The Virgin Next Door (Stud Ranch)

Painter set her first two hooves on it, no problem. But when she moved her back hooves up, something went wrong. Painter’s neck suddenly jerked and her eyes went wild.

And then she bolted.

She leapt off the wooden platform, jarring Calla to the side and almost off the saddle.

“Calla!” Mack jumped up on the gate.

Calla righted herself on her saddle and was clearly pulling on the reins to try to get Painter to stop. But her eyes were wide with some kind of hellfire and she just kept going. Calla had enough control to get her to turn slightly left around the curve of the arena oval, but she was still galloping hell for leather. They flew past Mack and on down the arena.

Mack was about to jump the fence but one of the chute workers held him back.

“Please sir, get down! You’re not allowed in the arena during another contestant’s ride.”

“She’s in trouble,” Mack snarled, yanking away from the man as he tried to see what was going on with Calla and Painter.

They were reaching the opposite end of the arena. It looked like Calla was trying to get Painter to turn again since she wasn’t slowing down.

It didn’t work this time.

Calla’s body flew off the back end of the horse as Painter kept galloping off without her. Calla flipped once in the air before landing on the arena floor in a puff of dirt.

“Calla!” Mack shouted.

“Let go of me, you bastard! She’s hurt!” It was Liam’s voice from behind him. All Mack knew was that no one was holding him back anymore.

He jumped the gate and started running for Calla. Goddammit, why was the arena so fucking big? He was only halfway there when paramedics came out with a stretcher. They slipped a neck brace around her neck.

Fuck. Was she unconscious? Had she broken her arm? A leg? A fucking spinal injury?

What about the baby?

He pumped his legs even harder.

The paramedics lifted Calla and were moving her out of the far exit of the arena. Shit. He was glad they were so efficient but he just needed to know if she was okay.

They disappeared into a wall of people who had gathered at the arena tunnel. Mack was there fifteen seconds later.

“Out of my way,” he growled, trying to push through the crowd and see where they’d taken Calla.

“Liam! Liam O’Neill!” called a man in a suit holding a microphone, eyes focused behind Mack. “What is your relationship to Calla Carter? How are you feeling right now as she’s being taken away with unspecified injuries?”

“Are you in a relationship with Isobel Snow?” asked someone else.

“Are you cheating on Isobel with Calla?”

“Liam, why did you run away to America? Is it because the rumors about your father being your family’s long-time gardener are true and Ciarán disinherited you?”

“Get out of my fucking way!” Mack roared as the vultures came at them from all fucking sides. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Liam having an even worse time of it. Camera flashes popped off every other second.

Mack growled and grabbed Liam’s upper arm, hauling him forward with him.

“No fucking comment,” Mack shouted, putting his shoulder forward and using it like a battering ram to shove through the wall of people.

“Hey!”

“You can’t just—”

One bastard with a camera was knocked to the floor. He immediately started sputtering about suing but Mack kept plowing on. These fuckers had the gall to be thinking about their goddamned story when he didn’t even know if Calla was okay.

When he and Liam made it past the first ring of reporters, Mack shouted to anyone who would listen, “Where’d they take the injured woman?”

A pimply-faced teenager with a Horse Makeover lanyard around his neck looked at him with wide eyes. “Uh, the ambulance is parked around back. This way,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

Mack let go of Liam and grabbed the boy’s upper arm. “Show us.”

The teenager swallowed.

“Faster,” Mack growled. That got the kid moving, even if he did look terrified. Mack didn’t care. He just needed to know what the fuck was going on with Calla.

The kid led them out of the arena and to the left. “The ambulance was parked right here—” the kid started but then he jumped back. “Holy shit!”

He bent over and threw up.

“What the hell?” Liam asked.

But as Mack looked down on the two bloody bodies in EMT uniforms with D’s carved into their foreheads—the calling card of the Devil’s Spawn—a horrible fucking certainty settled on him.

“Bone’s got her.”

35

LIAM

“What the fuck does that mean?” Liam spun on him, shoving his shoulders. “Who’s Bone?”

Mack grabbed his head with his hands. “Shit. I don’t know.” His eyes came back to Liam and whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

“Well tell me what you do fucking know,” Liam shouted at him.

Mack took one more look at the two men on the ground, each with a pool of blood underneath them from their slashed necks. Jaysus. Liam turned away before he got sick just like the lad.