Rawley carried the feed to the truck, loading it fast. When he turned, Melissa and Victor were standing by their own car, watching us. Melissa blew a kiss. Victor made a slow, deliberate slicing motion with his hand, like he was cutting the air in half.
Rawley ignored them, but I could tell it took effort.
As we pulled out of the lot, I pressed my forehead to the window, watching the store shrink in the side mirror.
“They’re going to be trouble,” I said, not asking.
“Let them try,” Rawley answered, voice flat.
For a minute, the only sound was the thrum of the tires and the bags of feed shifting in the back.
“Why do they want the ranch so bad?” I asked.
Rawley hesitated, jaw tight. “Water rights. Hargrove’s been buying up land ever since he arrived in town a couple of years back, but the Black Butte Ranch has the only direct access to the river upstream of town. If he gets it, he owns the valley.”
I thought of Victor’s face, the greed, the calculation. I thought of Melissa’s hand, the way she’d lingered on Rawley’s skin, and the jealousy burned hotter than I wanted to admit.
“What if they try to make trouble?”
Rawley looked at me, eyes gone soft. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. Or the ranch. That’s a promise.”
I nodded, then reached over and rested my hand on his thigh. He covered it with his own, squeezing gently.
“I believe you,” I said, and meant it.
He let out a breath, then turned his gaze back to the road. “Good. Because I don’t plan on going anywhere.”
We drove home in silence, but it was a good silence, full of things that didn’t need saying. But as the feed store faded behind us, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Victor and Melissa weren’t done. Not by a long shot.
And the next round was going to be uglier.
We drove in silence for the first five miles out of town, the loaded bed of the truck rattling with every frost-heave in the road. I kept my eyes on the blur of telephone poles, trying to steady the storm of thoughts in my head.
Rawley must have felt it, because he broke the silence. “You’re quiet,” he said, voice soft.
I shrugged, fingers tracing the edge of my seat. “Just thinking.”
He nodded, letting the silence spool out. He never pushed, not unless he had to.
Finally, I said, “You think Hargrove’s really going to make trouble?”
Rawley kept his eyes on the road. “I know his kind. He won’t stop until he gets what he wants.”
“He scares me,” I admitted, the words scraping their way out. “The way he looks at you. At us.”
Rawley’s hands tightened on the wheel. “He’s used to getting his way. I’m not in the habit of letting people take what’s mine.”
I swallowed, not sure if the answer made me feel safer or more scared. Maybe both. “What if he tries something? I mean—really tries?”
Rawley reached over and took my hand, threading his fingers through mine. “No one’s taking what’s ours, Jojo.” He glanced at me, and for once there was no teasing in his eyes. Just the hard edge of a promise. “Ours. You hear me?”
The word settled in my chest, heavy and warm. Ours. Not just his, or mine, but something we’d built between us. It was stupid how much that meant to me.
I nodded, blinking hard. “Yeah. I hear you.”
He squeezed my hand, then let go to shift gears as the road sloped up toward the valley.
By the time we pulled into the ranch, the sky had gone pewter gray, clouds pressing low. I hopped out and started unloading the feed, arms straining with the fifty-pound sacks.
