“Gee,” I say. “Thanks, bud.”
He claps my back with enough force to knock the breath from me. “Come on. We got work.”
Somewhere after midnight, time stops behaving normally.
The next hour stretches and warps until it’s nothing but motion and heat and noise, animals shifting and snorting as we move horses, longhorns, and donkeys toward safer ground, hauling water, checking fences, securing gates, doing everythingthat needs doing because stopping means thinking and thinking means fear has room to breathe.
Silas and I work side by side the way we always have, fast and efficient, words unnecessary when every glance and hand signal says enough, when muscle memory takes over, and friendship becomes a kind of quiet understanding.
As we work, the fire on the ridge glows brighter, the sky pressing darker and heavier above us while the air grows hotter and thicker with smoke, each shift of the wind forcing us to pause and listen, every crack and roar from the flames twisting tighter in my gut than it was a moment before.
I’m scared. Not for myself, but for the ranch and the animals depending on us. And for what comes next.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Abilene
Tuesday
Someone is trying to break down my door.
That’s what it feels like, anyway.
I jolt awake to a thunder of fists on wood, my heart slamming into my throat so hard I taste metal.
For a split second, I have no idea where I am, bedroom blurred in darkness, sheets tangled around my legs, mind still wrapped in some hazy dream of bees and smoke and a man’s hands on my waist.
Then the pounding comes again.
“Abilene! Open up!”
I know that voice.
Jesse.
Another, deeper voice follows, sharp and urgent. “Abilene, it’s Marshall. We need you to answer, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart.
That word should not make my knees weaker when I’m already half sure I’m dying.
I scramble upright, sleep still clinging to me like cobwebs. The room is dim, pale light coming in through the window.
Not sunrise. The sickly glow of fire and smoke reflected off low clouds.
My clock reads 3:17 a.m.
The next knock rattles the whole frame.
“Coming!” I croak.
My hands shake as I grab the nearest sweater from the chair, pulling it over my tank top and shorts. My feet find my boots without socks. I shove my arms into the sleeves, fingers fumble with the doorknob.
When I yank it open, the night rushes in—smoke, cold, and three large, ash-dusted men.
Jesse is front and center, hair a wind-tossed mess, jaw tight, eyes blazing with adrenaline and fear. Wyatt stands just behind him, glasses askew, his usual calm stretched thin. Marshall fills the doorway on the other side, tall and solid and grim, his hat pulled low, shirt half unbuttoned like he threw it on without thinking.
All three of them look wrong in the same way, frightened, which is somehow more terrifying than the door pounding.
