She looked at me like she was trying to decide who I was. If I was real.
Shit, I looked over my shoulder twice trying to figure out ifshewas real or just a figment of my imagination.
Adjusting my hold on the reins to one hand, I brush my thumb on the opposite one along the edge of my silver chain, a habit I’ve picked up over the years when I find myself lost in thought. Joe worked herself to the bone at two part-time jobs before she left. And with whatever little money she had left over she got this for me as a graduation present. I was seventeen and too stupid to recognize the significance of it and the weight of words unsaid that the links of silver held. But not anymore. And now I don’t take it off for anything.
I shake myself back to the present and ride the last stretch toward the chute setup. Lawson’s got a heifer lined up in the alley, his sleeves pushed high on his forearms, jacket already long gone. He’s all muscle and patience, the kind of quiet control I’ve never seemed to master. And then there’s Beau on the other side of the chute, coaxing another cow forward, grinning like he was born to do this.
Both of them look up when they hear Dezzy.
“Bout time you showed up,” Beau calls, smirking as he wipes his bare forearm across his mouth. The man won’t put so much as a long sleeve on until the snow starts to fall.
“Miss me that much?”
“Nah. The old girls are just bein’ stubborn this morning. Could use your ugly mug to scare ‘em forward,” he shoots back.
The corners of Law’s lips pull up as he shakes his head. “Fenceline look okay?”
That’s why I had to be up so early this morning. After what happened with a few of our cattle yesterday, we wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything sticking out of any of the fenceline that could have cut them. Surprise, surprise… there wasn’t.
“What do you think?” I ask as I swing off the saddle, boots hitting the dirt.
“Fuckin’ knew it. Those motherfuckers,” Lawson mumbles to himself.
“We’re really going to have to deal with it one of these days, Law,” Beau says.
“Yeah, I fucking know. We just have to come up with a good plan. I’m not going to jail because of those people.”
Beau and I share a quick look before I say, “Our new houseguest is up.”
Beau’s brow raises, and Lawson’s head tilts a fraction. Barely a movement, but I see it. I always do.
Nice to know she had the same effect on the two of them.
“You talk to her?” Beau asks.
“No. She came out of her cabin as I was riding past.” I scuff the toe of my boot in the dirt before grabbing my gloves from my back pocket and sliding them on, still staring at the ground. “She stared. I stared. I rode away. She stood there. That was about it.”
Beau laughs. “Pretty, isn’t she?”
Fucking smart-ass.
I shrug, though my pulse kicks. I don’t skirt around the answer, though, because I know that if I do, he’ll just keep nagging me about it. He’s fucking relentless sometimes. “Yeah. She—she’s not at all what I was expecting.”
Lawson glances between us, brow pinched. “Don’t spook her. She’s been through enough.”
That digs under my skin more than it should. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
“You sure?” Beau teases. “You’ve got that energy about you. One I only see before you’re about to get on a bull.”
I know what he’s talking about, because I feel it. Wild. Unsure. A little terrified. Exhilarated.
Butthatis not something I’m about to say out loud. “Keep talkin’. See what happens.”
Beau just laughs and goes about moving the cattle forward, as Lawson’s eyes stay on me. Studying me. Like he always does. He sees more than most people do, and sometimes it really unnerves me. Even after all these years. Some days I’m afraid he can see right through me, even when nobody else can. Like he can see the temper in me is too close to boiling over. Too sharp. Too fast. Too dangerous.
Too much like him.
But I know that’s not true. Because Lawson would never let me be like him. None of them would let me be like him.Iwouldn’t let myself be like him.
