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Porter glanced over at Funches hiding in the weeds. He needed to get to that concert and find Cadence. She wasn’t safe with Crawley and Stein on the loose, neither was Nash, but his jerk of a brother might deserve a few punches after this was all through. “Funches!” he shouted.
Funches didn’t move.
Did he actually expect him to say those “magic words”?
Muttering under his breath, Porter shouted them out. “Funches…. Pumpkin Patch! Pumpkin Patch! Get over here already!”
Funches scrambled up from the grass, holding his shotgun. Both Trout’s men and Lacy’s took one look at him and jumped back from the wild-haired madman. Porter took advantage of their bewilderment, and broke through them. “Give me a ride into town, will you?”
A man jumped Porter from the side. They both landed in the grass. He felt a fist punching into his stomach. Porter fought back, remembering all those fights he’d gotten into at Mo’s. But this time he didn’t have his twin slugging his way free on the other side of him.
An arm hooked around his neck while he struggled to get the first guy away. “You’re not going anywhere,” Lacy hissed into his ear. There was some spittle that went along with that.
Porter snarled back at him. “Neither are you.”
Lacy ran his knuckles into his throat while the other guy wrapped both arms around Porter. “Can’t wait for the family reunion,” Lacy said. “Nash is going to be real happy to see his brother again; not sure if he’ll recognize you when we’re through with you.”
“There’s no oil on our land,” Porter yelled out.
“Ah… so you know why I really wanted it, do you? Not that getting Angel back into my arms isn’t going to be a blast, too. What a cocky novice! I have to thank you for making this all so easy with your cute little stack of paperwork.”
That was all on West!
Porter fought for breath, feeling beefy fingers lace around his throat. Lacy let his henchman do all the work of holding him still while he jabbed at him with his fists like a vindictive demon holding a pitchfork. “You think you can dance your land in front of me like a juicy worm while you try to ruin me? Joke’s on you. I never let anyone back off from a deal, especially now! You’ll give me that oil.”
Porter kicked him away and crawled to his knees. The first burly guy threw him on his back. Lacy came back for Porter and found his neck this time to choke him. Porter grunted. “What’s the matter?” Lacy crowed, “You’ve had enough? Oh, little Angel’s gonna cry when she sees what we’ve done to her little boy toy. Ooh, boohoo!”
That was it!
Porter threw his elbow into the monster helping Lacy hold him down, aiming straight for his solar plexus. The man crumpled and Porter got him in the neck next before shoving him off. He worked on getting Lacy’s fingers away from his throat, ramming his knee into him. He heard a groan in response.
From out of nowhere, Trout rammed a meaty fist into Lacy’s eye. Lacy howled. The oil tycoon clamped his palms over Lacy’s head and shook him. “You should’ve run while you had the chance!”
The guy had a lot of old man strength. Porter pulled free, even as he watched Lacy wriggle away, shimmying through the grass like a snake to make his escape.
Porter tried to go after Lacy this time, only for another one of Lacy’s men to grab him from behind and land a left hook into his stomach. Porter groaned in pain, hearing Funches shout something to the side of him and kick back Porter’s attacker. Rolling to the side, Porter watched Lacy drive away like the devil was after him.
He’d be after his angel next.
No, no, no!
Everything was going wrong.
“Let’s go!” Eva’s hands were on Porter. She attempted to prop him back on his feet. “I need you to get me out of here,” Eva said. “I need cell phone service. Stat!”
Cell phone service? What?
Why?
Porter tried to get his jumbled brain working again. He needed to get to Cadence. His truck was parked clear behind Funches’s place in the meadow. Porter spied Funches’s old jalopy that he’d been trying to fix up. “Does that thing go?”
Funches nodded. “Of course it does.”
He stumbled towards it.
Eva grabbed his arm again. “Don’t worry about it, Porter,” she said. “I’ll take you!”
Did he trust her? Did he have a choice? They needed reinforcements at the concert. “Funches,” Porter said, “find the sheriff, Morningstar, anyone you can get. Bring them to the fairgrounds. I don’t know what Lacy will do.” Cadence’s ex was acting desperate. It didn’t seem like he’d let a little thing called ethics get in the way of anything.
