Tobias (Reynolds Ranch 2)

“Ah, that’s nothing. You are always a grumpy bastard. You owe her an apology. Give her one and have some amazing make-up sex,” he offers. It doesn’t seem like a little thing to me because I can’t lose her. What if she thinks she made a mistake?

“Thanks,” I mutter, doing my best to see it his way, but the look in her eyes broke my heart. I never want to cause her pain and I did just that.

We pull up to the spot and see that the cow is beyond saving, and she’s not far along enough to try to operate on the baby. Damn it. We’re going to lose them both.

“David said he had to wrangle up a calf that ran off,” Angela says. Immediately my suspicions are roused. Either we have a poacher in the area or David is full of shit.

“Did he tell you that it had been shot in the leg?” I ask.

“He did.” It’s clear as fuck this cow wasn’t even shot. It was gutted like it was being strung up for meat.

“Damn it,” I hiss. “A setup.”

“What?”

“I have to get back,” I stand back and wipe my hands on my bandana.

“What?” he asks.

Shaking my head the entire time, I regret leaving now more than ever. With each step I’m getting further from the cow and closer to John’s ride and they’re both following behind me. “Ava had a bad feeling, and I’m betting she’s right. Someone’s here, and they are after her or me.”

“Angela, we’ll get this taken care of. Thank you.” I wave her off and run to John’s truck and he hurries to catch up, hopping in the passenger seat as I take off driving back toward the ranch. Whipping out my cell phone, I call Ava but she doesn’t answer, so I call Landon. “Where’s Ava?”

“She stepped outside. She said she needed some air and wanted to be alone. She’d been crying.”

“We had a fight. Please go out there and bring her back. It’s not safe. I have a feeling one of my hands let someone onto the property.”

“Are you serious? Shit. I wish I didn’t let her go, but I figured with the security on alert, she’d be safe out front.”

“I am.” I hear him shouting to stay inside. “Carl, Danny, with me,” he barks to his team.

“We need to get Ava back securely inside the house. Possible intruder on the property.” He continues to move without hanging up on me.

“How? None of the sensors were set off?” Danny asks. They take their jobs seriously and they better find my wife before I take it out on them.

“Someone let this person in,” I grumble. David. There’s no one else. He’s the one feeding us lie after lie this morning.

“Damn it.”

“Tobias, we’ll find her.”

“I thought you said she went out front for air. How can you not find her?” I roar. It’s a wrap-around porch, but they should have found her by now.

“She’s not out front.” I can hear the wind as they rush around. I pull into my driveway and pop out. My first thought is the barn. I make a mad dash over to it. I’m not feet away when I hear a shot and then another. Oh my fucking God. My knees feel like they’re going to buckle, but I have to protect her or avenge her. One way or another someone is going to pay with their life for this.

“She’s not supposed to be harmed yet. You fucking psycho stalker.” I see David with his gun on some girl I recognize but don’t know. Ava’s on the ground. Then David comes up to her. “Come, you slutty bitch. Your father was going to pay me good, but I’ll see how much you’re worth to Reynolds.”

Ava screams as he pulls her hair to drag her away. I lose what semblance of sanity I had and do the only thing I can think of. I whip out my gun and aim for his chest. My gun goes off, and he falls before he knows what happens. I run toward the scene as David raises his gun toward me. Son of a bitch. The sound of a bullet goes off and into David’s head. My head of security pulled the trigger.

I don’t give a fuck because Ava’s on the ground bleeding. “Baby, Ava. Please talk to me.”

Shit. She doesn’t say anything as I attempt to staunch the bleeding in her leg. She’s not spewing blood, so I have to hope that it hasn’t hit the femoral artery. Danny, Landon’s head of security, was a medic. He comes over and starts talking, but I can’t hear a word he’s saying as he nudges me out of the way, so I move to the other side. I can’t be away from her. My heart is cracking as I stare at my beloved bleeding and pale. “Ava, babe. Please don’t leave me. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone out. You were right.”