Archer
“Bunk house?” Jude made the offer in a clear voice after dinner that second night at Red Hart.
I nodded, my boots already on as the rest of the ranch hands filed along the path leading to where they all slept well away from the big house. Recalling Natalie’s face when she said he refused a place in the homestead and bunked with the rest of the workers, I grinned.
“Happy to. Let me get my kit.” I grabbed my bag from the back of my truck. I hadn’t had a chance to unpack the night before when my only focus had been Eve. But now, a cold shower and a fresh change of clothes sounded just fine.
I ran my fingers over the mar in the paintwork of my truck, baring my teeth. If I ever found evidence of who had done the damage, there would be hell to pay, I swore.
“Archer. Catch." Eve’s voice drilled through my reverie.
I swung around in time to avoid being nailed in the head by a set of keys. Flipping them over in my hand, it took me a second to recognize them.The cabin.
The one I stayed in last time I was here. Huh. Maybe she wasn’t so pissed at me after all.
I raised my head, a simple, “Thanks,”on my lips, but the solitary work died a fast death as a figure dressed all in black embraced Eve on the veranda. My blood boiled as I identified the man as Joe Brunel, but the height was wrong. The figure straightened, and there was no mistaking that lean build.
Pierce MacQuaid.
Black Hill Boy.
My teeth clacked as he rested his hands on Eve’s waist, and she responded, talking to him softly. Her hands rose, brushing at his shirt as he laughed softly at something she said.
Get a grip, ranger. That girl has a life you clearly know nothing about.
But damn if I didn’t want it to be my business.
“Pierce’s been around most nights that I’m here. You’re lucky you got one without him ruining your peace.” Jude stood beside me in the darkness.
I dragged the heel of my boot through the dust, considering how furious Eve would be with me if I laid out Black Hill Boy in her front yard for no decent reason apart from the fact that he was still breathing.
“Fucking stalker, aren’t you?” I said conversationally to Jude.
“I do my best.”
I huffed a sound that could have been derision or a snort but that sure as fuck wasn’t a laugh.
“You need help finding the cabin?”
Pierce kicked off his boots, catching Eve’s hand as she held open the door. She looked over her shoulder at him, a question in her face. For a moment, her gaze flickered to mine, then she stepped inside and he followed her.
I slammed the tailgate of my truck closed, the sound echoing across fields.
“No. I remember the way.”
The next handful of days ran the same way. I rose before the night began to lighten into an indiscriminate purplish haze that cast shadow over everything. Jude met me in the yard each day without fail before anyone else was up and about. His face was a mask, or maybe the frigid mornings made him grumpier than usual. My own state of mind was a different matter.
For the first few hours, we didn’t talk, digging out from a fresh overnight deluge of snow to the steps and a path to the vehicles, moving the herd from barn to field as needed. The smaller ones, birthed late in the season, became stronger as Christmas approached. Eve’s lost doe from the day I found her fast became a pet who followed me everywhere I went.
Jude refused to let me fall into my thoughts. We toured the fields, checking the boundary lines, ensured the animals had access to water and feed. On the rare occasion I saw some ofJoe’s men up near the mountain, but when I asked Jude about them, he just shrugged the question away and went back to work.
Our two groups rarely crossed paths except for at meal times, and even then we remained apart like two new herds orbiting each other, sniffing out the new threat.
Will Kirk worked his extra team hard. I wasn’t sure when the kid grew up while I wasn’t there, but Jude needed to watch out for his job, or maybe that was the point. One of his workers, Odin, put in the hard yards but gave him grief at the same time.
“Watch him,” I murmured to Will as we set the tractor right side up that had slipped into a hole none of us swore had been there a moment before in an attempt to clear the side of Red Hart’s long drive. “He sounds like he’s a bag of laughs, but he’ll sabotage the authority you develop with these boys overnight if you get too friendly.”
Will let out a grunt as the tractor bounced a little. “Back the fuck up,” he yelled, waving one hand over his head in a circling motion as he watched the ground beneath our feet, but nothing moved, thankfully.
