“Let me know where you’re taking the truck. I’m going to send Levi in to inspect it.”
“We have a team to do that.” Nick’s voice crackled through the poor reception. “We’ll let you know what we find, if anything, as soon as possible.”
“Just the same,” Colt pressed. He knew Nick’s team wouldn’t miss anything, but this was Mason they were talking about. “I’d like to have Levi there too.”
Nick sighed, or maybe it was the wind, but either way, there was resignation in his voice when he spoke again. “Fine. I’ll text the location to your phone. In the meantime, do not let Mason out of your sight.”
Not a chance. “Agreed.”
Colt stepped back. He dropped his hand from Mason’s arm, surprised that it took more effort than it had to touch him in the first place. Mason disconnected the call and fumbled with the phone as he awkwardly shoved it back into his jeans pocket.
“I need to go to the hospital,” Mason said, not looking at Colt, his shoulders hunched forward. “But I can’t leave Cuervo. Not until I know he’s going to be okay.”
Mason looked so lost and vulnerable in that moment Colt only wanted to pull him into his arms, hold him tight, and let him know everything would be okay. That he’d make sure of it. He scrunched his face at the thought and turned his head. What the hell was he thinking? He took another step back, needing that extra bit of distance from Mason and confusing, unwanted feelings. Comfort wasn’t what he was here for and certainly not for Mason Hayes.
Just a job.
“I’ll send Wes to the hospital now,” Colt said, his voice sounding oddly rough to his ears. “He can keep an eye on Thad until we get there.”
Mason shook his head. His expression hardened. Some of the color had returned to his cheeks, but he was still too pale. He cursed under his breath and glared at Colt, as though Colt was the one responsible for what had happened.
“This hasgotto stop.”
Colt couldn’t agree more. Mason could have been in that truck. Would have been if it weren’t for what had happened to his horse this morning. His chest tightened, but he booted the feels back into their box with a swift mental kick.
“Look,” he said, slipping back into his no-bullshit professional voice. “I don’t want to be here any more than you want us here, but it’s clear to me there is a serious issue on this ranch. Your life is in danger. So, until that danger is dealt with, you’re just going to have to buck up and deal with me—us—being here.”
Mason stared at him while a kaleidoscope of emotions raced across his pale face. For a brief few seconds, Colt thought Mason would start to argue again, but then he started laughing. It sounded like a sob or a cough at first, but then it sort ofrevvedup, like firing up a truck that had been sitting too long.
“Buck up,” Mason mimicked. “Seriously?”
Mason’s laughter increased to the verge of hysterical. Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes, and he doubled over. Colt grappled with his own need to reach out, hold Mason tight in his arms so he wouldn’t break apart.But what the actual fuck?He clenched and released his fists a couple of times. Better to just let Mason’s reaction run its course. He’d seen victims of crime and trauma react in all kinds of ways. Some expected, some very unexpected, but every person had to process in their own individual way. Sometimes it was best to just let them work through it, in his experience, and only act if necessary.
The giggles finally gave way, and Mason stood up straight, rolled his shoulders back, and wiped tears from his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. He looked at Colt for a long moment, and Colt fought the urge to fidget under that intense hazel scrutiny. He took a deep breath.
“I don’t hate you,” Mason said quietly, and Colt blinked in confusion. “I never did. But I’m angry and hurt because you—”
“Day-um,” John, one of Mason’s senior ranch hands, drawled as he appeared from around the side of the barn. “What happened here?”
Mason snapped his mouth shut, lips pinched into a flatline, and then turned his attention to John while Colt reeled to figure out which track this suddenly runaway train was on. He glared at John for having the audacity to interrupt what Mason had been about to say. Colt put a mental bookmark on the conversation, and shifted his focus to the here and now.
“Some son of a bitch graffitied my horse,” Mason bit out.
There was a hardness that sharpened his tone in a way Colt would never have expected. It didn’t suit Mason. Not the Mason he’d known twenty years ago, and not the one he was reluctantly getting to know again now. What had happened in the last two decades that had dented the sweet innocence Colt remembered?
John put his hands in his jeans pockets and rocked on his bootheels as he looked Cuervo over. “Who would do something like this?”
Mason shook his head and went back to rinsing the last of the blue paint off his horse while John scanned the courtyard. His mouth dipped down into a frown when his gaze landed on Colt—watching him—and he quickly turned back to Mason. Was thattooquick, Colt wondered.
“Anything I can do to help?” John asked. His tone was eager, but his voice sounded tight.
“Where were you this morning, John?” Colt knew the hands were always up early, always going about their daily chores sunup to sundown. Surely one of them had to have seen or heard something.
Colt ignored the glare Mason tossed over his shoulder at him. This was his job, and Mason needed to get with the program and accept it.
“Seeing to the rescues in the medical barn,” John answered with a glare of his own and waved to the barn that stood twenty yards from the main barn.
Back when Colt lived on the ranch, the main barn hadn’t existed, and the now medical barn had housed dairy cows for their daily milking. Since Mason had taken over, he’d converted it to a twelve-stall horse barn with a wash stall, a huge tack room that contained mostly first aid and special medications and ointments, and a lounge with a kitchenette and sleep room. He’d even forked out what must have been a huge chunk of cash for a hydraulic chute, where he could put the wild horses to safely treat them for any injuries or regular vet and farrier care.
