“I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Unfortunately not everybody made it.” The short, barrel-chested guy next to Frank was one of the guards patrolling the property. Like the others, he was still wearing his sidearm. “Tree took him out.”
“The dead man’s Ray Archer,” Linc said. The men knew who Archer was, had been warned to keep an eye out for him.
“He shot Linc,” Carly said. “Linc needs to get to the hospital.”
“It’s just a graze.” But concern crept back into the men’s faces. “The first thing we need to do is call the sheriff.”
“Cell tower’s back up,” Frank said. “I’ll call the sheriff and get an ambulance out here ASAP.” Frank walked away to use his phone.
After one look at Carly’s worried face, Linc knew telling her he’d be okay wouldn’t work. Besides, they needed the ambulance to transport Archer’s body, and with the damned wound in his side throbbing like a sonofabitch, he could use a pain pill or two.
Now that the search group had found them safe and plans had been made, the men departed.
Half an hour later, Linc and Carly were back in the ranch house, which had suffered mostly rain damage from the open door and broken window, but survived the storm. Linc showered and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and Carly did the same.
She re-dressed the gash across his ribs, then they sat in the living room, waiting to talk to the sheriff. The tornado had touched down in one ofthe distant fields, but jumped over the ranch house before continuing its path of destruction, which had luckily detoured around town.
The entry was full of water, the bedding and carpet wet and soggy in the master bedroom. The barn roof was gone, but according to Santos, the horses had sheltered in a ravine and were grazing again this morning as if nothing important had occurred. The main house had come through unscathed.
For everyone but Ray and Zach Archer, life would go on little changed. Now that Ray was dead, the boy would be leaving detention with his grandparents. Linc knew Carly had hoped to see him before he left, but the Wellers wanted to be back at home in San Antonio before they told Zach about the death of his father.
The grandparents were handling the funeral arrangements, which would include a memorial service a few weeks after the cremation. Linc wondered how many people would bother to attend.
With the Wellers so anxious to get home, Carly was forced to settle for talking to Zach on the phone.
“We’re family,” Linc heard her say. “That means we stick together no matter what.”
He couldn’t hear the boy’s reply but Carly told him she loved him and was going to miss him, and wiped away a tear.
Linc took the phone. “You remember what I told you, Zach. Whatever happens, we’re friends. That means if you need anything, you call me. Okay?”
“Do you think I could come and visit you sometime?”
Emotion expanded in his chest. “You’d better come see us. Carly just found out she has a cousin. You’re the only family she has. She needs you as much as you need her.”
Linc could hear the relief in the kid’s voice.
“I’ll watch out for her,” he said, “I promise.”
“Good boy.” They talked a little longer; then it was time for Zach to leave with his grandparents for the ride back to San Antonio.
When the call came to an end, Linc turned to Carly. “First chance we get, we’ll go see him.”
Her eyes swung to his and something shifted in her features. After he’d been shot last night, she had stuck to him like glue. But after they’d left the shelter, he’d noticed the shift, the subtle attempt to distance herself. The storm had been a nightmare. Ray Archer’s violent death had made the horror even worse. Linc told himself she was bound to be upset.
“You don’t have to feel obligated,” Carly said. “You’ve been great to Zach, but—”
“Wait a minute. I thought we agreed we’d do what was best for the boy.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m trying to be practical.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. I was thinking . . . now that Archer’s no longer a threat, maybe I should move back home.”
Irritation trickled through him, along with a feeling he didn’t want to examine too closely. “What about El Jefe?”
