Page 55 of Disarming The Rancher

“Do you really think Jake could be capable of making the bomb?” she asked Buck as they climbed the stairs.

“To be honest, I don’t know. If you’d asked me two days ago, I would have defended the kid until the cows came home.” His face morphed into a half-grin at the saying and his timing of being on a cattle ranch. “Now, maybe they’ve come home.”

Jake’s room was the first door on the left, down the hall from Raleigh’s.

“I know what you mean. I knew Wade wasn’t doing the same job as Sharon but with all the touring and song writing it became easy to ignore the signs that he was abusing his job. Plus, I wanted to believe he was trying his best,” she admitted. There were a handful of people in the world she could truly trust and only one name stood out that made her feel like she could truly be herself around him. And that was Brax.

“He hoodwinked us all,” Buck admitted as they entered Jake’s room.

There was a backpack and a ticking noise.

Raleigh backed away from the sound. Buck took a step in between her and the bag as she muttered a curse. She reached for her cell phone as they moved toward the door without turning. She called Brax.

“There’s a backpack in the middle of Jake’s room and it might have a bomb inside.” The minute she made it to the hallway, Buck grabbed her arm and made a run for it.

“Get out of there,” he immediately responded. “I’m on my way up.”

“Don’t bother, we’re coming down,” she managed to get out in between gasps.

“Quick question. Are we one hundred percent sure everyone is outside?” he asked.

She relayed the question to Buck as they made it halfway down the stairs.

“As far as I know they are,” Buck said. The ice pack got chunked and he lost footing halfway down, his boot slipping on the carpet. His arms went out to either wall and he was able to right himself before going down on his bottom.

Raleigh kept on without missing a beat, a half step behind him. Brax met them at the bottom of the stairs.

“Send out a text. Tell everyone to get out of here. I’ve done the same,” he said. “No one is inside this place except the three of us and that’s only for about three more seconds.”

Buck wasted no time running through the kitchen, his hand clasped around Raleigh’s arm, pushing her thighs to their burning point with Brax on the other side of her, urging her to run faster.

Once outside, she immediately texted on the group message.

“I just alerted Jake to the fact we were in his room. I forgot he was on the chat,” she said, gasping for air. Her side ached and her lungs burned, but they’d made it.

“Everyone is outside and away from the house. It would take more explosives than the kid could possibly have on him to bring down a house this size,” Brax reassured. She would have to lean on his opinion because she had no idea what they were dealing with or why.

Texts started rolling in as Brax urged the three of them to keep going until they reached the relative safety of the barn. The thought Jake had had full access to the property didn’t sit well with Raleigh. “What if he places explosives in a number of places?”

“My thought exactly.” Brax immediately moved to the stables and started opening doors. “Get the horses outside in the exercise pen.”

Buck went to work, looking like a pro at handling horses and she remembered his wife and kids lived on a small horse ranch in North Texas. She thought about how much they must miss him and made a promise right then and there to change their schedule as soon as she could. He needed to be with his family. The others needed time for theirs or to find one, whatever stage they were in. Kenny’s mental duress might have to do with the fact his marriage had fallen apart. Kenny was always going to be Kenny, but being away from home so much couldn’t have helped his situation.

Raleigh didn’t stop until all six stalls were empty and the horses were safely outside.

Then, she looked at her phone. She stared at the message from Jake for a long moment before looking up. “Jake says he hasn’t been in his room since early this morning and there shouldn’t be anything ticking in it.”

17

Buck’s head came up and his shoulders flew back. The older man was most likely thinking the same thing as Brax. Jake wasn’t responsible for the backpack sitting in the center of his room with a ticking noise coming from it.

Was it a warning? Or was it the real thing? Other questions followed. Who put it there? Why? Was it meant to scare or destroy?

“No one is going inside until we know for a fact it’s safe in there,” Brax insisted. “I’ll get Lawler on the line and see if he can send a unit.”

The call to the sheriff was short and sweet. Lawler promised to reroute the bomb-sniffing dog who was on his way home and meet him at the ranch.

After passing along the information, Brax turned to Buck. “The kid might be innocent.”