Stars & Stripes (Cut & Run 6)

Zane stopped in place and turned to stare at her. “What? How?”

Annie grinned and nodded toward Ty. “He’s wearing your Stetson.”

Zane had a hard time keeping his eyes off Ty, and the lingering scent of Old Spice on his clothes and skin helped to combat any urge to drink that cropped up as the night carried on. Ty made it so very easy for him to stay on the straight and narrow.

By midnight, the place had calmed. No one was dancing, and though plenty of people were still drinking and eating, it was an older crowd. Ty and Zane sat at a table, talking with the others about everything from how they had met on their first assignment to theories of what was going on at the ranch.

“I still think it’s drugs,” Cody said as he sipped at his last beer.

“A valid theory,” Ty said. “What about rustlers? Does that even happen?”

Joe nodded. “It does, but not much, and not around here. There’s just nowhere to take the livestock and no way to get it there after you’ve rustled it.”

“Rustled?” Cody asked.

“It’s a thing.”

“If you say so.”

Ty smiled, and Zane chuckled at them. Joe and Cody were two of Harrison’s best hands. They’d been around since high school, and they were the only two of the dozen ranch hands who’d been invited to meet Ty who had actually come.

Annie slid back onto her stool, carrying a new bucket of beers. Marissa and Jill had called it an early night, both claiming they had to be at work in the morning. Marissa worked with Annie at her veterinary practice, and since Annie rarely saw Zane, Marissa had drawn the short end of the stick. Annie would get to call in hung over for work the next morning, while Marissa opened up.

Ty reached for another beer as Annie told them about her practice and her tentative plans for helping the sanctuary. He opened the bottle on the edge of the table, then stuffed the cap into his pocket. “So, did you want to be a vet, or was that something you got steered toward for the benefit of the ranch?”

Annie blinked. “Wow. You are good.”

“Ty was briefly trained as a profiler,” Zane told them. “I hate it.” They all laughed at him.

“Just a lucky guess,” Ty told Annie, modest as ever when it came to his more impressive skills.

“Mother thought it would be good to have a veterinarian in the family. Turns out she was right, and I do love it, so . . . I didn’t fight it. Not like Z did.”

Ty glanced at Zane, his smile softening. He wasn’t drunk, but he was just buzzed enough to be sweet and affectionate without being self-conscious. “Zane is a fighter.”

Zane rewarded him with a fond smile.

Ty threw back the last gulp of his beer and set the empty bottle on the table in front of him. A shadow fell across their table, and Zane started at the sight of four men standing behind Ty.

“You’re Garrett, right?” one of them said, voice hard and almost slurring.

“That’s right.”

The man looked at the back of Ty’s head. Ty was looking down at the table, face expressionless and shoulders relaxed. If being approached from behind was making him nervous, he wasn’t showing it. But Zane knew he was looking down so he could see with his peripheral vision and be ready if anything happened.

“That makes you the queer, huh?” The man reached out and poked Ty in the arm.

“Hey!” Annie shouted. Mark put a hand on her shoulder to calm her.

Ty remained seated, but he looked up to meet Zane’s eyes. He still appeared calm, which was shocking, because Zane was roiling with anger. Thinking these men were coming at him hadn’t bothered him, but to see them go at Ty was too much.

Ty lifted his broken arm, his fingers raised toward Zane in a calming gesture.

“I’m talking to you, faggot,” the man sneered as he poked Ty harder.

Ty reached for his new beer. “Yeah, I heard you.” He took a drink and met Zane’s eyes again. Zane wanted to bash the man’s skull open; he had no idea why his usually short-tempered partner hadn’t already done so.

“Why don’t you just go away, Stuart? We’re not looking for trouble tonight,” Mark said, as unruffled as Ty. Zane attributed it to their Marine training. It wasn’t easy to prod a seasoned Marine into a bar fight.

Stuart laughed, and his buddies all chuckled. “We ain’t looking for trouble. We just come over here to meet the queer.”

Ty stroked his chin, looking thoughtful as he gazed at the wall above Zane’s head. What was he waiting for? Zane wanted to see him beat the pulp out of these ass**les. He knew Ty could do it, even with one arm in a cast.

Stuart shoved Ty again, hard enough to tip him and his stool sideways. Ty managed to save his beer and avoid whacking his broken arm on anything, but the stool fell out from under him and clattered to the ground.

The noise of the bar faded as the patrons noticed what was going on. The people at the table adjacent to them got up and moved away.

Ty turned to look at Stuart, straightening to his full height. He was taller and wider than any of the four men heckling him, and they all seemed a little surprised at his size and stature. One man took a step back.

Stuart puffed out his chest and sneered at Ty. “You gonna fight me, faggot?”

Ty looked him up and down, then glanced at the men behind him. He shook his head. “Not until you make it a fair fight. Go get more friends. I’ll wait.”

People around them laughed nervously. Ty hooked his foot on the bar stool and popped it back up. Then he righted it and sat down again, putting his back to them.

“He thinks he’s f**king funny. Funny ain’t gonna help you here, boy.”

When it didn’t appear that Ty was going to do anything but ignore them and let himself be shoved around, Zane pushed his stool back and stood. Stuart and the other three turned to face him, crooked smiles on their faces.

Ty slid off his stool and stepped between them, putting a hand on Zane’s chest and shaking his head. “Not worth it, Zane,” he whispered.

“Ty—”

“Leave it,” Ty hissed.

Zane looked into his lover’s eyes, and then at the men trying to pick a fight. He’d been lured right into it: poked and prodded with words and insults until he was ready to throw the first punch in front of a saloon full of witnesses.

Ty patted his chest, waiting until he was sure Zane was calm before turning around to face Stuart and his posse. He raised both hands. “You gentlemen done?”

“Why, you got somewhere to be?”