“Had a meeting with… someone.” His eyes glint. Deliberate. Taunting. He wants me to know exactly what kind of “meeting.”
“Business opportunities and all.”
Business, my fucking ass.
He was meeting with Miles Keller. I just know it.
My jaw flexes so hard I’m surprised my teeth don’t crack. “Stay. Away. From her.”
“I was bein’ friendly to a pretty lady is all.” He shrugs. “Nice to meet you, Abigail. I’m sure I’ll be seein’ you around.”
“The fuck you will,” I growl, and he just laughs under his breath and walks off, whistling like the world is his damn playground.
Abigail swallows, watching him disappear. “Who was that?”
For a split second, I consider telling her the truth. About Keller. About the Coates brothers. About the threats to me and mine, and our land. But fear sparks low in my chest, the same kind Beau voiced last night. I don’t want to scare her. I don’t want her to run. I want her to be safe. She doesn’t need to know.
Not yet.
“Don’t worry about him, Honey,” I say calmly, placing a hand on her back to guide her down the aisle. “Just a local piece of trash that needs to be taken out.”
Chapter fifteen
Lincoln
Thehouseisquietin that soft early-evening way it gets when the day’s work has slowed but dinner hasn’t quite pulled the four of us together yet. Beau’s clattering around in the kitchen—pans, cupboards, the rhythmic scrape of a knife against a cutting board, and I can faintly hear Jasper vacuuming somewhere above me—but the rest of the place feels still.
Dropping into the leather chair in the home office, I let out a breath I feel like I’ve been holding all day. The chair creaks under me, familiar and worn. Framed photographs line the walls around me—our parents on their first cattle drive together, Jasper’s first rodeo win, the three of us on branding day as teenagers before Beau became a permanent resident here. All little moments frozen in time when things felt a hell of a lot simpler. A couple of stacks of paperwork rest beneath my elbow on the desk, waiting for my attention, but I don’t have the bandwidth to care right now.
Lawson steps inside a moment later, raking a hand through his hair. He looks exhausted, but there’s something smug tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“How’d it go?” I ask before grabbing two glass tumblers and a bottle of whiskey from the shelf behind me and pouring us a few fingers. I hand him his, and we clink our glasses together before each taking a sip. “You two gone all day?”
He leans back into the chair across from me with a deep sigh. “Good. She seemed to enjoy getting her own things. She’s back in the guesthouse now. Said she was gonna make herself dinner and watch a movie with Lucy.” The smile he’s been fighting finally slips through. “She was… excited. Like actually excited.”
I swallow at that. Good. She deserves some excitement.
“Oh.” Lawson’s expression tightens as he shifts in his chair. “We ran into Grayson at the grocery store.”
“Yeah?”
“He knows about her now. Said he was ‘In Billings on business.’”
My jaw tics. We both know exactly what he was doing in Billings. Fucking pieces of shit.
“Also said he’d be seeing Abigail around.’”
“The fuck he will,” I snap.
Lawson holds his hand out in front of him. “I know. I know. Calm down. I handled it and made her position with us crystal fucking clear.”
“Good,” I grunt and down the rest of my whiskey before pouring myself a splash more.
“I told her she could use the spare car,” Lawson blurts out. “And that she could work here while she figures things out.”
Of course he did.
A flicker of annoyance flashes through me. Not at Joe or my brother, but at the thought of her being around all the damn time. Because I feel it already. This pull I don’t want, one I didn’t ask for. And I see it in my brother, Jasper, and Beau, too. It’s like she walked in and reset the whole gravity of this place without even trying.
