He's big. Not tall—wide. Ranch-hand build, the kind of thick through the chest and shoulders that comes from throwing bales and wrestling cattle.
Clean shirt. Good boots.
Lockhart's brand on the hat—the Double L, the same logo on every fence post and gate on the Lockhart properties I've been driving past for weeks.
"Bexley Dalton?" He says it like he already knows the answer. Like he's been told who I am and what I look like and exactly where to find me at six o'clock on a Tuesday.
"Who's asking?" My hand tightens on the rasp I'm carrying. Habit.
When you spend your life around animals that can kill you and your body learns to keep a tool close.
"Mr. Lockhart wanted me to pass along a message." He steps closer. Casual. The walk of a man who's used to space yielding to him. "The offer he made to Earl? It expires at the end of the month. After that, he's going through the county. Tax liens. Eminent domain. Whatever it takes."
"Then he can take it up with Earl's lawyer." I don't step back. I've been around men like this my whole life—men who fill doorways, men who use their bodies as arguments.
My father was one.
Every boyfriend my mother brought home was one.
You learn young that backing up is an invitation and standing still is a language they understand.
He moves faster than I expect.
His hand closes around my upper arm.
Not a grab meant to hurt—a grab meant to hold. To control.
The grip of a man who thinks a hand on a woman's arm is a conversation tactic.
He leans in, close enough that I can smell the chew tobacco on his breath and the aftershave that probably cost more than my boots.
"Listen, sweetheart. The old man's dying. You're not family. And those bikers you've been running to? They've got their ownproblems coming. Mr. Lockhart is being generous. I'd take the generosity while it's still on the table."
Not family. Again. The same blade, the same wound, wielded by a different hand.
I swing the rasp.
Not at his face—I'm not trying to maim him. At the arm holding mine.
The flat of the rasp connects with his forearm and the grip breaks.
He stumbles back, more surprised than hurt, and I step sideways to put the truck between us.
"Touch me again," I say. My voice is steady. My hands are not, but the rasp is still in my right hand and I'm holding it like I know how to use it, which I do. "See what happens."
He looks at his forearm. At me. At the rasp and recalculates.
"End of the month." He walks to his truck. Doesn't rush. The unhurried walk of a man who's delivered his message and doesn't consider a woman with a rasp to be a serious obstacle.
The silver Dodge pulls out, gravel crunches and the dust settles.
I stand in Earl's driveway and shake.
Not from fear—from the adrenaline dump and the fury and the sick, familiar feeling of a man's hand on my arm without my permission.
The bruise is already forming.
I can feel it—the deep throb under the skin, the tenderness that will bloom purple by morning.
