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“Strangely enough, yes.” West sighed. “My work is never done.” He turned to Crawley and Stein. “How about you do something more useful than beat up my brother? Come with me. Lynch is causing more trouble for Trout.”
The larger of the men nodded. One tried to pick up Nash from behind, and West shouted them down. “No, leave him. He’s fine.” His voice took on that frustrated note he used when shouting down his puppy. “Let’s go.”
Nash was too sore to follow, though his mind flooded with concern for that woman. West could handle it. He wasn’t a cowboy from Harvest Ranch for nothing. His brother was a good man—a bad one… but a good one.
He watched West disappear into the crowd with those thugs shadowing him like a stench. Another worry surfaced to replace the first. After everything West had done to cover for Nash tonight, he might be more a slave to Trout’s tangled business affairs than ever. And still, West was a big boy. He could take care of himself.
That didn’t mean that Nash wouldn’t try to enlist his brothers’ help to run an intervention on West… soon.
Nash groaned, rubbing his eyes so that he could stop the world from spinning. He wasn’t sure if it was from his bruises or the stress of this day or both, but Emily’s music beckoned to him like a Siren’s call.
Had his text gotten through to Eva? Where was his phone? Searching through his pockets, he couldn’t find it. The phone was missing. He’d been waiting for that video to send to Eva when he’d been attacked. Squinting through his blurry surroundings, he found the phone on the grass near his knees and checked to see if the message had gone through.
He saw a text from Eva. “Got it. Already twenty million views.”
Emily was saved. Both ladies were on a roll tonight. He was tempted to text Eva and ask when she was going to tell him about her “rocky relationship with Lynch,” but that would take his fingers to be working better than they were now. Grunting, he grabbed a tent pole to the side of him and used its sturdiness to drag himself to his feet.
The mouthwatering aromas of fried bread from this tent were attacking his senses. And moving around the front, he saw Kylee at the cash register, selling off her baked goods like hotcakes, literally hotcakes. This was the tantalizing smell that had everyone at Harvest Ranch calling him a player after he’d dated her for the taste of her crème brûlée.
Kylee’s blonde hair was whipped into a messy bun. She channeled her flirtatious energy to her customers with a bright, bright smile that made all the men swallow a couple of times and order more hotcakes.
Nash was looking for more now in a woman, and he’d found her. Sorta… she was up on the stage. That was all that his dizzy mind could comprehend.
He marched past, not even bothering to cover his face from these crowds anymore as he staggered through the hordes of people. One thought consumed him. He was free. Emily was on that stage. And she had asked for him.
“Nash!” True to form, Kylee hailed him with a shout. She gasped and handed change to a customer before charging out the side door to catch him. She wrenched him back. “What happened to your face?”
West’s men must’ve done a number on him since everyone was watching him like he’d come back from the dead. Kylee started dabbing at him with her hanky. Just six months ago, he’d be in hog heaven to be in her flirtatious grasp.
“How bad is it?” Nash asked Kylee. He didn’t want Emily to freak out when she saw him.
“Well, let’s just say that we’re going to hear more songs about bad boys after Emily sees you.” Her fingers tightened over his arm.
“It was an… accident with a cow.”
“Well, the cow won. I hate to say it.”
That’s what he was afraid of. Maybe he shouldn’t scare Emily to death by showing himself yet, and still he wanted to get her into his arms. He swung around to look back at the stage, and almost ran into Funches with a shotgun. The old man grunted. “Porter?”
“No, I’m Nash,” he quickly corrected. Funches looked like he was out for blood, and there was no telling what his twin had done. Clearly Harvest Ranch had been embroiled in its own adventures while he was gone.
Funches growled out impatiently, not even bothering with a greeting as he rushed past him. Home sweet home. Nash felt like he’d never left. He steadied himself. “I don’t think he can have that shotgun out here, can he?”
He said it to no one in particular, but the sheriff answered him anyway as he pushed past Nash. Nash jerked in surprise at seeing him. Where was everybody coming from? “I deputized him for a hot minute,” the sheriff said. He studied Nash’s face, his nose wrinkling. “Where’s your brother?”
Which one?
In an instant, Nash connected what was happening. West had called the Harvest Ranch Sheriff Department for backup to help rescue that woman. Nash pointed the direction that he’d last seen West go, his heart feeling light with relief that his good friends on the force were on top of the situation.
Lacy Lynch didn’t stand a chance against them.
“Thanks.” Deputy Morningstar pushed past Nash next. They were going after danger with rapid efficiency. None of the heroes in Harvest Ranch were about to tolerate a snake like Lacy Lynch.
Nash tried to hold his head steady while Kylee wiped more blood from his face. He was impatient for her to finish, because he’d promised himself that if he survived this mess that he was going to do the one thing that he’d wanted to do since they’d parted—kiss Emily Mackenzie until they both were seeing fireworks.
