Best Friend's Ex Box Set

I heard a sharp scream before Cheyenne appeared from around the house, still pulling on a pair of boots over her bare feet. She had thrown a cotton robe over her pajama shorts and shirt. Her dark hair was tangled and wild around her face as she stared up at the barn in horror.

“We have to get the horses out,” Cheyenne shouted, darting to the barn doors. “We have to get them out of there.”

“Cheyenne! No! Don’t go in—”

Cheyenne threw the barn door open and disappeared inside the cloud of black smoke. Lungs burning from the smoke, I pushed through the barn door too. The sound of hooves pounding against the ground alerted me to move to the side as quickly as I could. A stream of terrified horses galloped past me through the barn door.

Pieces of burnt wood fell to the ground around me. Cupping a hand across my mouth, I hurried past burning stalls to see flames coming down from the roof where Cheyenne stored the hay. I found her crumpled on the ground, cradling her hands to her chest.

“I burned my hands,” she cried out, holding them tightly. “The black stallion, Colt. He won’t—”

A loud crash followed by a whoosh of flying embers and debris made the decision for me. I grabbed Cheyenne by the armpits, hoisting her up from the ground, and tried to ignore how badly my lungs screamed for air. We both stumbled along through the barn, sweat covering every inch of our bodies until we stumbled out into the cool night air.

I sank to the ground on my knees next to Cheyenne, gasping for breath while I listened for the sound of sirens. There was only silence in the distance. Nothing besides the sound of the fire roaring and terrified horses. Seconds later, I watched through clenched teeth as the barn collapsed in a fiery wave. There was no saving it.

“The stallion!” Cheyenne screamed, rising to her feet. She swayed unsteadily when she took a step towards the barn. “Colt, he’s in there. I couldn’t get him out of the stall. We have to get him out!”

I stumbled to my feet to grab Cheyenne before she fell. The light of the fire gave me a glimpse at her badly blistered hands.

“It’s too late, Cheyenne. It’s too late. I checked before we went out; there was no way to get a rope on him, and he’d wedged himself in the corner behind some burning debris that fell. He would never have come out past that; he was too scared.”

Tears filled her eyes as she realized as I had that the noise coming from inside the barn only moments ago was now a deafening silence. She knew just as I did what that silence meant. There was nothing that either one of us could do.

I kept an arm wrapped around her trembling shoulders until the fire department and Paul arrived. There was nothing left besides a pile of wet and charred wood when the fire department finished dousing the flames with water. Gray smoke filled the night air.

Cheyenne was silent the entire time as one of the firefighters dressed her burns with gauze pads and cream. She went inside briefly to find a blanket to wrap around herself to fight off the chill while I pulled Paul off to the side near my truck.

“Bill Coates did this,” I told him. “I know he did. Tiffany heard of him swearing revenge on Cheyenne over taking his stallion and calling PETA. He’d already been out here once threatening her.”

Paul rubbed the back of his neck with a long sigh. “No one can prove it was him, Colt. I know the man’s a sick bastard for what he does—”

“Then why hasn’t anyone arrested him?”

“It’s complicated, Colt. I can’t just arrest him without evidence.” Paul gave me a long and pained look. “Look, you know how close Bill is to my boss. I can’t do shit right now without evidence, and all I have is what you just told me, and even most of that is hearsay, so it might not even be deemed admissible in court.”

Fury filled me when I looked up to the road to see the black truck belonging to Bill Coates idling along in front of the gate. I took a step in that direction, but Paul put a warning hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t do it,” he said. The truck sped off a second later. “Go stay with Cheyenne for the night, so we don’t have to worry about more trouble, okay? I’ll go talk to Bill.”

I nodded harshly. I knew that Paul’s hands were tied when it came to Bill, and I dimly remembered my father complaining about the same thing when it came to Green Point politics. There was corruption when it came to protecting wealthy people like Bill Coates and Jim Staffer.

And that corruption now came at the cost of Cheyenne’s barn and the life of an innocent stallion.

I entered through the front door of the house long after the fire department had left. I managed to corral the horses into one side of the pasture before pulling my own .9mm from the center console of my truck. I tucked it in the waistband of my pants as I shut the front door behind me. I found Cheyenne sitting numbly on the stairs, her dark hair spilling around her.

“Cheyenne.”

She looked up at me through watery and red-rimmed eyes.

“Get some rest,” I said. “Okay? You’ve been through a lot tonight.”

She didn’t reply. Quietly, she rose from the bottom step and climbed up the stairs without saying a word. I clicked a lamp light next to the couch off before settling on the couch cushions facing the living room windows.

If Bill Coates came back tonight, I’d be waiting in the dark.

Chapter Five

Cheyenne