Trouble With the Law (21 page)

Trace should not have left her out here by herself.  This was all his fault.  Dave shouldn’t have let her go with Trace
.  He should have insisted she go with him, so this was his fault too.  Mainly, being in this situation was her own fault though.  She should have stayed in the damned van like the two men wanted her to.

Shoulda
. 
Woulda
. 
Coulda
.  Those three words weren’t doing her a damned bit of good in her present situation.  She had made the wrong decision, and she’d just have to figure out how to deal with that.  A horn honked in the distance and Ronnie jumped.  It honked twice more, echoing through the woods and her heart sped up in her chest as it was followed by rattling sounds as a vehicle moved down the rutted dirt road. 

“That’s El Patron,” one man grumbled under his breath.  “We need to warn him,” another of the men said.  The one standing at her back added, “No worries.  We’ll take the intruders.
  They’ll give us their guns if they don’t want to watch their whore die.” 

They were going to ambush Trace, Dave and his men
and use her as leverage against them.  And Ronnie couldn’t warn them about the men in the woods, or they would kill her.  Mutely she watched the headlights of the second van shine through the spaces in the trees as it moved toward the rocks.  She couldn’t see clearly through the trees now, so she had no idea if Trace and Dave had taken cover or not.  Or what those poor women were doing. 

She had to find some way to warn them without getting herself killed.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Trace secured the zip tie around the second
man’s wrists, as Dave and Jamie tried to communicate to the hysterical women that everything was going to be okay.  He should have let Dave do this, so he could talk to them himself.  Evidently even as bad as his Spanish was, it was better than either Dave or Jamie.  The more they talked, the more agitated the women seemed to become.  He almost wished he had dragged Ronnie with him, but he didn’t know how things would go down when they confronted the two men who had trafficked these women from Mexico.  But now he realized Ronnie had been right about how upset the women would be even though they had neutralized their captors.

A horn honk
ed a good distance down the dirt road and the hair on the back of Trace’s neck stood up.  Dave heard it too, because he stopped talking to look that way.  A minute later two short beeps sounded a little closer, before headlights appeared.  Dave’s eyes swung to his, and his eyebrows lifted in question.

Trouble.  Someone had come to meet the Coyote
s for the pickup after all. 

“Hurry.  Take the women in the woods and I’ll handle this.  If hell breaks loose, ya’ll
grab Ronnie from the woods, take the women to the van and go,” Trace said darkly.  He’d just have to find his own way out of this mess.

“I don’t leave men behind,” Dave said firmly.  “Where’s Ronnie?” he asked eyeing the woods across the clearing.
  Trace opened his mouth to answer, but an ear-splitting male squeal rent the air from the woods.  Gunshots erupted, and a dark figure ran out of the woods toward them.  Trace grabbed his gun and took off running toward the woods.

“Take them into the woods,” Dave yelled,
but Trace heard his boots as he ran behind him.  Through his night vision goggles, Trace realized the person running toward him was Ronnie.  A man appeared out of the tree line behind her and raised his rifle. 

“Get down, Ronnie!” Trace yelled
.  He dropped to his knees and aimed his weapon toward the shooter.    Ronnie was still up and running toward him, right in his line of sight, as he tried to line up the target in the crosshairs of his scope.  “Drop to the ground, Ronnie!” he yelled again, but she kept running. 

A
loud shot rang out beside Trace and he flinched as the sound ricocheted through his skull and reverberated throughout his body.  A warning would have been nice, he thought, as he watched the man in his sights fall and breathed a sigh of relief.  Ronnie didn’t look back and she didn’t stop running toward them.  Trace pushed up to his feet, but another man stepped into the clearing.  Before Trace could squeeze off a shot though, he saw a flash of fire belch out of the end of Dave’s rifle.  The sound still echoed through the trees, even when Ronnie finally reached him.  But she didn’t stop running, she ran right past him toward the rocks. Hopefully Dave would catch her before she reached Dallas on foot.  After that last shot, he saw him take off after her.

Damn, Dave Logan
was like Dead Eye Dick.  He didn’t miss.  Trace was thankful he had been so fast and accurate, or the second shooter would have hit Ronnie, before he could get a shot off.  He stood and watched a long black van pull into the clearing.  It crested a small grassy hill in the field and the headlights bounced into his eyes blinding him.  Trace shielded his eyes and fumbled with the night vision goggles.  He pushed them off and dropped them to the ground then took aim at the driver’s side of the windshield.  Before he could pull the trigger though a rapid succession of shots were fired from the woods.  Loud popping and hissing followed and the van jerked to a halt.  Like a shadow, Caleb moved out of the trees to jerk open the driver’s side door.  He pulled the driver out and shoved him to the ground, but held his weapon trained on the inside of the van. 

In awe, Trace took off running that way to help, because he figured there was another perp inside the van. 
At the front of the van he stopped to duck lower and ease around the side.  He reached for the door handle and jerked the door open, then sprang around the door aiming his weapon at the passenger.  “Get out of the van and don’t do anything stupid,” he growled.  The man raised his hands, but didn’t move to get out.  Trace took a step back and repeated the order.  “Get out of the van, now.”

The greasy-looking blonde man
just sat there staring at Trace for a minute.  Trace’s body was tense as he waited to see what he would do, his finger hovering over the trigger.  Suddenly, the smaller man’s muscles bunched, and Trace heard him mutter, “Fuck you,” as he sprang toward him out of the van. 

His body slammed into Trace
, the gun went off between them and the percussion vibrated against his stomach as he landed flat on his back with the wiry man on top of him. For a guy that size to decide to test a man Trace’s size who was holding a semi-automatic weapon, he was either high as a kite or pretty damned desperate to get away. Whatever his reason, when the man grabbed the butt of his gun, trying to wrestle it away from him, Trace knew he was in a fight for his life.  Even as small and wiry as the man was, he was freakishly strong.  With a grunt, Trace shoved the butt of the weapon upward as hard as he could.  Shifting his body weight with it, Trace tried to roll on top of him.  They rolled twice more fighting for control of the gun. 

Using everything in him, Trace rolled them again and held his ground on top of the man through sheer brute force.  He
held the gun across the man’s throat.  Definitely high, Trace thought, as the headlights of the van lit up his face and he saw his pinpoint pupils.  The guy struggled against his hold, but Trace held on tight, even when he felt his hand slide between them.  A moment later white hot pain shot through his side.  Trace gasped rolled away grabbing his side.  He couldn’t see well, but he shoved his hand under his shirt and felt warm wetness that had to be blood. 

The
pain in his side was so intense it almost took his breath.  But he knew if he didn’t push past that to get control of the situation, he was about to die.  Bounding to his feet, he just managed to feint to the left as the man slashed the knife at him again.  Trace grabbed the man’s wrist and shoved his elbow into the crook of his elbow hard enough to break it.  He howled, his fist loosened and the knife dropped to the ground at Trace’s feet. 

Trace
brought his elbow back into the man’s stomach, then quickly put his fist back into his nose.  The perp stumbled backward, Trace rounded on him to grab him by the scruff of the collar, then took him to the ground with a forceful shove.  He sat on his back, and gathered his wrists up behind him, then fished a zip tie out of his pocket to cuff him.  With his heart pounding in his chest, his breaths coming in short gasps, Trace rolled off to the side clutching his injury.

“You okay over there man?” Caleb yelled from the other side of the van.

Trace swallowed hard.  “I’m alive.  He’s tied up.”  His voice sounded like it was coming from far away to him, as he laid there gasping to catch his breath. 

Trace clutched h
is side, wondering what kind of damage the guy had done to him.  As intense as the pain was when he breathed, as hard as it was for him to catch his breath, he knew something wasn’t right.  He hoped the asshole hadn’t punctured his lung.  The wound was between his ribs, so he very well could have. 

“I lost my mic, can you call Dave over here?” he asked as loud as he could manage.
Out of the corner of his eye, Trace saw the man beside him trying to edge his way toward the knife.  “Try it and I’ll put it in your heart, asshole,” Trace threatened, hoping he would be conscious to follow through with the threat.  Dave needed to hurry.  Warm blood oozed out of the wound in his side and lightning bolts of pain shot across his chest when he inhaled.  He heard a gasp and looked toward the end of the van.  Ronnie ran around the van and dropped to her knees beside him, as Dave took care of securing the man beside him. 

“Where are you hurt?” she asked
breathlessly.

“Side,” he
replied with a grunt as she moved his hand aside and shined a flashlight there.  She tucked the flashlight under her chin then grabbed both sides of the cut in his shirt and ripped it open then gasped again.

“Oh, god…” she whispered.  “Dave, I need something to put on this wound.”

“First aid kit is in the van,” Dave informed flatly, but something soft landed on his chest.  Ronnie grabbed it then pressed it into his side.  They were two miles from the van and that medical kit.  Trace wasn’t sure he was going to be able to make it there.  Besides, he knew he needed more than a first aid kit.  He needed a hospital.  Quickly.

But he couldn’t go there.  He was dead to the world. 
If he didn’t go there, Trace had a bad feeling that was about to become a reality.  The left side of his chest felt like someone was sitting on it and he heard himself wheeze when he tried to take a deep breath.  Something definitely wasn’t right.  That was his last thought as he gave in to the blackness closing in on him.

“Dave, we’ve got to get him to a hospital,” Ronnie said pressing the t-shirt tighter against the jagged wound in Trace’s side.
  It wasn’t large, but it was bleeding profusely.  Maybe if she held enough pressure on the wound it would stop bleeding.

“Let me get these assholes loaded in the van
,” Dave said and kicked the rangy looking man in the ribs.  He grunted, but Dave didn’t hesitate to jerk him up to his feet.  “Jamie is loading the women in the other one.  We’ll put Trace in there with you,” he said evenly. 

How
Dave could be so calm amazed Ronnie.  Her adrenaline was so high, her nerves so scattered, she felt like every nerve ending in her body was on fire.  Definitely not a normal feeling for her.  Most people thought she had ice water running through her veins, but not in this situation.  Ronnie was definitely out of her element here.

Ronnie
looked back down at Trace’s pale face.  She slapped the side of his face.  “Wake up, big guy.  Talk to me, Trace.”  She couldn’t see him well enough in the dark to really know how he was doing, but his lack of responsiveness gave her a clue.  He wasn’t doing well at all.  He needed medical attention now.  They couldn’t bring him to a hospital either.  People were looking for him and he was supposed to be dead.  Trace would go straight to jail.  Taking him back to the lodge in the shape he was wasn’t an option.  They couldn’t do anything there for him either.  Ronnie wasn’t trained to help him, but Terri Rhodes was a nurse.  Her brother Ethan was a paramedic.  And Joel’s sister-in-law, Jenny, was an E.R. doctor.  They had their own mini-medical crew out at the R & R Ranch and the supplies and training to help Trace as well as any Emergency Room.  Or Ronnie hoped they did.  Going to the R & R Ranch was their best bet to save Trace’s life.

D
ave walked away, but when he came back a minute later, Ronnie said, “We need to go to the R & R Ranch.  Trace needs a doctor, and that’s the only place we can take him.  Get Caleb to help you load him and loan me your phone,” she said holding her free hand out to him.

“Yes, ma’am,” Dave said
with humor in his tone as he handed it to her.  He took her place and held pressure on Trace’s wound, then he and Caleb loaded him into one of the vans.  Ronnie crawled inside and took over holding pressure on his wound.

A
long hour later they turned down the drive that led to the ranch house at the R & R, and Ronnie let out a relieved breath.  Trace still hadn’t come around, but she thought his bleeding had slowed down some.  Ronnie had no idea if what she was doing was helping, but it was all she knew to do for him.  She was a lawyer not a doctor.  Trace was so still and pale she was afraid they might be too late, that her efforts weren’t enough.  His shallow labored breathing didn’t make her feel any better either. 

Thank god that e
ven though it was nearly midnight when she called, Joel hadn’t hesitated when she told him she needed help.  He said his wife Terri, brother-in-law Ethan and sister-in-law Jenny would all be waiting for them when they got there.  Those three people could help him, if he just hung in there.  That’s what she’d been telling him for the last hour, even though he’d been unconscious.

But Joel warned her that Trace’s mother was at the ranch too.  She had a
ll but moved in at the ranch since she split with Leland Rooks a month ago.  Ronnie hoped that he had made the call to her to let her know he wasn’t dead like he said he was going to do.  Otherwise his mother was about to see her son come back from the dead, just to see him die again right before her eyes if they couldn’t help him.  Ronnie’s heart tweaked in her chest.  No, he wasn’t going to die.  He was too damned stubborn to die.  Just like her.  The man had survived two and a half horrific years in prison, he would survive this too.

Tonight she thought she was about to die herself when she made the decision to hit the man leading her toward the clearing in the balls with the taser in her pocket.  But she couldn’t just let Dave and Trace be taken off guard.  Or let herself be used as a tool
by the men holding her to do that.  After watching their heroic efforts to save those poor women, and Trace’s efforts to save her from the same fate at that ranch, she had to do her part too. 

It had taken finding courage
she didn’t know she possessed to do that, but she had done it and was proud of herself for once.  Ronnie was proud of a lot of what she had done lately.  Thinking of other people before herself was not her usual mode of operation, but it had been tonight.  Trace had saved her life, and now she hoped she could save his.  Ronnie put her hand on Trace’s beard roughened cheek and ran her thumb over his lips.  “Don’t you die on me, tough guy,” she said quietly, hoping he’d respond.