Free A Cowboy's Home by RJ Scott Page B

myself.
    But… he’s not dead.
    Justin settled his breathing and willed away the nausea, reached for the gun,
and pushed himself to his feet, using the wall for balance, swaying
into rotting wood and corrugated iron even as he got upright.
    I’ve gone through worse. I can move. Fucking
stupid to come here.
    He took a few steps toward the door, shaky
footfalls on an uneven floor. The world was slipping away from
under him and he stopped dead still, waiting for his vision to stop
spinning.
    The scent of the forest in my nose, cold of
steel in my fingers, metallic taste of blood where I’m biting my
lip.
    Justin collapsed to his knees when what
little energy and focus he had left disappeared in a rush.
    Blackness stole his breath, and he fell all
the way to the ground.
     
     
    “Wake up,” a voice instructed. Not softly,
but stern and to the point. “Wake. The. Fuck. Up. Or I will call
the cops. Worse than that, I’ll get Ethan up here, and he’ll just
arrest your ass for trespassing and you’ll never get out of prison,
like, ever. Wake up, Tom, wake up .”
    Justin opened his eyes. Sweat collected in
them. He blinked away the sting and looked right up at a very
pissed Sam.
    He woke up just to stop Sam shouting at him.
“No,” he bit out. “Nobody else.”
    Sam sat back on his haunches, stern
expression giving way to relief. “Thank fuck for that,” he
muttered. “Thought you were dead, you asshole.”
    “I tried,” Justin mumbled and then bit his
bloody lip again to ground himself. He was still sprawled on the
floor, pretty much where he imagined he had fallen, but his head
was on something soft. He attempted moving to see what it was but
winced at the pain inside his skull.
    “Stay still,” Sam ordered. “I need to check
your thigh.”
    Justin reached for his jeans, wanting to help
Sam, and found bare skin. Hell, he hadn’t even bothered to pull his
pants up before attempting to leave the shack. No wonder he fell on
his ass.
    Light filled the room. Sam had brought a
flashlight, and Justin shrank back away from the light. He reached
around, locating the gun he’d dropped and wrapping his fingers
around it. He pulled it close to his chest.
    Sam huffed and pushed Justin’s hands out of
the way.
    “Okay, this is fucked,” he prodded the thigh
wound again, and Justin couldn’t help the soft curse. “I googled
this, and we just need to make sure the wound is clean and there is
no infection.”
    “You read all that on the Internet?” Justin
asked.
    “Yep. Google is my friend.” Sam helped him to
sit a little and then moved whatever soft thing was behind him to
make him more comfortable. “But the sheriff’s brother is a
paramedic and a friend. We could get him up if you insist on
staying here.”
    Justin simply glared at Sam, which gave him a
complete response about how he felt on that matter. The word paramedic was bad enough, but add in sheriff ? “I’ll
burn off the infection,” he said defiantly, although the pain, on a
scale of one to ten, was heading upward rapidly.
    Sam muttered something under his breath.
“Look. I brought up blankets, this coat that will keep you warm,
and some other things.”
    Sam stood and shrugged off his thick coat, a
sweater—or was that two?—and three separate T-shirts. He laid
everything in a pile. “For you,” he said. “We need to talk,
Tom.”
    Justin winced at the tone. “No, we
don’t.”
    “Yes. We. Do. We need to get you to a doctor.
Hell, at least get you a shower. You stink like a jock’s locker,
and that shit all over you can’t be good for the infection.”
    “I’m okay.”
    “Says the man I found face-planted on the
ground.”
    “I was sleeping,” Justin defended.
    “You were unconscious.”
    “I don’t need a doctor. I just want to
go.”
    “Like to see you try,” Sam pointed out.
    “Leave me your bike, then.” Justin had
thought about that. Sitting there on Crooked Tree land was asking
for trouble. He shouldn’t have come,