. Sophie could be a lot more discreet, she was only grilling him about this now because it was the three of them.

  “That wasn’t a no.”
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br />   “Ugh, eat. I need quality Mia time before I go. Gotta be in early to finish a new batch of Dream Boxes that are going out at noon.”

  “Ooh, which one?”

  “The children’s T-shirt project.”

  “That’s my favorite.”

  The nonprofit Derrick worked for—and Sophie was on maternity leave from—had various branches that worked with corporations and small businesses, in order to give back to the community, and Derrick oversaw the Dream Boxes branch. Dream Boxes were craft projects that companies could buy, assemble as volunteer hours or teambuilding exercises, and then have sent back so they were distributed to qualified charity organizations.

  The T-shirt box came with blank shirts in children’s sizes, fabric markers, stencils, ribbons, scissors and supplies for the volunteers to decorate shirts and to also make homemade cards to send to the charity receiving the gifts. Quantities sent depended on the number of volunteers, who decorated the shirts with the stencils (or freehand, if they happened to be artistic). The homemade gifts were a favorite of the kids who went through some of the local Bay Area shelters. Derrick liked working for Dream Boxes. It gave big businesses a corporate write-off while also getting their employees to give back to the community with a little creativity and two hours of their time.

  And a chunk of the cost to the sponsor went right back into the parent nonprofit to pay their workers and keep their projects funded. Derrick enjoyed his coworkers and the nonprofit at large, but sometimes he got itchy feet. Wondered what else he could do with his small-business degree and experience.

  Not tonight, though. By the time they’d finished eating and cleaned up the kitchen table, Mia’s familiar cry came over the baby monitor. The apartment was small enough that they really didn’t need it, but it had been a baby shower gift and the signal was strong enough that if Sophie needed to run down to the basement laundry while Mia was napping, she’d hear if the baby woke.

  Derrick fetched his niece from her crib. Tiny hands waved in the air, and her plump cheeks were streaked with tears. “None of that, princess, no tears.” He carefully lifted her up, still amazed at how small she was. She’d gained a bit of weight since birth but had a lot to go.