Page 53 of Fall or Nothing

Every man around me crouched.

I crouched.

More sounds came, not just yowling but somethingmoving through the undergrowth, snapping small branches, getting closer. Whatever was coming through those trees was worth taking seriously.

Holy shit.

Trig’s voice cut the darkness like a knife. “Attack!”

I launched forward.

One of them broke through the brush ahead of me, big, furry, moving fast with what I could just make out in the fractured moonlight between the trees. And then I saw it. The jackalope’s antlers. I went for it on pure instinct and closed the distance. Both arms surrounded a solid body, thrashing about and absolutely determined not to be caught.

A brief and undignified wrestling match ensued. The creature, almost as big as me, fought against my hold. I held on. It twisted. I held on harder. Then it found an angle I couldn’t counter and was gone, crashing back into the underbrush.

It left me on my back in the snow with the cold ground beneath me and something in my right hand. I held it up. An antler. A single arm of it, broken clean off.

I lay there for a moment, staring up at the trees.

Then the whooping started.

It came from everywhere at once, all the guys breaking from whatever serious crouch they’d been holding for the better part of an hour.

Jake appeared over me, arm extended to haul me up. “We scared off the entire herd! You’ve got the antler as proof!”

From further in the trees, Trig’s voice: “My crew chased off the wolfagators! Both packs are gone!”More whooping.

I let Jake pull me to my feet. The sky showed signs of pre-dawn, enough that I could see the surrounding faces clearly for the first time. Grinning, all of them. Pete was actually wiping his eyes.

Jake slapped me on the back. “Brave soldier. Seen no one go after a jackalope that fast before.”

“You went in there like you knew exactly what you were doing,” Pete yelled.

The other men were coming back through the treeline, Trig at the front, the entire group loud and loose and morning-cold. His expression of a man who had executed a plan and was satisfied with how it went.

“Not bad for a pretty boy,” he called.

“You’re alright, Carter. Let’s go to town and get breakfast. I want coffee.” Jake led the whole crew and drove us back in the ATV. All the cowboys yelled my name, whooping it up. And for the first time since I arrived, I felt like I belonged to this band of brothers on the ranch.

The Copper Cupwas just opening when we parked. I noticed Sage flipping over the closed sign to open it . We all piled in, eight ranch hands, loud, cold, and unreasonably pleased with ourselves. I followed the group in still holding the antler because I had not yet figured out what else to do with it.

Sage was behind the counter and broke into a smilewhen she clocked the group. Even broader when she laid eyes on me.

“Morning.” She waved.

“Morning,” Jake pulled tables together so we could all sit. “Got a cold and hungry crew here today.”

She glanced over at me. I was aware all at once of the fact that I was grinning like an idiot and holding the antler for her to see.

She took one look at it, and her hands landed on her gorgeous hips—right where I’d like mine to be if we were alone. Hunting must do that to a cowboy.

Trig dropped into a chair and leaned back with his arms behind his head. “Sage. You are looking at the finest jackalope hunter these woods have seen in a long time.”

“Is that right?” Her voice was entirely dry.

I set the antler on the table like evidence, a huge goofy grin overtaking my face. “I wrestled it. But it got away. I got the antler, though.”

She stared at me, eyebrow cocked for a long moment. Then she glared at Trig. “You can’t be serious,” she said.