“Will-”

Mary Lee moved into his field of vision. She was frowning at him. He hadn’t expected to see her here. He really didn’t know what he had expected as he’d roared up the mountain in Tucker’s old truck. The haze from the Jack Daniel’s had obscured everything but impulse. Most of the day was a vague memory shimmering like a mirage in his brain: Sam gone when he’d stumbled into the house to see her, to try to tell her-what? That he loved her? That he was scared of loving her? Didn’t matter, she wasn’t there, wasn’t at the Moose… Bryce, that bastard, giving her things, making her want things… Pure damn wonder he made it up the mountain… Should have crashed… wished he had crashed…

“Will-” Mari stepped closer and put a hand on his arm. He jerked away, snarling, feinting toward Bryce and laughing when Bryce dragged Samantha back two steps with him in retreat.

“You want my wife? Take my wife!” he shouted, desperation twisting inside him like a whirlpool. “Take my wife, pul-leeeeeeze! Hell, I never wanted one in the first place!”

Samantha gasped as if he’d reached out and cut her. Sobbing, she broke away from Bryce’s hold and ran into the house. Bryce shook his head in disgust.

“You’re pathetic, Rafferty.”

Will held his hands up and pretended to be afraid. “Oooooh! You nailed me that time! Have mercy!”

Bryce glared at him. Beyond reckless, Will jumped at him, coming within inches of Bryce’s nose with a jab.

“Come on, jerk,” Will taunted, jabbing again. “Give me the satisfaction. Fight back, city boy. Let’s see what you got besides money.”

Mari watched him weave a little as he shuffled. He seemed to be having trouble focusing, as if he might be seeing multiple Bryces. She took another half step toward him and raised a hand. “Come on, Will. You’ve done enough damage.”

Yeah, Willie-boy, you’re the screwup. Fuck up again. It’s what you do best. Anger and frustration and fear rushed through him like a fire, and he launched himself at Bryce with a wild cry.

Bryce caught him in the nose with a right cross. The bone gave way with a sharp snap and blood gushed down like water from a fire hose. Will staggered sideways, stunned and surprised. Bryce gave him no time to regain what faculties he had. With Samantha out of sight, he grabbed a chair from poolside and swung it like a baseball bat, catching his adversary in the ribs with one blow and in the side of the knee with a second.

At first contact with the chair Will doubled over as a pair of ribs cracked. The second strike forced his knee to buckle inward sharply and he felt something tear. He went down on the flagstone in a bloody, groaning heap. Bryce kicked him once in the belly for a final touch, the toe of his boot driving deep, driving up a good measure of whiskey and the indistinguishable remains of his lunch.

“Get off my property, Rafferty,” Bryce said coldly. Then he turned and walked away.

Shaken by the violence of Bryce’s attack, Mari dropped down on her knees beside Will and laid a shaking hand on his shoulder. “Can you get up?”

“Maybe.” He looked up at her-all three of her-and tried to grin through the blood and the vomit. “But you got lousy timin’, Mary Lee.”

Mary Lee frowned at him. “Come on, hotshot. I’ll give you a ride-to the hospital.”

The housekeeper rushed out onto the terrace, followed by a pair of ranch hands. Bryce nodded from the hands to Will.

“Get him out of here. Morton, drive that piece of junk he calls a truck into town. I don’t want it cluttering up my driveway.”

Mari’s head came up sharply. Morton. She pushed herself to her feet and stepped back on wobbly legs. Kendall Morton. Pigpen grown up and gone bad. He wore a dirty plaid shirt with the tails hanging out and the sleeves cut off to reveal an array of tattoos on his sinewy arms. His round face twisted in an ugly grimace as he hauled Will, flashing teeth that were varying shades of yellow and brown.

Kendall Morton hadn’t vanished at all. He was working for Evan Bryce. Oh, Christ, what next?

“You gonna give me a lecture, Mary Lee?” Will mumbled through the wad of blood-soaked tissues he held beneath his broken nose. He sat in the passenger seat, doubled over and listing heavily to the left in a vain attempt to relieve the pain in his ribs.

Mari pulled her gaze off the rearview mirror and shot him a look. “Why should I waste my breath? You’re too drunk to listen. I doubt you’d listen anyway. You seem to have a handicap in the area of listening. Maybe you should have the doctor check the connection between your ears and your brain.”

He started to chuckle weakly, but groaned instead as one of the Honda’s wheels dipped into a pothole. Mari winced in sympathy and eased off the gas. But the sympathy took a backseat to her anger and to her fear. Those two fermented inside her like sour mash with a good dose of frustration compounding the process.

She was beginning to understand why J.D. was so hard on Will. Will’s insistence on being a repeat offender in the drunk, disorderly, and stupid category was enough to make her want to shake him. And she had known him only a matter of days; J.D. had put up with a lifetime of Will’s shit.

She’d had the nerve to preach to J.D. about compassion and tolerance. Maybe Will didn’t deserve compassion. Maybe what he really needed was a kick in the butt. Maybe she should have been dragging him behind her car instead of letting him bleed all over the upholstery.

Her head began to pound as she chanced another glance in the mirror. Kendall Morton followed her in the truck Will had been driving. Another hand brought up the rear of their little motorcade in one of Bryce’s ranch trucks.

What the hell was Morton doing working for Bryce? Or had he really been working for Bryce all along? Her brain buzzed with the possibilities.

In the emergency room Dr. Larimer looked from Will to Mari and back again with an expression of extreme displeasure. He apparently preferred to see a variety of patients instead of the same cracked noggins and busted faces day in and day out. When Mari asked if they got a discount for being frequent casualties, his only reply was a grunt.

“Bet he cracks ’em up in the doctor’s lounge,” Will said, trying to grin despite the novocaine Larimer had injected around his smashed nose.

The doctor had been called into the next examination room to deal with a more urgent case. Mari sat on a straight chair and looked up at Will, humor beyond her where Will was concerned. His eyes were clearer than they had been. He might have been close to sober; it was difficult to tell.

“You know, I can’t begin to guess what you were thinking, coming up to Bryce’s place that way-”

“Thinking? What’s that?”

“-But it was so unbelievably stupid I can’t even find words to describe it.”

He scowled at her, his eyes tearing from the novocaine.

“Will,” Mari said, pressing her hands on her knees and leaning toward him. “Bryce doesn’t screw around. He plays for keeps. You piss him off, there’s no telling what he might do. The guy’s got more money than God, and I really don’t think he was hanging around when they passed out consciences. He has the power to ruin the Stars and Bars.”

“Yeah, well, that’s J.D.’s problem now, not mine.”

She ground her teeth and stood up. “I’d hate to guess which one of you has the hardest head,” she grumbled, dragging a hand back through her hair. “Okay, forget Bryce. What about Samantha? Where the hell do you get off raking her over the coals?”

“It’s none of your business, Mary Lee,” he mumbled, staring down as he rubbed a bloodstain on his jeans with his thumb. “Just drop it. You don’t know anything about me and Sam.”

“I know that if I were your wife, my running around with another man would be the least of your worries, because I would have taken a club to you by now.”